August 10, 2001 - August 25, 2001

8/25/01 - Latest News

InQuest Gamer Magazine September Issue Scoop
Tookish @ 2:40 pm EST

InQuest Gamer sent us an inside heads-up on what to expect for the next issue:

There’s all kinds of hobbit-brand fun in the upcoming issues of InQuest Gamer.

While we’ve been closely following the development of the films since their inception in our “Ringwatch” column, we shift into high gear starting with issue #79, on stands Wednesday, September 5th. It begins our countdown to the “Fellowship of the Ring” film with an interview with Gandalf himself, Ian McKellen, where he talks with us about the influences on how he played the wizard and events on the set. Also featured are some of the best—and hardest to find—“Lord of the Rings” games of all time. And Drew Carey as Saruman? Casting choices we’re glad they didn’t make.

In the coming months, look for InQuest to deluge fans with coverage of all the new “Lord of the Rings” games hitting the scene—from Games Workshop’s Miniatures Battle Game to Decipher’s collectible card game and roleplaying game to Fantasy Flight’s Lord of the Ring and Hobbit boardgames to Sierra On-Line’s massively multiplayer online game set in Middle-earth.

Don’t miss an issue. These next few years as the movies roll out are going to be the best of any Ring-lover’s life, and InQuest Gamer will be sure to cover it all.

Thanks Brent!

8/23/01 - Latest News

DECIPHER TO BRING NEW LINE CINEMA¹S OTHE LORD OF THE RINGS¹ TO LIFE FOR TRADING CARD GAME PLAYERS & COLLECTORS
Xoanon @ 12:21 pm EST

DECIPHER TO BRING NEW LINE CINEMA¹S OTHE LORD OF THE RINGS¹ TO LIFE FOR TRADING CARD GAME PLAYERS & COLLECTORS

(NORFOLK, Va., August 23, 2001) Decipher announces plans today for its captivating trading card game based on the epic adventure trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Designed to transport players to "Middle-earth," The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game will give them the power to direct the quest undertaken by the characters that comprise The Fellowship of the Ring.

The retail street date for The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game has been set for Tuesday, November 6, 2001. The English language release will be international, with plans for the game to be available in five additional languages: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.

The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game will be available in the following configurations: (1) 63-card Starter Decks. Starter Decks will come in two versions, each focusing on different characters (one set contains Gandalf and Moria orcs, the other contains Aragorn and Uruk-hai warriors); (2) Deluxe Starter Sets, featuring playing stones, a collector storage box, a 63-card deck (contains Hobbits and Ringwraiths), and other premium items; and (3) 11-card booster packs.

The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game is a fast-paced, strategy game that focuses on the Fellowship's desperate quest to get the One Ring to Mordor. Players control the forces of Sauron and the brave members of the Fellowship as they try to advance their parties though the realm of Middle-earth and to thwart the advances of their opponent's Ring-bearer. There are three ways to win the game: (1) Successfully and safely get the Ring-bearers to the end of the adventure path; (2) Kill the opponent's Ring-bearer; or (3) Corrupt the opponent's Ring-bearer. The transition to multiplayer is easy as opponents mount up their minions to try and stop each other. While the risk is greater, so is the potential for reward as each player has the opportunity to move down the adventure path more quickly!

Decipher will continue to expand The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game well into the future, with a long-term license covering all three New Line Cinema movies (the second and third films The Two Towers and Return of the King are scheduled to launch in December 2002 and 2003 respectively.) Decipher plans to introduce three expansion sets per year.

Approximately 500 Decipher Product Champions will help launch The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. These volunteers will form the street team of players, tournament directors, and fans who perform in-store demos, arcade demos, and theater promotions, as well as provide convention and tournament support. In return, they receive free product and will be privy to confidential information about the game months before its release. In addition, Decipher will give these product champions other premium The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game items not available to the public.

The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game tournaments and in-store Leagues will begin shortly after the product release in November. The first, officially-sanctioned The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game Tournament will be held at DecipherCon 2001, November 15-18 in Virginia Beach, Va. For more information about DecipherCon, check out Decipher¹s Web site at www.decipher.com.

Following this inaugural event, two-player and multiplayer tournaments will be held in locations throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Leagues designed to develop a sense of community around the Trading Card Game will take place in stores and other locations around the world. Leagues promote gameplay, while also encouraging participants to become involved with the storyline and property.

A special area on decipher.com is being developed and will offer "inside" information on the development of the game, a first look at the cards and game rules, as well as serve as the Internet community for discussion among fans and players alike.

Decipher also has the rights to The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game and plans to launch the Introductory Adventure Game in December and roleplaying game in February 2002.

For more information about New Line Cinema¹s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, go to www.lordoftherings.net

About Decipher.

