Fourth Age Dev Team Interview!

[MasterOfNone]

FOURTH AGE TOTAL WAR DEVELOPMENT TEAM INTERVIEW

We asked you to provide some questions so we could grill the develpment team, and you responded. Thanks to Strategos Lykos, Ajidica, fireblade, Themea, Finrod Felagund, ExtremeBG and others for the questions! Here's how the dev team answered them...


Q: DOM has not been released yet, but the RTW engine is getting old & I was wondering if the team plan to do any further spin-offs in future utilising this same engine? Personally, I love the Elder Days and would love to see a mod done with the same level of detail as FATW for the War of the Jewels. My own efforts have been largely aborted due to lack of expertise & time...

Aradan: I’d love to see more Tolkien-related mods made with devotion and respect for the man and the world he created, but it's unlikely it will happen. To be honest, I don’t think any of the first three ages is suitable for RTW. The game's engine simply does not have the ability to portray anything more than subtly magical/non-human in a satisfactory way, and even scripting is severely limited in what it can achieve. A map, units, faction symbols and even some buildings would be easy to create, but what would be missing is the gameplay, all the ‘special’ elements that make the 1st Age unique. Also, I am personally feeling a bit burned-out with large-scale Tolkien modding. I would either do something smaller in scale or something in a different universe.

Éorl: I agree with Aradan regarding the suitability of the Elder Ages with regards to Rome:Total War modding. Should, however, some spin off of any kind evolve from FOURTH AGE, I will support it and contribute, but I won't initiate it.

Q: In line with the last question, what are your plans after DoM? After all, you are the best modders out there.

Aradan: I have no idea. At the moment I am operating on the basis that FATW must be finished and must be the most awesome mod the world has ever seen, at all costs; once this is accomplished, the end of the world may come for all I care. DoM is really a huge project requiring tons of work and we need to be focused if we are to pull it off, otherwise we may lose motivation or start making slower progress, which is why I try not to think much about what's going to happen afterwards. Of course there are moments when I’m contemplating other projects I’d like to work on when FATW is done, providing I still have time and appetite for modding. I’d like to try a focused campaign during the 2nd Age, like a campaign about Numenoreans settling Middle-earth (centred around Enedwaith) or their war with Sauron after the destruction of Numenor (centred around Gondor) or about the civil war in the north and the wars against the Witchking... Westeros is also a universe that could be interesting (and since it's caught Eorl's eye, I'll probably contribute), or perhaps even the Emberverse universe (just bought the books)…

Éorl: My heart remains with fantasy settings, and I am actually planning (and already have prepared) for a new mod project of my own: GAME of THRONES: Total War. I learned a lot from my work on FOURTH AGE, and still continue to learn, and I intend to utilize what I've learned to bring another fantasy world to life: Westeros, the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Q: Will you mod shirtless from now on? I do most of my modding shirtless and the results are epic

Aradan: I am already modding shirtless; summer in Greece is quite hot.

Éorl: I'm modding naked - always! Therefore, the results are even better

Q: Is this going to be the really final version of FATW (except patches to fix bugs, if present) ?

Aradan: That is our plan. We want to pack every single feature we can in DoM, so that it becomes the definitive super-mod and there isn’t anything else for us to add later. Of course that's very ambitious and 3-4 people can’t possibly create the perfect mod while finishing earlier than 2013. There is always going to be a request for a new unit, a building, a historical battle, a model, a provincial campaign or something else, which we can’t predict or we don’t have the time/manpower for, and we may have to address with a patch. But on the whole, yes, our plan is that DoM is complete and final, packed full with all the goodies we can get in there.

Q: If you wanted to remake FATW from the ground up, would you do anything differently?

Aradan: In terms of the mod-building process, I would probably change nothing. The most important thing when you make a mod is planning and mindset and FATW was built with the right mindset and with lots of planning. People made a plan, set realistic goals and tried to achieve them one at a time, which is why the mod got this far and got better with every instalment. Oh wait, maybe I would make sure there was always a modeller and a 2d artists in the team. The absence of such people has slowed us down a lot during those years.

