f13.net

They changed the name from Middle Earth Online to Lord of the Rings Online.

Wowsers!

So, wait, this means I get to play as Sauron?

That's because no one knows what "Middle Earth" is. Probably think it has something to do with Journey to The Center Of the Earth.

Smart marketing.  Customers++.

Why not change it to Legolas Online and just make sure the morons know where to congregate.

Clearly, Mulligan's replacement is on the ball!  Make sure to put a picture of Aragorn on the box, too.

Don't forget to put Gollum on there.

Actually, this makes good marketing sense, considering they only have the license to use stuff from the Hobbit and LotR books. Lord of the Rings has actual brand awareness outside of Tolkein geeks.

Can I play it with a 2 button mouse?

You know, not every thread needs a Shadowbane reference!

Edit:  I take that back.

I'm sure marketing was the largest consideration, but I suspect it's also a reflection of the game's post-Vivendi redesign. Middle Earth was a world. Lord of the Rings will be a game.

/sadf

I think it's a good idea for exactly the reasons Viin and Haemish cited.  Everyone who's ever read the book or seen the movies will know what the Lord of the Rings is... the name of specific worlds, however, are easy to forget.  The other day I was trying to remember for ages where Morla the turtle lived and finally had to google for it.  Sheesh....  I have permanent dents in my forehead from hitting it while I say, "d'oh!"

If the marketers are really on the ball, they will find a way to have Liv Tyler talk dirty to the player in Elvish.

I don't want Liv Tyler to talk dirty to me!  Her dad, on the other hand, can talk dirty to me in any language he likes.  :-P

(http://www.aero247.com/pic/smilk.gif)(http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/sf/a/images/Liv.Tyler.SAG.2004.jpg)

You're backing the wrong horse there.

Hehe... horse.  Fo-sho.

Got yeast infection?

Got Manbutter?

Just too easy.

You can all just fuck right off.

Just to be fair, I don't really have a thing for Liv Tyler.

More of a Shannon Elizabeth (http://strazos.4tehwin.org/wp-images/Shannon_Elizabeth_01.jpg) fan myself.

And after Sin City, I've also grown to like her close equivalent, Jessica Alba (http://strazos.4tehwin.org/wp-images/alba.jpg) as well.

I'm beginning to be glad I don't know who all these women are that everyone here goes on about.  Why are there so many of them?  Do they get spit out of some sort of Dolly the Sheep cloning facility or something?  It used to be this community would chat  about some raunchy pr0n star every so often.  The recent pervy interest in near prepubescent girls is beginning to worry me.

Liv Tyler is 27.

Shannon Elizabeth is 32.

Jesica Alba is 23.

IMDB (http://imdb.com/) is your friend.

At least I was nice enough to link pictures instead of shoving them in your face directly.  :|

Of course they all LOOK about 15.  It's obvious what you all really want.  But that's not really my point, if, in fact I have a point... which is doubtful...  guys seem to be very into all this stuff these days.  Some of the girls I've seen discussed are in obvious teen age tv shows.  Some aren't even actresses... they're models.  Guys are just different now.  They are fans of stuff that used to be in the realm of the schoolgirl, at least when I was a schoolgirl.

Anyway... there is my very unpointy point.

Guys liking young looking actress and models is a recent thing?  I can't speak for anyone else here, but in my family that's a trait that's been passed down from father to son for generations.

Way to miss my unpoint.  Looking and drooling isn't strange at all.  Knowing the names and statistics of the latest teen type models and minor actresses does seem sort of strange to me.  I suppose its the whole metrosexual thingy... I dunno.  I'm so out of the loop.

If it helps, I am still into pr0nstars!

With Big Ass Titties? (http://www.jokefrog.com/flash/big-ass-titties.shtml)? (Possibly NSFW, at least the audio.)

See, Signe, this is what all that "thin" hysteria leads to: Since boobs consist of fat tissue, slimming a lot means smaller tits. Have you seen long-distance/marathon runners lately? Flat chests and loose skin all over.

