[UPD - 21 MAY] Closed Alpha - Feedback

[Mr.Jox]

As a video viewer as well I'd like to input some thoughts. Most of which seem to already have been addressed.

IE Horse armour. Also giving the gondor captains that Faramir helmet. Then there are things I assume are just part of the WIP IE The Uruk pikes.

Overall the units look incredible. The Gondor infantry couldn't get any better. I also love the direction of the Dale soldiers.

As for the fountain guards they look good. It's pretty hard to say how they should act. As pikes or spearmen, especially as we didn't see them in combat.

Also interested about the direction of the swan knights. I thought these (pictured below) were the official film adaptation of the swan knights. One that was a personal favourite of mine. They really look like heavy cavalry and are extremely distinctive with the royal blue colouring. This version also stays true to the description of the knight's crest. 'They marched under a banner 'silver upon blue', which bore a 'a white ship like a swan upon blue water'.


This was surprising as it seemed that the unit card showed a unit faithful to the one above.



One thing I noticed in both this mod and in 1212 is that the archers seem to bug and unnecessarily hold their bow drawn and do not release. I wonder if this is to do with the alteration of the ranges of the bowmen. Atilla and Rome both had very short ranges for archer units, possibly for this reason. Maybe it's just an Attila issue that I have never properly noticed in vanilla.

The games workshop toy is not official and fan-made as any other not shown in films units. we went this way as it is very very close to the lore. Our unit looks more like a real knight while the games workshop version looks like a tank that never really existed in middle earth. You can say we made tanks from films, yeah true got nothing to do with iconic units but since swan knights were never shown it was up to me to decide what knights will look like.
P.S. the horse armour wasnt finished, got no time for it.

[mikesgaming1995]

How can we get access to this closed alpha if we were apart of the team but had to leave due to circumstances

[Gamersville101]

i think if you would have been part of the team you would have joined twc before jan 2017?
and maybe had some of the members on steam or trollo where they give each other the work?

Sorry if you were really part of the team ofcourse this is the managements decision!

just giving my opinion where its most likely not fkn needed

[♔atthias♔]

did you update the BAI or something for the first time in all TW I play I got nearly beaten

[Gamersville101]

1v1, imagine that a 1v1 tournament id be glad to make something like that

[Chaman]

The games workshop toy is not official and fan-made as any other not shown in films units. we went this way as it is very very close to the lore. Our unit looks more like a real knight while the games workshop version looks like a tank that never really existed in middle earth. You can say we made tanks from films, yeah true got nothing to do with iconic units but since swan knights were never shown it was up to me to decide what knights will look like.
P.S. the horse armour wasnt finished, got no time for it.

Fair enough. I just think that because these are meant to be elite knights of Gondor it looks a bit weird when they have far less armour than the standard gondor riders. Tolkien makes a clear distinction between Gondor and Rohan referring to Gondorian knights and Rohan as simply riders. The version I posted does not look like a tank at all. The only difference essentially between it and the standard Gondor Knight is the blue cloth. The soldier have the same amount of armour as seen below.






As tolkien had written the soldiers of gondor were wearing the same armour as worn during the battle of Dagorlad but the metal armour had thinned and weakened. Thus you would surely expect the swan knights to wear slightly bulkier armour.
In fact I agree with one of the earlier posters that the standard gondor knights should not have shields as they were known to have a weak cavalry and relied on rohan many times for cavalry forces throughout their history.

In all honesty though Tolkien most likely pictured standard medieval knights without the winged helmet a bit like this seen below. Although obviously you want some sync with the weta designs for the film. A bit like how in game of thrones none of the knights really look like knights barring a few.

[♔atthias♔]

We tried adding swords to the waists of some units like spear infantry, but we'd have to make a model that is sword+accessory melded together, so didn't have enough time to do it.

Uruk-Hai, Easterlings, Haradhrim and Dwarves are a WIP and weren't actually planned to be in the pack really, I just added them because they'd been modelled ages ago.

Horses will get Horse Armour soon, for the low low price of $2.50

Edit: Two bugs to remind myself of. Fountain Guard's have no swords, and Gondor has the wrong countdown UI.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

so there are suposed to be more factions than gondor and dale in the pack?
strange I have only gondor and dale

[Teutonic]

Fair enough. I just think that because these are meant to be elite knights of Gondor it looks a bit weird when they have far less armour than the standard gondor riders. Tolkien makes a clear distinction between Gondor and Rohan referring to Gondorian knights and Rohan as simply riders. The version I posted does not look like a tank at all. The only difference essentially between it and the standard Gondor Knight is the blue cloth. The soldier have the same amount of armour as seen below.






As tolkien had written the soldiers of gondor were wearing the same armour as worn during the battle of Dagorlad but the metal armour had thinned and weakened. Thus you would surely expect the swan knights to wear slightly bulkier armour.
In fact I agree with one of the earlier posters that the standard gondor knights should not have shields as they were known to have a weak cavalry and relied on rohan many times for cavalry forces throughout their history.

