As a fan of both IPs both series are at great risk. Ring of Power's main strengths are less content, more money, established previous epic movies, and far more competent writers.

Adaptation is one of the most difficult tasks a writer can attempt. WoT acting as an entry point for new fans; however, as an adaptation it failed on nearly all counts, plot, character, goals, motivations, and the social world they were attempting to reconstruct weren't consistent to the source material.

This does not mean they didn't make a good product, but when you fail to appeal to your attended audience such is deeply problematic. WoT fell into the same trap of many other modern IPs with star wars sequel trilogies being the most public of the latest bad adaptations. The main difference being that WoT had a logical story and character progression.

In contrast, rings of power is adapting the sumerilian which has set moments but far less firm plot. Lore wise I have been pleased with their work. Their characterization of key elf main characters has been less impressive. Their main antagonist has been their saving grace and good acting.

Word of mouth matters, I have pocketed many of the free games on xbox. Yet I only push a few games to other players. Origins is one that I continue to recommend.

Game can help, but allowing players to sort and connect games would be better. A fan of darksiders might like Veilguard, but connecting it to an existing IP terrible decision.

Now would i recommend Veilguard not a chance. It is in my top 5 worst experiences as a player. The monotonous combat being the worst offender. 100+ hours with no changes...

Following source material helps. The trouble with plot changes are the impacts on the future plotlines. Little sis now has none of her defining characteristics that lead to her fame, worship, insanity, and then death. Which is the entire plot of children of dune and rather vital for prophet. No idea how director plans to fix it.

Unfortunately, that's only one character that he's changed... there are multiple which is going to make the third movie highly different than the book.

I like the original dune and the sci-Fi miniseries (the most accurate to source material) more interesting film choices in the first adaptation.

As a long term fan of mass effect i can say that I am hopeful as well, but EA's past practices suggest that hope is a poor choice. Forcing live service into MA3 was disruptive and pointless. And storytelling has been taking a nose dive since mass effect 2. We also know because of veilguard that they carefully curate pre launch reviewers. I won't be pre-ordering the game, and I intend to wait at least a month for real reviews from players to start.

I don't consider this a fault of bioware. But EA's purchase of their company has slowly burned away my trust in them as a game developer.