JRR Tolkien has been my favorite author since I was a kid, and I enjoy playing Tolkien-related games and scenarios. This page has been focused mostly on the Middle Earth Collectable Card Game (MECCG), but since I haven't played (or collected) that game in years, I want to shift the focus towards Tolkien-based PC games.
I've played Middle Earth scenarios for Warlords III and Heroes of Might and Magic II and III.
MECCG is the Middle Earth Collectable Card Game.Although I dislike CCGs, I love Tolkien, so I ended buying a ton of these cards. I've played five or six times; each game was a blast! However, it's hard to find the time and energy to scrounge up people on a regular basis, especially now that Iron Crown Enterprise doesn't make the game anymore. It'd be great if someone could release a computer version of the game (with an AI). That'd get my interest going again.
Anyway, there are some really nice sites out there dedicated to MECCG. Here are my findings so far.
Links last checked: 2005-08-05
| Site | Date | Rule | Card | Stra | Deck | Maps | Scen | Idea | Tour | Play | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Council of Mordor | 2002 | ## | ### | # | ### | # | ## | # | Based in the Phillipines | ||
| Card of the Day 1-450 | 1997 | ### | # | ## | |||||||
| Card of the Day 451-852 | 2001 | ### | ## | # | |||||||
| Cedriko | 1998 | # | # | # | # | Mostly French | |||||
| Council of Bree | 2001 | ### | # | ### | # | ## | ## | # | # | Annoying frames and ads | |
| MECCG.net (includes subsites: Dutch Council, Trade Center, NetMECCG, forum | 2005 | ### | ### | # | ## | ### | ## | Rules digests, newsletter, quizzes, mailing list archives, news | |||
| Guild of Forochel | 1999 | # | ## | # | |||||||
| Steve Hess | 1998 | # | # | # | ### | ||||||
| Alex Mohr | 1996 | ### | ### | # | ## | FAQ, stats, history | |||||
| Morgul Rats | 2004 | ## | ### | ### | ## | # | ### | ### | # | Play of the Day, poll, humor | |
| Moria | 1999 | # | # | # | # | # | Riddle game | ||||
| Trevor Stone | 2000 | ## | ### | # | ## | # | # | Stats, nice links | |||
| Thanehand | 1998 | ## | ### | ## | # | # | Lots of artwork | ||||
| Site | Date | Rule | Card | Stra | Deck | Maps | Scen | Idea | Tour | Play | Other |
The scores (0-3) represent the quantity of information available at the site in the particular areas of interest. Also, I only consider information that physically resides at the specified site; links to other pages are not always reliable and are therefore disregarded.
Here are some other pages that pertain to MECCG. They are not complete MECCG-dedicated web sites, but rather focus on single aspects of the game.
The flow of MECCG expansion packs has ceased (and I've kinda relieved, to tell the truth). Although ICE has given up on MECCG, that doesn't mean we have to. There's still opportunity for us to make some improvements to the game.
We now have time to take a step back and do some serious thinking about how to turn the existing materials (the cards, the maps, the counters) into something exciting and playable. Not only something but somethingsss... While I personally would love to see a more solitaire-suited "engine" developed, other people want to see wargaming and empire building elements added to the multiplayer experience. There's also a demand for a simplified and polished version of the basic game, something that's easier for people to learn.
So, here are some enhancement ideas...
Not all of us have billions of hours a week to devote to social gaming. Locating and coordinating with interested gamers takes time, driving to a meeting place takes time, and the gaming itself takes time because there is a lot of social overhead involved such as chit-chat, rules disagreements, newbie teaching, and beer.
The fact is, social gaming is slow, inefficient.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that..." There certainly is an added reward to playing with other people. The imagination seems to run in over-drive. You play more on-your-toes than when you play by yourself, because the consequences of your actions are etched deeper in the stone when there are witnesses.
Yet when it comes to Middle Earth, I'm a glutton. I love the universe, love the story. And I'd love to spend more time there, exploring and pretending. It's a very solitary thing for me, too: I read the books by myself, I collected MERP by myself, and then I stared collecting METW by myself. It seems somehow weird to involve other people in my favorite daydream. I know it's selfish of me, but hey, we all have our One Rings.
My point...
If you want to play MECCG a lot, you need to be able to play it by yourself. This means either finding cool solitaire scenarios, or finding a computer program that plays MECCG against you.
Solo scenarios are cool, but there's a sense of artificialness I get when playing them. I feel like there's no brain behind the hazards, no real strategy or story being told by the other "player." A computer program, on the other hand, would be a lot more convincing.
NetMECCG gets us kinda close... It shuffles our cards for us and has a rudimentary solitaire mode. However, anything you can do in NetMECCG you can do with your own cards on the floor of your room; NetMECCG just lets you do it faster and cheaper.
I'd therefore love to see a program that actually plays MECCG against you. It doesn't have to have any sort of brilliant AI; just enough to make you feel like you're not playing yourself anymore.
Thing is, who actually cares about MECCG anymore? Who's gonna invest time in writing an interface and AI for it?