I would love to help out in the design/playtest component. I put many hours into playing the various great LOTR mods for Warcraft 3 and Age of Wonders (Shadow Magic).

I have a couple questions

A few suggestions:

Asymetry is essential to any 3rd age LOTR map in my opinion. If it is possible in Elemental, I would love to see a situation where (depending on when you set the map in the timeline) the forces of Sauron are apparently overwhelming, and only through a combination of skill and teamwork can the other forces survive to the mid-game. This can be accomplished by giving Sauron's forces a higher number of troops, stronger troops, and a variety of options: Orc troops, goblin troops, undead troops, human troops, access to a lot of medium quality armor and arms, and powerful thugs like trolls and the Nine Nazgul.

Along those lines, I would suggest utilizing whatever diplomacy system Elemental will have. The question of what factions are allied or can ally is important. The big questions are whether the Dwarves and Elves will be on the side of Man, be independant, or something in between. It just wouldn't feel thematic in my opinion for the game to begin with - for example - the Elves of Rivendell invading the Shire and pillaging the Men of Bree, or watching The Haradrim crush Minas Morgul. The easy way would be to simply split the factions into a Dark and a Light alliance, ala Ring Wars, perhaps with an Independant Saruman's Isengard. An alternative would be to set the game before the Hobbit and make Sauron spend the beginning turns subduing the Easterlings, Haradrim, or even Saruman.

In the second age the diplomacy issue is less important in my opinion, as pretty much every faction has some reason to fight each other. The men of Gondolin are not exactly friendly with the Noldor, let alone the Sindar or the Dwarves. Doriath could have some sort of alternative victory condition (if you have played the Avalon Hill Dune Board Game you know what sort of thing I mean).

I would suggest splitting the Second age and Third age mods if possible, as it would be odd to see the Sons of Feanor going up against Rohan! Also, the time scale between the ages is so long and would be presumably beyond the scope of the game.

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I would love to work with you on this, your Barad-Dur is fantastic and I share your passion for LOTR.

Not necisarrily. Like Ron said, magic is there, but it's subtle. And since it remains to be seen how exactly magic will work, it's too early to say that it should be removed or anything like that.

@ Yestin: Right now it's too early for there to be any real designing or playtesting going on but your offer of help is greatly appreciated. When there is actually something that can be done aside from modeling, then I could probably use you, if you are still willing to help. And you reminded me of a faction I forgot about! Saruman. Thanks for reminding me I'll update the main post later today.

However, I have to disagree about splitting the 2nd and 3rd Age mods. I think part of the fun would be pitting old Sauron against new Sauron and see who wins, or Morgorth vs. Sauron, see if the servant can overthrow the master, that sort of thing.

Interesting idea.

When you state "full conversions", do you mean to actually play the board games within Elemental?  I'm assuming not, but otherwise not sure what you mean by "full conversions".  And it would be more interesting if you did not mean that, since the gameplay of Talisman is a bit too much roll-and-move-left-or-right-and-rarely-up-or-down.  (But anything which encourages folks to play E:WOM is a good idea.)

To me, the problem with using a game like E:WOM to play board games like those is that you can do so much more with a computer game than with a board game.  Board games often have simpler mechanics and fewer choices involving severely limited resources.  This is usually totally unlike most 4x games.  Especially the examples you provided.  Slight exception to Descent for its grand scope in the campaign game.  Probably a game with a more 4x scope could be something like Titan, which has you commaning up to 84 characters at a time.  Not a very popular game these days though.  (I own 6 copies.)

I don't mean to dissuage your idea, because anything to draw in gamers to E:WOM or to develop new board gamers is a good thing.  If you do end up reproducing the exact gameplay of the original board games, add in some optional elements that add and expand the gameplay, since you already spent all that time doing the graphics, etc.  We already have ways and places to play board games against each other (Cyberboard or its competitors or BrettSpielWelt.de).

Okay, let me see here...

If you're going straight up 3rd age, or making it 3rd age centric, I would have to agree with Torment, magic is a scarce commodity in that time period.  Magic is far more commonplace in earlier ages, but mostly because of the elves who brought their knowledge with them from Valinor and taught by the Valar, or the less savoury characters who learned the arcane arts from Morgoth.

That's not to say there isn't any, Gandalf and the other wizards brought their magical capabilities from Valinor into the 3rd age.  Certain of the Calaquendi who remain in the end of the 3rd age (think Elrond and Galadriel) have magical powers, too.

