Turbine Starts The Spin For Middle-Earth Online

JC writes "It looks like Tolkien fans will get one of their biggest dreams with Turbine's Middle-Earth Online. Originally expected about November, we're now looking at a Northern Hemisphere Autumn release date. The New Zealand Herald has a good article."

Comments

Not to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

But (most of) November is in the Autumn.

Re:Not to be technical

[mariusursache]

Not in New Zealand.

Re:Not to be technical

[kfg]

Yeah, but only the bits between the first and the last.

KFG

Re:Not to be technical

[LocoBurger]

Actually, all of November is in the Autumn (in the Northern Hemisphere). Autumn isn't over until the Winter Solstice, around December 21st. So, most of December is in the Autumn, but all of November is.

Re:Not to be technical

[salzbrot]

Actually, all of November is in autumn, at least on the northern hemisphere. But in the original article, they also say, it will be released in autumn 2005 (of course only, if they do not decide to postpone it, because it would coincide with the release of Duke Nukem Forever).

Get a free iPod. Here is how it works.

Re:Not to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

we're now looking at a Northern Hemisphere Autumn release date

Not on Jupiter, either. They specifically say which Autumn.

Re:Not to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

purchased on ebay

Re:Not to be technical

[Orgazmus]

Well, its actually from semptember to november.
December is winter.
If you dont belive me, come to norway ;)

Re:Not to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

To paraphrase Mel Sharples (from the TV show "Alice")

"Well you're not in New Zealand; BUT I WISH YOU WERE!."

Re:Not to be technical

[thoromyr]

Correct the correction!

Common misconception is that the solstices and equinoxes mark the changes between seasons rather than their midpoints. Who knows, maybe by this time the damage has been done and seasons redefined, but I ask you this question: When does Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream take place?

thoromyr

Re:Not to be technical

[Uber Banker]

Fuck You

Re:Not to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

This post fits with the sig.

Re:Not to be technical

[servognome]

When does Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream take place?
I know, Nightime!

Re:Not to be technical

[hovercraftSpareWheel]

Except in Britain where you can expect (but by no means guarantee) 15 days of autumnal weather, 8 days of wintry, 5 days of summery and 2 days of springlike, all in no particular order.

Make that NEXT autumn

[TopShelf]

To be precise, that's autumn of 2005, or just a couple months after the release of Duke Nukem Forever...

Re:Make that NEXT autumn

[ronaldb64]

As quoted from the Turbine MEO forum:

Important Update from the Team - MEO Release Date

The Middle-Earth Online team at Vivendi Universal Games and Turbine Entertainment recently evaluated the development progress of the game and made the tough but correct decision to delay its release. The extra time in development will be used to add more content, more lore and more nuanced touches to the world, as well as enable us to extend the beta-testing period. At this time, the expected release date for the game is 2005.

We also decided recently to focus on getting content into the game rather than spend time creating a specialized version for this year's E3, so Middle-Earth Online will not be demonstrated on the show floor.

If you have any questions, please post them here and we will answer what we can.

Thank you for being a part of the development process and giving us your opinions and feedback.

This was posted August 21st. Sorry, no Middel-Earth Online this year....

Whoppeee!!

[Recovery1]

Just the thing to fill that vacant part of my day ensuring that I never see any sunlight ever again. Aaachh!!~~~ natural horrible sunlight..

Re:Whoppeee!!

[thefinite]

Don't you mean...

We hates the big eye! Always watching! We likes the dark places, secret places. *gollum*

Re:Whoppeee!!

[kfg]

It burns! It burns us!

KFG

sunlight, anyone?

[mrn121]

Just when a bunch of nerds thought they had any chance of seeing any sunlight next fall, this news is released.

I want to be a Men class.

[Tibor the Hun]

I don't mean to troll, but why is the class called Men, and not Human?
I'm not up on my Tolkien Lore, so as an outsider a Men class looks mighty odd to me.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Salden]

Right, you are not up on your lore. In the books, it is the race of men, not the human race.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Nos.]

That's just the way Tolkien wrote. The books were writtin in the 50's I believe, and at that time there wasn't as much an issue referring to humans as men. In the Tolkien world, we had dwarves, elves, and men as the main 3 races. I don't think it was meant to exclude or even discount females, it was just used as a generic term at the time.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Pxtl]

Now, I didn't RTFA, but I really hope that they don't make it like MERP (the Rolemaster based pnp rpg), where any player can just be a high-elf, or a half-elf, or a wizard, or an ent, or something else that's supposed to be rare as diamonds. Its a stupid world where the rare peoples outnumber the normal, common humans. Same thing for magical artifacts - and notice that Gandalf primarily fights with a sword and staff, not "lightningbolt!" and "I'm gonna cast magic missile."

But I doubt it. It'll be EverCrack with all the stuff renamed after Tolkien stuff.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[tarunthegreat2]

Well I think the actual work for this book began before WWII, and he continued to work on it throughout the war (The Foreword to LOTR mentions how he sent parts of the book to his son Christopher in a serialized form). But that is neither here nor there. I think the truth is Tolkien was all English and longing for the good 'ol days - he was a bit of a luddite. So I think it's only natural that he thought according to his era, when political correctness wasn't as rampant...(i.e. that a "good" story requires a strong female lead, and black people cannot be the enemy). Everytime somebody mentions that there are no strong women roles or that Tolkien was a racist, it makes my skin crawl. It ruins what is a brilliantly told story. (I'm a "coloured-person" by the way)

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

there are no strong women roles

I can't agree with that. There are very few women in the story at all, but almost every one was strong. Galadriel was one of the strongest characters in the story, and Eowyn was just awesome. Shelob was also female.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[kfg]

Actually, the issue isn't that he was writting in the 50's, but that he was writting in the mythic style of the Sagas. In the modern mind there is only one world, the human world. In the mythical mind the world is many Worlds, each distinct from the other. the World of the Gods, The World of the Elves, et al, and The World of Men.

To refer to "humans" in LOTR would have been an anachronism and "man" did not even come to mean specifically the male of the species until the Middle English period, long after the mythic times from which LOTR derives. "Men" is the correct generic term. J.R.R. knew his archaic language.

KFG

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tolkien was also a Linguist.

In most Latin Languages the plural form of he/she is masculine. so man/woman -> men (masculine plural). English is particularly bad at delimitting sexes.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[david.given]

Now, I didn't RTFA, but I really hope that they don't make it like MERP (the Rolemaster based pnp rpg), where any player can just be a high-elf, or a half-elf, or a wizard, or an ent, or something else that's supposed to be rare as diamonds. Its a stupid world where the rare peoples outnumber the normal, common humans. Same thing for magical artifacts - and notice that Gandalf primarily fights with a sword and staff, not "lightningbolt!" and "I'm gonna cast magic missile."

Tolkien wrote primarily about spiritual magic.

Gandalf was the master of fire. Partly, this manifested itself through his skill with fireworks and magical fire, but that wasn't the important bit. What Tolkien felt was far more important, and was stressed over and over again, was the fact the Gandalf could 'kindle the fire in men's souls'. Look at the way he can muster enthusiasm in practically everyone. The classic example is the way he brought Théoden back from the brink in _RotK_ (ignore the lousy movie effects --- this is one of the few bits that Peter Jackson got totally wrong). Even more impressive, to my mind --- he managed to talk Bilbo into going dragon-hunting in The Hobbit.

(Saruman's power was his will and his voice. He could talk practically anyone into doing anything. He had very little power of his own; once the Ents destroyed Isengard, he was shafted. Again, another bit the film got completely wrong was his fight with Gandalf. In the books, it's a battle of wills, and pre-Moria Gandalf is definitely Saruman's inferior.)

The rest of Tolkien's world is similar. The difference between Elves, Dwarves, Men and the other races? They're races, not species. Tolkien wasn't interested in their outward appearance, or whether they could interbreed, or the shape of their ears. The fundamental, crucial difference, intrinsic to Middle-Earth's entire philosophy, the thing that is hammered home over and over again, is the shape of their souls.

