After a short 8-11 year hiatus, and nearly 14 years since the latest release of The 4th Age, the Age of Men is approaching. If you're new to this mod, here's a short summary: Roughly 200 years has passed since the Fall of Sauron, and the Age of Men has come. The New Shadow looms, and peace between the Men of the West and the Men of the East and South has shattered once again. The strength of the East and South is massive, and both Gondor and Rohan are pushed back from their territory. You may play as Gondor, Rohan, Rhûn or Harad, with new heroes, units, abilities and spells. The mod retains the core gameplay of BFME1.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy, a mixture of both older and newer models. Read on after the pictures for informations about my plans going forward.

Fell deeds awake.

Now for wrath,

now for ruin,

and the red dawn.

When I left the mod and the modding community 8 years ago, the mod had gotten quite a lot done since the 0.7 beta. In fact, when I suddenly felt an urge to return to the mod a couple of months ago to complete the mod, or at least update it to work on the newest 1.06 community patch, I was surprised at how "little" was left to do on Gondor and Rohan, specifically.

Thus a motivational surge was kindled, and a lot of coding has already been completed during this summer. However, coding is also where most of the work left to do remains, and you probably won't get a lot of updates on new or updated models going forth, which is usually what's easiest to show off. I am kind of a perfectionist, so there is a lot of old models I would like to remake (I've seen how far the art in this community has come, and I want in). However, I would much rather be able to release the mod in a fun, functional and "as-bugfree-as-possible" state to you as soon as possible, and save potensial upgrades on the art department for after an initial release.

Therefore, the release plan is as following:

• 0.8: I want to launch the next beta when Gondor, Rohan and Rhûn are considered complete, while keeping Harad on the backburner. The reason for this is quite simple:
  • Gondor and Rohan are both roughly 98% complete, including functional AI.
  • Rhûn is roughly 95% complete, but that excludes AI. However, adding a functional AI to Rhûn should go along quite quickly when those remaining 5% are finished. I also don't have any problems with releasing this version without AI for Rhûn if that drastically reduces the time it takes to get it released.
  • Harad is maybe around 40% done. They have their basic units and most buildings in-game already, along with a new spell, so you'll be able to play around with them in-game, but they are far from being complete.
• 1.0: Apart from potential bugfixing patches, 1.0 will be the next release thereafter, with a fully operational Harad also included in the mix, thus completing the original design of the mod.
• 1.1: A new round of bugfixing is likely to happen, along with balance changes.

While I make no guarantees, this is the plan I'm working towards. I'm pretty confident that 0.8 will be released within a few months or the end of the year, with or without Rhûn's AI, and after that I will simply have to see if I'm up for doing Harad as well. By the way, voice acting isn't included when I say a faction is "complete". I've enjoyed my summer vacation immensely working on this, but my job starts again tomorrow, and I won't be able to keep up the production I've had these past weeks.

Now, I'm working on this mod alone. While I've had help in the past, particularly from Mathijs, this was always "my" project. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't like help, should you be interested in helping out on any of the following:

• Beta testing
• Voice acting
• Voice acting "supervisor" (writing the scripts, find voice actors, communication with them, etc.)
• Sound design (code voice acting into the game, but also making sound effects. I can teach you to code it into the game, as it's quite easy to learn)
• Less important for now, but I also don't mind help from:
  • Mappers
  • Coders
  • Artists (2D buttons or images, 3D models and textures, units or buildings, props, etc.)
  • Composer/musician (Rhûn and Harad scores comes to mind)

Just send me a message here on Revora, on Discord or ModDB if anything sounds interesting.

That's all for now. While I will still be posting here on Revora, feel free to join the newly created Discord server, or the mod's page on ModDB. You may even visit the mod's old website, though updating that site is not a priority.

Best regards,
Lauri

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The Normandy Reborn

So, what'd we got?
Work has been slow lately, and for that I apologise. I had a thought, and planned out a doable "remake" of Gondor's units. Why? Here is my reason;

The mod's story. Gondor has been invaded by forces of Rhûn, and Minas Tirith lies in ruins. King Eldaravir flees before all hope is lost. They make a new capital in Dol Amroth. Now, it only makes sense that the
biggest part of the army will come from the fiefdoms of Gondor, so that is exactly what I have done with the units list of Gondor:
I've redone it. Most changes are purely cosmetic, but you can watch the new list here.

