Where Are The Lord of the Rings Games?

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Elder Trolls Gaming podcast. If you are new in joining us, we are three brothers who get together and talk about gaming. We may also talk tech, TV, movies and other nerdy geeky stuff too. But first, I am Nasty Night and I am Taking Easy John, and I'm Dan Dolph the Wyse, And today we will be talking about Lord of the Rings games, which we've played, what's coming out, and what we actually want of this Lord of the Rings universe in a game. But first, where are all the good ones? Where have all the good games gone? Where have all the good Lord of the Rings games gone? Yeah's well, I just found out that fly Digi came out with a new controller after I just bought their fucking best Top of the Mind one. Okay a month ago. When did they come up with the one you bought like four years ago? I don't know, maybe probably like a year ago, maybe like a yearly thing. It's only one hundred bucks, like whatever, get the new one. It was one hundred and thirty man plus tax. This was a nice screen on it. No, no, everything included to my door from a giant right. Yeah, it's pretty sweet with quick shipping. But the new one is probably actually I think it's cheaper. Yeah, I say it looks cooler. It doesn't have a screen though. It doesn't have a cool screen though that I can put gifts on though, and little movies though. That is true zombie gift, you know, Yeah, that is true. But it definitely looks cooler. And it has an actual trigger stop system, not like the magnetic one. It's got like a mechanical, like a physical switch that stops the triggers. That's what my Xbox one has. It has. It has adjustable thumb tension also, but on this one you just turn the outside of the like the stick kind of rings. You just turn them to adjust it, whereas on mine, I have to take like the face plate off. It's a little key. Oh that's cool. It just seems like cooler. I don't know, I don't know. It looks nice. I don't I don't think i'll get it. I mean, I already got this one. Just a little piss off, you know, I'll piss off. That happens a lot. I wouldn't I wouldn't bother. I play with shitty fifty dollars controllers. The standard issue. Yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what are you playing? See if thieves that controller? Yah? Got it? I can't wait okuys whoa wow? Yeah there it is a little zooming. Oh yeah, yeah that's cool. Yeah that's cool. You can upload a custom PNG in there or whatever. Yeah, I can put a custom I can put gifts. Nice, That's what I could do at my old thirty seventy. I've put the yeah on the graphic the Trump Jeff who he is? Like? So last night I was exhausted after hockey too. Oh yeah, played two games, but I have no way I could play the second game. I had to get up to Oh you didn't even play two games. I played two games. I had to wake up early go get Alma. So I wake up at like six o'clock or whatever. It's six thirty, and I like zombie myself downstairs into the car and I drive to the hospital pick her up from her night shift. I get to the hospital and all my notification start pouring in on my phone, Like what the hell's going on? It's like I hadn't connected to data in like for however long. And then I get a text from now I'm oh, someone's gonna drive you home. You don't have to come get me, Like, oh my. She texted me that at three o'clock in the morning, but I didn't get it until I was in front of the hospital for some reason, like I didn't see the notification icon. I didn't hear a notification because usually I'll have her texts to wake me up because in case it's something, so she bypasses the do not disturb. But like, nothing, absolutely nothing. Until I was in front of the hospital. I was like, ah, like zombie mode. It was just like I'm already why the hospital? So is there like a is it like a hotspot for data? I don't know, no idea. I don't know because I looked at my phone and then I saw it like it auto restarts at three am for some kind of performance thing. And that's when she texted me at three am, the Devil's hour, you know, the witching. So whenever that happened, I don't know if it didn't pull the text down. I don't know what happened. But I could have been sleeping this morning. Yeah, it was my phone will do weird ship when it has to do the update in the middle of the night. Mm hmm, Yeah, that's fucked up. Yeah, that's very annoying. So that's very annoying. So then I came we had went and had a nice big breakfast, came home and I took a little nap, little nappy poo, and that that's that's my morning. Oh I've got an idea for shirts, new shirts. Why don't we make you know, those those sex shirts that we made in Vancouver, sex shirts. Yeah, we should make more of those sex shirts for our shop. Sex Yeah, like your Cleveland Steamer, your Cleveland Steamer shirt, my angry Monkey shirt. Well that was just it was all the stuff that was already in the catalog. We didn't make those, No, yes we did. We customized this and then put it on there. Didn't No, we chose it from a book. I mean yours. You don't know what the hell yours was? Mine was? It was in there already, like Cleveland Steamer things like that's funny. We should have a whole section of those what are those called sexual in the window t shirts like the chars aren't. Alma told me about this, this one that she heard about the Flaming Charts Yard or something like that. The funk is that where you light your partner's pubes on fire and then you come on them to put them out. Okay, that's a good one. Flaming chars are yeah, that's it happens, should entire sentence out. So it's just where you on your and wow, we don't. We don't censor ourselves here, No on this on this show. But there's so many. And then I was like, what's this Cincinnati bow taie again? I looked it up. Fucking hilarious. First guys, dirty, I was like, do you know what the cincinat Cincinnati bow tie is? She's like, no, none of the So I couldn't read it out loud in the restaurant. So I showed her. So you showed her, I don't. I don't get it. Showed her a picture. I showed her a picture of it. I couldn't explain it, so I showed her I had a light that was so fucking dumb. Well, I moved to a new house. So everything has been crazy, chaotic, and I've been without Yeah, we're about fifteen minutes away in the country, but the internet. So how much does she buy the house for? How much did you spend on the whole thing. What's her mortgageezh? But like I'm still able to stream UHD four K on my old led with no problems. So I don't know. We'll see. But apparently they find out what the package is. No, no, but apparently they have been They have got a lot better than they used to be. So and like they're terrible, they're the worst. Thrill house used to live here five years ago or whatever. He moved here and lived with his parents and that was awful. But again, they just put a tower where we live. So hopefully it's okay. But I wanted to test it today, but I figured I have all my consoles and stuff I got to bring there today anyway, and whatever's left in the studio my computer. He should you get your internet from a tower? Like what the fuck is this? You should run an Ethernet cable from the tower, just plug it into the tower. So it's the satellite. It's DSL right, Yeah, I think it's a massive. I think the maxine get is like thirty down and like five up. That's fucking horrible. I think I do have thirty down. I did a speed test Wi Fi anyway, I got like thirty six or something almost forty. But yeah, I'll be probably using ethernet because the utility right across from studio, so I'll just run it across the hall. So yeah, everything's kind of not everything still in boxes, but there's still a lot of unpacking to do, so we're hoping to do that this weekend. Uh good. But yeah, today I'm here and I'm going to bring back my computer and my consoles and then I can finally get everything set up and just kind of hopefully within next week, just get into a better routine. A nice just be gaming, Just be gaming, start gaming again. Dan. Yeah, I don't even care what. I just want to like load Dan, great again, Matt, Dan, great again? Mate? No, indeed, Madiga good? All right? Is that it? We're going to go into game time. Uh yeah, But first a word from our VR sponsors. Hello everyone, we are thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership with vr rock dot com. Get ready to enhance your VR experience with vr rocks protective lenses available for both the prescription and not prescription users. As a fellow VR enthusiasts, I opted for their blue light canceling lenses. 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Steam Summer Sale? Did you buy anything? A couple of games looking intriguing? I bought Lord of the rings Lego Legally Rings for four dollars. Oh, really interesting. I think I have that somewhere. I thought I had it. That's a cheapie. There's also Lord. There's also Lego Hobbit, which is newer I think, mm hmm, which is also four dollars. There was also the Middle Earth Shadow games were three bucks each, but on game Pass I bought those just to have them, just to have them three bucks. Where did you? Where did you own the second one? On the Xbox but not on PC? Well, I guess it's play anywhere, so maybe I do. I have it on PC through the Xbox app, which I hate, so I don't. I'd rather pay the three dollars just to have it on agreed on On Steam Agree, I bought those two fucking or It was like eight bucks for both of them. Pretty solid, solid deal, solid sale, solid deal. I bought another one, though, but not on Steam. Get this Elden Ring, Get this No No. I bought a Grand Blue Fantasy Relay. Nice, but I bought it on PS five because it's also on sale there for the same price as the Steam is the Steam sale, So I don't want to play this game at my PC, like it's a couch game. That's a couch game. True, that's a couch game for the O led for the TV, you know. But I bought it. I bought it on my PC through the PlayStation website, like on the store, and I clicked on it. I clicked on download and even though my PS five it wasn't even turned on. Isn't like rest mode or whatever. I go down half an hour later, boom, it's already installed, ready to fucking go. That's how it's done. I didn't even know it could