Gamemakers are, in my opinion, a bit scared about high-quality modifications nowadays.
Today the industry is about selling as many games as you can in the shortest time span. By churning out quickly made PC games with low quality whle mis-using previous quality labels (Total War), this is possible. The only reason why some people still notice the difference is because they played older games and downloaded mods.
Yet, many children will not realise this.It's like good bread. We used to eat homemade bread, but now our children would inform us that it tastes weird and that it should be wrongly made as they are now used to mass-produced crap.Since Empire Total War and Oblivion, I didn't buy a new PC game in general.
Rome Total War (multiplayer) and Oblivion were and still are fun in vanilla. However, what mods, such as Third Ago Total War and Nehrim, have done is amazing.
Example:Oblivion has random generated forest, boring landscapes and mediocre story, but it was still fine. Nehrim was perfection, awesome leveling system, great storyline, philosophy, manually created giant word... I know the engine was made by the Elder scrolls developpers, without them there wouldn't have been a 'Nehrim', but I didn't dare to buy its sequel without MERP. The quality gap between Oblivion and Nehrim is just too big.
Feel free to discuss.
Last edited by Aldor; September 30, 2012 at 03:38 PM.
I think you are right, though it wasn't ever proven that Merp would be "high quality" in the end. There was still the chance of an epic failure.Gamemakers are, in my opinion, a bit scared about high-quality modifications nowadays.
But given they are scared, I still don't entirely understand this fear.
I do understand that they want to milk their cash cow without much interference from outside, but let's take a look at the BCG matrix for a minute (cash cow to poor dog theory): http://blogs.enterprisemanagement.co...lio-tool-1.jpg or google it
The theory says that at first you have the "question mark" products (LOTR was in this category during the time Tolkien first published his books). A "question mark" can turn into "poor dog" or a "star" product. LOTR turned into a "star" pretty soon, because it became world literature (tought in school classes). After the "star" phase a product will turn into a "cash cow"... Now this is important for us Tolkien enthusiasts, because as soon as you become a "cash cow", they will literally milk you until you are dry. Additionally, during the "cash cow" phase, they stop investing in you (investing only takes place during the "question mark" and "star" phases). It is obvious to me that when Warner Bros. bought the LOTR license, they invested in a "star" and now want to milk their "cash cow". They don't want to invest in deep high quality games. They don't need to invest anymore.
If the LOTR cow should ever turn dry (god forbid), then it enters the "poor dog" phase and gets liquidated. I think that Christopher Tolkien didn't want all this to happen. And he wants to protect the Silmarillon from ever going into that whole process I described (god bless him).
Now comes my question: What does WB have to fear (if fear is their motivation) from a bloody mod? If the mod is of high popularity, it would just prolongue the life of their "cash cow". And if the mod is of bad popularity, it won't get noticed much and leave their cow as is. How can they lose?
The only thing I can come up with, is that they don't want Bethesda (Skyrim developers) to potentially earn money with the IP that they paid for. Like, people buying Skyrim only for Merp. But again, they (WB) don't loose any money through Skyrim.
What's going on?
to add:
About the phases that the LOTR IP went through, on second thought I have to say that in the PC/Console game department, it has always been a "cash cow" from the beginning. Never much invested, always milked. Maybe we are about to witness the phase shift to the final "poor dog" stage.
In the cinema and movie department LOTR is still a "star". They invest in it. But here I also have the theory, that we are about to witness a phase shift during and after the Hobbit movies. I mean, they lost the respect for the original lore (mohawk, boar riding, bunny jumping, Connoly insulting Tolkienists, Warhammer hybrid etc.). That are some warning signs for me (but the Legolas break dancing moves from the last movies should have made me alert already).
One can look at it like this in terms of statistical reasons for banning the mod from a company point of view:
(for example)
1000 people play M2TW; 10% use mods; that 10% plays TATW and loses interest in company lotr games
10000 people play Skyrim; 5% use mods; that 5% would play MERP and lose interest in company lotr games
If you've heard of Skyrim being a great game while playing a generic scripted The Hobbit game and then heard of something like MERP.. All thought about any other RPG lotr games would fly out the window. (skyrim = great game; mod = free, mod = no preset lifespan, and so on)
It just starts an unimaginable avalanche effect. If the above stats were true look how many people may or may not buy a company-produced lotr game.
But none of these are facts or proves anything, it's just how I think they likely see it. Their passion is not for fans that buy your competitor's game and then download a free add on that is a gabazillion times better than anything the company could produce without falling behind and losing money on expensive development processes.
Solution? Ban the mod. (and you're free to make as many cheap, hastily made, expensive, and Dwarf boar riding lotr games you want) Without a wheel a car will not move. (not hastily anyway )
Last edited by Trailhog250; September 30, 2012 at 11:22 PM.
The simple truth is, when you're a professional video game designer, it simply doesn't make sense to pay for: rent, electricity, utilities, thousands of employees, overheads, shipping, paying for all your corporate side, and anything else I forgot to mention (Corruption?) over the course of years in the development that will pay the company back in the fractions of what they originally spent.
