The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King: Edain Mod Patch 4.2: nathla elvellon

Oh, hey, it's been like two months, right? I don't seem to write these blogs much recently, since school has me occupied and I've not had much to write these about, I guess. There's still two Barbie episodes that I've not yet written about and there's some other stuff too, but for now I feel like writing about a game, so I will while I feel like it.

I've recently come across a YouTube channel that uploaded a bunch of silly videos from a game I'd been playing before, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II, a Real-Time Strategy game based on the writings of Tolkien. Well and some stuff the developers made up and took from the movies.

YOU WERE NOT IN THE MOVIES
WHO ARE YOU

I do like the game itself, but compared to the first game it plays a lot more like a generic RTS game. While most RTS games allow you to freely build buildings all over the map to churn out units and generate resources and whatnot, the first game limited you to build plots in bases you could capture if you have enough resources and smaller camps, outposts and settlements, so the game was more about attaining control of the map and maintaining it than mindlessly plopping down buildings all over the place.

Good thing it's a PC game so mods exist! Mods really are wonderful things, they're mostly free and you can choose whichever one you want. Suddenly your male hero can become the Queen of Ferelden and marry a horse and wear a giant dildo on his head and if you're lucky it doesn't destroy your game. Some mods are larger than others, but a mod for LoTR:BFME II actually changes pretty much the whole game, not only reintroducing the build plot centered gameplay from the first game but also doing things like adding new factions (or rather splitting existing ones up and adding new content to them), new units, buildings, new everything! Wowzers, it amazed me, I wanted it!!

But of course it's not that simple. No, the mod was not for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II but for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King. Yes that is the name of the game and yes it has a record for longest video game name. Its acronym is LoTR:BFME II:RotWK.

Not even joking

I never actually got this expansion. From what I've read it adds a new campaign, a new faction and expands a bit on all other faction by adding some a few new units. It's perhaps worth a few euros. So what was the purchasing price? It's not actually sold in any stores anymore, so it's only available from places such as ebay. So what did it cost on ebay? About 50 euros. 50 euros for an expansion pack. Mind you that you need the original game to even play it, it doesn't come with The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II, you need to have that one installed. That's quite pricey.

After putting in some time and effort I managed to get the expansion pack running on my PC, only to then immediately patch and mod it beyond any semblance of its old form. The Witch-King's faction isn't even in the game yet. Sorry Witch-King, maybe in version 4.3? Well, after they add back the GOBLIN FACTION of course. Yes, there's going to be a faction with Goblins. And they're called "Aardmannen", which is earth men in Dutch. How can anyone take that word seriously? Though at least they didn't use the diminutive of it. How cute would that be. :3

Anyway, the mod is called Edain which I think refers to humans in the First Era who were friends to the Elves? Personally I'd rather be friends with a Goblin. Or a Hobbit. Elves would probably just bother you about how eating meat is bad for you and bother you with their flutes and their songstresses. Bah, stupid elves.

They even scribbled Elvish over the logo! Know what it says?
I don't.

Still, after I finally managed to get the game to work and the mod to run properly, I've been playing it daily, and having a lot of fun. I guess if there's anything to take from this blog then it's that mods are amazing, long titles are silly and that if you like The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King but like The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth more then The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King: Edain Mod Patch 4.2: nathla elvellon is for you!! Or LoTR:BFME II:RotWK:EM 4.2

Seriously, who decided to name a game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King? And in the game itself there's even a trademark or two in there too so it's even longer.