How has TATW influenced you?

[Shocked]

Before playing Third age total war I hated the lord of the rings, but once I started playing TATW I opened my mind up to LOTR. Now I read the books and like the movies haha.. so how has TATW influenced you? or what has it influenced you to do?

[Anfauglir]

I already loved LotR, but TA:TW has gently changed my opinion of the films for the better.

It has also influenced me to abandon all the other original TW games temporarily whilst I focus on my elveses!

Finally, I guess it has also opened my eyes to mods, which (despite being a big TW fan since Shogun) I have not ever used before. I am presently looking for a good Rome mod, of which there seem to be several!

[The Big Red 1]

Haha...haha...ha. Only simpletons are influenced by video games.

It's not like I learned to model, and skin just because of this mod. But I'm too busy to ever use that skill. (I'm pretty awful. )

Let's see, got me to use photoshop again. Made me finally read the Simarillion (The best LOTR book IMO) And made me finally get a TWC account even though I had been lurking on the site several years. It was my first internet forum, and will always be my favorite. Also glued me to my computer several more hours than necessary, but every bit of it was fun.

[glassakias]

well, i read about TATW in a comics magazine. before that i was totally ignorant towards mod whatsoever. i loved the movies and of course, had read the lotr books. after playing TATW i started lurking in the forum (as a guest nieh nieh nieh) and got interested in tolkien lore, reading the silmarilion etc. i still like the movies, altough now i am spoiled from the lore nazis

[Shocked]

I never played a mod before this mod xD, and I have been playing TW games since Rome total war

After playing this mod, every other total war game I own just does not compare, I love the units, the lore and basically the whole theme of LOTR, since reading the books (as a result of playing TATW) I now know a lot about LOTR

I have read The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Return of the king and I am now reading the Fellowship of the ring

[The Doge of Venice]

Although i played a ton of mods before this and a few quite extensively like SS and Roma Surrectum this was the first mod I ever followed and actively participated in the forum throughout most of it's development and I would check every day for new previews. although i took a break from this game for quite a few months I back now for most of the summer at least i think.

[Valandur]

I remember watching the LotR movies when they first came out and I couldn't really remember much of it, though one scene that stood out was the Dead Marshes and Ugluk's head stuck on a pike in the Two Towers.
Back in 07/08, someone bought me the extended edition of the movies for my birthday. I wasn't a Lotr fan at the time but I didn't mind it but I proceeded to shelf it anyway. In early 08, I was bored on a hot summer day and decided I'd watch the first movie to pass the time. I watched it, and now, being 6 years older, every scene stood out in my mind and I started to appreciate the movies. I watched the movies, and then forgot about it for a while again, and Lotr slowly drifted away from my mind. Then, while lurking Angus-Robertson's book store, I saw a book called the Hobbit. I decided to buy it as I needed to do a book review for a school assignment and honestly, a 200 page fantasy book was sort of my interest and didn't look to hard. I had no idea Hobbit had anything to do with Lotr at the time but once characters like Gandalf, Gollum and Bilbo were fully introduced, I was like, *hey, wait a minute*. I enjoyed the Hobbit and my interest for Lotr sparked up once again. I bought the books, read them, and at the time, my knowledge on Arda was still very confined.
I read the Lotr books and I found out there was a whole history of the Arda and Middle Earth. I scoured the book shops and took home Silmarrilion and Unfinished Tales, and they amazed me, the books touched my heart, brought tears to my eyes. I'd never read anything so amazing in my life.
By mid 09 I was a Lotr fanatic. I read any piece of Arda material I could find, continously rewatched the movies and being a console/PC gamer at the time, bought BFME I. BFME elevated my LOTR fanaticism to a new leve. After playing number 1, I bought number 2 and then I bought ROTWK. After a few months of being hooked on them, my Lotr interest started to fade again. I'd been reading Raymond E Feists series and had finished all the books, and had finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (RIP).
I found myself without anything to read. After reading the Dragonlance chronicles, I turned back to Lotr where my fantasy fiction interest first manifested. I downloaded a few mods to spice up BFME but nothing could hold my dying interest for more than a few weeks.
On youtube, while searching for some BFME videos, I came across a few Total War videos, mainly by MasterBigAb. At the time, I wasn't sure what it was, whether it was a mod for BFME or was it a completely different thing.
Anyway, after searching the net for a while, I found out it was for Medieval II Total War. I was ready to buy it straight away, but we were capped so I couldn't download and none of the local stores had it in stock. Finally, after a week or so, it came into stock and I bought it immediately. I then found it I needed Kingdoms. It wasn't in stock either so I called up Game Traders and asked if they could ship it in from Melbourne, but ironically, the person misheard me and thought I asking for the Gold Edition which was being re-released in Australia.
It didn't bother me at first. I played Vanilla for a few months, as well as other great mods like CAE and TLR, and even the earlier versions of SS. In March this year, I went on a trip to New Zealand, partly because I'd never left Australia and I wanted so seem some places where they filmed Lotr. It was absolutely amazing, scenery was beautiful, the Kiwis were wonderful and it has ultimately changed my view on the outside world. But while down at Glenorchy, where they filmed Isengard, the *Get off the road scene* and Boromir's death, it got me thinking about TATW.
Anyway, after the 10 day campavan holiday was at an end, I looked up to see if Kingdoms had been released. Turns out it was released 2 years ago and was currently still available in Melbourne. I called Game Traders again and this time I got a capable person who ordered the game delivered up to QLD. I got it, had a few battles on the campaigns and then immediately got to work playing TATW.