do that. I didn't know my phone when I'm out and about and I'm just like stalls. Yeah. Wow, I don't think I've ever done that. I don't think I've ever done that. Well, it's supposed to do right in rest mode, and then it's supposed to do your updates too, but that shit don't work ever. Yeah well actually yeah maybe it does. Maybe maybe I didn't know that though. It doesn't work on Xbox like never is not an Xbox on Xbox no ever, No, so stupid. Yeah, I've noticed that. Well back when I played Xbox it never updated, you know, it was in like rest mode. I haven't touched an Xbox. I think they might have changed that because mine's been acting differently, like I'll load it up. It used to be fine. All the guys would be like, oh see if the's update, and I'm like okay, and I loaded up and it doesn't need update, when the other guys just had to update like seventy gigs or whatever. So it used to happen. But maybe they changed it. And they changed like the menu options or something thing, because I remember looking through and it sounded different, and I just don't know if that it behaves the same way anymore after you'd have to do that a week before them. Yeah, anyway, But I played for about three hours maybe, and I find it a bit refreshing. I guess it's not something I usually play. Turn based, right, that's the action RPG one. No, it's not turn based. It's you run around and heck and slash. But it's kind of it's like watching an anime, you know. And I was I was actually really enjoying myself, though it could have been because I was a bit under the influence last night after, but I was. I was like reading all the glossaries and like the little character things, like oh yeah, cool, okay, cool. Cool. There's like the voice acting. I have it in Japanese, but like it's all voice acted like everything. The visuals are really nice too, because it's like, yeah, yeah, it looked really clean, like the crisp Yeah, it's like four k it's four thirty, it says in the graphic settings like on the in the in this in the menu in the settings, there's a performance mode for sixty fps ten adp. But it's very like crisp and colorful, like you mean the aliens thing is good kind of yeah, yeah, yes, yes, crazy when alien thing is shit drives me absolutely bonkers. The first game was a mobile game. Apparently it's like a sequel I guess to a mobile game from twenty fourteen. But I can see that because in this it's like I did like the first kind of Maiden boss fight, and there was this big thing where you like combine your attacks and just like the visual exuberance, you know, it's quite eye catching. Think of that like on a mobile game, but on a fucking huge o les Yeah yeah, all the flashes, yeah, it was that the guy in like a little rock arena, it was like no, no, it was like it was in a forest that was like comes some kind of I played the demo Dinosaur Guy and yeah it was. I was just like wow, I was actually pretty fucking sweet. Yeah, play some more, We'll see how it goes. But it was like, WHOA, Like the art style is cool. It's like watching an anime, right, Betty cool cool? Well. I have continued to play Elder Ring DLC Shadow of the Urd Tree Nerd Tree Nerd Tree Guy's scheme. I'm obsessed. I tell you how many hours I put in the last couple of weeks. But I'm scared that my work would know uh very hard at the beginning, but you know, probably because I was severely under leveled when I entered the DLC. Everyone was going into the DLC at like level one. I went in at one ten and it was whooping me, just absolutely kicking my a like one, getting one shot by pretty much everything. Then I started to get my legs around level one, twenty five, one thirty. I was going around exploring, collecting all these little things. And they have these like little blessings that you go around and collect and they give you a passive like character buff attack and defense. So as long as you keep like getting these as you go along, then it's not as hard hitting as it was before. So all this stuff online about how hard it is, Yes, at the beginning, it's gonna be very hard. Just go around, collect your little blessings, you know, get to around level one thirty and then you should be okay. But like the design in this DLC as well as the original, it's just it's like a it's a spectacle. Just the way it looks like the design, like the world design is un it's unparalleled. I'm gonna say that, un parallel, unparalleled. Ye you're talking. It's just like it just everything just makes so much sense the way you're like you say, you're running up this like grand staircase and this castle is just overlooming you. And then you turn around and you're just doing to take in the vista with like the enemies that are walking around. And then when you're turning around, you see these two mountains and when you line it up perfectly in between the two mountains in the distance, there's like this crazy beautiful castle that's there. It's like lit wonderful. Oh man, every time I turn around in that game, I just want to stop and start taking pictures. Like it's so amazing. And what they did in this game. Instead of making the world so large, like very large, they made it tall, like vertically tall, so it's like very low and you can go to the base of this like island thing and you go through caves and castles and spiral staircases and trees and it's very vertical, very very very cool, very beautiful. What is this. There's like this massive like fire giant, many fire giants that like roam the land and he's huge, absolutely massive, and if you get into like his like area of his view area or whatever, he'll just start throwing like these massive fireballs at you. Like there's nothing you can do. And I don't know how I'm gonna take one of these guys down, but that's that's gonna come soon. I'm playing a Samurai Blood build and during the DLC, I picked up some of the new weapons, so they've introduced a handful of new like weapon I guess weapons like and I picked up these claws like they're like a dual meat claws. Yeah, like these dual claws claws, and it changes your kind of you're like animations and attacks, so he's like I can hide in the shadows and creep up on people and then like attack them from the shadows my claws and ship and I do massive amounts of like blood damage. So where does the samurai come in? That's my question. Before like a druid, like a druid bear bear tank or yeah, I got these big bear claws. I picked up some big bear claws. But before I was samurai coming into the DLC, so I had already had the items for a blood like a blood loss build where bleeding and all that kind of stuff, So that I transition to claws instead of samurai sorts where they're a lot faster. Mister clause clause like necro Goblin. Yeah yeah, got yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, And I've got I've got cheddar Goblin, cheddar Goblin. I've got this insignia where it helps me do more damage with each hit I do in succession. So like with the clause, I do like six or seven or eight hits in a row, and each hit does bonus damage and then bleeds, so like like everything's just melting out. Is the bleed a base damage or is the bleed based on the initial damage like your initial I believe it's on a modifier. Maybe No. I think it's like you have to hit him x, I have to do x amount of damage and then the bleed will start. Uh, Like, the blee will start. And then if you're spect into because there's two stats would be dexterity, which is like the damage done, and then arcane, which it helps with any kind of like poison bleed. Did you do you see your d buff on him, like in like you know on World Warcraft where you have the little square on your target and you can see like the it's like a little timer. No, it'll be like a visual thing around him. So he starts. Uh no, actually sorry, it'll be on you. So it's a buff on you. Oh okay, So whenever you head a buff or like whenever you're creating in your shows on you, whenever you're procking, it'll show your little thing on your name tag, it'll show like little buffs. And then whenever you go to hit the guy, it'll do like a massive amount of bleed damage. Does that make sense? The damage is all at once, it's not a thought. Okay, yeah yeah yeah yeah, So to like it'll go and go and go and then smack and what and then massive amounts of damage, and then you see that's like on something I played recently. What the fuck was it? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. It's familiar because whenever they hit you and they're doing bleed damage to you, there's like a little bar in front of you that fills up with each with each attack that they touch you with, your your bar starts filling up. When the bar is full, that's when the damage hits you and it starts ticking. Overall, really enjoying it. Yes, it's hard, not for the faintom heart, but there's ways around it. You can either go look up builds, find yourself, your your ird tree, your nerd tree, blessings, and passively boost your character or grind out levels until the mob has become easier. It's it's just it's that kind of simple. If you haven't played this game, I think it's needed to just experience it in a way, Like if you don't like how hard it can be or frustrating, kid, there's on PC, there's ways around it. Okay, you can modit, easy mode, modit just to experience the game in some way. So what you're saying is I'm fucked if I play it. I would love to try. I'm just scared because I hate games that make me mad and feel stupid for not knowing how to fucking fight anything. I hate feeling stupid at the game on you would be fucked, yeah, because I don't play it on PS five anymore or whatever. You could co op. But yeah, that's that's all. I'm playing in a hand and a bit of some Lord of the Rings games over the week. Pretty much it elden Ring, a little DLC. Cherry on top Maximum has been playing has been playing the DLC as well. He asked our group chat, He's like, who's going to play the elden Ring DLC with me? I was like, nasty night, Will, because I know you've probably heard yes, Oh nice. I had to modit again because of the wide screen. I can't. I have to have ultra wide like I have to have it. It's so fucking dumb. I also figured out the HDR issue on it. The HDR doesn't work in the game, so what