Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

[Zombra]

You know, by the time I got to Act IV on Gravewalker, I had completely forgotten the patch from a couple years ago where they announced that the Shadow Wars epilogue had been revamped to be much tighter. Instead of like 15 stages there are 3. So today I was like, okay, I'll try to knock over another siege or two since I have like 45 to go .... and bingo, end credits.

So everything I've said above about how Act IV is this huge slog, forget I said that, it's more like you complete the main story and then it's a couple more fights "for the road" to get you to the true ending.

P.S. The end credits are literally forty minutes long.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Got it from gift thread some time ago, went and tried it.

Game is fun during the first few hours, but the more you play the more its drawbacks are bothering you and you get to be less impressed by it's strengths. After some time the game feels like a busywork full of empty promises.

- There is a lot of potential in Nemesis system. Had a situation when I was fighting an orc, he started running away and his blood brother showed up to protect him. I killed him. Get ambushed by the orc who I was chasing before and he wanted a revenge. Defeated him, but he ran away. After traveling to other location it turned out that he followed me and then I killed him. The only reason I was playing the game was a Nemesis system. Sadly the more I played the more orcs started to feel samey and less emergent the system proved to be. For example: There are mission orc are taking, but their outcomes are like having the orc gain a single level, which is not noticeable.
- Sometimes orcs have an immunity towards certain attacks, which I liked.
-Combat is horrendous. It's like in Arkham games, your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating. In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time. Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those propmts, but the game wasn't designed around it, few hours in you will fight so many orcs that it's impossible to keep track of all of them on screen. Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed. There is way too many QTE. Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge. I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously. You can fight from the mount but it's horrible experience as if someone made an experiment in how much mount combat can suck.
- Game loves putting filters on your screen. If you are close to death the whole screen becomes red and it's mega irritating. It's such a cheap way of creating tension. When you use your ghost abilities screen borders turn white, which is annoying.
- You can't skip inengine cutscenes, you always have to listen to orc drivel when you meet them, see the whole orc mindrape scene etc. This is very irritating.
- Level design is mediocre. All orc camps feel samey and traveling between them is a chore.
- Game manages to both break Tolkien lore and not feel like a Middle-Earth inspired work of fiction. It should just be a generic orc slayer game. The story is boring. Writers tried to turn Shelob into a hot spider babe, but they don't even know that hot spider babes have an upper body of a human and lower body of a spider. Devs don't understand the fetish content they themselves decided to force into the game. This is the illustration of the level on incompetence emblematic of the whole game.
- Main character is so dull I am forgetting about him right now.
- You don't have a control over your orcs during the siege.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

At the start of the game -- when Minas Ithil is still standing with men defending it -- I was saved by a friendly man captain right as I was about to be executed, never happened again throughout the entire game and I've never seen anyone else once reference it. Did this happen to anyone else?

It wasn't a scripted event btw, was ambushed by two orc captains and got beaten, then he intervened and saved me during the execution, and a bunch of humans appeared to help fight with me.

Felt like the result of something that was cut but not quite cut all the way

 

[rusty_shackleford]

At the start of the game -- when Minas Ithil is still standing with men defending it -- I was saved by a friendly man captain right as I was about to be executed, never happened again throughout the entire game and I've never seen anyone else once reference it. Did this happen to anyone else?

It wasn't a scripted event btw, was ambushed by two orc captains and got beaten, then he intervened and saved me during the execution, and a bunch of humans appeared to help fight with me.

Felt like the result of something that was cut but not quite cut all the way

wait, found a video of what I mean


felt really cool at the time

 

[Poseidon00]

wait, found a video of what I mean


felt really cool at the time

It has happened to me a couple of times, definitely only happens if you are fighting in close quarters to at least one soldier.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

There is a random chance to be saved either by Gondorian sergeant or your orc bodyguard. It can be disabled in option.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, it really made me wish I was playing with human units rather than dominated orcs.
Nemesis system & ambushes were cool though. Would like to see it in more games.

