Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

So I hear all these people saying...

24

Comments

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by skydiver12

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/middleearthprev.html

    http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/21/the-game-archaeologist-and-the-what-ifs-middle-earth-online/


    Screenshots from 2003 to E3 2006 (beforethe wowification) Newest first:

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/screens/middleearthss051206.html

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/screens/middleearthss032106.html

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/screens/middleearthss073005.html

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/middleeartholdss.html

    Most stuff you see is just that, a pretty early alpha missing placeholders like trees and grass. The graphics are mostly on paar with lotro by the middle of 2007.

    Most art assets have been reused, some glady didn't. The white tabard was still in bree during beta 2007 and then sadly changed. It even shows why lotro looks so horrible wrong and out of place sometimes, the pilgrim herald is the original going all the way back to 2003 (!), making even vaniall wow humans look modern :)

    Some great concepts have been worked on, like dark and light side, funny when you see today URUKs do all the animations and have some armor textures which had been supposed to be "evil" Human Player.

    What buzzles me is the armor had more polygons than todays lotro models and was more realistic (patterns, layers) than the skintight body paintings some Armor / leather / "Robes" have till today in lotro. And these cloaks, not flapping "attached" abominations of today.

    And look at the hobbit clothing and appearances http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/screens/middleearth075.jpg (Hotlinking disallowed, copy & paste).

    Well some things have been just too advanced i guess, but i'm glad we got at least lotro. :P

    Man those brought me back.

    This was actually the first screenshot they released after the name change to Lord of the Rings Online.

    http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/pc/middleearth/screens/middleearth006.jpg

    I remember the forum whining about the sword seeming too oversized and cartoony, and how the textures were weird, and other people saying it was the camera angle.

    It was also the first red flag that something was rotten with the game.

    This was the shift towards stylized low res cartoon graphics that you have in modern LotRO. It was also the shift towards combat, vs Middle Earth. Most of the screenshots until that point had been of Bree, The Shire, exploring mountains and tombs, camp fires, parties, smoking pipes.

    After the name change to LotRO, almost all the screenshots were focused on action poses and fighting things, and the tag line changed from "Live in Middle Earth" to "Fight through Middle Earth".

    Sadly all our fears were realized when virtually all the good features got cut from the game and they made it a WoW clone.

     

    It truly was the unseen NGE.

    And just like the SWG NGE, it led to less interest in the game, and made LotRO become the financial burden it is today on Warner Brothers. Biggest IP in the world and its barely holding together according to the investor reports.

  • fenistilfenistil Member Posts: 3,005
    Damn those pictures well of course lower res (normal considering the year) look well familiar but also more realistic and people, even aniimals look so much better.  More realistic style,  Ehh sad :(
  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by fenistil
    Damn those pictures well of course lower res (normal considering the year) look well familiar but also more realistic and people, even aniimals look so much better.  More realistic style,  Ehh sad :(

    Turbine and whoever their investers were wanted the WoW audience, and they sacrificed a great game to that cause and ended up with no audience.

     

    MEO started as a labor of love and ended as one of greed. We see what happens to MMOs that are developed by publishers instead of devs that are fans. WAR, SWTOR, AoC...

    It's not how you should make an MMO.

  • SilokSilok Member UncommonPosts: 732
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by trancejeremy
    Yup, that was a completely different game from another company that never materialized.

    Wrong.

     

    I don't understand why people keep making this mistake.

     

     

    Middle Earth Online was in development by Sierra in 1999. It got shut down.

     

    Vivendi and Turbine began developing a game called Middle Earth Online in about 2003 , and continued to develop it until it launched as Lord of the Rings Online.

    In Alpha, LotRO was a sandbox game being made by veteran Turbine devs. It's tag line was "live in Middle Earth". The game was very community based, sandbox and book accuracy focus. The devs hosted events once a year called Turbine Nation where people came together and got to see the game as it came along, play in various events and raffles, essentially a big party.

     

    Well, about a year before LotRO's launch, Vivendi lost the rights to Lord of the Rings, and Turbine gained entire control over the MMO. Turbine changed Middle Earth Online's name to LotRO, shuffled most of the veteran staff to other projects, and put new developers at the helm of LotRO. They quickly scrapped most of the old work and restructured the game to be a quest based WoW clone. There were no more yearly Turbine Nation gathering, the community disintegrated. The game tag line was changed to "Fight through Middle Earth!".

     

    It was essentially the NGE, but because it happened in beta, people don't talk about it nearly as much. But for those that were there, we felt betrayed. It splintered the community, kinships fell apart. Then they announced there wouldn't be any international servers, after promising the opposite, and the remaining kinships fractured again.