In fact, these mods are the things that can potentially help video game companies have a little more money to produce a bit better games. I can truly say I personally bought this game because I had looked up some good LOTR Games on Google and saw this mod. I had to have this game from then.
I'd love to see a poll about how many people bought M2TW just for TATW, or another mod.
To be honest i'm not even sure they even really plan to close the development of MERP, what they might really expect is just to drive you away from Moddb and other major modding communities. I don't see any practical way for them to prevent you from keeping develop it if you really want, with a forum you keep moving around and release via torrent, but you will be much harder to find for the layman.
The LOTR hardcore fan will always find you, the TES fan will always find you as well, but that's alright to them, none of these population would have been really interested in their products anyway, but the dude who just want a nice LOTR/Hobbit game after watching The Hobbit this winter, will never hear of you, will never find you, and will go and buy their product (by product, understand: casualised piece of crap with probable DLC and free-to play/pay-to-win multiplayer). And that's all the difference they hope for.
"GB2/HoME"
I have deduced, from your knowledge of Middle-Earth background, that you read scrupulously History of Middle Earth. Given your close-minded opinion on various aspects of Tolkien lore in detriment of TATW interest and gameplay, I believe that
you are better suited to that reading activity, and suggest you go back to it.
I guess it could work for some guys with Battle of Middle Earth as well...
I made a poll for that, Khay (I don't bother posting a link, it's on the front page anyway).
Exactly what I meant.
By eliminating the non-cooperating competition such as modders (who offer their products for free and refuse to lower the quality), only lesser games will exist and people will never question the quality.
I never played mods when I was a kid, but now I just can't enjoy cheaply-made games anymore except for multi-player.
Moreover, well-made games have a longer time-span.
If you're having the idea that dish washers, cellphones, televisions and other electronic devices get outdated or broken fast; well that's exactly what salesmen expect: expensive, mass-produced and regular replacement.
The game industry is no exception to this.
Last edited by Aldor; October 01, 2012 at 10:41 AM.
@Aldor,
Ah, something like artificial deficiency.
A truly Sauronesque concept. But you are on to something, I fear.
I hope you are right. Because then this C&D issue would be settled pretty soon. Communications are still taking place, although very slow.Khay:
The LOTR hardcore fan will always find you, the TES fan will always find you as well, but that's alright to them, none of these population would have been really interested in their products anyway, but the dude who just want a nice LOTR/Hobbit game after watching The Hobbit this winter, will never hear of you, will never find you, and will go and buy their product (by product, understand: casualised piece of crap with probable DLC and free-to play/pay-to-win multiplayer). And that's all the difference they hope for.
I don't believe that taking down free mods will help. The fact is, that when you get a mod, that is good, and then you find a game of the same subject, you immediately think: "That game is surely great cause' it bases on the thing as the mod I play." Of course, it's not like that if you know the games based on movies.
And you might have understand it already, but the fact is, the mods are free, but the game that the modifications were done to, isn't.
Last edited by Bowmaster; October 02, 2012 at 02:06 PM.
Someone brought up MErp again at TB's mailbox, asking why Merp was shut down, but Tatw isn't, pretty much same speculations as here. But here's the link, second question, 5:27.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SezB5TnPdhQ
Thanks for the link and start time.
good point there about companies' competition. Following this logic, Bethesda would do well to protect MERP. Alas this is not going to happen
As for now, I can't see any other reason to it than for MERP to serve as an example of just how much WB can bang your butthole or, probably the more likely solution, because they don't want people to question the quality of their products.
Predictor of AAR Plot Points and a wannabe forum ninja
I wonder why people keep mentioning TATW?
I mean, they can not think WB will say 'Oh, we haven't (yet) asked another mod to close down? Then we must let MERP be! Hoho, how silly us...' or can they be so stupid they hope so?
Or is it simple jealousy? A mentality of 'OK, if we're going down we shall take as many as possible with us down into the void!'?
The latter I'm afraid the more credible, in short sighted folks anger.
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i don't think third age is really in danger. as said in TB's mailbox, third age is already a cat gone outside the box, so why the need to shut it down as it has already been widely distributed all over the net, unlike MERP which is still under development.
I don't believe that TATW is in danger now. Like the post above me says, it's out of the bag already for a long time. WB wouldn't gain anything from a C&D besides bad PR. They can't get the mod back from 100,000 peoples computers anymore.
With Merp, they might get bad PR also, but at least they can prevent 100,000 people from downloading the mod in the future.
Besides, if they wanted to C&D TATW, they would have done it for a long time now. TATW is easier to find on the internet than Merp ever was. TATW is constantly under the top 10 of Moddb amongst other sites. It is even mentioned on the LOTR wikipedia article (under the games category).
Merp was much more obscure than TATW.
I think they are even afraid of going against TATW. They are afraid of the that would ensue if they did that. Now more than ever (Merp should prove that to them).