LOTR RPG Map in Development: Three is Company

Been working on this for a while now. Almost 100% done with the terrain, then we move on to the doodads/towns/populace.

It's a vast map, at 480x480, and not for everyone. People who like short, quick games will be very disappointed. But then again, it's based on the book, and the book ain't a short, quick novella.

I zoomed waaaaaaaaaaaay out in the WE for an overhead and took 4 shots, one of each corner, and pasted them together to make this pic:



Let me know what you think!

Care.

i need to reread the books, dont know what 90% of those places are :( ...
but its a grand job:D!!
cant wait to see it with the doodads and stuffs :ggani:!!

A shot of an incomplete Brandy Hall, in Buckland:



A shot of Bag End, home of Frodo/Bilbo:



Care.

that looks so cool...
on the doors and windows, will you make it look like real hobbit doors and windows? and not just stone?
and the "hobbits" look very big to fit through the doors.

If memory serves me right, Gandalf goes through the road?

Heaven, once again you've impressed me with your terrain. The only thing is:

1) Hobbits look a bit too big...
2) Are you gonna make all 3 books into one map?
3) Single or multi?

Korgath is supposed to be working on us a hobbit hole and some doors/windows.

Yes, they're just placeholder units until we get, again from Korgath, some new Hobbit models/skins.

Your memory is serving up something weird. What do you mean, "...through the road"?

Heaven, once again you've impressed me with your terrain. The only thing is:

See above. :)

No, definitely not. Here's a brief outline of our plans:

1) Three is Company: Bag End -> Bree
2) A Knife in the Dark: Bree -> Weathertop
3) Flight to the Ford: Weathertop -> Rivendell
4) Many Meetings/Council of Elrond (Cinematic Map)
5) The Ring Goes South: Rivendell -> Moria
6) A Journey in the Dark: Moria -> Lothlorien
7) Lothlorien (Cinematic Map)
8) The Great River: Lothlorien -> Amon Hen

Both.

Take care, and thanks for your comments!

Sorry to deflate your balloon, but from what I remember there's no way a 480x480 map is gonna work well in multi. First off, it's a really big download, and second, 480x480 maps lag in singleplayer, let alone multi. Of course less doodads help.

Although this isn't from personal experience, just what I've read in other forum posts (all my maps have been 64x96 or less).

Gasp! he does it again. Where hast thow gotten such great terrain skills??

Great job!:D :D :D

No problem. If it needs deflating, by all means go ahead.

It works fine. Yes, big download. Lag? Only with tons of units on the screen at the same time or tons of AI going at the same time, neither of which should be a problem. This particular map isn't about sending waves of hundreds of enemy AI attackers at the player, but about getting 4 small Hobbits from point A to point B while avoiding 9 Nazgul.

I do speak from experience, and the alpha tests I've run on bnet with 4-6 people have worked fine as far as lag was concerned. No problems. Yes, the initial file downloads were slower than usual (prompting the usual 'What speed is the host?!' comments from joiners), and yes, the pre-game loading screen took a lot longer than your usual bnet map.

But what're you getting? LOTR Tower Defense? LOTR Hero Arena? No. What you're supposed to be getting, what we're trying to deliver I should say, is an epic RPG experience paralleling the book(s). Tolkien created this epic world, and we're trying to model it as close as we can. Does this mean it takes 10 minutes for a Hobbit to get from one end of the map to another? Yeah. And this kind of map won't be for everybody, just like there are some out there who hate TD with a passion.

When all is said and done I'm working on this project primarily for me. If anybody else enjoys the ride, awesome. :)

Thanks for your comments!

Take care.

I believe I can help there =)

I was looking at the overall map, and what about Bagshot Row? And the old forest, maybe you could make a few Night Elf trees to have those trees that (according to "hobbit legend") move around and talk. That'd be cool.

Just for the heck of it I made a more zoomed in version:



Heh. Anybody get an idea of how big it is yet? :)

Some things to note: you can make out the Prancing Pony in Bree, some crypts in the Barrow Downs, the Hedge in Buckland....

Care.

avoiding 9 nazgul?

aren't there 5 initially after the hobbits and 4 off trying to get rid of gandalf? (Talk about nit-picky! Sometimes I amaze myself). Then again, who will know the difference, since you'll prolly only encounter them 1-3 at a time.

fr0ggE

P.S. is there a Tom Bombadill? Is there, is there?

Yeah how are you gonna get the hobbits through the old forest? I think it'd be kinda hard to play. Maybe a cinematic?