     

    Don't believe that Turbine was working on it? Here's the pre alpha trailer.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk0ogD_HMn0

     

    Also, in before "hurp derp that looks like crap, glad they changed it".

     

     

    This.

  • FreezzoFreezzo Member UncommonPosts: 235
    Having tried LOTRO (till about lv25) reading this makes me sad... Where are those great games nowadays? :<

    "We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
    And for MMORPGs ever so true...

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Freezzo
    Having tried LOTRO (till about lv25) reading this makes me sad... Where are those great games nowadays? :<

    Chased away by the publishers so they could shit out dozens of WoW clones for the last 8 years. The winds are finally changing though. There's more interest in indie MMOs, SoE is going full back to sandboxes, and publishers are pulling out after realizing that themeparks do NOT retain subs long at all. Or at least, most devs have learned that (SoE) but some have yet to learn that lesson... (the folks behind Elderscrolls Online)

  • comradedougcomradedoug Member Posts: 30

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

  • GaladournGaladourn Member RarePosts: 1,813
    Originally posted by comradedoug

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

    the first company to get Middle Earth done right in an MMO game gets my lifetime subscription. 

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by comradedoug

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

    It existed for 3 and a half years, and I played it and saw videos of it myself, as well as got to know a lot of the developers who were very passionate about it.

     

     

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Galadourn
    Originally posted by comradedoug

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

    the first company to get Middle Earth done right in an MMO game gets my lifetime subscription. 

    We can only hope that Turbine continues to bleed money until the point where another company gets a shot at the license, but since Warner Brothers owns Turbine now, it'd probably just go to another big publisher and make an even worse game, like SWTOR.

  • dreamsofwardreamsofwar Member Posts: 468
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by Galadourn
    Originally posted by comradedoug

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

    the first company to get Middle Earth done right in an MMO game gets my lifetime subscription. 

    We can only hope that Turbine continues to bleed money until the point where another company gets a shot at the license, but since Warner Brothers owns Turbine now, it'd probably just go to another big publisher and make an even worse game, like SWTOR.

    It may not be the large open world sandbox that it could have been but I honestly don't think LOTRO is a bad game, I rather enjoy it.

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by dreamsofwar
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by Galadourn
    Originally posted by comradedoug

    Wanting a game that never existed. Hm.

    And I thought I was helplessy attached to MMOs.

    the first company to get Middle Earth done right in an MMO game gets my lifetime subscription. 

    We can only hope that Turbine continues to bleed money until the point where another company gets a shot at the license, but since Warner Brothers owns Turbine now, it'd probably just go to another big publisher and make an even worse game, like SWTOR.

    It may not be the large open world sandbox that it could have been but I honestly don't think LOTRO is a bad game, I rather enjoy it.

    And I think it's a dreadful game that fails to capture the spirit of Lord of the Rings entirely, and I feel I have to turn my brain off to try to enjoy it. So far the only joy I've gotten is when I pretend its a low budget COOP dungeon crawler, and not an MMO, because it is so linear and anti social. And even then its ruined by the dungeons that are locked to you and how difficult it is to play with other friends due to the quest based leveling system. And how restrictive the exploration is. (I've never had an MMO auto kill me for trying to explore a high level area)

  • PapadamPapadam Member Posts: 2,102

    MEO is probably the worst idea for a MMO ever. Only delusional fans still cling on to the dream of "living in middle earth". 

    Make a sandbox MMO out of the most restrictive IP seems like great idea... 

     

    Turbine was smart when they made a great STORY driven MMO out of a great STORY. 

    Rohan is evidence on how much love Turbine puts into LotrO and I feel sorry for the ones living in the past! 

    If WoW = The Beatles
    and WAR = Led Zeppelin
    Then LotrO = Pink Floyd

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Papadam

    MEO is probably the worst idea for a MMO ever. Only delusional fans still cling on to the dream of "living in middle earth". 

    Make a sandbox MMO out of the most restrictive IP seems like great idea... 

     

    Turbine was smart when they made a great STORY driven MMO out of a great STORY. 

    Rohan is evidence on how much love Turbine puts into LotrO and I feel sorry for the ones living in the past! 

    Rohan? That expansion that has tons of threads talking about how small/disappointing it is?

    People made a sandbox out of SWG, a far more restrictive IP, and it turned out great.

    Turbine was pretty dumb when they made a poorly shlocked together WoW clone, considering that they haven't been turning a profit in years, despite having the biggest IP in the world. I feel sorry for Warner Brothers!

  • xalvixalvi Member Posts: 329
    Originally posted by Papadam

    MEO is probably the worst idea for a MMO ever. Only delusional fans still cling on to the dream of "living in middle earth". 