When Elves die, they're reincarnated. When Dwarves die --- actually, I forget. I believe they end up in some classical afterlife. When Men die, however, the souls leave the universe entirely. Nobody knows what happens to them. By Tolkien's view, Men are specially favoured. They get to move on to whatever Eru has planned for them next, and are unique in that aspect. All the other races are bound to Arda until the end of time.

(This is the reason why Arwen had to become human. She was a descendent of a Man-Elf cross. All such people had to choose between following the Elven path or the mortal path, because you have to pick what kind of soul you have. All the rest follows from there.)

(If you're interested in such things, read The Silmarillion. It's tough going, but rewarding.)

Tolkien just doesn't go in for material magic very much. He didn't find it interesting. While this makes his universe incredibly rich and rewarding to study, it doesn't really fit a modern game where the player wants to trigger some flashy effect and kill loads of orcs... I await the MMORPG with some trepidation.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Gr8Apes]

man and mankind still are the generic terms for "humans". Check out the definitation of man. The first definition refers striclty to male human, after that, the next 8 or so mean "man" as in mankind, or human. I'm not up enough on my etymology to know specifically where "woman" and "human" came from, although both go quite far back.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[schon]

any player can just be a high-elf, or a half-elf, or a wizard, or an ent, or something else that's supposed to be rare as diamonds

Umm, first - diamonds aren't that rare. Most other gemstones (emeralds come to mind) are much rarer. The high cost of diamonds has to do more with the monopoly that controls distribution.

Second, if you're gonna bitch about rareness, why not bitch about the fact that 'anybody' can be an adventurer? Why are there more players who are adventurers than bakers/millwrighs/peasants/coopers/smiths/whatever ? Adventurers themselves are supposed to be really rare, and every player is gonna be one - what's up with that?!?!?

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[GrassMunk]

say it with me: Game. There i knew you could. Its not there to be real. If being a millwright was fun people would do it in real life. Games are used as a way to escape from the day to day drudge that some peoples lifes have become. Whats the point of escaping into a world where your virtual 'job' is just as shitty as your real one.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[haystor]

I was applying to be a Baker, but my guidance counseler had me take some aptitude tests and my strength lies in melee combat. I've been assigned to row 1 of keep storming division. Will I be able to see the fight from there? I don't want to miss it.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Second, if you're gonna bitch about rareness, why not bitch about the fact that 'anybody' can be an adventurer?"

Don't you understand that statement is in line with what you said?

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[FatherOfONe]

It's a tough read.

Man that is the understatement of the year.

I would add that a Wizard was not a human, but an imortal like the elves.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[xSauronx]

the last dev team who started on this game years ago wanted to limit the elf and magic in the game; but because its something people love about a game sierra didnt like it, because it may (in fact, probably would certainly) hurt sales, and moved the dev team...then dropped them.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[el-spectre]

As long as we're being geeky... The wizards are Maia (3rd level, under illuvatar and the valar), and considerably older than elves.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[fallen1]

(Saruman's power was his will and his voice. He could talk practically anyone into doing anything. He had very little power of his own; once the Ents destroyed Isengard, he was shafted. Again, another bit the film got completely wrong was his fight with Gandalf. In the books, it's a battle of wills, and pre-Moria Gandalf is definitely Saruman's inferior.) (emphasis added)

I don't want this to be viewed as a troll but you are correct in that it is a battle of wills between Saruman and Gandalf, but who the hell wants to sit in the theater and watch two men with long beards stare at each other for 5-10 minutes? That would be like watching a chess match! ;-) People would be walking out or wondering "what the fuck is happening?"

Even though I'm sure it could have been visualized in a much different way, with the need to show action and conflict I think Jackson did a good job in showing the 'fight'.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[penginkun]

Call me pedantic...

Call me a nitpicker...

But Saruman destroyed Isengard. The Ents cleansed it. Orthanc (the tower) was the only part untouched (at least externally).

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[An ominous Cow art]

The wizards were maiar incarnated into the form of Men, and while in this form they had all the shortcomings thereof (except aging), and remembered their spiritual nature only as a dream.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Colazar]

Now, I didn't RTFA, but I really hope that they don't make it like MERP (the Rolemaster based pnp rpg), where any player can just be a high-elf, or a half-elf, or a wizard, or an ent, or something else that's supposed to be rare as diamonds. Its a stupid world where the rare peoples outnumber the normal, common humans.

If you ran MERP correctly, you were supposed to use the random table to generate your race (it was based off of Roll-master, after all), which ensured that almost everyone *did* end up being a Man. (I want to say it was on the order of 75% chance of human, with most of those being "common Man".)

If you guys decided to play without randomized race, then that was your choice, not the game's design.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Gondola]

Well said.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[l810c]

Most other gemstones (emeralds come to mind) are much rarer

I've read about the true scarcity of Diamonds and how DeBeers controls the world market.

I do doubt, however, that Emeralds are more rare. Just take a look at their price on ebay. Additionally I am right now looking at a jar of 20 of them(from tiny to ~3 carats) that my wife, son, father and myself found just yesterday in the North Carolina mountains in a little over 2 hours.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Slurm-V]

I'm reminded of a scene in Bbylon 5 where two psi-cops (telepaths) were practicing their psychic combat. They sat at a table and representations of their attacks and defenses appeared betweens them. While it wasn't hugely exciting, it doesn't take much to see how Jackson could have interspersed shots of two wizards concentrating until breaking point while colorful representations of their metal battle fought around them. Would have been better than old-man-fu IMHO.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[ultranova]

Again, another bit the film got completely wrong was his fight with Gandalf. In the books, it's a battle of wills, and pre-Moria Gandalf is definitely Saruman's inferior.

I always thought it was the fact that Saruman had an army of 10 000 orcs at his command and Gandalf was alone that convinced him to obey, rather than any weakness of will :).

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[ahodgson]

Sadly the levelling treadmill of most MMORPG's starts to resemble a job fairly quickly.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[BrokenStructure]

Wow, your comment rocked. Thanks!

I feel like picking the Silmarillion back up after my 5-year (or so) hiatus from it.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[L7_]

Gandalf was the master of fire. Partly, this manifested itself through his skill with fireworks and magical fire, but that wasn't the important bit.

I always thought that was because Gandalf wore the elvish ring of fire (one of the four elivish rings that the One controls). Similarly, Elrond wears the one for Water [from which he creates the river flood that brings down the Nazgrul that are chasing Frodo and company] and Galadriel(sp?) wears the one for Air.

That was why Gandalf (and Frodo and Bilbo, since they used/wore the One) was invited to leave with the Elves, and specifically why the three of them left together.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

"four elivish rings" D00d! Three rings for the elven kings under the sky... doesn't that give you a clue?

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

They did age, albeit very slowly. Hah! Nitpicks within nitpicks within nitpicks.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Anonymous Coward]

Btw, since you used "s, doesn't it bother the 'coloured-person' thing? Last I checked, there were no transparent humans... why aren't pink and yellow humans coloured? It's like the stupid correctness in spanish, where many mention both male and female if there are both, instead of just using the male plural which would be the correct way... PC is Pure Crap.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Austerity Empowers]

I'm a human in real life, I'm kinda bored with it. If I'm going to play a fantasy game I want to play something exciting.

The only thing that could differentiate this game from EverCrack would be that there is the potential for a great storyline, instead of killing A_Giant_Wasp00 a half million times.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Errtu76]

Tough read indeed. Why, it took me longer to read (and understand) the Silmarillion, than it was with LotR (even though LotR is about 700(?) pages bigger). The problem is that you get introduced to 3 new characters on every page. Plus references to their history and family tree, etc etc. But really worth reading if you liked LotR and The Hobbit.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[FatherOfONe]

And that he changes the name of the same character three different times on two pages.

He was called xxxx but the elven name was yyyy and he later way called zzzz. Oh and then there would be three characters named something like xxxy xxxz xxyx. I found myself having to reference back all the time. Still a good book though.

Good book but man oh man a tough read.

Re:I want to be a Men class.

[Ohreally_factor]

A much easier summary of the Silmarillion can be found here.

Seasonally challenged

[Anonymous Coward]

Originally expected about November, we're now looking at a Northern Hemisphere Autumn release date.

Living in California, I may not have this straight, but isn't November about the end of Autumn?

