Hello all.

I have always drempt of having J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastic world of Middle Earth in a game. This really has never been effectively done yet. EA's attempts, obviously were for money only and not really to portray Middle Earth accurately.
As things began unfolding about Oblivion I saw that this was a prime oppurtunity. It was clear to me that Middle Earth had to be in an RPG, and from my long experience with Morrowind, I knew that Oblivion is right now the best engine to have a Middle Earth based game in.

The mod will be a "Total Conversion"...so there will be very few used models from Oblivion. (probably things such as some of the trees and rocks might be used). The rest of the models, quests, scripts, books, npcs, possibly voices, will be made by the team.

What I am saying is that I am starting a mod for Oblivion: The Middle Earth Mod (I will use that until a better name is decided upon). The mod will portray Middle Earth as accurately as possible, using the literature provided by Tolkien. I am aware that this is a massive undertaking, for a single forest in Middle Earth (Mirkwood for example) is easily twice as big as Vvardenfell itself. I am also aware that such a mod is already in existence: Adventure Middle Earth. Due to its German population I thought it futile to apply for it, and I find myself disagreeing with some of the things that they are doing. And most importantly I am aware of the legal issues that caused the decision to end MeMod. My answer to these problems is this: We will make this mod, and if we are asked by the holders of the copyrights to discontinue the mod, we will continue it (we have the right to do so) and distribute it amongst the team. In this manner we are not violating copyrights. We may so venture to distribute it amongst forum goers who contribute ideas and criticism as well...But I find it highly unlikely that this mod, or any Middle Earth mod will be asked to stop by the copyright owners.

Currently I am the only one in the mod. Of course because I just founded it...
This mod, until Oblivion is realeased, will need Concept Artists, Story Writers, and Public Relations. (public relations, would be things like web site desiners). People who want to join this mod, must be enthusiastic about Tolkien's world and have a decent understanding and knowledge of it. I chose here to start recruiting because I don't want major publicity and everyone knowing about it before it's even underway. I know lots of people are interested in Middle Earth mods such as this so I thought I would keep it confined at first.

This mod is going to be very organized (as in development wise). There will be various teams, each assigned to a different region, which contains a different culture. Each team will have the people to complete the work (3d modelers, texture artists, concept artists, scripters, etc.) and each team will have one leader. The communication will be somewhat similar to the army (lol). The team will ask their team leader about design issues and things ("should I put this armory in the town" or w/e) and the leader will either decided or talk the team about it. If the question is very large and significant to the whole of the mod, and the team leader can't answer it, he will ask the mod leader. Which would be me, or possibly someone else or both. In this way it is not a mass of confusing communication, and things will be very structural and able to get done.

If you are interested in joining this mod, please contact me at: rapishorrid@gmail.com. I will answer your questions about the mod in detail. Also if you know anyone who might be interested in joining, either refer them here, or preferably give me their email address so I may contact them.

Cheers -Rapishorrid

Ok, I really hate to say this.

But this will be quite hard to pull off.

Morrowind had a Middle Earth mod going, BUT they had to close it down due to threats of lawsuit, breach of copyright and more. From the Tolkien people that is.

So, you cannot make anything that has any relation to Tolkien's Middle Earth, at all, without their approval.

^^^I know about the legal issues.

MeMod did not recieve legal threats, they identified that there was a possibility that they could get shut down because they don't hold rights to the names and things of Middle Earth.

All though they admit that there is a extremely small chance, if any, that the holders of those rights would shut down a mod like this, they didn't want to risk it, and I think were having some trouble anyway.

The point being, there is a extremely small chance that the corporation who owns those rights will shut down this mod, or any other Middle Earth mod. Adventure Middle Earth has made it thus far without legal trouble and countless Middle Earth mods (for countless) games have been released unhindered. They have nothing to gain from shutting us down, and nothing to lose from keeping us running. It's not like having our mod will decrease sales in their games...

Hope that clears things up.

If so, I'll keep a really close eye on this project.

Thanks for clearing it up then, and .. good luck.

The "legal issues" with MeMod were are a farce. There were problems with the team's communication, also, the team leader was not leading well... Feel free to create a Middle Earth modification, I would look forward to playing it .

Cheers
Brood

I sort of figured there was trouble with the mod...

Thanks for the support guys

If you know anyone (3d modeler, 2d, script anything) willing to join point them to me (rapishorrid@gmail.com) or me to them.

I wouldn't mind middle earth mod, so long as it was not reliant on the LOTR storyline. Don't just transfer the story into oblivon becuase we can just as easily play an LOTR game. come up with an original storyline. So do you research read and understand the silmarillion or book of lost tales. Mayb a Silmarillion based sotryline would be interesting.

Sorry but LOTR and hobbit are a bit way overdone, That's tolkiens story. he provided the lore to create more. so be original. I don't want to be gimli, or eragon, or legolas. already their characters ahve been shown to be awesome. Give us a chance to be an original middle-earth character character, then mayb i'd consider a middle-earth mod. sorry for the rant i'm just tired of seeing middle earth modifications to game, that are all jsut a fickle attempt to replicate LOTR.

