We have other plans in mind for where we are going narratively, and with housing. As many a parent has said to their children on long car rides: "We'll get there when we get there."Quote:
Originally Posted by Aleziana
We have other plans in mind for where we are going narratively, and with housing. As many a parent has said to their children on long car rides: "We'll get there when we get there."Quote:
Originally Posted by Aleziana
I was looking around in the latest version of Garan's terrain map plugin and I noticed that the map seems to have been extended considerably southward south of the Mountains of Shadow. I wonder if this could be evidence that we're going in the direction of Harad? I haven't been closely following the discussion in this thread for the last few weeks, but I did see someone post an image of a corsair ship south along the Gwathlo; and while I don't think the ship is meant to be seen by most players (I tried to find it in-game and I was only really able to find one spot where I could see it, and even then I think I had to jump to see it), it could be a fun little nod toward future content for anyone who's snooping around the boundaries of the game world. We know the devs are watching this thread, after all, lol. (It could also be some remnant of past development work; we know the world builders use out-of-bounds areas to do test work and the like.)
While my original guess, which I think I posted here ages ago, was that we would be visiting Anfalas ages ago before heading south toward Harad through South Gondor, I'm now wondering if we'll go straight to South Gondor. What I remember of the hints we've been given are that we would be revisiting familiar territory before continuing to new lands and that people who like the smell of salt water would be pleased. I know Scenario also mentioned needing to read up on Middle Earth history for upcoming content, and that we would be getting a large amount of landscape this year. It's possible they've dropped other hints recently as well; I've been kind of checked out the last few weeks, so I probably wouldn't have heard anything that was said recently.
I've been taking the "smell of salt water" thing as a hint that a body of salt water would feature prominently in this year's content, which is what led me to think we might be taking a detour through another location, like Anfalas, before heading south. While South Gondor does border on the ocean, the ocean is quite distant from, for instance, the road leading south out of South Ithilien, so I don't think the ocean would be big part of a South Gondor zone. Severlin could have been speaking a bit less literally, though, and hinting that the corsairs would be a big part of this year's upcoming content. Anything that starts our journey toward Umbar could, in a sense, be appealing to people who "like the smell of salt water," even if the ocean is not present or only plays a small part in this year's landscape content.
I still think a journey through South Gondor would check the boxes of the information we've been given if we don't get hung up on the idea of a literal body of salt water. It could be the start of a corsair-centric storyline; there could be a lot of exploration of the history between Gondor, Umbar, Harad, Mordor, the Black Numenoreans, etc; we would likely have to pass through a post-war version of South Ithilien, which means revisiting familiar areas; and South Gondor could potentially be a very large zone, similar to Cardowan in that there's a large amount of what could be sparsely populated landscape between South Ithilien and our ultimate destination of, presumably, Umbar. The odd chunk of blank map visible on Garan's map could also reflect some preliminary landscape shaping in preparation for the journey southward.
Whether we take any detours first or not, my money's still on Harad and Umbar as the next focus of the game.
https://i.imgur.com/6xCQtzr.jpg
This have been like this for over a year so nothing new pointing to the south but still is likely that we could go south of gondor later this year
As a comparison, the Lotro Terrain Map that you can find online has NOT yet been updated to include Swanfleet and Cardolan, and as such..... perhaps also not this change.Quote:
Originally Posted by seekingerin
A screenshot of the current map without Cardolan and Swanfleet reveals that there is NO such terrain extension in Mordor, so your find must have been added in recent months.
https://i.imgur.com/0cWxZvr.png
So it looks like we might be going back to Mordor, perhaps for a level 140 zone before we are going SOUTH for a level 150 expansion.
I'm with you, also based on the stable map that got stretched out to the south..... we're heading to areas south of Gondor and/or Mordor.
This bit of land is not seen on the google map as it is omitted to make the map look nicer which is what is done with much of the untextured green areas. I can assure you it has been present for a long time but again it is very likely we will go south to Harondor in the coming year or years and as show even Nurn
The bits of land you're all noticing were on the terrainmap plugin back when Gorgoroth first launched. In fact, the original bullroarer Map of Mordor had some Dev markings on how they envisioned the rest of Mordor's geography to look. But the story took them to different places - and so, those plans weren't realized - - - yet.
