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av_nefardec

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Posts posted by av_nefardec

    RotK EE

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    The confrontation is in the EE.

    If you've played the RotK, you see footage of it :)

    The Mouth of Sauron is also in the game, and there are easterlings in the pelennor fields, like there should be, so perhaps some scenes added there?

    Saruman in the movie dies from falling off of Orthanc and landing on a spiky mill wheel or whatever. You can actually see the wheel in RotK right next to the tower conviently placed there for an impaling ;)

    If you remember from a long time ago, there was a picture released on theonering.net of christopher lee filming this death scene, impaled on this same wheel in front of a green or blue screen.

    Also in the EE is Merry's knighting 'ceremony' with Theoden, I'm sure. This was in the trailers and was released very early on as well as an image.

    Question about heroes/main characters

    in General TLA Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks for your interest in TLA :) I don't foresee the spirit ever leaving. As I like to say (quote, rather), "the road goes ever on..."

    Here's myself on the subject in another topic if this helps:

    9. Well these are so called "heroes" which means that they can only be added to scenarios designed by a person, not random maps. Hero units, like other units can have a morale boost that affects an area around them. Hero units, though, will have a greater than average morale boost over a greater than average area. Also, hero units will have several different abilities that allow them to either blow a horn to raise morale further, heal units, or do several other interesting things. (and these are interesting, believe me, but we're not going to release them just yet) So I guess the bottom line is, these units will be at the forefront of any battle, and you will be very happy with them [wink.gif]

    Also there is a "leader" feature that allows you to pick a leader for your civilization before you start the game. Each civ has three different leader possibilities. So for instance, the First Age Noldor can choose from Fingolfin, Fingon, and Turgon. Each leader has two bonuses he imparts to the entire civilization. This could be for example, +10% all military hitpoints. Each leader also has a penality he incurs on the entire civilization, for instance -10% technology research rate. And then each leader has a few abilities, including at least one unique to that leader. When your leader dies, you lose the bonuses and penalty, but some civs will be able to build memorials (hallows, burial mounds, or for the elves, lays and poems) to commerate the fallen leader, and this allows the civ to retain some of the bonus. Then you must choose another leader of the two remaining.

    Basically there are two types of what we would consider "heroic" units in TLA-

    Leaders

    [Editor] Heroes

    Leaders work as such: to play a game, you can either play a created-scenario game, or some type of TLA-generated (random) map (any game type can use a random map, so this means things like "war of the rings" and "war of the jewels" game types CAN use random maps). Well in either map, scenario or TLA-generated, you can only play in one age. Either you select the age in which you wish to play in a TLA-generated map, or you are given an age in which to play with the scenario.

    Then you can choose which civilization to play as, and this is dependent on the age. For instance, the civilizations available in a first age map are different than the second age.

    Once you pick your civilization and start the game, you'll be able to choose a leader for your civilization. You'll be given a choice of one of three for each different civilization in each of three ages. So the first age Noldor have three leaders available that would be different from the SA Noldor, and so on.

    Leaders each have their own special ability, for instance, Fingon (First Age Noldorin Leader) has an ability called "Manwë's Arrow" that kills any unit (except leaders and heroes) in one shot. Other leader have we'll say "more spectacular" abilities ;). Then each leader has either the ability "Horn of Valor" which basically creates a modest morale boost around your leader unit, or "Heal", which does as it implies. Each leader also has two bonuses that affect the entire civilization - Fingon has +5 Morale (All Units) and +2 Diplomacy (all civs). So all units would gain +5 morale just because Fingon is your civ's leader, and all diplomatic relations would increase by two. (relations span from -20 to +20). Then each leader also has a penalty to the entire civilization, a negative effect to the entire civ. Fingon's for instance is that all tech prices are increased by 20%.

    On top of this leaders are mostly good fighters or are equally powerful in another way. So if the leader isn't a great fighter like Fingon, Turgon, or Fingolfin, for instance, the leader might have really powerful abilities (Galadriel for instance).

