Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-28593934-20170309220411/@comment-27598543-20170310181439

Solelfar wrote: Shadow of War will indeed be a funny game to play, and I would have had no problem with it if it only slightly changed the lore.

However it creates an alternate world to Middle-Earth and does not expressly precise that its story wasn't written by Tolkien himself.

I fear that some people might believe that it's an actual representation of Middle-Earth and its history and that it can be seen as lore.

That wouldn't be a real problem if the Lord of the Rings hadn't such an historical value, and a sentimental value for most of us. It's like trying to rewrite and to erase the past: there are no blacks in Gondor, women did not fight at war, and those insignificant details are in fact of great importance to fully understand Tolkien, his world and his time.

Furthermore would you like to see someone use what you invented and what you consider as been your own work, and utterly modify it for his own purposes? I agree with you mostly, but didn't Tolkien himself say, that he couldn't finish Middle Earth and others can fill the holes with their own ideas? (I remember something like that, but I don't have a link, so this info isn't for sure!)

And as I stated before, if you sell rights of your Fantasy Universe, you take the risk, that the Buyers do something with it, what you don't want. Also every Middle-Earth game I know, is not lore-friendly. There are only some which are closer to the lore, then others.

(For example "The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North". This game is pretty accurate with the happenings from LotR)