Amazon Is Working On A New Lord Of The Rings MMO

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Amazon is making an MMO based on The Lord of the Rings.

 

 

Lord of the Rings game is on the way from Amazon Games, as it enters an agreement with Embracer Group to develop an MMO game set within the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books.

That’s right, Amazon Games has entered a deal with Middle-earth Enterprises and owner Embracer Group to make a brand-new Lord of the Rings game, which will be a multiplatform title and feature “iconic stories from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy.”

This follows the news from late last year that Embracer Group acquired Middle-earth Enterprises, meaning both Embracer and Amazon have entered this agreement for a new Lord of the Rings game.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the company already announced this in 2019, working in partnership with China-based developer Leyou Technologies. Two years later, it was announced the project had been cancelled – largely due to Leyou being purchased by Tencent in 2020.

What is fascinating to me here is Despite Amazon making The Rings of Power, the announcement notes that the MMO will be set around the era of the core books and films—the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. Hum, does this sound like another game? Maybe fans of SSG’s Lord Of The Rings Online?

 

“We’re committed to bringing players high-quality games, whether through original IPs or long-beloved ones like The Lord of the Rings, Bringing players a fresh take on The Lord of the Rings has long been an aspiration for our team, and we’re honored and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world.” Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann

More news as we get it as always.

 

Amazon Is Help Making That New Lord of the Rings MMO

 

Remember that new F2P LOTR MMO that was being made we told you about??

 

 

Turns out there is a big name behind it as well as Leyou Technologies. Amazon Game Studios is also behind the game.

There’s no word yet on a story or setting. Amazon Game Studios VP Christoph Hartmann said in a statement,

 

“Tolkien’s Middle-earth is one of the richest fictional worlds in history, and it gives our team of experienced MMO developers — from the same studio developing New World — tremendous opportunity to play and create.”

 

Amazon Game Studios and Leyou will jointly develop the game for PC and consoles, and Amazon Game Studios will market and publish the title globally with the exception of China, which will be managed by Leyou. The collaboration brings together Amazon’s game technology and talented MMO developers, and Leyou’s expertise in designing free-to-play games and operating live-service games.

 

I reached out to Amazon PR to ask if there will be a connection to the game and TV show that Amazon is also working on, There will NO connections to  game and the Lord of the Rings TV show.

No release date has been set.

 

 

[CC] Why do i lag? A lotro look in game and mmo design

Why do i lag?

Lotro's server hamster
Server hamster

A wizards is never late it arrives precisely when it means to. The same goes for everything that involves your game if everything goes well. Alas not everything goes well all the time. It might be the server hamsters, your pc or it might even be a solar flare. It can all be a valid answer to the question “Why do i lag?”

 

In the first article we’ll talk about what lag is and how a game like lotro is actually run. Along the way we’ll dive deeper into lotro specifics such as Bree layers and what a 64 bit client would do. But for now we’ll stick to our ultra-dry lembas bread basics

 

What is lag?
A delay between an action and reaction between two entities. You put your hand on a metal plate in the sun. The millisecond it happens you will be burning yourself, but you haven’t yet pulled your hand of it. Your nerves will notice “Ouch” and will notify your brain it should probably tell your muscles to contract and move your hand away. This will happen really quick cause everything is evolved to be really quick and close together in your body. Lotro and other multiplayer games however don’t .

A different nerve system
Like the human body is made of networks so is your gaming experience. It’s a network of little organs that each have to their own little task. For simplicty you might even think of each part as their own little person. Each one has a task to perform that will make sure your hobbit sword connects with the orcs neck exactly when you meant it to do. It works just like the internet does.

How does the internet work (in 5 mins)

But wait there is more
The internet is just a small part what makes lotro possible. For lotro there are two places that are needed to run the game. Your side and SSG’s side. Your PC and their PC’s. I’ll assume you will know how a keyboard works and windows, so we’ll only explain the extra bits beyond your keyboard. It might be more then you’d think. If you’d want to take a headstart below are two links that explain what it takes on their “PC” side.

How does an mmo work?
What does a mmo server do?

The 4 components to run lotro

From the data that is your character to the time it shows your hobbit on your monitor that data goes through 4 steps. Every step is a little person that should do exactly what it should. From the left to right there are your character in 1’s and 0’s. This is your character in its most basic form. No hands or feet, just data.

The paint journey of your hobbit
  1. Layers – Your character will make its way into it’s own private little part of Middle-earth
    1. This could be an instance,the Party tree or your kinhouse
    2. This is done so that there is as little interaction between you and others
  2. Gameworld -Your little world is tracked by lotro to give nearby players information
    1. MMO’s have people so there are needs to interaction between you and others. This is kept to as little as it can be.
    2. Your helmet (item number 1234567) has colour navy blue (colour number 5) instead of all the pixels and stats
  3. Latency (outside internet) – Both game servers deal out this information to your pc all the time. This information goes to the nearest internet person that can give it to one that is a little closer to you. This goes on and on till it reaches your front door.
  4. Latency (indoor internet) – The internet person arrives at your front door and hands it over to your own person. And makes sure its given to your pc.
    1. Although only a small part of the journey its yours. And out of the control of lotro (hard to check or fix)
  5. Client – Your computer and lotro.
    1. Lotro will turn all the 1’s and 0’s that made its way from 1 and 2 into a hobbit in Chetwood that is wearing a navy blue pirates hat with 10 agility.
    2. Your press forward and move 1 step. And your pc will now turn 5A into 1’s and 0’s 1 yard north to the previous known location back to step number 1.