In terms of in-game details like "how feature X works", I would probably change the recruitment system and the concept with the monuments. With regards to monuments, I would replace them with other types of buildings that would fit the universe a bit more, as has been proposed on the forums, something that would be culture-oriented. As for recruitment, I would keep just one common line of barracks buildings and one line of stables and create a new faction-specific type of buildings, that would simulate less abstractly the process of updating the military capabilities of the settlement, which didn’t in reality depend on the size of the barracks building. I might also experiment with a more complex form of provincial control system than what we have in DoM, though I’m not sure about that.

And of course since we have re-done many things from scratch for DoM, if I remade FATW from the ground up, I would go for their final form from the beginning. But that's a lot of things to list here and it doesn’t really count as "differently"!

Q: How many (if any) new units will the returning factions be given? Or will the older units just be tweaked?

Aradan: It ranges from "none" to "a few". For instance Rohan doesn’t have any new units, we feel its roster is already complete, while RK and Adunabar have a couple new units and all major ‘evil’ factions also get a complete Cultic roster apart from their main one. That doesn’t take into account the local levies of course.

Éorl: Most units have been re-skinned, so there's something new, even with the old units from earlier incarnations of Fourth Age.

Q: I want to ask if the clipping on the barded horses will be fixed. (Rohan Bodyguard, Dunedain Bodyguard, etc).

Aradan: It's on our to-do list, but since we don’t have a full-time unit modeller on the team, we can’t make promises. I want to believe it will be done though.

Éorl: In most cases, I've fixed this issue through texture work on the horses' unit skins.

Q: If Tolkien could rise from beyond the grave and see the mod, what would you want him to say?

Aradan: "I approve", would be awesome.

Éorl: I'd like him to be inspired by the mod as we are by his work

Q: What during the whole process of making FATW was the most difficult moment?

Aradan: For me it was a bit longer than "a moment"; more like a year actually, from late 2008 all the way to late 2009. It was after TNS: Wars of Men had been released, MasterOfNone had retired and I was left all by myself to take the mod from "TNS" to "Full campaign" status, which was what every fan had been waiting for since 2005.

There was so incredibly much that needed to be done in every single department of the mod, that I felt upgrading to 3.0 was way beyond my skill and I was considering simply abandoning the mod. I needed a break from FATW anyway, so during 2009 I worked with MoN on VI2 and NI (getting lots of experience on how to be a mod-leader and how to make a mod). But during that entire year I couldn’t bring myself to work on FATW at all. For one, I didn’t know where to begin, because almost everything needed upgrading or redoing from scratch. And secondly, I was still all by myself and I didn’t believe I could finish 3.0 without an artist. So, all in all, I was very demoralized and pretty much hopeless during 2009 and the mod had really good chances of being discontinued.

And then Éorl came unexpectedly (fitting name, eh?) and apart from contributing tons of work, he also boosted my morale again and I decided FATW deserved better than being abandoned. And here we are today, still slaving away in our dungeons.

Q: Which feature are you the most proud of?

Aradan: The mod's immersion and level of detail. Players (according to what is posted on the forum) don’t feel they are playing RTW with a thin layer of Middle-earth names, factions and units randomly thrown in. They feel the mod is complete and robust, that it has an inner consistency and follows the lore, that it could be part of the ME ‘universe’. People say that, we’re proud.

Éorl: The FOURTH AGE Team has a policy of staying true to the lore. Regarding my department, I'm proud of how accurate our version of Middle-earth has become. And I mean the landscape, the geography - Tolkien often described the world itself like a character, and Middle-earth has so many awe-inspiring features and unique landscapes that it was a real challenge (and a rewarding one) to re-create the world for the Rome:Total War engine.

Q: I have a question: in the team's own judgement, how much non-lore mentioned (fanfiction, not against the lore) elements exist in FATW?

Aradan: Depends on how literal one is with the definitions of "lore" and "fan-fiction". With regards to lore, there are several elements RTW as a game has which the lore doesn’t explicitly mention because a writer wouldn’t deal with that kind of things in a book. For example, Tolkien didn’t describe the armies of each faction in detail, or what kind of infrastructure they had in their settlements, or provide names and locations for all the settlements on the map. These are things we had to "fill in" ourselves, so we created several settlements, part of the background story, unit and building concepts and more in order to make the world more complete or fill blanks.

