Tales of Middle-Earth

[Tenzhiro]

Hear hear adventurer..

Tales of Middle-Earth is a custom RPG based on the tales and lore from Middle-Earth, build and imagined by a team of similar minded enthusiasts. Together with the community we will expend this project in a steady, playable (even offline) Adventure RPG in which you get to choose different factions/quest lines/vocations and upgrade your equipment through a Tier system, together with Professions and a huge world to explore; it is guaranteed to have a great time here.

One of the main reasons I started digging into OT's was to be able to create a world based on Tolkiens LoTR and here we are, yet again for another try. I imagine myself being 60 years old, looking back to the good old days and will pull out a USB stick and run this server just to play the quests and explore the world we have created together.

Over the years I’ve played some great OT’s and been part of teams with fantastic people, along that road I’ve already gathered a few other people that are willing to help me on this project. Mind you that this server will not be made based on value but pure out of ambition.

I have this view that we first map The Shire including all towns and locations, in a 1:2 scale is what I am looking for. If we have the base landscape of this area we can focus on important landmarks, meanwhile creating our Main Quest line.

The world will be played through different ACT’s. This for different reasons.
1. It’s just so damn huge, and better to start small and perfect.
2. We can give other people the opportunity to help progress with the story and shape the world with us progressively.
3. It’s much more interesting for us and the player to guide them through a Main Story together with tons of side-quests to explore.
4. WoW (similar) leveling, enough said.
5. It gives the team continuous motivation but with a steady workflow and the aim to perfect each step of the road.

Each ACT has a boss and few mini-bosses and gives a theatrical ending to each ACT, end-game will be tier upgrading, PvP, dungeon clearing, raiding, try to find one of the rings of power.

In this world blessings are not a common thing, that means life is precious in this world, dying is a painful thing.. You can save it all up just to lose it all if not prepared for the fights to come ..

Anyway we are currently at a curious stage where everything can change, and I want the opinion of people and maybe learn a thing or two(hundred).
We have made a Discord to discuss things about this project, if you are willing to contribute in any way or want to give your views on certain things, feel free to PM your Discord or msg down here your comments and/or idea’s!

Oh look a round door! Woopwoop

 

[popoverde]

Nice, way too ambitious to be honest

This is the first middle earth themed OT that looks like will end up being a middle earth OT lol.

Im glad you want to add the rings of power.

What about the characters? balrog...necromancer,galadriel,elves,man,dwarfs, goblins, wargos,places such as moria, tirith, thats a shitload of work and sprites.

 

[Tenzhiro]

It's way too ambitious indeed, even thinking about it will give you endless inspiration. It's a good thing but also a thing you need to concern yourself with, since it kinda overwhelming, that's why I want to work with ACTS, so we begin from the beginning and together work our way towards the end of the story and not be overwhelmed.

All 20 rings are unique (one of each), haven't thought of which should do what, but for The One Ring, we had this idea; there will come a time that you will have to face Sauron's mortal form, when defeated the very first person on the server will get that One Ring guaranteed. From that moment the person carrying that item will have the opportunity to wear it for 2 minutes (a day) and gain a kind of GM Invisible effect and the ability to walk through players even in PvP (which makes for great escapes), maybe buffs a few skills as well, when used a message will be broadcasted about the location of the user, to make it somewhat of a bounty hunt, since the only way to get the ring is either by giving it or taken from a corpse.

(note that most of the inhabitants of Middle-Earth have no idea of the existence of these rings)

I was also thinking about revamping the guild system aka no guild system but the ability to join in-game Factions/Houses, with all kinds of different mindset, playstyles etc.. and they get to do tasks/quests in order to make their faction more powerful so in time whenever a war brews they will have the upper hand, team effort thing.

Also since alot happens within the timelines of ME, there will possible be flashback quests to first age events for example.

Currently someone is working on some custom races sprites, I was thinking on either post all our progression here or make our Discord public so people can actively respond and discuss on certain channels.

