Middle Earth. I'm getting quite serious.

[Phantasmagoria]

I'm 18 and I feel like I have wasted my life! I tried writing a book just now but I think it flopper already, even though I'm only in chapter two. I tried to initiate my Great Documentary on the churches of America but...that seems too big to handle right now.

With all this pent up tension, I feel as if I must do something. I read a little Tolkein. I wandered over here and saw my post about a Middle Earth city-building game.

Hmm.

YES?

Please, discuss this matter with me... maybe Tilted Mill will hear me!

MAYBE I can PITCH the idea to them.

I e-mailed Sierra on their site asking whether or not they had thought about it but I probably won't get a response or anything, such mighty busy men these are...

[bexgames]

Your 18, you haven't wasted your life, you just barely started it! :D

You like the idea of a Middle Earth CB?
Well then, let us hear how you would have it play.

ps: don't give up on the book, I have a feeling someone with all your energy and initiative will get around to finishing it one day ;)

[Phantasmagoria]

thanks *hope*

Wellll, a Middle Earth city-building would be very marketable since there's still plenty of LotR-lovers out there and the WETA team and movie designers made Minas Tirith look awfully pretty to behold, and I'm sure we could make a deal with the film people... like, it would be beneficial to THEM too, and promote LotR DVDs or whatever...so the buildings in the game would look pretty much like the buildings in the movie. I don't know how company stuff works out, but it looks good... everyone should be happy with it, no?

The CHALLENGE is that ... the Mines of Moria are huge. How do you build that in a city-building game? Perhaps this Mines of Moria concept would be the basis of the Dwarf Kingdom entirely, and we'd sort of skim over all the other dwarf cities that may be in Silmarillion lore. Dwarf buildings are in mountains, and underground. So the geographical setting of the scenarios would be very different than usual. I'm not sure how you would do it..

You would not be looking at a plot of land from the sky, but rather you would be looking at a three-dimensional figure that is suspended in rock and layers of the Earth. The freedom of the camera in Caesar IV indicates that it is possible.... you just have to replace sky and land with rock and Earth.

You can also zoom out of the mountain to a limited plot of land around it where battles may take place.

This is another cool aspect: outlandish, epic battles between different races. A battalion of Mirkwood elves would arrive at the plot of land outside the mountain, whoa! And you could built some buttress or some towers right outside the mountain entrance. Maybe a monster-infested lake out there too...

The elves would have a plot land, plain and simple... except if you want Lothlorien style. the Lothlorien thing... you'd have to be extra creative again, free camera, three-dimensional trees everywhere... particular buildings for that. Which would be difficult. Hm.

Because you ALSO want a Rivendell-like city. Which is just a plot of land, with an off-limits bit of scenery on the side... the dropping off of a cliff into a valley, which you can't bulid on, you know.

Then you have the cities of men. Minas Tirith-style and plain city-style (Rohan). Minas Tirith is a little more orderly since there are distinct levels of the city. It could be like the Sims where you switch your view from level 1 to level 7 with a click, but you place objects as if things are relatively flat.

Hobbits.... plain and simple plot-of-land graphics. You just have a lot of hills for your residences... you place a dwelling on the side of a hill and a door and some windows appear, etc.

So there are really 6 different types of cities in this game. Subterranean dwarf kingdom, Lothlorien elven kingdom, Rivendell elven kingdom, Minas-Tirith men kingdom, plain men kingdom, and Hobbit kingdom.

[Phantasmagoria]

You could release this as a 6-part series.

Middle Earth I: King Elessar
Middle Earth II: Rohan
Middle Earth III: Moria
Middle Earth IV: The Shire
Middle Earth V: Lorien
Middle Earth VI: Elrond

Possibly Middle Earth VIII: Mordor

(this is getting RIDICULOUS)

however, some people might only be interested in building one of the kingdoms. Some might not want to deal with all the races.

In each game, enemies will be of all the different races, even if you are only playing Lorien.

If a nerd wishes to install the entire series, then the robustness of their systen is their concern and of their wallet. There may be a package available to people with more than one game: a package that would link all of the games in a way so that your different saved scenarios may interact!!!

(this is soooo outlandish!)

[Phantasmagoria]

oh my Eru.

Why don't we just make a CAFE for crying outloud, that has a top-of-the-line station of networked computers in a circle, and each computer has a different race, and all the computers can ultimately interact with one another.