Cheers! :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by maartena
Skohgar is quite correct, the Google map is a "prettied up" version of TerrainMap and will not display developer markup previews of future terrain, only finished terrain. As Phantion referred to, the tiles for the mark-up terrain in question were added quite a while before Mordor went live and were published in TerrainMap just after Mordor went live (the tiles get updated in the plugin after the content that includes it goes live to avoid excessive maintenance changes). It seemed at the time that the devs were interested in visiting the areas South and West of Mordor but then their focus turned to Northern Mirkwood and other areas and hasn't returned (in the live client). There are actually large swaths of mark-up that aren't even in TerrainMap since I'm not always sure where they go (without violating the EULA it's a very time consuming, manual task to lay out the tiles and I'm not about to violate the EULA).Quote:
Originally Posted by Skohgar
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garan
Thanks for explaining..... I do use TerrainMap, but I am not using it on all toons, and not all the time, so I am just not up to date on what was there or not.
That said though: The stablemap was "accidentally" extended about 2 years ago without being in the patch notes, adding quite a bit of land to the south of Gondor.
Combined with the following:
- Quotes from blue names, including:
- We are not going to Grey Havens or that vicinity.
- The next zone will be far away from Minhiriath
- A cryptic message about coastlines and/or oceans, and whether we like them or not....
- We are not ready to tell the scouring of the shire yet
- Knowing that the story of Durin ended, and we are "done with dwarves for now"
We only have FEW places we could go next, them being:
- Back to Mordor, and seeing some more of it. We have only seen roughly one-third of the Mordor map at this point, so there is plenty of room to explore.
- South of Gondor, into Umbar/Harrad (thar be ocean and coastline here!)
- North of Mordor, to the sea of Rhun.
It is hard to say, and I keep changing my mind.... but I still think we are headed SOUTH. South Gondor, Umbar/Harad for a full expansion, and possibly filling up a zone south of Mordor to connect from that side eventually as well.
So yeah, SOUTH! Now we just need a producer's letter to confirm it. ;)
Orion said NO to "Harad and Rhun get mentioned" and it's hard for me to imagine going South and NOT mention Harad. Something like "We're going to the furthest reaches of Gondor yet, to the South, to meet some old faces, help in rebuilding ravaged in Ithilien and get our first glimpse into far away, exotic lands of Harad by exploring the troublesome, historically shaky borderlands of Harondor!" I mean... it would be a no-brainer to do something like this, no? If we were going South? There is literally a Poros crossing there... and it has *history* Not to mention a certain road that is literally called Harad Road, at least on maps. Also, that pretty much rules out anything regarding Rhun too, unless they take utterly lame route so they don't even mention the next expansion at all in that road map/letterQuote:
Originally Posted by maartena
Technically you might be stubborn that Umbar is not part of Harad (which I geographically and geopolitically would strongly consider it a part of it) and say that's a possibility, but then most likely without any South Gondor, and I think they said they want to avoid the Strongholds of the North situations in the future. So... unlikely?
Mordor/Nurn are great candidates, and also narratively. Lots of loose ends. It's been a long time since we took that "detour" North and then into the dwarves. There was Minas Morgul of course, I'm not forgetting that, and it was great, but narratively it was a brilliant mashup of different plot threads independently coming together in one place, and "Mordor proper" matters were really only a small part of it, other than a fact one of the active "masters" met his demise (ironically looking for both the secret weapon and Visiting Karazgar, which both did not exist : p ). So who knows, maybe Nurn and it's time to continue Mordor and maybe get a better glimpse into what was going on when we were gone. Looking at the terrain map it just occurred to me that if it starts with Gandalf in Thruringwath at the mysterious Balrog statue, what may happen is that we can actually discover some ancient secret pass, hidden doorways, or something like that, and enter Nurn through such secret tunnels or valley and circumvent that gate that's closed shut. So not quite yet an invasion of Gondorian troops, unless maybe we manage to open that gate for them, from the back... and we know that Borangos fortress is practically built into a mountain, where he himself was sealed in some hidden chamber, and then he was just gone, so some secret tunnels thing sounds like a good way to interpret what's going on here, and there was also that secret chamber with the Nameless emissary in Lhingris, so it really sounds like there is potential for all of these areas to connect somehow. Would be great for the world design too. Rather than just have this one gate leading to Nurn.
Finally, there is the matter of Angmar, which Orion said yes to - that maybe we're going to hear about content focused around Angmar. So expansion-wise and with sea salt relevance, it's not exactly impossible at this point that maybe they're building towards the bay of Forochel/parts of Forodwaith somehow. But who knows... sounds like a letter is dropping soon, sooooo
I think we going to Angmar right now (to cover all problems in the back before Aragorn goes south), and go to South Gondor in 2nd half of 2023. So yes, we going to Harad, but not in 2023
Maybe I am putting too much into the "I hope you like the smell of salt water" comment made by Scenario....
That to me would indicate we're going to see some coastline in the (near?) future.
- Not going to be Grey Havens or Minhiriath based on other comments.