In all honesty though Tolkien most likely pictured standard medieval knights without the winged helmet a bit like this seen below. Although obviously you want some sync with the weta designs for the film. A bit like how in game of thrones none of the knights really look like knights barring a few.

I haven't had too much time to play the mod yet, so before I give my feedback on what I've seen so far I'll first jump in the discussion about the Swan Knights, Gondor armour and so on.

Firstly, I am pretty sure (but Tolkien lore gurus can correct me if wrong) that the armour of the Gondor soldiers (& others) in the LOTR in the books alone was meant to be on the tech level of 11-12 centuries. So the last two images above (the man-at-arms on foot and the mounted croissant knight) are not representative of Tolkien's vision.
On the other hand, the Gondor armour represented in the movies is of a later tech level with all the plate.

The modders clearly took directly or were inspired from the 6 movies where they could, but obvously had freedom where units were not shown on screen. The Swan Knights were not shown. So there was freedom in how they were represented.

Whilst it is very important, I believe, that units in the mod which weren't shown on screen appear like they have some relationship with ones that were shown (e.g. heraldry, bits and pieces of equipment, etc) this relationship isn't necessarily simple or linear. E.g. the fact that Swan Knights are considered elite doesn't directly mean that they wear heavier armour than the troops from Minas Tirith. Remember that the Gondor soldiers from the movies are ones that are only based in Minas Tirith. The rest probably would be more like the militia (with a bit more chainmail) and the regional troops from the mod.

To sum up, the modders could take two different paths, each choice being fine. One, match the unit (Swan Knights in this case) directly to the movie soldiers with heavy armour and closer look to the regular Gondor troops and look less at the books. Or look more for inspiration to the books and less at the movies and choose more creative freedom.
It's not strange that the Swan Knights are less armoured than troops from Minas Tirith, far away to the north east. They could be more skilled in both riding and fighting and value mobiliy because they have to respond quickly to coastal raids by Umbar pirates along the coast.

PS Later on more heavily armoured Swan Knights General bodyguard unit could be made. Called something like "Prince's Guard" or something... This could be a compromise.

[Mr.Jox]

Fair enough. I just think that because these are meant to be elite knights of Gondor it looks a bit weird when they have far less armour than the standard gondor riders. Tolkien makes a clear distinction between Gondor and Rohan referring to Gondorian knights and Rohan as simply riders. The version I posted does not look like a tank at all. The only difference essentially between it and the standard Gondor Knight is the blue cloth. The soldier have the same amount of armour as seen below.

Let me clarify it a bit. Gondor has 3 classes of units: Militia (all fiefdom units), Professional (those which we seen in movies, they are based on all men from all provinces) and Elites. Since professional army is supported by all gondor country's money it looks more rich and better armoured while Swan Knights are Elite troops of Dol Amroth fiefdom, so the only one who supports this army is one province. Thats why they look simpler. Worth to add that none of Middle Earth units had pauldrons in books.
The military system of Gondor isn't lore accurate in our mod of course because we had to combine lore with films (who dont want to play film units at the same time with all non-shown soldiers?). So to avoid that all full-plate armies with high-middle ages armour we made this gondor military system.

Hopefully it explains why we did it so.

[You_Guess_Who]

I'm not one of the selected with the Closed Alpha, so I can only give suggestions over what I saw on YouTube - but I get what people mean with the Swan Knights looking lacklustre.

I also get how the team do not want to make the Swan Knights into plate-barded heavy cavalry, but in the same time the people want it looks more noteworthy.

So how about this: Blue Cloth Caparison with variety of swan-themed insignia over it. Perhaps some might have Winged Chamfron over the horse's head. Looks regal and elegant while retaining the lightness.

[Chaman]

Let me clarify it a bit. Gondor has 3 classes of units: Militia (all fiefdom units), Professional (those which we seen in movies, they are based on all men from all provinces) and Elites. Since professional army is supported by all gondor country's money it looks more rich and better armoured while Swan Knights are Elite troops of Dol Amroth fiefdom, so the only one who supports this army is one province. Thats why they look simpler. Worth to add that none of Middle Earth units had pauldrons in books.
The military system of Gondor isn't lore accurate in our mod of course because we had to combine lore with films (who dont want to play film units at the same time with all non-shown soldiers?). So to avoid that all full-plate armies with high-middle ages armour we made this gondor military system.

Hopefully it explains why we did it so.

Yeah I totally understand it's certainly hard to get that balance between the films and books. Can't wait for the future version when we get to see some full evil faction rosters. People can also create submods if they want certain units to cater to their tastes.