So: it's not "prepubescent girls", it's just women that either don't have natural C/D-cups or haven't screwed themselves over by inserting silicone pads. Their face and body are more interesting anyway though, and being young-ish they don't need the botox injections older stars ruin themselves with.

It's not so much knowing as it is the general ability to look things up on the Internet.  Knowing names is no more a big deal now than people knowing Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, or various other actresses decades ago.  These days though we can just look up their pictures and statistics at IMDB, see what other movies they're in, download and watch the trailers, and then discuss with other like-minded guys on messageboards all within the span of a few minutes while we're at work, half-paying attention to the MMO we're playing, or waiting for the microwave to heat up our next meal.

It's not that we're obsessed with these women or anything, but it's easier to make a comment about Jessica Alba being hot than the women we actually know personally.  It doesn't have the same effect if I start talking about how hot the chick I work with is, because no one else here knows who the fuck she is, and posting pictures online of friends, co-workers, and other people that you know and want to have sex with is just kinda creepy.  So instead someone will point out that they think Jennifer Garner is attractive, and then someone else will google up a picture showing how much she looks like a man and the cosmic ballet goes on.

Speaking of Marilyn, she and Bettie Paige have it all over any of the actresses heretofore listed.

I was dissapointed that Bliz changed the Succubus from the Paige-looking model.  /sigh.

I second that motion.

Ah... now I know why dorf wimmen are so unpopular in mmos!  Short, fat and weirdly beardly.  I have to say, I wouldn't mind being a studly women like Jennifer Garner, who doesn't look a bit like a man to me.

This internet...  hopefully it's just a passing fad. 

Mankind is the passing fad.  Long after we've turned to dust the Internet will have preserved the knowledge that Jennifer Garner looks like a man.

...but what does all this have to do with Shadowbane?

Oh. Boobies. NM.

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of boobs!

Sorry. Started channeling /. there.

Getting back to the subj... mmmm. Boobs.

I think I get your point Signe. To tie in a statement that I made in another thread earlier: I've never seen an episode of "Buffy".

I don't read "celeb" news or People magazine either. I do however, appreciate art...Unfortunately, sometimes that curiosity leads me to have some familarity with "schoolgirl" crap. I hate it though.

Also, 9 times out of 10, it'll be the "older" woman that impresses me (not too old though!).

Lastly...I'm definitely not a "metrosexual". I may be a fairly sensitive guy, but I'm in and out of the shower in 3 to 5 minutes.

Edit: Eh...Or maybe I don't get your point?

Yeah, you can thank the ever increasing sexualization of mid, and now even early teen girls in the entertainment industry. Between that, popular teen fashion,  and hormone-laden meat and milk making puberty happen at about 9 nowadays it's hard to not too. Biology is not a man's friend. There's many a time at the mall I've been checking out a girl with her t-back showing, skinny waist, and at least a c-cup in a really short shirt only to find out they're about 12 when I get a good look at their face. It's very, very disturbing. If your point wasn't that grown men are turning into Nabokov character, sorry and I was just kidding about all that. If you were saying that men are getting into stuff that should interest a schoolgirl, you're missing the focus of their attention.

Also, unrelated to your post, metrosexuals are homosexuals who haven't worked up the nerve to go to a bathhouse or roadstop yet. No self-respecting real man is aware of crap like ear hairs, let alone goes to the bother of plucking them and using "product". Unless the product is some sort of rubber to avoid unwanted pregnancy beacuse the do it with chicks so much.

Every once in a while I'll reach up to scratch my ear (in a manly way) and discover a two foot ear hair has grown there - usually right out of the earlobe. It's bizarre and annoying and I don't hesitate to wrap it around my finger and pull it out. I don't think this makes me a mincing metrosexual. I have the same kinds of hairs growing from my eyebrows these days. I leave them alone though as they are useful for judging the width of doorways.

Plucking implies some sort of feminine device is involved, like tweezers for example. What you're describing is discovering something on your body you dislike and ripping it off with your bare hands. That's very manly. Not as manly as when I remove my own warts and skin tags with nail clippers, x-acto knife, or box cutters, but it's a good start.

