Shadow of Mordor deserves more attention. Come in and be hyped with me.

matrixman92 said:
wow...those first couple of comments are cringeworthy. People just saying how the game sucks and they will pirate it
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Thank God it's being moderated. There was a novel-length comment about how they were defiling the lore that's been deleted.

Edit: That guy's persistent. Keeps posting a wall of text, presumably thinks they'd respond?
 
Lotta questions about the PC port already. Thanks RPS! I do think that's a legit area of concern tho. Also lol at the short novel "question" taking them to task for the whole wraith aspect of the main character. I can almost hear them pushing the spectacles up on their nose.
 
Interesting response to my question about the Nemesis system:

Remachinate said:
So far we've mostly seen gameplay from the section of the game in which you have to defeat the 5 warchiefs and install replacements under your control to form your own army. It's a great showcase of the Nemesis system, but I'm curious how the mechanics apply to the other sections of the game. Once you're ready to lead your army, do these systems continue to play a role in identifying, targeting, and manipulating Orcs in later legs of the game?
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Monolith-dePlater said:
Yes, once you've dominated a set of Warchiefs, levelled them up, given them Bodyguards you can take this force into the final missions of the game against the Black Captains. You can then continue to play in the Sandbox after the Story has finished. And you can play the Challenge Modes.
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Seems like the Nemesis system is mostly the middle of the game, before diving into a more linear, story-driven segment.

Edit: A worthwhile followup:

Pugway said:
Approximately how long will this take (branding all the warchiefs) in many of the demos you have shown you are able to brand one or two in about an hour.
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Monolith-dePlater said:
It varies quite a lot depending on how you approach it. The Demos we've shown are quite a bit faster than average because we tend to lock the difficulty to easy to make sure we can get through the game and show as much as possible in a short time. But one or two an hour is a good average.
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They must have held back a lot of the game if the Nemesis system is only featured in about 2.5-5 hours of gameplay.
 
So there are three zones. That's what I was thinking but was kind of hoping there would be more. Still, that's not a huge deal if there is a lot to do in the areas.
 
Remachinate said:
They must have held back a lot of the game if the Nemesis system is only featured in about 2.5-5 hours of gameplay.
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I think he means the "brand all 5 warchiefs" mission will take that time. I'm pretty sure the Nemesis system is present at nearly all points in the game. There will always be captains and warchiefs to kill or dominate while playing through the game but when it comes time to dominate all the warchiefs it will take you 5ish hours.
 
Anyone jumping on the season pass pre-order? The Steam deal is pretty nice, but I can't get it since I bought my game from GMG x.x.
 
Brian Griffin said:
I think he means the "brand all 5 warchiefs" mission will take that time. I'm pretty sure the Nemesis system is present at nearly all points in the game. There will always be captains and warchiefs to kill or dominate while playing through the game but when it comes time to dominate all the warchiefs it will take you 5ish hours.
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I took his point that after you brand all 5 warchiefs, you can still mess around with Orcs, but in terms of the main story, it doesn't seem that you're required to deal with the Orc hierarchies after that one overarching mission.
 
VanWinkle said:
So there are three zones. That's what I was thinking but was kind of hoping there would be more. Still, that's not a huge deal if there is a lot to do in the areas.
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Lake Núrnen and Udûn valley have been revealed as regions, so is third one the Plateau of Gorgoroth? Seems to make the most sense, as it's between the other two and contains Mount Doom and the Dark Tower.

Shelob's Lair seems and Cirith Ungol seem less likely.
 
BrassDragon said:
Lake Núrnen and Udûn valley have been revealed as regions, so is third one the Plateau of Gorgoroth? Seems to make the most sense, as it's between the other two and contains Mount Doom and the Dark Tower.

Shelobs Lair seems and Cirith Ungol seem less likely.
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They said they also have some additional story locations, which are probably just small linear areas crucial to the story, but I'm not sure.
 
I'm going to wait for reviews on this one. It looks like it may have some interesting ideas, but so much of it looks completely recycled from other games (the bad parts), and the ring under the enemy you're focusing on looks like a janky RTS or MOBA element.
 
Sanctuary said:
I'm going to wait for reviews on this one. It looks like it may have some interesting ideas, but so much of it looks completely recycled from other games (the bad parts), and the ring under the enemy you're focusing on looks like a janky RTS or MOBA element.
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I believe they've said previously in a live demo that you can turn off the counter prompts and other UI elements that break immersion in that regard. Not sure what you think is recycled, the Nemesis system looks crazy innovative.
 
