TMC News - December 2020 - Tolkien Modding Community

And again another year has passed. I would have loved to review the activity of the whole year but time is sparse, so it's 'just' another newsletter. Those modders are also never making a break, always new stuff to report of. Have a nice read!

First of the congratulation of the team to the developers of the modding projects Age of the Ring and Last Alliance: Total War. First one won in the category Best Continued Support for being a mod which has continued to receive major updates and support, years after its original release. Latter one won in the category Best Adaption Award for being a mod that uses the story or universe of a film or television show to accurately recreate its world and vibe. At the time I am writting this article the winners of Mods of the Year are not announced yet but we hope the best for our fellow LotR modders!

Working eager and giving me no break, the developers of the mod Age of the Ring for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King already released version 6.1 with balance changes and bug fixes. They wrote two articles. In one they announce the Two Towers Campaign which you can read up here. In the second one they take a look back and forwards inside Age of the Ring's development in the year 2020, you can find it here. Otherwise it seems as they work at the Dunlendings and Haradwaith at the moment.

Keeping me as busy are the fellows of the modding project Edain Mod for the same game. They wrote down a lot of articles which let you discover new parts of the mod, explain a bit the upcoming features or what you might have missed yet. That way you can read (and watch videos) about the upcoming Gundabad Warriors, the hidden missions The Attack on the Golden Wood and The Cleansing of Lothlórien (and two more), the overhaul of the War of the Ring gamemode and the campaign, the new maps in the upcoming version, the Tower Defenses and the usage of Tolkien's lore in the mod - using the Orocarni as an example. A lot to read but maybe some of you need a distraction so they are not constantly thinking of their presents under the tree ^^

At the RR_Mod we see a new unit for Gothmog, a reworked spellbook for Rohan and new Rohirric farms. About the spellbook you can read more in detail here.

Then we got updates for the BfME texture pack by NumenoreanTalion.

And King-Arveleg updated the files for Kingdom of Arnor with new units for the Elves and Dwarves, increased horde sizes and other little gimmicks. You can find it here.

Also the modding project Wars of the North got a new early access version uploaded, you can find it here.

Switching to the Total War series, starting with Total War: Rise of Mordor for Total War: Attila. They uploaded a video with Questions and Answers about the Campaign. A variety of design concepts have also been created for the Dwarves and Morgul Uruk-hais. And Khamul brought some little Christmas touch.

At the modding project Third Age Total War 4.0 for the game Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms there are ups and downs. I have to say that I would have been happy if the developer would have chosen a different name since he is already stating that it will be an independent mod and not a submod of Third Age - Total War. At this point reusing the name is just trying to get some fame of the mothermod. And it is still a submod for the iconic mod, just like Divide and Conquer and Third Age: Reforged are, even if they are sometimes not willing to tell so. We also got however some new building collapses and strat models, so that's an up.

Pretty inactive this time, the developers of Silmarillion: Total War. I hope they are resting and will be back with the same power as before in the new year.

Castellan*Taurion* is however compensating this with his activity at Castellan's Visual Enhancemets & Overhaul for Divide And Conquer.

We see also again a bit activity at moddb by the developers of DCI: Last Alliance, showing off some general units.

Constant activity can also be registred at the modding project Total War: Wainriders for the game Rome: Total War. We get another faction preview article, this time about the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. And we get some more looks at the Eotheod.

And Sara_Temer released the Alpha v0.2.0 for Last Alliance: Total War for the game Total War: Shogun 2. The High Elves made their entrance now into the mod, you can read more about the change log here. And we get to see how the Campaign map is slowly evolving, with the region of Calenardhon.

A bit of activity at the modding project TLD Overhaul for the game Mount & Blade: Warband. Work is progressing slowly there but you get a nice image of how the Rangers of Ithilien will look like ^^

At the mod Persistent Lord of the Rings (PLotR) players are still waiting for a release. The server problems at TaleWorlds for LAN and dedicated servers should be fixed again, so that might help them a bit. They also uploaded a basic guide for the upcoming version 2.0, I only wished that they would have made it actually in text form and not uploaded as images. You can find it here.

And good old Venlesh wrote an article about his modding project Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0 for the game Age of Mythology: The Titans. He continues to explain there the road to the new shadow campaign.

And lastly William_772_YT created for his project LOTR Weapon and Armour Designs.another bunch of designs of which fellow LotR modders can make use of.

And MikeTheEmperor posted a little article about the new Update System, Progress and Covid-19 to inform about the development of The Ring Roleplay Project - TRRP. Have a short read for it here.

And the developers of The Battle for Middle-Earth: Reforged showed of an image of the Eregion Forge.