The Wars of Arda

Welcome to Valarian Studios, home of the Wars of Arda, a mod for Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II - the Rise of the Witchking

WERE BACK!!Well, all is good and working again. Or I think it is anyway (please address any errors on the site to danny.hewson@googlemail.com with the subject line "Danny you imbecile what did you do that for?").

And on a mod related aside I've finally got the Harad and Rohan AI working. however I've hit across the only serious game play limitation that the mods projected faction list will cause.

Each map has a limit in the number of players it can have (and each faction has to have an AI player assigned to it for it to work). Which means no map will be able to support all factions having AI (it'll likely end up coming down to all maps supporting the WOTR factions with extra AI players for the most appropriate other era, for example fornost would support the WOTR and RotWK factions, while black gate would be WOTR and Last Alliance etc).

This however stymies my plan for WOTR Mode. However I reckon I can come up with something better given time. MwuhahahHaHaHaHaHAHAHAH!! ermmm...sorry about that. Force of habit.

PS, could all the remaining beta testers who are still interested check in. I wanna get a beta out shortly and I need to know if I need to recruit testers.

Progress UpdateFirst up id like to apologize for the lengthy dry spell on the forums. I've been working on a lot of stuff in the mod which while being essential to completing the mod were very dull and rather time consuming. Now that its done a lot of things have been significantly refined and should play a lot better, with the differences in factions really starting to show through some more (although the new balance is rather untested this will soon be changing). I can finally get to work on some more interesting things. Over the next few days Ill be working on adding some features that have been waiting to go in for a while. Firstly Hobbit co riders with mounted heroes and Ents (also the Gimli co riding with Legolas code), also substantial updates to some of the Siege combat mechanics, fixes to trample attacks (specifically to vary the feel of different cavalry types and trampling units). Also some new units are going to be appearing soon, as well as a number of new skins and also some changes here and there to mini factions (specifically Rohan will be losing its Lorien mini faction to reduce duplication. Don't worry Haldir will still be available through a summon).

Also expect to see some updates on the long awaited campaign shortly.
Faction Line-up RevisedWhile Wars of Arda has recently released a beta on War of the Ring, it is meant to cover the wars of Middle-earth from the first age to the fourth. Plans originally accounted for a huge amount of factions spanned over several eras. Over the past few months I have been talking to Mordred and working out a plan that would keep them unique. The number has been trimmed down to 22 and we have come up with plenty of neat ideas to keep them interesting.

I have compiled a list outlining every faction and inn from each era and the corresponding minifactions. I have also written a small paragraph for each faction describing how it would play. Don't worry if you find your favorite faction missing, as most of the factions that have been cut have been integrated into the remaining factions. So you will still get a chance to play as those units.

Without further ado, here is a link to the list: Wars of Arda Faction Overview.pdf

Also the first draft of the New Shadow storyline has been drawn up but is being kept private for the moment. Notes explaining the names used in New Shadow are in there however so you don't get confused. I also want to remind you that if you haven't already, submit your hero for use in the mod here. I will be paying special attention to these heroes when planning future story/campaign elements.

EDIT: Until Mordred has re-uploaded the document, you can get it from Sendspace here: Faction Overview.pdf
On a positive note...It seems my small add on to the login screen has (for the moment at least) completely stopped the flow of spambots we were getting. Up to the point where ive been able to turn off all other user validation, and we've had no spambots register.

As is usual if you have any problems registering lease feel free to email me. My address is on the contacts page.
WoooooooooooooooooooooooHi,

Apologies for the extended downtime. Accounts were being moved on the hosts server.

All fixed now though.

Back onto business. Ive finished most of the major work with the Dwarves, and after a few little bits and some playtesting ill be releasing an internal beta. And all going well id like to have an updated public beta released in the first couple of weeks of february.
Public Relations, Progress UpdateHi everyone,

First of all, our recent demo has had 395 downloads so far from the 3 mirrors, which isn't too bad for just over 3 weeks, although I would have preferred more feedback (part of my reasoning for releasing the mod) although part of the problem may have originated from our registration problems.

Also we have had quite a few posts on bugs and balance problems, a considerable amount of which ive fixed since. I'm also doing some work on fixing some inconsistent, or just plain inaccurate text.