I haven't had too much time to play the mod yet, so before I give my feedback on what I've seen so far I'll first jump in the discussion about the Swan Knights, Gondor armour and so on.

Firstly, I am pretty sure (but Tolkien lore gurus can correct me if wrong) that the armour of the Gondor soldiers (& others) in the LOTR in the books alone was meant to be on the tech level of 11-12 centuries. So the last two images above (the man-at-arms on foot and the mounted croissant knight) are not representative of Tolkien's vision.
On the other hand, the Gondor armour represented in the movies is of a later tech level with all the plate.

The modders clearly took directly or were inspired from the 6 movies where they could, but obvously had freedom where units were not shown on screen. The Swan Knights were not shown. So there was freedom in how they were represented.

Whilst it is very important, I believe, that units in the mod which weren't shown on screen appear like they have some relationship with ones that were shown (e.g. heraldry, bits and pieces of equipment, etc) this relationship isn't necessarily simple or linear. E.g. the fact that Swan Knights are considered elite doesn't directly mean that they wear heavier armour than the troops from Minas Tirith. Remember that the Gondor soldiers from the movies are ones that are only based in Minas Tirith. The rest probably would be more like the militia (with a bit more chainmail) and the regional troops from the mod.

To sum up, the modders could take two different paths, each choice being fine. One, match the unit (Swan Knights in this case) directly to the movie soldiers with heavy armour and closer look to the regular Gondor troops and look less at the books. Or look more for inspiration to the books and less at the movies and choose more creative freedom.
It's not strange that the Swan Knights are less armoured than troops from Minas Tirith, far away to the north east. They could be more skilled in both riding and fighting and value mobiliy because they have to respond quickly to coastal raids by Umbar pirates along the coast.

Well I know for a fact that guards of the citadel were alleged to have helms of mithril so they were no stranger to intricate plate forms. There is also the facts the Swan Knights were described as fully harnessed. Harnessed would really be referring to the harnesses of plate mail as opposed to a hauberk and chainmail which is rather draped over. Imrahil was also wearing vambraces which he used to check if Eowyn was still breathing. Something impossible with a mailed arm.

But at the end of the day it is quite open ended. even Tolkien's use of the word mail is clear as historically it was used to refer broadly to a number of mail types including chainmail and plate mail. Someone wrote to him asking if the rohirrim would look like the Norman knights of the Bayeux tapestry. Tolkien replied that he was more interested in the world rather than the objects within it but supposed they would. He also said that there were distinct differences in the armour satyles relating to culture and geography. Very broad answers that provide little to go on except for the fact that to Tolkien it was not of great importance.

Like you mentioned part of the issue is that almost every soldier in the films is given full plate when it is more likely there will be clear degrees of separation.

[alphasquad]

Btw where are the guards of osgiliath?


Inviato dal mio iPad utilizzando Tapatalk

[alphasquad]

I personally don't like the fountain guard like a pike unit. I think they should not have sword in close combats, they should just have a long spear. However they can still from à defensive "pike wall"

[AlexiosThe1st]

I'm in agreement with alphasquad on this one. If we're basing this unit off of the fountain guard as seen in the movie, the spears they hold are clearly too short to be pikes. I think they're better off as a "longspear" unit.

All I can really comment on, however, is the visuals. Which look fantastic. The only complaints I have are my personal gripes and an instance of clipping I noticed (Dale's Laketown Guard, some have the old helmet-forehead clipping issue; might have to use a different face model).

My main issue is the lack of variation in each unit, and this especially applies to Dale. I really wish there was a slightly varying color scheme for the Marksmen and the main line infantry (sword and spear) with a variety of helmets and armor elements. For the Bardings and Vineland elite unit, the strict uniform makes more sense to me. But realistically to field your main line infantry in such striking uniformity isn't easy. And I think variety looks better. This is especially important, to my mind, in the less elite units like the shipmen and the longspear unit for Dale. The uniformity is overwhelming, especially for Dale with their rich color palette.

And I'm not saying all this from a position of utter ignorance. I've done unit modding on Attila, and what I did was only a fraction of what you guys are doing. But I do understand how long of a process it is to make a unit come to life. This is by no means requesting sweeping changes. But variation in the colors and heraldry of shields within one unit could be a good place to start.

It might also simply be a design choice you've taken. I only voice this to get your opinion and throw mine out there.

[Mr.Jox]

It's good to have all these feedbacks, make sure to share your opinions. We'll keep asking some other questions soon, will show some new interesting content so stay tuned.

[Mr.Jox]

Behind the scenes RoM team is having fun too.

SHAMPOO

BALANCING REFERENCE

DREAMS

MATURE CONTENT

[Commissar Caligula_]

so there are suposed to be more factions than gondor and dale in the pack?
strange I have only gondor and dale

There's also a Youtuber Preview faction which is Harad, Easterlings, Isengard and Dwarves of Erebor combined since there's only 6 units between them.