Anyway currently writing the prologue and initiate start of the main quest, and at this point I have a lot of options to go through..
Will keep you guys updated!

 

[popoverde]

My thoughts about the one ring of power:

-A sneaky and fast gollum spawns randomly, he will drop the ring when killed. When gollum spawn there will be a broadcast message.

-The one ring can be used at any given time, the more you use it, the more debuffs you will get. Also it will attract the enemy , orcs, goblins,cave trolls even the scary Nazgûls can find you out, destroy you and anyone around you.

Factions are nice idea, dwarfs,humans,elves,mordor..isengard, etc.

If someone is carrying the ring at a town that town has a high chance to get raided by evil army. So people has to keep the ring AWAY from towns

If the evil has the ring, every evil faction should get buffs and benefits from it.

If evil faction has the ring for like a week sauron in his mortal form will spawn

So the war for the ring is always going




Im not saying the map has to be 100% tolkien world epica, but it has to have some original places.

sorry for my shitty english

 

[Artis]

how do you want to do then people can play even offline is it possible to do?

 

[Tenzhiro]

My thoughts about the one ring of power:

-A sneaky and fast gollum spawns randomly, he will drop the ring when killed. When gollum spawn there will be a broadcast message.

-The one ring can be used at any given time, the more you use it, the more debuffs you will get. Also it will attract the enemy , orcs, goblins,cave trolls even the scary Nazgûls can find you out, destroy you and anyone around you.

Factions are nice idea, dwarfs,humans,elves,mordor..isengard, etc.

If someone is carrying the ring at a town that town has a high chance to get raided by evil army. So people has to keep the ring AWAY from towns

If the evil has the ring, every evil faction should get buffs and benefits from it.

If evil faction has the ring for like a week sauron in his mortal form will spawn

So the war for the ring is always going




Im not saying the map has to be 100% tolkien world epica, but it has to have some original places.

sorry for my shitty english

We were also thinking of random Nazgul raids whenever someone has the ring equipped or not. It's actually a cool idea to have good/bad factions and with the power of the Ring tied to it, also tying a Sauron raid with it sounds very awesome!

Smeagol I wanted to use for something else to be honest, his character is just too important to be a random creature spawn even if the loot is epic.

how do you want to do then people can play even offline is it possible to do?

Either I will respectfully upload the server for free (free in my opinion) when it's finished (protected files ofc) to be only played offline or we have to think about a custom client that will read files and databases locally stored. Since this will be a server where you are somewhat guided by following a main quest with tons of side quests, it's easy for you to get lost alone, but this is just an idea I had in mind.

 

[Tenzhiro]

I have made a thread in the Jobs section of the forum, if you want to contribute in any way
LINK

 

[Tenzhiro]

Tales of Middle Earth – Features
Here are some features we have in mind, note that everything can be changed.​

Revamped Combat and Leveling System

The combat system as we know it in the original Tibia came will be revamped to suit our needs.

For melee users, they will need to focus on sustaining, in either offensive, or defensive means. They will be able to choose different paths to be able to play different playstyles. You could become an aggressive Berserker, a defensive Templar or a holy Paladin for example.

For ranged users, aka bow-mans, the focus will be on sustaining damage and de-buffing your enemy with poisons. They are quicker on their feet then most and their aim is keen. Deadly from afar, they are also troubling up close since they are quick with their dual-wielding daggers. Some hunters can call upon animals to aid them in battle.

For magical users, magic has another meaning in this world, their powers lie on a whole new level. Runes, once created by powerful entities are now practically old relics found hidden all over the world. Their effects are tremendous and thus very valuable, although the art of rune-making is lost some mages still hold the knowledge to teach you a thing or two.
Mages are divided into classes like a Healer/Buffer, Offensive Magic and Shapeshifting, next to many practical uses. They use powerful words for their magic but also uses Staffs and Rods to create their powers. Some mages can create Illusions or create powerful shields for their company.
Many mages also wear a short-sword for close combat encounters.

