[Hostile]

Well I felt someone should start a thread wholly devoted to throwing around ideas for various mod projects for B4ME. Well we are still in the dark about what can be done and what is out of the question, neverless would make sense to start putting some teams and projects together.

I assume after it comes out the first modders will probably want to elaborate on existing factions. Makes sense, alot less work till we figure it all out.

I firmly believe modeling will turn into a nightmare now with primary units being infantry. *gulp* It may take months to do one "decent" infantry model with skinning and animations.

Making new factions will be the most interesting though. Taking info from the Books, we could very well have Dwarves, Elves, Goblins and such as new factions.

Dwarves - slow moving but high hit points. Magic resistance higher than normal. Unique seige weapons, Tunneling (if coding allows it), and such.
Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, crossbowmen, seige engineer, stuff like that.


Elves - faster but lighter armed, higher firing rate, very expensive to build, high morale, more magic avaliable.
Light infantry, mounted infantry (riders of Rohan reskin maybe), archers, and other fairy BS elves use.

Goblins - cheap, mass produce, large creature mercenaries to augment forces, sneaky GLA style hit and run attacks. No they are not Orcs.
Infantry, bowman, warg riders, some kind of officer unit, and MANY mercenary large creature types.

Heroes seem to play a much larger role in B4ME than previous C&C games. So it would be safe to assume about 3-4 hero units per faction.

Some units can be mixed and matched with reason. Elven archers could just be rescaled and skinned human archers. Troll and stuff would work for goblins as well as Orc armies.

Also if you read the book, there is also another faction Called the Army of the South. I know parts of them would be included in Saurans army but that could be expanded also.

Well, I hope others feed off this and expand on it. I'd like to be part of a mod for B4ME but not lead one. So people step up and feed into this so we can all get a jump on things. ~Hostile (Lord of the Cheese, Impaler of Turds, Ambassador for the Great City of Arse)

[smurfbizkit]

From what I've read; Goblins = Orcs and the naming is used interchangably (although the term "goblins" was only used in reference to the orcs in "the hobbit").

Dwarves would not use tunneling as a weapon like that, they typically just went into battle like men (although never on horseback). Their main strength would be in their high hitpoints and resistance to flame (due to the heavy armor, even dragon flames can't harm them much).

You hinted at the drawback for the elves as being low build times...you can probably limit their armies more with the population cap somehow. Both the elves and the dwarves should take a while to build units, and thus they'd focus more on quality over quantitiy.

Don't go adding the "army of the south", instead just give a few new units to the FOD...possibly dragons (those would be very cool).

My overall suggestion would be for you to just add the elves and the dwarves as separate sides and just give a few new units to the FOD.

[Hostile]

I feel Dwarves and Goblins alike would be more unique by being tunnelers. They conflict underground also away from the eyes of men. Goblins and Dwarves alike would also fight above ground.

Quanity over quality...Goblins and Orcs. Quality over quanity...Dwarves and Elves.

[ComradeJ]

Originally Posted by smurfbizkit

From what I've read; Goblins = Orcs and the naming is used interchangably (although the term "goblins" was only used in reference to the orcs in "the hobbit").

I believe Goblins are 'wild' Orcs, whereas the Orcs are in service of Mordor (or Angband, if you want to go back). I'm not sure on it though.

[Hostile]

Well I suppose for game purposes, goblins could be smaller "wild" versions of Orcs. Could very well consider "wild" elves than also. I saw neutral armies that could be persuaded to join either side in Dee's BFME Army document.

If this is the case. The most fun might be creating small mercenary armies instead of new factions. Allow them to be a part of the storyline by being neutral. Depending how ongoing campaigns will be run. This would also make things easy to implement.

[Juggernaut1985]

Has anyone thought of doing an American Civil War mod.

Seems like BFME would lend itself to that kind of battle.

[Hostile]

A total TC for BFME would be great in the theme of the Civil War. Prob is alot of people who play it aren't American and prob wcouldn't care. I thought of that idea for Generals but I'm not an infantry modeler so no chance there.

BFME is Infantry heavy so all those tank modelers better learn to model infantry or this will be a boring community. I'm not sure I could do it. If maybe one infantry every couple of months. I have a feeling there will be alot of cutting and pasting of models for the the mods for BFME.

Also I feel there will be GREATER collaboration among Vets with this game. With production times for each model much higher and requiring a higher level of expertise, coding will be the easier route.

"I'll code if you model!" ~Hostile

[Ambershee]

Well I felt someone should start a thread wholly devoted to throwing around ideas for various mod projects for B4ME. Well we are still in the dark about what can be done and what is out of the question, neverless would make sense to start putting some teams and projects together.

Sounds like a plan to me, it always pays to share what we work out

I assume after it comes out the first modders will probably want to elaborate on existing factions. Makes sense, alot less work till we figure it all out.

I've seen a fair bit of that on BfME modding sites already actually, but very little of anything non-ME, so you're probably right on that score, although personally I think the TC'ability of BfME should be more abused, lol.

I firmly believe modeling will turn into a nightmare now with primary units being infantry. *gulp* It may take months to do one "decent" infantry model with skinning and animations.

That could very well be - organics aren't the easiest thing to work with as we all know - and the poly limits on models varies wildly - basic infantry are very low poly, but heroes are far more detailed. I suppose it'll also depend on how much work you're willing to put into making it run efficiently.

Well, I hope others feed off this and expand on it. I'd like to be part of a mod for B4ME but not lead one. So people step up and feed into this so we can all get a jump on things.

Makes a change, lol - most people want to lead the team or be responsible for the concept. You're already familiar with DH anyway !

A total TC for BFME would be great in the theme of the Civil War. Prob is alot of people who play it aren't American and prob wcouldn't care. I thought of that idea for Generals but I'm not an infantry modeler so no chance there.

Well, I'm not in the US - but it certainly makes for different gameplay and it could potentially look great, but it's not an easy product to snap out. People seem to be far more interested in the cliched modern war / vietnam / WW1/2 mods

BFME is Infantry heavy so all those tank modelers better learn to model infantry or this will be a boring community. I'm not sure I could do it. If maybe one infantry every couple of months. I have a feeling there will be alot of cutting and pasting of models for the the mods for BFME.

I'm already seeing that a lot too - I've seen no models that are intended for use in BfME other than the basic UNDH models I've got for Dh2 (which are probably too high poly anyway). Unless of course there are people out there hiding their work

Also I feel there will be GREATER collaboration among Vets with this game. With production times for each model much higher and requiring a higher level of expertise, coding will be the easier route.

Ini coding has always been the easier route, and it doesn't take long to become totally familiarised with the layout and what you can / can't do. Hopefully there will be greater veterancy collaboration, but I'm not really expecting it, I'm more expecting a much lower quantity of overall staffing, making things rather awkward for the modding community.

~AmberZ

[Hostile]

Even though it is Middle Earth, alot of good resources could come from the Dungeons and Dragons backgraound. Greyhawk campaign, Forgotten Realms, At least some good ideas for off the wall mercanary or faction types like Dark Elves, Deugar (evil dwarves), Gnomes (like hobbits but more combative and engineer types), and certainly a pluthra of nation states.

[smurfbizkit]

If you are going to start adding sides like dark elves, dark dwarves and things in such a way that it obvioulsy isn't part of LORT, maybe you'd be better off making a TC. I am a bit of a tolkien nut myself, and the idea of you adding an entire side of dark elves yet still calling it LOTR is sacreligious to me.