Posted by
michael
on from the i-get-to-play-sauron-no-me-me dept.
learithe writes "A new Middle Earth MMORPG,
Middle Earth Online, has just
been announced by Turbine, who produced Asheron's Call 1 and
2 with
Microsoft. It
looks to be just as pretty and cpu/graphics card intensive as
AC2. More
(flash-free) information can be found at
IGN and
Gamespy."
I thought that I was done with MMORPGs. Ultima Online went all "candy land". Earth and Beyond was boring. It took too god damned long to get from point A to point B in Dark Age of Camelot. I had wrestled my life back from the clutches of these glamorus, yet malicious, time sinks.
Now they have both a Star Wars and a Middle Earth MMORPG. I hope I have some personal and sick days left in a couple of months, I'm gonna need them. All they need now is a "You get to bone Britney Spears in real life" *game* and I would instantly reach a state of Heavenly Nirvana and transcend to the plane of eternal bliss. Well, a "You get to bone Jolene Blalock in real life" game would work too.
Here's hoping
by
jbellis
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Sierra tried twice to get MEO (Middle Earth Online) going and failed. It is widely believed in the community that the first dev team [the 2nd didn't even get off the ground] made the "mistake" of making the game too Tolkien-ish, i.e. too realistic and not mass-market enough. Death was permanant, wizards were Gandalf-ish and not some D&D creation, etc. Too bad.
So with that history, I hope Turbine pulls off the game we ("we tolkien fanatics") want to see, but I'm not making any bets on it.
Re:Here's hoping
by
Karhgath
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I do believe that the market is now ready for a Permanent-Death MMORPG. I mean, the market is so full of similar games that a trully different and risky feature such as this might be what's needed to get a good share of the market.
Sure, making a PD game requires planning it from the start, making every features in a way that PD is possible for everyone to ENJOY. There are lot of problems to solve, and those are solvable on paper, and probably in practice. I just wish one publisher had the balls to really do it.
I wouldn't bet that Turbine will keep the PD, I'm sure they won't. This sucks. I just wish there were still risky companies around like Looking Glass were. Ion Storm isn't bad with Deus Ex and now the sequel, although they used Looking Glass' legacy to build Deus Ex on... While you can be successful and make great games without being overly original and risky(Blizzard), we still need risky ventures to revolutionize and advance toward new and greener pastures.
Oh well, don't mind me, the old skeptic gamer, but I'm sure the new middle earth will just be a 'standard' MMORPG with some new and unrisky features and the same old gameplay, with some tweak here and there, and more importantly, the Tolkien world! Wow, quite a change of setting...
Please, someone, bring Permanent Death and more risky idea to the world of MMORPG and then, maybe, maybe I'll actually play one.
Re:Here's hoping
by
DNS-and-BIND
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
One thing I really like about Middle-Earth is how few Wizards there are, and how they're not using wizardly powers to heat their coffee, unicorn horns to "burn off" drunkenness, and other idiot things that are so prevalent in other crappy pulp fantasy fiction. I can count on one hand the number of times Gandalf used magic.
Too bad they're dumbing down the game in order to appeal to the masses. It'll be just like every other game out there, only with Official Middle-Earth Theme[tm].
-- Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Here's hoping
by
Karhgath
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You are one of the many who do not think really about a PD system as a new beast completely. A PD game cannot just be EverQuest with PD added just like that. Everything, the whole game - economics, character advancement, features, etc. - everything must be built from the ground up to be Perma-Death. It's not as simple as adding PD or creating a PD server, as this will just fail and won't be useful at all. There is a real challenge of doing a PD game, and much reward I think.
However, for that, people must lose they preconceived ideas about permanent-death. I think I'll start the PDAA (PD Awareness Association). =)
Re:Here's hoping
by
DunbarTheInept
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The problem with permanent death is that first the game engine has to be at *least* as fair as a compenent human gamemaster would be in a tabletop RPG. And that just isn't the case. When you can die because of bugs, or network lag times, and things like that, that's when permanent death just isn't fair. And if you think permanent death is somehow true-to-form for middle earth, NO it isn't. Gandalf was ressurected as The White. Sauron died by Isildur's hand - but no not really. And the author's hand was in there making sure none of the characters who needed to live for the plot ended up dying, even though there were many cases where they easily would have.
If Lord of the Rings had been an MMORPG with permanent death, then Frodo would have died from the wraith's wound before reaching Rivendell and the whole story would have ended right there. The "he almost died but barely pulled through" story element that happens a lot in Tolkien wouldn't work if a computer was calling the shots.