Leveling will be done in a way that you can never (very hard) over level current content, after you pass a certain level, the monsters inside your current ACT will have decrease EXP thus promotes you to go further. End-game wise we will work with leveled dungeons and raids.

Vocations, Classes and Races
Within our world you will be able to choose between four Races; Men, Elf, Dwarf or a Hobbit, each with different attributes to compliment your playstyle. After that you will have to choose a Vocation, there are three to choose from: a Warrior, a Bowman and a Wizard. While choosing your vocation you need to think of what kind of combat-style you would like to play. Each vocation has different Class paths to choose from, Classes are aimed to compliment your playstyle even more, besides that, certain quests will be race/vocation orientated.

Dungeon and Investigation system
Middle-Earth is filled with dungeons to clear, from spider-caves to hidden dungeons deep beneath Moria. Every dungeon cleared will give you -investigation points- depending on its difficulty, but you can only clear any dungeon once to gain points, to clear a dungeon you will have to kill a number of specific creatures and/or kill the dungeon’s mini-boss. After earning a certain amount of points you will advance in rank and be able to enter more dangerous dungeons and even unique boss dungeons.. It is also possible to catch certain monsters to gain points.

Immersive World
Have you ever wandered into a town and it felt like an empty city with shopkeepers that work around the clock? Well no more! To make the experience as immersive as possible we will include, but not limited by the following features; NPC’s that actually travel, shopkeepers do finally get some rest after a hard day work, the world will change depending on what season it currently is, certain events can also help shape or destroy parts of the world, specific raids depending on amounts of dungeons cleared, different types of traveling means, economy created by the player; creating items yourself will become profitable again. Also note that loads of caverns and hunting grounds are bound to have treasure, as well as cities, do you really think all cupboards and dressers are empty?
Oh and yes of course you get to name your weapon.

Raids and Events
Everyday forces of darkness are trying to penetrate the lands of the West, depending on the state of the world, different raids will be executed daily. This could range from greedy Goblins to fighting Uruk-Hai, but not all events are spawned from evil in this world, limited time only quests, spawning treasure hoards, maybe even a carnival could also cross your path.

Faction Wars
Instead of a guild-system we will have a system based on Factions. Inside Middle-Earth, all living creatures are assigned a faction, thus creating the base for any Faction for instance; The Orc’s will join the Faction of the Orc. You as a player gets to choose any faction but limited to one, to progress in. You get assigned different Tasks to complete and also be able to take on quests inside the faction. When you progress inside the faction, the faction itself will gain power and will help you in the wars to come.
Wars could have many meanings, one could fight over a city, one could fight for a powerful artifact, but for now we have one thing in mind. War over territory. There exists a stronghold in the region of Angmar, where evil always persists, in order to take control over these lands you will have to wager war with the faction that holds the stronghold. Every week there will be an opportunity for your faction to capture the stronghold and have access to unique hunting grounds.

Upgradable Equipment System with Tiers and Enchantments
While adventuring around you will need to protect yourself, you can either loot your equipment, buy them from other players or take the time to forge them yourself! Each piece of equipment (except for unique equipment) will have 6 upgradable tiers, each tier will give a flat bonus on a piece. For example; Tier 1 Chainmail (Arm: 3) – Tier 2 Chainmail (Arm: 4). Depending on current tier, the risk/reward will be greater. Also you will be able to enchant your equipment with magic, this can only be done by certain NPC’s or by certain Classes. Enchanting your equipment with magic will give it special attributes like critical chance, health leech, bonus skills or even % damage. Note that unique equipment sometimes have magical attributes already, these are permanent and do not stack.