    When one of your leaders dies, you can choose a new one from the remaining two. Some civs have buildings that allow you to commemorate your fallen leaders and retain a fraction of the bonus and penalty they gave you while living.

    So that's leaders in a nutshell.

    Then there are Editor Heroes, or simply Heroes.

    These are most similar to what you can find, say in Age of Kings. When creating a scenario you can add these heroic units to the map. There will be quite a bit of editor heroes. Each editor hero will have special abilities, but they do not give the civ-wide bonuses or penalties like leaders. Some heroes will have unique abilities, some will share abilities with others. It really just is a matter of accurately depicting Tolkien's characters. And we are considering a hero creator to allow the mapmaker to create his own hero by choosing a model, then a texture map, then he can add props (weapons, shields) and then he can assign stats and abilities to this hero in the program much in the way we as game designers do. This is necessary because of the sheer amount of characters that Tolkien created. We'd rather have the scenario designers create the heroes on their own, as they need them, than for us to make that many. And then we'd probably allow the heroes to be uploaded and downloaded from our site to be shared with all players. Heroes will be quite a bit more powerful than normal units. Leaders and heroes will be of equal power, the difference is how they are used and implemented in the game, and of course the leaders have bonuses and a penalty.

    Regarding Círdan - he appears in age three as a Noldorin leader, since our TA Noldorin civ is meant to represent mainly the Imladrithrim and the Mithlondrim. He's not a leader in the first age, but an editor hero and you're right, we wouldn't make him with a beard.

    Regarding changes of heroes - like I said, if we make it possible for designers to create new heroes to use in maps, they will have no problem making changes to the heroes over time. The Age of Wonders games have such a hero editor, and I've found myself more than able to depict Tolkien's various worlds with it ;)

    Again, thanks for your interest in TLA.

    Some wierd question for you... ;)

    in General TLA Discussion

    Posted

    1. It's going to be different for every civ.

    2. Not decided yet. We're leaning towards a fixed view, but all in-game objects can be rotated and randomized.

    3. Very different for each civ.

    4. I'm not familiar with what you describe so I have no idea :)

    5. That date I'm afraid is for 0 A.D. Since the programmers must adapt the engine for TLA later, the deadline will also be much later.

    6. Well, pretty much whatever you can find in the books...

    7. I don't know that there is really a measurement you can compare sizes of maps with, because for instance you could just make all the units really small and then zoom in to make maps big, or you could just make huge terrain maps. So there's no way to know exactly how big in comparison to other games they would be, since each game has different proportions, etc, but I will tell you that we will make the maps big enough to capture the epic scale of Tolkien's writings.

    8. Yes there are ladders, towers, catapults, ballistas, rams, sappers (explosive guys), tunnelers, and we'll just say "surprise" siege vehicles for morgoth's FA civ ;) You'll have to read the Lost Tales Part 2, The Fall of Gondolin to know, it's hard to describe ;) Also there are stone trolls (aka cave trolls) and olog-hai, which are basically intelligent, strong hill trolls with lots of armor who are all capable of siege, and there are balrogs, drakes, and wyrms as well. Recall too that groups of units can attempt to force gates open. And you can put siege engines atop ships to use as a coastal siege platform. There should be no shortage of sieges since they factor so greatly into Tolkien's works ;)

    9. Well these are so called "heroes" which means that they can only be added to scenarios designed by a person, not random maps. Hero units, like other units can have a morale boost that affects an area around them. Hero units, though, will have a greater than average morale boost over a greater than average area. Also, hero units will have several different abilities that allow them to either blow a horn to raise morale further, heal units, or do several other interesting things. (and these are interesting, believe me, but we're not going to release them just yet) So I guess the bottom line is, these units will be at the forefront of any battle, and you will be very happy with them :S

    Also there is a "leader" feature that allows you to pick a leader for your civilization before you start the game. Each civ has three different leader possibilities. So for instance, the First Age Noldor can choose from Fingolfin, Fingon, and Turgon. Each leader has two bonuses he imparts to the entire civilization. This could be for example, +10% all military hitpoints. Each leader also has a penality he incurs on the entire civilization, for instance -10% technology research rate. And then each leader has a few abilities, including at least one unique to that leader. When your leader dies, you lose the bonuses and penalty, but some civs will be able to build memorials (hallows, burial mounds, or for the elves, lays and poems) to commerate the fallen leader, and this allows the civ to retain some of the bonus. Then you must choose another leader of the two remaining.

