Shadow of Mordor

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efkelley

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Do we actually NOT have a Shadow of Mordor thread?? I went looking, but I didn't see it at all.

In short: This thing is friggin awesome. It's like a melding of the Batman: Arkham games and Assassin's Creed. It's an RPG, though you don't make any plot choices. You're essentially playing a movie, but they don't bog you down with quicktime events or anything like that.

Here's a solid review that goes into lots of detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBPmkfu_zs8

The review points out right that pretty much all you're doing is killing orcs. LOTS of orcs, ALL the time. You're sneaking up on them to kill them, riding warbeasts to kill them, or just kicking in the front door and killing them. Some of the missions have some side objectives and such, but it's not like in Batman where you've got the detective minigames or anything.

What really makes this thing stand out is the Nemesis system. It definitely keeps the endless orc killing from getting too old. Your main objective in all this is destroying Sauron's horde from within. To do this, you're hunting and assassinating his captains and warchiefs.

Each of these guys is randomly generated with specific strengths and weaknesses. Their identities are unknown to you to begin with, and even if you spot one in the wild, you learn his identity, but you won't know anything about his strengths and weaknesses until you find intel. Intel is gained through interrogating specific orcs (called worms), or through grateful slaves that you've liberated, or from reports that you occasionally find in strongholds and camps (or looted from courier bodies).

Once you get the intel, you know everything about them. You get a screen like this:

10423699_820005188050115_7688049092535582022_n.jpg


That plucky little fellow was Mogg the Tainted. He started out as a low level captain who happened to show up as I was battling a much tougher elite captain. While I killed the first captain, Mogg got the drop on me and finished me off.

If an orc kills you, they get a promotion and a big boost in power. Note that he only has two weaknesses. He didn't start that way. He used to have a couple of fears and could be insta-killed by stealth. After his first promotion though, he got that Deadly trait, which SUCKED! He managed to off me twice more, and got a gang, and friggin Quick Shot! So not only will he two-shot you, he's got a bunch of bodyguards and fires three bolts in a row. Plus, he lost a bunch of weaknesses. Every time I saw this fucker I was ready to flip my desk over.

Finally I ended up beating him by using his fear of fire. You eventually get an ability to detonate camp fires and grog barrels. I lured him and his goons near a camp fire, blew it up (killing the goons), and he ran like hell thanks to his fear of burning. He was easy after that.

But all that nonsense came from just one randomly generated orc!

Here's Angry Joe against a nemesis of his. I didn't have quite the trouble with mine that he did, but for a while there I wondered just how the hell I was going to deal with this goon. (Also it's just kind of funny watching Joe lose his shit haha). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfNQp3f-FI

I wouldn't call the Nemesis system a 'dynamic story generator' or anything quite like that, but it does create some very interesting content, and no two orcs are ever quite the same. And sometimes you get some truly brutal combos of strengths (that deadly/quick shot thing for instance). You have to get a little creative to take these guys out, and that's where a lot of the fun is for me. Hell, I had one guy that was immune to ranged damage and melee damage. I could ONLY injure him from stealth, and he didn't have the insta-death stealth weakness. I had to ambush him, flee, and ambush him again repeatedly, hopefully without his health regenerating too much between ambushes!

To me, I think this kind of dynamic content is a baby step in the right direction for future games. Self-generated content is really what will step us into the next phase. And this thing didn't do a bad job of it! I HATED Mogg! And the bastard just kept showing up! It was like I had my own personal stalker! I've had more than a few highly entertaining situations occur.

Like the Night of a Thousand Captains(which isn't a mission, it's just what I call it), where I had infiltrated one of their strongholds and captain after captain just kept showing up. That came about because I'd gone in to locate an artifact I'd found out about. I saw a captain that I had full intel on, went after him, and his rival showed up to assassinate him, but found me instead. So I finish both, and am about to leave when I spot yet another one, and on and on. That was like a solid hour of playing cat-and-mouse with orc captains in their own fortress. Friggin awesome. :D

In fact, here's Jesse Cox's playthrough in progress. He doesn't have many vids up, but episode 4 on there was like a miniature version of what happened to me: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFx-KViPXIkHAH9gp95LEumDZ631JtT5P

Obviously a couple of spoilers are in that playthrough, but nothing huge. He's not far into the game at all. Myself, I've got about 30 hours in, and the progression shows me around 60%.