you have to do is launch. I was using x Defiant. Launch a game that has HDR, then launch, Yeah, launch a game that has HDR like X Defiant and while it's in the background, launch elden Ring and then it'll kick elden Ring into HDR mode and then you just close x Defiant and then it stays. Yeah, it's so fucking stupid, but that game in HDR. Oh wow, oh wow, it's beautiful. Mhm mm hmm. I was, uh yeah, I was saying. I was like, I was watching like one of the tech guys I watch on YouTube who does like TV reviews and stuff, and he was he was playing it on the new Sony Brababia nine, which is like their flagship, their flagship TV. Because Sony changed, They're not their flagships aren't old anymore. They changed to Mini Led. They're doing more of a oh really, they're they're concentrating on Mini Led, not ol Eds their flagship. So it's supposed to get this thing is like four thousand knits or some ship. Like, oh yeah, it's supposed to be like insanely bright. It's so expensive though, like but I mean, if you have it like a really bright room, then but yeah, he was comparing it to I think the lg G four O LED just in game mode, and it looked like just it looked pretty fucking like bright and like, oh, there's YouTube. There's YouTube videos now then like four four thousand knit content. Wow? Really yeah, so that's the new content now is how bright you could make a video? That's always what it is, man, That's how you know you have a good TV if it can get like fucking bright while maintaining the dark areas and the blacks Like that's a that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. Yeah, I guess looks fucking nuts. Like the four thousand knit stuff. I turned it on like it's some I forget her name, Jennifer or something, but she's got a channel that she does. It's kind of like three D CGI stuff, but it's like color graded to four thousand hits And I was like, brah in the high on the high sense because my high sense can get to like my high sense does three thousand knits or something like that. It's fucking bright as hell. Yeah. People, you're just like watch someone's walking by your house and then you just see the windows like a be with his silhouette like in the middle of it, Like this is like yeah, oh manet whole power grade goes out Like Sandman. We started watching on Netflix. Good show very bright. Some of the scenes are just like me and were both like that is very bright. Like I had to like look like like Dune. When I was watching Dune and it's swapped. It switched to like the daytime scenes with uh, what's your face on the sand dunes? Like his flashbacks or his dreams Holy ship. She's like, I gonna watch those the sand and then the sky's like and that's on an O lead so like, yeah, that's not even that bright, a full screen O lead brightness. That's probably less than a thousand. It's crazy in the dark room when you're like because you're adjusting right because the movie is very dark and your pupils are like its big. Yeah, yeah, wow, that's it for me. Uh. I haven't been playing anything else anything else? Are we? Okay? What about Daniel? I don't think I've been playing anything. All of my consoles are right here, so no, no, I haven't been I have no mobile games, no Lord of the Rings mobile games. No. I would rather die than play mobile. I'd rather die. I don't even have my switch. I totally forgot to bring my switch to the house, so just all been here. I don't know something's wrong with laptop. But what but I it's wrong with your eye. You're flipped your lid flipped, the lid flipped. That's weird. You flipped your lid. Something's wrong with my eye? All right? Fuck? So before we get into today's topic, I just want to uh talk about that. We do have a merch store. Everybody, and if you would like to support the show, you can buy a shirt on the merch store. Tell your friends, your family, your kids, your pets, whoever, that we should make doggy shirts, doggy clothing, billion dollar industry. Boom m hmm. I'll bring it up. I'll bring it up with the with the manager. Okay, that's a fucking modern family, modern family. He makes dog beds, doesn't that what he dos? Jay Dad appreciate it. Yeah, because he he's obsessed with he starts getting into because he's retired. He starts getting into all this different ship and he makes dog beds, bill closets, clostes, closets. Fuck, I missed that show. Anyway, go check out our shirts. They're cool. They're cool. We missed Father's Day on the street thing. I couldn't think of anything. Tell you any figure out I mean stuff over time. You know, it's like it's it's hard to find. It's hard to think of something good that's like worth spending the money on. You know, but you know our brains are always churning with that creative juices. What that beings out in the episode topic? Oh sorry, today's topic the Lord of the Rings. Hello, everybody, welcome today's episode. We'll be talking about Lord of the Rings games. We're mainly going to be asking like, where are the good Lord of the Rings games? What's going on? What do we want to see? What have we seen? Like? What why? Maybe we're not seeing what we want to see here? And I think I have a little bit of an idea. I feel like I'm gonna get triggered in this episode. I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to just ross and just kind of keep it calm during this episode. I feel like I'm gonna triggered. I did a little bit of digging in tiny bit of research, and what I'll be talking about is going to be coming from GameSpot dot com there Lord of the Rings games on the Way article and gizmoto dot com Lord of the Rings rights explained. I think that also has a big yes part to play on what games can actually be made. That's why they're mostly shit. Okay, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the rights. So there's four different Lord of the Rings rights groups or like how you say it, copyrights and rights holders rights holders, and certain companies hold each one of those rights. So the Tolkien of State alongside HarperCollins own the Lord of the Rings as a store. Everyone else can just adapt parts of it in certain ways. Tolkien Estate, alongside publisher Harpercollogne, have the publishing rights to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as Tolkien's original novels. They control any reprints or re releases of the original books, as well as the other connected novels and anthologies that released, like the similar Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales of Newmanor and Milion. So that's like the literary literary rights of books and books Harper Cologne. So for creating more books, you mean, so we're creating creating more books. Maybe does the graphic novels and ship under that too, or no? Probably so? In Embracer group now owns what's called Middle Earth Enterprises. So in two thousand and five, EA acquired the rights to produce games based on the literary works, as well producing further titles up to the release of Lord of the Rings Conquest in two thousand and nine. Great a shitty developer in charge of making Lord of the Rings when based on based on what that's it's that literary works. Yes, they only had it up to two thousand and nine. Yes, changed, So that's why there's our answer. That's the end of the episode. So when the when the licensing agreement expired, video game rights then passed to Warner Brothers. In twenty ten, the name was changed to Middle Earth Enterprises. In August twenty twenty two, it announced that Middle Earth Enterprises was being purchased by Embracer Group, the parent company of THHQ Nordick. So it first started with EA, then Warner Bros. And now Embracer Group. Okay, that's for the games, and then you've got Warner Bros. For the movies. Lord of the Rings, Hobbits, and any kind of movie based on Lord of the Rings is going to be done by Warner Bros. Because they still have it ever since the nineties late nineties, and Amazon Studios owns arguably the smallest slice of the Middle Earth. Pie not all the TV rights to Lord of the Rings in the Hobbit went to solve Zence in the seventies. I guess that's another guy like that. It's all such a fucking mess. Yeah, wow, it's so Wait absolutely so d HQ Nordic can what can they create games out of? They have to ask, Oh, out of any literary works they can they're allowed to create gains from. I think you have to. I think you have to go to the Tolkien of State. If you're gonna make a game based on the literary works, they have to, okay and give you the rights. Yeah, but that like like Amazon can go and do that. Amazon can only take stuff from like the original three books and the Hobbit. No, like they can only base Yes, that's here here. So Amazon directly with the Tolkien of State for the rights to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit adaptations for series that run longer than that. I don't know what that means, securing them for two hundred and fifty million dollars. So five years later after that deal, Lord of the Rings Rings of Power was netted and signed, which is a thousand years before the Hobbit. Yeah, yeah, yes, but they can only take like tell the story of things that happen in the books. No other Otherwise it has to be like made up. No, I think Amazon has to make it up. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Amazon has to basically make it up. They can't take anything from like the appendixes or whatever. They can only they can only mention and and and use things around what happened in the first three like the three main books and the Hobbit something like that. But like when they have an idea like this whole Gladrial thing, right, like was that written anywhere? This story? No, they had to make this story up with a character from the books, right. So like they take this story, this story of their what they're going to show on their TV series, they take it to Tolkien Estates and they're like, Okay, that's good, Like how did they Yeah, I guess so like there, I think the Tolkien Estate is like yeah, but they all does telling the state have to approve it if they have the rights to do whatever they want with those extra stories, Yeah, I don't know. That might that might be that might be what allows them to just bypass what the whatever the fu Tolkien, the state has to say there, yeah, as long as we're doing touch the canon of the books, right, Yeah, But then this isn't canon, right because it was never written by Tolkien, correct, So they can make up whatever the fuck they want. Yeah, and the TV show, Yeah, it's just like I guess all the Star Wars ship that's coming out these days. I don't know if I would consider it cannon because I'm not hearing from George Lucas. They're not George Lucas's ideas. But because he signed away his rights, does that make it canon to now whoever owns it, like Kennedy or whatever. So I don't know. It's annoying. So it's complex, But I think that I I have this feeling that studios like Amazon or whoever has their slices of the Pie don't have to run it by Tolkien to state, because that's the whole point of them selling those rights to them. They're just like, okay, well, you can do whatever you want with this, just don't touch this this, yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, because then what happened bros. Though, Because what happens legally if the Tolkienes states like no, we don't like that, and then these the studios like, well, YIG told us we could do it. Well, didn't that happen before, didn't. I don't know. The States have a beef with somebody doing something with the story. Yeah, but I don't think legally. I think that Tolkien State just speaks out on saints and they're not happy about it, and that's all that they can say, really, because I don't think they were crazy about Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies. I don't know about Lord of the Rings. That might that may have been it, but I think they spoke out about which would suck. I magine fucking being Peter Jackson hearing Tolkien to snap be like, we hated those movies. I hated two and three. Yeah, it was so fucking bad. The first one was great, the second third was just like it's like he's like, okay, hurry up and get it out. Yeah it was weird first of one. Yeah it was good. But okay, we all agree that the first the trilogy of Lord of the Rings some of the best cinema ever. Yeah, if not the best cinema ever made. Okay, Uh, the Fellowship of the Ring is like my top maybe my second favorite movie of all time. It might be my my favorite first movie. First favorite movie is Dumb and Dumber cinema cinema masterpiece. Yeah, and Fellowship is Fellowship is definitely the top two for me. And I think that, you know, regarding our question like what do we want from games, it would have to it would I mean, I later, we'll get into that after. Yeah, I know, I'm getting that after. That's what's gonna what my thought is going to be. Right, So, now that we have that kind of little history thing that we can plug back in to see where ideas kind of lie, we can get into what are some of the Lord of the Rings games that you guys can remember from our past, any couple of games that pop out to you? Yes, yes, and kind of we'll try to remember what, like what time that was in and like who held the rights at that time? Right, So we start off here, So I remember the Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth one and two. Yes, that was the real time strategy games M and that was around two thousand and six to two thousand and nine. I think it was, Oh really, I was that old? So that was EA. I think it was one of the last EA games, right, yeah, Lord of the Rings. So the thing is, I'll go to try to find these games to purchase, and there's nowhere to be found, right, I couldn't find them anywhere, Not on EA, non, on Steam, nowhere. Because once those rights are gone, they have to pull that. They have to pull those games from digital digital stories. You can't buy theymore, which just happened to Forts of Horizon four. Apparently I got a notification from my Xbox app saying they're gonna be pulling it from all digital storefronts because their rights to I guess their partners, like the car companies or whatever, has ended, so like you can't purchase it anymore, but you can continue to play your copy. So what happened in game passes? I had it on game Pass and I bought the DLC for it, and then they just gave me the game, like a code for the game. So I, oh, here's the game, because you bought the DLC, here's the game and they gave me a code. Yeah, okay, well I guess that makes sense. But yeah, I remember that. I remember liking it too. I remember getting into that one. Oh. I like a real time strategy game. It was awesome, and I don't I don't like them, and I never really did. I used to play you know, your Age of Empires, your Age Mythology, and that was like it. I never got into StarCraft Command and Conquer uh okay, because there was fucking nothing else to play in the late nineties other than that, and like, yeah, whatever else on the PC scunny Kart, but everyone's gonna know that Shundy cart boys. There's a T shirt idea. But yeah, it was very very cool. I remember I first bought that. In fact, while moving we have a we there was a ton of PC games in the drawer in the spare bedroom and the Battles of Middlers the original box that I bought is in there, and I just texted mom. Oh fuck. I was like, did you give away those PC games yet or do you still have She's like, they're gone, no give away to who away? What am I gonna do with a bunch of PC games that are from like who is she giving me early two thousands? They're not gonna run on anything. I don't even have a CD player exactly. Well, okay, I guess I don't have those copies any longer. But I did. They were in that box, so I was like a big thick box. Remember PC games came in big thick boxes. They had like maps in them or whatever. Yeah. So I remember when I first bought it, and I don't even think I heard of it or anything back It was so weird back then because there was no marketing for anything. You saw maybe a Marciall on television or something. But I just went to EA, sorry to in the magazines, man, yeah, yeah, magazines. Yeah. I went to GameStop and I was like, oh shit, there's like a Lord of the Rings strategy game on PC. I was like, okay, I'll try it, and so I bought it home and I loaded up. I was like, fuck, this is cool and I played everything from where it was because I was like, I thought we I thought I had it, Like I thought I purchased it on Steam or something and I was looking for it. So you had it? Had it? Yes, yeah you must. Okay, Now that I just found out, though, I'm that you can't get them anywhere, I'm kind of sad that I didn't keep them, But what the fuck am I going to do with them just taking up space? Anyway? So anyway, I gotta let it go. But yeah, it was awesome because it was different. You'd load up and you had, like, depending on what faction you chose, if you chose Rohan, if you chose Eisengard or Mortar or whatever, you had set plots for your base so you can just build anywhere. In the first one, you had set plots and limited numbers of them, so that you had to choose what you'd want to build and strategize that way. What were you going to prioritize? So that was kind of interesting. And I loved everything from from the story, which is really cool, to just you know, skirmish battle whatever against PC. It was awesome just being able to like control a fucking army of Urokai or row here him or like. And I think that was really cool being the Rohan faction because you could get like all the Fellowship heroes, the try the Holy Trifecta, Like you could get Aragorn, Gimli, and Legoless all in one and they would just be blowing. Yeah, because they would be through like the second film, right and the third film you're gonna put them in the game, so they lumped them. Yeah, with Gondor, you could get fire Bormir. That was cool, But wouldn't God's sucking the kingdom because he spent all his time with spoilers spoilers if Eric Gord is the key, Yeah, so that, but you could also get Gandolf with rohim right because he was with them. You could get White Gandalf the White I think. So it was very cool to just have them all on one team. But the second one was a bit different. You had it was a little bit more you know, it was more like like what I was used to with. Yeah, you had open Land. You had more factions, so you could just play as Elves, so you could get like Gail Glad, you can get like Kelibrimbor maybe like those Elven heroes and shit like that, and you can build anywhere. But you could also had I think it made more sense you had Legless with the elf in faction and blah blah blah, so you couldn't just like have op heroes in one. So that's pretty cool, very very fun. The campaign was fun. I remember the music was fucking epic because they just took it all from their movies. So you're just like doing that thing where you're riding all the roharm down the field and you here like you're just like when you go aloud, you cut out completely, you're completely silent. There we did he but we'll hear it on the main track. But like the EA was taking their rights how so how did they make They also made like the whole Fellowship trilogy of games they made on like PS two or something. The Fellowship, the Two Towers and Return of the King were all like straight from the movies, with like the faces of the guys from the movies. Mm hmm, Like how did they do that? They just did it. Yeah, they had the rights to do that from based on the literary works. Yes, so EA acquired the rights to produce games based on the literary works. But he also probably they also had to get something from Newline probably to use like the music and the Oh yeah, and I think e A back then was making some pretty good the connections. They had connections. Yeah, but it was all film based too, Like they were all they That's why I like them. So they had to they had to leverage the popularity. Yeah, they were fucking huge when they came out like two thousand and one. I think it came out December two thousand and one. O the Ring. I remember that. Oh boy, well I didn't really play those older ones. I didn't play until play A good little like A. Actually, I don't remember playing the PS two ones. I don't think we played any of those. I did, yeah we had them, I didn't. I don't think I played. Do we have it for GameCube or PS two? Dan? I think it was GameCube No. Two? Let me check, Well you think you have it there? Wait, he's like the he's like the wand