Professions
In this world there are tons of jobs to be done, when not exploring you could try out different Professions, from Mining and Smithing to Hunting and Herbalism. Each profession can complement your class and/or needs. Do you want to forge the strongest weapons without worrying about supply demand? Become a Miner and learn to gather material efficiently yourself! Or do you wish to become a marksman Hunter? Learn how to track, chase and kill Deer’s and Warg’s and even learn locations of exotic rideables!

Unique Rings of Power
“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

Twenty unique rings. Each one with different abilities and powers, are you the one to be its keeper?
All twenty rings can be found around the world, its secrets are lost only to be heard in legends.

Other rings have been created in the progress, as practice, but they do not hold precious power. .
This is all I have to say for now..

Bounty Hunter System
Tired of that beggar in Bree that keeps asking for ten Copper? Or that arrogant Dwarf that keeps bragging about his wealth? Put a price on their heads! Not only will they be hunted by players, they will be hunted down by Orc’s and other creatures as well.

Custom Map, Monsters and Bosses
Building this world from scratch is a challenging thing to do, that’s why it will be an ever creating world filled with detail and lore. All monsters are based heavily on lore and all items based on lore and medieval times. Monsters will behave as they are described in the lore, also Bosses will have intelligent rotations and actions and sometimes different stages.

Death. Respawning and Taverns
Death in Middle-Earth is almost certain, and it will be a heavy price to pay for the treasures that you are seeking. There aren’t any plans for a blessing system. Your body will decay over a somewhat realistic time; that is the only time you have left to get back on your feet to start the run to your body, if it’s not already looted by someone else. When you respawn, you will respawn at the Tavern, the further you progress the more spawn options you will have.

Taverns are special places that will act like an adventure’s hub. Here you will find things like the World Board, local quests, bounty posters, depots and more..

 

[Tenzhiro]

Tales of Middle Earth – Progression​

It's been a long time.. slowly I've been working on this project these couple of months, discussing a lot with other people and doing some (read: a shitload of) research. The landmass of the world is almost finished, we had to adjust the scale, cause eventually I ended up with a huge file size and that with only grass and water.. and only for the main continent.. anyway we ended up with a landmass big enough for all main parts to be build accordingly.

Now that this has been done we are starting to focus on the first ACT, mapping the beginning towns, area's and building the system around it. In some time I will post a list of (paid) tasks that needs to be done by people more experienced. Think of themed houses, taverns, unique dungeons and caves, but also each ACT will have one or two cities that are huge compared to all the others, think of Minas Tirith or Erebor.

Here a little screen of the landmass we are going to use. There is a little town so you can roughly see the scaling of it. It's like 4 times RL map.

 

[/Liro]

Show us more!

 

[Tenzhiro]

---------
Lots have happened in the past years but we are still busy!

Some patches from last week:

• Began making character sprites
• Implementing new skills
• All spells are now in Sindarin, and they are real tongue twisters!

But I feel over time we will be able to speak some form of Elvish. (lots of spells will be created, adjusted or removed)
- Started configuring OTC; music might play a big part in the world although needs to be tested, currently, you can enjoy a nice intro
- Setting up a public Discord to push all (public) patch notes to and enable the inputs of other persons on the project.

- The map has been scaled up, we are currently working in this area: Base_shape_act1
We are planning to add landmasses of the same size over-time~ currently this map is 3600x3000~
This scaling seems perfect for the placing of Landmarks and Points of Interests, there is enough space to put all major things in and then some.

We are currently looking for mappers and are thinking of a system to encourage other players to create the world with us.
Think of things like earning cash money, having a statue with your name in the map, NPC's named after you, and the list goes on.
--------------

Well, back to work!
Thanks to the OT community for helping us with any questions we had, there are some real magicians out here.
One good habit of many of you is that you don't just give the fix, no, you teach us for an hour!

What spell could this be?
"ech athae naedh"

 

[Tenzhiro]

Development Update
As the thinking progress has somewhat changed over the years, feature and gamedesign changes,
We should actually be making a new thread but i'm not sure what the moderators would think about that

By the time we are ready to let players enter the world for testing, there will probably be a launch thread made at Server Gala.
(Still long, long, long way to go but motivation has never been higher since the implementations of some systems)

If you have idea's on how to handle systems or have features you think should be added, let us know!