Founded in 1983, Decipher Inc. is a worldwide leader in the collectible card game industry. Decipher is dedicated to The Art of Great Games®. The company's product lines include the Star Trek Customizable Card Game, Star Wars Customizable Card Game, Young Jedi Collectible Card Game, Jedi Knights Trading Card Game, and The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game < scheduled to release holiday 2001. Decipher¹s new Roleplaying Games and Miniatures Studio is responsible for the creation of the all-new Star Trek Roleplaying Game and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Games set to launch this year. In addition, Decipher's Games Studio produces leading party, card and board games such as How To Host A Murder®, How To Host A Teen Mystery, Boy Crazy!, Girl Power!, Pente, Scratchees and more. In 2001, Decipher acquired the staff and assets of FANtastic media, becoming the operator of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. Visit www.decipher.com for additional product and tournament information, news, contests, and interactive features.

About New Line Cinema.

Founded in 1967, New Line Cinema is the entertainment industry¹s leading independent producer and distributor of theatrical motion pictures. New Line licenses its films to ancillary markets including cable and broadcast television as well as to international venues. The company, which is a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc., operates several divisions including in-house theatrical distribution, marketing, home video, television, acquisitions, production, licensing and merchandising units. More information about New Line Cinema can be obtained at www.newline.com.

The Lord of the Rings
Trading Card Game

Release Schedule for the First Nine Expansion Sets:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring - November 2001
2. Mines of Moria - -March 2002
3. Realms of the Elf-Lords - July 2002
4. The Two Towers - November 2002
5. Battle of Helm¹s Deep - March 2003
6. Ents of Fangorn - July 2003
7. The Return of the King - November 2003
8. Siege of Gondor - March 2004
9. Mount Doom - July 2004

DragonCon
DarthCaeser @ 3:37 am EST

As you probably know, a fairly large chunk of TheOneRing.net's staff will be attending this years DragonCon. I'll be there scouring the convention for any LOTR gaming news I can get my hands on. On that note, I've set up meetings with representatives from Decipher and Games Workshop. I'd like to give you, the fans, the chance to have your questions about Decipher and Games Workshop's new LOTR games answered. So, if you have questions you want me to ask on your behalf, post them in a reply to my DragonCon post on the Gaming Board, or e-mail them to me. Check back after the convention for transcripts of the Q&A's.

8/22/01 - Latest News

"What did the Middle-earth dev team do wrong?"
DarthCaeser @ 4:53 pm EST

An explanation as to why the original Dev team was fired, including an actual screen shot ;) "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..." [More]

8/20/01 - Latest News

Report on Decipher's showing at GenCon
DarthCaeser @ 5:33 pm EST

Tish sent in this awesome report on Decipher's showing at GenCon. I'll have scans of the various items Tish sent in (Thanks Tish! :) as soon as they arrive. Now, for the report:

"I attended Gen Con in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 2-5. This was my fourth Gen Con. I usually spend most of my time at the Star Wars-related events. This year, I was looking hard for anything LOTR-related.

While I've done some role-playing gaming over the years, and have written some gaming material, I'm not very familiar with the game card systems. So, this report of Decipher's LOTR Collectible Card Game (CCG) does contain some gaps. I did attend the Decipher LOTR event with people who do play Decipher CCG and they were impressed with what they saw, even if skeptical as to Decipher's ambitious release schedule.

On Friday, August 3, Decipher invited Con attendees to a "Sneak Preview of THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trading Card Game and Introductory Adventure Game." I've sent you this invitation by snail mail. It promises a sneak look at the game: "You will get to see cards and game mechanics, talk to the designers, and hear plans for League and Tournament programs as well as release schedules." Only bearers of this special invitation were entitled to attend and even then, only the first 300 would be admitted.

I was thrilled when one of the Decipher author guests gave me his card, for I thought I'd snagged something pretty darn special. As it turned out, anyone could get the admission cards. In typical Gen Con organization, the room couldn't fit the people wanting to attend. I was number 151 in line, and it was standing room only by the time I got in there.

The presentation involved commentary/explanation, a slide presentation, a brief Question and Answer with the Decipher designers, announcement of special door prizes, and then showing of the second movie trailer ("Legend tells of a Ring..").

Mark Tuttle, a radio host and Decipher exec made the presentation. He abused the gamers for carrying these giant 64 ounce plastic bottles of Mountain Dew around. Scary.

Tuttle said that they were announcing the release of the LOTR Trading Card Game and the LOTR roleplaying game. The CCG will be released on November 6, 2001 and the RPG in December 2001. The Decipher license covers all underlying property, including the Hobbit and the Silmarillion. The license goes to 2006, with the option renew the New Line contract for an additional 5 years. The license covers roleplaying games, miniatures studio, and the trading cards.

