~ The MCME Times ~ [12/27/2020]

10 Years Down!
Many To Go!!!!

Editor's Note by Soarz
With 2020 coming to a wrap i was thinking this edition could use a little life of energy! So we included many interesting things for you to read, this can be our 2020 Project Wrap-Up or the almost concluded Winter Events! Even if you haven't been here for all of 2020 we want you to feel like you can understand what MCME has been like. It's been alot of fun this year and i'm personally looking forward to what 2021 has to bring to the table for us to enjoy. Speaking of enjoying, i won't keep you any longer, please relax, sit back and get ready for another edition of the MCME TIMES!!!!!!!???!!!

~ 2020 Project Wrap-up ~ ​

Anorien - Lead: @draonic_slayer | In Progress
Report by Draonic_Slayer

2020 Wrap-Up

Progress in Anorien has been quite good, from the reworking of the Dol Caranthan fields, to the completion of the road fort more commonly know as “Andrew’s Castle”. Under the careful watch of Foreman Xmine, the rivers throughout have been reshaped and retextured using the new textures made available with the Gondor 3.2 RP snapshot. Additionally, the roads have been redone with those new textures and bridges built along the Great West Road connecting Minas Tirith to Rohan.

In the past month, concepts for the Rammas Echor, a wall encircling the Pelennor fields have been made and a stretch from the White mountains round to Forannest, a gatehouse leading to Rohan, has been complete. Look out in the next couple of months for jobs as there is quite a lot left to be built. Additionally, with the Gondor 3.3 RP update, the vegetation for the plains must be redone, with the concept ready to be applied. Soon™, hopefully with the release of the forest textures, both the Drúadain forest and Firien Woods can also be started.

Andrast - Lead: @mattlego | In Progress
Report by Soarz9

2020 Wrap-Up

This project has been a slow work in progress, but slowly but surely it will be done. mattlego has been working on smoothing using voxel to make terrain look as realistic as possible. Sadly the main reason for the delay is vegitation. They are looking making more progress in the near future with more blocks and designs at their disposal!!!

Belfalas - Lead: @Darki | On Hold
Report by Barteldvn

2020 Wrap-Up

Belfalas is still on hold awaiting the forest update, however we still did a couple of small things there. Namely Andrew's town was finished up by a few Artists, Mithrilled and I did the shrub lands around Minas Aduial, Goldarce and Greymane Castle, Mithrilled and Raffy finished up the remainding fields and added some details here and there. Mithrilled replaced some ships, in the mean time other projects have taken a more important role.

Henneth Annun - Lead: 3132[/B]]@barteldvn | In Progress
Report by Soarz9

2020 Wrap-Up

This was a revamp of the "Window of the Sunset" as described in the books. It was initially started back in may when barteldvn made a formal Project post, LeBlancGandalf and bart both made great time in making concepts and worked to make it look better. Eriol came in to add some insight to the project, which made it what it has become today. Work has been done by many people, to many to count but it has been transformed to become a greater version then it was, as is with revamps.

Marshes – Lead: @Darki | In Progress
Report by Xmine and Barteldvn

2020 Wrap-Up

On April 12th Darki decided to start work on the Fenmarshes, I don't know much about what happened with the terrain that was there before but I assume Darki made the area more suitable for a marsh and started planning. He planned, far and wide like no one ever was. These marshes to understand the power that's inside. He watched documentary after documentary and after he had consumed all the knowledge he could about marshes. He forced people to start digging, after hours of digging holes in the grass the slaves were done with their work.

Looking at all these holes Darki began to realise, he had forgotten about concepts. OH NO CONCEPTS, he quickly scrambled something together but the documentary's he watched hadn't prepared him for this, he didn't know what had happened. Darki in a panic, fell into a deep slumber awaiting new textures. After months of being in a slumber there is an announcement that was like a kiss from a handsome prince 'Gondor RP 3.0 Official Release'. Darki awoke and felt like a new man, he saw that people made concepts for the Fenmarsh which gave him courage, the courage he needed to ask Bart to vegetate the the whole Fenmarsh with WE. After this act of kindness was done, they added lilypads and gave it a a colourful make-over.

We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close but then disaster struck, The Entwash needed to be pasted in and the Fenmarsh was lifted into the air, like my teacher sitting on an airbag. Till this day it still floats there, waiting to be pulled back to earth.

Moria – Lead: @barteldvn | In progress
Report by Mershy and Daom

2020 Wrap-Up

This year in Moria has been incredible. The year has brung lots more building and planning potential. Resource pack updates and new talent into the project. Before reading, I would suggest checking ---> this <-- document out that has some more updates on what we have been working on.

