I must say... CardoSwan border is SICK. If they add Rhudaur to the North and bridge these small gaps around Moors/Trollshaws... then Eriador's open-world will be INSANE. Can't wait. Players will start treating the containment of Moria as a blessing :P

I was supposed to play Before the Shadow on new character but I took a "stroll" on my main from the Barrow-downs along the new border and... this took me 2 hours to check everything out and then finish with this wonderful, hidden little corner of Western Eregion:



(Granted, I got lost in one portion of Lonelands once, but still... and I haven't even seen San Ford yet, nevermind most of the new landmass and content...).

All of this makes me wish for some free-roam progression content even more strongly... Such a huge border, so many nooks and crannies, so many vast spaces and different ruins, but every viable activity that can give you exp would be in quest hubs and I've only run across one during 2-3 hours of walking and riding around, and no autobestowed quests either. At this pace, I won't even play this game anymore outside of end game stories on my main... I will just walk and that's it. Which is all cool but one could wish you don't have to choose between conscious "follow the story and quest locations!" or just sight seeing between zones across borders in a captivating recreation of open Middle-earth, that both of these were somehow interchangeable and progression attached, to some degree. Nobody expects to be able to level up without an effort, but ideally, there would be some things along the way one can stumble upon: resource nodes that seem important and turns out decent XP can be earnt from these, quests in the wild, lone NPCs, discovery points with XP rewards, special mobs rewarding more XP, relics amongst the ruins, scattered items-attached quests and tasks, anything.




This update did wonders for the remains of Arnor. Riding alongside the border you can tell how all of this was once a part of this one huge kingdom. The citadels on the Southern border of the Lonelands, while it's appropriate for them to be citadels rather than just remains of comfy cities (due to the later conflict for Whethertop), you can also tell all of these places could have been comfy, functional cities once, when there was peace and Arnor was united, because they are suited in functional places and connected to the rest of the world. There are roads North and South, travelling from a keep in Lonelands and crossing into Cardolan feels normal, and like something regular citizens and merchant did once (as opposed to entering this boxed valley that Lonelands was previously, which might have worked as a battle zone but hardly as an integral part of united Arnor). For example, the Lornspan bridge and the road into Cardolan below it, feels great! Everything between it and Nindor/swamps connected through South Downs. If the same treatment can be given to the Rhudaur to the North, tear down all these things behind Wheathertop and soften the elevation all across the border, including near the "battleground" with lvl 50 half-orcs near Breeland... it'll be INSANELY spectacular, the feeling of aliveness (of an old ruined civilization) that I haven't really witnessed in gaming? Also, probably one of the most open (from every side) landscapes in gaming? O_O