Comments - Lord_of_Mordor

Mainly because there really isn't any overly special unit like the Knights of Dol Amroth in their story.

Note that 2.02 is not actually an official patch, it's essentially another mod. Edain is based on 2.01, the last official patch.

Why? They're actually some of my favorites, they're well designed and very diverse.

They will get an overhaul eventually, but I can't promise it's going to be in version 4.5. We're focussed on getting the remaining concepts done instead of adding new ones at the moment.

"Demo" is a bit of a misnomer here. Some time ago we decided to call it a demo until we have included all factions. However, this "demo" includes all content that is currently available. The only faction missing are the Misty Mountains.

What would you change about it?

I'd actually be very interested to hear what people would think about that! I do sometimes think armies in Edain are a bit too large - both in terms of sheer size and in terms of how many individual hordes you have to control. I feel there are some issues there, like how many troops can fit into a castle, how many troops a player can effectively control and lag caused by larger armies.

On the other hand, in terms of atmosphere I realize many people really like bigger armies. We probably wouldn't go back to BfME I size exactly, but there is room for making them a bit smaller. Let me know what you feel about that!

That is our plan, yes.

Misty Mountains will have a different faction system. You'll always start with Moria, but you'll be able to build up the other factions over the course of the game so you can have all three at once. We wanted to emphasize that the Misty Mountains are a motley collection of different Orc tribes and beasts, so their army will always be very diverse.

It's always interesting to see that during all our years of development and a host of Edain versions that were as different as they could be, the results of this poll stay largely constant.

When we started version 4.5, we simply didn't have the modelling capacities to finish Misty Mountains, so we decided to focus on other areas that would still make for a cool update. A whole number of different issues arose that delayed development (like our team leader resigning), we never planned for 4.5 to take this long. We also have modeller on board now ready to finish the Misty Mountains, but we have committed to 4.5 and want to see it through first.

Weak bases have always been meant to be a weakness of the evil factions (except for Angmar). However, note that they also get the citadel bonus against siege weaponry.

If siege battles are irrelevant to you, Edain may just not be the right mod for you. Sorry about that.

Likely not, we weren't big fans of those.

Strangely enough, the Misty Mountains were consistently the least popular faction in Edain 3.8.1. The Hobbit movies certainly boosted their popularity, but I think part of it is just the desire for more factions in general - there'd probably just as much hype for, say, Lothlorien, if they were currently missing from the mod.

We're still working on the upgrades, so nothing set in stone yet, but we do want Ered Luin to have a ranged weapon for the Battle Wagon.

It's been submitted today, so expect it soon. Incidentally, it also talks about posts like yours.

What you describe is exactly the type of decision we wanted you to make with the new spellbook :) Do you bolster yourself for a longer match and maybe play more defensively to make use of your long-term advantages, or do you press for a quick finish with powerful offensive spells? We want all spellbooks to have this sort of dynamic.

It's mainly because Angmar has such a large amount of heroes already. I'd actually like to find a way to include an Orc hero so we have a mirror for Hwaldar as a Hillmen hero, but it's not a high priority.

Everyone knows how composite bows work. They increase the damage of Unexpected Salvo and lower its recharge time, as the description says.

We're perfectly happy with the Morgul and Guldur outposts, I think they represent their respective fortresses very well.

Yes, we're planning the Dwarves to be next :)

So do we. Just deleted a whole bunch of his idiocy. Losing faith in humanity one day at a time, that's me... :P

A couple of clarifications in light of some of the recent comments:

- No, this mod is not dead. Our last news post was two weeks ago, so I have no idea why you'd even think that.

- That said, we did lose our team leader recently, so obviously there's a lot we have to figure out at the moment. No, work has not stopped, but we have do have quite a few administrative issues on our plate right now. After ten years of free quality content, I think a little understanding and patience are not too much to ask.

- There's nothing wrong with enjoying both Age of the Ring and Edain, or preferring AotR over Edain. Modding is not a competition where you have to beat the other guys at the box office. Personally, I find Age of the Ring one of the most promising mods in years and am happy to see we still get such great projects nowadays! A healthy and active modding scene is good for everyone. Edain has coexisted alongside plenty of other great mods throughout its ten year history. Heck, I even did the German advertising for the splendid Special Extended Edition mod back in the day! That never stopped Edain from thriving as well.

- In fact, if free building is the most important thing to you, then AotR might simply be the better mod for you - and that's perfectly fine! However, free building will never return to Edain. I can't even tell you what a pointless waste of time it is to argue about that. We made that decision years ago, and we have no intentions of reverting it. Not just because it would be a massive amount of work (you think things are taking a long time NOW?), but because we still feel it was the right call. For people who passionately dislike the BfME I system, Edain is simply no longer the right mod. At the end of the day, our guiding maxime has always been to make the game we would love to play, and the majority of the Edain team has always loved the first game in this series the most.

- From now on, we will start deleting hostile posts more aggressively, especially when they come from anonymous guest users who don't even have the courage to show their real username when they tell us that Edain team members have no right to free time or a real life and are obligated to constantly work on the mod for free. Yeah, I'm sick of that crap. The atmosphere on this page has become horribly toxic in recent weeks and we're going to take steps to remedy that.

- Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is always welcome of course. However, we advise that you post your bigger ideas over at Modding Union: Modding-union.com It's simply a better place for indepth discussion because here, individual posts fall off the front page quickly and are easy to miss.

- Finally, I want to express my gratitude to all of our fans who have shown kindness and patience in the face of all the negativity here and the admittedly long time it's taking us to get this next version ready. We know our community largely consists of great and passionate people and just because the idiots sometimes sceam the loudest, they're not the majority. Rest assured that even when the ride gets bumpy, we're always hard at work to create the best possible mod for you guys and we have no intentions of stopping now! Thanks to all who keep sticking with us on this journey :)

Smaug will be, but the Balrog will remain a spellbook power.

I don't think so. I liked it from a mechanics standpoint, but it always felt a little too weird and out there from a lore point of view, even for Angmar.

We actually considered making the Army of the Dead the defensive spell. However, we never really found a way to implement that that still made them feel as powerful and atmospheric as they were in the movies. After all, they still should be an eldritch cloud of death sweeping through the enemy lines. Getting only a single group of them when a building is attacked or having them repair buildings wouldn't fit with that at all. We really never hit upon an idea that kept their awesome power and made them suitably defensive at the same time, so we decided to use them as the offensive spell instead. With their short duration and their incredible damage potential, the fit much more naturally here.

There's plenty of new or significantly overhauled spells for every faction. Overall, the spells in the game will now correspond much better to specific strategies (playing to their tree in the spellbook and their respective faction's strength) rather than just being raw power. Furthermore, the new tree structure will require players to make more meaningful choices and plan their path to victory better. Even if not everything is 100% new, I'd say there's more than enough changes :)

Yes, it means we're not yet ready to show it to the public. Work is going strong, however :) The thing to remember is that it's not just the siege update - there is a second fundamental gameplay aspect we're overhauling for all factions which we haven't shown you yet.

I'm not overly concerned about that. Edain 4.0 didn't please everyone, and we knew that going in, but it has been our most successful version by far. 3.8.1 never won Mod of the Year, but 4.0 did. Nothing is ever perfect, of course, but we're very happy with the new direction and overall community response :)

I don't think there's many left we could do that would make sense. We already have female humans and Elves and Easterlings/Haradrim. Female Orcs or Trolls may not even exist in Middle-earth, and while there obviously are female Dwarves, we have almost no visual material for them and they were never seen in the story. A female Black Numenorean could be pretty cool, but that's about the only interesting option left I think.