So am I. Which is why I am starting this mod

I haven't decided when it will precisely take place...but I am (probably to your dismay) going to make it in the 3rd age. In order to make it as accurate to Tolkien's world as possible I'd need much more information about the lands and everything in them, information that the Silmarillion and other books of that age do not provide. Lord of the Rings provides exremely sufficient and immense detail of the west of Middle Earth. No, I am definitely not going to have the mod play as, or follow the main storyline of LOTR. That's just ridiculous...EA has already murdered that enough times and noone really wants to play as a "hero". At least I don't...lol. So it probably be during the quest of Frodo..but your "mainquest" will most likely have nothing to do with him and protecting the ring or whatever. So I can assure it will be original and I am not beating a dead horse. I am making this to make a realistic, as close as possible to Tolkien's work, mod that pays attention to detail...keep in mind Mirkwood alone is at least 4 times the size of Vvardenfell, so this is a massive undertaking.

EDIT: And you will play as just a completely random person (not a hero or someone born into legendary blood etc.). You may possibly rise to a certain fame (not that of say Gandalf, Elrond or Frodo's but within your....mainquest people you may become important.

One thought I had about gaming around the LOTR storyline (which just proves that I'm obviously far too mercenary)...

"Gee, after the battle of the Pellinor fields, all that treasure in the Paths of the Dead is unguarded now!"



Feel free to steal the thought.

Sure it's unguarded...which means it's free for the taking. Well not necesarily free, you never know what might be guarding it...

But, the battle of the Pellinor fields or basically the destruction of the ring, probably will (not sure) take place after your mainquest is completed and your character deserves these treasures. What I am saying is if you are low level, just created char, you're not going to be able to bust in and grab some loot. And plus, getting there would make a big problem for a low level char...

Thanks for the suggestion!

I thought it was legal as long as you did not derive any profit from the game.

Nope. Even free distribution is "illegal". It's all a matter of if they ask us to shut down though. And if they, do whatever, we don't distribute, it's a personal mod amongst the team. And a few...close friends.

That is extremely ambitious idea.

Hope it works out well.

Good luck.

I have been having this thought when watchng films for years, i think in built we are all mercenaries...

On topic though, is it not worth contacting the owners of the copyright and ask for permission to use their rights. There is a mud game of middle earth a friend of mine plays who had issues with this same problem and found the "scary tolkien law people" were reasonable. I think as long as there was an actual signed thing stating no money will be made from the development of the mod there would be no problem.
I could however be being very naive?

This seems like a good idea, but I wish people would stop asking here for people to recruit for mods. We have no talent! Stay back!

Hey, I just want you to know that I've been waiting for that previous Middle Earth mod since I first heard about it and was REALLY let down when I found out it was cancelled. However, a part of me saw it coming too. They predicted it'd be only a couple years to complete and it was around 4 years later when it was suddenly cancelled. I mean, if you read the the first paragraph on their page...

"Although the team grew in numbers, it turned also out to be highly unstable, therefore the development process halted in the early stages of brainstorming and unfortunately did not go any further for a few months - a temporary downtime of MWC combined with the deletion of all content on the MWC forums meant a further drawback to the mod."

....you could see they didn't really have their s**t together. I would support you guys all the way. I'd even like to help out in any way I could. Only thing is I've never done any modding before but been tempted to learn for a long time (just wish my computer were faster.) I am very good at html though and maybe there are some other side things I could do while I get more knowledgable in modding. Also, I am pretty sure they wouldn't press action against something like this. There've been many other mods out there based on Tolkien material (many for Morrowind even.) Those MEMod guys weren't "shut down", they said on the site that they themselves contacted the Tolkien dudes. Why? Just work on the mod - keep it secret, keep it safe. There are no problems if you're just doing it for fun. It'll just be distributed to friends anyway....and if you make a mod like this, you'll soon have a heck of a lot of friends! ;P

I think 3rd Age would be a great place for the story's setting. It's not only what most people are familiar with, but also has some of the most material. However, if the mod works out, it'd be a great next step to capture some of The Silmarillion as well! Oh and I love the Pellinor fields idea by the way. The story of Lord of the Rings would have to be in there but of course you'll have no true part of it. You may meet/fight alongside some of the characters at some point but really that's their tale and you'll be busy with your own. Can't have things getting too linear, can we?

Last thing I'd like to say is that for something as enormous as this, you need lots of commitment and people who are willing to communicate with each other on a regular basis and we need a leader open to all ideas and there should be a way to outvote the leader as well, say 3/4ths against him? Just spitballing ideas but I the point is I think communication and respect are key and I have very high hopes for this project. Hopefully, I can be a part of all the action as well?

Well this is a dandy idea, however I must tell you all that trying to recreate the battle of Pellinor fields would be pretty fruitless... COnsidering that many peoples computers will chug just looking at screenshots...

However Rapishorrid, if you ever need a PR guy and possibly someone to pull ideas from you can always contact me. My CS skills used to be decent but whent to crap when i stoped playing morrowind.

