Archive for the ‘ Battle for Middle Earth ’ Category

Many feared S.E.E. would die after is lost it’s head coder, along with him all the work they had done for the next update. Fear not, fellow fans. S.E.E. is back in action with version 4.7 coming soon. Along with minor changes that are always included in updates, version 4.7 will feature a new faction. The new update will introduce the race of Evil Men. Following the break is a preview of the new faction.

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There’s only 48 hours left to sign up for GameReplay’s faction-based tournament, with a large number of spots still open in the Amateur division for BT2DC. Below is a full overview of the current amount of members, and the amount of open positions:

1.06
MotW - 5 (full)
Dwarves - 5 (full)
Elves - 5 (full)
Mordor - 5 (full)
Isengard - 3
Goblins - 5 (full)
Total=28

BT2DC Amateur
MotW - 5/5 (full)
Dwarves - 2
Elves - 3
Mordor - 4
Isengard - 1
Goblins - 3
Total = 18

BT2DC Professional
MotW - 5 (full)
Dwarves - 4
Elves - 5 (full)
Mordor - 5 (full)
Isengard - 5 (full)
Goblins - 5 (full)
Total = 29

To sign up, click the appropiate link below:

Sign Up Threads

1.06 - MotW
1.06 - Dwarves
1.06 - Elves
1.06 - Mordor
1.06 - Isengard
1.06 - Goblins

Both Professional and Amateur
BT2DC - MotW
BT2DC - Dwarves
BT2DC - Elves
BT2DC - Mordor
BT2DC - Isengard
BT2DC - Goblins

The good folks over at GameReplays have launched a new version of the acclaimed “Battletest 2: Directors Cut” patch, aimed at balancing and fixing the broken game balance in EA’s last patch for the Battle for Middle Earth II.

You can download the patch from gamereplays below, including a widescreen version (BfME II did not natively support widescreen resolutions). We strongly recommend you use this patch, be it in competitive or “for fun games”.

• Regular Version
• Widescreen Version

And the full changelog:

Battletest2 DC Changelog
Version 2.3 - 20/07/08

Changes from previous Version (2.2):

*- Light hero armor now takes 63% from magic (was 70%)
*- Rallying Call Reload now 2m30s (was 2m)
*- Industry radius reduced to 100 (was 200)
*- All Fort Armor upgrades cost now 1200 (was 1600)

*- Balrog’s health increased to 4800 (was 4000), armor flank penalty now -50%, siege damage penalty vs forts now -90% (was -87.5%)
*- Summoned Dragon +75% damage bonus vs heroes no longer affects other summoned units

*- Gandalf’s mounted attack angle now 45 degrees clockwise (was 90)
*- Eowyn’s Smite now has a +150% bonus against FoD heroes (was +200%)
*- MotW banner upgrade cost/time 300/5s (was 350/15s)

*- Dwarven riches and Industry no longer stack
*- Mighty catapult siege damage now has a -75% penalty vs forts

*- Floodgates’ fire reload 16s (was 20s), health 1300 (was 1000) and cost 1200 (was 1500)
*- Legolas hawk strike reload time now 85s (was 90s)
*- Treebeard now takes 75% from flame (was 200%) and 50% from specialist (was 100%)
*- Eagles plow damage penalty vs forts now -77% (was -70%)

*- Bloodthirsty for Orc warriors now has a +250% experience modifier (was +150%) - level 1 horde gets to almost level three with one usage
*- Orc Archer health 180 (was 200)
*- Troll cage lvl3 upgrade time now 45s (from 60s)
*- Attack troll CP cost now 60 (from 75), buildtime 40s (was 45s), magic armor now 45% (from 50%)
*- Fellbeast now takes 115% from cavalry-ranged (was 100%)
*- Mounted Witchking now takes 50% from cavalry-ranged (was 20%)

*- Berzerker Specialist armor now 90% (was 80%), health 950 (was 1000), buildtime now 30s (was 25s)
*- Warg Rider leveling no longer affects its trample damage; Howl effect now +70% damage and -15% armor, now stacks with everything but damage leaderships and can’t be cancelled by a debuff
*- Sharku’s Tame the Beast moved to lvl9, can now capture any cavalry unit but can only target one horde
*- Wormtongue experience required for lvl10 now 740 (was 690); Venomous words moved to level 2, speed penalty now -35% (was -50%)
*- Warg Sentry now automatically respawns wargs, vision range 400 (was 175), no longer decelerates when crushing (had 1% deceleration); Both wargs now die when the building is destroyed
*- Isen mine launcher fort upgrade weapon now fires three additional mines
*- Bloodthirsty for Uruks now has a +125% experience modifier (was +20%) - level 1 horde gets to level three with one usage

*- Inn wildmen buildtime now 32s (from 25), garrisoned weapon no longer has splash
*- Drake Inferno radius now 100 (was 110)
*- Venom sacks upgrade cost 600 (from 1000) to research, 15s to equip
*- Goblin archer cost 325 from 320, flame damage now has a +25% bonus vs fellbeasts
*- Drogoth plow damage bonus vs battlewagons now +400% (was +900%)
*- Spiderling damage vs Production and economy buildings now has a -15% penalty (was -10% vs economy buildings only)

Bugfixes:
=========

*- Elven forge upgrade level 3 “magic firing bug” fixed
*- Several campaign missions fixed
*- Battlewagon hearth no longer heals buildings
*- Summoned Spiderling not being affected by buffs fixed
*- Darkness ending FX re-enabled
*- Fixed Thranduil’s deadeye exploit
*- Fixed Lurtz’s carnage exploit
*- Dragon strike no longer gets stuck on high buildings
*- Fellbeast claw attack no longer decimates nearby buildings
*- Spider Riders no longer gain poison damage with the forged blades upgrade

Source: Gamereplays.org

The Battle for Middle-earth 2 online scene is still thriving, and GameReplays is set to reinforce that point by presenting a sequel to their highly successful “Faction Wars” tournament. In Faction Wars, you join a certain faction in an epic fight for dominance over the others. Instead of personal victory and glory, the tournament empathises team play and cooperation.

