Mod Complete :)

Well, it’s been a while.

So much has happened since I last posted here. New games, new toys to tamper with… It’s been a long time.

Looking back, I never wrote a final word on this mod. So here it is; the Realms of the Elf-Lords mod has been completed. Little did I know when I started it, that the little code changes would evolve to something so big, and so loved. In the end, the modification reached a point where I would add no more, and change no more. A mature game, it was time to declare its completion.

The mod got great reviews on the many Battle for Middle-Earth 2 websites and communities, as well as a known computer gaming magazine here in Greece. The best indicator of its success, however, is the number of downloads it has, and the many comments and e-mails I have received  about it. I made this mod for myself, but to all of you who downloaded it, played it, and enjoyed it (and people are still downloading it, even after all these years), you have my biggest thanks!

This is my final post on this blog. And as I said, it is time to move on – my next project will be Acherusis, a module for Neverwinter Nights 2. A different kind of game, but many of the same principles apply to it, and Realms of the Elf-Lords taught me quite a few useful skills (balancing, skinning, patience…) that I can still use! I have another blog for Acherusis – you will find the theme familiar. Wish me the best of luck with it!

I’ve had a great time with all of this!

~Lord Firkraag

New Version, 5.2

Version 5.2 is finally here! I am proud to say I succeeded in my long-time goal of reskinning the evil faction units to change their heavy armor into a dark shade, instead of the striking gold they use. I also got the opportunity to adjust archery a little bit as well.

The changes include:

– Reskinned the heavy armor of goblins, half-trolls, uruks, black orcs, and so on, from the old gold look, to a dark suit of armor.

– Adjusted slightly the range (and vision range!) of many archers, and lowered overall damage output by a small amount on all archers.

–  Gloin now has a grey beard, and the drakes are a darker shade of black-red. Rogash’s white armor was darkened slightly.

As always, the full changelist is here.

Download version 5.2 of Realms of the Elf-Lords here! 

Good luck, have fun.

~ Lord Firkraag

Another Update

Hello, as you may have noticed, I have not posted anything in a while. I have been busy with exams in the longest time, and I still have 3 weeks to go. I am posting a quick update to answer some of the questions and comments I have received.

Regarding the goblins, they have always been a strong faction; I am getting mixed comments, actually, one person said they are underpowered, and another asked me if they are my favorite faction, because they look strong. The truth lies in-between. At some parts they have been weakened, for example yes, it hurts them that they do not have baby drakes, but in this mod it is cheaper to get the true drake, which is also tougher. I will have to think about it. Unfortunately, I cannot add another dragon to them, that is complicated and a little unnecessary.

About the wall radius, I think I like how it works, it is easy to pull up a perimeter and they are very tough, plus now you can have many more segments between hubs. In addition, wall towers and trebuchets have the toughened wall armor. All in all, big improvements. Increasing the wall radius would just make them too useful, and their point is not to wall off half the map in any case. Think of the walled area as simply the place to make your last stand in a losing battle, or a safe haven to heal and resupply, as they worked in the first Battle for Middle-Earth game.

Finally, the next version is almost done, expect a release in the coming weeks. Exams come first.

It is always good to hear from other players!

~Firkraag

The Unofficial 2.02 Patch

I just want to share a few quick thoughts about the unofficial 2.02. First of all, it should be clear to everyone that Electronic Arts no longer cares about this game (if it ever did?) since Rise of the Witch-King cannot offer any more money, at this point, even if they release free patches for it. In that light, an attempt by fans to make an unofficial patch is applauded, but for me, terribly late.

To be more specific, I was reading through the mod‘s changelist (an unofficial patch is basically a mod, even if it is advertised as a patch) and it is fixing the Lindon Horse Archer trample bug. Wow. That has been around since Rise of the Witch-King was released, more than a good year ago. And personally, I had forgotten about it… Because I corrected this in this mod, and I did so many months ago.

Of course I did not only correct that one bug. I fixed the attackspeed of many slow units, increased the hero revival times, improved siege warfare, decreased the cost of banner carrier upgrades, added regeneration to several monsters… Do you see a pattern here? These are all things that this “2.02 patch” mod accomplishes. If you have been playing the “Realms of the Elf-Lords” mod in the last months, you do not even care about most of these things by now, because the game is already awesome for you. In the end, the “2.02” mod takes a good, solid step towards balance; but it also proves what I stated long ago, that “Realms of the Elf-Lords” does create a balancing experience, and is not only about staying true to the books and movies – which is also what distinguishes it among all the mods out there.

