• Welcome to MCME!

    Minecraft Middle Earth is a Minecraft community that recreates the world described by JRR Tolkien and his writings. Everyone can participate in organized events in which we collaborate to create major landmarks, terrain, caves, castles, towns, farms and more.

    To get started, visit The New Player Guide

    Joining the server

    Joining the server can be done straight away, but you will have to pass the New Player Quiz. Use the The New Player Guide to get acquainted with our community.

    IP: build.mcmiddleearth.com

~ The MCME Times ~ [09/19/2021]

Chief, it’s time to wake up
The new Mods are here!
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Editor's Note by mapthor
Hello again and welcome back to The MCME Times! What happened the past two weeks? Well, we got yet another musical score from the music team, Shen and w0rld finally got promoted to mod after who knows how long, and Smaug still hasn’t made an announcement post about them. Just another fortnight on the server, nothing too spectacular. But you know what is spectacular? Next month. October is a special month of the year for MCME because on the 10th, MCME will be turning 11 years old! It’s crazy that we’re still kicking. But anyways, we’ll be hosting a bunch of events as well as the iconic Anniversary Ceremony. Be there or be squared. Anyways, that’s all my stuff done. Hope you enjoy the new edition :D

Happy Sailing,
mapthor

~ Project Progress ~

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

Over the past 2 weeks the overall progress % for the Pelennor ticked over 70% completion, marking quite a large milestone for the completion. Rudolphius has been planning and handing out plots on the new village in the southern section, nearest to Pelargir. It has quite the large bell tower, so it isn’t hard to miss. Additionally, TheSweViking has been doing the rough layout for the rest of the Pelennor in preparation for it to be built on. Also, Orruss has helped finish off the last sections of the Rammas Echor detailing adding multiple construction camps and several ruined/deteriorated wall sections. For the main part of Anorien a few more terrain colouring plots have been finished. Around by Halifirien, I have started collecting large oak trees in preparation for starting the Firien woods once the Druadan Forest is finished. HyprNinja has made several nice oak trees and if anyone else wants to help feel free to message me.

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Cair Andros – Lead: @Andrewpioneer | In Progress
Report by Andrewpioneer

Aside from Bart redoing the terrain, and Effie giving out some plots to detail the cliffs, not much has been done due to both Andrew and Effie being busy with school!

tmoZY8E79ZYXMewJ2tHxxOExu-LWuQBRvJa5WYmezlkGfsa4MEPvffaTF6Ba0e3C0QiatP3ALWYYLH9K3i2DWRd5y1jP3uDv8bIQrCM1bO7XyC0XRyhxxd4nx89JBzz0-A=s0


Harlond – Lead: @Mershy | In Progress
Report by Mershy

Steady progress in Harlond: interior and exteriors being done, some redesigns including including wall in some areas and some nice dock detailing. Progress is going well, next area to tackle is the central market area.

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

Lots of progress has been made recently. The palace is coming along very nicely especially with the courtyard being worked on thanks to Orruss and Rudo. The main hall is also looking very nice and thanks to Luk the whole inner city is planned out as well. We should be able to start handing out plots again soon so look forward to that!

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Moria – Lead: @DoctorDaom | In Progress
Report by Mershy

Not too much to comment on this update. Daom has done some bits and pieces in West Gate so hopefully soon that can be pasted in.

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~ 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
  • DukeOfWellington
  • Guest
  • Puffer404
  • WieldableMars0
#MCMEdoesnotrunitself


~ Rank Updates ~
Report by givet10

Shen: The time has come, the boss of the MCME Times has finally be promoted to Mod, back to his old rank and duties. No Adventurer that isn't based is safe anymore, so make sure you hide when he comes online! Congrats on Mod, Shen.
Promotion

w0rldunder: And another double Mod promotion, w0rldunder is promoted to Moderator as well. After showing the server he can build, he'll now also protect the server from trolls, spammers and hackers! Dutch Mods are always nice to have, so congratulations w0rld!
Promotion

junoknight: Not only do we have 2 new Moderators, we now have a new and fresh Manager/Staff that is named juno! He'll be leading the amazing Music Team as well as helping with some other important stuff. It will be strange to see him in the lime colour, but we'll have to get used to it. Congrats juno!
Promotion