Here are some renders of the new units of Gondor.
First, the Swordsmen of Lamedon; second, the Bowmen of Blackroot Vale; and third, the Riders of Pinnath Gelin


Secondly, I've made some progress on Harad as well.
The Haradrim Siege Ladder. Now, I'll explain something about it. I wanted a rope ladder from the start, to have a unique one (I did get the idea from RA though). Now, this man carrying the ladder, is carrying a HUGE ladder compared to himself and everyone else. It looks ridiculous, it truly does. It looks very unbelievable. But in the end, it's all I bother to do. And I think it acctually looks good in-game, even if the ladders a little oversized. Okay, it's BIG compared to him, especially on the render! I don't give a frak, because I can't get hung up on petty details on every godsdamn thing.


Lastly, I have in-game screenies. I thought I had 8, but it turns out 4 of them was from the last batch, that I didn't know I had out, so you'll only get 4.


You can enter the site from my signature. That'll be all, dismissed.
Reference for cookie!

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The Southrons

Another day, another update,
this time, Haradrim Buildings;


The main citadel for Haradrim Castles. I wanted a big boomer for this one, and I got one!
The toughest and most durable citadels of all factions.


The stables, inspired heavily by the arabic stables in AoE2.
Rendering in Max, I can't get to show alphas, but this is how the fence looks in-game.


And at last, the watchtower.. This is the weakest structure Harad has, being the only one that is entirely wooden.
Ironically, it's just for defence.


And I've also got some in-game screenshots of the various buildings, including some that I haven't rendered.
NOTE; The camp-floor are yet to be replaced, and there won't be a Darkness spell in-game. And of course, there will be a visible archer when I sort out that bug on the Watchtower!



Being an efficient son of a bitch, all are complete with destruction, buildup and idle animations!
What does this mean? Well, for starters, it means that Harad has, in theory, only 3 buildings left before all their structures are done!
When taken into account that there was 8 only a month ago, that's pretty good progress!

Logging you out, Shepard.

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Small haradrim update

Okay, so I've got a small update for you.

The Cavalry Raiders are "done" in the regard that they're bound to a skeleton and work in-game.
I've yet to add diversity to any of the Haradrim units, and for now they will all be the same.
Reason for this is that I'd rather have a Harad faction mostly up and running, than to waste my
motivation on trying to make good looking haradrim skins, which I simply can't!

Second units is the Hasharii.. They've been in the mod's asset for a long time, as Matias created them
a long time ago. I even remember that he wanted to redo them 'cause he meant they were so
outdated and ugly. Using the same reason as above, they'll do fine.



I've also checked and see abit on the tech tree for the different faction and came to the conclusion:
Balace isn't there. Simple as that. Gondor and Harad has 4 elite or semi-elite units, while Rohan
and Rhûn has the more appropriate amount of 1. There's also other weird stuff, like having
5 different melee infantry for Gondor.. I mean, how many do they really need? Not 5..
I'm only satisfied with Rohan's at the moment, so the other factions will change, Rhûn being
the only possible exception to that rule.

Also I'm having troubles with the spells that allows the forces of Kingdom of Rohan and Gondor
to be buildt. Basically, you don't need to purchase the spell to be able to build them, making the
spell useless. I might look more into the spells and redo them, but since most are basic units,
they come to late in the game.. So anyone who want's to suggest new spells for Rohan and Gondor,
go ahead! I'd love to hear 'em!

So stay tuned for the next update, when I'll hopefully have some more renders and screenshots
for you, but also an updated tech tree..

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Catapult

Hey all

I've only got a small pic for you today, and well... It's not final product, as you'll easily see on the catapult itself, but it's all you'll get in the next beta



On another hand, I've been lack motivation for a few weeks now, but that doesn't mean no beta for Christmas
It's just, gonna lack a few things that I wanted to have in the beta... But now atleast Gondor and Rhun should be as complete as I can get them, and much more improved since the last beta.. And of course, Rohan's gotten quite a few new things
Uhm, no I haven't decided on the last tier one power for Rhun, so that's lacking..

Well, that's it... After the beta I'll be taking trying to take a break... It will most likely fail, and I'll still be here every day, but not mod.. I do hope that I either get more motivation to work after a successful break, or just leave this place for good... only time will tell, but I've had a great time here though

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