Maybe you could have factions which centered around these individuals, not the "wandering wizards" (all of the wizards but Saruman), but the elven faction of Rivendell for instance, Elrond is known as the greatest lore-master left in Middle Earth, so obviously his faction has a significant boost to technology but extremely limited numbers.

I think you should probably try not to bite off more than you can chew, stick to something simple, start with non-magical Gondor.  Perhaps consider, rather than making them "defensive" make them limited numbers but cheaper training, this will give the same sense that each unit is valuable and you want to keep them alive (which will make players think more defensively without just giving them overt defense boosts), and will give them the hp to stay alive in offensive maneuvers.  The quality of the armor and weapons should be slightly less than average.

Mordor is fairly simple also, at the end of the 3rd age Sauron was a spectre of his former glory.  Basically all he could do with his magic is make big dark scary clouds.  He relied almost completely on his minions, the nine riders in particular.  Orcs should be numerous, ill equipped, and ill trained.  Throw aways.  Men (southrons) are better equipped, better trained, less numerous than orcs, slightly less throw aways.  Olphaunts should be VERY few and far between, Pelinor fields was Sauron's big push and there was only about 30 there (not sure exactly how many).  Trolls should also be few and far between, not so much as the Oliphaunts, but the ratio of orc to troll should not exceed 1000:1 or so.  The nine should be treated as a FPS player is in multiplayer, if the get killed they respawn after a certain time at the black tower.  They should be somewhat of a force to be reckoned with, and should receive bonuses based on whether they are together with other riders.  One by himself should get killed fairly easily, maybe by say 20 Gondor soldiers.  All nine together should be able to fight (or fright) off an army.

Maybe have an Lonely Mountain dwarf faction (including the Iron Hills dwarves from up north of the mountain), they would have slightly better than average equipment.  Even less troops than Gondor with the same training boost, but the better equipment balances them out.  Probably should be the best faction at making money.

I'm not sure the best way to handle the elves...  You have the wood elves of Mirkwood, the elves of Rivendell, and the elves of Lothlorien.  Rivendell and Lothlorien elves don't really fight much in the books, but it must be said that there are notable exceptions, for instance, Glorfindel of Rivendell faced down all 9 riders to bring Frodo to Rivendell (poor guy was replaced by Liv Tyler in the movie), Elrond's sons rode to Rohan to help out the Rohirrim, the borderguards of Lothlorien destroyed an entire host of orcs after the Balrog was thrown down a hole.  It wouldn't be appropriate to stick them all in the same faction together, so my suggestion would be to start with one, say the Mirkwood elves (excellent bowmen, not so excellent close range fighters, average bows but poor armor, fast moving to run away from trouble and kill at range).  If that doesn't fill your elven requirements then move to Rivendell, (research bonus, excellent equipment probably best in game, least troops in game.)

Rohan seems pretty straight forward.  Average equipment, good numbers, LOTS of horses, less training than Gondor troops.

Now there's something else I feel should be mentioned, and that is Southern Gondor.  In these days of LoTR movies and ghost armies people tend to forget that in the books the reinforcements who actually came off the boats of the Corsairs of Umbar at the Battle of Pelenor Fields were troops from Southern Gondor, I can't name all the regions but the biggest was Dol Amroth.  Whether these should be included in the regular Gondor army is up to you, if you include them though you should remember that this will change the dynamics of the Gondor army as a whole, they will be more numerous by far (most of the population of Gondor lives in the southern regions), and they will be better equipped since they'll have more resources to access.  If this seems like it imbalances the game in favor of Gondor, you're right.  It does.  So in response you might try changing Mordor troops to be more scary and powerful.  If not (and I would suggest this) you can make them a separate faction, they would be excellent sea farers, except that such a skill is basically useless.  More numerous than Gondor, less well trained, less well equipped.  Not as expendable as Mordor orcs, but not as important to protect as Gondor soldiers.

There's also Saruman, basically the same as Mordor except this is the one faction that can legitimately have a mobile channeler.  Uruk hai are less numerous and better trained than Mordor orcs slightly better equipped but not much. No trolls, no southrons, no oliphaunts.

So, lets see that's

1) Gondor

2) Mordor

3) Dwarves

4) Elves (could be anywhere from 1 - 3 factions)

5) Rohirrim

6) Southern Gondor

7) Orthanc

A pretty tall order, and that way you can concentrate on the 3rd age.  Sticking to one time and doing it well would be a better approach than spanning all of time.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SETTING AND ITS CHARACTERS.  I HAVE TRIED TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITIES TO REMEMBER WHAT I READ IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND THE HOBBIT LAST YEAR.  IF I MADE AN ERROR PLEASE CORRECT ME.