/didn't RTFA

Re:Seasonally challenged

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by how the Red Sox and Patriots have performed the last couple of years, it's no wonder people from Massachusettts try to forget about Fall as quickly as possible and just move right on with Winter.

I can just see the eBay ads ...

[newandyh-r]

One Ring for sale. Starting at only ...

Re:I can just see the eBay ads ...

[Uatu]

I'm interested.

Can you ship to Mordor ?

I know I don't have great ratings, I'm new to this Internet thing, but I really, really want this item.

- S

Re:I can just see the eBay ads ...

[daeley]

Don't trust this user! I've recently had dealings with him which proved him to be a deceiver and liar. If I hadn't just tried to immolate myself and my wounded son, I would register a complaint with ebay.

Sincerely,
Denethor

Re:I can just see the eBay ads ...

[Ubergrendle]

Shipping options:
1. Cash'n'Carry @ Minas Tirith ("Boromir rate")
2. Airmail via Tolkien's Macguffin Delivery Service ("Just use the damn eagles")
3. Ground delivery a.k.a Redundant Hobbits

Re:I can just see the eBay ads ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you've had your EYE on it for some time, eh?

(ducks)

Re:I can just see the eBay ads ...

[ricotest]

Yeah, and when you visit the marketplace every single player will have the One Ring because they cloned their inventories using an old Diablo 2 exploit.

Another MMORPG??

[Savet Hegar]

These games are fun, but they are addicting time wasters. To enjoy these games, you literally have to devote huge blocks of time to completing quests, leveling up, and running around a digital world. While I love the Lord of the Rings saga, I don't see much need for yet another MMORPG. Are there not enough time wasters already?

Re:Another MMORPG??

[the unbeliever]

City of Heroes does not require a huge timesink in order to have fun. Things scale very well, and almost every class can solo when they're well played. (although some are easier than others)

You can log on to COH for twenty minutes and feel like you've accomplished something.

Re:Another MMORPG??

[Cromac]

Don't worry, if it sucks anywhere near as much as Turbines last release, AC2, it won't be fun and won't be addictive at all.

After their last fiasco I'm not holding my breath for future Turbine products.

Aside from that, there's always room for yet another MMORPG. More competition means the existing companies have to constantly improve to keep their customers or sooner or later a significantly better game will come out and they'll lose their marketshare.

Re:Another MMORPG??

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not listen to this crackpot. CoH is the most basic, boring, pointless MMOG ever made. You do the same 4 missions over and over and over, as numbers get bigger and bigger. There is NOTHING else to do to make you think you aren't wasting your time.

And no, almost every class cannot solo (have fun soloing your fire controller until you get imps). Every class is boring as hell when you solo anyhow, since you have to go so slowly a simple mission takes 40- minutes. The character creation is more fun than the actual "game".

Re:Another MMORPG??

[the unbeliever]

You've obviously not paid attention to the plotline, something sorely missing in every other RPG. *Shrug*

I like the plot more than anything, and i can get into "roleplaying" a superhero, which is what it's all about.

(granted, I do have Busty McJuggs, my slutty looking female katana/regen scrapper... for days when I'm feeling a big wierd)

Re:Another MMORPG??

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Actually, its TWO new MMORPGs. If you check their site, they are also planning on releasing D&D Online in the same year. With both of these going toe-to-toe with World of Warcraft, who know who will survive.

But what do I know? One of these days I'll finish my quest to level to 10 in Smaug, and then move on. (Sigh)

Re:Another MMORPG??

[Halthar]

Completely off topic, but I had to reply.

Busty is a good name, and shows strong sense of family values. Personally I have "The Jumblies" as my female katana/regen scrapper. Gained her abilities after a breast augmentation mishap.

She isn't slutty, however. For slutty I have drumroll Twitney Spears.

Re:Another MMORPG??

[talaphid]

You sir, have not played a Mind Controller.

Re:Another MMORPG??

[will_die]

If you read the original stuff that Turbine wrote when AC2 was in development it is a totally different creature then what was released.
Also during the time before original comments and release Microsoft became more interested in making comments and changes. Unfortunatly it looks like microsoft decided to make a clone of daoc/eq and then forced it out before even that was done.
Since Turbine has purchased the franchise from microsoft, AC2 has turned into a rather nice game. The problem is the bad word when it came out and unless you are on during prime time the game is empty of other players.
The latest talk is that they are planning to do an expansion pack and do some advertisement at that time in hopes that it will draw more players, but I doubt that will do much to help it out.

Re:Another MMORPG??

[Austerity Empowers]

I dunno, I have a level 9 scrapper (claws/regen) and in 30 minutes I can't make any real progress. I could up to level 6 but now....

It feels just like EverQuest did long ago when I made a wizard, solo'd until level 13 and started to get munched on more and more. I ultimately had to give up on soloing, made a cleric, and always got a group. But my 65 cleric took a LOT of time and money and I guess I can't pick up CoH unless it offers something different.

If you could really, truly solo CoH, make some nightly progress (like 1 level) I'd not be thinking of cancelling.

Model Citizens

[Doc Ruby]

By the time these movies make it to game format, their cutting-edge digital techniques are several years old, while computers have raced along the rails of Moore's law. Why don't they just release the models and engines for PCs? They can spend the intervening time optimizing for the actual cheap hardware and OS, and coming up with new plotmaps.

Re:Model Citizens

[orasio]

I don't make movies for a living, but I believe 3d cinema has similarities to actual cinema.
They don't need to build the full middle Earth to any acceptable detail, they need just some specific sets, and some landscape.
The needs of the movie might not fulfill those of the game.

Anyway, the models used for renderman and such differ a great deal from the models you would need for a game. For example, in a recursive renderer, a good specfication of the material would be the only thing you need for an good render, in a game, you would need more specific procedural shaders, that don't need to be easily translated.

I mean that maybe the work of adapting the movie sets to game sets might end up to be a comparable effort to building the sets again, and even give sub-par results.

Re:Model Citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be skipping this one. If the Asheron Call series is any indication of how NOT to make a mmorpg Turbine takes the cake.

Too bad Sierra went under and this project is now being done by these clowns.

Should be interesting

[SightlessMind]

to see how they do character development for wizards since the Istari more or less have always had their powers.

Re:Should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you realize how much a nerd you need to be to ask that question.

Understand I'm not judging you, as apparently you've made very... interesting... life choices, and as long as your aware of it, it's okay. But if you're not aware, and you've simply fallen into that life, I just wanted to point it out.

Re:Should be interesting

[vi (editor)]

If you look at Tolkiens books then you see that there is mostly no character development for the heros.
So I doubt that you will be able to play any hero class online. It's far more likely that you play the common people like peons, butchers and fishermen where you can really have much more character development just look at Ultima Online.

Re:Should be interesting

[dragonp12]

If you look at Tolkiens books then you see that there is mostly no character development for the heros.
Ehh...yeah, that's right. Aragorn stays exactly the same all of the way through the books. Not to mention some others.

books or movies

[dueydotnet]

Anybody know if this game has the license from the books or movies? Hmmm. Probably doesn't really matter, though, but I would think the book license would have more content and more original visuals while the movie license would probably have to include the main characters some how. Too bad this has been pushed off, but since Turbine is already a veteran at this, I'm sure they'll be able to release a good, polished game. I'm just glad VI (eVIl) isn't doing it.

Re:books or movies

[Andy Dodd]

I'm guessing from the books - IIRC a friend (who is a HUGE fan of the LOTR books and hated the movies because they weren't faithful enough to the books) told me once that the developers are producing the game with the blessing/cooperation of Tolkien's family.

Re:books or movies

[Taulin]

In the article they stated they are basing models off of the books, and also stated about the plots in the books that were never fully developed they will try and flesh out more. So I would say it is based off of the books.

I personally think those unfinished plots they claim are in the books are more like references to other Tolkien lore they are not familiar with since there is so much of it. This will just anger another faction of die hard fans.

Re:books or movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the website mentions Tolkien and not Newline/whatever, I would say it's the books.

Re:books or movies

[Anonymous Coward]

since Turbine is already a veteran at this, I'm sure they'll be able to release a good, polished game.

Are you kidding?? What in their record makes you think that? AC was at best a niche player in the genre and their last attempt, AC2, was so horrible they couldn't even keep their existing servers open and had to merge them.

