Tomaz.co

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

BFME Setup

Installation

Note: it seems that with the release of Windows 11 24H2, the old patching method - mounting decoy game discs - no longer works for everyone. Luckily, I found a workaround and updated the instructions accordingly. For the sake of posterity, however, you can still find the old guide by following this link.

Prerequisites

Before we start, you'll need some basic tools:

Thanks to the advances of modern science it is no longer necessary to obtain the copies of the games through shady methods. All you need are the following tools:

  • The All in One Launcher is available here (original source and more up to date versions here).
  • The (unofficial) RotWK Widescreen Enhanced mod is available here.

Procedure

  1. Install the All in One Launcher and open it.
  2. Select the second icon in the top left (The Battle for Middle-earth II), select the Vanilla tile, and press Install.
  3. Select the third icon in the top left (The Rise of The Witch-King), select the Vanilla tile, and press Install.
  4. Install the RotWK Widescreen Enhanced mod.
    Requires admin privileges. The installation should automatically detect the location of your The Rise of The Witch-King installation. If it does not, point it to C:/RotWK.
  5. RotWK Widescreen Enhanced creates the following folder: "%APPDATA%\Roaming\My The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king Files". Inside that folder you will find a file called WSEmod.big. Copy that file and paste it into this folder: "%APPDATA%\Roaming\My Rise of the Witch-king Files".
  6. Find the RotWK Widescreen Enhanced shortcut in the Start menu and run it.
  7. You're done. Gratz.

Quality of Life Fixes

Widescreen Resolution

The game was designed for 4:3 screens. Because of this, you will see big black... brackets at the edges of your screen (assuming you don't ironically own a 4:3 monitor). This can (thankfully) be remedied by adding the resolution parameters to the game launch shortcut. To do this:

  1. Navigate to your 'RotWK Widescreen Enhanced' shortcut.
  2. Right-click it and select Properties from the dropdown.
  3. Find the Target field, add a space to the end of the string, then type in the following:
    -xres [x axis] -yres [y axis]
  4. The end result should look something like this:
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king\lotrbfme2ep1.exe" -mod WSEmod.big -xres 2560 -yres 1440

Also, here are a few common resolutions for your copy-pasting convenience:

  • 1080p: -xres 1960 -yres 1080
  • 1440p: -xres 2560 -yres 1440
  • 2160p: -xres 3840 -yres 2160

Troubleshooting

Firewall Exception Error

The game sometimes fails to add itself to Windows Firewall's exceptions list. If that happens, you need to add it manually:

  1. Navigate to the game directory.
  2. Find the game.dat file; hold Shift, right-click it, and select Copy as path from the dropdown.
    Or you can just copy the path from here: C:\RotWK\game.dat
  3. Search for the old Control Panel and open it. Change the view (top right corner) to Icons.
  4. Find Windows Defender Firewall on the list and open it.
  5. Select Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall in the sidebar.
  6. Click Change Settings button.
  7. Click Allow another app...
  8. Click Browse.
  9. Paste the path copied earlier into the File name field and click Open.
  10. Click Add.
  11. Click OK.
  12. Run the game.

Or, if you like to live on the edge, disable Windows Firewall altogether while playing multiplayer.

Helpful Resources

Shoutout to GameReplays and DimekDBD. Would not be able to still play the game if it weren't for them.

Obsolete but still potentially useful: