Knowledge FAQ

1 General information 1.1 Who's writing this stuff? My name is Fredrik Ekman, I live in Sweden and I have been a collector of games based on Tolkien's Middle-earth for several years. From late 1993 to late 1995 I maintained a list of all such games. After that I transformed the list into a set of WWW pages I also wrote a regular column on the subject in Other Hands - the International Journal for Middle-earth Gaming, an excellent source of information that otherwise mostly deals with role-playing games (for subscriptions or info, see the official home pageMy articles were published in issues 12 through 20. If you want to contact me, the best way is e-mail to ekman@lysator.liu.se (but read the rest of the FAQ first!). 1.2 Where can I find an up-to-date copy of this document? The latest version will always (or at least in the foreseeable future) be It will also be posted to relevant news-groups. Alternatively, it could be ordered by e-mail from the maintainer (see question 1.1). 1.3 Do you send out copies of commercial games on request? No. 1.4 What related FAQs are there? Many of the games mentioned in this FAQ are also covered by other FAQs. There are also some games that could have been mentioned here, but are not. FAQs that have references to Tolkien games include: Kingdom O' Magic FAQ The semi-official Interplay RPG FAQ (about Interplay's games, somewhat outdated) The Spectrum Games FAQ (some info on The Boggit and The Tebbit) Angband Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions about Moria The Utumno FAQ The Hobbit FAQ (not the Melbourne House game) The Trilogy FAQ 1.5 How do I find information about a specific game? The Tolkien computer games WWW pages (see question 1.1) have one page devoted to each known title. There you can find a great deal of useful and useless information about the games you are interested in. 1.6 Are you sure you don't mail copies of commercial games? Yes. 1.7 Why doesn't the game I downloaded work? Did you even bother to read the page you downloaded from? It is clearly stated by each downloadable game what system it is for. If you try to download, say, a ZX Spectrum game to your Mac it naturally will not work since it was written for another machine. Fortunately, there are emulators that lets your computer "pretend" to be what it is not. For further information, see the emulator FAQ 1.8 Do you have a walk-through or hints sheet for my favorite game? If I know about one there is a link to it from the Tolkien computer games web pages (see question 1.1). Otherwise I do not have it, so please do not ask. 1.9 Couldn't you copy just one commercial game, just for me? Absolutely not, and I mean it! You may think that you have a perfectly legit cause for wanting me to send a copyrighted game to you, and maybe you do. Perhaps your old disk went bad and the game maker is no longer around to replace it. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way for me to tell an "honest" request from one that is not. Quoting manuals or scanning covers proves absolutely nothing, except (maybe) that you somehow have access to the original documentation. Please respect that my web pages put me in a somewhat exposed position and that even if one single offense would not make me end up in jail, I would soon find myself in a situation where it would be extremely difficult to draw the line between what is reasonable and what is not. And either way, even though I am always willing to help if I can, my time is limited and copying a game usually takes some time, especially since I may not have it installed. I am perfectly willing to spend time making a game available for legitimate downloading, but not mailing out games on individual requests. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Middle-earth MUDs 2.1 Why can't I play any of the MUDs? If you fail to connect to a MUD through my page of Tolkien MUDs your problem is likely to be any of the following three: Your web browser is not set up properly. You will w