News Archive

ROTK is set to hit Xbox, PS2, PC, etc in Fall of 2003. Read more here.

MSU (Michigan State University) is offering a new course for Tolkien lovers. To read about it, click here.

The BBC has posted Billy’s answers to questions sent in by fans a couple of months ago.

Decipher is looking to see how fierce you are! “Send me your best photograph of yourself wearing a Fierce. t-shirt or hat. The three best pictures will each win a set of nine Black Rider foil cards signed by Decipher’s own Black Riders!” Read more to find out how to get your own Fierce t-shirt or hat and how to enter the contest.

Box Office Mojo reports that TTT has hit the $900 million mark in Worldwide All Time Grosses chart.

Click here to see a preview of what the menus and artwork will look like on the theatrical edition of TTT DVD.

The Elvish Name Database
Contributed by: Tanlaithwen

For those of you unfamiliar with the recently added “Elvish Name Database” here at CoE, here’s a few little details to get you started…

What is it?

The Elvish Name Database is a collection of names – sorted in alphabetical order – accurately translated into Sindarin.

Why has it been created?

The internet is a big place – there are lots of Lord of the Rings fansites out there and with them a lot of ‘Elvish Name Generators.’ Unfortunately, many of these are either random, or have translated the names incorrectly. As we like to be accurate here at CoE, we want to provide you with a “service that you can trust,” so you can guarantee that your Elvish name is as near-perfect as we can make it. (As Sindarin is an incomplete language, we often have to use synomyms of the meanings, and occasionally, we cannot translate the name at all.)

When was the Database started? When will it be completed?

The translating of names was begun back in the autumn of last year, and the Database was officially opened to the public on Monday, the 17th March. As to when it will be completed, nobody knows. But we keep working!

How do I use it?

Type in your name in the “Search” box that you see on the first page, and click “Search!” Underneath the search box are some little buttons -it is automatically set to “5 matches,” which means that five names will appear on one page. If you want a different number of names to be displayed on a page, click one of the other buttons before hitting “Search!”

When the page loads you could see one of three different things:
1) What appears to be the same screen as before – scroll down and you will find your name.
2) If, when you have scrolled down there is a name, but it is not the name that you searched for (for example, if you type “Gail” in the search box, it comes up with “Abigail” but not “Gail”), this means that the name is not in the Database yet. I will tell you how to request a name below.
3) It could say “Information not found.” This also means that the name is not in the Database yet.

What if the name I want does not appear in the Database?

If your name is not in the Database, click on the “Request Name Addition” link above the search box. Fill in the form by putting the name(s) you want translated in the “Names” box and, if you know the meaning of that name, put it in the “Meanings” box. Click “Add Information,” and check back in a day or two to see if we have added it to the Database yet. If you don’t know the meaning, we’ll look it up for you.

Please do not use this form for sending us names that you have translated into Sindarin yourself. If you want to become a Name Translator, please read on.

Where is this Name Database then?

On the Main Menu at the left side of your window, look under Languages. The bottom link is the “Elvish Name Database.”

Who works on the Database? Can I help?

Fìriel, Veaglarwen and myself are currently the only people working on this project. If you have some knowledge of Sindarin and want to help, please PM one of us – we will gladly reply. Currently we are only translating names into Sindarin, but if you know how to speak Quenya and would like to help out please PM as well!
Again, please do not use the “Request Name Addition” form for sending us names that you have translated into Sindarin yourself. If you want to become a Name Translator, please ask us.

Now that you have a basic overview of how the Name Database works, we’d encourage all of you to use this highly valube resource!

The Books Forum
Contributed by: PotBellyHairyFoot

The Books forum is a knowledge-based forum for the discussion of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien (and his son Christopher) concerning Middle-Earth. The very knowledgeable Hathaldir has been this forum’s moderator from the beginning and when the membership started climbing, with the release of TTT, I was added to assist her.

Topics can run from simple polls such as “Who is your favorite character in the LOTR series and why?” and basic questions like “How old were you when you read LOTR for the first time?”, right through to more complicated discussions – “Denethor’s Madness” and “No Earthly Honor for Legolas”. Also present are the unsolvable, never ending discussions of such topics as the Balrog’s wings and The nature of Tom Bomabadil and Goldberry. Although much of the discussion is based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there are also threads on topics from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and even the History of Middle-Earth series, to be found in the forum.

The forum is set up so that anyone, no matter what his or her level of knowledge is, can post in an existing thread or start a new thread. If you have only read a book or two and are waiting for the release of ROTK to finish, or if you’ve read everything by and about Tolkien that you can get your hands on, the Books forum should have topics there for you. We encourage everyone, no matter how simple or complicated the topic or question, to feel free to post in the forum. No matter what you wish to know or what topic you wish to post about, there is someone in our membership that can answer your questions or respond to your topic. All we ask is that you read the rules before posting and make sure that a topic is not already being discussed in the forum before starting a new thread.

Lately we are starting to see some deeper discussions of Tolkien in the Books forum, in order to test the abilities of the “scholars” in our membership. Currently this includes discussions into the nature of the heroism of Bilbo and Gandalf, and the psychology of why some of the characters do what they do; as in the previously mentioned Denethor’s Madness thread. We consider these discussions to be very important as they help us here at COE demonstrate that we really are on our way to becoming one of the best Tolkien sites on the Web.

CoE has been busy as usual lately. The site recently hit 10,000 members, and we’re still adding dozens of new people every day. The welcoming crew has been working hard to keep up with their duties by saying hello to every new person who signs up.

In other news, the server drive started off great, and we raised over $800 in a relatively short time period. Unfortunately, the donations have trickled off, and we still have a long way to go. If you like the site, and want to help contribute towards its new server, please check out the Raffle page to see how.

Incidentally, the server has already been purchased, and installed in it’s new home. Once the necessary software has been installed, we’ll be moving over to the new server. This will require a day or so of downtime, but don’t panic We’ll leave the chat room up during that time so that people can check in on the status of the move, and still meet with their friends.

The staff, as always, is working hard to find new ways to improve or add to the site. We recently hired on two new admins: Toon, who oversees the site themes, and Lollypop, who is co-admin of the Fan Creations area. In addition, we’ve added an Artists of Middle-Earth section to the site, as well as a Quenya discussion forum. Keep an eye out for new additions to the site, which will include a Book Club, a totally revamped Humor section, and the long awaited Realms!

–Rivka

From a press release at the official site: the theatrical release will be followed by “a distinctly different four-disc Special Extended DVD Edition November 18, 2003.” The press release doesn’t make the waiting any easier, I know…