I hate to say it

[DevilsEngine]

But won't this game seem a little... tired?

The standard props of the Tolkien universe served for gaming fodder even before D&D (minus the A). In online play, the races and creatures here are used, in dozens of permutations. Haven't we all had a chance to be an elf or halfing? Haven't we all taken a shot at more orcs, trolls, and dragons that we could eat?

Lively story-telling and a deep sense of history set Tolkein appart from other fantasies. Unless Turbine is able to bring this world something other than the appearance of Middle Earth, it's hard to see what will make it more exciting than the possibilities offered by a City of Heroes, or even a solid middle-ages + fantasy setting universe such as Dark Age of Camelot. I certainly want something more than name recognition to make me pick up a sword again.

Re:I hate to say it

[hurfy]

Well, Turbine is probably the best at MMORPG stories. In fact they can do it all quite well. Now if they just get it all together in the proper proportions in the same game......

Huzzah!

[darth_MALL]

Dibs on Legolas. :-P

Re:Huzzah!

[bugnuts]

Coming from someone named "darth mall" you will simply have to be happy with "L3ggolass".

Re:Huzzah!

[tallman68]

Forget Legolas, I want to be Sauron.

I wonder how long before someone has a "trainer" that let's you do just that.

Re:Huzzah!

[3terrabyte]

Bahaha!

Too funny!

Re:Huzzah!

[Teckla]

Dibs on Legolas. :-P

Dibs on "Legomyegolas". :-)

Re:Huzzah!

[An ominous Cow art]

A *real* munchkin would want to be Morgoth, or Ungoliant.

Re:Huzzah!

[sindarin2001]

I call Eru!

problem #1

[kippy]

Everyone's going to want to be a wizard. There were only five wizards in RJRT's world and three are already spoken for. There are two blue wizards who drifted out east but nothing is really said about them.

Those sound like pretty coveted characters to me.

Re:problem #1

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Actually, they've already said you *can't* be a wizard.

Re:problem #1

[gilesjuk]

Being a wizard would be good, you die and just come back as a different colour :D

I'm Gandalf the #FF0101.

Re:problem #1

[sploo22]

Who's the third besides Gandalf/Mithrandir and Saruman/Curunir?

Re:problem #1

[sqlgeek]

In case no one else has heard of this "google" service: http://tolkien.slimy.com/tfaq/Istari.html

Re:problem #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Radagast, the Brown.

Re:problem #1

[kippy]

Ratagast (sp?) the Brown. He's kind a hippie wizard who got preoccupied with animals and stuff instead of combatting Sauron as he was supposed to. He made a brief cameo in LOTR in a flashback. He kind of represents the danger of distraction. While Saruman activly betrays his assignment, Ratagast wastes his time and endangers middle earth by talking to bunnies rather than gathering people to counter Sauron.

Re:problem #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Radagast the Brown, of course! I think he's mentioned by Gandalf and/or Saruman at some stage in the book. I'm not nerd enough to know the other names of Radagast.

Re:problem #1

[IvoryRing]

Radagast (sp?) the Brown

Re:problem #1

[nekonoko]

Radagast was also known as Aiwendel, "Friend of Birds".

Re:problem #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I be a Nazgul then?

Re:problem #1

[An ominous Cow art]

Radagast the Brown, a worthy wizard, master of shapes and changes of hue.

Animals and especially birds were his friends. I always imagined him as the inspiration for the D&D druid class.

Re:problem #1

[Slurm-V]

As opposed to, say, druids?

Re:problem #1

[rizzo5]

the blue wizards were named Alatar and Pallando.

...

oh god, i'm such a huge geek... *sob*

Turbine

[mfh]

I'm not really looking for yet another mmorpg from Turbine. To be blunt, mmorpgs don't interest me because designers create games that have too many players visible, unoptimized city maps, and ugly looking player models. There hasn't been much revolutionary in mmorpg titles since inception and I don't see this changing any time soon. They need to rework the model before I will ever become interested. The very best games are representations of something better, to inspire player imagination and create interesting environs in which stories take place. Now because MMORPGs have so many players running around in them, it's next to impossible to create a cohesive story with actual characters in it. Game designers need to figure out how to include players as part of the story without having generic stories that everyone runs through to get quest items. Game designers need to figure out how to tell a massive story that only includes players as part of the premise and the problem with that is one of control. How can you control such a massive story without involving Tolkien himself? You can't.

Re:Turbine

[Anonymous Coward]

Also Shadowbane- Where player guilds designed their own cities/quests and the devs bent over backwards to drive content forward. If the game hadn't been so buggy and crashprone it might have done quite a bit better.

Encyclopedia of Arda

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather spend my time on *this* `middle earth online': Encyclopedia of Arda

Yikes

[JasdonLe]

From the article (emphasis mine):

They'll be able to explore, fight, make alliances and perhaps even look for treasure.

What?! PERHAPS???

Re:Yikes

[rokzy]

maybe they mean "look for treasure" in the Terrence & Philip sense?

If history is any indication...

[GoofyBoy]

>Unless Turbine is able to bring this world something other than the appearance of Middle Earth,

Two words: phat l00t

MEO Officical Site

[JasdonLe]

For all who were looking for this link:

middle-earthonline.com

ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[cvd6262]

When Start Wars Galaxies came out, many people worried that everyone would want to be a Jedi, because, by far, they are the coolest, most powerful individuals in that universe.

I think Middle Earth offers a better balance of civilizations. If I were a gamer, I'd wouldn't even mind being an orc.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to say everyone wants to be a jedi and they are revamping the system so it's somewhat more quest based than just grinding through professions. Most of the changes over the past year have been for the benefit of the jedi wannabee's and not the average player who just wants to be the human in the background of a scene.

The problem is not one that can be overcome since any game based on a know mythos will fail since people will come in with preconceived notions. You'll keep your fanboi base but others who just want to play will go onto the next one over the hill.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Gudlyf]

" When Start Wars Galaxies came out, many people worried that everyone would want to be a Jedi, because, by far, they are the coolest, most powerful individuals in that universe."

And in Middle Earth, perhaps the most powerful and coolest individuals are wizards, of which I believe there are supposed to only be a handful of (if that) in the Tolkien "universe". Good luck to enforcing that rule.

Personally I think calling this a Tolkien fan's "dream" is a joke. More like nightmare. It will without a doubt throw the whole Middle Earth lore right down the shitter, as we all know enforcing roleplay is impossible in these games. Try forcing a Hobbit player-character to want to stay close to home, sit around his hole and eat all day -- in Tolkien's world, Bilbo and Frodo are rare in their desire for adventure. Most hobbits want to sit at home. Or how about being an elf who fights only when absolutely necessary, or a dwarf who looks out for himself and wouldn't be caught dead grouping with an elf. And female dwarves -- I think they're unheard of in any Middle Earth lore.

Enforcing those things is impossible, and is a true Tolkien fan's nightmare, IMHO.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU n00b, I r elf and snipz0r j00r orcz0r wiht 1337 bowz0r!!!!!!111oneoneelevenone~~1!

all your is3ng@rd are belong to me

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

And female dwarves -- I think they're unheard of in any Middle Earth lore.

So Galadriel never appeared in the books???

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[JPelorat]

It will without a doubt throw the whole Middle Earth lore right down the shitter

It has about as much chance of doing that as the new Star Wars movies doing that to the lore of the original ones, or as the new Dune books doing it to the lore of the original six, or as the new Foundation books doing it to the lore of Asimov's series.

That is, none.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Gudlyf]

"So Galadriel never appeared in the books???"

Huh...that's funny. I could've sworn that GALADRIEL IS AN ELF!

*SMACK!*

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Gudlyf]

By "throwing it down the shitter" I meant that they will say, "to hell with the past lore of Middle Earth," and let whatever they want happen.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Cruciform]

The first time this is said, Tolkien will spin in his grave so fast we can use him for a gyroscope:

"STFU Frodo. Giv3 m3 teh r1ng n00b!"

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's funny!

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[doodlelogic]

GGP: And female dwarves -- I think they're unheard of in any Middle Earth lore.

GP: "So Galadriel never appeared in the books???"

