Since the support for the Battle For Middle-earth games has stopped, the official servers have stopped as well. Fortunately however, there are other alternatives for playing online games.
T3A:Online[]
This is the most common method of playing AotR online as the mod was designed for this. Use the following instructions to play with this method:
- Visit the T3A:Online website's setup guide and read the tutorial (note: it's an image slideshow, so make sure to press next)
- After reading the above and installing the T3A:Online launcher, open it, go to Hook, and hook up RotWK. If the check doesn't appear, make sure you're running it as administrator.
- Open the AotR shortcut. It should now open with the T3A:Online launcher. Press RotWK, and the mod should start. If not, your hooking didn't work, and you need to run as administrator.
- Go into Multiplayer > Online and log in with your T3A:Online credentials. If the game tells you to update, press cancel, exit, and run the shortcut as administrator and in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode.
If there are continual issues, there is a support forum available here. It is likely that any issues would already have been encountered and posted here. The forums also include a guide to port forwarding.
Gameranger[]
While less common, there are AotR games on Gameranger. Due to the way that AotR is installed, some extra steps will need to be taken to allow games here.
Follow these instructions to get Gameranger working with Age of the Ring
- Download the GameRanger Command Flag Tool here
- Extract the file called lotrbfme2ep1.exe. We highly recommend putting the file into your Age of the Ring folder to make the following steps easier. (By default, Age of the Ring is installed into C:\Program Files (x86)\AOTR8.0. If you changed your install location, the location of your aotr folder will be different)
- Open the file. You should see 3 different lines. Beside the Game Executable line, there is a select button. Click that and navigate to the lotrbfme2ep1.exe in the Rise of the Witch-king folder (By default Rise of the Witch-king is installed into C:/Program Files (x86)/Electronic Arts/The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king/lotrbfme2ep1.exe)
- Once you fill out the game executable line, click start. It should launch Rise of the Witch-king
- Leave the mod file blank and skip to the extra flags line
- In the extra flags line input: -mod "(Path of your Age of the Ring Folder)". The quotations and space after -mod are very important. Make sure they are not missing (By default, the extra flags line should say: -mod "C:\Program Files (x86)\AOTR8.0\aotr").
- One you have verified the information is correct, click start game. Instead of launching Rise of the Witch-king, Age of the Ring should now launch.
- Launch Gameranger. If you have not created an account, it will prompt you to do so. Set one up and follow the remain steps
- Go to Edit > Options and then the Game Tab
- Scroll down to Rise of the Witch King
- Click browse and go to this folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\AOTR8.0
- Select the file called lotrbfme2ep1.exe
Once you've completed this, you will be able to play AotR using Gameranger.
To switch back to Rise of the Witch-king, simply repeat steps 9-12 but instead select the lotrbfme2ep1.exe file located in C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king.
If the game doesn't launch, run the start up fixer provided here.
And then use the 2.02 launcher to change your resolution back.
Need Help? Join the Discord and make a new post in the Support channel.