Btw where are the guards of osgiliath?

They were cut at the last minute because we didn't have time. They'll probably be in a future update.

I'm in agreement with alphasquad on this one. If we're basing this unit off of the fountain guard as seen in the movie, the spears they hold are clearly too short to be pikes. I think they're better off as a "longspear" unit.

My main issue is the lack of variation in each unit, and this especially applies to Dale. I really wish there was a slightly varying color scheme for the Marksmen and the main line infantry (sword and spear) with a variety of helmets and armor elements. For the Bardings and Vineland elite unit, the strict uniform makes more sense to me. But realistically to field your main line infantry in such striking uniformity isn't easy. And I think variety looks better. This is especially important, to my mind, in the less elite units like the shipmen and the longspear unit for Dale. The uniformity is overwhelming, especially for Dale with their rich color palette.

The pike the Fountain Guard use is the same length as a vanilla pike.

Also, there is quite a lot of variety in Dale if you look closely enough.
Bardings, Laketown Guard, Vineland Guard, Rhovanion Rangers and Rhovanion Regents are 100% unique. No other unit uses any of their models, besides their weapons.
Dale Rivermen and Watchpost Sentries are 80% unique, they share weapons and boots with other units.

Marksmen of Dale and Dale Swordsmen use pretty much the same armour.
Dale Cavalry Regiment and Dale Officers use pretty much the same armour.
Dale Spear Guards use a mixture of the two above types of armour.

Vineland Watchmen and Vineland Yard Patrollers use the same armour.
Northmen Scouts, Spear Militia and Yeomen use the same armour.
Merchant Escorts and Shipmen use the same armour.

So you can see that 12/18 units are pretty much unique. Its the same deal with Gondor.


Edit:
About the Swan Knights not being tanks and covered in 5 inch tank-grade battle armour and ceramic plating. The units that are really heavily armoured such as Gondor Sword Infantry are because they're copied from the films. The Swan Knights weren't in the films (that I know of), so we weren't forced to copy anything and had free reign on what we wanted to do with them. Thus, Mr.Jox decided to avoid making every unit armour plated, and gave them chainmail and stuff. It might make them look less awesome, but it does add variety to the mod.

[wolfBTM]

Are the units from the Youtube Preview faction balanced at all or should we only look at Dale and Gondor when testing combat?

Also, I think that the symbol for when units are hidden on the UI could be a little more noticeable. Perhaps slightly brighter and moved toward the center above the unit card as opposed to the top right of the card.

[Commissar Caligula_]

Are the units from the Youtube Preview faction balanced at all or should we only look at Dale and Gondor when testing combat?

Also, I think that the symbol for when units are hidden on the UI could be a little more noticeable. Perhaps slightly brighter and moved toward the center above the unit card as opposed to the top right of the card.

Everything should be balanced and requires feedback.
That hidden symbol is the default one, we haven't changed it and probably can't change the position of it.

[AlexiosThe1st]

The pike the Fountain Guard use is the same length as a vanilla pike.

Also, there is quite a lot of variety in Dale if you look closely enough.
Bardings, Laketown Guard, Vineland Guard, Rhovanion Rangers and Rhovanion Regents are 100% unique. No other unit uses any of their models, besides their weapons.
Dale Rivermen and Watchpost Sentries are 80% unique, they share weapons and boots with other units.

Marksmen of Dale and Dale Swordsmen use pretty much the same armour.
Dale Cavalry Regiment and Dale Officers use pretty much the same armour.
Dale Spear Guards use a mixture of the two above types of armour.

Vineland Watchmen and Vineland Yard Patrollers use the same armour.
Northmen Scouts, Spear Militia and Yeomen use the same armour.
Merchant Escorts and Shipmen use the same armour.

So you can see that 12/18 units are pretty much unique. Its the same deal with Gondor.
.

Concerning the pikes: I think our criticism is that we wish the in game unit wasn't a pike unit, but an elite longspear unit that never drops its pike. Similar to the Vineland unit for Dale.

As for the variation I think you misunderstand me. I am wholeheartedly with you in that Dale is a very vibrant, varied faction. Between units there is a large amount of variation and I'm very impressed.

I'm specifically referring to the variation within a unit. So take the Shipmen, for example. What I'm criticizing is that every single soldier within the Shipmen unit is wearing the same uniform. No one has a different helm, shield, set of armor. For a faction with such rich colors, this overwhelms me. In the Dalian Sword unit, within the unit I wish there was a greater diversity of color and shields and helms and armor.

As example: [IMG][/IMG]

I'm not recommending this amount of variation. But different symbols on the shields, different colors on the shield. Different colored cloaks, slightly different armor. Different helms, etc. It need not be so dramatic. I just think, and it is very evident with such a color rich faction as Dale, that the uniformity of units can be overwhelming.