We had the Tomb Cave finished by the end of May this year. That was a great project that involved a lot of people. Many jobs and plots created for each separate tomb. Overall we are happy with the results that we got. Amazing new additions such as 2nah’s hall of the fallen on the far left side of the cave and the ceremonial cave done by Napoleon and TheSweViking. Overall it was a nice feeling to get a Moria project finally done and dusted. This allowed us to connect the 21st Hall with a new connector. The middle connector also has a new guardhouse as well.

The next stage was development in 21st Hall. A lot of head scratching finally led to a new housing concept for the area that still needs to be implemented and started. Additionally, the Moria uni was built and that was risen quite quickly. Still needs some work so hopefully next year we can return there.

Voxel projects were quite large this year in Moria. We had the movie cave near the west side of Moria done by Lacotax. Beautiful revamp of this cave and basically created a new style of cave within Moria. He then moved over to the Great Mines where that had some updates. At this current stage, the cave has been revoxelled again by Lacotax and the wooden structures are due to be pasted back in. This project again needs to be picked up and hopefully started next year.

Mershy Mine, now known as the Upper Mines was another project this year. The plan to be finished this year, we have had great progress getting some more building done. The upper connector that connects to the middle and upper layer was changed to fit the new style as well. This is soon to be completed hopefully either at the end of this year or in january sometime. Overall very pleased with the work that has been done here so a big thank you to everyone that has been involved. With this progress the upper layer gets closer to completion.

Resource pack developments have been substantial for us this year. The entire restructuring of the pack was completed by Nic with new textures, models and updates being brought in afterwards. Overall, the pack is looking amazing and it's almost given Moria the rebirth it needed.

Plans for next year in Moria are unknown at this point. The upper mines will be finished hopefully, the donut cave getting some updates as well so who knows. Maybe we can organise a bigger project to start either the great mines or the continuation of west gate.

With that in mind I want to thank everyone that has worked in Moria this year. Myself and Daom have enjoyed the commitment that people have shown towards the project and love working with each other. We hope this new year the motivation continues into new ideas.

Lond Daer – Lead: @Ivan1pl | In Progress
Report by mattlego

2020 Wrap-Up

After many months of planning and replanning we finally had our first job on Oct 7th. At the moment our focus has been to the north of the main gate. We have been able to build a lot of poor and middle class houses here along with some more specialized buildings like the market square near the northern gate. A lot of progress has also been made on other special buildings like the theater, bathhouse and hippodrome. Recently Luk and I decided to replan parts of the city once again. We added a whole canal system, raised the entire terrain of old town and replanned almost the entire southern part of the city. Ivan has also taken a liking to Dol Amroth's sewers as he has started to make a sewer for here as well, won't be fully intact but you know we dont wanna scare anyone.

Osgiliath – Lead: @ooitsbirdo | Finished
Report by Soarz9

2020 Wrap-Up

What was started all those years ago has finally been finished!! But to look back at the beginning of 2020 and it didn't feel close. We where waiting on the vegitation to get an update, and once we got it they all went straight to work to make it look as good as possible. Multiple jobs where run throughout the year, you know who you are. Later in the year Rogue and maski started to work on the walls surrounding osgiliath, it was a race to the finish. On 10/17/2020 they ran a build day to try and finish it off. It turned into a 48 hour build "day" that helped complete the walls. After this is was only finishing touch's to make it final. After all these years osgil is finally complete and done. Until we revamp it.

~ Texture Development ~ ​

Report by TotiGonzales

2020 has seen some breakthrough Resource Pack development for our Gondor RP. Building on work started in 2019 the first snapshot: Muddy Situation! was released on the 28th of April and featured a plethora of terrain textures allowing for amazing progress on our projects in and around the Anorien region, like the Fenmarch and the Anorien streams. The second snapshot: Sticks and stones, but mostly stones was released only a couple of months later thanks to the heroic effort of a steadily growing texturing team. This snapshot introduced many new textures while also improving the existing stone building textures and making everything mooooossssy. The second snapshot of the Gondor RP 3.0 also allowed for the Lond Daer project to be started which has seen great progress in the second half of 2020. Not even 3 months later the 3rd and last snapshot for the year was also rolled out. The "Who is hiding in the reeds" snapshot was the first one focusing on the vegetation textures. While allowing for the completion of the Fenmarch and beautiful additions to other projects like Osgiliath and Lond Daer we are still eagerly waiting for the Anorien plains to become grassy and colorful. Tho that's what you now have to look forward to in 2021.

