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29th August 2003:
Lord of the Net
Amongst all the ECTS excitement, Vivendi has announced some stunning details about its upcoming Lord of the Rings online game, Middle-Earth Online.
Posted by Chris Barnett - PC - UK and Europe

Vivendi interactive announced a little while back that it was to release an online game based on The Lord of the Rings and developed by Tubine Games (the people behind Asheron's Call). There were few details to report so we awated further news, and no we are happy to say that we have it.

Middle-Earth Online could be one of the most ambitious online projects ever, especially considering the magnitude of The Lord of the Rings' popularity at the moment. The game is the true definition of a 'Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game' (MMORPG) in the sense that it allows the player to assume a role and take it up in a vast online world. Whilst that is usually pretty interesting for other MMORPGs, one that lets you play as a character in The Lord of the Rings actually in Tolkien's world (not that Tolkien developed the game, but you know what we mean) will get most gamers very interested.

The player will have to select a unique character and literally make a life for themselves within the Middle-Earth. This will involve harvesting to create items such as weapons, armour, food and decorations. Every resource that can be harvested will produce some form of item, so true players will have to try out all items that they find.

In the true sense of teamwork, the player will be able to join up with others and for m a Fellowship of up to 9 people. These fellowships will allow players to fight and explore alongside others, but in addition to this they will also be able to join a Kinship, get married and even adopt children. In staying with the family idea, you will also be able to own housing unique to your class of character (so we would imagine a dwarf house would be unsuitable for anything taller than a dwarf or a hobbit). Each of the houses that you choose to own can be decorated in a unique way, so it will be a little like Nintendo's 'Animal Crossing' (we don't know if we will get in trouble for mentioning 'Animal Crossing' on a UK website as Nintendo obviously don't want any UK gamers ever to see the game).

And the final important feature of combat will aim to be as epic as in Tolkien's books with players given a unique blend of gameplay elements to toy with. This will give players the chance to strategically adopt a battle strategy of their own. The combat system also promises to avoid Internet connection problems by making all decisions small, so each one is carried out individually.

We must admit that this sounds great, it may have not been so appealing had we not seen 'Animal Crossing' (whoops, said it again), but now it sounds like it could be a massive 'Animal Crossing' set in the world of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Now that's a game that we never imagined we would see.

Just look at the shots to see how the game is coming along and imagine playing it in late 2004, when it is supposed to be released.

Chris Barnett

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Middle-Earth Online
for PC

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