P: Huh...that's funny. I could've sworn that GALADRIEL IS AN ELF!

Geek: In the appendices (not looking up which one), it is made clear that there are female dwarfs, just not many, and they look almost indistinguishable from the male, and also that dwarfs, not dwarves, is the correct pluralisation.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Lord Apolon]

Agreed about the female dwarves... the bit Gimli says about them in the second motion picture is pretty accurate. But on the pluralisation, I'm afraid that you are wrong: "It may be observed in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows)..." So yes, while 'dwarfs' is the correct 'modern' spelling, Tolkien chose to use a more archaic form. That quote is from Appendix F-II, On Translation; take a gander at the rest of the passage for more.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[PenguiN42]

And in Middle Earth, perhaps the most powerful and coolest individuals are wizards, of which I believe there are supposed to only be a handful of (if that) in the Tolkien "universe". Good luck to enforcing that rule.

Uhm.

What's so hard about just not having wizards be playable characters at all?

(which is exactly what they're doing, btw.)

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time this is said, Tolkien will spin in his grave so fast we can use him for a gyroscope:

So the headline is only parially correct: instead of "Turbine Starts the Spin For Middle-Earth Online", it should read "Turbine Starts the Spin of Tolkien's Decomposing Corpse."

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[AuMatar]

It has about as much chance of doing that as the new Star Wars movies doing that to the lore of the original ones

Midichlorians, anyone? Elected princesses?

And truthfully, I don't find the new Dune or Foundation books very good either. I have 0 hope that this game will remain true to Tolkien's roots, instead it will become yet another Everquest.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

*SMACK!*

Ouch! Yeah, I deserved that one, I wrote it without thinking in the last second before I left the office. Its not as if I've read the book less than a dozen times too ;-)

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[JPelorat]

Sorry, I'll try it in English this time:

New stuff doesn't screw the old stuff.

The original trilogy is unaffected by the midichlorian nonsense, at least until Lucas goes in and does some more Special Edition fuckery, and even *then*, the original movies on LD and tape and whatever will still be fine.

PJ's trilogy doesn't alter or taint the original LotR tome.

The new Dune books don't taint the originals.

The new Foundation books don't taint the originals.

"Lord of the Rings", the story, will not be damaged by this new game - you'll still be able to walk to the library and check it out and read it in all its original glory.

Re:ME better for MMORPG than SW?

[AuMatar]

Sure they do. I think the new SW movies do taint the originals, the new Dune and Foundation books do harm the originals (although not so much as Episode 1 did to the original trilogy). I can barley stand to watch the original trilogy after having seen the utter trash of the sequels. Same with the Matrix- I loved it when it came out, but the sequels ruined the movie.

Thats what the article says - 2005!

[reality-bytes]

Its going to confuse everyone that the parent post was modded 'funny' but the New Zealand Herald article *does* actually say its been moved to Autumn 2005!

The Slashdot story makes little sense as they forgot to mention 2005.

Ah!

[iamdrscience]

Turbine Starts The Spin...

Oooh... somebody should get fired for a pun like that.

Re:Ah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I thought they were trying to generate power from JRRT spinning in his grave...

I mean, I somehow expect there to be more than 5 total wizards, so...

Re:Ah!

[Idarubicin]

Oooh... somebody should get fired for a pun like that.

We apologise for the fault in the bylines. Those responsible have been sacked.

Re:a little late?

[mrn121]

Since game development can take a looong time, if it came down to delaying the movies for the sake of releasing the game during the hype of the movies, the short answer is "no."

How long

[nizo]

How long will it be before you can basically live your entire life "inside" a game? And yeah before you guys start saying "I already do" I mean how long before you don't even leave the game at all, even to work? Picture being a wizard in middle earth, where you take several hours a day to go "cast some spells" (i.e. program so you can keep th electricity going so you can play). Or maybe you put on your "middle earth" glasses, and your every-day life looks like middle earth (instead of everyday boring people you see elves/dwarves/etc, instead of buses you see large lumbering Oliphants, etc).

Re:How long

[Joe Tie.]

I'm not placing any bets on when it'd happen, but I would that the technology would be made illegal in most countries pretty quickly.

They already did...

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

They already did this, it's called Neverwinter Nights. It didn't take off too well because of buggy tools and engines even though the players had nearly full control over them. Persistant worlds like these exist now because of the hard work of a few individuals and the ones that are up consist mainly of people who are going to stick around (another early problem was people setting up worlds and then leaving a month later).

Anyhow, your idea has already been turned into a reality, go explore it.

no wizards

[DreadSpoon]

Wizards aren't an available race in the game. Humans have the option of being sorcerer or necromancer, which I imagine is a flashier but less effective version of a wizard.

After all, wizards in Tokien's book were not human. They were, basically, special-purpose angels.

Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[tehanu]

One thing I want to know is if they are going to make the game world true to Middle-Earth or as a more generic D&D based game? The problems with transferring a popular franchise to MMG can be seen in Star Wars where everyone wants to be a Jedi. Hence even though the MMG is set in the time where Jedi should be rare there are tons of Jedi running around. In this case faithfulness to the original storyline is sacrificed because everyone wants to be a hero. For example one of the difficulties I can see with Middle-Earth is that lots of people will want to be a wizard (like Gandalf). However in Middle-Earth wizards are extremely rare. There are only 8 (?) of them and they are not human either but servants sent from Valor clothed in human form. And will magic spells familiar from D&D like fireball be common, because there is actually very little magic actually cast as fireball type spells in LoTR.

When will it be set (the article doesn't say this). I imagine it will be set immediately after the events of the book. But according to the novel magic is dying out in the land during this time. Lothlorien for example is in the process of being abandoned. However lots of people will want to go visit Lothlorien. Will people be able to go to Moria? If they can clean out Moria it would go against canon as Tolkien says Moria was never able to be reclaimed by the dwarves. I think this is a fundamental problem with franchise based MMGs. People will want to go to clear out Moria, they will want to be a wizard and cast fireballs, they will want to go and visit Lothlorien no matter how out-of-character or against canon it is. Will it accurately model the various tensions amongst the different groups of elves? They mention an elvin ship but how do they balance this with the fact that being invited to an elvin ship (if you are not an elf) is extremely rare. How do they balance the fact that in LoTR canon, elves are massively more powerful than humans - being created as perfect beings and thousands of years old? In a single-player game it is easy to control the actions people can take, but in a MMG where the only real aim is to explore how do you balance faithfulness to canon and fun gameplay? Star Wars Galaxies as far as I can tell decided to go "screw canon" - will this Tolkien MMG do the same? Will it really be Middle-earth or will it be Dungeons and Dragons?

Re:Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not set the game in the 2nd age while Sauron sleeps or when the rings are being considered, etc. This is the time when the Nazgul arose, so there's at least nine real interesting men roles :-).

Re:Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[Anonymous Coward]

[SD]AnonCowrd strikes Frodo for 87 damage.
Frodo strikes [SD]AnonCowrd for 120 damage.
[SD]AnonCowrd lands a critical hit on Frodo for 278 damage.
Frodo has fallen. Received One Ring.

[SD]AnonCowrd shouts, "ph33r me, for now i rule middel-earth!!1!"

Nazgul backstabs [SD]AnonCowrd for 452 damage.
You have fallen. Dropped One Ring.
Nazgul shouts, "pwned!!"

Re:Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[Branc0]

Read the site.

You can't be a Wizard, altough i probably suspect there will be lots of Elfs. You can choose from Elf, Men, Dwarves and Hobbits

Re:Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its possible to get past most of the problems you expressed. If they manage to capture the mood and the style of Middle Earth properly everything else will not be a problem.

Most of the offical Middle earth lore is ambiguous and debatable in all kinds of details. For example its hotly debated as to whether Balrogs have wings or not. http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/balrogs.html

The wizards were Maiar. There are lots of these in middle earth and they take all kinds of forms and sometimes change form (though it might not be easy) and range in power from mighty to weak. They could also breed with other races. Mostly their form reflects their personalities. I see options for a playable character/race class here though having 35 of them hanging out in Bree would seem weird.