Decipher plans to release the trading cards with a 50-card starter deck and then new cards ever 4 months. The release schedule is as follows:

Fellowship of the Ring -- November 6, 2001
Mines of Moria -- March 2002
Realms of the Elf-Lords July 2002
The Two Towers -- November 2002
Battle of Helm's Deep -- March 2003
Ents of Fangorn -- July 2003
The Return of the King -- November 2003
Siege of Gondor -- March 2004
Mount Doom -- July 2004

There will also be deluxe starter sets that include playing stones. There will also be 11 card booster packs.

The game can be played with 2 players or in multi-play. Retail packs will include training and play for up to 20 players. There will be in store and arcade demos.

The cards will be in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German. It will be possible to buy the foreign language decks in the U.S.

In play, you can win by: advancing your Ring Bearer to complete his quest; or by corrupting or killing your opponent's Ring Bearer. During the Q&A, the designers said the game design is intended to be very simple, so that it can be learned in 15 minutes and that play would last approximately 60 minutes. It will be very similar to Magic.

I believe they said that you would be able to play with the starter deck; all you have to do is shuffle and start playing.

On a slide show, Tuttle previewed some cards. They were lovely, bearing film images us spoiler hounds have already seen on the Internet. The bottom of the cards contains text from the books. Other parts of the card (I think) contain icons signifying culture and race, while other symbols are included to improve the mechanics of the game. Cards shown included: Frodo, Hobbit Stealth, Gimli, Gimli's axe, Aragorn, Goblin Sneak, and Arwen.

There are plans for auxiliary products, including foil cards that will "occupy common spots." (I'm not sure quite what that meant). There will be a maximum of three copies of any card in a deck. (I think that's what he said).

As for the RPG, the beginner adventure game will be in the form of a 32-page adventure booklet. There will also be a 300 page hardcover book for advanced play. The RPG will use a simple system and 6 sided dice. It will be possible to chose the age in which you play, but the core time period is post Hobbit and pre LOTR.

The Decipher Gameboard shop is doing the miniatures.

After the Q&A, Tuttle announced that minions of the Dark Lord had been in the room and planted their tokens underneath nine seats. We all upended our seats; one lucky man in my group was a winner. The nine winners will receive all LOTR products Decipher makes, for life. It's likely to be a gift with a total value of over $1,000.

As we exited, we received a sample, promotional card. I'm sending one by snail mail. It has Gandalf on the front and an Orc on the back with promotional information. There are game icons in the corners and lower left side of the card. I also snagged a badge. It has galloping Black Riders at the Fords on the top and on the bottom, a picture of the trudging Fellowship, complete with Bill. The badge is also coming by snail mail.

That is all my notes allow me to... "decipher." Overall, the product looks lovely and experienced CCG players were very excited about it."

Decipher Interview at ME Vault
DarthCaeser @ 4:02 pm EST

The Middle-Earth Vault at IGN has posted an interview with Steven Long from Decipher:

"[ME Vault:] How close to completion is the game, how long has production been going on?

Steve: Because most of the RPG Studio has been busy with our new Star Trek RPG games, production has only been going on for about the past two months, off and on, and the only person working on it so far has been me. (However, two of our designers, Matt Colville and Ken Hite, have been working on our LOTR Adventure Game, a boxed game containing a highly simplified version of the RPG, to be released in November.) So far I have written about 40% of the core rulebook, including most of the character creation rules. Soon we'll be ramping up to full-scale production, bringing in the other writers and getting everything completed quickly so that Christian Moore and I can begin the development process." [More]

Thanks to Malachi for sending this in:

"This might be a bit of a stretch, but I really don't think so. Ever since Warcraft was released I thought there was some interesting coincidences in a game about Orcs vs. Humans. Well Warcraft 3 is getting closer to release, and after watching the LOTR game trailer the other day, I went to their site to watch the Warcraft 3 trailer. Maybe I am just obsessed with LOTR :) but it really made me think of the movies. They have characters called Mountain Kings or "Thanes". Sound like Thrain King under the Mountain to you? Some of their shots show a helm, I am sure we have seen in LOTR shots. Like I said maybe I am reaching, but they certainly remind me of each other. If nothing else, watch the trailer it will give you goosebumps."

Battle of the Five Armies
DarthCaeser @ 3:15 am EST

Endobai sent in info on a Tolkien inspired map for the board game Diplomacy:

"Many people in the gaming community would consider Diplomacy the grand-daddy of strategy games. To the uninitiated it looks a little like the board-game Risk but to those who play that is like comparing Chess to Checkers. Surprisingly simple rules, with infinite possibilities and, best of all, no dice. Nothing left to chance.

