Wars of the Firstborn is a modification based on the discontinued Ridder Clan Mod for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II and for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II - The Rise of the Witch-King, which focuses on bringing to life as much of the Elven world from Tolkien’s epic as possible.
Hello followers,
Today, Wars of the Firstborn mod celebrates 3 years since it's announcement and for this, we will discuss a bit things that happened in the last year.
The last year has been challenging, no doubt, and also full of breaks I had to make due to many personal endeavors, some positive, some less so. However, progress has been made and we are still approaching a release. My absence in the the updates section does not mean progress hasn't been made in the backstage or changed in any way my plan for releasing this mod as soon as possible. I know these are not as entertaining to read so let's focus on the positive side of the year.
The highlight of this year are, undoubtedly, the Mirkwood Heroes. Special care has been put into flashing out every aspect of them on screen so I detailed a bit the process of how I made them come to life (visually).
Thranduil required the most effort as he is seen both in his regal king outfit and his battle armor, all of these being available also mounted on his beautiful elk steed. For this I took and extra care to represent accurately all these visual aspects as seen in the movie. The biggest challenge has been creating new animations to fit his personality and also his weapon set, Thranduil has a very particular way he uses his sword in battle gear, unique among all other units in the game. He has a total of 36 new animations.
Legolas was probably the most "worked on" of all the heroes overall. However, most of the heavy lifting was done in previous years so the main focus was to make a more accurate model that is in line with the rest of the new visual update of the mod. As stated before, Legolas now has a full toggle ability which meant a total new set of animations for him using his knives. Moreover, I always disliked the choice of him not having cape animations. And I took that personally!? So in the mod Legolas has 2 full animations sets with functional cape bones. I have kept the bow animations as in the original game, however his knife animations have been inspired from the LOTR movies but also paying some homage to another beloved video game, The Return of the King. While initially he will be seen as in Moria, he can later receive his Lothlorien gift, adding his Galadhrim bow and cloak. Legolas has a total of 46 modified or new animations.
Tauriel was in all aspects easier than the previous heroes to make. Due to the fact that we wanted to tie her along with the light armored units of the faction, we chose to show her wearing her huntress armor. For that I drew heavy inspiration from the scouts of the faction, both visually and animations. While Tauriel does not have new animations, she has a toggle between her bow and her daggers which required some animations conversions.
Surprisingly, Galion does not seem to have that many photos across the internet of his face and outfit. This meant I had the opportunity to improvise a bit around what is seen in the movies. The centerpiece of his outfit is his not so secret stash of two wine bottles attached to his waist, in a very elegant leather satchel. Pretty proud of this detail.
While Radagast is not part of the main heroes of Mirkwood, he is present in the faction through the Evenstar powers. Personally I have always found Radagast in the movies a tad too goofy, both in personality and in his outfit. For that I wanted to redesign him more accurately to how I imagined him while still keeping the elements that I did like from the film. There have been some influences from Gandalf and Saruman (being an Istari), and Radagast from War in the North video game.
Personally, heroes are always a challenge for me to do. Being obsessed with accuracy, I find it very difficult to capture a characters likeness. Sometimes I spend way too much time on it, more than is probably necessary but at least I know I gave it my best. Yet, heroes always feel like a lot of pain for little gain, we never see an army of Thranduils.
This concludes the year "in review" of the mod. More updates about Mirkwood will come in the coming weeks. You can share your thoughts in our discord channel you can find the link on the main moddb page or at the bottom of this article. Also, we share there bonus stuff in the #sneak-peek channel for the very curious ones.
Sincerely,
NewErr and the Wars of the Firstborn team
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Hi bro? When first release! Even betta
Hi bro, no idea yet.
The revelation about the Mirkwood heroes is really exciting. I can't wait to test King Thranduil, Tauriel and the others.
Curious to see if you can work too, with the enemies that appear in both the "The Hobbit" books and films.
In "Lord of the Rings", they only appear in the books, as in the films there would not be enough time to work with the characters and the battles of so that it could have a beginning, middle and end... it would only be possible, if each Lord of the Rings book was a separate trilogy, then we would have 9 "Lord of the Rings" films, how crazy. Well, I would definitely watch it, we would have King Thranduil on the scene again hehehehe.
The enemies I'm referring to are: Dol Guldur and Gundabad.
As you intend to work with Dol Guldur and Gundabad, do you already have any plans?
Possible suggestions:
* Will be incorporated into an orc faction, containing construction extensions for them...
or
* Make a sub-faction within an Orc faction (As an example of this, in the Edain mod there is the Dwarvens faction, which consists of several sub-factions within the same one.... just select in the command center which path you want to follow.) I think This is the most interesting option, but also more laborious, but it would bring many more buildings and new units.
Dol Guldur and Gundabad units will be present only in existing evil factions.
The main focus of the mod is the elven factions.
Cool, thanks.
Referring to the civilization of Rohan. I don't know if you can respond or not on this subject...
--> Will the Heroes: Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli, be present individually?
Because, I love controlling Legolas and Aragorn individually. I wouldn't like to see the 3 heroes stuck together as if they were a single hero, as is seen in some mods.
Currently I play a lot of a mod for BFME1 where Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli can be controlled individually, it's very cool and satisfying. xD
I see no reason why we would stack them together.
Cool, I'm happy.
I will be waiting for new updates in the near future. Thanks.
Incredible work. Looking forward to one day being able to play in BFME1 Style.
I love these Orc/goblin factions in the wilder/rustic style.
I would like to know if there are plans in the future to add the Goblins/Moria or Gundabad faction???
Hey, thank you for the kind words! We hope BFME1 will be much fun for everyone.
All future new factions will be based on elves.
Cool, the new factions will be focused on Elves. Very cool, they really look very well crafted.
Now I'm curious. Will the old factions still exist? For example: Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, Isengard?
Another question, will the Goblin faction present in BFME2 also be added to the Mod?? (although, Goblins were only playable in BFME2 or in BFME1 Mods.... so I don't know if they will exist in your mod)
Thanks! Put a lot of effort in the new faction.
The original BFME 2 factions will be kept and contain some changes. However, Goblins faction is removed and Rohan is added as sub-faction for Men of the west. The goblin units will be spread among other factions and will probably still have a presence in other parts of the mod. So unfortunately goblins will not have their own faction with BFME1/BFME2 mode.
Thank you for the responses.
It's a shame there isn't a pure Goblin faction.
Well, as you mention....
if perhaps there is some special construction intended for the manufacture of goblins and their variants, even if they are within another Orc faction.... For me it will be enough to have fun.
NOTE: there are some mods that I will not mention their names here. In which they bring "special constructions", where it is possible to manufacture only that sub-species of goblin with its variants... it is likely that you will do something similar.
It would be a tactical way of playing, where the player can opt for slow orcs or fast goblins depending on the choice of initial construction.
Who knows, maybe even place some goblin heroes inside these specific buildings, with the aim of benefiting the goblin troops.
Thank you for your attention.
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last curiosity.....
Can you give an approximate release date... let's say if the initial version will be released in 2024 or 2025 or 2026 or ___?
Best I can say about your question, the next beta will be released when it will be done. Too many factors are involved for me to estimate it.
But progress is done daily so you can follow our page/discord. Exciting news ahead.
Thank you very much. I will follow.