Anyway, that's more than I've written about a game in an age. If I have anything really critical about it, it's that things get a little easy after a while, once you master combat. But, since the combat is fun and fluid, I really don't mind. In fact, I was wondering if I should go looking for the difficulty slider (there isn't one, unfortunately), but then I got the Death Threat ability. You dominate an orc (any orc) and have them issue the death threat to the captain of your choice. That captain instantly gets a huge boost in power and a gang of bodyguards. When you do eventually finish them off, they have a very high chance of dropping epic runes to upgrade your weapons.

In fact, thinking on it, I do have another criticism: it's a little too easy. Dying is actually VERY cool, because that creates these mini-narratives. If you aced the entire game, it'd be a little dull, whereas I will not forget Mogg the Tainted for a loooong time.
 

meowzbark

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Oooh. I should hook up my xbox.

Okay, so I'm on a self-ban from video games until Christmas. I'll be checking out the reviews though. Sounds great.
 

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I'm waiting until I can play it on PS4 right now. Which is a lot easier said than done, given all the gushing reviews about it. It's quite a test of willpower. :)

Hopefully I'll have it by the end of the year. Money is a bit tight right now.
 

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It's such a beautiful game! I found it more frustrating than difficult, but I only played for about an hour at a friend's house.

The aggro feels endless. The captains system is a cool idea.

I'm glad the orcs can't climb, but I'm not lining up to give it another go. I'm glad I could play it on someone else's system before buying it.
 

Bufty

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I just loaded it (took under an hour through Steam) and only had time to run the Benchmark. Am running an AMD Sapphire DualX R9 280X. Consistently over 70fps and wow!

Have to rush off for supper, but Mordor looks great so far!

Any suggestions for proceeding bearing in mind your own experiences. I fancy a bit of stealth to begin with.
 

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Any suggestions for proceeding bearing in mind your own experiences. I fancy a bit of stealth to begin with.

Stealth all the things! I found the stealth to be similar to the system in Thief - you'll see if they spotted you, or you just caught their attention, you can hide in shrubs, climbing always in a good option.

You'll also gain a lot of useful abilities as you go, so things you can't do right away, you might be able to do later (like dive-bombing from above, etc)

There are runes to be picked up along, and plants that give you health.

My biggest frustration was drawing huge groups while I was in stealth-mode, so just take this as my two cents ;) Have fun in Mordor!
 

efkelley

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Yeah, the aggro really can be endless at a point, especially if you're in a Stronghold and the alarm goes up. Then they'll spawn wave after wave. You're best advised to complete your objective as soon as possible, then run. Or, run and hide, wait for the alarm to die down, and then re-engage.

Early on, CoffeeBeans has it right: Stealth is your ally. Remember that orcs don't see terribly well (especially in the daytime), and you're the Shadow of Mordor, so you can very nearly hide in plain sight. In the later game, you've got such immense power that stealth is really your way of avoiding the silly little piddly fights to focus on the big things.

If you're a completionist, I'd recommend doing all of Udun/Narchost/etc first. You'll eventually move south to the Nurnen Sea (no huge spoiler that), and the side mission rewards there are much greater than in the north.

Also, if a bonus objective in a side mission proves too difficult, don't sweat it. In the north, it's as much as a 50% boost in rewards, but in the south, the boost remains the same, and it's at best a 12% boost. Not terribly worth it.

Oh, Coffee, one thing I hate to disappoint you on: The orcs can climb. They just can't scale nearly vertical walls like you can. :D But, they can certainly get up to anything with obvious handholds or ladders.
 

Bufty

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Thanks, CoffeeBeans.

