"In the final analysis, publishing the game as it had been developed would have been an insult to Tolkien’s world."

Many of you are wondering "what did the Middle-earth dev team do wrong?".

Here's the inside scoop on their biggest blunders!

Crappy Art

First off the game just looked bad! Despite warnings from art team members, Veteran Art Director Jon Bock insisted that the game would look best with a minimal approach similar to South Park or maybe Mr. Bill, and the look of the game suffered accordingly as the following screen shot reveals all too painfully. When asked; "Don't you think the game should be rendered in 3D?" Bock was quoted as responding; "Why would anybody want to wear those stupid glasses when they were playing a game anyway?"

(actual screen shot)

Inter-Team Conflict

Fights on the Middle-earth team were common and ugly. Steve was opinionated and bossy, Daniel was a pompous know-it-all. Janus just wouldn't shut up. Jon was anal retentive. Steve poisoned Janus' coffee, and Janus put ex-lax in Steve's coke. Daniel and Jon had several fist fights over the "elven pointy ears" issue, leaving Daniel with a bad knee, and Jon with a harelip. The artists hated the programmers, and the programmers hated the artists. A dysfunctional team like this just had to be let go before some-one was badly hurt.

Bad Design

The ugly truth is that the design team had some radical ideas that were not in line with management's vision of the game. The following excerpts from the design document explain some of these features, and as you can see, they were just too risky to implement.

Permanent Death

"...upon the death of a player character a customer support representative will go to the home of the player and kill them. This rule insures that players will be more careful during gameplay, and the game experience will be far more realistic."

Character Psychology

"...Due to the intensely realistic gameplay of Middle-earth, players will be assigned a psychiatrist for psychoanalysis at the end of each gaming session. This will insure that players will be able to function normally in society after such an intense virtual experience."

Character Binding

"...upon entering the game newbies will be tied up and beaten into submission by veteran players frustrated by the permanent death rules. Eventually they will be released but only after paying their first 3 months of subscription fees."

Non-spell casting humans

"...The design team recognizes that magic IS NOT REAL, and therefore will not be represented in the game. Players will be able to perform card tricks and slight of hand, light off stink bombs, etc. but under no circumstances will we endorse any of that pansy spell casting hoo hoo in the game."
Realistic hobbit strength

"...Hobbits are a bunch of wimps and we know it. Hobbits in the game will hardly be worth playing due to their diminutive size, weakness, and lazy attitude, but we will put them in anyway because they are in the books. They should be easy to kill and that will be good for a laugh."
Elf population limitations

"...elves breed like rabbits and we just can't have that. Everybody wants to be an elf because they are good looking and live forever. To counteract this we intend to implement a system of involuntary sterilization to all elven characters in their first month of play."

As you can see these design ideas are way out of line, and the team could not be allowed to go on. The next development team will be watched more carefully to insure embarrassing ideas like these are quickly squelched.

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disclaimer: This page is a work of fiction no way based on actual events or anything even vaguely related to historical fact.  References to any actual persons alive or dead is purely a coincidence, really!.