So, TATW is the reason why I bought M2TW and revived my interest in Lotr.

[Point Blank]

I don't know about 'influenced', but modding it has sucked up a significant part of my life.

[Eryn]

Uhm, not much. I played several mods before and I had already read all the lotr books(lotr,silm,taba,...). But I can't play BFME2 anymore, cause I think it sucks. ^^

[Inarus]

I already loved LotR but when I started playing TA I realised the awesomeness of mods (often they are too similar to the original).

Also it encouraged me to look more deeply into LotR, namely it encouraged me to look into the details of the First Age so I read the Silmarillion. (If life was a game I would have a series of Achievements for such a feat).

[Kamakai]

or what has it influenced you to do?

Kill bad guys and elves.
Valandur, bet you took your time typing that up.

I have read The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, The Return of the king and I am now reading the Fellowship of the ring

Backwards?

[Russian Gondor]

I always loved LOTR but TATW made my dream come true! A mod where you can actually field MASS armies and recreate the movies!

[Louis Lux]

let's see...

- greatly increased my photoshop skills
- my english has greatly improved
- made good friends
- kept me busy through a surgery recovery
- learned more about game design than in any formal class
- learned more about design from researching the movie's design work
- wasted several hours that i could have spent studying

[MasterBigAb]

Well i became even more evil and i searched my whole house for over a year now to find the one ring
- but i didn't succed....yet

[son of romans]

Since LOTR movie appeared my favorite movie I was expecting to see a Total War game and finaly my dream become true,now I can crush evil armies in battles even more cruel then in film,I hope it will evolve continuesly,now it is perfect,it is a masterpiece but I like to see new units and art from game comunity because I respect people imagination,it has now limit but it have a goal to close this game to our heart and mind,this game is not made to get money,I don't know it is like a child which we can grow and each of us can give it a part of charactere.

[Kayyyleb]

TATW is the reason I bought M2TW. Already was a huge LotR fan because the movies got my attention so I read the books as well and am now a minor nerd on the subject lol.

[Ozzmosis]

I always liked LOTR, and I knew that there were LOTR mods for RTW, but that didn't really affect my choice. When I got RTW, however, after a few months I downloaded LOTR-TW, and liked it, to say the least! When I then got M2TW, I started looking around for good M2TW mods, and lo and behold, TWC became a part of my life, and then TATW was downloaded, and has been on my laptop since last July!
Good influences:
got me composing music
got me learning photoshop and milkshape (3d modeling)
I learned a bit more about lotr
Nice people here

Negative influences:
I spend waay too much time here!

[Knox213]

'Me mate told me to download TATW. And before hands i was'nt too fond of LOTR. ( Since my cousin was all like "lord of the gay's is crap" ) etc.
So.... I Sort of thought "Well... Some stuff does'nt make sense..." )

Then I Decided to play the mod ALOT More. At that point. I Thought "Forget this. Time to watch the films" So after watching the film's i deicded to buy the extended editions then i started reading the hobbit.

[Earl of Memory]

One of the reasons for me to buy M2TW (the others being BC and specially EB II).
Spent too many hours playing/lurking in the forum which could have been used for studying
I started to read more about the world created by Tolkien, and then I read the Silmarillion
But thanks to TATW I learned how to use photoshop and mod a few things, and appreciate that not all work done beautifully is due to money.

[KngGilgamesh]

It made me read LOTR for the seventh time.