It was interesting, then, while perusing a Diplomacy variants site that I stumbled onto this map for the game. It should require no introduction." [More]

Gollum skin for Unreal Tournament
DarthCaeser @ 3:07 am EST

Thanks to Robert for sending this in:

"My favorite character is Gollum and he's sort of the reason I'm writing. There is a "skin" of Gollum for the PC game Unreal Tournament. You can find it at http://www.planetunreal.com/skincity/. He is on page 9 of the Models/Converted page."

8/17/01 - Latest News

Sierra Posts LOTR Game Trailer
Xoanon @ 7:34 pm EST

IGN FINALLY posted Sierra's amazing LOTR game teaser on it's site. It has been posted before, but they've finally gotten some sense and done away with the annoying registering and pop ups ads that make you want to punch your monitor, good show IGN!! [More]

Sierra On-Line to lay off 245
DarthCaeser @ 3:40 pm EST

The South County Journal reports that Sierra is laying off 245 employees.

"Sierra On-Line, the Bellevue-based maker of computer games, announced plans to lay off 245 workers, including 148 at its Bellevue offices. Sierra, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Publishing, also will close its Dynamix unit in Eugene, Ore. Twenty workers will be transferred to Vivendi's headquarters in Los Angeles."

I also discovered that Sierra is no longer handling the LOTR license. From Adam Kahn at Sierra: "All management for Lord of the Rings products has moved to Universal Interactive (our sister company)."

I e-mailed the PR contact at Universal I was told to get in touch with about all this but I have not yet received a reply. [More]

More info on "The Hobbit"
DarthCaeser @ 3:13 pm EST

Mr. Petersen from Fantasy Flight Games wrote in informing me that they are publishing the new Board Games, and included a link to info on all the games and expansions, including more info on the Hobbit:

The Hobbit

"Try to safely navigate your way to the Lonely Mountain and reclaim all the treasure that the evil dragon Smaug is hiding... but beware the treasure is fiercely guarded and must be won in battle." [More]

There's also a (very) small blurb about the newest expansion, Sauron: "In fall of 2002 the Sauron expansion will be released, adding an exciting new element to the game."

8/16/01 - Latest News

Another game to help pass the time...
DarthCaeser @ 3:54 pm EST

"My name is Matt deMille, and I represent a new role-playing game company, "New Dimension Games". Our chief product is a "sword-&-sorcery" game, greatly influenced by Tolkien and the feeling of his mythology and preferences are spread throughout the game. The first page even tributes the game to him."

"Welcome to my world, the world of Fantasia. Fantasia is a world much like ours was, long, long ago, when Mortal Men shared their lands with Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Orcs, Ogres, Wizards, Witches, Fairies, Daemons and Angels. It is a world where endless caverns lead to untold treasures, and where cloudy mountains are ruled by winged Dragons! This world's mythology was designed to resemble Tolkien's Middle-Earth, thus paying tribute to that great story and that great man that gave us this genre, and also to Gary Gygax whose imagination gave us the great escapism of role-playing games." [More]

The Hobbit board game
DarthCaeser @ 3:16 pm EST

Finwe sent in this info about The Hobbit board game:

"I saw the magazine from where the picture of games workshop new battle system was. It was nice to seen but no new there.

BUT I also saw other LOTR related product !
First as you know there is the expansion to the LOTR board game (Friend and Foes) But there is also a new Board game from the same guy about the Hobbit!!! Apparently every player take it's turn and play bilbo and you have to confront Smaug at the end of the game. (This is definatly not the same game as the Hobbit board game from ICE from a few years back.) I have seen the cover of the box and it look great (Btw this is another fully game not and expension of the first).

Also the most amazing thing of all I say the LOTR lunch box !!!"

If anyone has scans from the magazine, send them in.

8/10/01 - Latest News

Exclusive Artwork for Decipher's New LOTR Card Game
Quickbeam @ 12:14 pm EST

Greetings – Quickbeam here.

As promised last week, here are two EXCLUSIVE card images from Decipher’s upcoming LOTR trading card game.

These promotional "preview cards" were distributed at the recent Gen Con Game Fair in Milwaukee. Many people tried to get in to this special event, and many more were turned away at the door. Standing room only!

What you see are two cards that have promotional text, not the exact printed text from the game, but the images and layout will stay the same. There is a Gandalf image featuring our very own Sir Ian McKellen, and a vile Moria Orc, who you probably remember seeing in the first teaser trailer.

Also take note that on the Orc card Decipher has revealed its complete release schedule for different card expansions in tandem with the release of Peter Jackson’s three films.

Like I said before, after staring at Magic cards for years, the artwork and iconography on these cards just blows me away. Really beautiful work.

For a detailed look at the structure of game-play, follow the link and read my experiences with the game during the San Diego Comic Con. This is the closest you can get to the actual game before November…[More]

We hope to bring you more goodies and previews over the next few months.

Much too hasty,

Quickbeam

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