I disagree. The world is filled with amateurs who do absolutely amazing designs for videogames or anything else. Bethesda doesn't have the monopoly on that.

Hate to be a downer, but I doubt this mod will ever get finished properly (which is a shame) without some more help from maybe the makers of nehrim or something like that?

I got the mod a few months ago, and it was just a big barren landscape with a few random lotr landmarks dotted around. You cant get inside any of the buildings or anything like that.
'Fraid to say, its just too ambitious, without more men.

So, will there be unique commoner and upper class clothing that can be purchased i Minas Tirith and places? Idk why thats the first thing i asked im just curious. I'm getting Skyrim on xbox, but if/when this is released, i would definitely get another copy for pc. About how many square miles did you include in middle earth? Looks fantastic btw

And do you know of the work that is happening behind the public view?
There has been so much progress since then, but we can't release it yet until everything is neatly packaged and cleansed.
Sure, it will take time, but it will get finished

Our mod is mostly models (which can be ported fairly nicely considering the quality as nearly all of them FAR exceed Oblivion) and landscapes. Considering that the whole team knows that it can produce a better heightmap then we already have in the past, porting to Skyrim gives us all the more incentive to make our new WIP heightmap a dream! Also, its imperative that we get as much manpower as we can. We know that we can't do it all alone. Considering that a lot of new (and old Oblivion) faces will be coming to Skyrim will only help MERP's development.


Have some more confidence in us. Give us some time before you start writing us off. Our heightmap is over 7x the size of Cyrodiil, its requires A LOT more content then whats contained in base Oblivion and Nehrim combined. However, I have full confidence we can make a fair amount of playable content for players to experience in the future.

It is ambitious, but in all my 2.5 years on this project (I joined when lumpy's heightmap was decided to be used in the project), I have yet to see it slow down anywhere close to a halt. You all would be really surprised what we're doing behind the scenes

I am SHOCKED it Took 3 pages for this title to come up, those guys are AMAZING.


In regard to this topic....The developers that have been working on MERP were the first people to inspire me to learn the TES:CS myself. You guys are amazing at what you do, and I think one of the best things about TES is its modding capability. But not just for user enjoyment, its like an art form. Its great to see a world such as Lord of the Rings come to life the way you have made it. Port er' over and let us see her in Skyrim!

I was skeptical when I saw the thread title, but after seeing what you guys managed with Oblivion...damn. I'm not even gonna begin to guess the kind of potential that can be realized with Skyrim's improved engine

Thanks Viper And the best thing is that we all have improved as modders and as a team in the last years. It takes a lot of time to build a skilled and balanced team, to organise the teams structure and routines and everything like that. When we started to mod our current heightmap, Oblivion was already several years old and most people in the modding community had already started their own projects. But now the situation will be different: we have a well established team and are ready to go as soon as Skyrim gets released. I'm sure that our chances to make progress and get this mod done were never as good as they are now!

It's true. This total conversion isn't finished. But it will be. :thumbsup:

In August, 2010 we said we would release a version 2.5, earlier that year. That was before the team learned that the whole mod had to be reconstructed and reorganized, so version 2.5 was scrapped. The team learned that the mod had to be completely torn down and logically constructed to meet memory limits and mod tools limits in order to proceed with this mod that is so large now. We have literally pushed the limits as far as we dare to heightmap size, texturing, and memory requirement size to meet a our goals of a better quality mod. The more we place demands on our content, the further it increased our mod demands and the time required to make it work. This reconstruction period took so long because it was important to save modders work and transfer it from a mod that - due to its size was just plainly time consuming.

We are past the reconstruction point and have been for awhile. Currently, we have set a deadline for the team to work towards in order to release an Oblivion release and turn around to focus on Skyrim. We are essentially making touchups, decisions on what we should add for Oblivion as a base, what to leave out temporarily, assembling resources and finishing up important details on specific departments. This may not sound like much, but when the content is going in a larger mod like this, there will be more work. We aren't a professional gaming company, we don't have 100+ people on the team (though we probably have the largest team ever for an Oblivion mod), we do have professionals on the team and some very good modders and some just learning (even one has been hired by a gaming company), we have our own lives though this mod is worked on all-around-the-clock (modders from many countries around the world), we have lore experts (trust me, they are experts), but one thing in all this diversity that is consistent is that we are committed to finish this mod. The extent of what we bring on this release for Oblivion still remains to be decided, but one thing for sure. It is only 6 weeks away that we have set our goal to bring an Oblivion release. Whether it's before or an extra week or so, it will still be released tentatively and as quickly as we will be able to.

