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LOTR: War of the Ring Real-Time Strategy Game
DiZASTiX writes "Just saw this on Gamespot about LOTR: War of the Ring a Warcraft III like LOTR game: "The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring has only been in development for around seven or eight months, but at a press event in Berlin this week we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the game in its current state. The map itself was relatively featureless at this stage of development but boasted some great grass textures and trees, which were occasionally shadowed by the suggestion of clouds passing overhead. More impressive still were the character models on display, which, although unfinished, bore more than a passing resemblance to the colorful, stylized units of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.""
> The map itself was relatively featureless at this stage of development but boasted some great grass textures and trees, which were occasionally shadowed by the suggestion of clouds passing overhead.
Sounds like a great game - can't wait!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What resources am I supposed to mine? Tolkien was about how awful industrialization and cutting down trees and mining stuff was. And here's a game that may end up glorifying it?
I'm a small-time programmer at a rather large gaming company (can't say who, obviously, but no MS), and recently the demand for RTS programmers has gone up tremendously. This is mostly due to the success of Age of Empires.
Just goes to show how much MS is the proverbial "golden goose", turning everything it touches into gold...
Good to know it's (maybe) coming, though. I wonder how well LoTR will translate to this format -- it is an extremely hero-driven mythos (even beyond the quest of the Ring Bearer), and the avatar/hero units in RTS games I've played previously were rather disappointing when compared with Gandalf or Aragorn.
If Aragorn can't lead an army of the dead, I'll be very disappointed. If they turn Galdalf from subtle mage into just another flashy area-damage unit, I'm tossing the whole affair out the window. That is, of course, assuming it runs well under WineX in the first place...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
shadowed by the suggestion of clouds passing overhead
;)
Hope the weather dont get to bad, else wont be able to see bollocks.. bet they copy the UK weather patterns.. always over cast here
moo
Considering that approximately 500 LoTR-themed games have been made in the past 20 years, it's safe to assume that one is an RTS I'm sure.
Black Label Games, it seems, is a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Games, the makers of such great games as Homeworlds, Baldur's Gate, etc...
I'm not really sold on them, though, for this kind of production. Homeworlds, while it was a pretty game, was absolute crap in terms of strategy, and the next closest thing to a RTS they've made was the Caesar series, which is a lot like Sim City for crack-babies (don't get me wrong; I liked it, but it's weird).
I'm sick of this dichotomy in the gaming industry. Any game based on a universe the gaming community knows and loves will suck, because the company in charge knows it will sell like crazy based solely on the license appeal. I wish just once the big men on top would be sack-heavy enough to take a solid license and then give the game the time it takes to really make it rock.
There is hope for us. Matrix: Reloaded looks like it may very well not suck. But when a company gets the license to LOTR and then just starts pumping the games out like this (evidently Vivendi's Black Label has sole license to the video games for the LOTR universe), they're all going to be crappy and/or simplistic.
Game companies: We gamers are patient. We'll wait the two or three years it takes to bring together a good title! Making a good RTS doesn't happen in eight months!
~SL
I always got annoyed with starcraft, being only able to control about 100 elements at a time, max. Most of the time you were limited to even less.
:P
I'd like to see an RTS that let you control thousands of elements at a time. Maybe they could save CPU time by mirroring some guys, or something.
How lame would it be to have the final battle of the ring with just 100 guys total
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, even though the game sounds blah, there does seem to be some very nice art work associated with it - Check it out at http://www.warofthering.net/gallery/; not to mention the nice screenshots of the game available at http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/scre enindex/0,11104,563555,00.html
Suhit
The way the Iraqi situation (and, in some ways, the larger west vs. Islam conflict) is being framed in simplistic good vs. evil terms by our leaders is disturbing because it takes complicated issues and reduces them to trite overgeneralizations. LoTR's overall commercial success can be viewed as an example of this.
There's no doubt that war fantasy takes some account for this; forget Tolken for the moment and consider Tom Clancy -- noble, professional US soldiers go out and conquer this evil or that and are back in time for dinner. It, along with fast-and-easy wars like Gulf War I, create this fantasy that the US is completely unbeatible in all environments and an eagerness to go fight rather than exploring other options.
Back to the point though, LoTR demonstrates the basis of this problem: people would rather view their complex world in terms of a neat, all-ends tied up, good vs. evil novel like LoTR. The characters are all very straightforward, and you never have to wonder if Gandalf has ulterier motives. It's a good story, but a dangerous way to view the world for those not sophisticated enough to look past it (not to be pessemistic, but let's face it, Survivor is in it's zillionth rendition).
Anyhow, this is why it's important to push people through to more complex literative and stories where people aren't good or evil, but who work towards their own logical (or not) ends. Maybe this would help increase the sophistication of the general populace and generate an electorate which si less easily lied to, helping to preserve democracy against those who would coopt it.
Or maybe I'm just off on a rant.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I, for one, cannot wait - I haven't bought a PC game in a few years, but this is a guaranteed first-day purchase in my book. My brothers and I used to play a great War of the Ring boardgame long ago (mid-80s, can't remember the name). I always enjoyed running Saruman's forces out of Orthanc, who for my money is the real wildcard in the war.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Hey, if the game has Mammoth Frodo Tanks, then I'm sold.
