what? that is just completely untrue. using middle-earth in any way, even for a fan-made mod(which MEMod was) technically requires a license from the tolkien enterprise(not EA. EA just got the license to make games based off he movies. they later also got the license to make games off the books).

but because there's usually little harm in fanmade stuf they dont normally interfere. they could technically put a stop to even things like fan art and fanfics about middle earth. they dont because theres no point.

dont think that because you're not making any money they cant put an end to the project. i doubt they'd go as far as taking it to court because that sort of thing is very expensive. usually they just send a cease-and-desist letter telling you to stop.

what's more, they MEMod team made it very clear they werent sued, or threatened with legal action, by anyone. according to them they stopped because they were afraid they might(though it seems obvious to me they just lost interest or leadership - or both).

are you saying it was the people from bethesda who were working on the middle earth mod? ha!

so lets see.
it is legal to make a mod in which you use middle earth stuff - not true
It was the Morrowind team itself that were making the middle-earth mod - not true
they were sued by EA - not true

This post has been edited by moomoo: Dec 14 2005, 04:40 PM

I once playtested a Middle Earth (pen-n-paper) tournament scenario set in ME during the events written up in LotR.

We were playing two hobbits who came across an account that led them to believe that there was wild pipeweed growing on the eastern slopes of Weathertop. Having recently been stiffed in the purchase of a pipeweed farm in the southfarthing which turned out to be blighted, we went to Bree, hired some help (the other PCs) and headed off with wagons to harvest the weed and try to make a quick profit.

We'd just finished harvesting the stuff when that nice firework-maker Gandalf came along the road. He seemed rather upset with us being so far from the shire, and told us to abandon our wagon of pipeweed and go cross-country without using the road to (some town north of Bree), because it was dangerous for hobbits to be seen travelling in this part of the world at the moment.

Then he thought again and asked us if we'd take this rather nice ring with a red stone with us when we went cross-country, and to bury it somewhere to the north before going to the town. We agreed.

When we stopped for the night, we saw some sort of lightning storm during the night back south at Weathertop. It was rather odd, since the weather was clear where we were.

We then spent a few days fleeing across country being hunted down by four Nazgul and killed. That's why there were only five Nazgul at Weathertop when Aragorn and co. got there.

It was cool. Fun to play around the edges of a well-known story. We also enjoyed outselves trying to "unwittingly" bring as much grief down on ourselves as possible (by chosing to go under the pseudonym of "Baggins" when in Bree, for instance )

kinda like The Third Age, only fun?

Suggestion...
Let yourself choose what path you wish to take, ranging from a soldier for gondor, rohan. Be a member of the fellowship, if you want. Work for isengard or mordor. Or be a freelancer. Would be extremely huge if you worked all that into it. But it would be pure awesome!

I would help if I really had many skills to offer. Most I would be able to offer is webspace. I dont know how much yet, but my brother is lending me a nice amount of webspace soon. Somewhere in the 1 GB range. It could start as a site for the mod. I dont know about when it is released though. Cause if the mod makes it to being released, it will be very huge.

I might not be able to lend it to you though. Depends on what happens. If the mod gets on its feet then I'll see what I can do.

While moomoo's last post in this thread seems a bit hostile, as far as mood of writing goes, I concur with everything he said about legalities. He is definitely correct within the laws of the U.S. I am not so familiar with international and each nations laws on intellectual property but it tends to run along the same lines as what moomoo stated, so even though moomoo's name is funny, his message is serious.

This has been unusually entertaining for me, considering it's legalities anyway.

I like this idea, I'm sorry i don't know so very much about moding. But i'll help as much as i can