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[edit] Tolkien-based Warcraft III games
As one of Blizzard Entertainment's most successful real-time strategy games, Warcraft III enabled the development of many popular custom games based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Starting as a relatively small group of map makers on Reign of Chaos, the community later expanded into the The Frozen Throne expansion pack and has now developed many different games. Thanks to the Warcraft III World Editor, many custom unit skins and effects have allowed the makers to recreate the ambiance of the world of Arda. It is today considered that thousands of players regularly play these games. Although they are commonly referred to as Lord of the Rings games after the book upon which many of them are based, they may also derive from The Silmarillion and other works by Tolkien.
[edit] The Ring Wars
One of the older and most popular Tolkien games on Battle.net, The Ring Wars or RWs simulates Middle-earth as it is described in The Lord of the Rings, at the end of the Third Age. The players are equally divided according to the forces of good and evil (6 vs. 6 players), with Gondor, Rohan, the Elves, the Fellowship of the Ring, the Shire, and the Dwarves in the first team, whereas Mordor, Isengard, Minas Morgul, Harad, the Easterlings, and Moria form the latter. These teams must fight each other and win the War of the Ring. The game heavily relies on teamwork as well as proper coordination and combination of allied forces in order to outnumber opponent forces and destroy their bases and spawns. Considering that there is also a large number of heroes involved, expert players tend to develop micromanagement skills in order to kill enemy units more efficiently. Units spawn automatically at the player's bases, and the players need to build castles at the spawns in order to increase the number of units spawned.
[edit] Strategies and tactics
The strategies employed by each team may greatly vary. Tactics and strategies commonly known as towering (Building a large number of towers in one spot to defend it more easily, often used by Gondor), waving (repeated use of multiple-damage spells) and rushing (early coordinated team attack on an enemy base, often used on Dale) are often used by most players.
The Ring-bearer (Hero who carries the One Ring, initially Frodo) has a specially important role: if the Ring falls into the hands of Mordor or Isengard, a powerful Dark Lord returns, thus securing a win for evil. However, if the Ring-bearer manages to take the Ring to Mount Doom where it can be destroyed (a strategy known as Ring Drop), many evil players would face instant defeat. The Ring therefore occupies a central role in the game.
[edit] Versions and controversies
Almost no one can remember who made the original RWs on Reign of Chaos, and it is often disputed. RoC RW was developed by Darkryu until version 9.5, which had considerable issues, but basically laid the framework for all future Ring Wars maps. 9.8 beta, edited by ZugZugGeneral, became the most popular and still played Reign of Chaos version. Clan AoME (the last Reign of Chaos clan) later attempted but for the most part failed to bring about new maps, with their unsuccessful versions 10.0 and 10.1.
The map has undergone changes from several map makers, such as the famous MMG_God, FatChicksUnited, TNL_Eldarion and Zanda.
The newest version is B28 [1], although B27 is currently preferred by most players. The most popular is forever to be disputed as either 17D (FatChicksUnited) and 18b (MMG_God).
[edit] War of the Jewels
A map which debuted in the summer of 2003, created by ForsakenOne and GezGas, the War of the Jewels or WotJ relates to Tolkien's Silmarillion and the war fought to recover the Silmarils or Silmarilli, the three great gems that were forged by Fëanor and stolen by the Dark Lord Morgoth. The war takes place in the First Age, on the westernmost part of Middle-earth otherwise known as Beleriand. Unlike Ring Wars, it has a total of four teams with unproportional numbers of players:
- The Ñoldor including Hithlum (Red), Gondolin (Blue) and Nargothrond (Teal)
- The alliance of the Sons of Fëanor (Purple and Gray) and the Dwarves (Yellow)
- The Sindar including Doriath (Orange), Ossiriand (Green) and Falas (Pink)
- The Forces of Evil including the Easterlings (Light Blue), Tol-in-Gaurhoth (Dark Green) and Angband (Brown)
Each team must fight for its survival and the eventual dominion of its people. The game relies on micromanagement but depends much more on regular units than heroes. Like most major LotR games, it uses the same spawning system as Ring Wars but has a population limit of 150 units. The makers have also developed a diplomacy mode which allows players to vote and change teams during the game in order to avoid stacking and unbalanced teams. Like RingWars, players must build castles to upgrade their spawns so that they aren't heavily outdone by the more experienced players.