maker, Olive Olive. What's his name, Olivetti, Olivarilvanderland Olander. Isn't that a costa company? Yeah? Olive. Curious So I played The Two Towers on PS T because I heard it came out and I was like, oh, that's weird. Why would they? And I remember when I was a kid. I don't know if I watched commercial, I read something about it, and I was like, why would they make a game just about the Two Towers? What about the Fellowship? But then it turned out that the Fellowship was part of the Two Towers game. You could play through all the events of the Fellowship. So everything from oh, okay, why would they do that? I don't know. It's been a long ass game. Yeah, because there was no there was no Lord of the Rings game that came out, so that was it. I was like, the coolest fucking thing. I remember. I told Mom, was like, can you please buy me this game? I was like school one day and then I came home. I was like, did you get it? She's like yeah. I was like fuck yeah, man. So I put it in the PC the PS two and I just started playing it and it was the coolest shit ever because I had never I was like, it was a beat them up game, right kind of. Yeah. It was just a grinding and splash kind of level thing, linear level and like I had never played anything like it. I was obsessed with those movies at the time. I was. If I wasn't inside, you know, thinking about it or watching it, I was out the side playing Lord of the Rings, like with my friends. It's two thousand and one, so I was nine ten, you know, so we're going sound playing Lord of the Rings or whatever, just constantly thinking about it, wanting to watch it all the time. So I had these games. Finally I was like, holy shit, I got to play this and it was awesome. I was like playing Legalists at first, I chose because I was obsessed with, you know, the bow, and that was awesome. You could upgrade all your weapons to like different types of arrows to do certain types of damage and blah blah blah. And then as the game progressed, you played as different characters, and I think you could. I think you could. I don't know if it was different different levels, you could choose a new hero to play aus or if you had to play the whole story as that hero. I don't remember. I did obviously play as Arragorne at one point, but it also takes you, takes you past the events of the Fellowship into the Shoo Towers, and like I remember when I had to fight Alerts in the forest at the end in Ammahn of the Fellowship spoilers, I was like, it was like the first guys. Yeah, yeah, boilers spoilers spoilers anyway, Yeah, So I remember playing Alerts and fighting him as my first, like my first actual real boss fight, and I was so fucking anxious. I was like shaking my heart with pounding and it was awesome. And then playing two Towers events, like you playing Helms Deep, you're just fighting like swarms of Urakai. It was awesome. Those games were awesome because they were film based. Like, I don't know that I would like that now because you know, the hype is gone for the films. They're enjoyable now in the past kind of thing. But at the time, that's all I wanted was to just play those events. So yeah, I played that. It was awesome that The Return of the King I had on GameCube and I didn't beat it because I found it very hard for on normal mode, and I was like, well, this is fucking stupid, Like I shouldn't be struggling this much just to I think. I was playing the Battle of Middle Earth and I just could not get it. I could not beat it. Okay, Now, so those games were good because they were base of the films. The films were great. They had source material that was not yet explored in video games, you know. So yeah, that's why you know those were good. Now after that, like after the first three games, the first three film based games, like what else could they pull from? You know what I mean? Then they started coming out with a real time strategy, different kind of other games I played, like the Shadow games, which was like twenty fourteen Shadow of Mordor came out. I don't know if it was like the Game awards, but there was a Game of the Year edition of the game. I remember fact checking Dragon Age Inquisition one Game of the Year in twenty fourteen. Yeah, we'll look up what you type in Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year winner of over forty. There's a Game of the Year edition. I don't fucking know. Oh, I don't know. It may have one other, like other I don't know companies Game of the Year. Oh maybe like some magazine winner of over forty Game of the Year awards in twenty fourteen, including Most Innovative, Best Action Adventure Game Technical Achievement. Oh anyway, okay, so maybe it gets its Game of the Year like branding then, just because it won awards under that, but not actually Game of a Year type thing. Yeah. They're really the only ones that stick out to me. But I didn't really I didn't really play much. Many other ones I kind of did, but they're the only ones that I felt I wanted to play really because it looked fucking cool. You play as a character who I guess you could say is like possessed by the Great Smith Calabrimble in the first game, that is who Sauron manipulated into helping him or creating the Rings of Power and the Ring of the One Ring. And then Saron created the One Ring. Okay, so sarn create did the one Ring to rule the other ones? Yes, it wasn't forged in secret. Ah. Yeah, he designed all the other rings though, didn't he make all the other rings for them too? Because he has like that? And then I'll make this some kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, he gave them as it's basically like. And then was like, okay, and now I'll use this one to just mmm, it's basically a hack and slash game. But yeah, combat was cool, and it's just like killing orcs and the orcs are sweet, and like the way that there's like Orc armies and there's like a hierarchy of orcs like captains and like grunts, and like some of them can move up and down in the hierarchy. It's just it was friggin cool. The combat was was cool. There was it was a classic like you know that combat recipe that all good games used, you know what I mean, perry or dodge whenever it says to different ability that kind of thing. I mean both games, it was like super addicted of there's so many sweet ways of killing orcs, like you poison their fucking grog, or you like set them all on fire, you release hounds to attack them, or you know, to do that ship. You needed to use everything because I remember, if I remember, at one point, I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna try to just slash through all these orcs. Was not happening. Cut down the nests nests, I split up the second one Shadow of War. Yeah, I played like two maybe a couple hours, and I was like, I just go into this massive amount of them and I'm just hacking them. I'm like, is this all? I'm just hitting the X button. My thumb got tired, my hand. Well, you probably didn't have many many of the abilities unlocked yet either, Like what am I doing? So what do you do in this game? I just keep hacking these orcs until you gotta sneak what's the end? Like I have to kill all the commanders and then the story moves on. Yeah, you have to take over like strongholds and then they'll be like a memory or like like some new I get to the stronghold, I do a memory with calibrin bore, and then I see like fifteen orcs that are in shadow, and I have to like find each one and kill them. I have to kill all of them. It's kind of like Assassin's Creed, I think in that way, the classic Assassin's Creed, like number one, Yeah, number two, I think, Oh my god, I killed like four or five of them. Yeah, it's sweet. I don't know. I just love to go and run the map and looking for like strong orcs. And then they had the thing called the Nemesis system to not talk about this. Yeah, orcs would remember you if you fight them, like and let's say you kill one, but he didn't actually kill him. He comes back and he remembers you, and now he's like stronger, and he'll like talk about what you did to him. It is fucking cool. Or or if they kill you, like if they end up killing you, they'll level up and become like a captain and then next time you meet them, it's like, oh you and then like he like he'll like talk about what happened. It was so cool and all the different names in the hilarious just orcs. Yeah, there is a comic comedic like relief component to Yeah, it don't even sound like works half more than half the time, yeah, which is funny. It's just like, yeah, you come over here like what like no, no work accent or they're so funny like and then yeah, like you were mentioning, the game isn't much in terms of story unfortunately, but it is because it's kind of like in pieces and and like you have to kind of collect like the memories and whatever. But I think it's not the main focal point. It's just like I think that the story was Kelli Bernbor wanted to basically, I wanted you to help him create a new ring of power. I think that's what it is. Is that the second one or the first one, No, the first one. The first one is creating it, and the second one you have to get it back so that the spider god lady steals it. Yes, what's her name? She Love? She Bob No main spider, like yeah, there's like a main like mother of Spiders, not she Love, but like a one that's was like a servant of more Goth, Yeah Angolian. Don't remember that Angolian Mongolian ant No, but this one she Goth whatever your name is, she she blob she love so she she like takes calibrimboor holds some hostage at the beginning and takes the ring from him or takes the ring from you. So she releases him if you give her the ring, and now she has the new ring. Damn, I don't remember that. And then that's the second one is about you getting it back from her. Well, your family was murdered right the ranger what's his name? Yeah, you're a Ringlien Italian in the first one, So your and your family was like murdered by He looks exactly like Vigo, but like like a wider head. It looks it's exactly the same, Like you couldn't name him. Man, it's so good though, it's such a good game. It's just like so addictive. Like I just wanted to go to every part on the map and just kill a bunch of orcs, upgrade my ship to be