Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
The Vault Network is once again very excited to announce the launching of our latest site, Tabula Rasa Vault. Please take a moment and drop by to see what is going on with this highly anticipated game crafted by MMO legend Richard Garriott.
Last week I launched MEV's Battle For Middle-earth Map/Mapper of the Week. The idea is pretty simple, give tons of praise to our hard working mapping community who have provided us with 1000's of maps here at MEV.
So for the week of Oct-3rd-2007 I want to give a shout out to one of the communities older mappers who created some of the best maps for BFME. {IP}SharbturBurzum hasn't been seen around MEV since the days of BFME2 but his maps have lived on for the BFME series. Among these maps are hit titles like Dol Amroth & Carn D�m which combined have held some of the top ratings here at MEV and have about 15,000+ Downloads. Now for 2 Maps that is simply very impressive. So again we thank {IP}SharbturBurzum for taking the time to create these phenomenal maps for the community.
Map of The Week
Carn D�m (MP Version) by {IP}SharbturBurzum (BFME Multiplayer) Stronghold of the Witch-king of Angmar. Carn Dum was located at the far northern end of the Misty Mountains.
A few community members have stepped forward with their first mod titled Dark Shadows 0.1 Beta. The Mod is in it's very early stages of development and can use a few beta testers to give some feedback on how the mod is playing thus far. If your interested in Mods and want to check out the Dark Shadows 0.1 Beta Mod get it here, and discuss it here. Please make sure to give our Modders some constructive feedback as you play their mod.
While comics on LOTR or EA's BFME series are not a hot topic these days I have headed over to BTToons and snagged a few of their older comics and have added them to our Comic section here at MEV. This comic was posted about 5 months ago when RoTWK was still a much debated topic. I personally found it funny as you never know what sort of units the Thrall Masters might summon on you.
Make sure to check out some of the other comics we have found and added to our comic section here.
If your looking for single player matches all the way to 4v4 or even 1v7 match play, our community has give us maps to pull it off. All of the maps posted below are great additions to our RoTWK map section & I recommend you check them out and post some comments after giving them some play time.
In the last few months we haven't had much to talk about in regards to news on the BFME series. EA has been quite and well I have personally forgotten just how much more solid content from our community is over any amount of news from EA.
So with that said I want to bring you MEV's Battle For Middle-earth Map/Mapper of the Week. Now this isn't going to have prizes like contest but will be more geared towards the top maps we already have submitted and don't have summited to give our mappers some sort of bragging rights, and of course to give you the community direct links to sweet maps here at MEV. I can truthfully say MEV has the largest selection of community based maps and we want to make sure to put those in the lime light.
So for the week of Sept-26-2007 I want to give a shout out to one of the communities best if not the best mappers. He has been making some of the top maps for the BFME series for a long time and really deserves the spot light this week. If you haven't guessed I am talking about non other than High Elven Lord. For this weeks map HEL has given us a beautiful Dwarven fortress which offers a 2v1 style of game play. The map is titled The Gates of Ered Luin and is worth a few hours of game play by everyone in the community. HEL has marked this map as his last map for BFME2 but allows us to wonder if he will make a few more for RoTWK?
Map of The Week
The Gates of Ered Luin by High Elven Lord (ROTWK Multiplayer) It is designed after the Dwarven strongholds deep within the Blue Mountains. (Nogrod, Belegost)
High Elven Lord has also made these other great maps for BFME2:
Looking to hear some good music in the lobby of RoTWK? How about wanting to play on a few sweet maps? Well our community has once again stepped up and has given us some sweet Maps and Mods to play with this week. Check them out below!!!
As someone who runs tournaments and LAN events it is always nice to see a group of 4, 6 or 8 guys battling it out over a sweet map for pure bragging rights. With that said about a few years ago I jumped in & submitted a few ideas for maps in BFME2, lucky enough one of my inspired maps made it into the game, this map is known to you as Weathered Hills later named Lostriand in RoTWK. Now this maps soul purpose was for a new style of 3v3 with the options for the good players to play on the bottom while the so called Noobs played the top 3 spots. You and I both know that�s not how this map was played online. But in any case the map needed some attention as it was no longer played at events or even online due to the disadvantage the bottom players had to over come.
So today with the Help of a good friend Mr. Hollywood, I want to introduce a new version of the map called WeatheredLostriand. The map has been adjusted to take away the height advantage along with being increased to 600 x 600 in size allowing for a much better layout. The start points with 6 players have also been adjusted to make use of the walls in the 2 gaps allowing for a siege style of play. We also added a few more creeps. Make sure to add your comments to this map so we can improve on it.
For those of you who have been around for over 3 years will most likely know about Middle Earth Center (MEC). MEC has been online for just under 4 years and has been covering the Battle for Middle Earth series along with Turbines Lord of the Rings Online. Well they have just launched their new site design and layout which returns the site to it root colors from back in the day. Along with the new site launch they have promised to cover the new LOTR game in development & of course coverage of the upcoming movie "The Hobbit". If you haven�t been over to MEC and want to know more about the upcoming LOTR game, head on over to their site and forums.
