EA games has recieved the rights to make games based on the Lord of the Rings books and are working on the Battle for Middle Earth II, which will be based on the books.

Factions will be:

Men of the West (Gondor and Rohan)
Elves
Dwarves
Isengard
Mordor
Goblins

There will be characters and battles from the books, along with many other content from the books, such as giants and spiders, naval warfare will alost be included.

for more information go here.

http://www.eagames.com/official/lordoftherings/bfme2/us

Oh great, another BfME game riddled with inaccuracy and only compatible with the newest pcs

I know you guys have your misgivings about the butchery of Tolkien's works - but as far as an RTS game goes with gameplay features, modability, replayability, and graphics - I think its going to blow to the socks off AoE3.

This is actually a better summary of collected information that is avaible on the official site:

http://gamereplays.org/bfme_2_preview.php

They say there is going to be a beta sometime in November/December before the release in February/March

I know BfME (and probably BfME II) has great graphics and all that, but personaly I value the accuracy to Tolkien's works over gameplay.

There is no doubt that BfME is a great game, but is it a good LoTR game?

Well, it could be worse.

There is so much stuff on the market nowdays about Middle Earth, for the most part inspired by or cashing in on PJ's movies, that I have not kept up on the vast majority of it. There are going to be inaccuracies, of course - even TLA has inaccuracies. These are unavoidable if the finished product is to be a game that is actually playable.

Personally, I think that the best way to produce a good game set in Tolkien's world is to (1) make it playable, (2) include all of the stuff that Tolkien did put in his world before adding stuff of your own, and (3) include an option that allows the player(s) to filter the content of the game so that he or she can control how "pure" or how "rich" he or she wants the game to be.

As for getting it right, a fan-based project like TLA is going to be able to do things that a commercial enterprise can't.

And vise versa. A fan-based project, like TLA, won't have as many of the bells and whistles, esp. graphically, as most of the commercial-grade products......although that is not a bad thing. I STILL play Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (from like 1996), even though the graphics/sounds are at the very minimal level of tolerance, because the gameplay is SO good. A game does not have to have great graphics to make it a great game. However, that discussion is really more for the hall of intellectuals.

At any rate; there is too much stuff about LotR (and so) out there as it is, however none of it IMO is really good. Hopefully TLA will break that trend.

Speaking of, when is the new website coming out? Im hoping itll have a lot more info than the old one......cant tell anything from that, no info

A lot of the bells and whistles that come in the commercial games also make it harder for people with older systems to play.

I can't speak for the "accuracy" of BfME2, but the gameplay looks outstanding. It's something both WFG projects should keep an eye on. For instance, MfME2 is using the exact GUI we have spec'd for 0 A.D. They use flanking and such with their formations as well. It all looks very promising.

No game can be 100 % accurate to Tolkiens work, but they can sill show a good Middle Earth, I think this game will.

I have some issues with the Dwarven architecture... from the videos it all looks too "C&C Generals" -ish (the Dwarves, that is). The Men of the West architecture looks spot on from the movies though.

Of course no game can ever be true to Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Every person, who has ever read LotR, has come up with their own version of Middle Earth. No person's view of Middle Earth will ever completely match Tolkien's.

Case in point is Mythos' view of how the architecture looks to him. To him it doesn't look right, but to the people doing the design for the dwarvish architecture, you can be sure they are doing it the way they picture it.

YES!

My problem with their architecture is that it looks fake and plasticy, at least from the videos on IGN. It all looks very C&C Generals-ish. It looks too modern, with what looks like helipads and ramps and factories... Check it out for yourself.

I actually LOVE their walls concept, except that they don't allow for units on walls, and I also like the way they upgrade buildings with context-sensitive GUIs.