--
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Re:Here's hoping
by
DunbarTheInept
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
One thing a game has to have before you can even consider PD is real consequential results from your actions. In the real world, if you just kill someone out in the street with witnesses and take his stuff, you're not going to get away with it, and your life as a free man will be pretty much over. Consequences like that have to exist in the MMORPG or PD isn't going to be fair. (Hey, let's go beat up on some newbies for a while...)
--
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Re:Here's hoping
by
Karhgath
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Exactly. In fact, a good PD system will nearly eliminate PKillers and that sort of people, and strengthen the community and interaction between players, much more than a conventional game could.
Like I said before, the idea is to solve the problems of PD(death by lags and glitches for example) and not just whine about them, but actually try to solve them. It's easy to say PD won't work because of X or Y, but it's harder and more rewarding, I think, to try to actually solve those problems. These new ideas might revitalize the MMORPG market, EVEN if the game fails, the ideas and new features because of PD might be really useful even for other games.
Check a discussion I'm having on BluesNews about PD, posts #11 and up.
Gandalf and Sauron were both Maiar, immortal beings. They both participated in the Music of Iluvatar before the beginning of the world.
Sauron was a Maia bewitched by Melkor early on. He served as his lieutenant in Endor (Middle Earth) while he was chained in Valinor for three ages. After Melkor/Morgoth was defeated at the end of the First Age, Sauron fled into Middle Earth and started some good old empire building.
Gandalf was the Maia Olorin, clothed in gray by Manwe and Varda and sent off into Middle Earth to counter the evil of Sauron, as many of the Eldar had fled. He was one of the five Istari (wizards), all immortals who took on mortal guise. He was the only one that didn't stray from his task.
Killing them was fundamentally impossible. Even Saruman didn't die. He just fled into the West and was probably cast outside of Arda...but only Manwe knows.
Humans did not come back. They were given the 'gift of Man', ie. they left the world and did not return after their death. Whereas, the Eldar *could* come back. They went to the Halls of Mandos in western Valinor upon death and could be released after a time. It is said that Finrod Felagund was released from Mandos, as were Beren and Luthien, but they were a special case that required the intervention of the Valar themselves.
The Eldar who came back from Mandos, incidentally, were not permitted to depart Valinor again.
Frodo pulled through, beside his very mortal constitution, because of the application of what you might call magic. Athelas, the miruvor of Imladris, and that bit of song that Glorfindel sang over him. All of those were attempts to arrest the progress of the shard of Morgul-blade from killing him. Eventually only Elrond fortified by Gandalf were able to locate and destroy it.
I used to do theme for a Tolkien MMORPG so...sorry for the digression.
-- HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Will they double charge?
by
Jason1729
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My objection to MMORPGs is that you have to buy the software and pay a monthly fee. I will pay one or the other, but not both.
Re:Will they double charge?
by
sweetooth
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The initial fee covers the first month of play plus the cost of distribution of the nice box, manual, cd, maps, posters, etc. It isn't going to go away any time soon. The monthly fee pays for access to the servers, access to updated content, and bandwidth. I've really enjoyed the effort that Turbine put into monthly events that made the fees worth it. AC1 was great and I played it for far too long. AC2 was beautiful, but I didn't really care for the game. This game should be interesting as it should be using the same engine as AC2. Besides, there are hundreds of thousands of people that won't think twice about paying both prices so they really aren't worried about losing one or two subscribers that won't pay the initial fee.
Re:Will they double charge?
by
Jason1729
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
How about giving me the option to play the game without having to pay for a useless box and manual that I don't have the shelf space for? All I need is the CD. For a simple CD in a Jewel case they could charge the price of the first month's service and include a month of service. If they did that, I'd have played several MMORPGs by now. Instead, I've never even tried one.
I've bought all 3 WarCraft games and StarCraft, and they're my favourite games since the Sierra adventure games. WoW looks like it will be the best one yet, but I refuse to buy into that model on principle, and I am definately their target audience, I still spend about 10 hours/week playing WC3.
But will they invest the time needed?
by
Araxen
·
· Score: 3, Informative
One thing Turbine has done before and it has shown in their games is that they haven't spent the time to the game just "right".
I never played AC1 but from what I played in AC2 it was lakely alot of content. It is one of the thing that makes MMORPG sucessful. AC2 had the gameplay and the beautiful graphics part of it right but it lacked the content and was unfinished at release. Which is way AC2 is a virtual desert nowadays.
Let's Hope Turbine can do it right this time instead of rushing it out the door like they've had in the past.
-- Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
already been done
by
nomadic
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
In the MUD world, at least. MUME (among others) has been doing it for years. I'd give the address, but I'd feel bad if it was slashdotted, even though I don't play it anymore.