 

[Zombra]

-Combat is horrendous. It's like in Arkham games, your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating. In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time. Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those propmts, but the game wasn't designed around it, few hours in you will fight so many orcs that it's impossible to keep track of all of them on screen. Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed. There is way too many QTE. Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge. I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously. You can fight from the mount but it's horrible experience as if someone made an experiment in how much mount combat can suck.

Everything here is your fault.*

- Your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating.
No. You have complete control over who you target with your body positioning.

- In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time.
Stop playing on babby difficulty.

- Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those prompts, but the game wasn't designed around it
Yes it was. The game is 100% playable without stupid helper prompts. Turn them off and learn the rhythms of enemy animations to know when to counter.

- You will fight so many orcs that it's impossible to keep track of all of them on screen.
Of course you'll fight too many to keep track of them all. That's the entire point of having huge swarms of orcs. I guess you'd rather play martial arts movie style where they politely attack you one at a time. Too bad. Learn to manage your focus.

- Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed.
Is this a problem because the game is bad, or because you didn't learn to look around?

- Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge.
Of course every individual grunt orc is not going to be an amazing boss fight. They are trash mobs, just like in every video game ever, but unlike most games, you don't have to fight most of them. If you are fighting a million orcs and there's no reason to stay where you are, leave. If you have an objective to complete, the game is not to kill all the orcs and then do it, but to complete the objective and get out before you are overrun.

- I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously.
Learn to move ... and more importantly to not get surrounded in the first place.

- There is way too many QTE.
Well, OK, I didn't find them that onerous but this is not really your fault.

- You can fight from the mount but it's horrible experience as if someone made an experiment in how much mount combat can suck.
Again, I don't disagree. It's not as awful as you make out, but mounted fighting is indeed crap compared to normal combat.

*OK OK, not the last two.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

- Your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating.
No. You have complete control over who you target with your body positioning.

Not if you have a few enemies attacking you from one direction as a group. I particularly remember the pain of trying to dominate broken captains when there are in a group. In those situation game decides to dominate some random npc next to captain. Trying to kite captain from the group/ or kill trash mob doesn't feel like fun when you have to do it over and over just to seal the deal on an already won battle.

Not to mention that the game by itself moving my character in an action game is just absurd and bad design.

- In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time.
Stop playing on babby difficulty.

Played on Nemesis. And this method success is more dependent on encounter composition than difficulty.

- Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those prompts, but the game wasn't designed around it
Yes it was. The game is 100% playable without stupid helper prompts. Turn them off and learn the rhythms of enemy animations to know when to counter.

I played like that in the beginning, but after some time, during the conquest mode the game started to throw so many orcs at the same time, that you hardly have a time to look at them all and react. Especially that captains are the main dish and trash mobs feels more like barrier to it.

- Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed.
Is this a problem because the game is bad, or because you didn't learn to look around?

If the game throws a lot of shit around me and then distract me with some filters on screen and obligatory cutscenes that disorient me then yes.

- Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge.
Of course every individual grunt orc is not going to be an amazing boss fight. They are trash mobs, just like in every video game ever, but unlike most games, you don't have to fight most of them. If you are fighting a million orcs and there's no reason to stay where you are, leave. If you have an objective to complete, the game is not to kill all the orcs and then do it, but to complete the objective and get out before you are overrun.

There are games, like M&B in which killing trash mob is fun, but not here. I also was doing everything I could to minimize my contact with trash mobs.

- I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously.
Learn to move ... and more importantly to not get surrounded in the first place.

I try to beeline to captain straightaway to minimalize contact with distractions.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

If you are fighting a million orcs and there's no reason to stay where you are, leave. If you have an objective to complete, the game is not to kill all the orcs and then do it, but to complete the objective and get out before you are overrun.

Learning how to bail out of pointless last stands is one of the most useful tips you can give a beginner, the way he describes it is 100% me early in my playthrough trying to clear the area before proceeding to the objective. It's a hard videogame habit to break out of but you almost never need to get rid of the respawning trash mobs.

I did exactly opposite from that. I was trying to avoid fights with them as much as possible and focus on captains.

 

[Zombra]

- Your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating.
No. You have complete control over who you target with your body positioning.

