The Knockoff Edition!
Mapthor Takes Over the Times!
Mapthor Takes Over the Times!
Editor's Note by Mapthor
Well here we are. After months of typing up the Editor's Note for months, I finally get the chance to lead my own Times Edition! Shen is on vacation right now so he put me in charge of this, so sorry if I miss it up somehow. Regardless, lets get right into the news why don't we! Toti and Mershy held their last Texturing Workshop, Luk put out a new video for the Youtube channel, and the MCME3 watch parties are in full swing. It's safe to say that there are too many events going on right now for me to handle. You also know what is too much for me to handle? Putting together the Times. All this formatting is hurting my head. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this knockoff edition of The MCME Times
Happy Sailing,
Mapthor
~ Project Progress ~
Anorien - Lead: @draonic_slayer | In Progress
Report by Draonic
Progress has been steady in the Pelennor Fields, with the several houses built receiving detailed interiors and smaller exterior details. Not much else has happened in the rest of Anorien over the past 2 weeks.
Cair Andros – Lead: @Andrewpioneer | In Progress
Report by Andrew
Rogue is working on finishing our trees repository for the project 40% finished, four major varities of trees, Aspen(light/Dark), Spruce, Green Ash. Mattlego is working on terrain, the major outline has been finished and most basic shaping is also done, hes currently working on coloring the terrain and finer details (ridges, erosion lines, eroded shorelines). No estimate on overall terrain progress yet. Concept work has resumed on interior spaces and harbor designs. Work on the actual build is dependant on when terrain and textures are finished, we can proceed without trees for awhile but will need them before starting the forest section of the project
Lond Daer – Lead: @mattlego | In Progress
Report by Mattlego
All of the houses in the outer part of Lond Daer have now been finished. All that remains is the Hippodrome, a few warehouses, and the canals. Planning on the inner city should be able to begin rather soon.
Moria – Lead: @barteldvn | In Progress
Report by Mershy
Badger has been busy crashing people over in the MovieCave whilst playing around with a block mix. This block mix does consist of some lovely new textures which Bart has been working on so look out for those in areas. Aside from that, MovieCave is almost done and West Gate is hopeful to continue at some stage
~ General Announcements ~
Become a Donor
Keeping MCME running is not free, every month we have to pay $265 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
- Wyattrox03
- Ubiquitousplays
- Junoknight
#NEWS
MCME's Newest Video:
_Luk is back at it again with another great server video. This time, Helm's Deep is our main attraction and let me tell ya, it's a banger of a video.
Check it out:
MCME3:
It's the most wonderful time of the year! E3 is back again and this time, MCME is hosting some watch parties to get the community involved with all the new announcements!
Server Update:
We're finally off a hard drive! Q updated the server earlier last week which brought along a whole bunch of server performance improvements and a temporary 1.17 survival! Kudos to Drao and Maski for beating the Ender Dragon in the short time that the server was up.
Texture Workshop:
After some troubleshooting with his microphone, Toti hosted the final texturing workshop for MCME. In this last installment of the trilogy, Mershy and Toti whipped out their Photoshopping skills and taught the world how to make amazing grass textures... I think
Entwash Vegetation:
Our resident Foremen Foolhardy has been working hard on getting the Entwash delta done, and now I am happy to report that it is finally complete! Huge thanks to everyone who came out to help finish off this enormous task!
Euro Football Competition:
On June 12th, Ooits hosted a raffle for the Euro's 2021 Football Tournament! Players got drafted to a random team and are forced to cheer for them until they either win or lose! Winner gets something, no one really knows yet, but we'll find out soon enough!
The MCME Podcast:
It's that time of the month again. The MCME Podcast returns with three new guests. This month, Badger, Effie, and World are all on talking about a whole slew of topics. But most importantly, we learn the real reason why Effie says "uwu" so much.
You can find the newest edition right here:
~ Rank Updates ~
Report by MapthorHaldir_123: This one's a sad one, I'm not gonna lie. Our resident tourist and music night leader Haldir has decided to step down from his rank as Guide. But never fear, he'll still be running his music nights and the occasional speed-runs.
