Below is a fresh version... Due to some recent drama withoin the SEE Team where or Lore Master resigned, I feel it's time to once more make an official statement on where this mod is, in relation to the lore!
1) I have the deepest respect for the work of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien! I love what he did and I admire him for the incomprehendable amount of work, passion and dedication he put into his fantastic legacy, even though I find the books a bit "heavy" to read with all the names, places, races and centuries. But it has truly left a mark in modern fantasy litterature, like no other, indeed.
2) I also have an unmeasureable passion for the movies by PJ and co, and when I saw them for the first time I fell in love and was mesmerized and sort of spell bound forever by the wonderful music, scenery, costumes, actors... everything! I admire the writings respectfully, but I love the movies... and as such, I also accept what I see on screen, even though some of it contradict the lore.
3) I was DEEPLY upset when I bought BFME1 and played it for the first time - it was NOTHING like the promotion, and when BFME2 came out I thought they'd fixed it. But they didn't, and it was almost the same game. I thought the game would be a RTS way to "live" the movies, but it was just utterly pathetic.
4) I started SEE to "cure" the game and make it more like the movies and like it should have played, gameplace wise. The emphasis has ALWAYS been on the movies and what they represent. Secondly, I reach for the lore of the books to find info and inspiration on what needs to be portraid. Thirdly, I go to the board gaming and figure collecting universe of Games Workshop, whom I really like a lot for all the expanded visualizations they've done. This means that if the lore doesn't truly say "this and that never existed in Middle Earth" I have no problem adding it.
5) There are many things in the BFME-series of games that contradict the lore even more than the movies do, and some things even contradict the movies itself. Some examples are:
- Heroes have to mysteriously "learn" their skills on the battle field?
- Revivable heroes that can die and come back over and over again, including Gollum!
- Boromir is in Gondor faction despite being killed in the 3rd age!
- Shelob was designed to be a part of the goblin faction despite her being based in Mordor!
- Dragons are highly present in these games, despite the lore stating them to be creatures of the past!
- There's an elven faction, despite the lore describing the 3rd age as a time where the elves have mostly left Middle Earth! The few remaining elves would hardly fill a complete faction, even though they're composed of several elven factions!
- Dwarves are not seen in the movies, but these guys have a complete faction too, despite this was never even talked about in the movies!
- As far as I know, the Easterlings and Haradrim wasn't that clearly described in the books, but in the movies Rhun was portraid like sort of the Persian empire of Middle Earth, while the Haradrim was portraid like nomadic arabs. The conceptual design of these peoples, as well as the Gondor, Rohan, elven and dwarven units was more or less a result of the artistic "freedom" of the artists working on the movies, right?
>>> So... when doing this game/mod, I took the liberty of deciding what goes and what goes not, since it IS my mod, regardless of all the wonderful help I've gotten through the years. It still is my mod and someone has to have the final word on things. Some will love it, some will like it, some will accept it and some will hate it. That's just the way it goes... just as I'm sure that some people probably hate the movies... AND the books?
...Now, we could remove ALL these things that contradict the lore, but it would be pretty hard to make a complete and versatile game that way. I love and respect Tolkien and the world he created, I love the movies even more... but in the end, the mod is just a game, and shouldn't be taken die hard seriously. Gaming should be fun and to make it fun I also need to have the factions somewhat balanced. Not TOO much, but to a certain degree, and thus I might need to fill some gaps with stuff that - yes you got it - might go against the lore OR the movies. Just as PJ, I think I have earned the artistic freedom to (at least to some extent) expand with some interpretations of my own. Hence the Mahûd. whom was invented by GW from the Mûmakil riders we saw in the movies. PJ probably saw them as just another Harad unit, and GW elaborated into a separate people from Far Harad, specialized in taming Mûmakil and offering their services to the Haradrim warlords as a sort of mercenaries. I like the tribal style that GW gave to this subfaction of Harad and thus, I thought they should be a fun addition to Harad faction in SEE. The Lore Master of SEE did not approve and he resigned and left the team cause of this. A bit over dramatic I might think, but I respect his choise. Namo is a GREAT guy and an experienced older man with tremendeous knowledge of Tolkien's work. I admire that, and I thank him for the time he spent with us. For reasons above, I think it would be hard to please him though, with all details of this mod, so perhaps this is for the best after all.
Now, after this looong post, I won't go into any further debates on lore. I'm here to make a mod - hopefully one of the best ever - and for that I can't be involved in long debates on what's right or wrong. I hope I haven't upset anyone, and all I can say is... This is SEE: take it or leave it, I guess
THANK YOU Namo for the time you gave us. You are welcome to stop by at any time, should you feel like it. You know where to find us...
Edited by Nazgûl, 31 January 2010 - 04:19 PM.