I remove my unwanted body growths with harsh language.

I don't think they're closet homosexuals as much as they are just guys who have somehow been affected by the importance of "image" and "style" that has largely been marketed towards women for the past 50 years (Note that I said "marketed", because I'm only talking about a certain kind of emphasis on "image" -- that which has been propogated by fashion magazines, makeup product companies, "Red Carpet" type celebrity TV shows, and the like. It's one thing to consider personal appearance to be important, another to obsess about it like some women have been convinced to do.).

For some reason, the marketing is targeting men as well these days. But I don't know what came first: The marketing or the metrosexual?

edit:

/shrug

I blame Maxim (male Cosmo)....and Vin Diesel.

Maxim isn't the male Cosmo. Maxim is for Joe Sixpack.

European GQ and to a lesser extent GQ America is the male Cosmo.

Get your shitty rags right.

Maxim has made body spraying, golden locked frat boys out of an entire generation of American males. Whatever GQ is doing, it's not guilty of that.

I can't believe I'm about to have this argument.

You're confusing your magazines. Maxim is about titties, beer, football, and the american dream - which happens to be titties, beer, and football. Once in a while they have a 5-6 page spread that was most certainly bought and paid for by a clothing designer. I'm pretty sure they've never had the man behind Diesel, Liz Clairborne, H&M, etc, etc. on the cover of their mag and I know for a fact they don't have little blocks of text next to pictures telling you where women/men got their clothing (short of those paid for sections mentioned earlier).

GQ on the other hand does everything Cosmo does. But for men.

I'd know. I've read both extensively.

You read Maxim on the crapper. You read GQ in a hair salon. Does that clear it up for you?  :-P

What the hell are you people talking about???

All I know is that it in no way involves Turbine or WoLoTR (or whatever it's called these days).

OR DOES IT??

Hey, don't back out now. You started it  :-D

Well, it was Middle Earth and LotR, then somehow it became about closet homosexuals and unwanted body hair, and now it's firmly back to arguments over what makes a man gay, which I guess is the internet endgame.

Gay Nazis is endgame.

I watch a Vin Diesel movie and my excess appendage hairs disintegrate into lemon-scented ash.

I take off my robe and my wizard hat.

I know I started something but I have no idea what it's turned into!  I'm not sure I can be blamed for this one!

Oh... and for everyone's general information... when schild removes his robe and wizard hat that means he's finished and has gone off for his post gratification smoke.   I'm guessing Pococurante's post finished him off.  Either that or the Nazi reference.

No "LIGHTNING BOLT...."

I am TEH WINNAR!  No Schild not yet!!! A DERAIL IS AT STEAK!1!!11

These concepts are far from mutually exclusive.  One might say they are, in fact, intertwined.

Case in point?  Elves.  Esp ones named Legoleet, Leggomyeggo, Logollaas, ect.

So what you're saying is...if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood...

then she's probably really Strazos in drag.

HEY! I find that to be very Insu....

Wait, that doesn't even make sense.

Shockeye's hate for me is great. Maybe I need to take up his offer to face me while I use only my offhand, hmm...

I was pointing out the fact that you like to pretend you're a woman in games.

I only play a woman when I don't play a Rogue....it's more amusing that way.

Though I will NEVER do it in PnP again. I believe the experience has scarred me for life.

EDIT: Oh, to kinda stay on thread topic....

Um...Turbine...eh...Yay?

Every time I start a thread, it ends up this way.   :cry:

I think I'll just shut up.

No, please don't. You need to be ahead of me in postcount.  :-)

That would be a sad day for all of us.

Perhaps the derailment of the thread is owing to just how little information we have on the actual gameplay of Lord of the Rings online, as well as a decidedly skeptical view that well-established licenses make bad games.

I attribute it directly to we're trying to be nice, but there is nothing nice to say about the game.  Its going to suck, plain and simple.