Not if you have a few enemies attacking you from one direction as a group. I particularly remember the pain of trying to dominate broken captains when there are in a group. In those situation game decides to dominate some random npc next to captain. Trying to kite captain from the group/ or kill trash mob doesn't feel like fun when you have to do it over and over just to seal the deal on an already won battle.

This may be less of an issue playing with a controller - I gather from your other comments that you played with M+K. All I can say is once I got gud I never dominated a grunt by mistake.

- In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time.
Stop playing on babby difficulty.

Played on Nemesis. And this method success is more dependent on encounter composition than difficulty.

Then I can only guess that "many cases" means when the Warrior grunt type is running stupidly at you. Button mashing simply won't work on Defender grunts, Savage grunts, Hunter grunts, Archer grunts, or Ologs.

- Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those prompts, but the game wasn't designed around it
The game is 100% playable without stupid helper prompts. Turn them off and learn the rhythms of enemy animations to know when to counter.

I played like that in the beginning, but after some time, during the conquest mode the game started to throw so many orcs at the same time, that you hardly have a time to look at them all and react. Especially that captains are the main dish and trash mobs feels more like barrier to it.

OK. Again though, that is not because the game isn't built for it, it's just you leaving helper prompts on to skip the challenge of dealing with hordes.

- Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed.
Is this a problem because the game is bad, or because you didn't learn to look around?

If the game throws a lot of shit around me and then distract me with some filters on screen and obligatory cutscenes that disorient me then yes.

OK, again, this is just you refusing to learn how to cope with TMI.

- Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge.
Of course every individual grunt orc is not going to be an amazing boss fight. They are trash mobs, just like in every video game ever, but unlike most games, you don't have to fight most of them. If you are fighting a million orcs and there's no reason to stay where you are, leave. If you have an objective to complete, the game is not to kill all the orcs and then do it, but to complete the objective and get out before you are overrun.

There are games, like M&B in which killing trash mob is fun, but not here. I also was doing everything I could to minimize my contact with trash mobs.

Shrug, if you don't find it fun you don't find it fun. I can't argue with that. I stand by what I said though.

- I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously.
Learn to move ... and more importantly to not get surrounded in the first place.

I try to beeline to captain straightaway to minimalize contact with distractions.

Running pell mell towards an objective is not the same as minimizing contact. Sounds like you started fights you couldn't finish quickly and then didn't pay attention when reinforcements started showing up. Don't just keep button mashing until 200 guys are surrounding you. If your first plan didn't work, retreat, rethink, retry.

 

[Zlaja]

- Main character is so dull I am forgetting about him right now

Both his voice and his mug annoyed the crap out of me. After a while, I grew to hate his guts. Uglier then the orcs.

There is a random chance to be saved either by Gondorian sergeant or your orc bodyguard. It can be disabled in option.

I thought that was pretty lame, so I disabled that shit. You already get a second chance to survive, if you get the timing right on that QTE thing.

 

[Zombra]

Weirdly, I was ready to completely hate the protagonist again just like in the first game, but this time around he wasn't quite as bad. Still bad, but not quite as bad.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Wait they didn’t make the cutscenes skippable in the sequel? Wasn’t one of the biggest complaints about the first one that the narrative was absolute shit and for some reason they forced you to sit through lengthy cutscenes of it?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Then I can only guess that "many cases" means when the Warrior grunt type is running stupidly at you. Button mashing simply won't work on Defender grunts, Savage grunts, Hunter grunts, Archer grunts, or Ologs.

This method also works pretty nice on Nazgul boss fights, but you will also need to press space sometimes in a few very overtelegraphed spots.

Running pell mell towards an objective is not the same as minimizing contact. Sounds like you started fights you couldn't finish quickly and then didn't pay attention when reinforcements started showing up. Don't just keep button mashing until 200 guys are surrounding you. If your first plan didn't work, retreat, rethink, retry.

I did it at the start of the game, but after some time running on roofs shooting exploding barrels and hives and stealth jumping enemies then retreating becomes exhausting especially when you know you will need to do it over and over again.