And some of that probably has to do with their vision of the Dwarves, they see the Dwarves as a tinkering race, as experimenters. I don't know how (if at all) familiar you are to the world of Warcraft (not referring to WoW, just the mythos of Warcraft in general); but that is how they view dwarves I know. I.e. an Alliance unit is the Dwarven Rifleman....they are the ones who experiment with gunpowder and techonology.

Now this flies in the face of Tolkien's mythos, however it offers a possible explanation.

I myself thought that the Dwarven structures resembled those of Red Alert, one of EA's earliest games.

Lessee... gunpowder in Arda. It is obvious that the Orcs use it: Tolkien specifically noted Goblins as the inventors of explosives in the chapter that introduces them in The Hobbit. The Orcs also use some kind of explosive for blasting through walls, and they do this both at Helm's Deep and on the Pellenor in LotR. The only reference to guns per se that I can think of is that Beorn arrived at the Battle of the Five Armies roaring "like guns and drums". That could be an oversight on Tolkien's part, bringing in a reference from something unrelated, or it could say something, that guns (at least cannon) do exist in Arda - up to us to interpret. Of course, there has to be something that makes Gandalf's fireworks work.

In any case, gunpowder isn't an exclusively Dwarven club.

I agree with you there, although weren't the Explosives at Helms Deep powered by Sarumans magic?

John Howe will be doing concept artwork for the game, so i think we can expect some neat stuff.

You can see things 2 different ways.

Either: Gandalf/Saruman/Orcs used gunpowder, or else they used magic. Or smoe combination thereof....i.e Gandalf/Saruman used magic, while the Orcs used gunpowder.

No way are there cannons in Arda. That is my vision of it anyways, is as a classical Swords & Sorcery world, limited technology of any kind. Orcs had some basic form of explosive, but that doesn't have to be gunpowder. There are several other substances that can be used to make an explosion.

In the end though, as I said before, it all comes down to how YOU, the reader, interprets things. My vision of Arda does not match BerenV's, or Enarwaen's, or NaurwenT's, or J.R.R.'s, or Christopher Tolkien's either.

Or Peter Jackson

Or him, yes. PJ took a middle-of-the-line approach, so that the movies would appeal to the most people they possibly could. Many people were offended by some of his choices however.........esp. the whole Frodo/Sam/Faramir thing. Now, what PJ did to that cycle was all fine and well, but it did not have anything todo with Tolkien's view. Once again it comes to PoV. PJ's view of that cycle, that he reproduced on screen, is probably very true to what WOULDVE really happened. That it likely exactly how events wouldve played out. However, Tolkien's view was much more....hopeful, I guess you could say. Less realistic, but still, Tolkien's PoV is what really mattered, and that is why it pissed a lo of people off.

In BFME1, you could put people on walls...

Once again, Beren never ceases to impress me. How do you remember details like that (in reference to Beorn)?

The Hobbit (or perhaps the first chapter of LOTR - they have similiarities) also says 'roaring like a freight train' somewhere, so...

I did not remember that, but I am not surprised (my memory isn't perfect ). I seriously doubt Tolkien ever considered the ramifications of having various New World plants in Middle Earth, either.


p.s. Regarding details, there are a number of major issues open to interpretation in Tolkien, the level of technology, especially Dark Age-type, versus Medieval-type, and references to guns are one of them. As a result, when I encounter things of relevance, I take note of them.

Ah. I thought, perhaps, that you might use the search-tool on Amazon which enables you to look up words in books

My basic interpretations of various references like Beorn's roar sounding like "guns and cannons" or of goblin inventions and such in the Hobbit have always been tempered with the knowledge that it was written primarily as a children's book. As such, it contains many references to real life things to help readers to visualize the story better. It has always been my opinion that Saruman's "fire of Orthanc" and Gandalf's fireworks were direct products of their superior knowledge and power. As to Dwarves? Tolkien always described them as being excellent at working with metal and stone, however I never really saw them as being a mechanically oriented race like most games and such tend to portray them. Just my 2 cents.

(Wow, I used 'such' alot in that post)