I remember siting in my computer class, it was my first period class of the 9th grade, and reading for hours about "Middle Earth Online". The game sounded amazing when I would read about it, I loved how there was going to be tons of classes and that each class had a dark and a light side to it. I remember reading about how the gear you wore would help you with turning to the dark or to the light, They ever said how Bright "White" and Black robes would be very rare, only people who truely took one path or the other could wear them.

Another thing I loved reading about was the combat, I remeber watching a video on gamespot (Its gone now), of a human fighter slamming his sword into a door and actually busting it open from the blast. The combat in that small alpha video, while still not the greatest looking MMO combat ever, looked much more fluid and smooth than combat in todays LOTRO.

Then there was the end of it all, the developer blogs which talked about Multiple classs, starting "Traits" for each character, a seemless world, and group based combat, suddenly changed. The first sign of trouble was when I read the dev blog about how they had decided to change from a Seemless world, to an instanced one to "Save Load times" and help "Reduce computer needs". From there it wasnt long before the whole thing was shut down and rebooted.

Still though, to this day I think about the countless hours I spent on those forums, and on that site in the morning of my first class in my high school career. To me Middle Earth Online is the game that should have been made, LOTRO by no means is a bad game, Ive played it and enjoyed it. But I still hope for one day getting to play in the Middle Earth that I imagined. With the Star Wars Franchise now taking on its second MMO, It gives me faith that we could see a new MMO in the Middle Earth Series. Only time will tell though.

RIP Middle Earth Online.

Little google search brought this up, if you're feeling nostalgic... You can download it but not stream it.  Here's the link.  MEO Trailer.

Here's a link to that video. I found it on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5NJhlqOztY

I remember those days myself, back when there was going to be a "ranger" class and the ability to level up while logged off like in EVE. 

I truly do agree it could have been better than what was released instead.  I know LOTRO is good, but I was one of the original posters on the MEO forums named "Cloaked Ranger". I was pushing for there to be evil races to be played so that it felt like an actual war.  I wanted to see a world that was dangerous, but in the end the owners of the lore didn't want the game to be about PVP, they wanted it to be about people working together... which is fine, but damn what killed MEO and LOTRO for me was the lack of human challenge.  I mean there is only so much a computer will do tactics wise... a real player is always a better challenge and both games failed to deliver that to me.  

May it rest in peace, I love LOTR... but the game is a complete fail because it brings no challenge to the table.

I doubt it. I think that LOTRO and sandboxes in general would have to be more popular to ever see developement on MEO or any other Lord of the Rings sandbox like it.

While LOTRO is "okay" it is a waste of the licence, in my own most humble opinion. What would have been great would be something along the lines of the LOTR "skin" thrown over a pre-cu SWG or DAOC mechanic. I also was waiting patiently back in the UO days for MEO to come out and was pretty disappointed to see how it ended up, particularly with the PVP aspect. The whole story is about a war! What better setting to do an open world, RVR type game. In saying all that I accept that there would have been limitations on Turbine imposed by the Tolkien licence but the game has evolved to become more along the lines of Turbines vision of LOTR (radience and everyone having a legendary weapon, or two) than an MMO about the LOTR.

I had a friend that was 100% sounding like you a few nights ago.

He was sooo pumped about MEO then once LOTRO came out he just kinda lost all hope for it :(

I am not sure what niche is yet open in the Tolkien franchise?

SWTOR is possible because SWG by and large now failed. If SWG were a huge success, I highly doubt we would see SWTOR now. Same about LOTRO. I see LOTRO is as far as I see succesful, so I don't see room for another Tolkien based MMO. I myself can't imagine what that would be? What epoch? The distant past? The future? Who would want to play in such an unknown timeline? SWTOR is known from books and KOTOR games, but none of the other Tolkien times would be that known in the gaming scene.

I think LOTRO is good, but it indeed does leave much room to wanting. But not enough to make an entirely new Middle Earth Game. I just don't see that. The time of the LotR books is THE most known time through the books and the movies and the most people would not like to play in some other time. I just don' t really think that. Only in many many years ahead when LOTRO is old.

Originally posted by Elikal

I am not sure what niche is yet open in the Tolkien franchise?