Sanctuary said:
I'm going to wait for reviews on this one. It looks like it may have some interesting ideas, but so much of it looks completely recycled from other games (the bad parts), and the ring under the enemy you're focusing on looks like a janky RTS or MOBA element.
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I don't get where your coming from there. If anything it feels like they've taken the best parts of those games, AC's traversing and B:A's fighting mechanics, and left all the useless bullshit of those games behind. Plus the nemesis system is something completely knew and unheard of and seems like it's going to make boss fights exciting again. Add on top of that an open world set in the LOTR universe and call me fucking excited!
 
AMA Info:


There are 3 zones in the game including the Sea of Nurn, Udun and an area not revealed

2 "main zones" and other story areas.

Main zones have loads of caves and strongholds

Each zone has its own nemesis system

Caves have much verticality and exploration

Up to around 60 enemies on screen at any one time, will be huge battles in Celebrimbor DLC

You take your army strength into the black captain missions

PC Stream tomorrow at 3pm pdt on Nvidia

Streams have been set at easy. Should take about an hour to take down a war chief
More skins to be announced. Hints at more Celebrimbor skins.

Side quests include saving slaves, weapon quests, lore quests, hunting, survival, and power struggles.

Game enemies can be very challenging. Especially in nemesis groups. Especially in challenge modes.

Difficulty can be player controlled - attack enemies head on, send death threats, intentionally increase power

Much deep lore in the game, artifacts have lore entries

Can't ride flying creatures. Fell beasts haven't been bred big enough yet. Hint?

After playing for hundreds of hours they still discover new combinations of characters
No Mumakil :(

Early game you hunt nemesis enemies to draw out black captains, late game you build army

30+ hours on average playing the game

First DLC "Lord of the Beasts" will introduce epic new monsters

Can continue to play sandbox and play with nemesis system after the story is over

Ratbag was generated through the nemesis system but promoted to a story character
 
Brian Griffin said:
I believe they've said previously in a live demo that you can turn off the counter prompts and other UI elements that break immersion in that regard. Not sure what you think is recycled, the Nemesis system looks crazy innovative.
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The elements aside from the Nemesis system. That's the only thing so far that looks rather innovative, but to the point in which that's the primary focus, and so the rest of the gameplay is going to end up being "been there, done that".

Inceptional said:
I don't get where your coming from there. If anything it feels like they've taken the best parts of those games, AC's traversing and B:A's fighting mechanics, and left all the useless bullshit of those games behind. Plus the nemesis system is something completely knew and unheard of and seems like it's going to make boss fights exciting again. Add on top of that an open world set in the LOTR universe and call me fucking excited!
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The combat looks mind-numbingly dull. I'm a fan of the Batman games as much as the next person, but this looks like a serverly weak version of that. Plus, borrowing from Assassin's Creed is almost never a good thing either. Who knows though, maybe they are playing on the most casual difficulty?

Plus, what's up with the geometry? Everything is so "cubed" and basic looking. The textures might be decent, but the polygons look way off.

edit: characters look fine, I was talking about terrain and buildings.
 
Sanctuary said:
The elements aside from the Nemesis system. That's the only thing so far that looks rather innovative, but to the point in which that's the primary focus, and so the rest of the gameplay is going to end up being "been there, done that".
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If you are limiting your gaming experiences to games which provide only totally new systems and experiences, well, you can't have bought much of anything this year. Or the year before. Or the year before.
 
Sanctuary said:
The elements aside from the Nemesis system. That's the only thing so far that looks rather innovative, but to the point in which that's the primary focus, and so the rest of the gameplay is going to end up being "been there, done that".



The combat looks mind-numbingly dull. I'm a fan of the Batman games as much as the next person, but this looks like a serverly weak version of that. Plus, borrowing from Assassin's Creed is almost never a good thing either. Who knows though, maybe they are playing on the most casual difficulty?

Plus, what's up with the geometry? Everything is so "cubed" and basic looking. The textures might be decent, but the polygons look way off.
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They just said this is true in the AMA I assume so they could show more of the game and not risk dying all the time. They are also devs who have long mastered the combat system and make it look incredibly easy (although I have seen them die pretty easily during some of the demos).
 
modest-genius said:
AMA Info:
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I've already pre-ordered the game but still...


anigif_enhanced-buzz-10076-1390652560-14.gif


take it all pls
 
New interview at PC Gamer.