The first words you'll hear Frodo say...
by
Patoski
·
· Score: 5, Funny
When you initially log in and get ganked by some loser playing a hobbit.. "d00d! I 0wn0rz3d y00!!!!! LMAO!!!!"
*cringe*
I'm not looking forward to hearing those words from a hobbit...
I think I need to go reread LoTRs just to get that picture out of my head.
-- G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Crack Marketing 101
by
asv108
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If a MMORPG just had a monthly fee, and a freely distributable/downloadable ISO, their increased sales would more than make up for the loss in revenue associated with ditching a retail box. There should also be a free 7 day trial that automatically converts to a paid account after 7 days. They should use crack dealer marketing: give them a free taste and get them hooked. The Safari free trial is a classic example in my case. After bad experiences with ebooks in the past, I didn't even consider trying Safari when it first came out. 2 months ago I saw a free trial offer, now I plan on keeping my Safari account for a long time to come.
Re:Crack Marketing 101
by
Dexx
·
· Score: 4, Informative
A Tale in the Desert has the original game downloadable for free, with a free 30 day or 24 hour trial.
-- Feel the fear and do it anyway.
How can the game mirror the book?
by
1337_h4x0r
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
In the book, you're going on a grand quest to save the Ring of Power from the clutches of Sauron.. in the game, you're going to be a peon, running around killing other equally useless peons. Same thing thats going to make Star Wars boring. Nobody can really be a Jedi or they'd be unstoppable.. similarly, there's only one Gandalf and only one Ring of Power, so as an MMORPG I don't see how it'll work.
Re:How can the game mirror the book?
by
Karhgath
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
That's why I think the perfect MMORPG in Middle Earth would be during the second age, or at least long before the LoTR. Times of conflicts between all races, epic wars, easterlings invasions, etc. It's a much better backdrop than the Ring quest and it's backdrop.
There are three main problems with MS/Turbine game
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
As a long time player of Asherons Call 1 (On the Player Killer Only server known as Darktide). There are problems that plauge MS/Turbine games.
#1) Lag, Sweet Horrible LAG!!!
Wanna go PvP on a Player Killer Only Server? Well good luck having huge battles between clans, having more than 50 people in a single area will cause your ping to skyrocket!
Non Player Killer servers suffer from the same thing, which are gathering places where "carebears" hang out for hours on end chatting. Log on or travel to a main hub or spot and get massive lag, sometimes these people create lag on purpose casting excessive spells which slow down your video rendering or spam your chat box with scripted responces.
No matter how fast your Broadband connection is, you will never get a ping under 100ms.
#2) Rules that MS/Turbine dont bother to enforce.
They hire 10 admins to enforce the rules governing 500,000 players and it just doesnt work. People cheat, hack, exploit and even if theyre caught doing it, even if they admit to doing it and tell others how, they wont get punished. Massive item duplication sprees that as an end result cause gaming servers to CRASH!! Holy Crap MS! They are crashing your servers and you dont even give them so much as a slap on the wrists!
#3) Scripted/Macros.
Since MS heavily relies on scripts to test almost all their products including their games, this latest game will be prone to macros. Its a shake n bake on AC1. You dont even have to do anything, people level for you by passing up Experience Points (The Vassal/Patron system) through an XP chain. Scripts are created to not only level, but for skills and trades. The products of these skills can be sold, so no need to go hunting for cash.
Of course the more MS/Turbine forbids the use of Macros, the more people do it. Its crazy right now, and the new rules strictly stating that macros are against the TOS have had the opposite effect. People macro more than ever.
PS Their support is horrible.
WHy this will suck
by
AuMatar
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Camping Sauron for the one ring drop. No better way to ruin Middle Earth than to have to sit and wait for the ultimate evil to spawn, and staying there for a few days.
--
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
A question on their "marketing"
by
narfbot
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Why is Vivendi Universal Games making a game on the Tolkien world, when one of their subsidiaries is already been making a similar fantasy type for roughly nearly three years, World of Warcraft? Even then, why do they have the same target frame, 2004 right? I think being practically, the same kind of game, a customer will usually choose one over the other, and not buy the other. This means one of these games will largely fail. I think WoW will be the successful one as it will be more polished with the development time that has gone in. So these games are virtually competing against each other.
Even after that, there are many MMOPG games in production. I don't think they will be too many successful ones because a gamer has only so much money to spend on monthly fees, but more important time. A single MMOPG can consume much of your free time.
So I really doubt the success of Middle Earth Online.
Middle Earth Warcry
by
Bruha
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Warcry News Network has had the first MEO site up for a few months now.