The make a commercial computer game of a book which is anti-modernist. How ironic.
The map itself was relatively featureless at this stage of development but boasted some great grass textures and trees, which were occasionally shadowed by the suggestion of clouds passing overhead.
Clouds? Those are Nazgul flying overhead!
[eerie music sounds]
Mwhuahaha!
I'm thinking two years max. I'm not sure what kind of scenario they'd set up, but it would be a blast to go on some "The Hobbit" style adventures with some online friends.
I am waiting for this game like I never waited for a game.
:).
Lord Of The Rings is a very interesting fantasy story, and I advice everybody who haven't read it yet to *read* it.
Watching movies might be fun, but reading it is very great. It is one of the best peices of art I've been exposed to. Tolkien is a genius.
This game might just be using the great story to sell a product that's not as good as the story itself, but I have high hopes in the game. A real time strategy game is just what fits this style of stories
We want a game up to the level of LotR, please!
Thanks for reading,
Khalid
"What you 'seek' is what you get!"
Now, to my original thought:
I think it is a monumental task to dumb down what today constitutes an RTS, but Liquid Entertainment is trying. God help us all - this game can't help but sell well, and whatever features it has are sure to be copied by future RTS clones. There go the last elements of strategy - don't worry if you can't even amass a tank rush, the game dumbs itself down! Of course, you have to consider that this thinking is implying that 'tank rushes' constitute strategy and are difficult to do. This is the reason why I switched to turn-based after Myth II.In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
I hope this does not end up like the StarWars thing. StarWars is an amazingly over used Title. May of there game are just bad graphics and storyline with the name "StarWars" in the title. It is for this reason that I never look at these games when I decide what kind game I want to buy.
I can only hope that these devoplers don't make the same mistake in the LotR title.
Well, no kidding. Axe-carrying dwarves, woods-dwelling elves, elderly staff-bearing wizards, and foul orcs were brought to the masses in LOTR.
Plenty of subsequent fantasy books, games and movies probably draw upon that, the same way many draw upon fantasy-medieval-European themes -- it saves work, and makes the material more accessible to readers who are already familiar with the rehashed ideas.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
RTS?! Where's my LOTR-Sims game?! "Damn you Aragorn! Stop overflowing the toilet, and get a job!"
Favoured Flight (Interview) has recently made some really good LotR scenarios for Civ2.
Despite the release of the craptastic Civ3, the Civ2 scenario-making community is still going strong. Spanish Civ2 Site has an excellent scenario collection; many of the more recent scenario can be found at Civilization Fanatics Centre; myself, I run the Scenario League resource for designers and can be often spotted in the Apolyton Forums.
Just FYI, of course.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Why can't we have an icon specially for Lord of the Rings? C'mon, we have a Star Wars icon, and now we want one for LOTR!
The Total War games can get into the tens of thousands and still look pretty cool. The battlefields are huge as well. Check out: http://www.totalwar.com/
All those people griping about RTS games being stagnant just haven't looked hard enough.
Brian Ellenberger
And I'll tell you why:
" According to Marcus Lindblom, the game's producer, War of the Ring isn't being designed as a hard-core real-time strategy game, but rather more as an RTS that will be accessible and fun for both strategy fans and fans of The Lord of the Rings who might never have played a strategy game before"
You know what? I want to play a game based on Lord of the Rings, the first of its kind, to be for strategy fans. I want it to be for those of us with a lot of experience, who are looking for something new and innovative, yet at the same time incorporating all that has come before.
I want to see the orcs crawling over the mountains in the distance, covering them like bugs as they advance. I want to see the classic over-the-horizon shot as an army of uru'khai come to wage war. I want a Risk-like map available showing me where I can move my troops in position, and then be able to switch to a warcraft-3 like view to see the ensuing battles.
I want the slow buildup of supplies and buildings, and long sessions with cabinet members on how best to defend my kingdom. If this is real time strategy, it doesn't have to go at Warcraft 3's pace. I don't need another Warcraft 3 mod that has Lord of the Rings characters and a "Warcraft 3-esque" storyline. You know why? Becuase people have modded Warcraft 3 enough already that there are maps that replay the adventures in The Fellowship of the Ring (playable w/ 8 of your friends) and The Battle of Helms Deep. I don't want a few more units, some new models and a screwed up story. If you're going to go, do it right!
This is one of the single biggest opportunities that a game designer could have and they are screwing it up so they can get sales. I'm sure they'll try to put this out on all platforms (probably not GBA, but hell, in some marketing meeting they might throw out the possibility for laughs), on all systems, so they can make tons of cash and have the Click Button Repeatedly To Win syndrome that is so common nowadays. You ever played The Two Towers on PS2 or PC? Same concept. Oh sure, there are "combos", but really, you're just mashing the same buttons over and over.
Think of a combination of Medieval: Total War (and for that matter Shogun: Total War) and Warcraft 3 and Master of Orion. You could have commanders that report to you, building guilds who construct defense structures, a cabinet to help advise you, and then, when the battle heats up, you can go there and watch it happen.
Are we really so void of time and in such a hurry that a half-way thinking man's LOTR RTS is impossible?
I'd like to think not.
the dialogue was better too. ;)
Zug-zug