Tolkien
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Amazon cancels 'Lord of the Rings' game after contract dispute
Amazon has cancelled its 'Lord of the Rings' game after a contract dispute reportedly soured the project.
Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' TV show can't contradict Tolkien's lore
Amazon's upcoming Lord of the Rings show will stick closely to the canon and history established by Tolkien, a consultant working on the project has revealed.
Gollum is the star of Daedalic's new 'Lord of the Rings' game
The Lord of the Rings universe just keeps on expanding. Even though the original blockbuster trilogy finished up 16 years ago, and the subsequent Hobbit films sort of bombed, entertainment giants think there's still mileage in the franchise. Amazon has announced a forthcoming TV series, and now Daedalic has revealed it's working on a new game, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' prequel will need to forge its own identity
When rumors broke that Amazon was hoping to turn J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings into a TV series, many felt that CEO Jeff Bezos had found his own Game of Thrones. We're still many years out from seeing a final product, but the first steps were taken today: Amazon just announced that it is producing a multi-season series based in Tolkien's Middle-earth. But if Bezos really wants to emulate HBO's wildly popular adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Amazon's series will likely end up feeling rather foreign to Tolkien devotees.
Professor to hold open course in Lord of the Rings Online, asks for bodyguards
Dr. Corey Olsen, better known as Washington College's Tolkien Professor, will be holding an open course in Lord of the Rings Online for any and all who would like to understand the lore of the books by exploring the game. The course will take place on the Landroval server. Here, Olsen (who has a mid-level Guardian) will go through the epic storyline, explore the areas, and compare those to passages from Tolkien's writings. He asked for players to help fight off mobs during his explorations so that he will be free to examine and lecture without distraction. Olsen's teachings will initially be livestreamed on LotRO's official Twitch channel, although the course will be recorded for viewing later on as well. No dates for the course have been set as of yet. [Thanks to Braxwolf for the tip!]
Shadow of Mordor season pass trailer tastes a little Sauron
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment may have revealed its $25 season pass for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor last month, but it's now offering a closer look at the add-ons that pass holders are guaranteed access to. The DLC includes an exclusive Guardians of the Flaming Eye mission and two story missions, Lord of the Hunt and The Bright Lord. The latter quest has players controlling Celebrimbor, "the great Elven smith of the Second Age," eventually encountering the Tolkien universe's primary antagonist, Sauron. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor will launch tomorrow for PS4, Xbox One and PC. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game were delayed to November 18 earlier this month. It received good marks critically, including our five-star review that praised the Mordor's Nemesis system. Head past the break to see the game's season pass trailer. [Image: WBIE]
Hunt orcs in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor this October
Alongside the above story trailer, developer Monolith Productions has revealed that its upcoming Tolkien-inspired action roleplaying game, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will reach retail shelves on October 7. As we mentioned in our lengthy preview from January, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor drops players into the chaotic warfare immortalized in Tolkien's Lord of Rings books (and their subsequent Peter Jackson-directed film adaptations). Players assume the role of a ranger driven by revenge who dispatches foes using agility and combat prowess reminiscent of that seen in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Those who pre-order Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor will receive the exclusive "Dark Ranger" DLC pack. Included in this bundle is a new character skin, new challenge mode and access to the game's online leaderboards. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is slated to debut on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC platforms. [Image: WB]
Lord of the Rings Online renews license through 2017
Turbine has secured the license for Lord of the Rings Online -- for a few more years, at least. Community Manager Rick Heaton confirmed the license renewal on the official forums today: "I just wanted to drop in and address the concerns surrounding the license, again. We have said as far back as July of 2013, we plan to support LotRO for many years to come. I really want to be as clear as possible on this subject to avoid any further confusion or misunderstanding. The license was renewed." For more on the issue of LotRO and the license to Tolkien's works, you can check out last year's Road to Mordor column on the subject.
Middle Earth comes to life in epic Chrome experiment
We're go out on a limb here and say that the Venn diagram of Engadget fans and Tolkien fans looks something like this. So, we figure you'll probably want to hear about a brand new Chrome experiment that brings various parts of Middle Earth to life, including the Trollshaw and Dol Guldur. It starts with a pretty simple interactive map, but from there you're able to dive into several locations and learn about Hobbit lore through text, animations and audio. At the end of each lesson on Tolkien's fantasy world, you're challenged to complete a simple mini game that has you causing flowers to bloom or avoiding troll attacks. While the WebGL-powered games are pretty impressive, its the HTML5 audio and animations that are the real eye-candy here -- doubly so since they work just as well on a phone or tablet as they do your desktop. As you swipe through slides in the story, camera angles change in coordination with your finger and characters dart across bridges. Honestly, even if you're part of that tiny sliver in the diagram that can't stand Tolkien, it's worth checking out the latest Chrome Experiment, if only to remind yourself of the growing power of the web browser.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor takes the Tolkien universe to next-gen systems
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a new third-person action game in development by Monolith Productions, publisher Warner Bros. announced today. As the title indicates, the game is placed in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe, and has players assuming the guise of the "valiant ranger" Talion. Both Talion and his family are killed by series baddie Sauron, leading to Talion's resurrection by a rather vengeful spirit that grants him Wraith-like supernatural abilities. Warner Bros. boasted a "dynamic world" in the game that is expected to remember and adapt to players' choices as well as "craft their own battles, enemies and rewards." While no release date was given for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the game will arrive on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and PC.