Archimdes: Sadly with all this good news, there is bad news as well: Archimdes has decided to step down, due to getting too busy with school work. He has been a great asset to the server with his nice events, leading the Music Team, helping around where he can in the Media Team, doing funny tours/PvP, and of course have some of the most iconic, rather stupid quotes. Hopefully we will see you back in teal again soon Arch. Thanks for all the stuff you've done!
Resignation

Rogue_Scholar: Another pretty bad, but not as bad news to hear is Rogue stepping back to Artist, so he will still build his trees on the map, but not run his fun jobs anymore. Thanks for making the Osgo wall great again, purple fits you as well!
Resignation

maski98: What's happening?! maski has decided to step down to the role of Commoner now as well! Very unexpected, but I guess all I can say is thank you for all the jobs, help with Artist school and builds on the main world you have done for this server.
Resignation


~ Winners of “The Week” ~

This might seem like just another edition of the Media Winners for some of you, but it marks a special occasion for me. With this edition out, I've been judging the Media Winners for a year! And boy, it's been fun. ...That is, when I don't get called out for not putting someone's shots in, lol. When I first started taking screenshots with my custom-built PC as a Commoner back in early 2020, I never would've thought I'd eventually not only be in the Media Team, not only a Guide, but also a Media Team leader and Media Winners judge. But enough looking back, let's look ahead! Scroll down and check out my pic picks for this week's edition of the Media Winners.

MEDIA Winners:

Honorable Mention: Contrast in this shot's a bit too high for my liking, but Givet got the tone and blurring right in this shot. The composition's alright, though I personally would have either moved the bridge higher up in the shot or moved the village in the back to a position where it would've been more easily identified as the focus, having the bridge in the foreground. Nice lighting, though.

Givet_2.png



Honorable Mention: Ignoring the tree without a trunk in the back left, this is a nice shot from Rogue_Scholar. The composition feels a bit off with the placement of the focus, but there's just enough direct light on the builds in the center. Pretty original, too.

Rogue_Scholar_2.png



Honorable Mention: Nice angle of Osgiliath here. Good composition and lighting. Though the shadows do appear a bit "line-y" if you look closely, they're surprisingly smooth in most spots. Shot by Mershy.

Mershy.png



Honorable Mention: A classic SEUS shot by clement387. It's nice to see simple, yet pleasant, shots like this from time to time from our Adventurers. I think the composition's pretty good, though the lighting's a bit iffy on the left side of the shot. Interestingly, it looks like POM (parallax occlusion mapping) was used on certain blocks in this image.

clement387.png



Honorable Mention: Simplistic but it follows all the basic screenshotting rules. In other words. a classic Bohemian_Beetle shot.

Bohemian_Beetle_2.png



Honorable Mention: The smoke might look a bit like steam from a sauna, but beyond that, Emeryld took a neat shot of Juno's Moria tour. Getting clean, well-positioned shots of tours like this is tricky business, so props to Emeryld for managing that.

Emeryld_2.png



Honorable Mention: Though the focus is a bit uninteresting, Itai's lighting and composition here are very nice. Shame about the trees ending so suddenly on the mountain in the back, if I had to nit-pick.

Itai_Belfalas.png



Honorable Mention: Pretty good shot all around, this. The tone works fairly well with Belfalas' fields, the lighting is a fair balance between light and shadow, and the composition is adequate. I will mention that having the buildings continue down past the bottom of the shot looks slightly odd, but I can ignore that. Shot by Rogue_Scholar.

Rogue_Scholar_4.png



Honorable Mention: Say what you will about the artstyle, but I think the tone of the lighting in this shot is excellent. Reminds me of that of Osgo to Minas Tirith shot we used for the thumbnail of the 5-year anniversary video. The composition is also very nice and I like the stylization here. Shot by SmigbobTheUruk.

SmigbobTheUruk.png



Honorable Mention: Little grainy on close inspection, but it looks fine at a normal distance. I know how tricky finding good angles of Methrast can be, so props to Bohemian_Beetle for finding one this good.

