Skyrim LoTR Mod (MERP) shut down by WB - does this have implications for TATW?

[AngryTitusPullo]

God no. Anything WB would come up with wouldn't be half as good as Bethesda's RPG engines. I propose going back to Oblivion instead. Older game costs less, maybe not as many interested buyers, means WB might not loose as much. It'd be worth a try, right? Especially if the other option is completely stopping the works of the mod

The point is that they'll still loose. How much is just statistics on their balance ledger.

The game still not out yet so there's no way to judge whether it's good or not. Mod mods also were made of bad or medicore games. In any case just remember that WB did publish The Witcher series which is not a bad game at all.

[Magpire]

Personally, I am more on the stubborn side of the team and want to continue Merp in any way possible. So I have always an open ear for such ideas, like continuing under a different name.
I have also thought of just changing the names in the mod to something "uncopyrighted" (Gondor to Southern Kingdom - Arnor to Northern Kingdom - Rohan to Horseland etc..) But a lot of other team members hate the idea.
All it would take to get it back to LOTR would be one modder to make a sub mod and change the names back. I would bet that we would have that sub mod after a week, if not earlier.

My thoughts exactly good sir!

[Mackey18]

We don't want to face them in court, but we are still far from giving up! We want to fight on our own terms.

I'm sorry, I didn't post an answer to your idea earlier (but I am still not 100% sure myself). It certainly seems like an interesting route to take. The C&D letter was sent to us per email to our Merp website team-leader-account. And interestingly, the first thing they asked in our communications, was for a name and adress of a team leader... it's like, give us a name of someone who we can threaten to drag into court. Needless to say we were not that stupid and haven't given any names or adresses to them. Besides, we have not real leader in our team. The "team-leaders" are just the moderators of our forums at this point. We have no strict hierarchy or decision makers.
But like I said earlier in a post, we don't want to take unneccesary risks and just continue under a different name and then WB somehow gets our names through different means and then the first thing is: Our U.S.A based team members get into big trouble, because of the U.S. law money thing.

Personally, I am more on the stubborn side of the team and want to continue Merp in any way possible. So I have always an open ear for such ideas, like continuing under a different name.
I have also thought of just changing the names in the mod to something "uncopyrighted" (Gondor to Southern Kingdom - Arnor to Northern Kingdom - Rohan to Horseland etc..) But a lot of other team members hate the idea.
All it would take to get it back to LOTR would be one modder to make a sub mod and change the names back. I would bet that we would have that sub mod after a week, if not earlier.

Haha, funny, that last idea you mentioned was one a couple of us mentioned on ModDB. It's certainly viable in my opinion. What you mentioned at the beginning is interesting. I personally don't think they can target multiple people without different C&D orders. Therefore, as they target individuals, all they have to do is "drop out" of the project. How can they can target a whole, non-official team? They can't that's the thing! If the C&D was directed at the website, since there is no legal connection between the website and the non-official team, all the website has to do is stop hosting the content that WB are claiming is breaching copyright. The legal action against a website, technically has nothing to do with the project as there is no legal connection between the two, no? Anyway, these are just my thoughts.

[ChrisG]

Warner Bros is making f2p strategy games of Hobbit!

http://www.gamespot.com/news/free-to...mobile-6397117

[Dwarven Berserker]

I already bet my denarii that it's gonna be worse then BFME

[FrightfulBridge]

....As for gameplay, Kingdoms of Middle-earth tasks players with building and managing their own domains while working alongside other players to explore the world and wage war. Armies of the Third Age, on the other hand, has players commanding an army of Elves, Dwarves, or Orcs while controlling Hobbit heroes Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey......

I never knew good ol' Gandy was a Hobbit.

I can already tell this will be a bad game.


From: http://www.gamespot.com/news/free-to...mobile-6397117

[paradamed]

They mention 3 playable races. It will suck.

[Bowmaster]

I cannot describe the anger inside of me. I'd want to go to the leader of Warner Bros, and blow him to pieces. Why, why do you have to do that?! The Hobbit games are gonna suck! Why won't they just improve the games they have done? Make a LotR: Conquest 2. It will surely be better.

[Menhad]

So WB shuts down MERP for some free-to-play web/mobile games....

I seriously hope that they are planning something else too, cause if that's true I think I might go take a dump on WB's CEO's desk.

[Beregond]

lol, have you seen this?


wonder how many times Tolkien turned in his grave..

[Magpire]

lol, have you seen this?


wonder how many times Tolkien turned in his grave..

Who actually thought dwarves riding boars was a good idea for that matter anything riding a boar as a mount...have they seen warhammer fantasy its ridiculous

I want to line the people created this vomit up in a (very long) line and drop kick them into a pit of wild boars that haven't been fed for a week

[Dutch-Balrog]

lol, have you seen this?


wonder how many times Tolkien turned in his grave..

Omfg...

[Jean=A=Luc]

Wow, what a cash grab. Definitely worth shutting down merp for. I'm sure they have more cooking up and I'm afraid to even think about it.

[Nastrael]

...this is exactly what happened with BFME2..."eh it cant get any worse than this...right?" BAM dwarves riding boars

[Kahvipannu]

lol, have you seen this?

wonder how many times Tolkien turned in his grave..

...Are they serious?

...this is exactly what happened with BFME2..."eh it cant get any worse than this...right?" BAM dwarves riding boars

And next up boars riding dwarves...

[paradamed]

BFME2 had boars wagons. It is no surprise they will ride boars. This is exactly the reason why they shut MERP, so they can shove this kind of crap down the throats of anybody that wants a ME game. Who would buy this crap when MERP would be free?

[Darth_Revan]

They have a petition @ gopetition.com, if you search Save MERP it should be the first one. They have over 15k signatures, I hope they can continue developing the mod.

[Eönwë]

Are they the same developers who made War in the North? With the elven wizard, some made up dragon, etc....

[Dutch-Balrog]

Yes.

[Eönwë]

In that case, I just signed your petition...

WB should stick with looney tunes...