SP Fantasy Kingdoms of Arda (Lord of the Rings for Bannerlord)

[John_M]

Ah nice updates! Awesome! Looking great so far!

Thanks, based on your avatar you may like our previews after Isengard even more

I was wondering, do you guys have any plans on making a story line which will allow the player to reunite one of the fallen ancient kingdoms of middle earth? Arnor / Eregion / Woodland Realm

Example, play as the Dúnedain of the North, conquer the settlements that make up the ancient borders of Arnor and then if you do something specific you can reunite Arnor? Maybe, if possible, even allow the players to rebuild fallen settlements, such as Fornost and Annúminas?

I know this might be too specific, given that Bannerlord hasn't even been released yet, but I was just wondering if you guys have given such story lines any thought yet. Being able to do something like this would make for some pretty cool game play, I think

Well we have discussed adding some sort of quest line for each major faction for the player to do if they please. Eregion was discussed for Rivendell/Lindon quests. Nothing specific for the Woodland Realm though.

The general idea for the Dúnedain of the North is that they will be led by Aragorn in the Angle. But the regions of Cardolan, Rhudaur and Arthedain will be neutral, although Rhudaur may start as a evil nation. The old lands of Arnor will be rather disorganized so they won't be starting campaigns and conquering any land. The goal of the player is to help unite those lands through diplomacy or force. All the while Angmar (and maybe Rhudaur) will be conquering these regions and gaining strength when the nearby good nations(High Elves, Dwarves, Breeland/Shire) do not much more than defend their borders. While doing this you will be able to access special troops from the old regions of Arnor, perhaps by rebuilding cities like you mentioned.

The counter argument comes up that this wouldn't be possible based on the lore and how low the population of Dúnedain in the North is, but the solution would be that all this can't be initiated without the player. So you won't see any "Arthedain Knights" or whatever unless you specifically want to. Hopefully that will satisfy all players

Of course this is just our ideal outcome, can't say for certain if this all will be possible with time and modding constraints, but is something we would love to do

 

[Dekkers]

Sounds great

 

[John_M]

More scouts!

Spoiler

And merry Christmas

Spoiler

 

[NPC99]

Merry christmas. Your troll looks great. It’s great that Cem confirmed custom skeletons for Bannerlord. 

 

[John_M]

Troll was made by our artist Luke, same guy who made the Rhun concept on the front page(and a lot more behind the scenes artwork too).

The amount of times we're told how moddable the game is supposed to be makes me certain we can get some trully fearsome beasts

 

[John_M]

And here's the updated heavy Uruk-Hai armour

 

[Khamukkamu]

As always, looks amazing

Quick question, not sure if this has been asked before:

What will you be using as inspiration for creating the look of the orcs / uruk-hai's / goblins?

The movies made Uruks / Uruk-Hai's body-type into New Zealander Rugby Players, but the books mention how they are just slightly taller, maybe even just man-sized.

Also, orcs and goblins in the books are basically the same thing, whereas the movies show them as being quite distinct.

Or perhaps you will be using a mix of both + your own interpretation?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Linir]

Can't really answer for them, but I assume they are going for movie visuals and inspirations.

 

[John_M]

What will you be using as inspiration for creating the look of the orcs / uruk-hai's / goblins?

The movies made Uruks / Uruk-Hai's body-type into New Zealander Rugby Players, but the books mention how they are just slightly taller, maybe even just man-sized.

Also, orcs and goblins in the books are basically the same thing, whereas the movies show them as being quite distinct.

Or perhaps you will be using a mix of both + your own interpretation?

Thanks in advance!

We'll be using quite a bit of inspiration from the movies, though we may vary in some parts.
Goblins and orcs, as you said, are the same thing. But we will be using the names because of the differences differences between the groups of orcs. The body differences will be similar to the skin code between Khergits  and Nords giving them different features. We may also make the posture for orcs and goblins different too, goblins being more hunched over due to their time crawling in the caves. It's like how Uruk-Hai and Uruks means the same thing, but we'll be using Uruk-Hai specifically for Isengard. And goblins specifically for orcs from caves/mountains.

Uruks are planned to be the same height as men. Not "New Zealander Rugby Players" but can still be rather buff Though hopefully we can get varied body types with the character editor. We had discussed having Uruk-Hai berserkers and Black Uruks being taller than the average person, similar to Dunedain.

 

[İşbara Alp]

Amazing modul! 
Good luck my friend 

 

[The Bowman]

Have you thought about pushing this as a DLC?

 

[Pumpkin Lord]

Have you thought about pushing this as a DLC?

Can he even do that without buying license from Tolkien Estate? Christopher Tolkien left the management, and the second Amazon bought the rights for that TV series. Maybe you will be the first one to make the next LOTR game, John. Hehe.

 

[John_M]

Have you thought about pushing this as a DLC?