Resignation
~ Interviews ~
Interview with @TotiGonzales
Question 1. The history of your username?
I was once abducted by the Mexican mafia and had to change my name to better fit the environment and survive the time in captivity. We were allowed to play Minecraft twice a week. Once I was freed I kept in touch with my Minecraft friends from there so I never thought of changing my name.
Question 2. Who is your celebrity crush?
Would have to go with Groot on this one :thinking: Such beautiful textures. Amazing foliage. Can also imagine that he is a great guy. I'm not a man of many words myself so I think I would enjoy his company.
This is a bit of a hard one for me. Even tho I only joined the server during the last year of the Dol Amroth project I feel very much attached to it and it's been my favorite project for a long time now. However since newer projects are starting to use the new textures, I'm starting to prefer Lond Daer more. Tho right now unfinished and in most parts waaaay too mossy I see its potential at becoming my new favorite. I couldn't give you a definite answer now. Ask me again next year.
Question 4. If you could be any race in middle earth, what race and why?
Ent. Definitely a tree type of guy as mentioned above. Tbh I don't remember if I was so obsessed with nature before I started texturing or not but I'm fully embracing it right now. Irl I may also have a bit of a reputation for being too relaxed and sometimes a bit too comfortable so I think the ent lifestyle would fit me. The only question would be... where are the ent wives?
Question 5. What is your favourite video produced by MCME and why?
I really liked the Welcome to Minecraft Middle-Earth video. It has a great vibe and gives the viewers a good idea of what MCME is. I originally started planning a welcome to MCME video 3 years ago and due to other tasks and duties never got to finishing it. Maybe the main reason for why it's my favorite is that it was a real team effort from the entire video team as well as a bunch of people from the rest of the community. I hope we'll be doing more of these in the future. Make sure to send in ideas for future videos to myself or Ginger.
Question 6. Still or sparkling water?
Oh! Are you going to make me expose myself like this? It's sparkling for me. It has always been sparkling. I would choose sparkling water over any other beverage any time of the day. For everyone else that doesn’t like it I am sorry to hear that you have forgotten your roots. Our existence is thanks to sparkling water. It’s been theorized for a long time that the condition for unicelular life could have only emerged near the underwater volcanoes in the early oceans. The sulfuric acid that got mixed with the water made for a great sparkling water environment where life could form. We are sparkling water!
Question 7. Talk us through your thought process when you create a "Toti Feedback"
Great question! It’s a bit of a complicated one but I’m going to try to explain as good as possible: First, the product of someone's work comes in. You may not believe me but I am very much aware of their emotional bond to their work and the time and energy they put into it. So first thing after I get the first glimpse at their work I either am pleasantly surprised by it or I fall into a state of confusion mixed with despair where I have to weigh between hurting the peoples feelings and the weight of the responsibility for the task that has been put on my shoulders. Once I overcome that state I start going through the work that has been presented to me bit by bit. If this is the first time I give feedback on this specific work I would usually hold back some of the things that don’t really live up to my expectations to either be brought up later or in hope that they will fix themselves along the way. It’s a huge balancing task, with a lot of variables, that is for me at least as exhausting as for the feedback receiver. The experience of the feedback receiver also plays a big role here. Most of the time I have to guess how they would take it. But after doing this for a couple of years I kinda developed a sense for what types of people I have to give feedback to. One of the biggest realization would have to be that many of these people never had to work in such an environment before. One could go easy on them, tho I prefer the baptism by fire method. I’ve invested huge amounts of time into people that just left a couple weeks later so the most effective method thus far has been to bring them to their limit right at the start. If they survive that then everything else will seem like a walk in the park. After the feedback giving process I usually have to take a nap.
Question 8. Any interesting outside hobbies you do?
I play a bunch of instruments… I don’t know if that qualifies as interesting. MCME is the most interesting hobby I have. Everytime I tell someone about it they are much more impressed than if I was to play something for them.
Question 9. Mac or Windows?
Windows. I don’t mean to start the debate but as shit as Microsoft is I still couldn’t bring myself to support a company like Apple. I already feel exploited by only using quicktime encoding for videos.
Question 10. Fav number and why?
No favorite number. Wtf is this the frickin kindergarten?