Where the lore does not provide answers, we have made educated guesses based on our world, similar situations elsewhere in the lore and gameplay. We have tried, however, to make our additions fit the world (eg, our names for Woodmen settlements are in Old English and have relevant meanings) as well as make it clear to the players where this is the case. For example, in DoM the Provincial Lore buildings provide information about which settlements in each region are not part of the lore and have been created by us.

As for fan-fiction, I wouldn’t use the term to describe the invention of a settlement or the conception of a unit or building type. Fan-fiction is commonly used to describe something quite different to what we do, which is supplementing the existing world with a bit more detail where there are gaps, without contradicting the existing lore and without inventing completely new elements for no good reason.

Q: What will FATW bring to the table that perhaps has been missing in other mods?

Aradan: I don’t think any element on its own is missing from the modding scene. Some mods have great graphics, some have lots of detail, others have great gameplay, others feature unique timeframes/settings, others are very stable… What I think is missing is the combination of high-level stability, balance, immersion, gameplay, visuals, audio and text, all in one package. We want to create the best TW mod that will be thoroughly enjoyable even if someone does not particularly like fantasy.

Q: Why do you feel the FA Team have consistently finished and polished all their mods when so many mods never reach that point?

Aradan: I can answer for myself. OCD. Or you can call it "commitment to the cause". If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Éorl: It's the FOURTH AGE's Team infamous fussiness - the mod seems to attract people who have a pathological obsession with detail and accuracy, so it's a no-no to abandon or release something unfinished.

Count: I'd say it's two things. First there is the total drive/dedication/OCD/perfectionism you see in the team, that will simply not allow them to release an inferior product.

Second, and just as important, is the knowledge these guys have. I'm basically responsible for text editing, some writing, and testing; that's about the extent of what I can be trusted to handle. But the other guys on the team know a ton about modding, and what they don't know, they learn.

As someone who has a very basic knowledge of modding, I can see how newer modders can learn some modelling, or some coding - or simply begin with a cool concept - and then assume they'll assemble a team which can handle the other stuff. Reality has a way of derailing those assumptions, however. If you want to make a mod, probably the best advice is to be prepared to do it all yourself. I think the fact that everyone on the team (myself excluded!) can do some work in pretty much any area of the mod has helped them get through those rough patches, to the point where they're on the verge of releasing something that's been in the works for years.

Also, regarding one tiny aspect of the polish - the team definitely recognizes and appreciates the importance of good writing. As a writer and teacher of writing myself, I see many mods that don't have that same standard; it's great to be part of one that has high expectations in that regard.

Q: Why do you mod?

Aradan: That’s a good question for my therapist, when I get one.

I think the main reason is because I want to see a certain game made and I want to play it. That game does not exist, so I have to make it myself, if I can. The other reason would be the same reason everyone has hobbies: it allows me to let steam off, to immerse myself in a different world for a bit. It’s creative, it takes devotion and persistence and it is quite rewarding; also quite frustrating at times, but that’s life.

Éorl: I have created some minor mods (graphics-related) for games many years before, even a map of Middle-earth for a very old version of Civilization. I didn't even know that was called modding, until I fell in love with FOURTH AGE and made some unit re-skins for my own pleasure and posted the results on ModRealms. That was when MasterOfNone invited me to join the team.

Since then, I mod.

I've been drawing and painting since I was very little, and I cannot imagine a life without art - be it a drawing, a painting, graphic design on the PC, photo-editing, painting wargame miniatures etc. This was my route into modding as well - improving some unit skins quickly became improving the battlemap environments, and now I've come to cherish coding, too - creating a new campaign, tech trees etc. is just as rewarding.

Count: In my case this question would be really more like "Why do you watch other people mod, and then suggest slight changes to their work?" Working with in-game text does not yield jaw-dropping results like the artwork provided by Eorl and others, and it doesn't help to build the game's mechanics like all the coding work done by Aradan, but it's part of fleshing out the atmosphere of the game world.

I first played Fourth Age after The New Shadow was released. It was the first mod I ever downloaded. It was clear even from the release thread that this was a well-crafted piece of work. Over the next several years of playing, I wrote up a few faction guides, mostly for my own amusement.