Find it @ http://me.warcry.com
Something I never can understand..
by
Azureflare
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Why do they insist on leaving Bilbo's early times out of all this? Personally I liked the environment that was set-up during "The Hobbit" more than the one during the lord of the rings series. Heck, it'd probably be better if it was even before Bilbo, before that silly ring started popping up everywhere.
A big unifying conflict can be good...and bad. Part of the attraction of a MMORPG is that it never ends...Or at least lasts a long time. If they start right before war breaks out with Sauron, the game won't last that long...
Suck the life right out of Middle Earth
by
kabir
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I can't help but think that an MMORPG will just suck the life right out of Middle Earth. In my head ME is a rich, populated world filled with complexity, wonder and mystery. There's just no way that an MMORPG can do that justice with current technology. I mean, look at _any_ of the current MMORPGs and it's pretty obvious that they're not up to a world as rich a Tolkien's.
When Turbine demo'ed thier Turbine Game Engine, they demonstrated how flexible it was to script and how dynamic they could make the games.
They came up with an example set of inputs to thier engine and called it Asheron's Call 2. Thier engine is beautiful, thier game design is shit.
So, what people should be hoping is that thier game designers (and artists) [where is devilmouse?] don't drop the ball and make a game worth playing. It *could* give EQ2 a run for its money.
Suppose they actually put the ring into this story. Suppose a hero retrieves it. Suppose the game engine actually gives the character a huge boost.
Do you think there's any chance of the ring's destruction in Mount Doom?
--
-Dave
Re:WineX our only hope of playing this game in Lin
by
feldsteins
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
OpenGL or not, no game developer has much of an incentive to port a game to Linux. Why? Because every Linux user who gives a hoot about gaming dual boots Windows. Think about it. You're a game developer. You can either:
a) not develop for Linux, pocket the savings, sell a million games.
b) incur the expense of developing/testing/supporting for Linux and sell...zero additional units.
At least doing a Mac port involves getting sales that you flatly would not otherwise have gotten. Mac users are not dual booting Windows for the purposes of playing games. You don't make a mac version, you don't sell to the Mac user. Simple.
-- You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Slashdot Mirror
Now they have both a Star Wars and a Middle Earth MMORPG. I hope I have some personal and sick days left in a couple of months, I'm gonna need them. All they need now is a "You get to bone Britney Spears in real life" *game* and I would instantly reach a state of Heavenly Nirvana and transcend to the plane of eternal bliss. Well, a "You get to bone Jolene Blalock in real life" game would work too.
So with that history, I hope Turbine pulls off the game we ("we tolkien fanatics") want to see, but I'm not making any bets on it.
My objection to MMORPGs is that you have to buy the software and pay a monthly fee. I will pay one or the other, but not both.
Jason
ProfQuotes
One thing Turbine has done before and it has shown in their games is that they haven't spent the time to the game just "right".
I never played AC1 but from what I played in AC2 it was lakely alot of content. It is one of the thing that makes MMORPG sucessful. AC2 had the gameplay and the beautiful graphics part of it right but it lacked the content and was unfinished at release. Which is way AC2 is a virtual desert nowadays.
Let's Hope Turbine can do it right this time instead of rushing it out the door like they've had in the past.
Ganndallf_00312 says out of character 'L22 Wizzard LFG in Rivendale'.
Aarragone says out of character 'Ranger and Rogue group needs Wiz for Ring Quest.'
Hobbitbone_05 says out of character 'Not another 'Fellowship' group. L4m3rs!'
(Actually, I wrote a while back for an EQ website.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
it's well established now that their target market is willing to pay both.
I wanna be Bilgates Ballmersins!
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
In the MUD world, at least. MUME (among others) has been doing it for years. I'd give the address, but I'd feel bad if it was slashdotted, even though I don't play it anymore.
When you initially log in and get ganked by some loser playing a hobbit..
"d00d! I 0wn0rz3d y00!!!!! LMAO!!!!"
*cringe*
I'm not looking forward to hearing those words from a hobbit...
I think I need to go reread LoTRs just to get that picture out of my head.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
If a MMORPG just had a monthly fee, and a freely distributable/downloadable ISO, their increased sales would more than make up for the loss in revenue associated with ditching a retail box. There should also be a free 7 day trial that automatically converts to a paid account after 7 days. They should use crack dealer marketing: give them a free taste and get them hooked. The Safari free trial is a classic example in my case. After bad experiences with ebooks in the past, I didn't even consider trying Safari when it first came out. 2 months ago I saw a free trial offer, now I plan on keeping my Safari account for a long time to come.