Wait they didn’t make the cutscenes skippable in the sequel? Wasn’t one of the biggest complaints about the first one that the narrative was absolute shit and for some reason they forced you to sit through lengthy cutscenes of it?

Main story/quest cutscenes are skipable, but inengine cutscenes are not. And you will see those a lot.

 

[Zombra]

Wait they didn’t make the cutscenes skippable in the sequel? Wasn’t one of the biggest complaints about the first one that the narrative was absolute shit and for some reason they forced you to sit through lengthy cutscenes of it?

Main story/quest cutscenes are skipable, but inengine cutscenes are not. And you will see those a lot.

Right, you're talking about the "Hello I am Orc Boss #15, hear me roar!" intros.

You may be surprised to learn that these used to be even worse! Whenever you encountered more than one captain at once, a chief with his 3 bodyguards, etc., all of them would give their complete intro speech. After a deluge of complaints the devs added the shorter versions for the extra guys.


So what is now

Orc #1: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua! A diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget! Pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc consequat! Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo! Massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia! Suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus! Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas! Faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in! Eu scelerisque felis imperdiet proin fermentum! A arcu cursus vitae congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel! Sit amet risus nullam eget felis eget nunc! Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas! Tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum!

Orc #2: Yeah! We're gonna hurt you!

Orc #3: Let the blood flow!

Orc #4: Enough talk! KILL!


used to be

Orc #1: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua! A diam maecenas sed enim ut sem viverra aliquet eget! Pulvinar sapien et ligula ullamcorper malesuada proin libero nunc consequat! Molestie at elementum eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo! Massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia! Suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus! Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas! Faucibus ornare suspendisse sed nisi lacus sed viverra tellus in! Eu scelerisque felis imperdiet proin fermentum! A arcu cursus vitae congue mauris rhoncus aenean vel! Sit amet risus nullam eget felis eget nunc! Vulputate odio ut enim blandit volutpat maecenas! Tellus in hac habitasse platea dictumst vestibulum!

Orc #2: Volutpat blandit aliquam etiam erat! Aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam ultrices! Et odio pellentesque diam volutpat commodo! At erat pellentesque adipiscing commodo elit at imperdiet dui accumsan! Sem fringilla ut morbi tincidunt augue interdum! Justo eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum! Velit egestas dui id ornare arcu odio ut sem! Donec adipiscing tristique risus nec feugiat! Ut sem viverra aliquet eget! Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum!

Orc #3: Elit at imperdiet dui accumsan sit amet nulla! Eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius! Risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet! Non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque id! Turpis massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed! Sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing! Risus quis varius quam quisque id diam vel! Eget magna fermentum iaculis eu non! Aenean sed adipiscing diam donec adipiscing! Elit scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus! Ac turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna! Egestas sed sed risus pretium! Eget nullam non nisi est sit! Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id! Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper! Eget nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis! Odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed adipiscing diam! At tempor commodo ullamcorper a lacus vestibulum!

Orc #4: Duis tristique sollicitudin nibh sit amet! Semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque non! Purus viverra accumsan in nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices! Faucibus purus in massa tempor nec feugiat! Magnis dis parturient montes nascetur! Ipsum nunc aliquet bibendum enim facilisis! Consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus! Elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus pretium! In massa tempor nec feugiat nisl pretium fusce id velit! Blandit aliquam etiam erat velit scelerisque in dictum! Nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a diam maecenas sed! Diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet! In aliquam sem fringilla ut! Fames ac turpis egestas maecenas! Scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in ornare quam viverra orci! Risus pretium quam vulputate dignissim suspendisse in est ante in! Nisl vel pretium lectus quam id leo! Et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit! Sit amet mattis vulputate enim nulla aliquet porttitor! Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed tempus!

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Jesus Christ.

 

[Jarpie]

Got it from gift thread some time ago, went and tried it.

Game is fun during the first few hours, but the more you play the more its drawbacks are bothering you and you get to be less impressed by it's strengths. After some time the game feels like a busywork full of empty promises.