They've painted themselves into a storyline corner where nothing interesting can really happen in the game.  The world they are trying to re-create will undoubtedly be destroyed by some "suits" pie chart that says gamers like to cast spells and be elves.  Oh and there is no pvp, so you can't even kill the pansy elves... 

*edit on, no, whats the diff*

*My first and only re-rail attempt. Ever*

So, they've ditched "Middle Earth - Living, breathing Virtual World" and replaced it with.... "Lord of the Rings Online - Kill Orcs/Balrogs/<insert creature> With Your Friends!" (Alongside your friends, not using them to kill <creature>)? Sounds interesting, but unfortunately (for me) not the "LOTR Online" I want. Though there's not really that much information out on it, so I could be wrong.

I'm actually being semi-serious.  I mean, if you think there are no homosexual overtones in LOTR, well... I won't be able to convince you in this post.  Re-read the books if the movies weren't clear.  Better yet, read up on Tolkien and his friends.

Secondly, I would imagine that hobbit women shave/pluck their feet, at the very least.

I found the books very gay.

Seriously.

Samwise looking wistfully into Frodo's eyes is very gay.

But in the end, he banged the hotty Rose. So it was a faux gay.

Are you saying Samwise Gamgee was Middle Earth's first metrosexual?

I'm saying that it got mighty cold and lonely in those Orc suits on the barren plains of Mordor.

I've read up on Tolkein and his friends, and I don't see what you're seeing.  It's good (if a bit juvenile) comedy to imagine it, but that was a different time.  It was possible to be affectionate and loving with your good friends back then and not be subject to hoots of "homo lol lolz!!!1one"

I would call it experimental, not faux.  Although "faux gay" is fun to say.  You mean he simply didn't come out.


True to my word, I'll not attempt to convince you.  As with any literary analysis, it is subject to the reader's interpretation.

(http://hometown.aol.com/gayhobbitsesrock/images/frodosam1.jpg)

MY EYES, MY EYES!!!

Gah, please no.

Alkiera

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I think it's beautiful.

You're a cruel woman some days.

My sex drive curses you from its freshly dug grave.

Most effeminate picture. Ever.

*comes back two days later*

You guys are still talking about this? o_O

BACK IN YOUR CAGE, RED NAME  :evil:

It's been the same three conversations for 5 years now.  Seriously, what did you expect?

You need to check in more or you will miss new words like "crotchpheasant."

Look closer Stormy, nothing in the last two and a half pages of this thread has had much of anything to do with the original topic. Except maybe that ghey porn above.

I'm thinking that picture was taken in an instanced adventure.

Sorry for the derailment, Stormwaltz. 

So... what did you want to say?

I don't care about derailment (par for the course, that's why I've been passing the thread by) so much as the fact that a large group of avowedly heterosexual men have been discussing hobbit yaoi... for days. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Actually, I can say something on topic. It's old news by now, but I haven't seen it elsewhere on F13; Jason Booth left Turbine after at least 9.5 years there. To me, that's a far bigger deal than any of the other recent Turbine news. He was one of the few "plank owners" remaining on staff.

http://jbooth.blogspot.com/

Fixed!

Every few years or so, this nonsense comes up again.  I'd say you're in good company (http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1202/twotowers.html) believing stuff like that. (http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/BookReviews/BookReviewDisplay.asp?key=13)  My favorite recent theory is that the relationship between Frodo and Gollum mirrors the relationship between a gay man and his ugly inner self.  Homophobia 4tw.

Literary ANALysts seem to have a fixation on this sort of thing.  It's like an M. Night Fagyalan flick:  "I see gay people... They walk around like regular people.  They only see what they want to see.  They don't know they're gay."

Both Booth AND Mulligan leave within a month? Am I the only one that thinks that a rather strange and not promising series of events?

Heh, you are taking me waaay too seriously.  I don't see the Frodo/Gollum thing, but hey.  You can call me a homophobe when I say something negative about homosexuals.

Probably not promising but people can be pulled as well as pushed.  Mayhaps means something cool is gearing up too.

nah...

Yea, I was following that detail on "the other site" but you're right, it was rather shocking.

FWIW, I'm told the two are unrelated.

