The Middle-Earth Roleplaying (MERP) mod - The LOTR Total Conversion mod

[names_are_useless]

What is it?

Welcome to the Middle-Earth Roleplaying - There and Back Again (MERP) mod. This is a Total Conversion for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, based on the magnificent world of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings.


Who are we?

The MERP team is making an addition to Oblivion. That is, the world of Middle Earth! It will add all of Middle-Earth in it's entirety, obviously including such places as The Realms of: The Shire, Eriador, Rohan, Rhovanion, Gondor, Mordor, and many other locations!

Our team is made up of over 20 team members, dedicated to creating the world of Middle Earth!  And of course, we could always use more help!


Our Goal

Our goal as a team is to realize the world of J.R.R. Tolkien as closely as we can to his vision. We hold the lore to a very high standard and will generally not compromise the lore as often as we can. We do use the visual appearance of the films, but if there is a conflict then we usually take the books over the movies. We work very hard to bring a quality product that matches the same level, if not surpassing, the original Oblivion game. We want to make our work look as though professional game developers have created this, an open-world Middle Earth RPG like no other!

Currently, we have a completed heightmap of Middle Earth (over 7 times the size of Cyrodiil!) and mainly working on landscaping. We have also dstarted work on interiors, new playable races, new weapons and armor, and have started the epic script for our main questline, where the player can play the role of the Ringbearer!


Preview

Screenshots:


For more screenshots go HERE!

Videos:
- Rivendell
- The Shire - Part 1
- The Dead Marshes and Forochel
- Harlindon
- Trollshaws
- MERP Cinematic Trailer:
- Minas Tirith
- Fellbeast
- MERP Trailer Autumn 09
- Trailer: Middle Earth is open ...


Download the MERP BETA:

Our team has recently released an early BETA of our work! You can download it HERE or HERE!

A new public Beta of MERP will be released on January 15th!  News on this may be found HERE!


More Information:

To contact us, or see more of the MERP mod, you can go to:

Latest Bethesda Softworks Forum thread (main MERP discussion)
MERP Developer Forum (mainly for developer talk, but also a section for public viewing and posting)
MERP Moddb page
MERP Ning website (contains lots of MERP screenshots, videos, news, and other media)

Also feel free to take part in our Banner Contest!

We are looking for new mod developers to join the team (especially landscapers, modelers, scripters, and animators), so that Middle Earth can become a reality!  If you're interested, please fill out an application in our dev forums HERE!


Any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. are much appreciated.

[Igiss]

Looks nice!

What visual reference are you using? Movie/movie-based games style, or MMO game style, or something in-between? Or just something completely different and based on the books alone?

[names_are_useless]

Looks nice!

What visual reference are you using? Movie/movie-based games style, or MMO game style, or something in-between? Or just something completely different and based on the books alone?

Both!  We're using a lot of movie visuals, especially when it matches with the lore (when it doesn't, we usually go with the books then), but there is definitely plenty of Middle Earth where we only have the books to follow on (Mirkwood, Dale, Dol Guldur, etc.).  We'd like to have as many custom, new meshes as possible, but we're really limited on manpower.

The more people that could help out with the MERP mod, the closer we'll all see a complete, populated Middle Earth in all its majesty!

[pooshoe]

This is slightly insane..

[names_are_useless]

This is slightly insane..

All people who start total conversion mods need a little insanity.  But what is it that makes it so insane?  It's scope?  The fact that there hasn't actually been a completed total conversion mod for Oblivion?  I see a lot of single, really-talented Oblivion modders who create their own small Oblivion mods, but none of them generally do much by themselves.  They add a spell here or there, but for the most part, a single Oblivion mod won't change the content of the game itself (I believe Oblivion modders could achieve a lot more if they came together and worked on more group projects)!

MERP is different from the others however, and its why I joined this team: we are a serious team that's creating a new Middle Earth landscape that's about 7 times the size of Tamriel (want proof?  Middle Earth vs Tamriel), new playable races, new quests (a main questline is in the works that will let the player be the Ringbearer!), new factions, new spells, new classes ... everything!  We're creating the full Middle Earth experience, one that we hope would make even J.R.R. Tolkien himself proud!  The farther into development we go, the less we see of vanilla Oblivion!

So Oblivion modders, I plead with you: if you wish to see mod someday in its full glory, we need more modders lending a hand!  There are many things that we wish to do (like create new, unique monsters in Middle Earth) but we are without the people who have the skills required for certain complex tasks.  Even as much as an acknowledgment for our work helps keep us driven to continue this wonderful modification!

[pooshoe]

I'll help out if you need me, The only thing I would say I'm good at though would be creating the interior of a building, and possibly decorating the exterior. I would very much like to work on the shire if there is unfinished work there. If you would like my help please say so.
               Thank you.

[names_are_useless]

I'll help out if you need me, The only thing I would say I'm good at though would be creating the interior of a building, and possibly decorating the exterior. I would very much like to work on the shire if there is unfinished work there. If you would like my help please say so.
               Thank you.

We need decorators AND interiorists (we've got a few guys working on Bree interiors).  So both of those skills are welcomed to the team

As for the Shire, we have a guy who is still working on a Shire Hobbit Hole interior tileset.  When he's done with it, I'm sure that Shire homes will be open for the interiorists on the team to create

Please start a thread in our application forum, listing your skills and possibly any past work that show off those skills:
http://www.createforum.com/middleearthrole/viewforum.php?f=46&mforum=middleearthrole

[pooshoe]

Will do.

[Igiss]

Yeah, this may seem insane, but it's not "total conversion" concept that makes them unrealistic - it's the features and scope of the project. My concern would be the size of the land: it will take a very large team to "populate" this landmass with objects, NPCs and so on. Of course you can have fast travel (and fast horses), but what about traditional foot exploration?

Anyway, this indeed looks promising, and you already have much to showcase, which is a good thing indeed. While I never modded for Oblivion myself, and hardly planning to, I can try to help you by placing the piece of news on our main page. Which I just did

[names_are_useless]

Will do.

Ok then, I'll await your application

Yeah, this may seem insane, but it's not "total conversion" concept that makes them unrealistic - it's the features and scope of the project. My concern would be the size of the land: it will take a very large team to "populate" this landmass with objects, NPCs and so on. Of course you can have fast travel (and fast horses), but what about traditional foot exploration?

Anyway, this indeed looks promising, and you already have much to showcase, which is a good thing indeed. While I never modded for Oblivion myself, and hardly planning to, I can try to help you by placing the piece of news on our main page. Which I just did

Thank you for posting about our mod on your homepage.  More publicity definitely can't hurt!