On top of that we are also hard at work on the 4th and 5th snapshot of this new release of the Gondor RP. The Forest snapshot will introduce 12 different, partly new partly revamped, tree bark textures seasoned with a nice selection of foliage and undergrowth textures and models. In addition an arrangement of saplings, small trees and shrubs will be added to complete the vegetation package for the Gondor RP. Following that we are currently starting work on the introduction of new wood and planks textures into the Gondor RP. This 5th snapshot will complete many of the texture revamps for builds all around Gondor while also allowing for the Rohan project to get going. We decided to follow this path for the time being since we still see Mordor as our next full region project and the texture development for Rohan RP (which will be integrated into Gondor RP so that will become the "Human Architecture RP") overlaps with many of the Mordor textures and models. There will be 2 snapshots of the Rohan RP integration into the Gondor RP 3.0. Snapshot 5 and snapshot 6 or 7 (depends on what I come up with in the mean time ) will add basic building blocks and models and new decoration textures and models respectively. More on these in 2021 .

In addition to the texturing work done by our texturing team there has also been development on the Custom Inventory. Maski and Duke have been hard at work reorganizing the Gondor custom inventory and implementing features like the "quick cycle" and "collections" that were kindly coded by Eriol. These first steps and many other plans for the future will make the Gondor custom inventory a very ergonomic tool which aims at increasing efficiency and speed while building. In addition to the changes to the Gondor custom inventory maski and duke have also done amazing work on bringing the luxury of the Gondor custom inventory to Moria. This will be another amazing development we are looking forward to in 2021. The Moria RP however, has received quite a bit of attention by Nic and bart who restructured it and touched up many of its outdated textures this year too. Much more to come on that front too.

Overall an exciting year to be part of the MCME dev team. So many new developments that I cant count them on my fingers. Don't be mad if I forgot any! I just ran out of fingers to count on. Looking forward to 2021 and all the amazing stuff we have planned. Many thanks to our texturers who put up with me on a daily basis! Now with most of the boring terrain textures out of the way our jobs get even more exciting because we get to develop the textures upcoming projects will be using. Consider joining us by pming me on Discord!

~ Plug-in Development ~ ​

Report by Eriol

2020 was a year busy with minecraft updates and fixing issues. After more than one and a half year of intense work MCME finally took the big step from 1.12 to 1.13 unlocking the abundant new block states. Unfortunately all versions since 1.13 are much more server resource demanding than previous versions. Thus since the update we put a lot of work in reduceing the amount of entities like armor stands, item frames and painting. Also there were many issues with the new MCME Bungee Network introduced late in 2019. Many plugins had to be adapted to support cross-server functionality, a new tab-list plugin was even written from scratch.

Much more work was done by the growing developer team. Nic rewrote the pvp plugin completely. Fraspace made a Build Project Logging plugin and an Environment plugin. Quazor wrote a dynamic books plugin featuring the Warp books, and I made a new Moderation plugin.

~ General Announcements ~ ​

Become a Donor
Keeping MCME running is not free, every month we have to pay $235 to keep up all our work. Donations help us keep doing what we love and providing you with amazing builds to look at. Donations are not required but greatly accepted, if you want to help us in our feat of rebuilding Middle Earth in Minecraft you can donate here.
Viewing Donation Drive: Community Costs
Our Donors

• AnthonyH_
• TheStephen
• D3rr3x
• HoverKing
• EmeralyArmor63
• givet10
• aVeryAngryBadger
• Brodasaurus_Rex
• _Iru
• TheChristopher1
• ooitsbirdo
• Mershy
• _super
• _Luk

We also had some other donations, may they be secret santa or gifts! One such donor gave 2500$ and decided to redistribute his donation to people on the server, hope you all enjoy!!

• Topcatflap
• Melkor_Belegurth
• Mortal_Engineer
• Norir
• Jadened
• Wyattrox3
• aldir_123
• Rudolphius
• Amha333
• Human100
• HyprNinja
• xmine01
• Georuss
• Icarus197
• MITHLONDEL
• SpassTV
• ESPER__
• _superr
• Bean327
• Green_Giant
• TheStephen
• Archimdes
• Brodasaurus_Rex
• Gizid
• m00nlady

#MCMEdoesnotrunitself

#NEWS
Winter Events: How It's Going

Christmas Tree Building Competition

This fortnight, our Winter Events have continued to go in full swing! On the 19th of December, @Soars hosted the Christmas Tree Building Competition. Many festive Christmas trees were made and judged, but only one was brought into the Snowy Edoras Marketplace.