I am trying to get my head round how you can play on a friend's machine for one hour and find it frustrating. You talk as if you've played for a lot more than an hour. I didn't do very much at all in one hour, what with learning and reading and looking...and that was after reading several on-line reviews.

I've now played for over four hours and am thoroughly enjoying it. Picture and responses are excellent. If frustration awaits down the line, we'll see, but at present it's magnificent fun to be in control of my own destiny.

Thank you for the stealth advice. :yessmiley It's been great and I'm playing at my speed and so far have runes and extra abilities (including fire ) and disposed of a couple of captains to boot, including one who killed me at our first meeting.

Gimub the Slaver is only a few hundred feet away now.

I'm playing on a PC with mouse and keyboard and can't help wondering if folk on PS and other consoles aren't maybe more inclined to be looking for instant and constant button -pressing action. I could well be wrong.

Mind you, although I have a usable Control pad on my shelf I haven't used a Control pad since the early days of Zelda and Nintendo 64!



Stealth all the things! I found the stealth to be similar to the system in Thief - you'll see if they spotted you, or you just caught their attention, you can hide in shrubs, climbing always in a good option.

You'll also gain a lot of useful abilities as you go, so things you can't do right away, you might be able to do later (like dive-bombing from above, etc)

There are runes to be picked up along, and plants that give you health.

My biggest frustration was drawing huge groups while I was in stealth-mode, so just take this as my two cents ;) Have fun in Mordor!
 
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Bufty

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Very helpful information and guidance, too, efkelley. Thank you. :Hug2:

RE the climbing - I 'attracted' Orcs when I was at the top of a platform and disposed of them as they reached me in the limited space at the top of the ladder. :snoopy:

Thanks again.

Yeah, the aggro really can be endless at a point, especially if you're in a Stronghold and the alarm goes up. Then they'll spawn wave after wave. You're best advised to complete your objective as soon as possible, then run. Or, run and hide, wait for the alarm to die down, and then re-engage.

Early on, CoffeeBeans has it right: Stealth is your ally. Remember that orcs don't see terribly well (especially in the daytime), and you're the Shadow of Mordor, so you can very nearly hide in plain sight. In the later game, you've got such immense power that stealth is really your way of avoiding the silly little piddly fights to focus on the big things.

If you're a completionist, I'd recommend doing all of Udun/Narchost/etc first. You'll eventually move south to the Nurnen Sea (no huge spoiler that), and the side mission rewards there are much greater than in the north.

Also, if a bonus objective in a side mission proves too difficult, don't sweat it. In the north, it's as much as a 50% boost in rewards, but in the south, the boost remains the same, and it's at best a 12% boost. Not terribly worth it.

Oh, Coffee, one thing I hate to disappoint you on: The orcs can climb. They just can't scale nearly vertical walls like you can. :D But, they can certainly get up to anything with obvious handholds or ladders.
 

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Oh, Coffee, one thing I hate to disappoint you on: The orcs can climb. They just can't scale nearly vertical walls like you can. :D But, they can certainly get up to anything with obvious handholds or ladders.

NOOOOOoooo

though, I will say, I used it climbing the crumbled towers and the like, so pretty vertical. However, darn it. Heh.

I am trying to get my head round how you can play on a friend's machine for one hour and find it frustrating. You talk as if you've played for a lot more than an hour.

Okay, it might have been more than one. It might have been more like 2+... we were waiting for my friend's husband to get home, and he and I were testing out the game. I tend to lose track of time when I'm gaming. I did the tutorial, and took long enough to die about a dozen times in the game.

I heard it gets a lot more fun after you power up, but I haven't decided if I feel like making another run at it. Glad you're both enjoying it though!
 

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That looked pretty awesome.
Wish it could manage to be truer to the spirit of the books--I can forgive breaking with lore if they were to keep the spirit. Still, I'll likely pick it up at some point.
 

efkelley

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That looked pretty awesome.
Wish it could manage to be truer to the spirit of the books--I can forgive breaking with lore if they were to keep the spirit. Still, I'll likely pick it up at some point.