Tamriel Infinium: Horizontal vs. vertical progression and the Elder Scrolls Online
The week before last, I talked about a hybrid penalty, and I've realized that I did so without actually talking about how progression is slated to work in Elder Scrolls Online. Because ESO wants to emulate the existing Elder Scrolls games in an MMO, we see many of the same ideas ported directly from the single-player game into the online game. This includes training up in a specific weapon and armor, weapon swapping, and skill-based progression. And if you have played other games' skill-based or non-linear progression systems, then you know about the difficulties of balance. ESO, like other games before it, tackles this imbalance by limiting the number of abilities available to a player at a given time. Skill progression also takes an interesting turn in ESO as well, and I'm not exactly sure how to define it. Most MMOs follow a vertical progression tree in which you place the game's version of skill points in an upward-growing tree or pyramid, with skills following a guided path to the best skill of a given tree at the top. Usually the limitations placed on these trees are based on level, which gives you a finite number of earnable skill points. I call this vertical progression. Although any good class skill system will have some branches to the side, usually the ultimate goal is to reach the top of the tree to gain the best abilities in that given class. Thankfully, Elder Scrolls Online takes a different approach.
'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' arrives on Netflix UK
Netflix users in the UK needn't look to misty mountains old in order to get their Tolkien fix. Starting today, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is available for your viewing pleasure, marking a victory for the site over its competition. Sky Movies has consistently bested Netflix when it comes to acquiring movies before anyone else, but The Hobbit was one battle it lost. The film's sequel, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, is set for a December release, so this just might be enough to tide you over until then. Just make sure your viewing party is a dragon free zone. We hear they make for terrible houseguests.
Latest Lord of the Rings Online dev diary explores creating the characters of Rohan
Adding to the stampede of developer diaries focusing on Lord of the Ring Online's upcoming expansion Riders of Rohan, Turbine has released the fourth episode of Bringing Rohan to Life titled Creating the Character. In this video, Executive producer Kate Paiz talks about how working with the live action teaser gave a deeper insight into feelings and the moment-to-moment lives of the characters in Rohan. Utilizing these insights, Director Mitch Cohen states, "We're creating a three-dimensional world through their performances." But Tolkien purists need not worry that the expansion is based heavily on that short clip made just for the game. Todd Demelle, Online Art Director, notes that the team relied heavily on Tolkien's text to get the feel of Rohan. He highlighted the importance of authenticity, stating that the team was "focusing a lot on authenticity, making sure that the materials and the construction and the various things that make up the Rohan culture are as true as authentic as [it] can make them." The video also treats viewers to some of the vistas in-game. Check it out after the break. [Source: Turbine press release]
The Road to Mordor: LotRO's next four expansions
With under a month to go until Riders of Rohan hits the digital starting gate and gallops past the horse metaphor, expansions are weighing heavily upon my mind. I'm excited about horse combat and a break from traditional questing (to a point), but I'm also hoping that Lord of the Rings Online's fourth expansion will prove far more compelling than its previous one turned out to be. LotRO may be coasting into its middle-age years (in MMOs, every year in real life is like nine for the game), but it still has quite a bit of life -- and journey -- ahead of it. Unlike every other MMO out there, this title has a specific story it's following from beginning to end. Maybe we get off the beaten path of Tolkien's works now and then, but our fate as players is intertwined with the fates of Frodo and the One Ring. It gives us the advantage of knowing more about our future in the game than we would have otherwise. So today I'm putting on my prognostication cap and giving you all the skinny on Lord of the Rings Online's next four expansions past Riders of Rohan. I have no insider knowledge, just a gut feeling and a time-traveling buddy named Soren from the year 2020.
