Middle-Earth: Lord of the Mods (XIII)

[Mithadan]

Do you have a picture of this Trion guy?

Not as of yet, but there is a picture of his father on either the first or second page of the Final Fantasy mod thread. I figured that Trion would be a younger looking version with maybe darker hair and a much shorter (or no) beard.

Dark hair is good for Gil-galad, right? (Would it help if I rustled up a nice B&W pen&ink drawing of Gil-galad for your Trion feller? I could get someone at my house -- 1,000s of miles away -- to scan one in from my nice old Tolkien Bestiary...the younger-looking and short-bearded-ness sound just like the pic I'm thinking of...)

 

[The Last Conformist]

From the LotM POV, no beard would be preferable, I'd say.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Mithadin: Sure, send the pic on over. In the meantime I'll be googling FF XI SS's to see if I can find any of Trion I. I may end up having to make two variants of the same LH (with different textures on the hair, etc), especially since the FF XI elves (or Elvaan as they're called) have the typical really long, pointy ears of Anime-style elves. The base figure I'm using, though, has morphs for both types of Elf ears, so it'd be a simple matter of just changing the ear morph and hair texture (and maybe the color of the armor and BG image as well) and re-rendering to get the Gil-Galad version. Making PCX files for both would be easy, since for all the LH pcx's, all I'd have to do for the cultural/kiss/etc pics would be to do some quick C&P from one set to the other.

Again, this is for after I get the Cloud LH, Mithra Ninja Unit and maybe one other unit done, but it will be soon.

 

[Mithadan]

Okay, then I'd better get on it right away. Once people start waking up in the Mountain Time Zone, I'll get one of my family members on the horn so they can run to my bookshelf and scan me that pic. (Now, was it under the "Noldor" entry or the "Elves" entry?)

From the LotM POV, no beard would be preferable, I'd say.

Really?

 

[mrtn]

... Really?

Yes. Even if Tolkien may have had one or two bearded elves, everyone else has followed the RPG stereotype for beardless elves. I'm uncomfortable with bearded elves (and put that quote out of context ), and I suspect we'd get loads of complaint about it.

 

[Mithadan]

Drat, you're right. Damn Tolkien's fantasy inheritors!

 

[Wolfhart]

Yes. Even if Tolkien may have had one or two bearded elves,...

I seem to remember (from my youth in Middle-Earth ) that Círdan, a Sindarin elf and Lord of the Grey Havens, grew a long beard which was remarked upon as a very unusual attribute of an elf. It's either from LotR or from Silmarillion, or in the worst case from MERP

 

[The Last Conformist]

It's LotR. I'll be checking up the exact quote.

 

[Wolfhart]

Dark hair is good for Gil-galad, right? ...

Isn't Gil-galad golden-haired like his father Fingon, his grandfather Fingolfin and his great-grandmother Indis of the Vanyar? I might be wrong though, corrupted by MERP

 

[The Last Conformist]

Near the end of Book VI, chapter IX:

As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: 'All is now ready.'

There's nothing saying whether his beard was unusual.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Isn't Gil-galad golden-haired like his father Fingon, his grandfather Fingolfin and his great-grandmother Indis of the Vanyar? I might be wrong though, corrupted by MERP

Probably

Indis's golden hair passed on to her younger son, Finarfin, and his descendants, but not to the elder son, Fingolfin, and his.

 

[Wolfhart]

Near the end of Book VI, chapter IX:


There's nothing saying whether his beard was unusual.

Then I'll bet I got it from MERP. Sorry about that...

 

[Wolfhart]

Probably

Indis's golden hair passed on to her younger son, Finarfin, and his descendants, but not to the elder son, Fingolfin, and his.

Yeah probably
I remember that Aredhel, daughter of Fingolfin and auntie of Gil-galad, is dark-haired according to Silmarillion.

Edit: Yep, I was wrong. From the index to the Silmarillion:

Finarfin, The third son of Finwë, the younger of Fëanor’s half-brothers; remained in Aman after the Exile of the Noldor and ruled the remnant of his people in Tirion. Alone among the Noldorin princes he and his descendants had golden hair, derived from his mother Indis, who was a Vanyarin Elf

So that should leave Finrod Felagund, Orodreth, Angrod, Aegnor and Galadriel as the only blondes among the Elven Royalty then? Makes one wonder about Glorfindel's lineage...

 

[mrtn]

Near the end of Book VI, chapter IX:

As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to great them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: 'All is now ready.'

There's nothing saying whether his beard was unusual.

Well, there's nothing saying him looking grey (hm, with that spelling?) and old was unusual either, and I claim it was.

And "great them"? Did you type this up yourself, or was JRRT's spelling really this messy?