Question 11. Any sneak preview of some up and coming textures?
Is this an attempt at pushing my buttons? Let me see… nowadays this stuff is coming out left and right so I’m not sure what you have or have not seen yet. I really like this house @Andrewpioneer built with some of the new blocks:
Upcoming update is basically going to be a bunch of features that were planned for the Rohan update that just happened to make it out sooner due to Cair Andros being started. We are still very much working on the forest update. It’s just that most of the people involved really hate vegetation textures, which I can’t blame them for, we’ve been doing those for 2 years now. So it’s hard to make progress on the forest update without sprinkling in some other tasks to mix it up. That’s what the Cair Andors RP update is going to be composed of
Question 12. Can I have some feedback on these questions?
I mean…there were a couple really good ones in there. I appreciate you trying to ask things not related to texturing but I could have really used one or two more about texturing... N E V E R S T O P T E X T U R I N G
Interviewer:
~ 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:
Honorable Mention: I like the composition, lighting, and uniqueness of this shot by Givet, but I'm just not a fan of the overall tone and the smearing of the edges. Seems unnecessary.
Honorable Mention: Rogue_Scholar took a pretty lil' shot this fortnight, though it feels a bit under-saturated and lacking in shadow. Still, the composition is great.
Honorable Mention: It seems Enenal has learned much about composition and lighting over the past few months. I hope to see more shots from him in future.
Honorable Mention: Bohemian_Beetle clearly knows the meaning of the phrase "simple but effective". This shot is very simple, nothing crazy in terms of lighting or builds is going on here, and yet it does everything right. ...While these sorts of shots are great, it's pretty hard for me to come up with things to say about them.
Honorable Mention: As our favorite superhero, Emeryld, looks up towards the frankly oddly-colored sky with his trusty cape fluttering in the midst of the wind, he slowly removes his hood, revealing his identity. Little does he realize that sneaking up behind him is Givet, the photographer, ready to snap a picture of our hero with his hood off...
Honorable Mention: Here we are looking at a pleasant shot by Enenal. It's hard to tell what the focus is, the windmill or the area around the windmill. The windmill as a focus would be too small, but it stands out a lot more than the area around it. Other than that, the lighting and tone are quite nice. Nice sky.
Media Winner: Ah, good ol' Dol Amroth. Rogue_Scholar decided to mess with sunrays a bit with this one. They do indeed help make the shot more interesting, but the composition and lighting of this shot are great as well. Even the tone's kinda cool. It's not the most unique shot out there, but I like the different style Rogue was going for. Congrats, Rogue!
Honorable Mention: Rogue_Scholar took a pretty lil' shot this fortnight, though it feels a bit under-saturated and lacking in shadow. Still, the composition is great.
Honorable Mention: It seems Enenal has learned much about composition and lighting over the past few months. I hope to see more shots from him in future.
Honorable Mention: Bohemian_Beetle clearly knows the meaning of the phrase "simple but effective". This shot is very simple, nothing crazy in terms of lighting or builds is going on here, and yet it does everything right. ...While these sorts of shots are great, it's pretty hard for me to come up with things to say about them.
Honorable Mention: As our favorite superhero, Emeryld, looks up towards the frankly oddly-colored sky with his trusty cape fluttering in the midst of the wind, he slowly removes his hood, revealing his identity. Little does he realize that sneaking up behind him is Givet, the photographer, ready to snap a picture of our hero with his hood off...
Honorable Mention: Here we are looking at a pleasant shot by Enenal. It's hard to tell what the focus is, the windmill or the area around the windmill. The windmill as a focus would be too small, but it stands out a lot more than the area around it. Other than that, the lighting and tone are quite nice. Nice sky.
Media Winner: Ah, good ol' Dol Amroth. Rogue_Scholar decided to mess with sunrays a bit with this one. They do indeed help make the shot more interesting, but the composition and lighting of this shot are great as well. Even the tone's kinda cool. It's not the most unique shot out there, but I like the different style Rogue was going for. Congrats, Rogue!
THEME-BUILD Winners
We got two theme builds this time to show off. Thanks to Maski for rounding these all up for us!
