Hello! And welcome to the first of the article entries for Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0! In today's article, I'll be addressing what the mod is, and why I've taken to Moddb for its release in the future!
Legends of Middle-Earth is a conversion mod for Age of Mythology: TT, and saw its last release in 2012 as Lome 4.0 at aom.Heavengames.com. While Lome 5.0 will see its initial release at Heavengames still, I will mostly hope to use Moddb as a way of releasing the mod for the Extended Edition Steam release of the game.
Why, since EE has a fully integrated and mostly streamlined Workshop compatibility?
A just question! LOME 5.0 will not see a Steam Workshop release due to AoM's strict 200 mb upload limit. It's simply not possible to break up the 2 gig mod (when uncompressed from .bar files) and release it to the workshop.
Legends of Middle-Earth features all the functions of standard AoM, including several campaigns covering the span of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a spinoff of smaller scenarios called "Adventures in Middle-Earth", as well as completely functioning AI to play against in single player. Multiplayer is now also possible in 5.0, and with the many, many gameplay tweaks, should be much more fun to play as a whole.
New to 5.0 is a sequence of brand new single player campaigns!
First we have "Storms of the Corrupt Istari", which follows a "What if" scenario in which Gandalf never revives as Gandalf the White; leaving Saruman unchecked in his war against Rohan and ultimately leading his Uruk-Hai in battle against Sauron himself.
Second is a new campaign based on Tolkien's scrapped LOTR sequel, "The New Shadow". This story follows the characters of Eldarion, Son of Elessar, and brothers Saelon, and Borlas. Together, and alone, their paths will shape the future of Men in the Fourth Age of Middle-Earth. This campaign will have fully recorded voice work, and original score to accompany it.
The Core Features:
Brand New HD Textures!
Age of Mythology is an old game, and its textures can most certainly reflect that at times, but utilizing breakthrough techniques, LOME supports texture maps of 1024x1024, and beyond, leaving infinite detail in every texture!
Almost all units and buildings have been given a makeover treatment, with almost every human units having a tech progression with textures to reflect it (E.g. Medium, Heavy, Champion units).
All factions have newly designed huds to reflect their cultures.
Reworked Sounds!
As of writing, Lome 5.0 has more than 600 sounds in its bank, bringing the flex of Legolas' bow, or the cleave of Boromir's sword to life! Units are now voiced in their own languages such as Sindarin, or Quenyan Elvish, or even Rohirric; and heroes such as Aragorn or Elrond now have plenty of higher quality recordings to bring authenticity to you. A music playlist of over an hour of mixed music joins the game, filling the mood of your conquests and perils.
Gameplay Changes, New Techs, God Powers, and More!
Frankly, looking back on 4.0, the game was hardly balanced to a competitive scene. 5.0 takes the game's competitive potential much more seriously, balancing and fine tuning every faction to a hair. Gods have been rebalanced to be more unique, and have more clear descriptions of what bonuses they'll grant you.
More god powers have been introduced or changed up to be more interesting or balanced. One such has been changing Manwe's "Palantir Stone" power to a new power called "Breath of the Elder", granting his heroes increased move and attack speed for a short time.
I hope you've enjoyed this new insight to an old mod! Hope to see you in the next update!