In the book, you're going on a grand quest to save the Ring of Power from the clutches of Sauron.. in the game, you're going to be a peon, running around killing other equally useless peons. Same thing thats going to make Star Wars boring. Nobody can really be a Jedi or they'd be unstoppable.. similarly, there's only one Gandalf and only one Ring of Power, so as an MMORPG I don't see how it'll work.
As a long time player of Asherons Call 1 (On the Player Killer Only server known as Darktide). There are problems that plauge MS/Turbine games.
#1) Lag, Sweet Horrible LAG!!!
Wanna go PvP on a Player Killer Only Server? Well good luck having huge battles between clans, having more than 50 people in a single area will cause your ping to skyrocket!
Non Player Killer servers suffer from the same thing, which are gathering places where "carebears" hang out for hours on end chatting. Log on or travel to a main hub or spot and get massive lag, sometimes these people create lag on purpose casting excessive spells which slow down your video rendering or spam your chat box with scripted responces.
No matter how fast your Broadband connection is, you will never get a ping under 100ms.
#2) Rules that MS/Turbine dont bother to enforce.
They hire 10 admins to enforce the rules governing 500,000 players and it just doesnt work. People cheat, hack, exploit and even if theyre caught doing it, even if they admit to doing it and tell others how, they wont get punished. Massive item duplication sprees that as an end result cause gaming servers to CRASH!! Holy Crap MS! They are crashing your servers and you dont even give them so much as a slap on the wrists!
#3) Scripted/Macros.
Since MS heavily relies on scripts to test almost all their products including their games, this latest game will be prone to macros. Its a shake n bake on AC1. You dont even have to do anything, people level for you by passing up Experience Points (The Vassal/Patron system) through an XP chain. Scripts are created to not only level, but for skills and trades. The products of these skills can be sold, so no need to go hunting for cash.
Of course the more MS/Turbine forbids the use of Macros, the more people do it. Its crazy right now, and the new rules strictly stating that macros are against the TOS have had the opposite effect. People macro more than ever.
PS
Their support is horrible.
Camping Sauron for the one ring drop. No better way to ruin Middle Earth than to have to sit and wait for the ultimate evil to spawn, and staying there for a few days.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Why is Vivendi Universal Games making a game on the Tolkien world, when one of their subsidiaries is already been making a similar fantasy type for roughly nearly three years, World of Warcraft? Even then, why do they have the same target frame, 2004 right? I think being practically, the same kind of game, a customer will usually choose one over the other, and not buy the other. This means one of these games will largely fail. I think WoW will be the successful one as it will be more polished with the development time that has gone in. So these games are virtually competing against each other.
Even after that, there are many MMOPG games in production. I don't think they will be too many successful ones because a gamer has only so much money to spend on monthly fees, but more important time. A single MMOPG can consume much of your free time.
So I really doubt the success of Middle Earth Online.
Warcry News Network has had the first MEO site up for a few months now.
Find it @ http://me.warcry.com
A big unifying conflict can be good...and bad. Part of the attraction of a MMORPG is that it never ends...Or at least lasts a long time. If they start right before war breaks out with Sauron, the game won't last that long...
I can't help but think that an MMORPG will just suck the life right out of Middle Earth. In my head ME is a rich, populated world filled with complexity, wonder and mystery. There's just no way that an MMORPG can do that justice with current technology. I mean, look at _any_ of the current MMORPGs and it's pretty obvious that they're not up to a world as rich a Tolkien's.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
When Turbine demo'ed thier Turbine Game Engine, they demonstrated how flexible it was to script and how dynamic they could make the games.
They came up with an example set of inputs to thier engine and called it Asheron's Call 2. Thier engine is beautiful, thier game design is shit.
So, what people should be hoping is that thier game designers (and artists) [where is devilmouse?] don't drop the ball and make a game worth playing. It *could* give EQ2 a run for its money.
Suppose they actually put the ring into this story. Suppose a hero retrieves it. Suppose the game engine actually gives the character a huge boost.
Do you think there's any chance of the ring's destruction in Mount Doom?
-Dave
OpenGL or not, no game developer has much of an incentive to port a game to Linux. Why? Because every Linux user who gives a hoot about gaming dual boots Windows. Think about it. You're a game developer. You can either:
a) not develop for Linux, pocket the savings, sell a million games.
b) incur the expense of developing/testing/supporting for Linux and sell...zero additional units.
At least doing a Mac port involves getting sales that you flatly would not otherwise have gotten. Mac users are not dual booting Windows for the purposes of playing games. You don't make a mac version, you don't sell to the Mac user. Simple.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?