24 replies to this topic

[Nomanisat]

i bought BFME 2 the other day. According to the min. specs on the box, my PC met all the requirements. It was only after i found that it only supported about three different graphics cards. So while i was perusing the net trying to do a price check on a new card, i stumbled upon this site. to my suprise, i find that this mod has all the units BFME 2 has, plus more, and it has incorperated the books much better then BFME 2 ever did!

Thanks RA, now i'm not so depressed.

Did anyone else have problems with BFME 2?

[Mathijs]

The main problem I had was HATING the complete lack of vision EA had when creating their new units and factions.

[JEV3]

Well I enjoyed it, and this mod isn't out yet... Besides there are lots of awesome mods for BFME2 and its expansion...

[m@tt]

Lack of a campaign, units/heroes/appearances that had nothing to do with Tolkien and were noticed by me, someone who has only read the original trilogy once and hasn't even got round to the Hobbit. Naval warfare was boring, expensive and not at all in depth, walls were fucking useless, all old units were the same skin-wise, and it's a rushing game, and I am a player who like to spam farms, build a huge army will all upgrades and slaughter the opposition. Fun for a while but I got bored after completing the campaigns, so BFME 1 is better IMO.

Edited by mh_gollum, 17 April 2007 - 04:11 PM.

[MorgoththeMight]

the thing I hated most about BFME2 is that your farms can be destroyed in seconds.. especially the half-trolls can destroy farms very fast.. I once had 2 troops of (lorien) archers near my farm, and just 1 troop of half-trolls runs to my farm, and destroys it before my archers could kill them... and offcourse: much things that are totally not tolkien like, and many just plain stupid things, like the dwarven battle wagons and 'gorkil the goblin king'.. I actually liked drogoth, but not because it seemed logical or something, but more because it's quite cool to have a dragon under your command

[Uruk King]

what I disliked about BFME II were the unit colours which were disgusting, non Tolkein campaign, low res skins for old units, the lack of imagination, the completely useless walls particularly. But what really got me pissed off was having ROHAN BEING MERGED WITH GONDOR!!

[hdh7]

I hated bfme2. While the original bfme had a unique style and feel, the second game totaly lost that and replaced it with a very typical, rts.

[Canterbury]

Not to mention how infantry could bring down walls

[girtacos]

I liked BFME2 and its expansion except for:
1. SPIDER RIDERS, WTF?
2. somewhat unrealistic campaign
3. Without mods Gothmog had no Warg
4. Naval combat is like Jar-Jar Binks, had lots of potential, used the wrong way
5. Buildings fell way too fast
6. Walls=useless
7. Glorfindel with white hair and Gloin with red beard
8. Fellbeast, Drogoth, and Eagle's death animation is a spontaneous explosion. EA you could do better than that!
9. Walkable walls gone

I in fact liked the Dwarven Battlewagon and Gorkil's Scorpion. After all remember what Gandalf said: There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world. Also look at LOTRO and see what they put in

[Canterbury]

Also how can dwarven heroes slam the ground and make an earthquake? Es no posible

[Olorin]

what I disliked about BFME II were the unit colours which were disgusting, non Tolkein campaign, low res skins for old units, the lack of imagination, the completely useless walls particularly. But what really got me pissed off was having ROHAN BEING MERGED WITH GONDOR!!

The campaign was Tolkien, to a certain point, but it was just boring. Even though it had different missions and objectives, in the end it was all just the same. And you couldn't build up an army! That really pissed me off.

Also how can dwarven heroes slam the ground and make an earthquake? Es no posible

True, it's not possible, but it certainly is cool to watch a little guy make this huge crack in the ground and see the orcs fly everywhere. It's true that B4ME II was aimed at those who have either seen the movies or haven't read Tolkien's work, or at least haven't read past TLotR.

B4ME II was just plain cheap compared to its predecessor. I have very little experience in RTS games (truth be told I first got into RTS with B4ME), but from a gameplay perspective I'd have to say that B4ME II was good. It had very cool features like Create-A-Hero (limiting, I know, but cool nonetheless), base building (even though they had 'unwalkable' walls which was a real let down ), naval battles (not at all effective in Skirmish, but still cool), and a command point limit you can stretch (even though the cp prices per battalion were ridiculous). Those things made it cool to play, but on the other, Tolkien-oriented hand, it was just plain shit! Shit, shit, shit. Goblins riding spiders! Pffft, stupid (although cool, like Gorkil's Scorpion ). All those made-up heroes could've been replaced with real characters from the books, but no, they couldn't be bothered doing their research. And the characters that they did have made you say wtf! a hundred times over. I swear, every time I played with Glorfindel in the Campaign (never used him in Skirmish as he was just plain useless) I almost wanted him to die. His name practically means 'Golden Haired'; what the hell went through their minds to give him silver hair?!?! The only character who I find was portrayed correctly (and was not featured in the first game) was the Mountian Giant. It was pretty cool seeing this huge monstrosity twice the size of a Troll stomping on people. I'll stop my complaining now because I'm getting to the point where I want to smash my computer with a sledgehammer! *runs maniacally to the shed*

Edited by Olorin, 19 April 2007 - 06:13 AM.