We have implemented a few of the features we wish to have and are working into optimizing them for the game and preparing for further enhancement.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forging
Functions WITHOUT the use of extra windows or ui where you have to:
Click on a workbench > Press OK > Item is crafted by the system.

You now have to know a recipe, which you can learn from a conversation with an NPC,
perhaps told by a player, read in a book or just experimenting around.

You can gather all the ingredients needed and place them upon an Anvil,
with a finishing slam of your Hammer, it will be forged into a brand-new
piece of equipment for you to wear or to be sold.
Forging example

This thought progress will be applied to all crafting/processing systems, just like:

Cooking
You need to cook most raw foods for you to eat them, although you can always rely on fresh fruits that you can forage which also gives instant bonuses.
Great to sell for a quick coin as well! No longer do we have to act like Gollum and eat them fish raw, w-w-r-r-ingling and juicy.

Other Skills
You can cut wood and fletch them into arrows or to be used in forging.
You can forage fruits and veggies.
You can fish different kinds of fish.
You can cook different kinds of dishes.
You can mine ores and process them.
You will be able to craft elixirs and potions which are crucial to survival.

More to come although we do not wish for it to go the Runescape way and add over 20 new skills,
we want every skill to have a real impact on the world that the peoples of Middle-Earth live in,
skills are practically in-game jobs you can perform with countless options to RP or to just make sweet profits.

Vocations
Four starting races with slightly different attributes.
Currently Dwarf and Hobbit have their own character sprite, with the Elves and Men arriving.
It feels only natural at this point to eventually add a playable Orc race.


No more limiting yourself within vocations, because, there are none!
Some races are more proficient in some skills than others, but in the greater vision, eventually, anyone can be anything they want to be.
This also reflects in the world, there are practically no level requirements for things except skill checks and team dungeons.
We do want to let players distinguish themselves more by reflecting their actions instead, being it by holding a Title or being in a prestigious Guild.
You can be a commoner living out a peaceful life or you can venture out of your boundaries and become like the Heroes of Old or die trying.
Your name surely will not be forgotten.

Dungeons
Speaking about team dungeons, you can expect lots of quests that require at least one other player to enter its dungeons.
There are many stories to be told, and putting the players right into the shoes of what happened in a story is something that we hold strong onto.
This often leads to limiting the amount of players inside a quest.
But don't let this statement fool you into thinking there isn't any to behold when you are solo,
think of the team quests as taking a ride into a theme park, literally reliving stories of old.

Barrow-Downs Catacombs, you know what chapter?

Rings of Power
The first Ring of Power system has entered the game and will become the basis to work with, there is still much in the thinking progress of the ring system,
but for now, they are bound to the player that first equips it, they will be bound on equip unable for the wearer to take it off.
As of now, they will always be destroyed upon death, to go back into circulation, there can only be one of each Ring at any time
but the One Ring can only be destroyed at you know where.


In the end, it will not be possible for players to destroy Rings by any ordinary means,
but enough so that the 19 rings will stay in circulation so that any player that
searches hard enough can obtain one, although the chances are still very slim.
Another thought process is that if the One Ring is destroyed, all other rings will become powerless as well, meaning the system resets itself.

Leveling and progression
Mindlessly grinding creatures is optional but also encouraged taking for example Creature Bounties (Tasks) and venturing alone requires courage and bravery.
Progressing through the game will mostly be done by completing adventures, doing quests, taking part in this world.
Training your skills is already a grind itself, doing the same with experience doesn't feel right.

World Building
All magic words are translated to Sindarin, as are lots of namings and writings you may find from Elvish culture.
We find it important that a new player spawns in a fresh environment.
New languages to speak for yourself or to hear from others, be it Elvish, Dwarvish, or even Entish.