- There is a lot of potential in Nemesis system. Had a situation when I was fighting an orc, he started running away and his blood brother showed up to protect him. I killed him. Get ambushed by the orc who I was chasing before and he wanted a revenge. Defeated him, but he ran away. After traveling to other location it turned out that he followed me and then I killed him. The only reason I was playing the game was a Nemesis system. Sadly the more I played the more orcs started to feel samey and less emergent the system proved to be. For example: There are mission orc are taking, but their outcomes are like having the orc gain a single level, which is not noticeable.
- Sometimes orcs have an immunity towards certain attacks, which I liked.
-Combat is horrendous. It's like in Arkham games, your character sticks to the enemy chosen by game which takes agency from the player and makes choosing targets difficult and frustrating. In many cases combat can be won by fast clicking both mouse buttons at the same time. Often the best way to play is to ignore what is happening on the screen and just react to button prompts. You can disable those propmts, but the game wasn't designed around it, few hours in you will fight so many orcs that it's impossible to keep track of all of them on screen. Sometimes you get killed by something of the edge of screen that you haven't even noticed. There is way too many QTE. Game throws many enemies at you, but they feel like a bother designed to waste your time rather than a fun challenge. I more often died from trying to run away from enemies than from trying to fight them seriously. You can fight from the mount but it's horrible experience as if someone made an experiment in how much mount combat can suck.
- Game loves putting filters on your screen. If you are close to death the whole screen becomes red and it's mega irritating. It's such a cheap way of creating tension. When you use your ghost abilities screen borders turn white, which is annoying.
- You can't skip inengine cutscenes, you always have to listen to orc drivel when you meet them, see the whole orc mindrape scene etc. This is very irritating.
- Level design is mediocre. All orc camps feel samey and traveling between them is a chore.
- Game manages to both break Tolkien lore and not feel like a Middle-Earth inspired work of fiction. It should just be a generic orc slayer game. The story is boring. Writers tried to turn Shelob into a hot spider babe, but they don't even know that hot spider babes have an upper body of a human and lower body of a spider. Devs don't understand the fetish content they themselves decided to force into the game. This is the illustration of the level on incompetence emblematic of the whole game.
- Main character is so dull I am forgetting about him right now.
- You don't have a control over your orcs during the siege.

Didn't they get patent for the nemesis system? I think it could work great with the game based on Highlander.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Didn't they get patent for the nemesis system?

Attempting to patent game design in USA is a waste of time as patents don't cover abstract ideas. Courts regularly throw them out. Same reason retroclones are completely legal as long as they don't copy the rules(copyright violation), but simply copy the rules using their own words.

Ubisoft already ripped it off for Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mercenary system, btw.

 

[Zombra]

Ubisoft already ripped it off for Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mercenary system, btw.

For the first time, I am interested in an Assassin's Creed game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Ubisoft already ripped it off for Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mercenary system, btw.

For the first time, I am interested in an Assassin's Creed game.

it's surprisingly not bad
take witcher 3 and smoosh it together with shadow of war

 

[Jarpie]

Didn't they get patent for the nemesis system?

Attempting to patent game design in USA is a waste of time as patents don't cover abstract ideas. Courts regularly throw them out. Same reason retroclones are completely legal as long as they don't copy the rules(copyright violation), but simply copy the rules using their own words.

Ubisoft already ripped it off for Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mercenary system, btw.

Came across this with quick search https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...s-patent-for-shadow-of-mordors-nemesis-system

Warner Bros finally secures patent for Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system
Publisher could maintain rights to series' signature mechanic until 2035

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment has been issued a patent for the Nemesis AI system found in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its secret.

IGN reports the US Patent and Trademark Office released an issue notice last week, although at the time of writing the notice appears to be offline.

According to IGN, the patent protects the "Nemesis characters, nemesis forts, social vendettas and followers in computer games."

This encompasses a hierarchy of procedurally-generated NPCs that interact with and remember the player's actions. The patent also covers changes to the NPCs' positions in the hierarchy, as well as their appearance and behaviour, again based on the actions of the player.

Finally, it includes the Social Conquest battles from the 2017 sequel Shadow of War, which allowed players to use these NPCs to defend their own strongholds and attack those of other players.

