As most of you know we have kicked off MEV's Map/Mapper of the week. Over the last month we have been pointing out top mappers and maps to make sure their work see's the light of day outside of the one time post on the front page.
So for the week of Oct-24th-2007 I want to look at a mapper from MEV that has made only a handful of maps, but has given many members of the community hours upon hours of enjoyment. who am I talking about? well none other than Mr. Eliec... His small submitted selection of maps has seen well over 5000+ downloads and provides some of the best preview screenshots I have seen for any map.
Map of The Week
Helm's Deep - DEEPING WALL by eliec (BFME2 Multiplayer) The might of Isengard has come to the fortress of helm's deep, only the few brave defenders can hold the deeping wall until help arrives!
If you have any sort of talent with drawing and love LOTR, make sure to submit your works of art. Along with that make sure o submit a few screenshots of your best moments in game for any of the 3 BFME games.
With EA's Community Manager EA Apoc posting that C&C; 3 gets support before the BFME series, one has to think that Mike Verdue has dropped the ball on his promise of providing full support for BFME2. The Game has many online issues and still has bugs that have driven the community away from the game. I don't even want to mention the things that need fixing in RoTWK or the original BFME. So this brings the question "Which BFME Game Needs the Most Help?" Make sure to vote on the right under the tall ad. As for last week, the results are:
Is EA supporting the BFME series properly?
Yes - 49
No - 278
Until about 6 months ago - 129
No comment - 54
Total Votes: 510
As I thought most of the community thinks EA has dropped the ball... and in my eyes they should as EA has really dropped the ball. With Apoc's post on Saturday it truly shows that EA is more interested in the C&C; Series and has not given the proper support the BFME series really needs. This is what I have to say about the current support. The balance of BFME2 & RoTWK are okay, but the bug issues are annoying. Fix the bug issues both online and offline and than come back to balance issues.
Mike Verdue should be the one to petition for $$ to support these games. Mike go knock on the MAN's door and get the funds needed to make this happen. It makes me sick to think you are going to take the hard work of the community and take our ideas for fixes and not pay the people behind them for it.
First off I want to apologize for not getting this posted last week. I had just started a new job and well the Mapper of the week and news kind of slipped. But I am back on track and have figured out my new schedule.
So for the week of Oct-17th-2007 I want to shine the spot light on a community mapper who has posted 16 maps since Christmas of 2005. While some of these maps have not been the most popular across the board, they have had enough downloads for me to want to give props for. aelvenwarrior has graced us with a handful of maps for all 3 of the BFME series of games. With the bulk of his maps being for BFME2 and RoTWK, I can't even say enough about the quality and quantity of maps produced by aelvenwarrior. Keep up the hard work aelvenwarrior and we are looking forward to your next Middle Earth map.
Map of The Week
Evenstar Wars by aelvenwarrior (RoTWK Multiplayer) Four amazing heroes stand trapped on perhaps the most magical island in middle earth. Ancient and new buildings alike grace the island, and controlling them controls the magic.
Community site MEC has nabbed a post from EA's Community Manager EA Apoc about some upcoming support I have been talking about for awhile now.
With EA being remarkably silent the past few weeks about the Battle for Middle Earth 2 and its patches, EA Apoc posted this short message regarding EA's support for BfME2:
Everyone be nice, truth be told, our resources have been stretched thin and needing to give our attention to C&C; 3. Once patch 1.09 is out, I will be trying to divert attention back to LOTR to get some effort going there. I cannot make any promises but I am confident in the community patches being built and will officially support them. So, stay tuned, I totally understand your pain and hate to leave you like this, but its the best I can do right now.
Even though this is no where near an announcement that BfME is getting new patches, at least Lord of the Rings fans know they haven't been forgotten. The community balance path by Maddox and some other key players has been in development for quite a while now, but a release is not far away. We'll keep you up to date!
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BTToons has pushed out a pretty funny comic based on Rise of the Witch-king that I thought you might enjoy. I am sure a few of you guys & gals have friends that have done this.
Make sure to check out some of the other comics we have found and added to our comic section here.
Two weeks ago I launched MEV's Battle For Middle-earth Map/Mapper of the Week. The idea is pretty simple, give tons of praise to our hard working mapping community who have provided us with 1000's of maps here at MEV.
So for the week of Oct-10th-2007 I want to give a shout out to one of the communities mappers who has created some sweet maps for BFME2 & RoTWK. TheNotorius has been submitting maps to MEV for just over 1 year. From BFME2 all the way to BFME2 RoTWK we have been able to play on 13 maps and even a Mod from TheNotorius. With well over 10,000+ downloads on his maps, I think that has earned him the spot light this week.
Map of The Week
Mirkwood's Kingdom by TheNotorius (RoTWK Multiplayer) This is a map with new units and upgrades.You will start with few structures and units to be built, but upgrading to the Second Age and Third Age from the fortress you will be a lot stronger.