At first, all this will sound very strange although to some very familiar,
It's a world to be immersed in, a world not to traverse lightly,
many people think the world within the borders of The Shire are safe for example,
but in truth, 90% of the ventures the inhabitants of the many villages, have met a swift end,
being a lesson to anyone.

Now there are lots of things to talk about and we try to keep it in compact Patch-Notes on our Discord server whenever something is implemented, which is sadly not ready for the public yet since the focus has been too great on content creating and adding the needed systems over the past few weeks but we did feel an update on the forum was needed.


I want to end this post with a glimpse of how we will be handling the doom of the world, or rather, dooms.
It explains the in-game light we see on our screen and the upcoming spread of darkness throughout the world
If you know the lore you most likely have speculated about the event at some point.
The enemies are knocking at our doors.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prologue Summary:
The melody that has first been sung before time has taught us that creation is a precious thing,
and should only be done through the vision of Eru Ilúvatar himself.
The power of real creation is something Melkor wishes for himself. He could only taint and corrupt.

We know of the ancient evils that have tried to take over the world throughout the ages,
the times when Melkor, now long known as Morgoth tried to take control over everything,
from the time of the taintings of the first song with several attempts till the present moment.
With Sauron as Morgoth's servant still present, the world has never known true peace.

After Morgoth's final imprisonment to the timeless-void, the world still had to deal with the forces of Sauron and the scattered evil of Morgoth's past.
----

One of the most powerful Valar, one of the Aratar, Mandos, keeper of the Halls of Mandos,
He who knows all things that shall be, and forgets nothing.
Saveth only those that lie still in the vision of Ilúvatar.

"For when he speaks, the words are bound like a spell, more like a curse, a destiny one cannot break out off,
The Doomsman of the Valar.
He answers only to Manwë, and together they understand Eru Ilúvatar's vision most clearly. "

He spoke once of a time where a new melody could be sung, a melody untainted by those that do not understand clearly the vision of Ilúvatar.
Creating a true paradise.
----

But the Valar were somewhat divided ever since the creation of the world, Arda.
The betwistings of Morgoth has left an everlasting stain and it is with the struggle in Valinor that worlds final doom is approaching.

​

A prophecy comes to light

At the very end of Arda, far into the West, at the borders of the world, a threshold to the beyond, lies the Moritarnon, known by some as the Door of Night.
The Door was created by the Valar at the time of the making of the Sun and the Moon forming the border between Arda and the Timeless-Void.

It is here the primal evil Morgoth Bauglir is imprisoned, guarded, and watched for eternity by Eärendil himself.
Whispers flutter through Elven realms, tales of a looming struggle in Valinor.

In the ancient prophecies of Valar Mandos, a foretelling unfolds.
"When the world is old and the powers grow weary, then Morgoth, seeing that the guard sleepeth,
He shall come back through the Door of Night out of the Timeless Void; and destroy the Sun and Moon."
----

As time passed and Middle-Earth grows into the third age, the very balance of the world is conflicted.
It is when the Elves are returning to the lands in the West, that lights are dimming.

When the spirits of Men falter, when the wills of the free peoples of Middle-Earth are shallowed.
When the Maiars are divided, when the dark forces of Sauron are regaining powers, it is time.
------

Time itself stood still for a moment, a thunderous, crackling explosion followed by a short shockwave engulfed the continents.
The seas began to rise, the earth began to shift, and the mountains began to crumble down.

And Morgoth Bauglir came. The Sun and the Moon destroyed.
An instant darkness spread upon the world like a blanket.
The world became sick. The Dagor Dagorath is approaching.

With evil forming in the East and an approaching evil from the West.
Varda, Queen of the Valar, collected stars to form a new light around the world, temporarily, but strong.
Without it the world would have no light to protect itself against what is to come.

