April Fool's 2022 news

Today we would like to introduce a special, but for us very helpful feature of the upcoming version 4.6. It has little in common with the content presented so far for the next version and will not have a serious impact on gameplay or balance. However, it will allow us to tap into previously unused potential, which will ultimately benefit everyone.

First of all, a short insight into the background and the developments leading up to the current situation: For almost everyone in the team, the situation has changed a lot within the last year. Most of us have either moved house, started a new job or undergone other major changes in our private or professional lives. Naturally, this has not exactly increased the time available for work on Edain. In the past, too, many former team members were no longer able to find the necessary time for modding for similar reasons. In order to counteract this, we in the team have thought about a few things. One option for faster progress would be if we could find alternative sources of income and thus cut back on our jobs a little.

Therefore, the Edain mod is now running in-game advertisements and is proudly sponsored by a few selected companies.

This takes various forms. We are positively surprised at how many great different possibilities we have found for this. At the start of the mod, a corresponding intro video now runs with our direct sponsors. This is comparable to sports broadcasts on television or streaming. For the main menu, there will of course also be some new shellmaps that show discreet hints about useful products.

In-game advertisements will be similar to those on YouTube. After certain intervals, either short advertising banners will be presented or there will even be an informative video interlude. The videos can be interrupted depending on the advertising partner or are only correspondingly short. We would like to keep the times fair for you. For example, the first ad only appears after 5 minutes, the second at minute 15 of the game, followed by minute 30, and the last one only after a full hour of in-game play. Unfortunately, it was technically impossible to do otherwise for the single player, but after loading a savegame, the advertising timer starts again from the beginning. On the other hand, we can proudly announce that in our tests, everything in multiplayer works without out-of-synch crashes.

A part of the advertisements consists of links to selected products with or without Lord of the Rings reference, for whose purchase via the link a small amount goes to us quasi as an advertising fee. The product price itself, however, does not change. These links are also increasingly used in the launcher. Those of you who have been following us for a while may remember that we used to have such links on the MU. We are now extending this to the launcher and the mod itself, as the traffic on the MU has unfortunately decreased considerably.

We didn't take this step lightly, but we see it as a win-win situation for everyone involved. The advantage of the whole thing for the community is that new updates will now come regularly to at least keep the advertising fresh and new. Sometimes, of course, such an update also brings a little new content into the mod. So you can be curious!
We still don't want to accept donations, because unfortunately they always create a feeling of obligation from the community.

We hope that this will not only give us more time for the mod, but also finance more public relations work on our part. One of our first purchases with all the new money is the position of an Edain Memester, who will create new high quality memes about the Edain Mod in regular intervals. Check the announcements or our social media channels regularly for this.

We hope you can understand our motives and that you continue to look forward to 4.6! As always, we would love to hear your feedback!

Your Edain Team