Elves are much older and much stonger than humans but its easy to argue that only the older elves are very strong and that maby elves strengthen with age. Legolas is not very strong at all. He's much weaker in the book than in the movie. Elves also sometimes have magic powers like the Maiar.

Its not clear what the magic system of Middle earth is. Some magic users do perform it as an art with natural tallent and Gandalf does seem to draw power from within but anyone that talks about magic always uses knowledge based terms. Gandalf said he once knew every spell but had forgotten them. All the wizards spent most of their time doing research and trying to become wize. Saruman used some kind of pyrotechnics to attack Helms Deep. I forget whether it was gunpower related or a meteor. Dwarves did cast spells on stone and make magic weapons.

The middle earth roleplaying game was set about 500 years before the war of the ring.

Re:Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?

[drsquare]

You can choose from Elf, Men, Dwarves and Hobbits

What about orcs, or trolls? Without them, who on earth are the people playing the men, elves, dwarves and hobbits going to fight against? Mobs? I can see that getting old after, what, 4 minutes.

Errr...no

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

He was right in his basic principles, CoH does not take a huge timesink (although time is relative ;) ) it doesn't take a whole lot of time to "do something" in the game vs. pretty much every other game on the market. Even in the more power oriented games it takes some time for setup and adventuring whereas I could literally log on and fight a few criminals as SOON as I started playing.

He didn't say anything about YOU liking it personally, it's an opinion, much like every other post in existance. I will admit though, I found the character creation more fun than playing the game :P

I don't play it anymore, but I recommend it to those who were thinking about just trying it out :)

Errr...yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I can log into EQ and fight a few mobs as soon as I start playing too. And just like with CoH it will accomplish nothing and I will log off the same way I logged in. In order to accomplish something you need to fight harder mobs than what you can fight solo, which means getting together a team, finding out half of them are retarded and like to get themselves killed, then yell at the "healer" for not saving them when they only have O2 boost to heal with and all 3 retarded blasters are getting killed at the same time.

Or did you mean you can "do something" as long as you are level 6? Did you get up to the 30's or 40's to realize you do have to spend hours trying to gain any exp at all?

Re:Errr...yes

[talaphid]

If a blaster will group with you, and then group with yet another person -- especially another blaster -- then you are obviously in the wrong group.

Please don't be confused - I don't mean "you" in the singular, you AC personally, I mean you in the collective, as in, grouping at all.

A blaster who is not retarded and does roll in the XP does so just fine solo, and only groups with you (again, the plural, collective, not AC-parent specifically) either as a courtesy, or out of some sort of enlightened self interest (ie, make friends with the healers, I will need them when we zerg the end boss, Hammidon).

and on the tip of someone else's response... if you, like many others of us have at some point or another, devote a free Saturday to playing CoH, you can go from start to the "mid game". I don't think that's true of most other MMOs.

and in LotR? Oh yeah, that's going to be great. We're either going to have a million hobbits running around Mount Doom trying to find the forge only to discover they need a +1 Skull of Angry Dude before they can use their 50 levels of Obscene Artifact Crafting.... or we're going to have a million hours of being a troll, crushing hobbits until we make level 50, so we can take on... ultra-hobbits.

Re:Errr...yes

[Anonymous Coward]

No, even a blaster will gain XP WAY slower solo than with a good group. Most solo blasters have the "I can level faster on my own" attitude because they have never had a good group. I was lucky and my wife played an empath defender, so I had her to level with all the time. If you don't think blasters level faster when they have infinite endurance then you didn't try playing very many different options.

I wish to be of a different moral persuasion

[linzeal]

Can you be evil at all? I find myself drawn into a more amoral persuasion of character, where solutions are not drawn out for me in black and white. For instance, if I was in a virtual party of adventurers and had a chance to kill them all in their sleep and take all the geld, moola, hoinker-dinks. I find such a stance compelling in the plentitude if not the diversity of its rewards. Whereas with the white bread/dime a dozen Jesus worshiping people of the western world a litany of good deeds and platitudes awaits you instead of generic tools that are not given to you with the proclaimation that you commit no harm to another when we no good and well that is not how the real world behaves at its most base levels physically or philosophically.

Re:I wish to be of a different moral persuasion

[Anonymous Coward]

My brain is still struggling with that last sentence.

Say what?

[rudeboy1]

You mean like a bunch of Hobbits whose while lifestyle revolves around a simple hedonistic society that end up travelling accross the land, joining in wars, and killing nasty beastseses? Or maybe a ranger who has abandoned his birthright, and ends up going back in the direction that would make him King? Or maybe on a shorter scale, like Boromir, who learns to trust non-humans, as well as give his life for a cause he scoffed at at the first appearance of his character? I may be a while out from high school literature class, but there sounds like there might be a touch of character development in this series.
Or did you mean physical/ability development, as it pertains to a game chracter, like a hobbit learning to wield a sword, or a wizard changing his colors and becoming more powerful?
Yeah. You're right. No development whatsoever.

Gahh!

[erockett]

I hate the movies so much, because they tell the book in *such* a different way - the books are like this grand, epic tale, like a norse myth or something, but the movie is just a piece of American Crap (like standard american movies). Everything has to be P.C., we have to have strong women characters, things have to be realistic in places where they aren't in the book and unrealistic in places where they are in the book, we have to mutilate the story and add in stuff that was *not* in the book, etc.

It just takes away from the majesty so much. So instead, they put in thousands of helicopter shots and everyone says "ooooh! Isn't it wonderful? Isn't Legolas HOTT?"

I've read the whole series many times, and really love them, but I just can't stand the movies. And the "strong women characters" suck, even though I'm a woman and I guess they put them in for us to have good role models or something

*sigh* enough ranting now.

Re:Gahh!

[teromajusa]

This is a good illustration of how un-pc it is to be pc now. This poster assumes that the presence of strong female characters must be the result of political conformity - even if they are actually present in the original story.

The real distortion was in exagerating the romatic aspect of Arwen's role to make the movie more chick-friendly - which has zero to do with political correctness.

Re:Gahh!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good illustration of how un-pc it is to be pc now. This poster assumes that the presence of strong female characters must be the result of political conformity - even if they are actually present in the original story.

Agreed, there were two strong female characters. One ruled the greatest of the surviving elf territories (in addition to guarding one of the elven rings of power). The other was a young woman who defied her own peoples tradions, her uncle/surrogate-father, but a demonic being as well.

The real distortion was in exagerating the romatic aspect of Arwen's role to make the movie more chick-friendly - which has zero to do with political correctness.

Well, to be specific Arwen wasn't that major a character in the main story. Her relationship with Aragon was detailed in an appendix of the Return of The King, because Tolkien felt that he couldn't work the love story into the orginal without deminishing one or the other(or even both).

Re:Gahh!

[kamapuaa]

Including women is to be PC? The women weren't really that important to the movies. They reminded me of Bollywood war movies, where characters will have a girlfriend back home who loves to sing and dance. It contributes nothing to the movie, but it's not for political correctness - it's a ploy to get more women into the theaters. Similarly, movies for children will often have jokes intended for their parents. It's not like people would protest a movie without women in it, it just wouldn't be as popular (not to mention, in a modern context, it kept these characters from seeming completely homosexual, not that there's anything wrong with that).

Secondly, while I have no idea if Tolkein was racist or not (although it's a pleasent if naive thought that an author I like would hold views in keeping with my own), clearly his talk of fundamentally evil races comes grounded in a world-view where race and character are strongly associated one to the other (particularly when the good races are described as Nordic, and the bad as possessing dark features). That doesn't mean Tolkein agreed with the implications, or that fans of his books are all Klan members, but saying there is no hint of racism to Tolkein isn't accurate, either.

Re:Gahh!

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't a racist, nope, check Letters and you'll see. What people often miss is the *huge* hints Tolkien gives about the 'evil' characters (I wouldn't say races, since there are plenty of evil men). Like when Sam sees a dead man killed by Faramir's men and many other instances. If the good guys were germanic-like, it may be because... he wrote a germanic-like mythology? Let's face it, Klan members are stupid, they could twist anything with their narrow minds.

Turbine Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

They are responsible for Asherons Call 2, probably the biggest MMORPG failure of the last 5 years. Is this game funded by Microsoft too? Sometimes I think AC2 was made to get people to sign up for Microsoft Passport.