Hi. I too was looking forward to MEMod and was disappointed when it was cancelled(ad the reasons were indeed suspect). I dont have a lot of time on my hands and i'm not VERY skilled, but i can make some decent 3D models. There are some questions i have:

- the look: based on what was seen in the movies or just ignore those and make your own?
- as you said, the size of the world: morrowind was about 9 or 10 square miles. oblivion will be around 16 iirc. middle earth is a LOT bigger than that. for comparison: fangorn forest is about 1.000 square miles. mordor is about 100.000 square miles. there are about 250 miles between bree and rivendell. you'll really have to scale it down considerably.

theres no need to have the game middle-earth be as big as it would really be. nobody needs forests that huge, because the most important thing in a game is that it should be fun. you can make a forest this big and fill it with hundreds of orcs and trolls but it would really seem like it goes on forever.

roma victor is making europe at 1:2 scale. i think even that is ridiculously huge, but for an mmorpg i can understand. i think even 1:100 scale would be rather large.(this would make mordor 12 square miles if my calculations are correct) 1:200 would then make mordor 3 square miles, and put 1,2 miles between rivendell and bree. thats already far more manageable i think.

if you are not a professional game-maker, so if you do not get payed to do this but it is for fun or just to please people, it is legal to make a mod in which you use middle earth stuff.

It was the Morrowind team itself that were making the middle-earth mod. Because it is their job to make games, they were sued by EA. They lost their rights and stopped the project.

I've been waiting for Roma Victor for a while now. But the 1:2 ratio is great because in ancient times you DIDN"T travel.. Unless you were a traveling merchant or a soldier. Hah, they stated somehwere that it might take a few weeks to get from place to place.. awesome

what? that is just completely untrue. using middle-earth in any way, even for a fan-made mod(which MEMod was) technically requires a license from the tolkien enterprise(not EA. EA just got the license to make games based off he movies. they later also got the license to make games off the books).

but because there's usually little harm in fanmade stuf they dont normally interfere. they could technically put a stop to even things like fan art and fanfics about middle earth. they dont because theres no point.

dont think that because you're not making any money they cant put an end to the project. i doubt they'd go as far as taking it to court because that sort of thing is very expensive. usually they just send a cease-and-desist letter telling you to stop.

what's more, they MEMod team made it very clear they werent sued, or threatened with legal action, by anyone. according to them they stopped because they were afraid they might(though it seems obvious to me they just lost interest or leadership - or both).

are you saying it was the people from bethesda who were working on the middle earth mod? ha!

so lets see.
it is legal to make a mod in which you use middle earth stuff - not true
It was the Morrowind team itself that were making the middle-earth mod - not true
they were sued by EA - not true

I once playtested a Middle Earth (pen-n-paper) tournament scenario set in ME during the events written up in LotR.

We were playing two hobbits who came across an account that led them to believe that there was wild pipeweed growing on the eastern slopes of Weathertop. Having recently been stiffed in the purchase of a pipeweed farm in the southfarthing which turned out to be blighted, we went to Bree, hired some help (the other PCs) and headed off with wagons to harvest the weed and try to make a quick profit.

We'd just finished harvesting the stuff when that nice firework-maker Gandalf came along the road. He seemed rather upset with us being so far from the shire, and told us to abandon our wagon of pipeweed and go cross-country without using the road to (some town north of Bree), because it was dangerous for hobbits to be seen travelling in this part of the world at the moment.

Then he thought again and asked us if we'd take this rather nice ring with a red stone with us when we went cross-country, and to bury it somewhere to the north before going to the town. We agreed.

When we stopped for the night, we saw some sort of lightning storm during the night back south at Weathertop. It was rather odd, since the weather was clear where we were.

We then spent a few days fleeing across country being hunted down by four Nazgul and killed. That's why there were only five Nazgul at Weathertop when Aragorn and co. got there.

It was cool. Fun to play around the edges of a well-known story. We also enjoyed outselves trying to "unwittingly" bring as much grief down on ourselves as possible (by chosing to go under the pseudonym of "Baggins" when in Bree, for instance )

kinda like The Third Age, only fun?

Suggestion...
Let yourself choose what path you wish to take, ranging from a soldier for gondor, rohan. Be a member of the fellowship, if you want. Work for isengard or mordor. Or be a freelancer. Would be extremely huge if you worked all that into it. But it would be pure awesome!

I would help if I really had many skills to offer. Most I would be able to offer is webspace. I dont know how much yet, but my brother is lending me a nice amount of webspace soon. Somewhere in the 1 GB range. It could start as a site for the mod. I dont know about when it is released though. Cause if the mod makes it to being released, it will be very huge.

I might not be able to lend it to you though. Depends on what happens. If the mod gets on its feet then I'll see what I can do.

While moomoo's last post in this thread seems a bit hostile, as far as mood of writing goes, I concur with everything he said about legalities. He is definitely correct within the laws of the U.S. I am not so familiar with international and each nations laws on intellectual property but it tends to run along the same lines as what moomoo stated, so even though moomoo's name is funny, his message is serious.

This has been unusually entertaining for me, considering it's legalities anyway.

I like this idea, I'm sorry i don't know so very much about moding. But i'll help as much as i can