The Vault Network is once again very excited to announce the launching of our latest site, Tabula Rasa Vault. Please take a moment and drop by to see what is going on with this highly anticipated game crafted by MMO legend Richard Garriott.
Last week I launched MEV's Battle For Middle-earth Map/Mapper of the Week. The idea is pretty simple, give tons of praise to our hard working mapping community who have provided us with 1000's of maps here at MEV.
So for the week of Oct-3rd-2007 I want to give a shout out to one of the communities older mappers who created some of the best maps for BFME. {IP}SharbturBurzum hasn't been seen around MEV since the days of BFME2 but his maps have lived on for the BFME series. Among these maps are hit titles like Dol Amroth & Carn Dûm which combined have held some of the top ratings here at MEV and have about 15,000+ Downloads. Now for 2 Maps that is simply very impressive. So again we thank {IP}SharbturBurzum for taking the time to create these phenomenal maps for the community.
Map of The Week
Carn Dûm (MP Version) by {IP}SharbturBurzum (BFME Multiplayer) Stronghold of the Witch-king of Angmar. Carn Dum was located at the far northern end of the Misty Mountains.
A few community members have stepped forward with their first mod titled Dark Shadows 0.1 Beta. The Mod is in it's very early stages of development and can use a few beta testers to give some feedback on how the mod is playing thus far. If your interested in Mods and want to check out the Dark Shadows 0.1 Beta Mod get it here, and discuss it here. Please make sure to give our Modders some constructive feedback as you play their mod.
While comics on LOTR or EA's BFME series are not a hot topic these days I have headed over to BTToons and snagged a few of their older comics and have added them to our Comic section here at MEV. This comic was posted about 5 months ago when RoTWK was still a much debated topic. I personally found it funny as you never know what sort of units the Thrall Masters might summon on you.
Make sure to check out some of the other comics we have found and added to our comic section here.
If your looking for single player matches all the way to 4v4 or even 1v7 match play, our community has give us maps to pull it off. All of the maps posted below are great additions to our RoTWK map section & I recommend you check them out and post some comments after giving them some play time.
In the last few months we haven't had much to talk about in regards to news on the BFME series. EA has been quite and well I have personally forgotten just how much more solid content from our community is over any amount of news from EA.
So with that said I want to bring you MEV's Battle For Middle-earth Map/Mapper of the Week. Now this isn't going to have prizes like contest but will be more geared towards the top maps we already have submitted and don't have summited to give our mappers some sort of bragging rights, and of course to give you the community direct links to sweet maps here at MEV. I can truthfully say MEV has the largest selection of community based maps and we want to make sure to put those in the lime light.
So for the week of Sept-26-2007 I want to give a shout out to one of the communities best if not the best mappers. He has been making some of the top maps for the BFME series for a long time and really deserves the spot light this week. If you haven't guessed I am talking about non other than High Elven Lord. For this weeks map HEL has given us a beautiful Dwarven fortress which offers a 2v1 style of game play. The map is titled The Gates of Ered Luin and is worth a few hours of game play by everyone in the community. HEL has marked this map as his last map for BFME2 but allows us to wonder if he will make a few more for RoTWK?
Map of The Week
The Gates of Ered Luin by High Elven Lord (ROTWK Multiplayer) It is designed after the Dwarven strongholds deep within the Blue Mountains. (Nogrod, Belegost)
High Elven Lord has also made these other great maps for BFME2:
Looking to hear some good music in the lobby of RoTWK? How about wanting to play on a few sweet maps? Well our community has once again stepped up and has given us some sweet Maps and Mods to play with this week. Check them out below!!!
As someone who runs tournaments and LAN events it is always nice to see a group of 4, 6 or 8 guys battling it out over a sweet map for pure bragging rights. With that said about a few years ago I jumped in & submitted a few ideas for maps in BFME2, lucky enough one of my inspired maps made it into the game, this map is known to you as Weathered Hills later named Lostriand in RoTWK. Now this maps soul purpose was for a new style of 3v3 with the options for the good players to play on the bottom while the so called Noobs played the top 3 spots. You and I both know that’s not how this map was played online. But in any case the map needed some attention as it was no longer played at events or even online due to the disadvantage the bottom players had to over come.
So today with the Help of a good friend Mr. Hollywood, I want to introduce a new version of the map called WeatheredLostriand. The map has been adjusted to take away the height advantage along with being increased to 600 x 600 in size allowing for a much better layout. The start points with 6 players have also been adjusted to make use of the walls in the 2 gaps allowing for a siege style of play. We also added a few more creeps. Make sure to add your comments to this map so we can improve on it.
For those of you who have been around for over 3 years will most likely know about Middle Earth Center (MEC). MEC has been online for just under 4 years and has been covering the Battle for Middle Earth series along with Turbines Lord of the Rings Online. Well they have just launched their new site design and layout which returns the site to it root colors from back in the day. Along with the new site launch they have promised to cover the new LOTR game in development & of course coverage of the upcoming movie "The Hobbit". If you haven’t been over to MEC and want to know more about the upcoming LOTR game, head on over to their site and forums.
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