[Rnett]

Wellll, a Middle Earth city-building would be very marketable since there's still plenty of LotR-lovers out there

Who probably don't have the patience to build cities from the ground up. I don't feel introducing magic & mayhem into a city-builder is as easy as it may appear, especially from a marketing standpoint. But what do I know...;)

[Phil Walker]

As a Lords of the Realm loyulist, I think I best speak about what "we" think as I speak not only for myself but the Lords-lovers in general.

Rnett:
Excuse me :eek: !!! Since WHEN do Lords players not have patience and for a builder game?! Did you not forget My Thread (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7246)?! I think you are mistaken on that point.

Phantasmagoria:
Rnett is right about the other comment though. Us Lords fans are NOT into fantasy, mythology, magic, and the like. We are into realism as that is what the Lords games were intended to be, realistic! Don't lump us who enjoy the PURE medieval setting with those into the other things as it is not true.


Sincerely,
Phil

[Rnett]

My mistake, I stand corrected...:o

[Turambar]

btw, LotR rights for anything are going to be super expensive now that EA has their grubby hands on them.

[Phil Walker]

It's NOT EA who owns the rights to the Lords of the Realms games, but VU/Sierra (who also own the Caesar games rights as well) who does, FYI! :eek:

Seems we need to be more clear and not use abbreviations when more than one game has the same. I'm talking Lords of the Realm, where you are pbobably talking Lords of the Rings. Two completely different games!!! When you talk a builder Lords of the Realms is much more fitting compared to the other.


Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith]

VU/Sierra did put out at least one called Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring (http://www.sierra.com/en/home/games/game_info.tab-infotab.prod-L2NvbnRlbnQvc2llcnJhL2VuL3Byb2R1Y3RzL2xvcmRfb2ZfdG hlX3Jpbmdz.platform-global.html) when the movie first came out in 2003.

[Phantasmagoria]

As a Lords of the Realm loyulist, I think I best speak about what "we" think as I speak not only for myself but the Lords-lovers in general.

Rnett:
Excuse me :eek: !!! Since WHEN do Lords players not have patience and for a builder game?! Did you not forget My Thread (http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7246)?! I think you are mistaken on that point.

Phantasmagoria:
Rnett is right about the other comment though. Us Lords fans are NOT into fantasy, mythology, magic, and the like. We are into realism as that is what the Lords games were intended to be, realistic! Don't lump us who enjoy the PURE medieval setting with those into the other things as it is not true.


Sincerely,
Phil




Huh? I'm lost... I don't remember insinuating or saying anything about... magic or fantasy.. at all

[Phantasmagoria]

oh!

Well I'm not talking of Lord of the Realms... I don't know what that is!

And I do know EA put out a whole bunch of fancy battle games right after the movies, like Battle for Middle Earth, etc etc. And yeah, War of the Ring... is folowing the characters through the story but its not citybuilding.

I'm talking about Caesaresque city-building... which is much different..

but it seems now that, since there have been so many other games based on LotR now, they won't be into another one.

But if only you marketed it to look unique!...

[Phil Walker]

Not a problem. So, you know the difference though, Lords of the Realms are TBS and/or RTS games set in Medieval times. My thread was I wanted to include that AND add a CBing aspect.

Lords of the Rings as written by Tolkein, was also set in Medieval times, but he took and made it more into a fantasy world with Demi-humans, magic, and other such things. Both in Medieval, but Realms is the realistic form where Rings is the fantasy form. Hope that makes it clear, and as you can see we now need to clarify WHICH we are talking as both games have the same initials.


Sincerely,
Phil

[Phantasmagoria]

Mhm okay.. sure. (I sorta thought my first post made it clear it was Lord of the Rings, since I kept mentioning the Mines of Moria, Rohan, etc etc) but anyway. No hard feelings :p

I am strictly talking about the Lord of the Rings by Tolkein, and the movies by Peter Jackson...because I think the set designs and artistic illustrations in the film project were so wonderful that they could be the source for the designs in the game as well.

[imhotep3147]

It would be a rather nifty idea if it could be implemented properly....sadly, I don't think there's any company I would trust in the gaming world able to implement it properly...:( .

[Turambar]

wait for someone talented, like will wright, tilted mill, or stardock, or something, some smaller company has to do it.

[Cassiopeia]

It would be a rather nifty idea if it could be implemented properly....sadly, I don't think there's any company I would trust in the gaming world able to implement it properly...:( .


George Lucas got into the video game business many years ago with LucasArts. It could be a natural evolution for Peter Jackson, who's working on a movie version of Halo, as a producer. I think you could trust him to do it right. And he already has the rights to all the design elements.

[Phantasmagoria]

wait for someone talented, like will wright, tilted mill, or stardock, or something, some smaller company has to do it.
Yeah, that was what I thought... a smaller company, sort of like the productoin behind the Syberia games... a small company with a lot of passion and attention to charm and detail.

George Lucas got into the video game business many years ago with LucasArts. It could be a natural evolution for Peter Jackson, who's working on a movie version of Halo, as a producer. I think you could trust him to do it right. And he already has the rights to all the design elements.
Yeah, it would be inevitable that Jackson would be involved in it... if not him, then whatever company has rights to the design elements.

I really like the movie's Minas Tirith :o

[Babbens]

I'd love a the idea of a Middle Earth CB!
Maybe you could choose wich "realm" to dedicate to by selecting the appropriate region, a little like in SimCity4, based on the map of the book.


[...] Lords of the Rings as written by Tolkein, was also set in Medieval times, but he took and made it more into a fantasy world with Demi-humans, magic, and other such things. [...]

LotR was NOT set in medieval times, altough it might seem so (Wiki-link) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_rings);
moreover, there is very little magic/fantasy imo, compared to other titles.

I'm a Tolkien/LotR fan; read the books many times (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion) and each time is as new and refreshing as the first. I read a lot of fiction and non, and LotR is really something unique, eventough parts of it can be identified with that genre or other.

[Cassiopeia]

I read a lot of fiction and non, and LotR is really something unique, eventough parts of it can be identified with that genre or other.

In most cases LotR is the fore-father of the genre in question. There's no doubt in my mind that the "fantasy" genre with all its permutations would not exist to the extent it does today if it weren't for Tolkien and his works.

I just started rereading LotR the other day. I had to buy a new set of books. My set of paperbacks was 30 years old and falling apart. And I had loaned The Hobbit to someone along the way and never got it back.

[Babbens]

And I had loaned The Hobbit to someone along the way and never got it back.

Ouch, don't you just hate it?! :mad:
I'd send those peeps working in some salt mine for so many days as there were pages! :rolleyes:

[Azeem]

In most cases LotR is the fore-father of the genre in question. There's no doubt in my mind that the "fantasy" genre with all its permutations would not exist to the extent it does today if it weren't for Tolkien and his works.

That's partly true. Tolkien as seen as the "forefather" to the genre by many, but Tolkien himself was actually inspired by European mythology and folklore. :) "Fantasy" as a genre goes way back, long before Tolkien. Tolkien just popularized it in the 20th century.

I'd love to see a "fantasy" CB myself. But I wouldn't really want a Middle Earth one. Preferably one in a new made-up fantasy world. The former Impressions team did a fairly good job at "Lords of Magic" so why not a "Lords of Magic" CB? :)

[Phantasmagoria]

That's partly true. Tolkien as seen as the "forefather" to the genre by many, but Tolkien himself was actually inspired by European mythology and folklore. :) "Fantasy" as a genre goes way back, long before Tolkien. Tolkien just popularized it in the 20th century.

I'd love to see a "fantasy" CB myself. But I wouldn't really want a Middle Earth one. Preferably one in a new made-up fantasy world. The former Impressions team did a fairly good job at "Lords of Magic" so why not a "Lords of Magic" CB? :)
*sigh* yes I suppose, I mean we could have *another* fantasy CB, but I mainly want a LotR one right now.

... Lemuria(sp?) or Mu or Atlantis would be cool too

[bexgames]

If they did Atlantis right, I could go for that...but it would have to be someone like TM who would give us all the details we love. :D

[Anguille]

They already did Atlantis...it was the add-on to Zeus called Poseidon

[Cassiopeia]

That's partly true. Tolkien as seen as the "forefather" to the genre by many, but Tolkien himself was actually inspired by European mythology and folklore. :) "Fantasy" as a genre goes way back, long before Tolkien. Tolkien just popularized it in the 20th century.


True, "fantastical" works existed pre-Tolkien. Gulliver's Travels, Jules Verne, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Frank Baum, for just a few. C.S. Lewis was a contemporary and friend of Tolkien's. You could even classify some of Shakespeare's work, such as The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream as fantasy. The popularity of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings I think encouraged not only writers of fantasy, but also encouraged publishers to take a chance on what was probably a low-profit niche market before.

[Son of Moose]

Here is a screenshot of one of my (rather insane) attempts at City Building using the BFME editor. :eek:

Actually, Mighty Gondor was potentially incredibly powerful - it would have been a most interesting exercise to try to demolish all those protective towers with catapults and the like. :cool:

I wonder whether one will be able to do something similar with C4. :D

"Oh, the horror of it all!!" :p