It stays pretty true, if you ask me. It felt like Middle Earth. Thing is, it draws a LOT of stuff from the Silmarilion. I actually can't say much without spoilers, so I'll have to leave that there.

Funny thing, I ended up fighting a horde of orcs at the top of the platform. But, they're a little vulnerable when they're climbing, so I could grab them and throw them off. If the engine didn't remove bodies as an optimization method, there would have been a PILE of them down there haha. :D
 

efkelley

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I heard it gets a lot more fun after you power up, but I haven't decided if I feel like making another run at it. Glad you're both enjoying it though!

Actually, I'll reiterate that this is a potential flaw with the implementation. Yes, murdering an entire horde in a fifteen minute battle is pretty damn cool. But, the thing that really makes it awesome is when one of them gets you over and over again. It usually happens when they get a crazy combination of strengths and almost zero weaknesses.

Like I said in the initial writeup, I had one guy who was immune to ranged AND melee damage. Completely immune! I could only damage him through stealth attacks and explosions, and he only took normal damage from those. It was a helluva time finishing him off, let me tell you! :D
 

Bufty

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I think I may have found this guy. Last time he killed me he asked me if I knew how many times he'd killed me! In a saving three slaves mission, I think. I'll go back and get the blighter today.:snoopy:

And I found Gollum yesterday. I thought I'd stepped into the movie. :hooray:

=efkelley;9130752]Actually, I'll reiterate that this is a potential flaw with the implementation. Yes, murdering an entire horde in a fifteen minute battle is pretty damn cool. But, the thing that really makes it awesome is when one of them gets you over and over again. It usually happens when they get a crazy combination of strengths and almost zero weaknesses.

Like I said in the initial writeup, I had one guy who was immune to ranged AND melee damage. Completely immune! I could only damage him through stealth attacks and explosions, and he only took normal damage from those. It was a helluva time finishing him off, let me tell you! :D
 

LOG

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It stays pretty true, if you ask me. It felt like Middle Earth. Thing is, it draws a LOT of stuff from the Silmarilion. I actually can't say much without spoilers, so I'll have to leave that there.

Funny thing, I ended up fighting a horde of orcs at the top of the platform. But, they're a little vulnerable when they're climbing, so I could grab them and throw them off. If the engine didn't remove bodies as an optimization method, there would have been a PILE of them down there haha. :D
I know it tries to kind of stay in its own area and not directly contradict any other material, but some of the stuff happening is a bit silly, especially that sequel tease at the end of it.
Also the whole idea of just wandering around Mordor at will seems a bit much to me. Sauron's been living there a long time, and it's always been a blasted, volcanic wasteland, so the setting throws me a bit too.
There's also a direct contradiction of Tolkien's own words, and even the establish history of events. It's all a bit much.

But then, I have managed to play my way through Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, which is possibly even more contradictory to canon.
 

Bufty

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As far as I'm concerned it's a game - intended purely for fun.
 

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I'm trying to resist buying this as I've got loads of writing to do and I know I will procrastinate the writing in favour of the game if I do. I may wait until Christmas when I will have hopefully hit editing and beta reading stage.
 

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I'm hoping to get this game on Decemeber. :) It looks good and, I love Tolkien world stuff.
 

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The beautiful thing about this game is that you can turn the Nemesis system on its head and craft a pet monster orc Captain. After a while you start to feel almost affection for your creation, and it becomes difficult to kill it when you have to.
 

efkelley

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The beautiful thing about this game is that you can turn the Nemesis system on its head and craft a pet monster orc Captain. After a while you start to feel almost affection for your creation, and it becomes difficult to kill it when you have to.

Yes, but if you properly prey on their fears and weaknesses, they explode into shiny, shiny epic runes! :D

... You're right. We really are the true monster of Mordor!
 

Bufty

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I've got all my warchiefs branded and one is legendary. Is 'legendary' as powerful as a warchief can become? I'm apparently only 60% into the game so looks as though I still have plenty of fun ahead.
 

efkelley

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Top power level is 20. However, I believe being branded lowers the chance of an epic when you finally deal with them.
 
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