better at killing orcs, and just the way you could I sneak around simple to like the sock the gems you socket in. Like what I miss, This is what I miss about these classic games is the upgrading system is very simple. Yeah, it's not like a massive fucking web of garbage. You know, it's just simple. It's like upgrade sword. Yes. Oh you can also be like bow your bowl is really cool. You can fly through the air slow time, fucking shoot everything around. That's another thing that you have to do with that. What I was doing is I was doing a stealth and and elf speed, so it's like like running and then stabbing people in the back and the like super like super speed stealth kills. Just did you get into poisoning their grog and like listening to them talk fucking is so funny. And then you can like you can speck into I think having guys like explode that are poisoned and they poison other guys, so you can just chain reaction killing a whole like encampment just by poison. That's probably what I had to do because they were having a party and there was so many at them, and I was like yeah it and I just jumped in the middle and I just started oh no, no no, And then like a captain comes and he wants to kill you while you're trying to kill No way, you gotta you gotta take them out. And then the captain will come it's pretty good. It's old, it's fun little, and I had to like crank the graphics put it on like super resolution to make it look decent. Oh man, the orcs are so good. But yeah, that's what's pretty I remember playing like I I didn't play Lord of the Rings online, Daniel, Did you play much of Lord of the Rings Online? Yeah? I had a lot of hours into that. Really, I played a lot. I fucking loved it. I loved it because it came out of the World of Warcraft days where I was just tired of fucking paying for World of Warcraft, and you didn't have to pay for Lord of the Rings Online. Oh, it was always free. Yeah, the only obviously at that time, there were still like micro transactions or whatever you want to call them, where if you wanted to unlock different levels of the entire map that were certain level ranges, like fifty to sixty, they would also come with quest packs. I think they were called quest packs. So if you wanted to buy a quest pack at X level, it would unlock all these quests in this one zone of the map. So that was kind of the only crappy part. But there's still so much you could go and see and do without having to spend a dime on that. There were obviously cosmetic parts too, because back in the day. You can imagine at that time, what year was that, two thousand and six or something that it came out two thousand and seven April twenty four seven, two thousand and seven. Yeah, so there's no ways twenty twelve because I was like fifteen when I was playing it with like Evan and Sean, so World of Warcraft had only been out for like three years. Yeah, I was pretty baby, I guess at the time, but I had been playing a lot. I'm gonna leave World of Warcraft for Lord of the Rings online. I did. That's why I like made probably like I never played it because I was playing well for like yeah, yeah that makes sense, it makes sense. But I was just like, eh, I'm kind of not invested in this anymore. I'll try Lord of the Rings because like, why wouldn't I and I had a great time. I started a uh yeah, that's that's that's why I was easy to find my footing. But I started like a hobbit rogue. I think I tried the elf I think I tried the Elf ranger thing and I was like, it's okay, but I really liked the Hobbit rogue thing. That's when I really got into the game. I started the Elf Ranger thing, I was like, this is cut and then I was like paused, and then I was like, fuck up, maybe I'll make a Hobbit rogue kind of thing because I want to kind of play something like the Hobbit kind of build. So I did, and that's when I really got into it because I was like sneaking around because you get the stealth, you know, and you can move quietly and shit, and you can attack and you get bonuses from stealth. And I think I just did the stories here. It happens at the same time. The story happens at the same time as the events of the novels. Yeah, it's not based on the movies or anything like that. It's really not. It's all based on the original novels and their stories, but also expanding intes kind of like intertwines because like I ran into Strider, yeah while he's on his way, yes, exactly, so you are closely kind of knit in with the main story, which is cool. I like that because I don't need to be like part like a main character from the story, but it would be cool to be around it kind of because like, there are other characters in and around the main story. What are their viewpoints? What are there? So I liked that exactly. Yeah, but that's what we want exactly. We can talk about this later. This is the kind of thing we want from a Lord of the Rings game. But these are old, these are what did you say? Two seven seven? It was a Shadow of Ward or twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen Shadow War. That was the last good Lord Rings game, twenty eighteen Shadow of War. What have we had since? We've had like these mobile games, card games? Fucking what else? What else has come out? Do we have a list of things that have come out since since twenty eighteen, since twenty eighteen. No, but I got Lord of Rings Gollum out now, terrible game, bad reviews, piece of shit. Yeah, it was thirteen dollars. We should have picked it up when it was on Elle to truly see how bad it was. Garbage it was. Then they had Lord of the Rings. Heroes of Middle Earth was a mobile game, like a weird They shut that down. Yeah, one year, last month, set it down last month. It's done. It was out for a year. Gee, I wonder why what else did we have from twenty eighteen? It's not even that long ago. And like they're coming out with a like a Hobbit cozy game, which I will absolutely play. Okay because shire tails the shy. You're going to play it, because you you play cozy games. But like what we're asking for? I know, I know, but I'm I'm settling. That's the thing is I'm settling. I'm like, okay, but I remember when the I remember when the mobile game was announced and you were like, of course, it's a fucking mobile game playing spid things like where when are we going to get it good? And then when Gollum again Lord of the Rings Gollum was announced, like, what the hell is this? Why do I want to play as Gollum? What am I? What are they doing? It's because we can't get the people who are making these games, I guess, can't get the rights to touch a certain characters that we like, right, So they've got to they've got to think outside the box. Yeah, like, oh, can we can we use Gollam for something? Like who the fuck wants to play is golf? Here's the thing though I already have a better idea. I already have. It's not necessarily the rights thing, because it's also the people just with the vision. It was a horrible vision. Gollum looked like shit. He looked better in what it was a Shadow of War. His model from it was based on the movie. I thought it was. Some people were saying that they didn't even think it was like a Lord of the Rings game. They just kind of had this thing and they're like, oh, yeah, we'll just make it a slapped Gollum in there, and like just like I feel they're just making games, but they're just making games for the sake of making games. Like, oh, that's a big fan base. You know this has got a fan base. Let's put something out for them. You know they'll buy it. Yeah, yeah, Well I certainly hope that that isn't the case, And it would make me, I mean, it would make me less sad for them having canceled and like shut down their studio if that was the case, because but if they were true, true, true Tolkien fans and they just wanted to make a game that they loved and that people Tolkien fans would love, then that's heartbreaking but I think if it was if it was me playing a Gollum game, I would want to play it in the events of the Hunt for Gollum, which is an actual story in the Unfinished Tales, where as you know, or some of you may know, Strider slashed Aragorn was tasked by Gandalf to go find Gollin before Mordor does because he knew Bilbo's whereabouts. So that is an actual story, And so I would fucking play a Golmn game where I was being hunted by like Aragorn and Gandalf and shit like during those events. That would be cool if it was done properly and looked good and whatever. But he was captured by yeah, by Mordor anyway, Yeah, he was, So what kind of ending is that? I don't know. It's tortured and you give up, you give up. It's just like you trying to It's you on a fucking stretching table. They're just stretching you and you're just like shire baking the credits. Yeah, credits. Yeah, Well that's the writer's responsibility, Like, how could they do what could they do with that? I don't think they could have done anything with that, But anyway, That's just an example, right, Like, it would be cool to play something that was close to the actual stories and not just some fucking bullshit thing trapped in Mortar and mate, because I don't even know what the story of Gollum was. The game you were in mortar trying to escape. Maybe maybe that's what it was. I have no fucking clue. Then you make friends with like other prisoners or something stupid, like I would make friends anybody here. Check it out. I pulled it up. The only games that came out since Shadow of War and Mordor was the board game Lord of the Rings adventure card game MHM. There was a digital card game Lord of the Rings Journey in Middle Earth which was for Windows, and then Gollum in twenty twenty three, so twenty eighteen, the card game twenty nineteen. This Journey's in Middle Earth? What was Journeys in Middle Earth? See these That's what I mean, These games that we have no idea what the fuck they are because they have no marketing. Journeys of Middle Earth. Yeah, that's a board game that's not a video game. Okay, it doesn't say it says for Windows, so it's like a board game on Windows. Oh yeah. Then there was a card game too. There was a digital card game. Yeah, but you play that. Yeah, but it was like a story driven card game. It wasn't like Heartstone like Battler card battle card game