[Lauri]

all this EA bashing made me wanna play the game again....

probably to get bored of it a couple of months over

edit: oh, and why did I announce SotS2!?!?! I should've just.... scrapped it before I took it online I like the site though

Edited by Lauri, 18 April 2007 - 03:18 PM.

[Canterbury]

Well EA was successful on the first game because it was based on the movies. The new factions in BFME2 was made from scratch, which turned out to be crap, aside from the other flaws of the game. Maybe by the time the Hobbit film is released, EA can make a more decent game

Edited by Canterbury, 18 April 2007 - 07:36 PM.

[Olorin]

They'll make a whole new game based on that time when the movie comes out, I think. It could work: you can have a Dwarven faction, an Elven faction, a Goblin faction, and a Dale (or Esgaroth) faction, all of which don't suck. If they do make an RTS from The Hobbit I can bet that the factions will be true/er to the storyline, because The Hobbit (as in the book) explains the races in good detail.

Edit: to Lauri - don't worry, your mod will make B4ME II way better.

Edited by Olorin, 19 April 2007 - 06:10 AM.

[King Earnur]

10 things I absolutely hate about BFME 2
1:Campaign, suck
2:Lack of essential troops[get into that later]
3:Still not sized up correstly
4:Gloin[little dwarf big hammer]
5:Use of too may command points on 1 battalion
6:Heroes=command points
7:Almost no new units for old factions
8:Elves didn't get Lothlorien armored warriors
9:Dunedain rangers=different color Ithilien ranger
10: Massive decrease in heroe power
By lack of essential troops I mean spearmen, Gondorian spearmen, lack of Rohan as its own peoples. And in the ROTWK they had the audacity to add Roan spearmen[Rhuduar hillmen with a different skin] to Gondor/MEN OF THE WEST , and I agree Naval battles are pointless and stupid beyond belief

[Canterbury]

Might i add, the Goblins decided to save big money by switching from wargs to spiders

[King Earnur]

Well i wouldn't think that either way it would cost any money.

[JEV3]

I actually kind of liked BFME2...

It is topics like these which make me wonder why anyone even bothers to try making games based on the LotR universe if they are getting this kind of feedback... Someone told me that they keep doing it because it will gain them more money, implying that BFME2 is popular enough to make it a bestseller, and yet in that same topic people went on to say how much BFME2 stunk...

Books, Games, Movies:

There are three very different types of telling a story, each works in their own way: book, movie, game...

In a book you can bring someone's attention to minor details or have really long conversations without inhibiting the flow (Council of Elrond)...

A movie must be exciting and too many talk scenes tend to make it boring... Also each character you make costs money, not a few sentences... so they may be obligated to replace minor characters with more important ones... (Once again look at Council of Elrond, it has very little of the talk from the book, and it doesn't stop the flow by increasing tension by use of Boromir, Gimli, and Legolas...)

A game must be flexible, far more flexible than the movie, because of the fact that you have to make the player feel like they are doing something... For this reason games based on movies or stories are very seldom successful... and many games come up with some story of their own (usually the overused fantasy genre)

Different Types of Games:

When you have an action game, you need skip EVERYTHING that is not pertaining to action and expand on smaller details to make them more epic if needs be (EA's TTT and RotK: Westfold, Tower, Osgiliath, KotD, Southern Gate, Palantirs)

An RPG on the other hand must have a story with enough depth to throw the player into its world, but be flexible enough that the player can decide what happens... RPG's based on movies or books are most likely to fail...

An Adventure game is sort of a balanced medium between rpg and action where you may have to solve puzzles as well as be in epic battles, but you don't decide what happens, and you still don't participate in the less interesting areas while other minor areas are embellished... (Sierra's The Hobbit: Troll Cave, Over Hill, Riddles, Barrels, Dale, Gathering of the Clouds...)

A real-time strategy game doesn't have to be too flexible but you need a huge variety of stuff to make it work as well as originality... For these reasons just mentioned you can't hope to be able to stay 100% true to Tolkien...