So, the 2.02 mod is definitely commendable work, but too late, people… Those that do care about balance have either stopped playing, or switched to a mod like the one that this site is dedicated to. To the few that do worry about balance and will try the 2.02 mod: Congratulations are in order, you win the “I am Patient” awards. Also congratulations to the people in Clanwars that endorse that mod and support it.

Next Version (?!)

I am in the process of reskinning many units in the “dark” factions that receive gold heavy armor upgrades. The goal here is to give them a darker look. One of the most loved parts of this mod has always been the reskinned dwarves, so I think everyone will like this heavy armor change as much as I do.

Look forward to an update.

~ Firkraag

Version 5.1 released!

New version’s up and ready! Download it from this link!

Changes in this most recent version (5.1):

– Elven buildings have longer buildtimes
– Elven technologies have longer research times
– Isengard technologies have shorter research times
– Archer ranges rebalanced
– Flier vision increased
– Eagles and Dragons detect stealth
– Rhudaur Spearmen health increased
– Snow Troll and Hill Troll health decreased
– Noldor cost back to 1500
– Lorien Warriors and Lorien Archers cost 400
– Shelob is weaker to Flame
– Siege Weapons rebalanced (Range, Damage, Radius, Miss Chances)
– Env vision decreased
– Eomer’s Leadership only affects Rohirrim
– Half-Troll Swordsmen attackspeed increased
– Half-Troll Marauder and Swordsmen health decreased
– Dark Dunedain attackspeed increased
– Hero-horde HPs decreased, except for the Black Riders
– Black Riders have a new armor that is weak to Flame
– Units in hordes need more XP to reach level 2
– Evil eye also debuffs armor now
– Gorkil cost decreased to 2000
– Stealth restored to being still only
– Mumakil charge deals 6x damage vs heroes
– Increased Troll speed (except for the Drummer Trolls)
– Trolls no longer trample (pikes owned them and their crush damage was minimal)
– Increased spiderling/dire wolf/warg pack vision ranges
– Wolf Upgrade cost decreased to 300 (for the Thrall Master)
– Hall of the King’s Men, Temple of Twillight, Forge upgrade costs 500 then 1000
– Green Pasture, Troll Den, Spider Pit level 3 upgrade costs 500
– Fortress Firedrake cost decreased to 1500, buildtime increased
– Chillwind snuffs out fires
– Ice Munitions put out fires
– Grey Mountains map renamed to Ered Mithrin

Also…

– Baby Drakes are no longer recruitable. Uruk Deathbringers can no longer use their stone wall power. Longshots are no longer usable by Rangers and Dark Rangers. Woohoo.

The changelog is updated to reflect the new changes. Now get downloading!

Gl & hf!

~ Firkraag

Quick Update

My Internet connection is back on-line, so I will quickly try to answer here some of the questions that were sent through comments.

For the Dwarven Skins; I’d really prefer it if people didn’t just use them for other mods. One of the benefits of them being a separate download is this; one could make his own mod without any change to dwarves, then point a link to these and say he recommends using them with his mod; chances are they will be compatible. There is no need to actually include them in any other mod’s download files.

Factions; If one of them seems to have more gains than losses it is not a matter of “favoritism”, though I will admit I have actively tried to tone down Dwarves and Angmar because they were so good in the first place. Part of this modification’s goals is to make the game more balanced, and while it is not primarily meant for multiplayer, I think I have been successful thus far. Trying to guess which faction I play with is doomed to fail, as I try them all more or less equally, if only for playtesting reasons 😉

Finally, do want to change the skins for Mordor and the other evil factions, with heavy armor on. The golden look is one of the things I’d be happy to be rid of; however, I don’t see it appearing on the next version since I am lacking the time to reskin so many units by my self-imposed deadline.

For anything else, leave a comment! They may not appear, but I am reading them.

You can expect the next version very soon, by the way.