It is with this beginning of an end, that we are able to take you into the history and future of Middle-Earth.
Able to experience everything that has ever happened all at the same time. Time has become an illusion held up by the Valar to maintain life.
For when the world wants to keep excisting or to be formed anew, a new melody must be sung.

Thanks for reading and till the next one!​

 

[Tenzhiro]

Scaling of Middle-Earth
Since we have scaled up the project and started mapping we managed to create the perfect scaling.
On the previous version of the map, it took only a few minutes for a level 8 character to walk from Bree to Hobbiton, passing the many landmarks,
it just felt very unjust to have to skip most of these locations, if we kept the same dimensions of the first map.
It was like walking from Carlin to Ab'dendriel...

I apolagize for the ever-lasting texts I often write, it's a curse sometimes, unless i'm writing for things that is seen in-game.

Now everyone can create a Middle-Earth map, it's very easy actually to use a MapGen, and I encourage anyone to play around with it!
Next to being very fun to map its locations, you learn a lot about its history as well.

What it doesn't account for is the huge amount of mass it needs to calculate and eventually process into a .otx, which you need to convert to .otbm
Now the fun part is that the map, even with just the rivers, no land or mountains, processed, the file size you get is huge.

I have come to otx file sizes of around 1 GB and after a minute of freezing my machine,
it had to open that 1 GB file in one of the oldest map editors.....
That didn't work out that well.
Scaling the picture down in size and dimensions helped but eventually,
it wouldn't get lower than 250mb~, something the map editor still didn't like.
(Out of Memory errors)

Thinking of the size with just the basic mass was a bit of a headache,
you still have to account for many other factors if you want to run an optimized server.
Therefore we have to keep track of what a player sees on their screen and play around with that,
you may notice some settlements are correctly placed but sitting more towards a river or mountain.

If you look at your minimap for example you could think you are pretty close to another settlement on the other side of the river,
but in-game you wouldn't see the other side of the river, making the player think that place is still "far" off.

This needs to be done to close the gap between points of interest and conserve precious DATA. If we don't need to fill in mountains or rivers we won't.
Normally you could have a huge safe margin and brush away but seeing the map size going up with just some basic mass is concerning..
It does look a bit weird if I export any minimap so some photoshopping will be needed.

---------------
What I did next took some beers, and a lowered self-esteem and I took a 1-pixel brush and did the whole outlining of the rivers, lands, and mountains myself.
Don't ask me to do that again, please. That alone was a night's work.
What I didn't account for was that I had to use the Eyedropper Tool (select color) to select that 1 pixel I created in the MapGen,
Which was a hassle..... eventually with a magnifier I could hit that little pesker.

Now it still isn't over, I just did the "lazy" thing of making a 1-pixel outline in Photoshop which can also be done in RME, so that I can convert that 1-pixel into 1 Grass Tile.
Just more efficient to do in Photoshop so you can put a map with lowered opacity below it and can re-create it exactly how it is supposed to be mapped.

This also gave me the opportunity to mark very important locations lke hobbiton/bree/weathertop/rivendell/moria/etc etc etc.
--------------------------------------------------------

The Filling of the Continent
It took a bit less then 5 hours to fill in the masses West of the Misty-Mountains with just earth, stone and water.

I must say it wasn't that bad to do just very repetative, although I have only done the West part of the Misty-Mountains,
I still have to do the Rohan laying South of the Misty-Mountains and the area East of the Misty-Mountains.
(I now have border syndrome, I cannot make borders anymore for the next month)

Considering their size aswell, I can say we are 1/3 of filling in the continent which still requires some work. (1/3 haha cry me a river)
Although those parts are not important to be mapped right now, they will eventually be come on our paths.

The most important part for me is that everything has it's correct placement and has the room to be placed.

There are many villages and settlements, caves and other dungeons that are key to some stories told in the Universe
and we gladly want to take the lesser-known of the universe into stories they have never heard of,
most from the many books and scriptures that are canon but also from famous scenes from the movies.
(NOT THE RINGS OF POWER BLUUUGH)

Here a picture of the placements of some landmarks.
To give you a rough scaling as in how far everything is.