A common strategy, which has been criticized by many LotR players, is turtling. The strategy relies on staying inside one's base and building a lot of towers to defend choke points, farms (with healing power) to defend towers and walls to protect archers. As a result, a defending player can hold off an attacking army at a very successful rate. The high number of archers and towers also allow the player to focus fire the most threatening units, such as heroes. Noldoli cities such as Gondolin or Nargothrond are especially easy to defend since they are surrounded by high mountain walls and only offer two narrow entrances. However, most players tend to turtle in their bases when their team is losing and their forces are inferior to those of the enemy.
The current version, 4E, was made by LordBevan without any official permisson from the original map makers [2]. However, GezGas has been attempting to update a previous yet very popular version of WotJ, 3D [3]. This project was partly started in hopes of honoring the death of the original lead map maker, ForsakenOne, who tragically died while working on the next generation of WotJ, War of the Simaril [4].
Additionally, a WotJ League [5] was recently established on US East in order to encourage further improvements in WotJ gameplay.
[edit] The Second Age
The Second Age or SA is a relatively new map that was released during fall in 2005 by MMG_God, who quit Warcraft III not long ago. The map is that of Middle-earth during the Second Age and focuses upon the Last Alliance of Gil-galad and Elendil against Sauron. One could consider this map to be Ring Wars set at an earlier time, as the One Ring also occupies an important role in this game. However, the gaming concept is very different, and only a few characters of Ring Wars (mostly immortal elves such as Galadriel, Elrond and Círdan) can be found in this map. Again, the players are equally divided among good and evil (6 vs. 6 players), according to the following nations:
- Gondor (Red), Lesser Gondor (Blue), Western Elves (Teal), Arnor (Yellow), Dwarven Realms (Orange), Eastern Elves (Green)
- Nazgûl Realms (Purple), Goblins (Pink), Easterlings (Gray), Harad (Light Blue), Angmar (Dark Green), Mordor (Brown)
The map is incredibly detailed, and has generally been praised for having the best terrain of all LotR games.
[edit] War of the Third Age
A map made by Aerovox. The map is also known as "WotTA". The map is based around the third age of Middle-earth and focuses on the war between Good and Evil. The map has two teams of five players (5 vs 5) made up of the following forces:
- The Good Team consists of Gondor (Red), Rohan (Blue), Dol Amroth (Teal), Elves and Ents (Yellow) and the Fellowship (Orange)
- The Evil Team consists of Isengard (Green), Mordor (Brown), Haradrim (Light Blue), Nazgûl (Dark Green) and the Easterlings (Gray).
The map focuses focuses on the book instead of the movies. It is slow-paced when compared to Ring Wars and will likely prove to be a good alternative, with the difficulty levels of each kingdom varying greatly.
This map is also famous for its revolutionary use of circular walls, such as the famous seven walls of Minas Tirith.
The War of the Third Age is also different from most other LotR maps, where castles must be built in order to get better spawns. In WotTA, these castles are automatically generated.
[edit] Battle for Middle Earth
Commonly referred to as BFME, this map was created by Legend-Fire and has been an on-going project for several years. It is based on the conflict in Middle-earth between the forces of Sauron and the free peoples of the West during the Third Age. The map has two teams of five players (5 vs 5) made up of the following forces:
- The Good team, which consists of Gondor (Red), Rohan (Blue), Dol Amroth (Teal), Ents (Yellow) and the Fellowship (Purple)
- The Evil team, which consists of Isengard (Green), Mordor (Brown), Harad (Light blue), Nazgûl (Dark green) and the Easterlings (Gray).
As with similar maps such as Ring Wars and War of the Jewels, units spawn automatically at the player's bases. Players need to build castles at their spawns in order to increase the number of units spawned. The players are also in control of heroic units featured in the Lord of the Rings; these heroes are capable of turning the tide of a battle, although they do not revive once dead. The 53 unique heroes featured in Battle For Middle Earth thus bring life to the game.
Battle for Middle Earth has had a very long and popular history, though its popularity soared when it migrated from Reign of Chaos to Frozen Throne. During versions 3.5 and 3.6, the map received more popularity as (unlike other LOTR maps such as Ring Wars) it allowed players to build much larger armies with which they could lay siege to the larger, more detailed cities.
The defining feature of BFME was the much larger bases, which allowed a more realistic depiction and re-enaction of the Lord of the Rings storyline. Custom made triggers built into the game also put more emphasis on the story behind the game, players were able to initiate 'speeches' and heroic moves for serveral charecters in the game. BFME was largly based around scenary and thus did encounter numerous balancing issues in its earlier versions.
