22 replies to this topic

[robnkarla]

Hello all,

I've got another poll I wanted to start. Though Arnor is where I began learning a lot of how everything works as I began to flesh out my modding skills, I'm thinking about removing them. (I only began modding after RotWK came out.)

I have two factions that have been added to RotWK:
1) Arnor which is pretty much near complete codewise, though models/skins still need to be done.
2) Rohan which was really only added for the campaign, but I was requested by a number of people to add it to skirmish/multiplayer. While the models are near complete, I still have some units/heroes and power tree to develop.

To the point, which factions would people like in the mod? I really do not want the factions to be the same as all other mods, but this is definitely a war of the ring era mod.

[Devon]

i voted remove arnor, because except for some of the awesome skins, theyre basically a copy of motw/gondor. Idk what you mean by flush out rohan, but i think they should definatly be kept. I vote for replace angmar with evil men, but i could go either way on that. Only like a 55-45% preference.

[Allathar]

I'd myself remove Angmar and Arnor because they are from 'the past', however I voted to keep them because it's a cool faction to use and many people like to play with it.

Rohan should definetly stay. In Fin's expansion there are some good building models added to it, including the Helms Horn which now is seen in the fortress.

The faction I'd really like to see is Evil men. See my thread about it for details.

[Sûlherokhh]

Some of the Angmar Heroes could find a place among Mordor or possibly EvilMen, just as some Arnor Heroes might be reused as different heroes for Gondor/Rohan (different provinces come to mind).

[JEV3]

I don't want to criticize anybody, but I am seeing an awful lot of evil men factions... BoG was planning to have one, WotE has one, and more and more mods are getting them... Also there are even more mods that add Rohan as a faction... Personally I am not real excited to play 3+ mods that have Rohan and Evil Men... I will probably only want to pick one, and most other people will do the same... The more new the ideas in your mod are, the more exciting it is...

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...For RJ-RotWK, it does seem ridiculous to make a Rohan faction and not include it in skirmish I agree with that, but might I suggest trying something else besides Evil Men to replace Angmar? The problem with the setting of the mod is that in the WotR the only real bad guys were Isengard and Mordor, with Goblins taking care of anybody that doesn't have any real allegiance...

If you don't yet have seven factions (which is the limit for full interface) or if you want to add an eighth one (which still has CaH)... Why not try splitting Mordor into Udun and Morgul, I don't know of a mod for BFME2 that does that it would probably be real cool... Harad could play a small but instrumental part in Morgul to sort of compensate the sorcerish and creepish feel it should have, and Rhun could go to Udun (since in the movie they were ONLY seen at the Black Gate) That would make it really cool in the campaign, especially if you split it further still (just for the campaign) to include Harad only armies and Rhun only armies... but for skirmish they could stick with the designated factions.

I'm against Evil Men, and though I'm against Rohan I can see where it is rather pointless not to include them if they are already in the campaign...

[robnkarla]

Some of the Angmar Heroes could find a place among Mordor or possibly EvilMen, just as some Arnor Heroes might be reused as different heroes for Gondor/Rohan (different provinces come to mind).

Yeah, that is kind of what I was thinking. For Arnor at least, I was gonig to change Side = Arnor to be Rohan and then I could have an AI that would work without changinig every maps and maybe I could get rid of my game.dat error. I might give some retextured units to Gondor.

As for Angmar, I really like a lot of new style as a faction and I would try to capture some of that feel for Evil Men. If I did have Evil Men then I might have a sub-group within them that would be the Sorcerers, Thrall Master types, & the Blue Wizards (I would probably use Morinehtar and Rómestámo as their names since Alatar and Pallando have been used too much).

Karsh would probably go with Evil Men or Mordor, I maybe might give the Mordor Witchking his Angmar mount a little retextured, Hwaldir would go to Isengard. I would then split up the rest of the units to the other factions. Wolves, Trolls, & a toned down 25pp wolf would go to the Goblins. That would flesh out the evil factions pretty well. I'd just have to come up with the 5-6 heroes for the evilmen and probably a few units. I'd miss the frost arrows and damage. These were some of the ideas I was playing with.

I thought it would be nice to keep the game in the WotR timeframe. If I had known more of what I was doing when I started I might have done it with BFME2, but I'm still happy that it is for RotWK.

[Allathar]

'bout Evil Men heroes, I found this on wikipedia:

The Middle-earth Role Playing game and the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, the latter based on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, both include original material about Harad and the Haradrim. In the former, the Haradrim language is called "Haradiac". In the latter the leader Théoden kills is called "Suladân the Serpent Lord", its forces include assassins called "hasharin", and other names such as "Dalamyr", "Kârna", "Badharkân", "Hidâr", "Nâfarat", "Abrakân", and "Dhâran-sar" appear.
However, original information from these and any other games is not considered canonical.

Castamir, a corsair of Umbar, is a canonical early-third age hero (BoG uses him), other than that first age heroes of the easterlings were Ulfang, Ulwarth, Uldor and Ulfast. Men often named themselves after their ancestors so it'll fit into it. The 'Wars of the East' mod also has some heroes.

EDIT: Now you've changed the poll to 'remove Angmar and add Evil men instead' I'll revote on remove. So that will make it 2-6.

Edited by Allathar, 26 April 2007 - 06:52 PM.

[Devon]

I think it would be fine to add evil men as long as u make them unique with some new ideas, like ea did for angmar by thrall master and sorcerer. As for Rohan, ea should never have combined them in the first place, so its understandable why so many mods have them.

[Allathar]

Perhaps some 'mini-faction' system would be nice and original, where you'll have to unlock them in the fortress. i.e. a 2000-cost upgrade which unlocks haradrim buildings and units.

[Gherrick]

Kharsh won't fit with Mordor so I think he should go to Evil Men as "Evil spirit summoned by Blue Wizards to help Sauron" or sth. like that

[JEV3]

You guys are incorrigible...

I still think a split between Morgul and Udun would be cooler... way cooler... but it is not my desicion. I will however tell you that I am not excited by the Evil Men idea and to tell you the truth, the idea sounds so stale that I am almost to the point where I am starting to find Evil Men factions distasteful even in some of the bigger mods such as BoG and WotE, unless they are really different and unique...

I am not trying to hurt anybody but I really want to make sure that I've made my point, its your decision, not mine... but I really want to see this mod have some unique and exciting features, not ANOTHER Evil Men.

BTW: I'm not saying that the BFME1 campaign is not unique, because imo it is a breakthrough! It's just that I don't play very much so if I am going to play a mod I have to be REALLY excited about it... for that reason I don't generally play small mods...

[Allathar]

A split between Udun and Morgul would be original, but wouldn't the factions be almost the same? To get the good 'feel' of the factions, you'll have to make both of them orc-spammers. And so the factions would look too much like eachother.

After all it's robs decision...

[Gherrick]

Don't you saw? He was joking

[Devon]

ummm, i actually dont think he was.

[JEV3]

Morgul would play more with sorcery and stuff and would be about sneak attacks with really powerful support units and heroes... Udun would be a (semi)spammer but have some really powerful units for mid-late game... They will be pretty plain as far as spells go compared to Morgul, but they could still have some interesting ones...

Goblins should be the real spammers, only, they aren't

EDIT: Where did you get the idea I was joking?

Edited by JEV3, 28 April 2007 - 07:53 PM.

[Gherrick]

Morgul would play more with sorcery and stuff and would be about sneak attacks with really powerful support units and heroes... Udun would be a (semi)spammer but have some really powerful units for mid-late game... They will be pretty plain as far as spells go compared to Morgul, but they could still have some interesting ones...

Goblins should be the real spammers, only, they aren't

EDIT: Where did you get the idea I was joking?

Well you sounded ironically

[robnkarla]

You guys are incorrigible...

I still think a split between Morgul and Udun would be cooler... way cooler... but it is not my desicion. I will however tell you that I am not excited by the Evil Men idea and to tell you the truth, the idea sounds so stale that I am almost to the point where I am starting to find Evil Men factions distasteful even in some of the bigger mods such as BoG and WotE, unless they are really different and unique...