Also I'm planning some changes to Dol Guldur's necromancer unit, which has been requested by various team members and other people which should make them look a fair bit cooler).

I'm looking to get a few of the major things fixed, bringing Lorien and Mordor to an improved state of polish, and then getting a new updated version released which will also include a massively improved map lineup, including a few new takes on old locations.

Also, you may have noticed me whingeing about the mods publicity in the near past, well I think part of this is due to my not having time to think up a lot of publicity releases, and a part of it is there's no one person responsible for publicity.

As such I am going to dispense with having news posters, and appoint instead a single person responsible for publicizing the mod. Now I do in fact have 4 potential people in mind (I'm not going to say who they are though) as I want you to be applying yourself, however I'm also interested in seeing people from outside the current community applying, and ANYONE will be considered.

The job will involve the following

1 - posting news and updates for the mod.
2 - writing the above news: you will be in charge of deciding what to post and when.
3 - dealing with feedback on other sites.
4 - being in charge of the occasional special event (with one exception for which I already have a couple of people to run)

The person I want needs to be the following

1 - able to write coherently in English. I obviously don't want a Shakespeare (he talked an incredible amount of old twaddle) but what you write needs to be understandable.
2 - able to think things up unaided. Imagination is a plus, as its one of the areas where I'm a tad short.

Anyone whose interested please post here, or if you have any difficulties registering or posting email me at danny.hewson@googlemail.com

Finally, I'm going to make the first set of content updates on the site shortly by overhauling the info in the Lorien section.
New User RegistrationHi all,

There seems to be a problem with the registration of new users (my test account "The Ferret" hasnt even gotten through a complete resigtration...even the spambots are having trouble...) so for the moment ive shut off email and image validation and I (and any other admin that happens to log in) will validate the accounts manually. Ill try and keep delays to a minimum.

UpdateHi everyone, im hoping youve enjoyed playing the new release.

So far weve had a total of 225 downloads (moddb 193, exp.de 28, atomic gamer 4....any of you speak german, id be curious to know what the site says about the mod, or the comments, internet translators are so terrible http://www.exp.de/shownews.php?id=26167), so get that feedback coming in, what ive had so far has been very useful.

Also there will be a map pack for the mod coming shortly, including the RJ-Cam and a couple of new exclusives (including a long awaited, by me, change to a well known map, and a couple of maps for a special event...).

"Post Mortem"Evenin All,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our recent demo release. Most notably ElrodHighLord and the departed Eldarion for our massive assortment of new skins, and digi for the massive efforts put into the new campaign and maps (most of which hasnt been publicly seen yet). Also id like to thank Robnkarla of the RJ-RotWK mod for his donation of his camera angle switcher, which while already implemented in the demo, none of the released maps yet support it.

Also as you know, due to my slight goof in forgetting to disable the incomplete factions, there are several donations in the mod which I have not credited in the readme as I intended them to be released in the near future. Most notably Fingulfins Rohan walls and Caluadans art donations.

In addition could I request that all bugs and balance issues that you come across be posted in the relevant forums so they can be easily kept track of.

Secondly Ive just read this on ModDB. It's an account of the doomed Nightfall mod for Half Life 2.

If you're a modder it definitely makes an interesting read, and quite a good warning against making some of the same mistakes.

Worryingly ive spotten several of the same issues in WoA, and its brought to mind some others, and obviously I dont want them to cause the same problems here.

Point 1: Frequency of Releases

As you know weve just had our first release and its been moderately successful (ie people have downloaded it) however its taken us a year to get here, and during that time weve accumulated very little public interest. This is for two reasons. The first is the fact that our site has been up and down on about a dozen different forum systems for the last 18 months (at my estimate we would have about 500 members and 40000 posts if we had stayed on one database all along, and this is just cumulative of what weve had so far, not even including the extra attention we would have had).

To go part way to changing this I intend to increase the frequency of our releases. Firstly updates to the mod will be coming quite a lot more regularly (both publicly and in the form of internal betas which have lapsed in frequency of late). And secondly we may also bring in some additional things for download (I wont specify what before I talk to the people involved)

Point 2: Publicity

Another reason for our lack of public interest is the fact that for a long time to people without access to restricted areas of the forums the mod would appear completely dead. I will be attempting to bring in very regular updates on progress, and we will hopefully have a lot to talk about in the near future with upcoming events such as completion of the 5 accidentally released factions, the release of the campaign, and a couple of special events coming up.