My first working experience with the team (at least some of the team members) was actually in Norman Invasion. There was a request for beta testers, I volunteered, and over the course of running the game through its paces I found that I could help out identifying places where the text could be improved. Far from being put off by my impertinence, the team welcomed my input. That led to Aradan asking me to write some faction guides for NI, and then inviting me to join the Fourth Age team in a similar capacity. I've been part of FATW for perhaps a year now, mostly writing and editing unit and building descriptions, and also offering suggestions and feedback as needed.

It's a great honor to work with such an accomplished group, and getting a sneak peek at the end product is of course a powerful incentive to sift through all those lines of text!

Q: Why has FATW taken so long?

Aradan: Several reasons, but mostly because it's an incredibly huge project. It is a total conversion (very little of the vanilla game has remained in DoM), we are including a lot of unique and/or complex features and we are applying very strict quality standards to every single aspect of it.

Also, for the greatest part of its life FATW has had no more than 3 people actively working on it, compared to the 10-15 (or more) members RTW-themed mods of comparable scope usually have.

And finally, while antiquity-based mods can use material from vanilla, from each other or from the tons of relevant work (from models, to symbols, to research) produced by other modders constantly, creating a fantasy-based, medieval-themed mod on RTW meant almost everything had to be created from scratch specifically for this project and we could not rely on someone else's work. If you do the math considering all the above, FATW hasn't taken all that long in the end.

Q: What would you like to say to those fans who've been so loyal over the years?

Aradan: A sincere "thank you". After an 8-hour session of making sure the roads on the map have reasonable courses or two weeks of trying to track down one bug, one really-really appreciates the thought of some people looking forward to the fruit of that labour; it makes the whole thing worth it and prevents him from jumping from a roof. We are going to make it up to our fans for their patience with DoM.

Q: What do the dev team think of Tom Bombadil?

Aradan: Tolkien chose to let him be a mystery (I don't think even he had decided what exactly Tom is), so it's hard to put a label on him. If I had to pick something, I'd say he is a Maiar.

Éorl: Regarding Bombadil's immunity to the seductive power of The One Ring, I'd even say he's something older than the Maiar. In my eyes, he represents Middle-earth and is a personification of the world created by the Valar, maybe even something the Valar didn't intend to create.

Q: If you guys decided to do another LoTR mod or game sometime in the future without any limitations from the game, what era or event would you focus the mod around? Why that era or event in particular?

Aradan: Numenorean colonisation of Middle-earth, Founding of Gondor, Wars of Arnor would be my choices. For me it's all about the gameplay, how a game/mod can create a unique experience, and offer the player a challenge.

Númenórean colonisation would offer a chance to look through the eyes of a superior civilisation trying to colonise a foreign land and create a one-playable-faction RP-oriented campaign, where you'd get to make decisions on a much more basic level; instead of worrying about building palaces and barracks, you'd worry about getting first materials, the disposition of your neighbours, the lack of manpower etc. That's very interesting to me.

The Founding of Gondor is interesting because it gives a glimpse of the first years of the kingdom, before it was a superpower. The Kingdom is just a few cities on the Anduin and the rest of Gondor is in the hands of its native inhabitants, some loyal to Sauron, some neutral, but generally none very eager to give their lands up and the player would not only have to establish himself and expand, but also fight back Sauron's hordes of Orcs and his allies on your western borders with a limited manpower.

And finally the wars of Arnor are just awesome. You have Dunedanic civil war plus the Witchking, slugging it out during a war that resulted in Arnor getting almost totally depopulated. Very Total War scenario, where every faction stands a chance to emerge victorious and the rest utterly destroyed.

If I was to make any Tolkien-related game I wanted besides TW, I'd create an open-ended RPG set during middle-late 3rd age, but not close to the War of the Ring; think Skyrim Tolkien-ified, and on a larger scale. Or a Thorongil-based game combining RPG and action elements, with a linear-ish storyline though. The possibilities are endless when you take out the game's limitations (which is highly unrealistic)!

Q: If you were hired by CA to make ME:TW, with complete creative freedom and large funds, what would it look like?

Éorl: If I were hired by CA (and I'm not sure if I'd really like to work for them, seeing how the last installments in the Total War series turned out) and had anything to say, I'd change their policy: Focus on polishing the gameplay and motivation aspects of the game first, balance it with historical accuracy, and deal with the fancy graphics improvements later.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

So if someone starts a first age/other epic timeframe LotR mod, they get Eorl by default? That's a bargain alright!