I am not trying to hurt anybody but I really want to make sure that I've made my point, its your decision, not mine... but I really want to see this mod have some unique and exciting features, not ANOTHER Evil Men.

You are right. The last thing I want people to think is, not another Evil men faction. If I ever did an Evil Men Faction I would only do it if the faction was as unique as Angmar. Without mods, Angmar really is the only unique faction compared to the others. I think I'm transforming Mordor into a more unique faction. My goal is not necessarily to add a bunch of new units, only those that I think are needed to balance out the factions. I have added a bunch of heroes, mainly for the campaign but also because there are some people I think shoud be in the game.

The biggest attraction for adding an evil men faction is two-fold. Almost all of the mod is based on the WotR and Evil men I think they are a vital part of that war and the campaign. I also think it would be fun trying to come up with a base/castle for them.

Again, this mod is not about changing/adding the units as much as it is about redoing gameplay with the 3 new areas. I want to mix the styles of BFME1 and BFME2, so I have the campaign & BFME1 style maps. So while the mod doesn't boast an array of new models/units outside of heroes and bases, it has added a huge amount in terms of gameplay and when I'm finally finished it should add at least 40-50 hours in just one run through of single player content not to mention the amount of gameplay added in the new multiplayer/skirmish modes.

So the question of Evil Men vs. Angmar is really a different question to me, though the decision could mean a lot of work. Similar to Rohan where for the campaign I fleshed it out as a playable faction to re-create the feel of the campaign I would do the same for Evil Men. So for the campaign, mainly for when I get to the evil campaign, should the evil men be their own faction? I think in this respect it will be good. For the good campaign I would have a bunch of new maps where you would fight only evil men instead of mordor in the 20+ mordor maps.

For the evil campaign, they would have their own area and would have their own storyline in their portion. I will focus mostly on the south and the battles there. The evil campaign then would have the same number of factions, which each hero - Saraman, Witchking, Goblin King, & the Black Serpent - having their own areas to start instead of 2 mordor or just 3 heroes. I'm really just planning far in the future. It will be some time until I start the evil campaign, and it is not needed for the mod, but I'd like to have as much of the faction lined out so I only have to do map scripting for the large maps once instead of redoing with each addition I add in the future. (Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and other Gondor maps) .

Ah well, thank you for all the feedback. I've gone on a little too long.

Robert J.

BTW: I'm not saying that the BFME1 campaign is not unique, because imo it is a breakthrough! It's just that I don't play very much so if I am going to play a mod I have to be REALLY excited about it... for that reason I don't generally play small mods...

Ah, so now you're calling my mod small as well as not unique.

JK.

[fehik]

I don't understand why you can't add all the factions, i mean in skirmish and multi you can kepp Angmar and Arnor and add a 5th evil faction, it would be nice to have 10 factions.

[robnkarla]

I don't understand why you can't add all the factions, i mean in skirmish and multi you can kepp Angmar and Arnor and add a 5th evil faction, it would be nice to have 10 factions.

I might keep all of the faction if I can just get a new AI to work for all. I'm getting game.dat errors when the AI tries to control any new faction I create. If someone can solve this for me, I'd think about keeping all factions in. If anyone has gotten an AI for a new faction using a side other than Arnor to work, please let me know. I could use help trying to figure out what is causing this. As far as I can see people have only been able to use existing factions just changing everything about them.

The farthest I can get is to have the new faction completely playable by the player, and the AI starts to build the base but a few minutes into the game it crashes. If I can get it to work, I do not mind keeping all the factions in and working on creating new units for the new factions if I want them.

Edited by robnkarla, 29 April 2007 - 08:56 PM.

[fehik]

I loved the tower guards and soldiers of rhun in bfme1, so if you can pls readd them into the game(to the inn or smthin like, or for the soldiers of rhun, you can make them a hero horde, replacing the nazguls, you add to them some leadership powers and a few more, more health, armor and so
on) And for the gondor bfme1 tower guards, they can be too a hero horde, if you make a debuff to the Knights of dol amroth, and make them regular units, and take out the regular tower guards from the barracks, and reolace them with Minas tirith spearmen.