Shadow of Mordor

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

It is things like this game that make me wish pop culture would leave Tolkien alone.

I'm sort of on the fence about this. I do love a good deal of orc killing, and walking through Middle Earth, but when someone tries to tamper with the lore, I just can't stand it, especially when it doesn't even make any sense. If they wanted to do their own lore, they should at least not make it clash with anything, and work hard for it to be realistic in setting and make sense.

[Eruhen]

Whazzat? Walking through Middle-earth? Orc killing? Anger at lore-tampering?

Have you checked this out?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Eruhen

Have you checked this out?

Yes, and from a lore perspective it is pretty awful.

So, being a masochist, and in some small way wanting to try to give it a fair shake, but mostly thinking "surely this will be just as bad as I expect", I started watching a Let's Play of Shadow of Mordor.

It did not disappoint. I immediately noted that the orcs looked like something straight out of Warhammer or World of Warcraft. However, I did not intend to come here and comment on that.

Then the LPer even commented that the orcs looked like something out of Warhammer or World of Warcraft. I still did not intend to come here and comment on that.

However, when I saw Thrall from his young gangsta days I could no longer resist.

As a minor aside, I just discovered that WB made every LPer they could get their hands on take down their videos of the game. The cynical mind wonders if they have something to hide.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

As a minor aside, I just discovered that WB made every LPer they could get their hands on take down their videos of the game. The cynical mind wonders if they have something to hide.

I'm not one hundred per cent sure but I think it's something to do with:
a) who gets advertising money from the video, which is used as the excuse for:
b) big companies like WB are scared that Let's Play videos will put people off getting the game or they will watch the video instead of bothering to buy the game. It's especially problematic, I think, in this time when big-budget modern video games are so devoted to flashy graphics and spectacle. Often people care more about seeing what happens than playing it themselves, probably because these games are so repetitive.

This is just more dilution of Tolkien into 'franchise' and 'product,' a process which will continue to hold back the efforts to have these texts taken seriously as literature.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

a) who gets advertising money from the video, which is used as the excuse for:
b) big companies like WB are scared that Let's Play videos will put people off getting the game or they will watch the video instead of bothering to buy the game. It's especially problematic, I think, in this time when big-budget modern video games are so devoted to flashy graphics and spectacle. Often people care more about seeing what happens than playing it themselves, probably because these games are so repetitive.

Yes, those are the real reasons why. I was being semi-sarcastic, although people watching the videos and not liking what they see would be a problem for the developer and publisher.

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Yes, those are the real reasons why. I was being semi-sarcastic, although people watching the videos and not liking what they see would be a problem for the developer and publisher.

From what I've seen, all of the people who got a review copy had seen the movies (obviously), a few had read the books, the vast minority had read extended universe lore like the Silmarillion, but none had a historian's knowledge of it. Nobody was incredibly well versed in the lore, so it didn't really bother them.

[Morthoron]

There will never be a concerted effort to devise a canonistic version of a Middle-earth video game. That went out the door when Middle-earth Online (MEO) was abandoned for the farcical Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). I was among several well-versed gamers who spent a few years offering input into the original MEO, but the developer (Turbine, may their name be forever cursed) abandoned the original concept for a World of Warcraft knock-off renamed LOTRO that Turbine wanted to market as direct competition for said WoW.

I alpha and beta tested LOTRO, levelled out several times with several characters, and became violently ill at the inane end result. I never played a Middle-earth based game again. As a farewell present, I offered a blistering review of the aborted offspring of Turbine, and I am sure the name Morthoron the Dark Elf is still whispered fearfully in dark corners of their misbegotten forums.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Tar-Jêx

From what I've seen, all of the people who got a review copy had seen the movies (obviously), a few had read the books, the vast minority had read extended universe lore like the Silmarillion, but none had a historian's knowledge of it. Nobody was incredibly well versed in the lore, so it didn't really bother them.

That's not surprising. You cannot expect somebody who doesn't care about something to care about it.

However, to provide further context for the quoted post I was meaning that people might see the gameplay itself and not like it, thus deterring them from buying the game.

There will never be a concerted effort to devise a canonistic version of a Middle-earth video game.

Not by major developers, but there are some fan based projects underway that either have, or look likely to produce positive results.