[Beorn]

It seems that he has an Epic Fatntasy mod release clause of 0 $ if he's offered a part-time contract Ithink Aradan should tie his players modmates with better contracts
@Eorl, I didn't knew that u could be slaved in more than 1 dungeon silmutaneously!

[Thangaror]

Q: Will you mod shirtless from now on? I do most of my modding shirtless and the results are epic

Aradan: I am already modding shirtless; summer in Greece is quite hot.

Éorl: I'm modding naked - always! Therefore, the results are even better

Éorl pwns Aradan!

Q: How many (if any) new units will the returning factions be given? Or will the older units just be tweaked?

Aradan: It ranges from "none" to "a few". For instance Rohan doesn’t have any new units, we feel its roster is already complete, while RK and Adunabar have a couple new units and all major ‘evil’ factions also get a complete Cultic roster apart from their main one. That doesn’t take into account the local levies of course.

Éorl: Most units have been re-skinned, so there's something new, even with the old units from earlier incarnations of Fourth Age.

Nice to hear! Well, I am "tensioned like a bow".

Interesting to hear that the Cult will spread like a plague among the peoples of Middle-earth. Though I actually wonder how you can convert Men of Darkness from "evil" to "evil".

[TheDarkKnight]

Though I actually wonder how you can convert Men of Darkness from "evil" to "evil".

Introduce them to Jersey Shore.

[Spike]

Éorl: I'm modding naked - always!

just be careful near the wargs

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

From being simple arses, cutthroats and mean people you convert them into dark minions who seek the return of the great enemy.

[The Sloth]

Éorl: I'm modding naked - always!

I think I just found myself a signature...

[Nelduin]

Happy to read that interview. Good luck for the next and keep up the high work. +Rep

[Thangaror]

As long as Éorl isn't sitting on a pink chair, everything should be fine.

[MasterOfNone]

I forgot to include some of the photos in the interview. This is Éorl's base of operations when he needs to get out the dungeon to study vegetation...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Feel free to post any pics of the dev team's workplace you might have

[The Sloth]

Here's a photo of Aradan during the interview. Might also explain why they'll be able to finish this mod with so ''few'' people working on it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Éorl]

@Eorl, I didn't knew that u could be slaved in more than 1 dungeon silmutaneously!

You have no idea! To give away a secret, we actually had a serious shot at inventing new cloning technologies to help us with the mod - that's why it really took so long. Something went terrily awry, though, and there was a lot of clones to, erm, quietly deposit. They were so bad that even our Wargs wouldn't go near them, so...

Yeah, right, that was a deep dark forest, once. The trees have all migrated to our mod.

[Thangaror]

Yeah, right, that was a deep dark forest, once. The trees have all migrated to our mod.

HUUUUM HOOOOM!

I'll take this as hint that there'll be unique Ent units.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Finrod Felagund]

or perhaps even the Emberverse universe (just bought the books)…

Enjoy the books! I think, assuming the right person with the right knowledge got a hold of it, a mod for this would be something that could be put together fairly easily...

[Aradan]

Enjoy the books! I think, assuming the right person with the right knowledge got a hold of it, a mod for this would be something that could be put together fairly easily...

Thanks. Kingdoms would probably be a more suitable platform for such a mod though.

[Agent007]

Aradan: I have no idea. At the moment I am operating on the basis that FATW must be finished and must be the most awesome mod the world has ever seen, at all costs (...) I’d like to try a focused campaign during the 2nd Age (...) or about the civil war in the north and the wars against the Witchking...

Éorl: My heart remains with fantasy settings, and I am actually planning (and already have prepared) for a new mod project of my own: GAME of THRONES: Total War. I learned a lot from my work on FOURTH AGE, and still continue to learn, and I intend to utilize what I've learned to bring another fantasy world to life: Westeros, the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Oh boy, do I like the sound of that!

[Éorl]

Honestly, I couldn't imagine retiring from modding for some time to come. The more I learn (and I just learned and still am all about coding), the more interesting and rewarding it gets. What's more - like Middle-earth, Westeros, too, just won't let go of my imagination.

[Agent007]

What's more - like Middle-earth, Westeros, too, just won't let go of my imagination.

Yep, I know that feeling...