Bohemian_Beetle_3.png



Honorable Mention: Another Methrast shot! This time, it's from EffieFrag. I love the rich colors used here. Quite eye-catching. The composition and lighting are great as well.

EffieFrag.png



Honorable Mention: It's a relatively basic Ymir shot, but uses an angle that, if we have seen it before, haven't seen in a while. Good composition, love Ymir's sky. Shot by Givet.

Givet.png



Honorable Mention: Loved the composition and tone of this boat shot from Xmine. Just wish the sky was either less de-saturated or filled with more clouds.

Xmine.png



Honorable Mention: Don't be fooled by the clouds, that is not Voyager 2.0! It is Apollo, which may be Rogue_Scholar's favorite shader now. Very nice lighting all around in this shot, very good composition. Good sky, as well.

Rogue_Scholar_3.png



Media Winner: The edited-in blurring's not all that subtle, but the lighting and composition are on-point with this shot by Emeryld. I quite like the slight vibrancy that might have been added to the colors. Also nice to see Imloth Melui get some love. Congrats, Emeryld!

Emeryld.png



Honorable Mention?: I can put this down for an honorable mention, right? That's not overly biased, right? It is? Fine...

Pelargir_Minas_Tirith_Osgiliath_Render_3.jpg


THEME-BUILD Winners

On the Roman stuff, of course our builders will be on top, but on the ships, there are a lot new names which makes me extremely happy!





~ Lore of the Week ~

The Origin of the Orcs, part III - Their Souls, Free-will and Fate

Having discussed the origin of the Orcs in the two previous editions of the Times, it is now time to conclude this Orc-themed series by taking a look at the nature of the Orcs, and specifically the questions of their free-will and fate. Tolkien addresses these matters in the same essay in which he concludes that Orcs originated from Men (Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”), which is also the latest essay on the subject that we know of.

At one point, Tolkien briefly considered the possibility of Orcs being in fact soulless beasts, and claimed that ‘talking’ is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a ‘rational soul’ or fëa; this line of thought stemmed from the question: would Eru provide fëar for such creatures? It is clear that Tolkien struggled with the idea of Eru providing souls to creatures born into thraldom and damnation, twisted and corrupted by Morgoth in mockery of the Children. In a draft to a letter to Peter Hastings from September 1954 (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, letter #153) Tolkien briefly touched upon this issue: “[…]That God would 'tolerate' that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today. There might be other 'makings' all the same which were more like puppets filled (only at a distance) with their maker's mind and will, or ant-like operating under direction of a queen-centre.”

Tolkien further considered the idea of Orcs being puppets controlled from afar in Myths Transformed:

“[…] But if [Melkor] had indeed attempted to make creatures of his own in imitation or mockery of the Incarnates, he would, like Aulë, only have succeeded in producing puppets: his creatures would have acted only while the attention of his will was upon them, and they would have shown no reluctance to execute any command of his, even if it were to destroy themselves.

But the Orcs were not of this kind […]”
(Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”, text X) [emphases mine]

Here I will interject a note written by Tolkien some years later in reference to the statement “But the Orcs were not of this kind”:

“The orks, it is true, sometimes appear to have been reduced to a condition very similar, though there remains actually a profound difference. Those orks who dwelt long under the immediate attention of his will […] would act like herds, obeying instantly, as if with one will, his commands even if ordered to sacrifice their lives in his service. And as was seen when Morgoth was at last overthrown and cast out, those orks that had been so absorbed scattered helplessly, without purpose either to flee or to fight, and soon died or slew themselves.

“Other originally independent creatures, and Men among them (but neither Elves nor Dwarves), could also be reduced to a like condition. But 'puppets', with no independent life or will, would simply cease to move or do anything at all when the will of their maker was brought to nothing. […]”
(ibid.) [emphasis mine]

Continuing with the original quote:

“But the Orcs were not of this kind. They were certainly dominated by their Master, but his dominion was by fear, and they were aware of this fear and hated him. They were indeed so corrupted that they were pitiless, and there was no cruelty or wickedness that they would not commit; but this was the corruption of independent wills, and they took pleasure in their deeds. They were capable of acting on their own, doing evil deeds unbidden for their own sport; or if Morgoth and his agents were far away, they might neglect his commands. […]

“Moreover, the Orcs continued to live and breed and to carry on their business of ravaging and plundering after Morgoth was overthrown. They had other characteristics of the Incarnates also. They had languages of their own, and spoke among themselves in various tongues according to differences of breed that were discernible among them. […]”
(ibid.) [emphases mine]

And thus Tolkien at last concluded that Orcs, undeniably, must have had souls (fëar) and free-wills, and as such must have indeed originated from Men:

“Finally, there is a cogent point, though horrible to relate. It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. […]”
(ibid.)