Where does MERP draw it's inspiration from? The movies, LotRO, own interpretation of the books?

Mostly from the books - they are our most important source of inspiration and normally they are more important for us than the movies: for example we will include Tom Bombadil in our mod and many other details that were never mentionned in the movies. But of course we draw some inspiration from the film for architecture or armor designs too.

I would like to obtain Guard of the Citadel armor.

Ah, cool.
I don't know if you've ever played LotRO, or seen it. But that game has some very cool interpretations of the books. I especially love Moria and the Angmar fortresses in it.

I think you need to remove the word "total conversion" from your project. Total conversion means there is nothing left at all from the original game except for the engine code. Every model, graphic, sound, building, tree, spell, item have all been removed and replaced. And anyone who's been around the block knows 99.9% of all total conversions are an epic failure.

In order to save face you should just actually implement a few elements you can actually pull off, release them and add updates periodically. This will help you build steam, gain fans, get feedback, recruit additional help, and get experience releasing things on a regular basis so you can then determine if a total conversion is possible. Then your not promising anything you can't deliver.

But trying to make an entire new game from scratch is ridiculous, and everyone will burn out and quit and this is just a big waste of time.

But releasing a few epic LOTR mods every few months and some quests here that are LOTR inspired, but fit into the Elder Scrolls universe would be much more appreciated and exciting than the typical TC vaporware. Just some advice from someone who's made a TC before, several epic mods, and shipped 4 retail games worldwide. A partial conversion is still a boatload of work. I'd just start out small and keep adding and see how far you get, but define clear milestones and goals along the way and release bug free playable "mini TC's" or mods if want to call it that along the way. A lot more rewarding releasing something that is complete that a lot of people can play and enjoy in a few months than to slave for years and not have much playable yet or anything released.

Just my two dollars worth of advice Good luck and all.

Firstly, wow, that's truly impressive. Well done!


2nd, can I just confirm, how big is the land mass compared to Oblivion. did you completely start from scratch and just use the tool kit?

@DeSetuede: Thanks, compared to Oblivion our heightmap was 7 times as big and right now Lumpypat is working on a new and improved one with the Construction Set heightmap editor.

@madmole: Have you read the first post in this thread? If yes you should know that this mod is not a new idea of some random guys. MERP has been in development for Oblivion for several years, we've built a big and skilled team (probably the largest modding team that existed for Oblivion) and the whole mod has come a long way in the last two years. We know how much work a total conversion means. No, of course we won't replace all models from vanilla Skyrim - we will use them in Middleearth if possible. But we already have created a new heightmap, new cities, new models, new landscapes, new music, new animations, a new game launcher, new scripts, new quests, new interiors, new dungeons and whatever else for Oblivion. You can see much of that content over here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod If a mod like ours doesn't qualify as a Total Conversion, which mod does?

anyone think you could make a mod that turns the giants into Ents?

Glad to see MERP will move onto Skyrim!

I have nothing else to add but AWESOME!

I think they will have an easier time moding this now

they got dragons at last

Why announce this now, and in here (and label it as a [WIP] when the game isn't even here).
Amateurs guising as professionals with no license to actually use Tolkein lore.

If your project and 'team' are as big as you say they are, there is no reason why you couldn't develop your own engine instead of stealing the work of others (and taking all the credit).

@fyrisi: We don't have Ents right now, but I'm sure we will find an awesome modeller and animator who will create them for us

@vadagar: The flight AI packages will indeed be very helpful, but we already have our own Fellbeast model: http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod/images/fellbeast2#imagebox and http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod/images/fellbeast#imagebox. We even have http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod/images/nameless-thing#imagebox and http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod/images/nazgul#imagebox.

@Amiki: because all Oblivion mods had such labels and our mod is already work in progress (models, heightmap, ...)

If you knew how utterly talented and dedicated the MERP team are and their vision, you would choke on your two dollars?

If you knew the truth of what MERP has achieved you'd see how ignorant your words are?

It sounds to me like you're making a whole new game rather than a mod...a free game. I love you.

I can't wait to not play this because it's not finished yet and you guys decide to ditch it when "Elder Scrolls VI: High Elf Hullabaloo" is announced and you guys decide to move your conversion mod to that new engine and then never finish it and when "Elder Scrolls VII: Oodles of Orcs" is announced you'll tell everyone how you're working on the conversion mod for that game that will never be finished.