up. Okay, okay, So like I didn't care for it. Now that would have been okay, what's coming out? Then we mentioned the Tales of the Shire. It's coming second half twenty twenty four. Yeah, we got Rings Returned to Moria Turned to Morrow. Yeah. I was curious about that one too. It's out right, is it? Yeah? Yeah, I should Maybe I should try it because it's going to be along time in October. It's going to be along the same lines here. It's going to be a crafting base building game. Another one of those types that I just don't want to play. I don't see a purpose to them. All. You do all this stuff and grind for materials and like what the war game. That's what I realized after seventy hours of like No Man's Sky, I was like, yeah, no story, just grinding mats and crafting and building a base. I'm like, what the fuck am I doing this for? The only satisfaction I would get is seeing what their Vision of Moria is like, yeah, you're in more Yeah exactly is it after Age? Yeah, it's Ghimli. It's Ghimli taking back Maria. Oh that's cool about Yeah, that's what it's about. I think if there is much of a story, like I don't know, it's you in Maria trying to take like create a base or create the bring it back to you. I'm assuming you're fighting stuff and and Gobblin probably and maybe maybe you think there's like fighting in it and ship like yeah, it'll probably. Yeah, there's fighting in all those others like Valheim like Valheim, yeah, yeah, but it would be interesting to try. And I think that also it's going to kind of fall in the same line as the sorry what was the cozy game coming out called again Tales from the Shire Tails Up the Tails of the Shire, which is at least is being developed by like Weta Workshop Games, so they'll have some competent fucking I think vision I would trust them to hopefully so. But anyway, Nathanael, you did you play a little before you move on? You play a little bit of Lord of Rings online? Or no, yes, I played some this week? Okay, how much did you play? Me too. You both played well. Obviously, the ground was hold up, Noah, the messy menus, the UI was horrible, off off. I couldn't even see anything, yeah, because that's what we played at like seven to twenty P Like I'm playing at fucking two K wide screen. I'm like, and you can't even like I couldn't see anything, Like you can make it bigger, but it's really annoying because there's a slider for each fucking options, like you have to crank each slider. There's no slider to crank them all, one slider to rule them all. Yeah. Yeah, No, I don't know how people are still playing that. That's yeah. I don't like they're still updating it though, Like still it's still it's still going. It just looked like well it's just like it looked like World of Warcraft but a little bit more realistic. Yeah. If I would just go play World of Warcraft because it's better, it's just a better game, Yeah, I guess. But I also here's the thing though, because you're a fan, I'll I'll just say this and then we'll move on. But because I'm a fan of Tolkien's world and environments and blah, blah blah. I loved seeing those in game. I loved going to the landmarks. I fucking traveled to a lot of them in Lord of the Rings Online. I was like, oh shit, this is what it looks like in this game. That's fucking cool. And like, how similar is it to the movies and the games, and like they had different designs, and I loved kind of comparing the two and just walking around and being there and like fighting goblins, you know, next to the foot of whatever mountain or hill that you know from the boovies and the books, and like I think I went to Amansoul, the Watchtower past Brie. It was so cool. I love that, and I loved exploring. They're like really cool dark forest areas where you'd run into different types of enemies, you know, And I was like a rogue sneaking around and shit, little like a little hobbit with my dagger, and I don't know, I had a great time Oviously. It was a long time ago, so the graphics were a bit but I love being in the Shire. When you start as a Hobbit, you start in the Shire and you're there to like level twenty or something, and the Shire's fucking huge and you're just traveling around the shire and you got this like cool little like loot music and stuff, and then you go to the big sport, the big people, the world. It was very nice. It was cool. I really enjoyed it. Anyway. I really wish in the twenty years that had been out it added some kind of controller support on Steam, like, give me some kind of controller support, because I put it on mymo yeh, I put it on my Legion go and it'd be perfect for Legion Go, sit on the couch and just grind some mmo. But no, so like, yeah, new age MMOs, they're gonna have controller support. Final Fantasy fourteen controller sport is fantastic, fantastic. I'd actually rather play it with a controller, to be honest, because I played it for PS five and it's amazing. New World has controller support pretty sure. And then there's a mod for World of Warcraft which adds controller support and it's just like Final Fantasy. It's fair. Speaking of, then there is a Lord of the Rings mmo from Amazon in the works, and it's from its Orange County, California developer. If this sounds familiar, it's because Amazon Games previously had a deal to make the Lord of the Rings MMO with lay You, but it fell apart due to contract issue. Lay You, I'm guessing is that a Chinese debility. Amazon Games is now trying to again and will develop the game internally. Now, I don't have high hopes for this. Let me tell you that. How come there's potential, But like even for MMOs are such a big commitment now in terms of the player, Yes, and they have to be done right if they want to be like sustainable, like people will play for money, then they have the rights. You know, it's not hard to find people who are passionate about the Lord of the Rings instead of making money, you know what I mean? Because New World was good when it came out. I loved New World, but then it fizzled because they didn't do anything different with it. I think with the world of Lord of the Rings and passionate people about that, I think an MMO of Lord of the Rings could It could be interesting. It could be absolutely if they make the storylines. Yeah, that are all from like the appendencies and from the literature. Cool storylines that actually exist in in the Cannon, because there's lots of them. There's lots of them, Like, that's what we're looking for here, That's what we're looking for in a Lord of the Rings game. Although just the Shadow of War Shadow of Mortar didn't have that. It was just really engaging gameplay and it was it was fun to kill orcs. It was good. That's what made that good. But if you had that and you also had some cool stories from the appendixes appendencees uh and or other writings, like, there are hundreds of different little storylines and the rights, I think the rights are just so convoluted. It's such a mess, like who can take things from what it's like kind of torn this way, and that it's probably hard to get anything done. Maybe with the rights. I don't know though, But because it said that THHQ Nordick has the rights for to create games from all literary works, no, Embracer Group has the rights who are owned by but based on the literary work. Embracer Group is the parent company of THHQ Nordic to produce games based on the literary works, so it's all in the literary work. So I don't know if that's actually an excuse. Is the rights being torn here or there? I think they can do it. They just I think that they need to have Maybe they're not consulting with someone who says, like, Okay, this would be a really cool you know what they should do. They should talk to that Nerd of the Rings. YouTube. Go ahead and YouTube Nerd of the Rings. This guy is awesome. Fucking tells all the cool stories like that you that that weren't in the original three books. He's got videos on background stories. Man, so cool. Any one of those could be a freaking story in in in in a game. It would be sick because it's all from the works. It's not there. What does appendices mean for the people who don't know appendices for appendix, And it means that just like an index dictionary, a collection of like auxiliary writing. How big is that? A book like this? It's long, it's long. It's like a look at the back of Lord of the Rings. At the back of the Lord of the Rings. The end of the Lord of the Rings, there's a thick like a long appendix of just dates and things that happened with characters. And it'll have it'll be like like little paragraphs of some little stories. Yeah, like little short stories of what happened at this time with this character, and he was here, it was really cool, or Lord of the Ring. I don't even think that I've read the Lord of the Rings ones I was. I wanted to write they're really good ones after I read see. But that's also a problem this story, this world is so huge, there are different ages, so they have to sit down and be like, Okay, what's setting? Would what age? Would we want this to take place in Lord of the Rings? Do we want it to have anything to do with Lord of the Rings? If if not, we can't call it Lord of the Rings. Has nothing to do with Souron, who is the Lord of the Rings, unless it has to do with every Souron to do with it. All has to do with Second God. Not suren sorry not Souron go More Goth is the main evil, the main he was always there. Souron is a servant of more God. That's all it is. It's all More Goth. It's Lord of the Rings is like the focus on Souron as his tenant, as his okay, right hand man. So why don't they take another follower of Morgoth and make a video game about that guy or that girl like she blob there was a cool story about Spider, the spider whatever, what did you say? The name was in Olan and Golian. There's a cool story with with her. She was she loves mother. Yeah, there's cool stories with her and then fighting her in like the in the West. I'm pretty sure that somehow she got there. Like there are a lot of good fucking cool story and like and that's where I was going. Don't get me wrong, because the Silmarrillion was an awesome book. It was an awesome age. If they said something in the second age like the Silmrillion or whatever age