Lastly, we must address the question of their fate following death - were Orcs irredeemable? In the draft of the letter quoted above (Letter #153) Tolkien mentions that Orcs “[…] would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making – necessary to their actual existence – even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.)” [emphasis mine]. In other words, even the Orcs were not truly irredeemable, since Eru still tolerated and accepted their making. He further addresses this in Myths Transformed:

“But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.”
(Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”, text X) [emphasis mine]

I should note here that being “irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men)” as quoted above does not equate to being “irredeemable by Eru”, and indeed Elves and Men could not speak of the fate of the Orcs after death. On this score Tolkien mentions that “[…] dying they would go to Mandos and be held in prison till the End.” (Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”, text VIII) - but this was said in context of an earlier discussion, when the Elvish and beast-like origins were still being considered. Thus it falls to us to extrapolate what that fate would later be, after Tolkien concluded their origin as Mannish. I would propose that they would indeed arrive at the Halls of Mandos and stay there for a while (though not “till the End”), allowing their souls time to heal and be redeemed; then they would at last depart from the Circles of the World as is the fate of all Men - for it is not within the power of anyone within Arda to withhold the Gift of Men indefinitely, and even though the Orcs were to spend their entire lives as the tormented and corrupted thralls of Morgoth or his followers, they were still Men in their origin and thus they must still be Men in their end.

~ Question of the Week ~

This Week's Question: I wonder if anyone can get this one right - how long does an Elvish pregnancy last?

Question: How did the Teleri cross the windless-sea between Tol Eressëa and Eldamar?

Correct Answer: The Teleri could not normally sail their ships from Tol Eressëa to the shores of Eldamar because there was no wind over the waters of the bay, and so they were helped by Ossë, who sent swans to draw their ships.

Last time, the correct answer was given by WieldableMars0! Hypr gave a good answer, but to the wrong question - the Elves were indeed carried across the sea on an island, and that island was Tol Eressëa; however I was asking about the next stage, how would they get off that island and to the shores of Valinor :p

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 ~

Ok so I'm here back at it again at Krispy Kreme, Shen once again didn't wanna do it. I have no idea what to say so I'm just going to talk about Operation Clout Route. Phases 2 is a go, that is all. Hold up one more thing, when I play DbD (Dead by Daylight) Nurse and Coldwind Farms are sooooo cursed. Also the new chain boi makes me sad, but otherwise the game is somewhat playable.

Sponsored by: Shark Tank, Cask & Co, Edging Goblin, ModHQ.

Excellent work, Times Team!


Quote from Captain Price
“Right. What the hell kind of name is MelkorPlaysMC, eh? How'd a muppet like you pass selection?”

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The Official MCME Times
mcmiddleearth.com​
 
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The Lore and Question of the Week have been added.
~ Lore of the Week ~

Hover, where's the Lore hole?
QZpSh5t.png


~ Question of the Week ~

Hover quickly making the Lore and Question
0L3owgr.gif
 
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This Week's Question: I wonder if anyone can get this one right - how long does an Elvish pregnancy last?

@HoverKing
An Elvish pregnancy lasted a year, with the child often being born on precisely the same date as conception.
(P.S. Anyone who watched the video I posted in lore discussion would know this, because it's discussed explicitly there.) ;)

"As for the begetting and bearing of children: a year passes between the begetting and the birth of an elf-child, so that the days of both are the same or nearly so, and it is the day of begetting that is remembered year by year." [HoMe X: Morgoth's Ring, "Of the Laws and Customs Among the Eldar"]
 
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