Congratulations to @Brodasaurus_Rex for making the winning tree! The runner ups are @mattlego and @Enenal. Come enjoy the Edoras marketplace to see it!

Spoiler: Tree Building Competition

Secret Santa

The day after, Sevy689 's event, Secret Santa, commenced. Hosted by @Johnyeric, MCME players got to pick their random Secret Santa and were given around 90 minutes to build their gift.

There were so many witty well-made builds that we invite you to go take a look! Do /warp builbattles and fly Southwesst til you see the "Secret Santa Build Battles" banner.

We hope to have this again next year with even more participants!

Spoiler: Secret Santa

Whats to come!!
Are you looking forward to more Winter Events? On the 28th of December, 8pm UTC, we will have our Gift Unwrapping hosted by @JarNO_WAY. And on the 1st of January, at 8pm UTC, look forward to our New Year's Celebration with @mapthor.

Check out the Winter Events forum post for more info!
https://www.mcmiddleearth.com/community/threads/the-winter-events-2020.6459/



Theme-Builds

#1 Forochel Settlement

Resourcepack: /rp g​

Custom inventory: press F or /inv b rp:g​

https://www.mcmiddleearth.com/community/threads/48-20-forochel-settlement.6488/

A Way Out
The first of many to come has happened to day. If you missed it this time make sure to keep a watch out to make the next one. If you don't know what it here is a description from the man himself, Mapthor - "Since Winter Events will be taking a break these next few days, Luk and I are gonna keep things rolling with a live play through of “A Way Out” on the MCME Discord! Tune in to voice chat on December 27th at 7pm UTC +1 to help make the hard choices for us and decide the ending to our prison breakout adventure. It’s in interactive story for all ages!" Be there for me square!!!

~ Rank Updates ~ ​

Report by Soarz9

Mithrilled: He has been on break but it been about time we welcome you back to your rightful place within the building team! We look forward to seeing what you will do and make sure to post good memes!
Promotion

EffieFrag: Welcome new member to the mcme team!!! After an astonishing application period effie was promoted, we will watch you with great interest.
Promotion

Oberanio: Thats right, hes back. What will he do that is up to him but for the rest of us we all know there is no mcme without oberanio and his quality memes.
Promotion

Sam_of_Seagull: We so sadly have some bad news this week as well. We've lost one of our sams. He has decided to take a break and focus on irl for a time. We look forward to seeing you back in cyan when you feel welcome, and remember dont be a stranger.
Resignation

~ Interviews ~​

Interview with @ooitsbirdo

Question 1. How did you learn about mcme and what was your first impression of it?
I first learned of MCME December 2013, so 7 years ago after watching a movie marathon of the LOTR at my sisters university. I tried to join back then but wasn't able to due to the whitelist. I then retired and worked out how to join after applying and joined Feb 17th 2014. I was amazed cause i made it on and secondly cause of how friendly everyone was, I got a private tour from JaketheGuardian to Bree which later inspired me to apply for guide. I was OB'd later that day cause i broke some sign in plotword and had to walk to Bree.


Question 2. Now that Osgiliath is done what projects or plans do you have coming up?
Now that osgo is finally done, im gonna try and help people out in there project. Im sure ill find another project to dig my heels into. BreeRevamp????


Question 3. If you could be any Head for a day who would i be and what would you change?
Defo would take Creds role, be the wise man of mcme who knows all and sees all. KGB sees all


Question 4. Who is your favorite person/group of people on the server and why?
MonkeyBoys "screams primal ape noises"


Question 5. Do you have any crazy stories that you would like the server to know about?
Probs half the time Dav has been on disc with me, Me and Him shirtless in disc with ladderhausens. Pretty sexy timesText Example


Question 6. What do you hope to see in the new year?
MCME has been around for more than a decade, and i have been part of its for almost 7 years, dont fuck it up lol, but its great place to be and has allowed me to meet so many amazing and not so amazing people. just get stuck in and keep going. In the new year i would want to see the Rohan updates and maybe enough of a Mordor pack to start initial concepts !!!


Question 7. Milk, Dark, or White Chocolate?
Milk Chocolate


Question 8. What is the weirdest thing you ever built that is still on the map?
asted Rogues boat into Q tower in freebuild an its still there with a penis on the side. Q didnt seem to mind , maybe he just likes the view?


Interviewer: Soarz9

~ Winners of “The Week” ~ ​

This week we have another round of amazing builds and Media posts. We only choose from the best every time, so hard work does pay off. Sometimes it can get competitive and that is what will win a place here. Please give a warm welcome to this Times, winners of this week.