~Firkraag

Here there be Dragons

So now that I have “baby drakes” out of the picture, I can focus on real dragons; Drogoth and the Fire Drakes. It has not been long since I read “The Children of Hurin” and I had a couple ideas in my head.

One, dragons ought to have excellent vision. Glaurung’s sight is described as keener than that of eagles, and he could easily spot hidden enemies, even elves. That translates as an easy and substantial buff in-game, greater sight and stealth detection. The Fire Drakes have a wider shroud revealing radius and they can hunt down Gollum; and so can Drogoth, who now has the largest sight radius in the game (larger than Drakes, since he flies and would have a better view of any battlefield).

Two, it’s the dragon-spell. Glaurung used it more than once, the power to hypnotize a victim by locking eyes.

‘…Glaurung withheld his blast, and opened wide his serpent-eyes and gazed upon Turin. Without fear Turin looked into them as he raised up the sword; and straightway he fell under the blinding spell of the lidless eye of the dragon…’

The dragon-spell seems varied in its effects. Turin is described to be paralyzed as if he was turned to stone, and so is Nienor later, but on her the effect is greater; she loses her memories and is driven mad (though one might assume that this was because she was not as strong-willed as her brother Turin). Regardless, the dragon-spell appears to have passed on to the descendants of Glaurung. In “The Hobbit”, we read about the dragon Smaug, who attempts to use it on the hidden Bilbo Baggins. In their conversation, whenever the dragon’s gaze swept where Bilbo hid, he felt an urge to reveal himself.

‘…In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell…’

So in the next version of Realms of the Elf-Lords, Drogoth is definitely going to hold this power. Used in battle at moderate range, the dragon-spell will completely paralyze a targeted hero for a large duration, also reducing his armor substantially (as a paralyzed target cannot defend himself). I expect it will do wonders to protect the dragon-lord from lone archer heroes, or help neutralize a serious threat in a larger battle.

The Fire Drakes may or may not get a similar power, but if they do, it will probably be more limited in effect.

~Firkraag

In the next version

Here comes a post about the next version of this mod. I think it is necessary as I am going for radical changes at the moment, so consider this a warning of sorts!

I believe that EA did many mistakes with the expansion. Rise of the Witch-King is a fun game, with great features, but largely it is… not very high quality. EA rushed to get out a game with minimal work (read: minimal cost to them) and so they “got lazy” in many aspects. Mostly in certain so-called “new” units.

This is directed primarily at Baby Drakes and Uruk-Hai Deathbringers. The former is a scaled-down version of the drake with the same attack that comes in hordes, the latter is an edited create-a-hero in small hordes. In the case of the Deathbringers, EA did not even bother to give them shield-wall animation and their shield-wall is simply a yellow glow. Finally, there are the Dwarven Zealots, or mini-Gimlis; EA actually reskinned a hero unit, how lame is that. These units have no place in my ideal Lord of the Rings-themed game. After all, the goal of this modification is to make the game 1) fun, and 2) adhere to Tolkien “canon” where possible. Baby Drakes are the direct result of EA’s laziness, they are anti-epic, they are boring, and they are going to go away next version of Realms of the Elf-Lords.

I am not sure exactly what my plans are for all the hero-hordes. I like the Nazgul in a horde, and Noldors and Knights of Dol-Amroth are great units. They might need to be changed, though, if I end up removing the hero-hordes of other factions.

But I am not worried, I am certain I will come up with a cool way to make everything work. I already have a few cool ideas about Tolkienesque Dragons… But more on those next time..!

~Firkraag

Realms of the Elf-Lords 5 is here!

The new version of the mod, v5, is complete!

This latest file makes it so the mod now works with the latest patch for Rise of the Witch-King, and also makes a very small number of balance changes I made a while ago.

I have a large number of upgrades coming, so stay posted for news about the next release of Realms of the Elf-Lords! For now, enjoy it with your 2.01 patch.

Changes in Realms of the Elf-Lords v5:

– Tom Bombadil hates the undead
– Orc Archer range increased
– Blight affects Lumber Mills
– Farms and Lumbermills give more command points after level up
– Dark Dunedain pierce armor restored to game default

– The mod now takes advantage of the art and graphic changes of patch 2.01

Complete Changelog

Download link

~Firkraag