Publisher Houghton Mifflin plans to add two new volumes to the Tolkien library. The History of the Hobbit will be released in sync with The Hobbit's 70th anniversary. The first volume is entitled Mr. Baggins and the second Return to Bag-End. Both contain variations and early drafts of Tolkien's 70 year old book. The History of the Hobbit is written by John D. Ratliff, who has written several Tolkien and Inklings works. A collector's edition including both volumes packaged with the 70th Anniversary The Hobbit edition will be available tomorrow September 21st. Here's a sneak peek:
First published in 1938, The Hobbit is a story that "grew in the telling," and many characters and events in the published book are completely different from what Tolkien first wrote to read aloud to his young sons as part of their "fireside reads." For the first time, The History of the Hobbit reproduces the original version of one of literature's most famous stories, and includes many little-known illustrations and previously unpublished maps for The Hobbit created by Tolkien himself. Also featured are extensive annotations and commentaries on the date of composition, how Tolkien's professional and early mythological writings influenced the story, the imaginary geography he created, and how he came to revise the book in the years after publication to accommodate events in The Lord of the Rings.
These two volumes are boxed together with a new edition of The Hobbit with a short introduction by Christopher Tolkien, a reset text incorporating the most up-to-date corrections, and all of Tolkien's own drawings and color illustrations, including the rare "Mirkwood" piece.
Thanks for this news Kungfuyu... To preorder this set, go to Amazon here!
If you haven't noticed Middle Earth Vaults forums have just gotten a massive overhaul. This forum update has been in the works for a long time now. I know some of you will be asking about post counts etc... but until IGN updates all the FilePlanet boards these numbers are going to be way off. So sit tight and enjoy the much needed update.
Zephos, the administrator of Gamespy's Official BFME2 Arena Portal, reports that EA has contacted GameReplays.org to provide a change list for Patch 1.07 for BFME2. Maddox had posted a list of possible changes a few months back, but should not be taken as final by any means. The list is as follows:
***- Giant Eagle now takes 40% from pierce and 55% from cavalry-ranged and structural, health 3400 (was 4000), buildtime 1m45s (was 1m), summon duration 40s (was 2m), attack now has a -70% damage penalty vs towers
***- Aragorn athelas now heals 1000 hitpoints (was 2000), blademaster +50% bonus vs structures removed, regular weapon splash radius now 12 (from 10)
***- Boromir's horn fear duration reduced to 10s (was 15s), attack hero-knockdown chance reduced to 15% (was 25%)
**- Soldier of Gondor damage vs structures reduced by 17.5%, now takes 105% damage from poison (was 100%), barracks buildtime now 33s (was 30s)
**- Lorien Archer unarmored now takes 90% from poison (was 100%), damage reduced by 10% against soldiers (except for Guardians and Corsairs) and pikemen
** Glorfindel blade of purity damage bonus now +50% (from +100%), mount switch is no longer enabled with Blade of Purity active
**- Wildmen damage reduced to 30 (was 40), summon power reduced to 3 hordes (from 4)
**- Warg Rider now takes 42% (was 50%) from arrows, 18% (was 25%) with armor, upgraded weapon bonus vs structures reduced to +50% (was +100%)
Head on over to MEV's forums here to read the full change list.
With EA being quite about patches and just about anything LOTR one has to wonder what is going on. So this brings the question "Is EA supporting the BFME series properly?" Make sure to vote on the right under the tall ad. As for last week, the results are:
Have You What Do You Want More?
Patches for BFME series - 157
BFME3 - 733
New LOTR based RTS - 250
Total Votes: 1140
I am happy to see that community would love to see a BFME3. But for me I choose to have EA patch the games we have. I know they have plans to patch all 3 games, but getting dates on when they will do it is like winning the lotto... So sit tight as we try to get more news on patches and on upcoming LOTR games.
Our community has gotten us back into the game that started it all by giving us a Map and Mod to play around with. Make sure to download and check them out and leave some feedback for the members who submitted them.
Today we have 4 maps provided by the community for our beloved Rise of the Witch King. Both Aelvenwarrior & Tetshroki are looking for reviews and votes for their maps so make sure to check them out and leave your comments.
While the last 6 months we haven't heard anything out of EA as to patches and updates, but today our community has provided a Mod and a map to try out in BFME2. Make sure to leave a rating for each of these items so our community knows if they are worth the time or not.
If you think the custom maps from the map contest were good just wait until you play a few game son these maps. Make sure to leave our mapping community some feedback.
If you didn't know back in May we held a huge map contest for our Mappers of Middle-earth. In this it has taken some time to nail down a direct winner. With getting my laptop stolen in the process it didn't help much. But now we have the winners and they are beyond glorious maps that have won.
So without any more delay I give you the winners of our MEV map contest.
1st Place: Puppeteer / Architect of Middle-Earth - Manor of the Eorl
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