MEDIA Winners:

Spoiler: Media Winners of the fortnight

Honorable Mention: Arch took an OK Minas Tirith shot this fortnight, but later he edited it a good bit and this was one of the results. The blur really helps hide the weird parts, but it also makes it look rather spiffy.

Honorable Mention: I am very surprised that Rogue_Scholar managed to get a shot looking this good using PhysicalSL shaders, which are pretty much BSL shaders with a much better sky and different water. The sky does its job and creates an atmosphere that distracts you from the ground toning, which looks a bit off.

Honorable Mention: I don't know what shaders Givet was using here, but they work quite well for the shot. Not too close to the water, maybe looking a hair too high. Lighting and composition are excellent. It's also just nice to see a smaller-scaled shot from Givet.

Honorable Mention: I don't know how much editing work went into this shot for Wisdom shaders to look this good, but the result is clearly worth it. The water especially catches my eye. If we could get that water with improved lighting and toning, I'd be a very happy man. Well done, Xmine.

Honorable Mention: Kappa does an excellent job here in this shot, as does Givet. Features a lovely sky, tone, and decent composition and angle. Probably could've gone a bit lower and looked a bit higher, though.

Honorable Mention: I really like the tone, angle, and composition of this shot by Mershy. It's simple, but it does everything right.

Honorable Mention: While I really dislike the Espen's Edit sky, this shot's angle and composition are excellent, and the ground toning works well with the area. Looks a bit bare on the right side of the shot, and even by Espen standards the sky looks empty. But overall, an exceptional shot of Goldarce with good crop-work.

Honorable Mention: The lighting looks a bit too flat on the tree on the left (could be fixed by deepening shadow darkness) as well as on the trees in the back, but other than that this is an excellent shot with good crop work.

Honorable Mention: This shot uses Sildurs shaders, which means less-than-amazing skies, purple toning, and weird-looking water. Joscraft, new to the scene, still manages to get an exceptional angle and composition nonetheless, so props to him.

Media Winner: This shot by Sevy looks like it came straight out of a cinematic showcase. The image quality is still strangely grainy upon close inspection and the sky's Espen's Edit, but it makes up for it with its perfect angle and composition. The tone is good and the fog is well-placed. The light shining onto the trees in the back is the cherry on top. Well done, Sevy!

THEME-BUILD Winners

Spoiler: Theme-Build Winners of the fortnight

First off we have Bree Theme-Builds


Honourable mention: goes to bobingvar.

3rd place: goes to Flowriz! Very nice exteriors on your bree houses. Would love to see some interiors!!

2nd place: goes to IWRYCITB! Almost finished the plots so get building

1st place: goes to Gizid! Well made houses and ambient street. Immediate win!

Next up is Forochel Settlement


Honourable mention: goes to CraftyManBoy.

3rd place: goes to LiNayNay. Interesting idea with the hot springs, buildings need to be develope though!

2nd place: goes to MITHLONDEL. Interesting idea with the planning and the style.

1st place: goes to TheZealousOne. Complete redesign of terrain + armour stands. Lovely stuff good work!

~ Question of the Week ~
​

This Week's Question:
What group of people did friday night tours regularly during 2020

Presented by: Soarz9

~ More Media ~ ​

You know us, we love sharing our progress and Twitter is the perfect place. Give us a good follow and always have something to look forward to on your daily scroll. Just to spice it up, comment your favorite parts of our builds at

MinecraftMiddleEarth (@MCMiddleEarth) | Twitter . You won't be disappointed!


Sometimes you just want to enjoy some quality pictures, we got you covered. Head on over to our Facebook account, try following us there too Minecraft Middle-Earth

It doesn't matter if you just woke up or after a busy day at work; scrolling through Instagram and seeing a cool project you have worked on, or just amazing graphics from your favorite server on your favorite game. MCME's Instagram is the right place to be. Check it out at mcmiddleearch on Instagram, or this perfectly good link to take you straight there.

But of course, the most important and obviously most used social network is of course Planet Minecraft! Be sure to give us a diamond there. It costs nothing! Minecraft Middle Earth Minecraft Server

~ Closing Statement ~


This year has flown by during these times in 2020. And from the times team we thank you for reading all of our edition every fortnight!! It's been wonderful to supply you with by-weekly content that you so dearly require. We hope to see you again in the new year and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!!


Great job for the Times Team, who did what they had to do, great job!


Quote from JRRT
“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks” ​

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The Official MCME Times
mcmiddleearth.com​

 

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Love the articles, but man, how many quotes does JRR Tolkien have..