    10. That's quite impossible to know at the moment, but from a game designer's balancing viewpoint, to kill with 2 or 3 shots would make the game quite frustrating. You must remember a game like TLA is representative of the whole army, not the individual units in the battle. So attacking one unit with an archer is like attacking several of those units in "real life". But a unit that has no pierce armor pretty much will get mowed down by archers :P :P

    Don't be afraid to ask questions. We don't mind answering them at all as long as they aren't repetitive B)

    Decipher Card Game

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    And in the two towers, look at some of the names they made up for Galadhrim warriors!

    Erethón

    Fereveldir

    Ferevellon

    Ordulus

    Pengedhel

    Thandronen

    Thónnas

    And in the two towers card game they included Faramir's named rangers:

    Damrod

    Mablung

    (just missing Anborn i believe)

    They included the Uruk, Mauhúr, who was with the party that captured Merry and Pippin.

    Some Rohirric names:

    Unferth (Grima's bodyguard in the card game) Unferth was the name of the ill-mannered man in Beowulf who challenged the title character. What a great name given the author of the books!

    Some more names appearing in the cards and their relation to Tolkien's work

    Aldor - Was King of the Mark

    Ceorl - a messenger of Rohan at the fords of Isen

    Eothain - a rider in Eomer's company

    Guma - no connection, but anglo-saxon enough for me :)

    Hlafwine - no connection, but anglo-saxon

    Léod - Father of Eorl, the first king of the mark

    Weland - no connection

    Pretty cool, huh?

    They really put some time into rooting this in the literature!

    Decipher Card Game

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    I was looking at their website:

    http://decipher.com/indexes/index-lotrking.html

    And they released the return of the king cards, you know. It's interesting to see tribute paid to some "minor" characters of RotK

    Gondorian soldier names:

    Iorlas - name of Bergil's Uncle, so either Beregond's brother or brother-in-law

    Vorondil - Steward of Gondor who killed the wild Kinë of Araw

    Derufin - son of Duinhir, lord of Morthond, who brought 500 bowmen to Minas Tirith.

    Dervorin - lord of Ringló Vale, who brought 300 footmen to Minas Tirith

    Targon - stablemaster of Minas Tirith

    Cirion - the steward that gave Calenardhon to the Eotheod, which became Rohan, and the people the Rohirrim.

    Ingold - one of the guards of the northern gate of the pelennor.

    And names that aren't in Tolkien's works but have root in them:

    Madril (Faramir's aide in the movie) similar to Mardil, steward of Gondor and Mablung, one of Faramir's rangers in the book.

    Rohan names:

    Gúthlaf - Theoden's personal banner bearer

    Déor - King of Rohan

    Apparently Elfhelm WAS a character in the movie, but they just decided not to name him. Elfhelm was and should have been the marshal of the East-mark after the passing of Théoden.

    The cards make note of Eomer's horse - Firefoot.

    Grimbold is a card, and he was in the books the marshal of the west-mark slain at the battle of the pelennor fields.

    They accurately name Eowyn's horse, Windfola!

    Minas Morgul -

    They accurately include the river next to Minas Morgul, Morgulduin

    They give names to all the ringwraiths!

    Úlairë Attëa

    Úlairë Cantëa

    Úlairë Enquëa

    Úlairë Lemenya

    Úlairë Nelya

    Úlairë Nertëa

    Úlairë Otsëa

    Úlairë Toldëa

    Plus of course the Witch King of Angmar/Morgul

    There's no evidence to suggest these were real names, and they are made up (actually it is a fact that the second-in-command ringwraith was named Khamul), but it seems like actual Quenya, and I'd be interested to know what the meanings are :);)

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