The “Winner” for the tournament is entitled “Most Valuable Player” and is voted upon by the GR staff. Helping your team, sportsmanship and your record will all determine if you will get to grab the $200 grand prize! The tournament will feature factions in three divisions, a division for the “vanilla” 1.06 patch,  as well as both an amateur and professional division for the acclaimed Battletest patch.

For more information about the tournament, check out the announcement on GR.org, as well as the rules & set up article. To sign-up, click any of the links below.

Sign Up Threads

1.06 - MotW
1.06 - Dwarves
1.06 - Elves
1.06 - Mordor
1.06 - Isengard
1.06 - Goblins

Both Professional and Amateur
BT2DC - MotW
BT2DC - Dwarves
BT2DC - Elves
BT2DC - Mordor
BT2DC - Isengard
BT2DC - Goblins

I will now be posting weekly modding and mapping news, starting today. I will do a sweep once a week, and try and gather as much news as i can, but if i miss you out, let me know. This news will include new screen shots, trailers, renders and any other news!

Alternatively, if you have some news or an update, that just can’t wait for the next news post, pm me and ill post it asap.

Now onto today’s news.

Battles of Middle Earth 1

The lone Wolf Mod

Radspakr has released 2 updates over the last 7 days. Hes released lots of new renders and screen shots. They can be viewed in this topic over at T3A, here.

The Kings of the West Mod

Work has now been resumed and Gothmogtheorc has released some information and a render. Check it out over here.

Battle for Middle Earth 2

No news this week.

Rise of the Witch King

Battles of Gondor

Ive been on a bit of a break from modding, but have been working hard over the last couple of weeks and have released 3 new updates over the last week! They can be viewed in the topics here.

Version 4.0 is not far away.

Wars of the East

The WotE team have released some screen shots showing some new powers and portrait art. Check them out here and here.

Age of the First Born

Elrond has posted a small update, showing some new ships, check it out here.

That looks like it for today, tune in next week!

Stealthsnake from the Middle-earth Center forums has released a new version of his ever-expanding ‘Battles of Gondor’ mod. This mod aims to bring BfME2 more in line with the books by J.R.R. Tolkien, and concentrates mainly on Gondor and its fiefdoms.

The official release thread with a changelog and readme can be found here.

The Middle Earth Center Staff would like to congratulate Dre@mer who won the contest with his map, The Fall of the Iron Crown. We wold also like to thank all who submitted a map for all their hard work. Some truly great maps were made and we are pleased with the contest. Once again we would like to congratulate Dre@mer on his win.

The Fall of the Iron Crown can be downloaded here.

The developers behind the excellent mod for BFME 2 called SEE, short for Special Extended Edition, are looking for help on the mod. They are losing their head programmer and are out into a tight spot on the coding side of the project.

“We’re currently looking for an experienced and advanced coder to help out with the mod because we have recently lost our head coder, the almighty Sûlherokhh. The most important things are that you have 1) experience from advanced coding and 2) great interest in this mod and it’s intentions. Sûlherokhh will still be around to complete the things he started, but we’ll need someone that will be able to carry on his work. We’re collecting all that might be interested in helping out with the coding, and trying to find those that are as highly skilled as possible since coding SEE these days is not exactly a walk in the park. So it will take great experience from coding and also high motivation to code this mod in particular to be able to pick up where Sûl left off. If you’re really interested you can send me a PM with some references of your previous experience, or you can e-mail me at seb_1990 {at} hotmail [dot] com.”

Also the designers of SEE have posted a survey to help them decide what to include in their next version of SEE. It can be found here.

You can Find the site for SEE here.

You can find the forums for SEE here.

Our Middle Earth Center Two Year Anniversary BFME 2 mapping contest has came to a close. We received several very nicely crafted maps throughout the contest and two finalist were chosen from each round. From Round 1 we had Scar3baby and Puppeteer, and in Round 2 Dre@mer and icewarrior.

Gladiator Moria - Trapped by Scar3baby

Archipelago by Puppeteer

The Fall of the Iron Crown by Dre@mer

Shadows of Rhun by icewarrior

If you have not already downloaded these awesome maps do so now, and then cast your vote on the winner of the Middle Earth Center Two Year Anniversary Mapping Contest!

Good Luck to the four finalists.

This is just in, EA is shutting down their servers, and thus online gameplay for what they consider to be “legacy games”. This means, that all games by EALA released prior to 2006 will no longer have official online play.

This includes games such as Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, and ofcourse the original Battle for Middle Earth. EA motivated the decision by quoting the large volume of games they support online, and that certain games need to be prioritized due to the fact that no profit can be gained from games that sell “For under 15 dollars”.

Several community sites are expected to launch campaigns to counter this decision. We at MEC do not yet have such a topic, but make sure to let everyone know what you feel by commenting to the article.

Read the full news message for a press release.

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