Hello everyone!
Time for the update most of you were so eagerly anticipating! Well, we had some extreme incidents, too. Someone was dying to get an update, for example! Yeah we get a lot of that lately, hehe!
Anyway, the reason of this delay in updates, is that Aoikani and noirdesir were preparing the Dev Beta and everyone stopped working for a couple of weeks. So there weren't many things to show you. Almost everything now, however, is running smoothly again and you will surely have a clean and polished Beta in a few weeks!
So if you like what you have and will see, and appreciate the amount of work us devs have put on the mod the past year or so, please vote for us in the Mod of the Year Awards!
Let's get to the point now!
Exteriors
Rohan is the second region we are working on and we are aiming to finish it after Eriador is finished. Noirdesir is working on it and the outcome is breathtaking! Don't you think?
~Gap of Rohan~
~Distant view of Isengard~
~Isengard and its gardens~
~Shadowfax in the plains of Rohan~
Next thing i want to show you is Minas Morgul! I know you have seen it already, but you haven't seen it placed, huh? By the way, you may want to increase your screen's brightness a bit.
~Minas Morgul~
Imagine being there listening to a creepy piece playing in the background!So, that's all for the exteriors. Now we move on to the Visual Development.
Visual Development
Let's start with the Troll armor made by JustB. This armor will be worn by some cave trolls in Moria and maybe other trolls recruited by Sauron. (No you can't take it if you kill one)
~Troll Armor~
Now, let me introduce you to our new friend! JustB calls him Fred! And yes, at the back of his head, he will have a knot there, where his hair is a bit high. So, here he is! Freddie the Uruk, made by JustB! His head anyway...
~Uruk-Hai face~
Up next is our new currency system. We'll have different coins for every faction and the coins will with different value, material and size. Here's what i mean. The following coins are made by Merong.
~Coins~
As you can see the materials from right to left are, iron, bronze, silver and gold. Here is the way it goes:
NAME - MOTIF
-----------------------
Dale - Bow & Arrow
Gondorian - Tree
Shire - Dragon
Rohan - Horse
Dwarven - Axe & Hammer
Erebor - Lonely Mountain
MATERIAL - VALUE
-----------------------
Iron - 1
Bronze - 5
Silver - 10
Gold - 20
What do you think?
Finally, let me show you two amazing concepts made by Chestman, a new member of the team. The first one is a Mallorn Tree. It's more of an idea for how the flets and houses might be laid out. It will be slightly different so next time i'll show you the final cocept. Just a preview for now.
~Mallorn Tree Concept~
The second concept is the entrance of Torech Ungol(Shelob's Lair).
~Torech Unglol Entrance~
Creepy, isn't it? Imagine entering that place!
Music
Let me end this update by presenting you two merry pieces by Abbottaerospace! Both will be played in taverns all around the Shire.
Don't forget to listen to them
For those who wonder if we are still alive, i think this is enough to prove it to you!
Don't forget to vote for us!
Also don't forget to visit:
our Dev forums if you want to contact us or you need any help and
our new YouTube Channel
If you want to apply for MERP post an application HERE
Any ideas and suggestions are always welcome!
That's all for this news update! I hope you liked it! More to come soon!
Thank you for your support!
~MERP team~
Is there going to be mounted combat?
Yep! A video might be shown in the next update or the one after it ;)
Wonderful! What would rohirrim be without mounted combat!
How about decapitations and other effects that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside?
No decapitations or anything like that :P
:'( what a shame. Let's hope someone ports deadly reflex.
sweet, can't wait for those few weeks to pass ^^
fantastic as always
good news!!
nice work!! (;
Supreme. This is very high quality work. Good job! :-D
sweet!
very nice pdate,
but is it my pc, or are there no pics for the uruk and the troll armour?
i can't see them!
this is a great update! distant isengard view was awesome!! nice! but i'm having the same problem us MC_Fred:(
Looks fabulous! Keep it up!
For some reason the Moddb stuff left the 2 screenshots and the music pieces out! Let me take a look.
Sweet muffins! This is a great update, I abstained for voting in MOTY awards in hope you'll deliver an update. And here it is!
PS. Apparently, some pictures are missing:
Troll armour
Uruk Hai's face
Shire Tavern 1 & 2
Apparently the Moddb stuff have left out the best stuff :P I'll take a look at it ;)
You could just post it in images gallery ;)
AWSOME, i rly cant wait for this to come out
the "gap of rohan"-sreen shot is more than awesome! EPIC!!!
Amazing update as usual. Definitely deserves at least a mention in the MotY. :) Voted.
How far are you from being finished?
I'll quote myself: I can't really say as there are departments like Scripting, Quests, Modeling and Animations, that you can't really know how much % of them is finished. That is because we keep discovering more and more quests, scripts, models and animations to make, for example.
what are the beta features ?
complete map ? creatures ?
You'll see all of them in the pre-release update as there will be more than what we have now ;) We have a whole month ahead of us.
*Raises hand politely*
Excuse me, first-time asking a question, and I have a really stupid, blunt question that I know will probably get a NO because you guys are all over the beautiful lore Tolkien left. Maybe ya'll have answered it before, but I'm too gosh darn lazy to go check.
Romance: YES or NO?
Yup, I'm stupid enough to ask.
*Waits quite patiently for the bashing to begin*
*picks up baseball bat*
WHAT KIND OF A QUESTION IS.......Just kidding :P lol
Don't worry we aren't usually the bashing type. As for your question, there are different answers depending on what you mean. Will the mainquest involve romantic elements? Mostlikely not since the Ringbearer storyline follows the lore extremely closely and the other planed "storyline" focusses on helping defend the Free Peoples throughout Middle Earth, which leaves little room for Romance. Now we may in the future once we are deep in the quest developement phase develope a somewhat romantic storyline for the player to take part in as a side quest; we'll just have to wait and see. Now there will be many books in Middle Earth so there will probably be quite a few romantic/emotional books to read and the romantic instances from the book such as Aragorn's wedding in Minas Tirath will occur in game ;).
You guys are awesome ^^
I have a suggestion, and would actually be willing to help you if you like the idea. Oblivion was an awesome game, but I think I would've missed a lot if I hadn't read about all the random stuff in various wikis. That kinda breaks the immersion though, and I came with the idea of making in-game libraries. I definitely don't want to have all the spoilers in there, but it'd be nice to have some information about the MERP world inside the game itself. Like if you do remove the map, compass and stuff, some geography books, with some kind of information about finding different locations would be nice, and still 100% realistic. I don't know anything about modding, but I think the only problem would be in writing the books with the info and creating some indoors (the libraries).
And again: I can help you with the writing if that's a problem. So, what you think?
Yes we will include such books ;)
(Short answer as you have posted in the forums too i see)
youre mod is too great to be real and i think im gonna cry, when you release the first final version. Seeing Isengard far away, getting on my horse and riding there. And from there to Minas Tirith.
But i think the mallorn tree is too big. And i think there is a little plate on it and not a hole City^^. Thats just one thing and if you leave it like now, it wont change one bit of the greatness of the mod
go on and make everyone here happy xD
Thank you for your kind words! Concerning the Mallorn tree, as stated in the description, it's a WIP. ;)
Amazing
I've made you guys a song =)
mail me at oreipoeta@gmail.com if you want it, and I'll mail back it to you ^^
hi, congratz on the awesome work, can't wait for full release:P
Now, i couple questions, and i totally understand if you can't answer something.
1- i like to be a magic based character, and i've read somewhere you said you won't include fireballs and any magic powers like that ( it does not fit the lore obviously) but when we get to like an amazing uber level, if we are elves, for example will there be like mini-floods or something?( each race would have like a super power os something for magic adepts) imo it would be prety awesome.
2- how many member is the team composed of currently?for such a huge mod i can't imagine how many hands are working for so consistant updates
3- is sauron gonna be acessible for the player to interact? when we get know or famous or whatever, can he employ us( give us quests) or we'll have a chance at killing him?
4- will we be able to pocess the one ring and basically own everyone?
Thank you , congratz once again and sorry for the huge message
Hello guys , this is the best mod i have ever seen and I cant wait for next beta release.
I just wanted to ask if there ll be races for elves ... you know like Noldors, Sindars etc. or only one race - Elves? Thank you for your answer :D
You will be able to play as a Nandor and Sindar elf ;)
Can't say how glad I am to have found this mod, it's the game I always wished would be created. Brilliant work so far!!