~ Lore of the Fortnight~
Mid-year’s Day We are now about a week away from the Summer Solstice, and this is a very special time of year for the hobbits!
The middle of each year in the Shire Reckoning was marked by three special days that did not belong to any of the months and were known as the Lithedays; the second of these three days was called Mid-year’s Day, or Midsummer Day, and corresponded roughly to the Summer Solstice. The Lithedays, along with the Yuletide in mid-winter, constituted the chief holidays and times of feasting for the hobbits in the Shire; the Old Took used to celebrate Midsummer-eve with Gandalf’s famous fireworks.
On leap years yet another day was added to the Lithedays, called Overlithe, and it was treated as a special holiday of great merrymaking. So special in fact were Mid-year’s Day and the Overlithe that they were not even assigned week-days, and were simply called Mid-year’s Day and Overlithe (this innovation is known as the Shire-reform, and it also allowed each date on the calendar to consistently be assigned the same week-day every year).
One notable leap year was the year 1420 of the Shire Reckoning, the year following Sauron’s defeat; it was described as “the year of the famous harvest and wonderful summer, and the merrymaking in that year is said to have been the greatest in memory or record.” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix D).
Once every seven years the hobbits held a special festival on the Lithedays, known as the Free Fair, and it took place in the White Downs near Michel Delving. It was during the Free Fair that the Mayor of Michel Delving (often known as the Mayor of the Shire) was elected for a seven-year term, until the next Free Fair. At the time of the War of the Ring the Mayor of Michel Delving was Will Whitfoot, mostly renowned for being the fattest hobbit in the Westfarthing; but he was also quite famous for the incident in which the Town Hole (the seat of the Mayor) collapsed and he emerged from the ruins safe and sound but covered in white dust, earning him the nickname “Flourdumpling”.
Whitfoot suffered greatly during the Scouring of the Shire, having been caught and imprisoned by Sharkey’s men, and was unfit to return to office at the end of the War; thus Frodo had to step up as Deputy Mayor for the following year, until at last he stepped down during the Free Fair of 1420, and Whitfoot was elected as Mayor once again. Seven years later Whitfoot also retired at last, and the next Mayor to be elected was none other than Samwise Gamgee, who then served for seven consecutive terms.
But aside from merrymaking in the Shire, Mid-year’s Day (and its equivalent in the King’s Reckoning, Loëndë) is also known for some historical events, and not all of them particularly pleasant.
It was on Midsummer morning that the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (Nirnaeth Arnoediad) began, in the year 472 of the First Age; it was also on Midsummer, 26 years later, that Túrin Turambar wedded his sister (unknowingly at the time) Nienor. In FA 510, on Midsummer, Morgoth’s forces attacked and sacked the city of Gondolin, and King Turgon died.
Thousands of years later, Thorin’s Company left Rivendell on Midsummer-eve on their quest to reclaim Erebor, and decades later Aragorn, now crowned as King Elessar, wedded Arwen Undómiel upon the day of Midsummer.
And so, upon this summer day, I wish all the people of our lovely MCME community a most pleasant Mid-year’s Day!
~ Question of the Fortnight~
This Week's Question:
Which character, aside from King Turgon, is known to have died on Mid-year’s Day?
Last time Melkor answered the question correctly.
Answer: An Ent-host showed up near Mount Dolmed and helped Beren against the Dwarves of Nogrod after they sacked Doriath.
Answer: An Ent-host showed up near Mount Dolmed and helped Beren against the Dwarves of Nogrod after they sacked Doriath.
Presented by: HoverKing
~ 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 mcmiddleearth 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 ~
And there we go! You know, this didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would, not gonna lie. Safe to say I will never do this again and leave it to a professional like Shen.
Catch ya on the flip side!
Excellent work, Times Team!
Quote from Mr. H
“The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons as far as they’ll go.”
The Official MCME Times
mcmiddleearth.com
And there we go! You know, this didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would, not gonna lie. Safe to say I will never do this again and leave it to a professional like Shen.
Catch ya on the flip side!
Excellent work, Times Team!
Quote from Mr. H
“The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons as far as they’ll go.”
The Official MCME Times
mcmiddleearth.com