SWTOR is possible because SWG by and large now failed. If SWG were a huge success, I highly doubt we would see SWTOR now. Same about LOTRO. I see LOTRO is as far as I see succesful, so I don't see room for another Tolkien based MMO. I myself can't imagine what that would be? What epoch? The distant past? The future? Who would want to play in such an unknown timeline? SWTOR is known from books and KOTOR games, but none of the other Tolkien times would be that known in the gaming scene.

I think LOTRO is good, but it indeed does leave much room to wanting. But not enough to make an entirely new Middle Earth Game. I just don't see that. The time of the LotR books is THE most known time through the books and the movies and the most people would not like to play in some other time. I just don' t really think that. Only in many many years ahead when LOTRO is old.

I agree with you, as it stands right now, the Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy is what brought us the ability to even have LOTRO. As you said, right now there seems to be no other way to go about making a Middle Earth MMO, today. But let me bring this out, as a possibility for the future.

The Hobbit.

I think this has passed alot of people by, but an MMO based in the era of "The Hobbit" could work just as easily as LOTR. Not only is the Hobbit just as well known as LOTR but its time-frame can be used as strictly or as loosely as you want. Also with the First in a Hobbit Trilogy (Or Two parter, I dont think its decided offically) planned to be filmed with in the next couple of years. That would give ample posibility to see a new Middle Earth Online game in production.

I know its a long shot, but its got a decent amount of workings and ideas behind it to be possible. I will elaborate on this further in a bit, but I was wondering if others think this might be the possibly "Kick" a new MEO game needs.

PS Thanks for the video links guys, great memories with those trailers, and it reminded me how much I loved the Gamespot footage. (Im going to contact them to see if I can get the file sent to my email)

Even if LotRO is no sandbox (and I prefer to play sandbox) I seriously would give it a chance, if they integrated PvP into the game. Without PvP or PvP limited to monsters vs players there is nothing LotRO could offer me (except for brilliant Dirext X 10 graphics). Dunno, why PvP was not an option. Maybe some reasons due to the licence. Perhaps they couldnt "sell" the Tolkien heirs the ideas of roaming hobbits murdering around in the shire.

The original Warhammer Online sounded much better, too. Classes would be based off the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game ( hereby known as WFRP ), which would mean it'd be more like FF's job system, where you could turn into a class from another class, levelling skills and getting traits along the way.

( An example of a class is the Rat Hunter, which were actually very needed in WFRP due to the sheer amount of skaven and sewers, which could fight better in enclosed spaces, could fight at normal efficiency whilst bent over and had an increased critical on skaven. )

I made some of the best online friends ever just waiting for MEO. Everyone scattered when Turbine gutted it in alpha. The second time I had been misled by a developer, and that was the time I stopped believing things pre release. I am still waiting for the real Middle Earth Online, but sadly, Turbine holds exclusive rights, so we'll never see the real Middle Earth, just a watered down WoW clone. 

Originally posted by Elikal

I myself can't imagine what that would be? What epoch? The distant past? The future? Who would want to play in such an unknown timeline? SWTOR is known from books and KOTOR games, but none of the other Tolkien times would be that known in the gaming scene.

I think LOTRO is good, but it indeed does leave much room to wanting. But not enough to make an entirely new Middle Earth Game. I just don't see that. The time of the LotR books is THE most known time through the books and the movies and the most people would not like to play in some other time. I just don' t really think that. Only in many many years ahead when LOTRO is old.

I agree. The one thing that I had heard about MEO was that it was supposed to take place in another time line. I personally don't care for that as I'm interested in "The Lord of the Rings" not "living in Middle Earth after everything is finished".

Also, regarding the evil races, I think people don't realize that there is no point of view in the stories of "the evil side".

Anything that is witnessed on the evil side is from the vantage point of one of the protagonists in the story. This is not to say that they couldn't have an evil side but it wouldn't be as free as being part of the free people of middle earth.

The evil characters are essentially controlled/led by the top leaders and forcibly conscripted in their armies. The evil side is there for story telling and conflict. But it is not really fleshed out as anything more than the main conflict.

I personally don't like the idea of straying too far from the work which the game is based on. I feel that it would be a bastardization of that work.

Though I still think it could be done if the evil side was just that, controlled by higher overlord type leaders.

And as long as they had some soft barriers to keep evil from the good side and vice versa then it could work. by that I mean Elf and Ranger npc's that drive off players from areas they were never in and the same for more evil beings keeping the players on the good side from camping at sauron's gates and dancing in conga lines.