Well, not explicitly stated in LoTR but Lothlorien was attacked three times during the last battles of the War of the Ring. They were all driven back by the elves and by Galadriel's and her ring's power - Lothlorien could only be overcome if Sauron himself had come. Once Sauron fell, Celeborn led his armies and captured Dol Guldur, and then Galadriel leveled it to the ground.

I don't remember if Rivendell had any more of a military achievements other than what you mentioned, though. Rivendell was farther removed from most of Sauron's host, so it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't.

Also, I wouldn't make Northern and Southern Gondor separate factions. For one, even had Southern Gondor been able to fully reinforce Minas Tirith from the beginning, they would still not have had the advantage. It was the combination of what was left of Northern Gondor's army, the Rohirrim and the reinforcements from the south that won the Battle at Pelennor Fields. Without any one of those three groups, the battle would probably have been lost...

And then, you have to consider that that army was a fraction of Sauron's whole host. So combining the two would in no way make Gondor too powerful. Militarily, it was completely screwed; if not for the destruction of the Ring, even if the whole army sat waiting for the next assault on Minas Tirith, they would have been wiped out.

Also, I'd like to see a map of Middle-Earth included in the mod; but I'd also like to be able to play as the factions on random maps. It would be awesome if you could script the RMG to draw from whatever art assets and such that you create instead of (or in addition to) the standard ones. Not sure about the technical requirements to do that, but you should look into it when there's enough to work with!

Sounds good! Gfx aren't my strong suit, but if you need any text-writing done, feel free to drop a line.

Sounds good, don't let me stifle your creativity, just giving some pointers.  For Southern Gondor, you could always just leave them out and say your inspiration came more from the movies

Making Lothlorien neutral would probably be a decent idea.  I guess we would just have to wait for you to make a faction from an earlier age (like Gondolin or Nargothrond) to play as elves.

Good luck

If you are going to do Gondolin, you really have to do Nargothrond as well. Finrod was more a pure "spellcaster" than Turgon, and would fit the Channeler mold nicely, I think.

Besides, Finrod needs some props. Galadriel gets all the love and she was the WIMP of that family She just was th only one that survived Morgoth.

Good digging, sir!

I would agree that the best 3rd age elvish faction to be playable would probably be the Mirkwood elves.  Doriath as a non playable faction is definitely also a good idea.  Passive bonuses to good factions when they go near NPC faction of Lothlorien also sounds intriguing, though I'm not sure how well that actually fits, since Lothlorien was pretty insular toward the end of the 3rd age, and I'm not so sure they would like it all that much if say the dwarven faction was poking around their neighborhood looking for a cheap bonus

Good points, like the Ent/Huorn faction idea, not sure how playable it would be though (maybe another candidate for NPC).

All I'm saying is that if an army showed up uninvited or unannounced on my border, no matter whose it was, I would certainly think twice about helping them.  Perhaps it could be a diplomacy option, you can request aid from Lothlorien when near their borders, rather than just having it given to you.  BTW the dwarves were just an example, I could as easily have said the Rohirrim and could have (attempted to, at least) made the same point.  They like to keep to themselves for the most part and wouldn't like lots of major battle going on near their forest just because everyone nearby gets a bonus.

The elves of Mirkwood might work as a playable faction. Like everything else, much remains up in the air about how they will work, but I like that idea

Doriath is already on the list Right now I'm leaning towards having Doriath being playable. If I remember correctly, they did send out an army once. I might be remembering this wrong (so tell me if I am) but I'm pretty sure they sent out a force to help the Noldor in their "final" assualt on Morgorth. When they all amassed their forces for a massive assualt on Morgorth, and even Gondolin sent out an army to help. But again, I might be remembering that wrong.

About the Ents, I'm thinking they will be similar to Lothorien. Stay away from them and you're good. But if you start building on their forest, or using it's materials, they will come at you and completely ravage you, worse than Lothlorien, but on the other hand, it will be harder to piss them off. And maybe, so that players don't just avoid their woods entirely, they will be "camoflauged." You won't know if they are there until they start tearing apart your cities, so you want to be careful about where you get your resources from/build cities/march armies, etc. They would also be less cohesive than Lothlorien. So every now and then you might end up with a lone Ent attaching your border or something because you pissed that one off.

Nevermind then. I obviously need to reread the Silmarilian (I hate trying to spell that )