that was, I'd be fully in. I'd be all in because I read the book though, and I really enjoyed it. That would be fucking cool to play in those worlds, in that world with those characters. Another thing from people who are outside of the Lord of the Rings lor scope, you know, like me, if they can visualize who this other follower of more Goth is, it's like the same kind of level as Saura, you know what I mean? So like more Margoth is here, you know, make a little spider, little little thing here, it's just here at this time, this was Sara over here, at this time. This was the other follower of Morgoth that was like equally as powerful or whatever, and equals because there's differenters of beings, right, different tiers of beings like the they're like angels and like gods. So there's like you have like a mythology of gods and then you have your tier of the gods. The followers of the gods underneath them are kind of like angel angels. They're called like the may Air. The may Air are the gods the may Airs or the no followers. Gandalf is of my I think it is my yah. Gandalf is of my air. He's like a follower of this one god. Also be of my year. Yes, Suron is a my year. He's of more Goth in my air, of more gods. But there's lots of different ones. So yeah, like you could explain all that, but that's all explained in the filmarillion. Mm hmmm. But yeah, it's cool, man, there's so much stuff to choose from. We're just getting fucking mobile games that shut down after a year, and fucking gollumn games. They aren't really golf what I mean. That's because they're following what they believe to make the money. But what they don't understand is the passionate fan base of Lord of the Rings will pay money for a good game, do you. I mean, like a good, well thought, structured, lore filled game. That's where the money is going to come in, not these cash grab ships that you're that you're folding in a year, you know what I mean, if you can get it's because the I think it's because the Lord of the Rings fan base are so passionate that they smell bullshit as soon as they see it. They're just like, I'm not playing that, you know what I mean. That's me. It's little. You saw this, you saw this with the Amazon series. Yeah, a lot of people are just like, no, I'm not watching on a surface level, yeah, it's good. It's not very deep though, it doesn't go it's not really accurate to the works obviously, but it's just it's not for Lord of the Rings fans. It's for the general public. And I think that's where these on their Amazon Prime fucking sun. You know, maybe that's like making like I enjoyed it for what it was. It was great, production value, looked amazing, sound, Yeah, look great. It's and it's on a talk. I yeah, it's based on a on a subject matter that I am a fan of. I'm not a huge mega nerd fan that cares like that. It's like, oh, this isn't accurate. He didn't do this, Okay, but I wish there was a game that did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Because if you're going to be paying it and investing your time in it and having to actually control what happened hours yea hours, I want I want it to be accurate. I want it to be a production. I want it to be immersive, because there's that special feeling, Lloyd, that you get when you read the books and you're like, man, this is such a classic nostalgic feeling when you're reading these adventures I eat, either for the first time or over again, and I want that feeling from the games and I have never got them. But I did get that feeling from Lord of the Rings online when I played. I got that kind of like new adventure feeling. Okay, well that was twenty years ago, I know, and we need it again, so I don't know time that we get it again, is what we're saying. I didn't know they were making one. I didn't know that right now, would you say that's the message of that's the message of this episode. We need that again, Yes, because it's been a long time, that good old fashioned MMO feeling sorry, that good old fashion sorry Lord of the Rings feeling the adventure feeling of like yeah, So, all I have to say is stop with the money grubbing cash, cash grabs. You know, the money will come if you just make a good game. The money will come if you make a good game. That's all I have to say. Stop making these mobile games so you can just get passive fucking income. Stop making these shitty like oh Gollum, Like, oh it's Lord of the Rings game, Gallum, pay money. I don't think anybody even paid money for Gollum. So, like all that time, all those people time was wasted. They shut down, the studio shutdown after making that piece of shit game, Like, the money will come if you just make a good game. Get people that worked on the fucking films. I don't know. Get people who have been in try I say, entranced in what's the word I'm looking for in that world, Like their entire entrenched in that world, their entire careers, Like get them in there, well, that's another thing. What it is the person in charge has to know, has to be and for that to happen. It's like it seems like the odds are low for that to happen. Where it's just like group I can tell, Okay, what rights do we have. Let's make a game. What do we have? O Lord of the Rings rights? Okay, go ahead and start something. Make a game baseball? Yeah, about a card game? About card game? We need a card that just screams like that, just screams stuff that is like whatever is happening at the moment. Make a Lord of the Rings game of it, you know what I mean? Like, oh, the cozy games are big right now because of the all these fucking farming vills and yes, my time in sand Rock and Harvest Moon, the comeback of New New Life, whatever the fuck is called. Like, oh, just make a Lord of the Rings game of that. Stamp it, get it in, you know what I mean. Make a card game, stamp it, get it in. Just make a game that you can tell a great story. Leave it open in the future for some dalc and expansions to keep telling the story. People want the story, you know, That's why we want to play it and then bring us in and envelop us in that game. An MMO can do it. That's the scope of Lord of the Rings probably can fit in, you know what I mean. Absolutely, I'm sure Lord of the Rings online was great, but like World of Warcraft was out then, I don't know who the fuck even played that game. I think it's still on like the tenth most. I think it's tenth on the list of ten most played MMOs. It's still there, but World of Warcraft is still on top. Like it's hard to get people out of World of Warcraft very hard, yeah, even now, very hard. Like MMO fans are playing World war Craft because it's perfect. Yeah yeah. Final Fantasy fourteen new update just came out and everyone's jumping on that too. So but they have rich lore and stories, right Final Fantasy rich. I mean, if Amazon, holy moly, if Amazon did this, I like, I will play it. I'll definitely try it. I mean, but I mean that it's got to be just right for me to even for me to even consider spending any amount of time. And it's gotta it's gotta catch me, intrigue me. The story, good stories from the you know, accurate appendixes. Ah Man, I'm worried. I'm worried that it's just I don't know, Maybe this isn't a factor. Maybe it is, but I'm worried that the stories are just so old and that so much of the media and whatever hype has come and gone, and it's like, maybe that's it kind of thing. Maybe we won't experience a sort of resurgence even with the new show coming out, given all of its backlash, it's not really a new and happening thing anymore. Like that was like the peak of Lord of the Rings. Interest was Peter Jackson's films when they came in, and if we were gonna get any game that was gonna blow our fucking minds, it would have been then. And I'm scared that it's just never gonna happen now because there will never be a peak again like that where a developer is gonna be like, hey, we have to do this right because the entire world is watching, you know what I mean, making another trilogy now I don't know, Yeah, so isn't Peter Jackson making another trilogy? Yeah, it's gonna be based on something else. It's not like a yeah, well they could use that hype. Yeah, we'll see, We'll see there's some hope. I'm just kind of like scared, like maybe we all the good Lord of the Rings games we saw have come and gone, you know, and that that's just the way it is. That's their part in the gaming history, in gaming history. I don't know. Uh, I know that the more I hold my hopes up, I will be more disappointed. So I will look into this, like, I would definitely would love to try an Amazon MMO because at least it's a new MMO in the Lord of the Rings world. That's cool. That's where it has to start. It has to be new, an MMO with freedom and open world and choice of class and abilities, and with the map, with the immersion and the map with all love. Very cool aesthetic. I'd love. I'd like like a not like a realistic aesthetic, you know, kind of like a cool I don't know, really quaint ui like cool scrolls and like yeahs and shit, yeah that's what I want. Yeah, that would be really cool because that is a big factor for me, is Yeah, how the aesthetic of the game, how it looks not even in just the game, but the menus and like what the interface looks like it's all count towards It all counts toward immersion, so we'll see. That's a big It's actually a big news for me. I didn't know that. So alrighty, that's it for this week's episode. You want to thank everyone for taking the time to listen or watch. Let us know what you think if you're the Rings fan or if you're not. But if you are, what do you want to see? What do you think makes a good Lord of the Rings game? Where do you think it went wrong with all these games that have come out? Please be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube, give us a rating review on Spotify or Apple if you could. It helps us get out there to more listeners who may enjoy the show. Also, we are now part of the super Pod Network and network of podcasts. You can find, browse and check out at superpodnetwork dot com. Remember you can always leave us a DM on Facebook, Instagram, tweet us if you want to leave a comment or ask any questions. Thanks again, and we hope you have a wonderful day peace, See yup.