Posted by
Hemos
on from the There-is-always-smoke-rising-from-Isengard-these-days. dept.
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."
I want to be a Men class.
by
Tibor+the+Hun
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
-- If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Re:I want to be a Men class.
by
Pxtl
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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.
by
fallen1
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
(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'.
--
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Model Citizens
by
Doc+Ruby
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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.
--
--
make install -not war
Re:Model Citizens
by
orasio
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
Should be interesting
by
SightlessMind
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
to see how they do character development for wizards since the Istari more or less have always had their powers.
Re:Should be interesting
by
vi+(editor)
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
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.
I hate to say it
by
DevilsEngine
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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.
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.
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.
-- The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
ME better for MMORPG than SW?
by
cvd6262
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
--
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Re:Not to be technical
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
purchased on ebay
Re:Another MMORPG??
by
Cromac
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
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).
Middle-Earth or generic fantasy land?
by
tehanu
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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?
by
Branc0
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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:)
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.
-- Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
The question should be
by
Stone316
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
--
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Turbine is Turbine's biggest problem.
by
Shivetya
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
-- *
Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Look at the Classes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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:Another MMORPG??
by
will_die
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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.
--
make install -not war
to see how they do character development for wizards since the Istari more or less have always had their powers.
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.
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.
Blaze a trail to the New World
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.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
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.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
purchased on ebay
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.
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).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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?
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.
:P
:)
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
I don't play it anymore, but I recommend it to those who were thinking about just trying it out
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.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
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.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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!
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.