The Soapbox: This fantasy is far from fantastic
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. "More innovation!" is the common rallying cry of the disgruntled MMO player. Push forward the genre, build awe-inspiring giant statues instead of sixth grade art projects, do that one magic thing that nobody can agree on to make this genre as fresh and great and interesting as it was. You know, as it was when you first got into these games, that is. For all of the "more innovation!" speeches that I've seen, I never see the one that touches on the most irksome areas of stagnation in the industry, and that is how incredibly lame most MMO fantasy worlds are. Cut 'n' paste, mix and match elements between any two fantasy MMOs, and I guarantee you that nobody would really notice. The truth is that for all their desire to be seen as unique and special, most of these games feature a world carbon copied from each other with minor Mad Lib deviations. Case in point: Have you ever realized just how many of these MMO worlds share almost the same name? Start with T, usually end with A, there you go. Telara. Telon. Tyria. Atreia. Taborea. It doesn't stop there, but it really should. MMO designers need to realize that fantasy is more than just D&D and Tolkien derivations and explore the unlimited scope of what the genre could be.
The Daily Grind: Do narcotics belong in MMOs?
Be it a sci-fi cantina or a fantasy tavern, your MMO's local watering hole no doubt offers a very specific sort of drug: alcohol. But you might have noticed that non-alcoholic drugs aren't usually given the same chance to virtually corrupt you as do more comfortable vices like extreme violence, gore, thievery, and physics-defying cleavage. Immersion-centric players might argue that narcotics add to the gritty realism of many game worlds and aren't really different from other mind-and-body-altering substances like booze, but developers seem wary of wading into that territory. Star Wars Galaxies, for example, launched with canon-correct spice (complete with "downer" effects) but ended spice production with the NGE. And Lord of the Rings Online implemented Tolkien's famous pipeweed but has resisted bestowing beneficial effects on those who smoke it, probably for fear of encouraging "bad" behavior, triggering political drama, or jeopardizing its age rating. What do you think -- do narcotics belong in MMOs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Road to Mordor: Is LotRO's questing system over the hill?
There's a good chance you're not reading this column right now but instead are fully immersed in the weekend beta for Guild Wars 2: Guild Harder. That's OK. I won't hold it against you -- I may even be playing it as well. Oh, those ArenaNet folks. They make such lofty promises, don't they? They're going to rewrite MMOs as we know them and show us once and for all that we've been playing with Tinker Toys when we could have fully functional jetpacks and whatnot. I don't harbor any ill will against Guild Wars 2; in fact, I'm quite looking forward to it. But as everyone's focused on the game's excising of traditional questing as popularized by World of Warcraft, I thought it would be worth examining just how dated Lord of the Rings Online's questing system has become, if at all. In an era of dynamic events, public quests, full voice-over, and other techniques designed to get us away from the text box questing model, will LotRO hold its ground against these fads or is it truly becoming a relic of the past? Let's dig in!
Why I Play: Lord of the Rings Online
It's confession time, folks. I change MMOs like most people change socks, so while many of my colleagues write about their long-term MMO love and possibly a backup game or two in this column, I'm more inclined to write about four different titles in as many weeks. In fact, by the time you finish reading this, I may well have moved on to something else. That's OK, though, and that's one of the great things about the modern MMO space: There are just so damn many games that there's really no excuse for ever getting bored. And this week's infatuation is Lord of the Rings Online.
See the shores of the Anduin in LotRO's Update 6
Lord of the Rings Online has a lot of ground to cover in its quest to follow the fellowship across the wilds and deep into Mordor. And like the mighty river Anduin, the game is slowly but inexorably snaking its way across the world that Tolkien created. Update 6: Shores of the Great River adds seven new explorable areas to Turbine's digital Middle-earth, and the company has taken the wraps off some new screenshots and videos to whet players' appetites. The patch brings us to Thinglad, Parth Celebrant, Eorlsmead, Wailing Hills, Limlight Gorge, the Brown Lands, and the Rushgore. Take a look at each of these areas in our Update 6 gallery below, then click past the cut for video tours of Limlight Gorge and Eorlsmead. [Source: Turbine press release] %Gallery-149032%
Riding into Rohan: LotRO maps out 2012
In the words of Frank Sinatra, 2011 "was a very good year" for Lord of the Rings Online. Executive Producer Kate Paiz and Director of Communications Adam Mersky sat down with us to talk about the future of the game, but before they got to the juicy details, they wanted to give a quick recap of the previous year for the game and the studio. The big emphasis for LotRO in 2011 was the unifying of the global community and the release of the game's third (and best-selling) expansion, Rise of Isengard. While the aforementioned unification of the NA and EU sides of the game presented many challenges for the team including localization, it paid off in spades. Turbine plans to continue to add more payment options for those used to methods other than the ones currently available. The team was most proud of unveiling Saruman "in all of his glory" and the inclusion of free players into the sphere of Monster Play. "The game definitely grew last year," Mersky said in response to a question about the current number of players. He noted that the playerbase has changed somewhat in the past two years, becoming more casual in some respects. But it's time to move forward! Turbine is prepared to take LotRO players on a dizzying chase around the wilds of Middle-earth with a few significant changes and additions to the game -- and the release of the brand-new expansion later this year, Riders of Rohan. Mounted combat, ho!