Conga lines at the Black Gates would be bad.

Middle Earth Online was never intended to have PvP, but it was going to have moral corruption choices. Also MEO was set in the same time as LotRO, just designed so that you were always a step behind the Fellowship. Just to clarify, LotARO and MEO are the exact same game, just LotRO is the NGE version of MEO 

Originally posted by Retrad

Here's a link to that video. I found it on Youtube.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5NJhlqOztY

a lot of that looked exactly llike LotrO, except for Lotro has way way better graphics .

I remember when MEO was being developed by Sierra. That game looked amazing. It truly looked like it was going to be "the next UO", but then it simply vanished.

When it resurfaced under Turbines name, I instantly lost all hope.

I highly doubt we'll ever see a LOTR MMO released that is true to the setting.

Originally posted by solareus

Originally posted by Retrad

Here's a link to that video. I found it on Youtube.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5NJhlqOztY

 

a lot of that looked exactly llike LotrO, except for Lotro has way way better graphics .

That video posted was only a trailer of the "Full" video shown on Gamespot. The Full video was a half hour run through of the game, where they talked about all of the different choices and game functions.

One critical one, that Im sure people in this thread will remember from the old MEO forums, was being able to actually "Write Books" in game like Bilbo did in the Hobbit (Hence another reason why I think my Hobbit theory still stands).

The system worked alot like a normal MMO crafting system, you could find pieces of parchment in dungeons scattered through Middle Earth, along with other peices until you could "Forge" the book itself. The system was never fully fleshed out, but it had ideas ranging from being able to write anything you want, to having "Rest Areas" where you could write on the specific "Dungeon" parchements about your adventures, to even having pre-made writings for your character.

Now I know what half the people on the forum will say "Who Wants to write Books in an MMO!?", and you know what I bet alot of people dont. The fact is, it was something different, something that sounded new after EQ and other games.

Also as Signus said, PVP was going to be based of Morality choices in MEO. The example I think thats perfect for this is Saruman and Gríma Wormtongue. Both were corrupted beings of Middle Earth, they chose evil instead of good, and gained certain abilities for it. Again the fated Gamespot video they talked about having fights between Evil characters and non evil characters, to me this system sticks straight to the lore and lets people PVP with purpose. Whose to say where the system could have gone, had MEO continued.

Originally posted by Gamesmith

I remember when MEO was being developed by Sierra. That game looked amazing. It truly looked like it was going to be "the next UO", but then it simply vanished.

When it resurfaced under Turbines name, I instantly lost all hope.

I highly doubt we'll ever see a LOTR MMO released that is true to the setting.

 

LOTRO is true to the setting........

Originally posted by Frostbite05

Originally posted by Gamesmith

I remember when MEO was being developed by Sierra. That game looked amazing. It truly looked like it was going to be "the next UO", but then it simply vanished.

When it resurfaced under Turbines name, I instantly lost all hope.

I highly doubt we'll ever see a LOTR MMO released that is true to the setting.

 

 

LOTRO is true to the setting........

Yes, because Middle Earth has a thousand hills with invisible walls funneling you in a literal valley through every zone, and every cave is a black hole you cannot enter without talking to a specific NPC first. It's a bit of a mixed bag, some story elements are nice, other areas of the story, setting, lore, and towns have been butchered. 
 

Originally posted by SignusM

Originally posted by Frostbite05

Originally posted by Gamesmith

I remember when MEO was being developed by Sierra. That game looked amazing. It truly looked like it was going to be "the next UO", but then it simply vanished.

When it resurfaced under Turbines name, I instantly lost all hope.

I highly doubt we'll ever see a LOTR MMO released that is true to the setting.

 

 

LOTRO is true to the setting........

Yes, because Middle Earth has a thousand hills with invisible walls funneling you in a literal valley through every zone, and every cave is a black hole you cannot enter without talking to a specific NPC first. It's a bit of a mixed bag, some story elements are nice, other areas of the story, setting, lore, and towns have been butchered. 
 

Must not forget rune keepers.

Oh, I know people love them and I have a friend who absolutely loves his rune keeper (he didn't like lore master that much) but every time I see one a slight shiver goes down my spine.

Here is a nice little meo write up:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/middleearthonline/preview_6028194.html