With no trees and no obstruction, on a level 8, it takes around 15 MINUTES to walk from The Prancing Pony in Bree to Hobbiton.
This makes walking from Hobbiton to Mordor, unobstructed, in a straight line, on a level 8, 1 Hour and 15 Minutes.

Yes, yes we've made Bree a teeny tiny bit smaller considering it's the size of Rivendell right now.

​

 

[JudasG]

Looks promising but it also look like tons of work. Can you show us some zoomies of Bree for example?

 

[Tenzhiro]

Looks promising but it also look like tons of work. Can you show us some zoomies of Bree for example?

Although still lacks detail, atmosphere and bordering (mygod) is not on par, its beginning to finally take some shape!

Entrance to the Barrow-Downs, where they buried the lords and kings of old ​

The Barrows, now leading into tombs where the wights have awakened by the Witch-King

​

A sickness spreading from a source in the Old Forest. Slowly drying and killing its lands.

Second floor picture of Bree, I just wanted the hedge on the screen.

---------------
This is also my first attempt at making a map thus it is all still a trial and error for me!
As most mappers probably notice most of the problems occuring in these pictures.
I still need to setup my xml's for RME so as of now I still do it the old fashioned way
by taking everything I want from RAW, placing them closeby and just copy all the time, so tedious especially housing
I have mapped it in a way that the base pathing and how players traverse is planned first, after that I just go over the area again, and again, until perfected.
I find it hard to complete one thing in one go as opinion and feelings change over the matter of days.


Anyway hope you liked what you see!​

 

[Tenzhiro]

Dear Community,

We have opened up a public Discord for Middle-Earth fans to get a glimpse of what is to come.
This is also a great place to potentially give your input and feedback on things we have implemented or should implement in the future.

Both map and system patch notes will be released primarily here since keeping up with many different platforms, is just not efficient, pushing the game forward is very important, and working efficiently in any way is crucial.
-----------------
Therefore this Discord is moderated entirely by Happy Mithrandir!
This Sapphire based bot will delete any message on a high alert, so that we don't have to keep an eye on that.
He really doesn't care and you are unable to argue with him.
--------------
We welcome anyone who wishes to keep track of updates within this server or who wishes to give valuable feedback!

Link to our Discord: Click here!​

 

[Marko999x]

Although still lacks detail, atmosphere and bordering (mygod) is not on par, its beginning to finally take some shape!

Entrance to the Barrow-Downs, where they buried the lords and kings of old

The Barrows, now leading into tombs where the wights have awakened by the Witch-King

​

A sickness spreading from a source in the Old Forest. Slowly drying and killing its lands.

Second floor picture of Bree, I just wanted the hedge on the screen.

---------------
This is also my first attempt at making a map thus it is all still a trial and error for me!
As most mappers probably notice most of the problems occuring in these pictures.
I still need to setup my xml's for RME so as of now I still do it the old fashioned way
by taking everything I want from RAW, placing them closeby and just copy all the time, so tedious especially housing
I have mapped it in a way that the base pathing and how players traverse is planned first, after that I just go over the area again, and again, until perfected.
I find it hard to complete one thing in one go as opinion and feelings change over the matter of days.


Anyway hope you liked what you see!​

you should take a look of your mapping ingame

on rme everything looks smaller than ingame

 

[Tenzhiro]

you should take a look of your mapping ingame

on rme everything looks smaller than ingame

I've been noticing that as well as I have been making the roads smaller and working more with ingame views~
Do note that I haven't gone over places and gotten through the detailing, since yesterday I've added more brushes so it becomes somewhat easier for me to place what I want to..

I do tend to keep coming back to the same areas to patch things up or remove entire things to be rebuilt,
I feel like I am more terraforming than perfectly building at the moment