In recent times, BFME has received much criticism from players who prefered the older versions. However, Battle For Middle Earth still remains a popular Tolkien-related map with several clan followings and is widely played on the European server (Northrend). Many consider it to have inspired more recent maps such as WotTA.
[edit] Helm's Deep
The Battle of Helm's Deep is generally recognized as being among the oldest and most popular LotR games. There are many versions of Helm's Deep, but all of them share similarities and are based on the Battle of the Hornburg described in The Two Towers. The newest official version is known as Helms Deep vReal. Just like Ring Wars, it debuted as an early Reign of Chaos map before it expanded into the Frozen Throne expansion. Instead of a complex strategy map, it rather focuses on the actual defense of Helm's Deep. The map is also largely inspired by the movie version of The Two Towers, as the Elves never took part in the battle in the original. Heroes such as Haldir of Lórien here fight at Rohan's side, following Jackson.
Players who come to play this siege map will fight for either Rohan or Isengard. The game features many gameplay ideas still used in newer maps today such as form changing (Archers turning into Swordsmen) and the use of siege ladders to climb up walls. This map was also created by MMG_God.
[edit] Other maps
[edit] War of the Ring
War of the Ring, initially created by RequIar, is one of the oldest LotR maps and was started long before the first movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Though highly inaccurate in the layout of the locations of the Middle Earth bases/kingdoms, it was hailed as a success by a large following of RoC (Reign of Chaos) fans due to its extremely fast paced nature. Requiar continued to improve upon the War of the Ring, mainly on improving unit balancing and adapting new types of gameplay, including area control. The last of the successes in the War of the Ring I series could be attributed to the A5 version.
Due to various compatibility with the Blizzard's patches in 2003, a new mapper, AzuranZara, developed (*most likely from scratch), a look alike map version called War of the Ring 1.6, which features many of the units that RequIar had incorporated in his War of the Ring I Version 9.9. Though far inferior to the original series map, it allowed for a new following in the War of the Ring map series.
In the later part of 2003, AzuranZara released the much acclaimed War of the Ring II map series, which was seen as the spiritual evolution to RequIar's original map. Incorporating a total of 12 teams in either a Good versus Evil, or a Divided Alliance (almost like an FFA style) gametype. The contribution that the War of the Ring II series achieved was due to the open sourced nature of the maps, which helped teach new mappers the development of triggers and mapping, this spawned well over 10 versions by various other authors.
Since 2004 other maps in the War of the Ring series includes the less than spectacular War of the Ring III map (AzuranZara, Aug 2005), which fell far under public expectations, and the somewhat influential War of the Ring IV series (AzuranZara, Oct 2005) which was released when AzuranZara was part of the MMG Mapping Clan under the leadership of MMG_God. Both of these maps attempted to put proper base placement, which had been lacking in the earlier maps.
War of the Ring IV attempted to incorporate a great deal of siege-based elements into its core gametype, which involves terrain based castles with fortified locations for defenders and siege weaponary such as catapults and siege ladders for the attacking team.
Currently (May 30, 2006) there is a new War of the Ring III for RoC version that is being circulated, which bears no resemblance to the TFT map of the same name, it has been dubbed by many to be the spiritual successor to the earlier War of the Ring I and War of the Ring II map series.
[edit] Minas Tirith
The Defense of Minas Tirith is a siege map with a similar concept to that Helms Deep but rather focuses on the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the actual defense of Minas Tirith, capital city of Gondor. Like most minor maps, it can be found under many different versions. Nevertheless, it remains relatively popular.
[edit] Battle of the Five Armies
Also codenamed BFA, it was started by KoI-Radagast and Mithrandir. The map focuses on the actual Battle of the Five Armies fought at Erebor, as it is told of in the Hobbit.
[edit] Age of the Trees
Also known as AoTT, this map was originally made by KoI-Radagast. It is set at the end of the Years of the Trees, a time when Melkor (later known as the Dark Lord Morgoth) and the great spider-spirit Ungoliant destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor.
[edit] Fellowship Maps
These are maps that hold up to nine players with each player controlling one person from the Fellowship. The most notable and hailed as the most well put together is FoME(Fellowship of Middle-Earth) made by ArmyofAragorn and currently OMGFAG.
[edit] External links
Community websites:
