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Vapourware The White Council: EA's LOTR RPG that never was

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
I haven't seen any discussion about it here ever so I thought to get this party started on my own.

From the wiki:
Project Gray Company was the game's working title which was to be a new offering in EA’s series of videogames inspired by Tolkien’s books and Jackson’s film adaptations. Initial details were limited about the game, but the official site contained art, pictures of the team working on this game, forums, a wallpaper, and a designer's diary feature (which included, at first, only humorous "behind-the-scenes" videos which purported to share design details but which were "accidentally" out-of-focus or otherwise unintelligible. The website also contained a letter from the game's executive producer Steve Gray:

The action takes place in a massive open world where you can go anywhere you want, and the characters in this world are powered by an incredible simulation AI based on the same technology used by the makers of The Sims 2. The story of the game is built around a series of Story Quests. You can choose to follow specific Story Quests, embark on a range of other types of quests, or set off on your own adventures in the massive open world environment.

Included with the July 13, 2006 announcement was the information that since EA held the game development licenses to both Tolkien’s books and the New Line film trilogy, the game was to be based on both, like The Battle for Middle-earth II. Players were to be given the option to choose to play as either a Man, a Dwarf, an Elf or a Hobbit. The ultimate aim of the game was to become a hero allied with the White Council. The game was originally to be released late in 2007 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.[1] On February 2, 2007, however, it was announced that the game had been delayed indefinitely.[2] This was said to be due to management problems.[3] EA worked with Pandemic Studios to create The Lord of the Rings: Conquest instead.

While in development limbo/indefinate hiatus since 2007, this game does sound promising, even rather ambitious. In fact i do believe elements of this game found it's way in other EA LOTR games since, such as War in the North and that retarded Revenant-Ranger game recently released.

I know EA is the publisher, but they did have the rights at the time (and still do?) and in fact they did end up publishing a couple of good games on the IP at the time, such as the Battle for ME series of RTS's.

Anyone have more info on this?

(Another interesting tidbit is that Troika's ToEE was originally supposed to be a LOTR rpg; thus the little LOTR-isms in the game, like Wizards starting out looking like Gandalf the Grey, complete with pointy hat, Paladins getting the Riders of Rohan cape, Rangers looking like Aragorn, etc; but they never got the deal so they went with D&D instead. This is circa 2003 or so though, during the hey dey of the movies)
 

Somberlain

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 5, 2012
Messages
6,202
Location
Basement
The action takes place in a massive open world where you can go anywhere you want, and the characters in this world are powered by an incredible simulation AI based on the same technology used by the makers of The Sims 2. The story of the game is built around a series of Story Quests. You can choose to follow specific Story Quests, embark on a range of other types of quests, or set off on your own adventures in the massive open world environment. ”

 

pippin

Guest
In paper sounds awesome but I think it would end up being something in bewteen Shadow of Mordor and Kingdoms of Amalur.
If you truly want something open, you'd play something like a LOTR mod for Mount and Blade.

The RTS games were very fun and innovative though, it's a shame that EA won't bring them back from the dead. I guess torrents are the only answer when it comes to those games. I hate it when games end up trapped in Legal Hell.
 

Filthy Sauce

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
614
In paper sounds awesome but I think it would end up being something in bewteen Shadow of Mordor and Kingdoms of Amalur.
If you truly want something open, you'd play something like a LOTR mod for Mount and Blade.

Still, that sounds better than what Conquest ended up being. Holy shit I forgot about that game. Christ, I rank that fucking piece of garbage in my top 5 list of worst games that I own. I'm not kidding. I hated that game so much I pulled down my pants and jacked off hard when I heard pandemic shut down soon after release. I hope those fags died homeless in the streets. They owe me 40$. Its been years and I'm still pissed about it. GAY ASS SHITLORDS.
 

pippin

Guest
In paper sounds awesome but I think it would end up being something in bewteen Shadow of Mordor and Kingdoms of Amalur.
If you truly want something open, you'd play something like a LOTR mod for Mount and Blade.

Still, that sounds better than what Conquest ended up being. Holy shit I forgot about that game. Christ, I rank that fucking piece of garbage in my top 5 list of worst games that I own. I'm not kidding. I hated that game so much I pulled down my pants and jacked off hard when I heard pandemic shut down soon after release. I hope those fags died homeless in the streets. They owe me 40$. Its been years and I'm still pissed about it. GAY ASS SHITLORDS.

The Reception part of the Wiki article for the game is like 1/3 of it, only to say it was a bad game :lol:
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Anyone have more info on this?

What other RPGs would you compare the game to?

If I had to compare it to something it'd be Oblivion.

Can you give us any details about the plot?

I'd rather not give away too much, but what I can tell you is that the basic idea is that you want to become a sufficiently powerful character...

How will/does the combat system work?

Fundementally, what we wanted to do was to take the best of The Two Towers, The Return Of The King and mix it with the tactics from The Third Age. We wanted to make the front-end combat like the first two games where you have to use your button skills and make the back half a tactical RPG system that's based on what armour you have on and what skills you've developed.
 

Andhaira

Arcane
Joined
Nov 25, 2007
Messages
1,868,966
Anyone have more info on this?

What other RPGs would you compare the game to?

If I had to compare it to something it'd be Oblivion.

Can you give us any details about the plot?

I'd rather not give away too much, but what I can tell you is that the basic idea is that you want to become a sufficiently powerful character...

How will/does the combat system work?

Fundementally, what we wanted to do was to take the best of The Two Towers, The Return Of The King and mix it with the tactics from The Third Age. We wanted to make the front-end combat like the first two games where you have to use your button skills and make the back half a tactical RPG system that's based on what armour you have on and what skills you've developed.

Are you serious? If so, how do you know this?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
I was covering news back then and I remember this disaster of a game quite well. They wanted to make a game like Oblivion and thought the LotR license will do the trick. They targeted the casual market, so hand-holding (even though the world was supposed to be massive they didn't want to do the sandbox thing but guide the player from one objective to the next), tactical button-mashing, the goal to become uber powerful (a major ass-kicking player in the land), no real choices (can't do evil), etc.
 

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