    Make a sandbox MMO out of the most restrictive IP seems like great idea... 

     

    Turbine was smart when they made a great STORY driven MMO out of a great STORY. 

    Rohan is evidence on how much love Turbine puts into LotrO and I feel sorry for the ones living in the past! 

     

    I think this poster is delusional. Do you know what a LOTR title mmo is supose to be like? Should be at least second or third leading in the MMO industry. Instead it failed and resorted to a F2P, which is a failure. People left because of the crazy long grind, turning into a WoW clone , terrible and old combat mechanic, terrible GM's, and last of all F2P. 

     

    Just look at the expansions, it went from great to terrible.  Moria was great, loth was a good patch, Mirkwood was a lol, RoI probably put a nail to the coffin to LOTRO; it was terrible, RoR well lets just say people got level 85 in a day.

    The end.

  • PapadamPapadam Member Posts: 2,102
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by Papadam

    MEO is probably the worst idea for a MMO ever. Only delusional fans still cling on to the dream of "living in middle earth". 

    Make a sandbox MMO out of the most restrictive IP seems like great idea... 

     

    Turbine was smart when they made a great STORY driven MMO out of a great STORY. 

    Rohan is evidence on how much love Turbine puts into LotrO and I feel sorry for the ones living in the past! 

    Rohan? That expansion that has tons of threads talking about how small/disappointing it is?

    People made a sandbox out of SWG, a far more restrictive IP, and it turned out great.

    Turbine was pretty dumb when they made a poorly shlocked together WoW clone, considering that they haven't been turning a profit in years, despite having the biggest IP in the world. I feel sorry for Warner Brothers!

    Please direct me to the "tons of threads", Rohan is pretty huge and is probably the most well made zones created in a MMO.

    SWG is the opposit to a restrictive IP, huge universe with alot of freedom. But even that didnt work out very well so they had to change it to a themepark.

    Funny that all the old school guys have s "WoW-clone this and WoW clone that". 

    If WoW = The Beatles
    and WAR = Led Zeppelin
    Then LotrO = Pink Floyd

  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by Papadam
    Originally posted by DavisFlight
    Originally posted by Papadam

    MEO is probably the worst idea for a MMO ever. Only delusional fans still cling on to the dream of "living in middle earth". 

    Make a sandbox MMO out of the most restrictive IP seems like great idea... 

     

    Turbine was smart when they made a great STORY driven MMO out of a great STORY. 

    Rohan is evidence on how much love Turbine puts into LotrO and I feel sorry for the ones living in the past! 

    Rohan? That expansion that has tons of threads talking about how small/disappointing it is?

    People made a sandbox out of SWG, a far more restrictive IP, and it turned out great.

    Turbine was pretty dumb when they made a poorly shlocked together WoW clone, considering that they haven't been turning a profit in years, despite having the biggest IP in the world. I feel sorry for Warner Brothers!

    Please direct me to the "tons of threads", Rohan is pretty huge and is probably the most well made zones created in a MMO.

    SWG is the opposit to a restrictive IP, huge universe with alot of freedom. But even that didnt work out very well so they had to change it to a themepark.

    Funny that all the old school guys have s "WoW-clone this and WoW clone that". 

    Most well made zone? Oh boy... try playing pretty much any other MMO first.

    SWG isjust as restrictive as Middle Earth, and it was working quite well (the second most popular pre WoW MMO) until it became a themepark and then died.

    And we say WoW clone because it is very clearly, very obviously, a WoW clone. Almost everything about it stinks of WoW.

  • CranktrainCranktrain Member Posts: 25
    Originally posted by DavisFlight

    Vivendi and Turbine began developing a game called Middle Earth Online in about 2003 , and continued to develop it until it launched as Lord of the Rings Online.

    In Alpha, LotRO was a sandbox game being made by veteran Turbine devs. It's tag line was "live in Middle Earth". The game was very community based, sandbox and book accuracy focus. The devs hosted events once a year called Turbine Nation where people came together and got to see the game as it came along, play in various events and raffles, essentially a big party.

     Well, about a year before LotRO's launch, Vivendi lost the rights to Lord of the Rings, and Turbine gained entire control over the MMO. Turbine changed Middle Earth Online's name to LotRO, shuffled most of the veteran staff to other projects, and put new developers at the helm of LotRO. They quickly scrapped most of the old work and restructured the game to be a quest based WoW clone. There were no more yearly Turbine Nation gathering, the community disintegrated. The game tag line was changed to "Fight through Middle Earth!".