Re:Turbine Sucks

[BryanR1977]

And I'm STILL trying to get them to stop billing me. On the bright side at least they aren't double billing me anymore!

Re:Turbine Sucks

[HForo]

Actually, Turbine doesn't handle any of the billing for any of their games... yet. While they may be at fault for choosing a poor partner in Microsoft, they are definitely not at fault for your still being billed.

Re:Turbine Sucks

[BryanR1977]

Correct, I should have specified they = Microsoft.

Re:Turbine Sucks

[HForo]

I should also mention, I had this same problem with them, double billing, and then billing after I cancelled... If you pester them enough they will issue you a refund, and make sure it won't bill you again, you just have to keep calling untinl you find a useful person :)

models? engines?

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

The models take days to render in an animation. Regardless of how good Doom3 looks, the LOTR models will not fit.

Engines? The engine is Maya.

Re:models? engines?

[Doc Ruby]

Sure, but the LoTR movie is rendered for 70mm film, which is at least 8Kx6K dots, requiring at least 16Kx12K pixels. The game could be as little as 1024x768 pixels, which is 1.6% the size. There are many other optimizations available for rendering to UGA, which doesn't require the detail or accuracy required by film on a 40' screen. Many scenarios that consume time in their first rendering, like most of the behavior of armies and natural particles, can be replayed with coarser parameters, once they've been computed for the movie in their broader outlines.

In fact, since the degree of realism of the movie can't be reproduced with PC displays, that isn't the purpose of reusing the models. Just like pop albums are remastered for CD, tape, and even vinyl, from a master copy tweaked in a multimillion dollar studio, with the highest quality playback reproduction. The models aren't stored in terms of polygons, but higher level symbols for rendering. Scale the model down, and preserve the structure of the world, while rendering for the lesser presentation. A producer with "game time to market" prioritized would build the original system with movie, game, and even talkshow targets in mind. That also means a port of the movie engine to PC, meaning Windows or Linux (or maybe even DOS, or some other "game OS").

Re:models? engines?

[orasio]

I believe that was the idea with Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions/animatrix/games, but it seems like they had already thought of that before shooting the film, they even got motion capture from some of the cast!
Of course, it's doable if you start the picture already thinking about a game. I believe the original idea was about recycling the LOTR movie material into a game.

Video/PC games - waste of time?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a serious question, not a troll. I used to play Doom/Quake online for a while to release some pent-up agression. It was fun and all, but I'm a one-man company, so I don't have time to waste playing games all day. Making $$$ is just too important, plus getting outside, keeping the house up, etc., etc.

What's the attraction of these video games? From some of the other games I've seen, it's all the same shit - just running around blowing stuff up and killing things. Doesn't it get old after a while? What are the game makers doing to keep our interest? Or is it enough if they just introduce new monsters, new weapons, etc.?

The question should be

[Stone316]

If technology gets to the point where you can't tell the difference between games and real life (in the obvious sense, ie touch, pain, total immersiveness) how many people will elect to stay in the virtual world?

In all honesty I was addicted to Asherson's Call and even to this day, over 2 years since I quit I still get the urge to play. By sure willpower I force myself not to resubscribe. (Actually uninstalling the software and getting rid of it helped control that urge..) Since then I won't even buy an MMORPG because i'm afraid i'll get too sucked in.

Take a look at the EQ Widow forum on yahoo, its full of horror stories from divorce to people losing businesses. Whats going to happen when technology gets so advanced you can't tell the difference between the real world and virtual?

Remember that old sci-fi show, can't remember the name but they try and settle a distant planet but they lose most of their gear? One piece they had remaining was a virtual headset which they used on at least one occasion to trick someone.

I hope we get close to that level of technology in my lifetime.. (Hopefully after i'm retired and the kids have moved out. :) but it will be curious to see what kind of social problems develope.

Re:The question should be

[Gondola]

This is a valid concern that will be faced by our children's children's children, possibly.

Visual and aural nerve stimulators are already being used today. Primitively, of course, as the technology and understanding of direct neural stimulation is still in its infancy.

In the future, when direct neural stimulation provides sight, sound, smell, taste, and feeling that is identical to the Real Thing, many people will elect to spend as much of their time in "VR" as they can. Games today have nothing on the addictive nature of endless and unlimited simulations that fulfill our most farfetched dreams.

Lawrence Manning wrote about this in part of his future crises that mankind will face. In "The Man Who Awoke," Manning's protagonist takes the few remaining unwired people from one city to found a new city without virtual living. This theme has been echoed in many works of fiction, including Star Trek (people get addicted to the holodeck; same principle), The Matrix, and many many others.

Does Turbine have the technical chops

[xyote]

for writing the multi-threaded server based software for these role playing games? They seem fairly biased towards having a game kiddie background and I wonder if that bias works against them.

Re:Does Turbine have the technical chops

[_KiTA_]

They've done 2 MMORPGs before. 1 of which has lasted 5 years without any real presence in a store, another one which is still better looking than any MMORPG out today.

I don't think anyone can seriously question if they have the experience to make a good MMORPG.

They bought back AC

[Stone316]

Not sure about AC2 but AC is 100% under Turbines control now.

The problem with Turbine was that when they first started they were lured to the dark side by Microsoft. In what was otherwise an awesome game I think MS's mismanagment. They refused to market the game.

AC2 was a huge flop, graphics and environment was awesome but there was something missing. Magic was still too powerfull and the only way to balance it was to give all mobs the ability to use some sort of magic or missile.

It will be interesting to see how they balance the classes with MOE.

Re:They bought back AC

[Anonymous Coward]

I played AC2 and thought it was pretty good. Its one big problem was lack of budget. MMORPGS take a huge amount of time and effort to make. AC2 never managed to have enought content to keep people playing it. When it was released the third island for high levels was almost empty of quests and was unballanced and broken. High lvl is where players spend most of their time so many players would leave the game after reaching it. Id say AC2 needed another 6 months of work before it should have been realeased.

Re:They bought back AC

[talaphid]

Someone made a sequel to the Anonymous Coward?

Asheron's Call

[Mavness]

Tubine made one hell of a fun and indepth game. If i was back in HS, id definatly get this game and loose my GF all over again. XP was more important to me than AHP ;)

Also, to set up the scene...

[devphil]

...in which Dernhelm yanks off his helmet to revreal that "he" is actually Eowyn, who then delivers her not-a-man line and ruins the Witch-King's whole day with a sharp pointy thing.

The setup is even more prominent in the books. The race is referred to as "Men" (capital M) as an all-inclusive term. When the Witch-King laid the smack down on Arnor and rode off, an Elf prophesied that "far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man shall he fall."

I believe it's even printed with a small 'm'. Could be wrong.

In any case, everyone standing by heard it to mean that it would be an Elf or Dwarf or Other[tm] who would eventually kill him, when it actually turned out to be a very brave woman and a Hobbit.

(The Hobbit kinda cheated by using a dagger which had been specifically enchanted against the Witch-King, but the movie skips that.)

Come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Be serious. The "plotline" indeed. Yes, I paid attention to the plotline. It is on par with an old episode of teenage mutant ninja turtles, but instead of taking a half hour, it takes hours and hours to level to be able to read the next little snippet of story, and then go off doing the same boring missions as before, only with the knowledge that you now have a couple of paragraphs telling you why you are killing all the guys in the base instead of a couple of sentances telling you why you are killing all the guys in the base.

Man, that's really immersive. Seriously, its no better than AC's story line, in fact I'd say its not as good. At least AC had new things happening every month to try to keep the story alive. Leaving out 3/4 of the game to have boring repetative combat and a bland story you just view as opposed to being part of, is pathetic, and as a result CoH has the fastest churn of any MMOG yet. How many people can even stomach 3 months of this game, much less 3 years like some other games?

Whose Autumn?

[macz]

To be completely confusing, Autumn in New Zeland is our Spring, so whose Autum are we talking about here?

And to add insanity to confusion... Their November starts, in some cases, 20-24 hours earlier than November in the States.

Oh yeah, and the speed of light is constant in all distinct frames of referrence. So there.

Re:Whose Autumn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Through which medium?

Re:Whose Autumn?