The patent will go into effect on February 23 and, providing they continue paying the fees, could be maintained until 2035.

Any developers who build game features that include all the above aspects, or enough to risk infringing on the patent, must purchase a license from Warner Bros.

However, studios are still able to create their own systems that are similar but have enough distinct aspects to stand out, such as the Mercenaries system seen in recent Assassin's Creed titles.

Warner Bros originally applied for this patent in 2015, but has been asked to revise and resubmit it several times.

This has been due to similarities with other patents, including ones held by Square Enix, online title Webkinz and mobile title QONQR.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Didn't they get patent for the nemesis system?

Attempting to patent game design in USA is a waste of time as patents don't cover abstract ideas. Courts regularly throw them out. Same reason retroclones are completely legal as long as they don't copy the rules(copyright violation), but simply copy the rules using their own words.

Ubisoft already ripped it off for Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mercenary system, btw.

Came across this with quick search https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...s-patent-for-shadow-of-mordors-nemesis-system

Warner Bros finally secures patent for Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system
Publisher could maintain rights to series' signature mechanic until 2035

Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment has been issued a patent for the Nemesis AI system found in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its secret.

IGN reports the US Patent and Trademark Office released an issue notice last week, although at the time of writing the notice appears to be offline.

According to IGN, the patent protects the "Nemesis characters, nemesis forts, social vendettas and followers in computer games."

This encompasses a hierarchy of procedurally-generated NPCs that interact with and remember the player's actions. The patent also covers changes to the NPCs' positions in the hierarchy, as well as their appearance and behaviour, again based on the actions of the player.

Finally, it includes the Social Conquest battles from the 2017 sequel Shadow of War, which allowed players to use these NPCs to defend their own strongholds and attack those of other players.

The patent will go into effect on February 23 and, providing they continue paying the fees, could be maintained until 2035.

Any developers who build game features that include all the above aspects, or enough to risk infringing on the patent, must purchase a license from Warner Bros.

However, studios are still able to create their own systems that are similar but have enough distinct aspects to stand out, such as the Mercenaries system seen in recent Assassin's Creed titles.

Warner Bros originally applied for this patent in 2015, but has been asked to revise and resubmit it several times.

This has been due to similarities with other patents, including ones held by Square Enix, online title Webkinz and mobile title QONQR.

not surprised the patent exists, wouldn't expect it to hold up.

if you're curious about what patent lawyers have to say, here's an article about it:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ba135c6b-a845-4233-a23b-4439d00b9dda
tl;dr: They most likely skirted around the Alice test due to the original date of patent application

patenting abstract ideas is attempting to use the patent system as an ad hoc copyright system

 

[Ezekiel]

Bought this for 5 dollars on CDKeys. Wanted to play it on my TV, but controller is way too awkward. Will play it with the mouse and keyboard like the first game seven years ago. You people told me I was autistic for playing Arkham with a mouse and keyboard. You're crazy. Having to leave the attack buttons/run to use the camera properly is ass. Controllers are so small, so dinky. The buttons so close together in your grasp. At least I can use much higher settings at 2560x1440 (my monitor) than 3840x2160.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Am I the only person who found Shadow of Mordor to be an extremely shallow and boring experience that offered almost nothing except a generic action RPG that could have worked in any fantasy setting?

Never even bothered playing more than a few hours, didn't bother picking up Shadow of War. It seems all the controversy surrounding pay to win solidified my choice to not buy and confirmed it to me as being a horrible fall from grace for a series that wasn't that good to begin with.

Seems like I am in the minority here.

not surprised the patent exists, wouldn't expect it to hold up.

if you're curious about what patent lawyers have to say, here's an article about it:
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ba135c6b-a845-4233-a23b-4439d00b9dda
tl;dr: They most likely skirted around the Alice test due to the original date of patent application

patenting abstract ideas is attempting to use the patent system as an ad hoc copyright system

This is why I will never purchase a WB product ever again. Patenting game mechanics is a HORRIBLE precedent, and it could start a veritable gold rush of companies patenting everything to the point where indie games can't even have grid inventories anymore, because that's owned by somebody.