Middle Earth sounds like the perfect place for an RTS. There is a multitude of different races, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. There is also a varying environment, and many different kingdoms. You could choose a race (man, elf, dwarf, ent (maybe), orc/half-orc) and then choose a kingdom (man: Numenorean, middle people, Southron; elf: Noldor, other dudes, wood-elves; orc: Mordor, Uruk-hai, Moria/Mirkwood), and a timeline (FA, SA, TA, FA), which would effect the races you choose, the classes you choose, and the characteristics of Middle Earth and your race/class. Doesn''t it sound like the perfect RTS? You could have campaigns like The Last Alliance, The War of the Ring, The War of the Jewels. [  c o d e  m a t r i x  ]

yeah, sounds great. now try getting that license.
the tolkien foundation are the biggest tight asses this side of
middle earth. i''m suprised they (new line cinema) were actually
able to get another movie authorized since the first attempts
bombed so badly.

heh, get a few ''anonymous'' programmers together and make the game
anyway, just make sure you dont try to sell it or reveal your
identity

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

There is a Middle-Earth RTS in the making, based off the book license. The title is "The Lord of The Rings: The War of the Ring" and it is being developed by Liquid Entertainment of Battle Realms fame.

There also was a game back in 1988 called "War in Middle Earth" with a strategy theme to it. For more details: http://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/entry/wime.html

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For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can''t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don''t remain stone- written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us -- Charles Bukowski

Yeah I think it would be a cool idea. I thought of it a while ago and the only problem I could forsee would be the elves being far more powerful than any other race, but it wouldn''t be too hard to handicap them in some, realistic, way.

I read a bit of a preview on the game Arild spoke of. It sounds pretty awesome, they were pushing big on how detailed they were going to make the game.

Also I know in the making of the movie they actually wrote a program to simulate the warfare, perhaps some of the code for this could be used, although I am unsure how much use it would be, but cool to look over anyway.

Doolwind

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Original post by Doolwind
Also I know in the making of the movie they actually wrote a program to simulate the warfare, perhaps some of the code for this could be used, although I am unsure how much use it would be, but cool to look over anyway.

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hrm, since the developer got the book rights, not the movie rights
i dont forsee that happening.. but that would be cool

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

Just for the sake of discussion, I''m curious how you would design the strengths and weaknesses of each race. Like someone else mentioned, the biggest challenge might be to find some way to make the elves not automatically the best race. They have a lot going for them--immortality, magic, and great skill at making just about anything. I guess you could make them sort of like the Protoss in StarCraft...very expensive and slow to build, but once you get a small group of them they are very hard to kill.

I also wonder how you would distinguish between humans and dwarves, since as far as I know, neither race really has magic other than from artifacts they got from the elves. Maybe dwarves would have a bonus to resource gathering (specifically gold ) and be able to build really awesome siege engines and buildings?

Orcs would be pretty easy though, you could make them essentially like the Zerg, with units extremely cheap to build, but also pretty weak.

This is definitely a cool game to think about, but then I''m a total Tolkien geek.

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Original post by Anthracks
Just for the sake of discussion, I''m curious how you would design the strengths and weaknesses of each race. Like someone else mentioned, the biggest challenge might be to find some way to make the elves not automatically the best race. They have a lot going for them--immortality, magic, and great skill at making just about anything.

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There aren''t a lot of Elves left in ME at the time of the WOTR, and they don''t participate in the main campaign in Gondor.

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For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can''t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don''t remain stone- written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us -- Charles Bukowski

quote:

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Original post by Arild Fines There aren't a lot of Elves left in ME at the time of the WOTR, and they don't participate in the main campaign in Gondor.

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thats something i never understood about the book..
in the first war of the ring (where sauron actually took on
a tangible form), the elves fought side by side with the humans,
yet in the second war they just sat on the sidelines! what a
bunch of chumps!

[edit: except for legolas obviously ]

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

[edited by - eldee on December 17, 2002 11:28:37 AM]

eldee: they knew their time was over; no matter which side won the war, they were leaving. also, the humans and elves had become estranged by this point (with a few exceptions)...

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If you want my take on this, you''d be much better off trying to get the lisence to something like Warhammer. Its more fully developed in terms of strategy. Your initial fan base wouldn''t be so huge, but you''d get more races, and wouldn''t be limited in terms of landscapes. Also you''d have considerably less content creation and everything would be balenced already. For example, say your army of ents? What units do they have? Well really only one. Say Orcs: You have Orcs and goblins... what seige units? What builders? - Goblins again? you''d have to decide and create all of those extra units for the armies. And if you did something that didn''t seem lotr-ish youd have fans trying to assisinate you.

Plus getting a Warhammer license would probably be easier... I dunno.