Point 3: Consistency

Something else ill be looking at in the mod is consistency. In some cases a faction has been worked and reworked for over a year now (Gondor was in development as early as 1.03 of BFME2 and Lorien began development a couple of days after 1.05 came out) and as its gone along things have become a bit...inconsistent in places. So one thing I will be trying to do once each of the 7 factions has its assets in place is to go through the mod, and make sure all the text is comprehensible and consistent, and that button layouts, building menus etc all match between factions.

Point 4: Documentation

Something the ModDB article placed a great stress on was having a proper design document. While I don't intend to go overboard with paperwork, but I think it would be a good idea if I begin to properly document the mod, firstly to clarify the purpose of each mini faction (as given our future plans, the specific role of each faction and mini faction is going to become very important). Also as you might notice much of the information on the site is inaccurate or out of date, so this documentation process will have the practical effect of helping me to get this redone in a useful (and hopefully interesting) way.

Point 5: Mod Team and Communication

In recent months we have had people join the mod team in various roles only to drift in and out for a while and subsequently vanish. Also members of the team often arent clear on what theyre meant to be doing. This I think is entirely my fault. A side effect of our lack of documentation is that with the mod team is working either from vague details ive posted somewhere or simply from what ive told them in a rush in a messenger conversation. I think this has caused several members of the team to simply wander off. Something I intend to do is to contact the inactive/semi active team members and see if theyre still interested, and secondly to write up proper lists of what needs to be done.

Demo ReleasedValarian Mod Studios has been working towards a release for Wars of Arda for quite some time. The last playable public release was old Fall of Sauron mod. However the mod team has worked to give Wars of Arda as much tuning as it can before a public release. Now, Wars of Arda will finally be able to be played publicly with two factions with full support for skirmish and multiplayer provided all parties are using the mod.

The mod's two finished factions have plenty of depth, with a minifaction system which allows the player to purchase rights from the subdomain or ally whose infantry will best serve his strategy. The elves, for example, can choose Fangorn late in the game to effectively lay siege on large bases. Mordor can get some elite units to balance out their generally spam/monster based strategy. Mordor also boasts the nine nazgul as individual heroes. Similar to the Witch King's battle outfit each nazgul has their own personalized weapon and look, also all having a different ability set while still keeping most of the traditional nazgul abilities where possible. So you can use the unarmed Odnirh to support your units and perform stealth missions while you are going to be more likely to want the mace bearing Kirmaz to help batter the powerful enemies.

The mod also boasts a diverse set of inn minifactions which will come to the aid of any faction of its affiliation and era. These units can give something to every faction that can use them, from hobbits to the oathbreakers. Between these units and the individual factions there is freedom to use a faction many strategically different ways.

The demo release does not include support for War of the Ring, all units can be built but several issues are making it something that will not work properly in the near future. It also doesn't have the expanded skirmish map lineup, and the campaign is not yet public. However as the mod team continues to work on the mod, patches will be issued with additional maps and eventually a third faction will join the mix.

So without further ado, I present the "Return of Shadow" demo for Wars of Arda.

The mod can currently be downloaded from the following source:

Download Link 1 - ModDB
Download Link 2 - eXp.de
Download Link 3 - Atomic Gamer

Also available are four promotional desktops made from Wars of Arda contributor, JEV3.

Return of Shadow 1
Return of Shadow 2
Return of Shadow 3
Return of Shadow 4

To watch for updates and discuss the mod go to the Wars of Arda forums. Also keep an eye out for the possibility of a Wars of Arda tournament in the near future.

On behalf of Valarian Mod Studios, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy Wars of Arda's first public release!

ADDITIONAL: Ive just noticed a slight mistake I made....I had to rebuild some of the mod files a couple of times last night to get around a bug, and i uploaded a slightly wrong version. It seems ive given you the version that has all 7 factions enabled.

Yeah...

What the hell, its Christmas and I cant be bothered to upload the whole lot again (my connection is lousy). Just remember that Lorien and Mordor are the two most polished factions. The others all have a greater or lesser degree of completion.

Enjoy...