[macz]

Ouch. A hit sir, a palpable hit.

Middle Earth and Baldur's Gate

[cttforsale]

I always thought middle earth and Baldur's Gate world maps to be kinda similiar in shape...

B.G.
http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/baldursgat e2/world map.shtml

M.E.
http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~cbern d/pdf/mi ddleEarth03_ltr_scale.pdf

Re:Middle Earth and Baldur's Gate

[rizzo5]

Baldur's Gate is a city in the Sword Coast area of the geographical area known as Faerûn on the world of Toril in the campaign setting of Forgotten Realms for D&D.

...

oh god, i'm such a HUGE geek... *SOB*

Open source Tolkien game alternative

[Lord Satri]

Time wasters... yup ! :-) But don't waste your money !! Take a look at the open source ToME: Troubles of Middle-Earth. It's based on Angband. It also has a Multiplayer Online version, but not as mature as the single player mode.

"dwarfs" versus "dwarves"

[MenTaLguY]

Ironically, it was Tolkien who wrote the edition of the OED "dwarf" entry that in large part promulgated the modern "dwarfs" plural in the first place.

Few authors could legitimately defend their alternate spelling (as Tolkien did) by observing that they had changed their mind since they wrote the dictionary. ^^;

[ random note: in Old English, 'f' takes on a 'v' sound when used in the middle of words; so "dwarves" is _slightly_ more "archaeically correct" than "dwarfs". I think it sounds nicer anyway. ]

Turbine is Turbine's biggest problem.

[Shivetya]

Sorry but Microsoft was just a scapegoat. On their own Turbine has shown that they were the bulk of the problem. Turbine proves many times over their disregard for the players. From leaving game economy breaking bugs in for a full month to having to hot fix every patch they release.

Their new expansion caters to the very worst players of AC1, the macro users, xp-chainers, and griefers. These same players who break the COC are at most banned for days and if really bad a month or two. Turbine constantly provides new means for them to gain XP as Turbine has totally ditched the lore aspect of the game, the same aspect which appealed to the real players.

AC2 didn't stand a chance. Read the original Developer writings and message board entries and you will see a development team wrapped up in themselves and not feeling the least bit responsible to the players. They got their just rewards, a dead game. Cities of buildings that could not be entered were testament to developer egos.

I don't trust Turbine with any game after what they crafted with AC2 and let alone with whats gone down in AC1 since they took over.

Look at the Classes

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone look at the classes available within each PC race at http://www.middle-earthonline.com/? If you want any variety in PC classes, you have to play the Men race. Why are there no Elven sorcerers or Dwarven burglars? If a PC class can follow a dark path and work for the goals of the Eye, then why can't you play as a Goblin? I hope it works out, but I'm skeptical about the balance of races. Heck, to play a Hobbit, you basically end up being a thief!

Re:Look at the Classes

[Omerna]

Why is it a big deal? Wouldn't it look a little silly for a Hobbit to go toe-to-toe with a human? I think this is a good idea, though if I were the developers I'd try to have a couple more classes per race.

Turbine needs talent

[Anonymous Coward]

Turbine needs to hire some game balancing talent.

Their storywrighting,artwork, and gameplay isn't bad...

Its just their games are easy to abuse.

AC1 was drain health 1, and AC2 was archers/tacticians.

I enjoyed playing AC1, but Turbine makes quests that aren't rewarding to solve because they didn't know what loot is powerful.

Turbine fixed their game, but it took them a while. If they played their game, they'd understand it better.

I'm a Tolkien fan

[ikekrull]

But this is no dream of mine.

I'm not going to get excited about another rubbish game made to cash-in on the success of the LOTR movies.

There have been at least 4 already, whats so special about number 5?

Books.

[Angelwrath]

Unfortunately, the game is supposed to draw from the books - but exactly how much? Take a look at the art - the Hobbits look like short humans, the elves look like Uber Fantasy crud, the Dwarf women are NOTHING like the Dwarf women in Tolkien.

Also, the worlds look nothing like the movies.

This company is said to be making an adaptation of the books, but what they have never considered is how much more they could appeal to the full range of fans by making the world look as close to the movie as possible. Worse, there are some rather severe violations:

- The Hobbot "holes" are not houses built within a hill, but rather houses built near hills, standalone.

- Moria looks more like a typical uber-fantasy castle in any MMORPG than the Moria we see in the movies.

- Nothing about the existing art screams Middle Earth, it screams generic uber-fantasy MMORPG. They could actually have distinguished themselves by copying the movies, which were realistic and spartan, instead this game is full of detail added for the sake of detail.

- Listen to a couple of the lamer enemies you face:

Corrupt Bears
Spiders ... how exciting does this sound?

- Examples of lame detail for the sake of detail:

http://forums.middle-earthonline.com/vortex_imag es /4-1-04/POI_Bucklebury_Ferry.jpg

A barrel and rope laying at the end of the dock. Can you get any more typical? Lamps and benches in the middle of nowhere ... who lights the lamps? Who makes sure the benches aren't stolen. Yes, yes, I'm a crazy man and nitpicking... but it's true on a larger scale as well.

- http://www.middle-earthonline.com/files/31/17/49/4 6/211.jpg

Welcome to the.... shire? There's one house half sitting on a hill, the rest are on flat land, with hills in the background.

Overall, I am not impressed with this game at all. Worse than the look of the world is the music - typical Celtic theme rubbish. No depth, no atmosphere, none of the absolute brilliance of Howard Shore's three scores for the movie.

This was the worst company to make a Middle Earth game - they don't have the license to the movie content, they refuse to license it, and they are not investing the time and effort into compensating for those two missing pieces. And for this, they are probably losing customers for it.

Re:Books.

[rizzo5]

- The Hobbit "holes" are not houses built within a hill, but rather houses built near hills, standalone.

i just wanted to nitpick this nitpick. a lot of hobbits lived in standalone structures. only the very rich and very poor hobbits still lived in traditional hobbit holes.

Re:Books.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the art though - do you see any buried in a hill?

I really Wish....

[therealfitzman]

that I still enjoyed MMORPGs. However I really like having my life back. I doubt I will look at the screenshots for this game as I might start making excuses to go back to 'that world'.

In Other News...

[Anonymous Coward]

Following Lucas Arts lead, it has been decided to release a full-length movie and 30-part series sequel to Lord Of The Rings.

Re:In Other News...

[tehcyder]

Tolkien started that off himself with The Silmarillion.

Here's the link I was looking for!

[bugnuts]

ctrlaltdel

I've played a lot of MMORPGs and this sums it up quite well!

MEO Alternative anyone?

[Em Adespoton]

For those who don't care about the MM of ORPGs, why not try out MUME? It's been around for years, and just keeps getting better.

What's Middle Earth with no Ring Saga?

[popo]

Here's the problem with MMORPG's based on fiction properties (Galaxies, MEOL, etc.)

Since MMORPG's must be socialist in their play-balancing, and must be open ended (for revenue reasons) there can be no over-arching saga, no heroes, no theatrical climax and no resolution.

Would LOTR have been at all interesting if Frodo had been one of 1000 ring bearers? And what if they had all just wandered Middle-Earth endlessly, never reaching the end of their quest (but instead, constantly increasing in ability)?

MMORPG's can only ever be generic universes because all they offer is generic experiences. There is a necessary "sameness" to the characters for reasons of playability and that "sameness" destroys any possibility of compelling story-telling.

Middle Earth online will be, at best, Dark Age of Camelot with different 3D models, and a more familiar (albeit less extesible) map.

Yawn. Seen it.

________________________________
Judge a man by his wallet.

I am so going to be

[teamhasnoi]

an Ent! I'll stay in the exact same spot for the entire run of the game!

Wait. That's just like real life.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Turbine decided to turn AC2 into the greatest and most boring grind ever conceived. Patch after patch their playerbase shrinks, and the last two months have seen very heated complaints from the players at Turbine's changes to the game dynamics.

Quite frankly, I'm starting to think Microsoft were in fact the good guys, but they eventually got tired of bending Turbine's arm and just rolled it out and good riddance.

Vaporware becomes reality

[Anonymous Coward]

This game has seen 5 years in development and just as many parent companies. That usually doesn't mean "quality product".