PCG: Given the time period in Shadow of Mordor will we see diversity in the world's environment? Can you describe the different environments?

Phil: There is a nice diversity of environments. There are obviously many inspirations - the lore and the films - but another thing we talked about a lot was thinking about this as a wild frontier and thinking about what a place like Udûn or the Sea of Nurnen would look like without the influence of Sauron. What does all that look like when nature has had a chance to return?

We did some early concept paintings where foliage had come back into the Udûn area. Udûn still does have a dark overtone to it, it definitely feels like Mordor, but we also contrast that with a place like the Sea of Nurnen which has a lot more foliage, it’s a lot greener, it’s along a sea, it has big bluffs. To some extent it’s kinda beautiful, and I think that in itself is a bit of a surprise from a player’s standpoint, in terms of what they might expect from Mordor.

Weather was also a big thing to us, how we present the presence of Sauron and how we present the passage of time, and the narrative and the tone that we wanted to communicate relative to the gameplay and the story. We have another location which is very sandy, sandstorms happen and that obviously changes the presentation of the world as well.

Michael: Day and night are meaningful as well. [Depending on the time] creatures come out, the population behaves differently, the ambiance is very different.
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Watched multiple gameplay videos of this, seems cool, but it also looks like it will get repetitive. Go to area > mark targets > kill/control warchiefs > rinse and repeat. The combat looks cool though.
 
I see a lot of concern about the depth of this game's various systems, namely the Nemesis/Rune system. I think a reminder that Snowblind Studios, the guys who made the first Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath, were absorbed into Monolith following LotR: War in the North.

They've got serious action RPG credibility in-house. They aren't rookies at in-depth loot/leveling systems. This is a combined team full of solid entries in their collective resumes.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but this has serious potential to be our next Rocksteady + Batman: Arkham break out.
 
The side quests:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/shadow-of-mordor-interview/
PCG: Given that it’s an open world game I’m assuming there will be side missions, does the Nemesis system influence those also?

Michael: The Nemesis system, as well as generating unique enemies, also continually generates various side missions. So we have things called Showdown missions which is when you face off against the war chiefs, who are powerful orcs who’ve risen to the top [in order to] command the different strongholds and so on.

We also have constantly created side missions called Power Struggles, where orcs compete against each other to rise up within their society. These can be executions, duels, or they’re off on hunts or getting drunks at feasts. We also have vendettas which are social missions, where if you get killed a side mission is dynamically created in your friend’s game, where he or she can go in and avenge you.

On top of that we have all the other type of missions, such as hunting and survival challenges, exploration missions, discovering artefacts and more. You'll also be rescuing the slaves. An interesting thing about Mordor during the time of the game is that the humans living there are now cornered and trapped by the return of Sauron and the rising up of his forces. Saving them earns you rewards such as intel and so on. Weapons also have their own side quests, which involves building the legend of each one of your weapons: the sword, dagger and bow.
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Sounds like a good mix.
 
LurkerPrime said:
Aha, this must be what I was thinking of. Thanks.

It's nice to be sane.


What do you mean? It's one of the core gameplay systems. Undermine an army, and then use that same army against itself.

At least, that's how I understand things.
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Ok, 'cause people are saying they did not show any story missions, but the nemesis thing is the main part of the game, so I don't know how all of that is structured but anyway, will wait for reviews.
 
De_Legend said:
Ok, 'cause people are saying they did not show any story missions, but the nemesis thing is the main part of the game, so I don't know how all of that is structured but anyway, will wait for reviews.
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It's not the main part of the game, it's just one of the core gameplay mechanics. But you have the nemesis related missions (along with missions that can dynamically come to be just by messing with the nemesis system), story missions, exploration missions, etc. It's not all centered around the Nemesis system.
 
VanWinkle said:
It's not the main part of the game, it's just one of the core gameplay mechanics. But you have the nemesis related missions (along with missions that can dynamically come to be just by messing with the nemesis system), story missions, exploration missions, etc. It's not all centered around the Nemesis system.
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Nice, thanks!
 
DualShadow said:
Sounds like a lot of the side missions are generated by the Nemesis system, as well as additional side quests they've made themselves?
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I've taken it to mean there's a handful of generic missions that are populated based on the Nemesis system. Like, Minion X attempting to confront Overlord Y at Fortress Z (difficulty factor x vs y). So, not that mindblowing but still neat.

Hopefully it doesn't make the story missions seem like drudgery.
 
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