Can he even do that without buying license from Tolkien Estate? Christopher Tolkien left the management, and the second Amazon bought the rights for that TV series. Maybe you will be the first one to make the next LOTR game, John. Hehe.

The only possible way I see that happening is having Taleworlds buying the rights, though I don't think they have the funds nor would they want to buy it. I would love to work on such a DLC though

Amazing modul! 
Good luck my friend 

Thanks

 

[kalarhan]

is having Taleworlds buying the rights

the price alone for the license is something unlikely to be used for a DCL. It is more likely they would create a new game (instead of MB3) to sell for full price.

Warhammer would be a easier license to get (they sell it in small parts), thus why we got so many games for that universe (including the ones from Total War series). LOTR is crazy expensive. The TV show is rumored to cost about $250 millions dolars for the license alone.

lets just hope this mod gets released and it is under their radar so we can enjoy the amazing job you guys are doing 

 

[Khamukkamu]

lets just hope this mod gets released and it is under their radar so we can enjoy the amazing job you guys are doing 

I don't think the problem is the Tolkien Estate, but any other game dev / publisher that has a LOTR license. For instance, the skyrim MERP project was given a cease & desist by Warner.

I guess with the relative success of Shadow of Mordor / War, they might make another sequel, which could result in them hunting down potential competitors.

I really do hope they don't do such a thing.

 

[John_M]

It may be the one bonus of waiting for Bannerlord so long, they can get their sequel(hopefully last if this is the case) and they won't worry about competitors
Not much we can do otherwise...

 

[pentagathus]

I was sceptical as soon as I read that you were basing the visuals on the films, but the models and concept art you've shown are looking fantastic.
I'm afraid I can't be arsed to read through all 28pages so apologies if these questions have already been answered, but what are your plans for diplomacy between good or evil factions? Will it be like TLD where all good and evil factions are allied/constantly at peace with each other and always at war with the opposite side? Would neutral factions just act like native factions with regards to diplomacy?
Similarly, assuming bannerlord uses the same recruiting process when it comes to cultures (ie the recruits from a particular fief being of that fief's starting culture, regardless of which faction owns it) how do you see this working for good and evil factions? It would obviously be very immersion breaking to see Gondor lords running around with a party of orc troops because they've capture territory from Mordor, but then again it also wouldn't make sense for them to recruit human troops from orc lands either (unless perhaps they're liberated slaves). I can't really see any way of handling prolonged troop recruitment which would make much sense considering the time-frames of a typical M&B campaign mixed with the epic scale of the war depicted.
Edit:
Ignore me, I read back through a few pages anyway. I like what I've read, sounds like this should be a seriously in depth mod.

 

[John_M]

what are your plans for diplomacy between good or evil factions? Will it be like TLD where all good and evil factions are allied/constantly at peace with each other and always at war with the opposite side? Would neutral factions just act like native factions with regards to diplomacy?

Basically yes, good/evil nations are always at war/peace, although I would like it to be a bit more malleable. For example if you are playing as the Dwarves and you have "won" and you want to attack the elves, I would like for it to be possible. So the ideal scenario is the AI naturally are in a constant war/peace state but the player has the ability to change that if they choose.  Neutral factions act live native factions for the most part.

Similarly, assuming bannerlord uses the same recruiting process when it comes to cultures (ie the recruits from a particular fief being of that fief's starting culture, regardless of which faction owns it) how do you see this working for good and evil factions? It would obviously be very immersion breaking to see Gondor lords running around with a party of orc troops because they've capture territory from Mordor, but then again it also wouldn't make sense for them to recruit human troops from orc lands either (unless perhaps they're liberated slaves). I can't really see any way of handling prolonged troop recruitment which would make much sense considering the time-frames of a typical M&B campaign mixed with the epic scale of the war depicted.

There is probably no way we can portray recruitment in a way that would make perfect sense. At PcGamer it was confirmed that troops will be recruited like they were in Warband(unless it has changed since then). We hope to do away with that system entirely and put a system almost like what you would see from Third Age Total War. Where what comes from a fief depends on what is built there. So Dol Amroth would have a building that specifically allows recruitment of Dol Amroth troops. If say Mordor takes Dol Amroth, the building that allows the Dol Amroth Troops won't work for them, or may even just be destroyed. If Mordor wishes to recruit troops there they must build something that would support their troops, such as a orc breeding pit.

Ignore me, I read back through a few pages anyway. I like what I've read, sounds like this should be a seriously in depth mod.

No idea if it was answered in those pages so I answered anyways

 

[John_M]

After some requests we have made our discord server public, https://discord.gg/u4E8cxz , if there is anyone here that would like to join, feel free to come aboard

 

[The Bowman]

As far as I'm aware, recruiting is somewhat different in Bannerlord. You can recruit troops by interacting with NPCs of local importance from the towns of Calradia. The NPCs seem to have parties of varying sizes and quality, and you can get a full fighting force in one go, for a price.