A constant stream of information
This will repeat itself over and over millisecond after millisecond. The game however knows what is needed and will only send as little information as is necessary. What hasn’t changed is not needed. And what isn’t near you is not important for you.

Example
In 5B you’re still wearing helmet 1234567, your morale hasn’t changed, the boar 10 meters away is still alive. Your entire hobbit will be send as 1 bundle with just a slightly different location.

Information not for your eyes
The price of 50 rusted scimitars on the Bree AH isn’t of interest to you or the morale of Thorog 37 as well. So you’re not getting that information. Leaving this information out is vital to any game (and lotro). This works for every bit of information that is send back and forth, but also for any graphics on your pc.

As with everything it’s not free. Saving a penny here means that you can spend that penny somewhere else. One of those penny savers (lots of pennies) is servers and bandwidth. What does data cost?

Quadrupling graphcis by cutting 3/4’s

Either by saving costs on bandwidth, letting an older pc run lotro or allow the same pc to turn the graphics up further then it could otherwise. Developers use a lot of tricks to provide you with the best experience they could offer.

Example
On a console the hardware and settings are fixed. You can’t upgrade your graphic card or pc for a game like lotro. Neither can you change your draw distance or resolution. Even in the newest console like a PS4. So the developers get creative with the game itself. Such as in Horizon zero dawn

Next time
That’s in short how lotro as a game, mmo and game services works. Next time we’ll dive deeper into a segment. Let us know in the comments what part you’d like to dive in or which viewpoint you’d be most interested in.

 

LOTRO Poems #18

Hail Friends! Hope you are all doing well! The sun is shinning bright, spring has said goodbye but weather-man says the unexpected winds of winter are about to make a come back here in northern Italy.

Casual Raiders had a slow week, with some players taking a break from gaming to tend to real life, we have decided to take this time to go back to the basis and do some restructuring and regrouping and rebuilding. On the flip side, we recruited a lot of returning and new players and its a joy spending time with them.

This is a special poem for me. It’s rhyme scheme is based on Tolkien’s ‘Troll Song’ and ‘Root of the Boot’. There was a previous version of this poem, that I wrote for the Exploring The Lord of The Rings series when we hosted Professor Corey Olsen on Brandywine. You can hear me singing it here. So without further ado, I present to you:

Casual in a Raider

Welcome to another heart to heart,
Always together and never apart,
Another adventure is about to start,
In the company of Casual Raiders,
Fraiders, Craiders..
Another adventure is about to start,
In the company of Casual Raiders..

Casual Raiders is the name of the kin,
With Casual Raiders you’ll always win,
Not joining us is just a sin,
You might as well be with mordor,
No door, Hodor..

For Casual Raiders is a safe place,
Brothers in arms from every race,
Slaying monsters that we face,
And they sing the songs of our glory,
Ori, Nori..

Casual Raiders will welcome you all,
Picking you up when you fall,
Shoulder to shoulder and standing tall,
So come have some ale on our Kin Island,
Highland, Pieland..

Now Casual Raiders is three years old,
Filled with the courageous and the bold,
Beautiful people with hearts of gold,
Who like to raid on the Sunday,
Grundy, Monday..

Hope you guys and girls enjoyed this weeks LOTRO Poem. Feel free to let me know in comments. If you want to feature your poem on LOTRO Poems my email is legendraiderx@gmail.com.

My Twitter: @dgenxali.

My Blog: dgenxali.wordpress.com.

My Kinship on Brandywine: Casual Raiders.

Be good and have a wonderful day, Namarie!

LOTRO Poems #17

 

Hail Friends! Guess who is back! Did you guys miss me? 

Life has been busy, with work and my Kinship and 3 million other hobbies, it was very hard to keep up with the weekly Tolkien inspired poetry. So many times I wanted to publish what little poetry I wrote but I just didnt want to publish something which wouldn’t have done justice to the Tolkienverse.

Casual Raiders recently celeberated their 3rd anniversary(You can check out the Video here). The kinship is standing tall and has become one of Brandywine’s largest kinship with active players from all around the globe. 

This poem is a continuation of “Estel” series of poems. Last time we met Aragorn, he was fighting the enemy along with Legolas and Gimli and Boromie died trying to save the hobbits. If you haven’t read the previous 8 parts, I highly encourage you to read them before this poem, Part 1, Part 2Part 3,  Part 4,  Part 5Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8.

Estel (part 9)

Merry and pippin were taken, Frodo and Sam were gone,
The fellowship broken, was there any point in going on?

Legolas, me and Gimli, we decided to carry on,
To rescue the hobbits from Isengard, from Saruman,

The fate of Frodo and Sam out of sight,
We followed the uruks day and night,

For days we ran in constant pursuit,
This tireless enemy. fearless and brute,

We came across the riders of Rohan, fair and tall in height,
Eomer of the mark, and his companions, who slew the uruks in night,

We asked them about the hobbits, the halflings,
They claimed to have seen none, we discussed some other things,

The hope once again tried to escape me, failure of Aragorn,
But my instinct told me to carry on the search, into fangorn.

 

Hope you guys and girls enjoyed this weeks LOTRO Poem. Feel free to let me know in comments. If you want to feature your poem on LOTRO Poems my email is legendraiderx@gmail.com.

My Twitter: @dgenxali.

My blog: dgenxali.wordpress.com.

My Kinship on Brandywine: Casual Raiders.

Be good and have a wonderful day, Namarie!