Thats what they tell the peons just before they come to work and find the doors locked and thier stuff in boxes.

Well, I've enjoyed this little thread, and I'll be happy to add my own digressions to the mix.  I don't have any inside dirt on doings at Turbine, and don't know enough to make anything up, but I can do literary critisism.  It's like masturbation, but you need both hands.

Now I've never seen the Frodo/Samwise relationship as being crypto-homoerotic, rather I view it as an extension of the paternalistic old English master and servant relationship.  Tolkien was a man who remembered history; indeed, English history, and by extension Northern European history, was his life's work.  His inspiration for his writing was Northern European myth, and that is exemplified by his villians, particularly the bit players.  From Bill Ferny's swarthy friend in Bree, on to the Moorish Southron Knights, and beyond to the black hided Orcs and their dark master Sauron, the bad guys were people of color, excepting the savage Easterlings, who had red hair.  You don't have to know much about the British Isles to know where that one points.  Meanwhile, the god guys are all Northern European types, and one of the rewards the hobbits gain after the war is a marked increase in the number of blondes in their children.  One need not be much into deconstruction to see where this is headed.

Mind you, I don't actually believe it.  It was all based on Northern European myth, written by a Northern European, so of course the good guys tended to be Northern European types.  And of course the bad guys tended to be Mediterannean types, since those were historical foes of Northern Europeans.  When you take history as an influence, your stories are likely to look like history.  So I don't think Frodo and Sam were gay.  They were just English.

Turbine just raised $30 million more in VC funding so I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

A little birdy told me Booth got handed his walking papers.

== "cha ching"

I smell early buyout

What would be painful is if Turbine bought his shares back then resold them to the VCs at a premium to what they poid Booth. It has been known to happen.

Well, how many big time Blizzard names left in the middle of WoW's production?

Maybe they're just copying the formula?

Sorry to derail the hobbit homosexuality, but the above website is pretty cool. Some good reading on design that is informed without being "ivory tower" stuff. Too bad his "about me" blurb is so awful. (Kids, count the mis-spellings!)

I've been thinking of applying for a job at Turbine actually, but I really need to get back into C/C++ programming first, something I haven't done a lot of if a few years now.

Turbine (and all MMOG devs) need ideas, not programmers.

I have ideas too but good luck applying for a job as an ideas guy. It's 100x easier to apply as an engine programmer then have people say "wow, this guy has some great ideas" than apply as a designer, especially since most low-level designer positions are level designers which I have below zero interest in.

No, MMOG devs have plenty of ideas, good and bad. What they need is someone who can actually execute those ideas without the execution turning into a pile of steaming monkey ass.

I sent Turbine a question regarding some videos on IGN (http://media.pc.ign.com/media/619/619908/vids_1.html).


The Response:

It's, at the very least, a step in the right direction. Having to be in range means running away is a reasonable form of escape and there's some player skill in simply getting close. It's a better translation of the AD&D rules than I expected.

Quick update:

The new site has been launched with the new name and new logo. We haven't released a lot of details (yet), but there are some new screenshots and the Gamespy article linked from the site has some info about gameplay as well.

http://lotro.turbine.com/

What happens at the Mass. offices and what happens at the LA ones? (Of Turbine)

As far as stuff I can talk about...

LA: AC

Mass: AC2, DDO, LOTRO

Can we play "hangman" with the stuff you can't talk about?

That's cool, I was just wondering because the website lists Mass as the corporate HQ and I was wondering if that meant just execs and such. Wasn't Turbine located on Memorial Drive in Cambridge at one point during the AC1 days?

I'm sort of toying with the idea of applying for game industry jobs again. Right now I do Java programming and the longer I stick with that the rustier I get with C/C++. It's annoying because I am a very good programmer but at this point I coudn't honestly say I am a C/C++ expert. I suppose what I would be looking for is a low level job with some opportunity to move up fairly quickly if I turn out not to suck.

IIRC, Turbine was in Providence before it moved to Westwood. But that was back in the "Jon Monserrat's living room" days.