 

[The Last Conformist]

I was transcribing it. It should be "greet", of course.

"Grey" is the standard spelling in British English.

 

[The Last Conformist]

So that should leave Finrod Felagund, Orodreth, Angrod, Aegnor and Galadriel as the only blondes among the Elven Royalty then? Makes one wonder about Glorfindel's lineage...

Noldorin royalty. Thranduil is described as blond in the Hobbit, but he probably was of Telerin descent.

I suppose Glorfindel wasn't a royal.

 

[mrtn]

I was transcribing it. It should be "greet", of course.

"Grey" is the standard spelling in British English.

And "gray" is in Merkian? I suppose I confused them.

BTW; here's a new Fishing icon I made. No boats in this one.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Drat, you're right. Damn Tolkien's fantasy inheritors!

Well, from what you've said, it would seem that Square-Enix are the only ones who've stayed true to Tolkien's vision. In FF XI, several of the Male Elvaan player charachter models sport short beards and goatees, and some of the older elvaan NPCs (of course this is older in Elvaan terms which would be dead and turned to dust long ago in human terms) have fu-manchu type beards, and as you can see with King Destin, some even have full-out beards.

EDIT: Picture of King Destin:

MRTN: That's one hekuva cool fishing icon

 

[Wolfhart]

Noldorin royalty. Thranduil is described as blond in the Hobbit, but he probably was of Telerin descent.

I suppose Glorfindel wasn't a royal.

In Silmarillion Turgon's daughter Idril Celebrindal was a blonde too; her mother was a Vanya named Elenwë who perished during the crossing of Helcaraxë. Through her the Kings of Númenor got some blood of the Vanyar, since Idril was the mother of Eärendil and the grandmother of Elros, Elrond's twin brother and the first King of Númenor, the ancestor of Aragorn.

And with that I will stop raving about blond elves.

Gentlemen! Permit me to present my compliments on your work on this mod so far
I've enjoyed following the development during the thirteen LotM threads and I've picked up a lot about the world of Tolkien and about modding Civ3. It's been an education, thank you!

 

[PCHighway]

A quick response to your post, Zxe, as I am typing this from a college computer.
I understand you’re worrying, but things happen and sometimes deadlines can not be met. If I were to tell you right not that the private beta would be done in an hour, and it wasn't completed at that time, you would feel cheated.
_That_ would be a reason to complain. That would be a reason to post hurry up posts. You see, if I was a naysayer I could simply post tot he FAQ. Deadlines made public are not lenient. You miss it, the unwashed masses roil in anger .

I’ll tell _you_ what I feel needs to be done, because you asked me what has yet to be completed.

What needs to be done? That could be interpreted many ways. 1.) What has to be done to make the MOD playable? I need to plot the X-Y coordinates for the tech tree, and then mod the arrows. When I get back to my own PC, I'll post a pic of the second era, to keep people informed. After the eras are done, I will test the MOD on my PC. I will see if it runs, and then I will make some additions if needed. I will then send the MOD to Mrtn.

Mrtn will play a game, look around, and see if he finds any problems. He’ll tell me what to change and report any errors. Once I’m sure no crashing bugs exist, I will enquire Thunderfall if he can create a sub forum for us during the private beta (not unheard of). If not, we will go to CDG for Beta testing, and have a version on both websites. That plan is similar to e-dead’s strategy. Hopefully TF will accept, though.

The private beta will be very rough around the edges. It is primarily meant so we can make the MOD more glossed, more finished looking. Also any hidden bugs (bugs that appear only for a certain civilization, etc.) need to be found during that time.

IIRC, there was an "Americas" mod that SoG edited. The MOD was excellent looking graphically. It _looked_ like it would run, but somewhere along the line one of the additions made to it would cause it to crash around 20 turns into the game. Tons of work on a MOD but it was rendered unplayable. I don’t want that to happen, it is one of my fears. So, instead of adding extra graphics before its release and all at once, I want most artwork to be default when the public beta is out. That way I can take a couple of days (druing public beta) to simply improve the interface graphics. If it works well with those, it can be incorporated into the MOD later, around 1.0.

So the MOD will look a bit rough in the beta. But I will definitely want to improve it graphically as we go. I had been working on an Age of Kings copied interface for LotM and WH. My PC had a major crash however, and I lost all my work. I had to go back and start over with LotM, probably losing a month in the process. I figured I should focus on LotM and not artwork from that point on.

It is also meant for us to make any dramatic changes or additions during that time, although more of that will happen during the public beta. Just a bit longer and we will be good to go.

As I stated, I will make an on-topic post (and a screen of the 2nd era) much later tonight, early morning hours.