    That's actually... a really sad story. It's sad to hear that what could have been an actually interesting game was stomped all over.

    image

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Originally posted by Cranktrain
    Originally posted by DavisFlight

    Vivendi and Turbine began developing a game called Middle Earth Online in about 2003 , and continued to develop it until it launched as Lord of the Rings Online.

    In Alpha, LotRO was a sandbox game being made by veteran Turbine devs. It's tag line was "live in Middle Earth". The game was very community based, sandbox and book accuracy focus. The devs hosted events once a year called Turbine Nation where people came together and got to see the game as it came along, play in various events and raffles, essentially a big party.

     Well, about a year before LotRO's launch, Vivendi lost the rights to Lord of the Rings, and Turbine gained entire control over the MMO. Turbine changed Middle Earth Online's name to LotRO, shuffled most of the veteran staff to other projects, and put new developers at the helm of LotRO. They quickly scrapped most of the old work and restructured the game to be a quest based WoW clone. There were no more yearly Turbine Nation gathering, the community disintegrated. The game tag line was changed to "Fight through Middle Earth!".

    That's actually... a really sad story. It's sad to hear that what could have been an actually interesting game was stomped all over.

    Will probably never know why they didnt continue with MEO, but one thing is clear, LOTRO is not the game people wanted, and its utter failure in the MMO market is a clear indication of that, MEO might have failed too, but i think it would have had more of a chance of success than LOTRO did, when you look back at things now, its no wonder that LOTRO went F2P, its probably only a matter of time really before the plug is pulled on it altogether, and after playing the game before it went F2P, and after, i can't really say thats a bad thing. image

  • GaladournGaladourn Member RarePosts: 1,813

    A Lord of the Rings MMO should just focus on creating a huge, living world for players to play in, like EVE for example. I also would allow players to pick Evil races and have the game evolve around territory control.

    Sandbox is the way to go for Lord of the Rings, and anything less is doomed to fail.

  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Originally posted by Galadourn

    A Lord of the Rings MMO should just focus on creating a huge, living world for players to play in, like EVE for example. I also would allow players to pick Evil races and have the game evolve around territory control.

    Sandbox is the way to go for Lord of the Rings, and anything less is doomed to fail.

    which is pretty much what happened by the sound of it image

  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Originally posted by Galadourn

    A Lord of the Rings MMO should just focus on creating a huge, living world for players to play in, like EVE for example. I also would allow players to pick Evil races and have the game evolve around territory control.

    Sandbox is the way to go for Lord of the Rings, and anything less is doomed to fail.

    Wasn't MEO set after the events of the ring being destroyed in Mount Doom (4th age)? All dark forces had been eradicated so you couldn't really be an orc, goblin etc.

    Honestly, I wouldn't have a clue how MEO would work.

    image
  • asmkm22asmkm22 Member Posts: 1,788
    Originally posted by Galadourn

    A Lord of the Rings MMO should just focus on creating a huge, living world for players to play in, like EVE for example. I also would allow players to pick Evil races and have the game evolve around territory control.

    Sandbox is the way to go for Lord of the Rings, and anything less is doomed to fail.

    I don't know.  The world, as Tolkein wrote it, was pretty sparsly populated, with vast swaths of nothing between settlements.  If you read through most of the history, it's a little on the bland side.  In fact, the most interesting stuff that happened were obviously in The Hobbit and the trilogy which, if anything, sort of lend themselves to a themepark experience.

    I love sandbox, but I just don't think it works really well for very established IP's, because the sandbox will always have to be heavily restricted so that players aren't breaking lore left and right just by building a town here, or killing a guy there.

     

    LotRO was a fun game for it's time.  It was just unfortunately developed and released during the height of WoW, which really limited the audience.

    You make me like charity

  • GaladournGaladourn Member RarePosts: 1,813

    it would work with minimal turbine-generated content, and plenty of tools to give players the option to make their own content. And a strict ruleset to regulate the player-generated content (i.e. alignment penalties, Security Levels, etc).

    You cannot imagine what players are capable of doing, if you give them the tools and make it fun. A living, breathing world without any lines of code required for public quests and other similar crap.

    The fact that the world was sparsely populated would be an excellent incentive to focus on terittory control, player city-building, local economies, etc.

  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Originally posted by Galadourn

    it would work with minimal turbine-generated content, and plenty of tools to give players the option to make their own content. And a strict ruleset to regulate the player-generated content (i.e. alignment penalties, Security Levels, etc).

    A sandbox, in other words.

    I think that would ruin Middle Earth in my eyes. They would have to be so restrictive to what players can do to not broke lore/immersion.

    For example NO new building of towns.

    image
Sign In or Register to comment.