BFME - What Fans Wanted

Now when BFME was out everyone wanted elves and dwarves and goblins... EA responded by making BFME2... which is what the fans wanted...

Elves and dwarves were a lot like elves and dwarves from other fantasy games with a Tolkien flavor... This way people familiar with the more common fantasy games don't hate the elves and dwarves from the game... Little did they know that this decision would not satisfy their original fans...

People also didn't like being stuck in a little castle, so they reintroduced the Dozer method... People wanted more cool features and user-friendliness so they added CaH, customizable fortresses, walls which for gameplay reasons couldn't be walked on... (AoE's walls weren't walkable) They added Ring-heroes to satisfy those that wanted to play 'teh uber-powerful Sauron'

They thought that if there was any faction they could have some fun with it would be Goblins... remember Starcraft: Zerg? they were one of the cooles factions in the game... They had all these neat little monsters... but when they tried giving Goblins neat little monsters they made the mistake of using their imaginations for Goblins...

People hated the search-and-destroy missions from BFME1, they wanted a more traditional campaign where you could actually have more interesting battles, and they didn't want to play the same levels over again... So EA dared to embellish the war in the north a bit and took away the old system but included a similar system as an optional single-player mode called WotR...

The Disappointment

And how did the fans respond? Well at first, but soon people didn't like the elves and dwarves, the elves were not Tolkien enough and the dwarves were too cartoony... They said CaH was overpowered and decided not to use them... Ring-heroes weren't faithful to the books so everyone was hostile to the idea though it is probably the most popular new feature they added... They could build anywhere, but then they lost the unique feel of the first game... They also missed the old campaign from BFME and WotR they found tedious and boring... People didn't like goblins cause they weren't practical, but goblins were exactly the same as orcs goblins are themselves in the way they are depicted impractical... but they are defined as cave-dwelling orcs... a believable idea in the movies and EA kept that idea... People didn't like some of the Goblin's units cause they didn't exist in WotR or wouldn't team up with Goblins... !? So there is a fantasy game where nobody wants dragons and creatures!? Who knew? Obviously not EA...

They gave their fans what they wanted... but the fans, wanted them tailored to their own desires... They didn't understand that EA actually worked on this game for at least several months and spent alot of money making this game... and yes they were getting money, like they thought "well this is what fans want so if we make it for them we will likely sell more" They made several patches for the game and even tried making an expansion which improved the game and added a more faithful story line but it still had to have its embellishments... People didn't like that either... People wanted Arnor... Angmar wasn't enough... but if you try to enable Arnor you will see that it is a MotW copy/ Motw-Elves hybrid...

They tried to support modding so at least some people could come to understand what it is like changing the games, to increase the life of their game that was supposed to be a bestseller, so people could turn it into almost anything they wanted...

Conclusion

Personally when they were going to drop the LotR universe... I don't blame them! Good modders give EA credit for making the game... but people are always so quick to say EA stinks and about their shortcomings... but I feel bad for them... it doesn't make sense that a game based on the most popular alternate reality should be received like this...

I would like to finish by pointing out that THE PERFECT GAME DOES NOT EXIST! Neither can a game or a movie equal a book, or vice-versa...

I don't mean to offend anybody, I am just giving my opinion on BFME2, I know I am in the minority, but EA still deserves some credit...

EDIT: Categorized my post!

Edited by JEV3, 23 April 2007 - 05:22 PM.

[Lauri]

I hate posts like this... it makes me rethink

anyways.... I really like EA... after all, they made the awesome game... the first game was really really awesome, while the second one should've just made the 1st one better... instead they made a new game...

So... BFME2 could've been alot better

[JEV3]

I hate posts like this... it makes me rethink read

anyways.... I really like EA... after all, they made the awesome game... the first game was really really awesome, while the second one should've just made the 1st one better... instead they made a new game...

As I stated in a conversation I think that EA made some stupid mistakes... but I don't think that these mistakes should earn them the kind of feedback...

Also making a new game is often considered a good thing... (Red Alert --> Red Alert 2) from my knowledge RA2 is more popular than the original though there are some who like the old one better... which is normal...

So... BFME2 could've been alot better

I agree, but I am so glad they made it as good as it is... and didn't do anything REALLY stupid like TTA... (Which, I believe, was an unsuccessful attempt by EA to make an rpg, and for reasons stated above it didn't work)

I remember there was a time when I was skeptical about being able to summon the Balrog, but with a cool unit like that... I got over it... you often have to forsake realism for the sake of gameplay...