A truly legendary experience
Echoes of Angmar offers a true vanilla experience with all content up to and including Volume I, Book 11 faithfully recreated. This means original zones and quest chains, complete (pre-split) instances, and yes, even the old trait system. You use the original client to connect to our server. No cash shop, no quest helper, original difficulty. We hope you still remember how to get around the Old Forest without a map!
The server is currently in active development but no release date has been set. We will run a Closed Beta in the following months to get ready for launch so keep an eye on this site or our community channels for annoucements.
Our goal is to create a positive game environment and foster a healthy community. We will take action against any conduct that we consider disruptive to that vision, regardless of whether it is explicitly mentioned in these rules or not.
Please understand that breaking server rules will generally result in a permanent account ban and thus loss of access to all characters on that account. If in doubt, don't do it!
We won't tolerate any sort of harassment, abuse or griefing.
Foul language, toxicity, spam and off-topic conversation of any kind are not permitted in public chat channels. This applies to /say, all zone channels (Regional, OOC, Advice, ...) and global channels (world, glff, ...) that are publicly advertised. Private tells (whispers) follow the same rules if the recipient reports them. We will not police fellowship or kinship chat, nor any private global channels.
Only English is allowed in the game's public channels (as defined above). For communication in other languages, please create a user channel. Bi-lingual advertisement of such channels using regular global channels is allowed; same applies for non-English speaking kinships.
Character and kinship names that are offensive or that make overt real-world references (especially political or otherwise controversial) are prohibited. Please note that use of special characters to bypass the game's foul language filter will be considered a violation, as will using non-English slurs in your names.
If you discover an exploit (meaning any action that provides an in-game advantage outside of normal rules), please report it. Taking advantage of such exploits will of course result in a ban for everyone involved.
This includes but is not limited to: item and currency multiplication, invulnerability, effect stacking, item consumption (e.g. using potions without spending them, crafting without ingredients, etc.), bypassing encounter mechanics and exploiting bugs in monster or pet AI in order to gain an unfair advantage.
Cheating is likewise strictly prohibited. This includes any sort of speed or wall hacks, client memory manipulation, packet alteration, modifying client data in a way that affects gameplay, etc.
After previous experience from our open beta, we have decided to ban multiboxing on Echoes of Angmar completely. It is not allowed to run multiple clients from the same machine, in PvE or PvP. Accounts that share IP because of NAT or a similar networking setup will be closely monitored.
Any other form of automation is also prohibited. Botting and AFK play in particular will result in a ban not only for the account that engaged in it but also for any characters that were traded any items collected by the bot (through direct trade or otherwise).
The use of keystroke macros is generally not allowed, especially where it leads to input spam and increased load on the server.
"What is Echoes of Angmar? Is it true SoA?"
EoA is a faithful recreation of the game as it was back in 2007. It uses the original client, meaning the graphics, landscapes, instances etc. are all exactly as they used to be back in the day. Server-side information that is not directly present in the client had to be recreated from references. Where these are lacking we had to make some guesses so the experience isn't 100% the same - but it's as close as it gets.
"Is this a #nochanges project or are you making adjustments to content, balance, etc.?"
We try to keep everything as close to the original as possible. We will not be making any changes beyond bug fixes, unless there's a technical reason to do so. This may change in the future as we start looking at our long-term plans for the server but for now the project is strictly #nochanges.
"Why Book 11 specifically?"
We are limited by what client patches are publicly available on the Internet. Book 11 is the latest available patch that has all the important content (Annúminas and The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu in particular) but that still predates many of the later landscape nerfs and changes (such as the Angmar revamp, Old Forest map, etc.)
"Will you ever release any of the later SoA patches?"
It is unlikely that we'll ever see any updates past Book 11 because the amount of work required is simply too large for the current size of the development team. That being said, upgrade to Book 14 is techically possible.
"Will we ever see Moria, Mirkwood, etc?"
Unlikely. We have no plans for any versions of the game beyond SoA.
"Is this a progressive server? What will be available at launch?"
Yes, content will be released progressively. However, the base game is still Book 11 so all tuning, itemization etc. will be as of that version of the game.
The server will release with PvE content roughly equivalent to the original Book 8 (aka SoA launch content). Some zones that were not available at SoA release may be closed off (Evendim, High Pass, Tâl Bruinen, ...) and open later with their respective Book patches.
Additional content will be released over time, more or less as it did back in the day:
The housing system, monster play (PvMP) and session play will release When It's Ready™. There will be a separate Beta for PvMP before its full release.
"Will there be festivals?"
We will try to make festivals available at a later date. We don't have any concrete plans as to when, though.
"Is the server source code available? Can I run my own server?"
No. We will not be releasing the server source code.
"Will there be a public Beta before launch?"
We are currently only planning a closed Beta phase with limited access. There will most likely be a public stress-test right before launch where everyone will be able to test the client and the game to some degree.
"Where can I sign up for the Closed Beta?"
Sign up for the Beta will be most likely run by our dedicated community members so keep an eye on those channels for updates!
"How can I create an Echoes account?"
Open account creation will not be coming back after our experiences from the previous Beta. We are still working on the specifics, but in general we want to have much more control over who we let into the server. We will share more details with you as the launch of the server approaches.
"Will you release the server gradually with level caps as during the Persistent Open Beta?"
Possibly, if the community wants it. There were certainly some advantages to this approach, but it required quite a lot of backend work on our end and required us to put some restrictions in place that weren't present in the original game. We will have to consider this carefuly before full server launch.
"Can I join your team?"
We are not looking for additonal contributors at the moment as the project has advanced too far for us to be able to easily onboard new developers. We will recruit Game Masters from the ranks of our community before launch. After the server launches, we might be open to new developers to manage the live ops side of the project and who could potentially transition into core development if they're interested.
"How can I contact you?"
The dev team doesn't maintain any public contact channels. However, we are in touch with some prominent members of our community so important information always reaches us.
"Why all this secrecy?"
Our privacy is our prerogative.
We don't maintain any official community channels beyond this website. However, there are communities forming around our server on Discord and Reddit. Search for "Echoes of Angmar" on discord.me or go to /r/EchoesofAngmar!