- Mordor and Nurn have no ocean or coastline anywhere near - although there is a lake, but that would not be salt water.....
- Harad isn't going to be either based on earlier comments..... but no one said it could not be CLOSE to Harad.
We're looking for a potential level 140 zone in Q2, followed by a level 150 expansion in Q4, or something along those lines. A zone that is not in the area of grey havens, and not close to Minhiriath, but has the smell of ocean water wafting in upon its potential shores.
Looking at the map, and based on comments from blue names.... there are not a lot of locations where we can smell salt water.
- South Gondor/Umbar. - Not yet Harad, so could be a candidate.
- The area directly west of Tarlangs Crown west of West Gondor - could be named "Anfalas" or "Andrast".
- It could also be Forodwadth, a frozen wasteland.... but maybe has a coastline, and a portion could form a link between Forochel and Angmar, with ocean to its northern shore. Back to the Lossoth?
Again, maybe I am putting too much emphasis on the "salt water" comment by Scenario, but to me that would indicate a coast line to the ocean, not an internal body of water. I guess technically the "Sea of Rhun" could be salty, but I do not know how the lore describes it..... But since it is called a "sea", perhaps that area IS a possibility. There is a LOT of space between the Iron Hills to the north, Mordor to the south, and the Brown Lands in Great River to the West.
There IS, if I recall correctly, a closed off gate or path in the Brown Lands that leads further east that has been there since the release of the Great River zone, so that would indicate plans to go there at some point in time, or at least there is a possibility for it.
So, salt water..... Sea of Rhun? Or is that just a big fresh water lake and we're going to the coastlines of Gondor (either west or south) that have not yet been explored?
I'm still thinking we'll be going south.... perhaps South Gondor with Umbar as a port city and hub. Where a potential level 150 expansion will go, remains to be seen but does not have to be connected in any way with whatever the next level 140 zone will be....
Also I found this map on the Lotro Wiki:
It shows a lot of POTENTIAL zone names..... that COULD make it to the game at some point. We certainly have some choices to "smell the salt water" here.
https://lotro-wiki.com/images/0/01/A..._lands_map.jpg
I always split up middle earth's regions in 4 categories:
Visited in the books (for example the Shire)
Plays a part in the books, but not visited (for example Barad Dur)
Important part of the backstory (for example Forochel)
Mentioned on the map (for example Andrast)
I would say that of the areas not yet in the game the Grey Havens and Emyn Muil are part of the first category. I would say that Lindon, the South Farthing, Anfalas, Dorwinion, Rhun, Nurn, Khand, Umbar, Harad and South Harad are part of the second category. I think the tower Hills are the only part left of the third category. And basicly every other part of the map is just that, parts of the map.
The most interesting areas to visit are obviously the first category, which is the main part of the game (and, Scenario, also the reason why people want the Grey havens in the game). The lower we go on the list, the least interesting the area becomes. For example, how many are realy that excited to see Eryn Vorn come to the game? I suspect not that many.
Since the goal of this threat is to fill the holes, I think several areas are pretty good holefillers; especialy since the devs have said, they don't want low level areas next to high level areas. That would mean that the Grey Havens, Lindon, South Farthing, the tower hills would all be in the level 0-40 area, thus good for filling in the gaps. I would say Emyn Muil and Anfalas are similar, but of a higher level like level 100.
Dorwinion, Rhun, Umbar, Harad etc would be good to continue the story. Travel into enemy lands to act as an ambassador/spy/adventurer would be a decent reason to visit them and continue the story, especialy if the scourging of the Shire is still far away (and probably a seperate version of the Shire that is now in the game, like the way we have multiple kinds of Minas Thirith and Isengard, so we don't have a low and a high level region next to each other)
Quote:
Originally Posted by maartena
My vote is still for Umbar as well. It fits with the "smell of seawater" clue, it explains the expanded map into that very region which appeared mysteriously last year, and it would fit nicely with that potential easter egg we got in Cardolan -- the distant Corsair ship just randomly sitting at the river's mouth that has no reason to be there.
I know that it was mentioned that an Angmar area was in the works, but that doesn't preclude Umbar from happening as well. I could see an Angmar area as a quest pack, and Umbar/Southern Gondor as the next expansion.
Before the letter is out, let the guessing game begin and I wanna hear some ideas because I don't have much at the moment.
Just watched Scenario's stroll and he dropped this hint: "What they're working on created a huge brain-storming problem at first... they needed to figure out "where they're going to build it, in which region to put it, whether there is space and whether they need to move things"
Which is very interesting, because of how highly specific situation this is. I would say this pretty much rules out "solid" lore places and settlements, so no to Rhun, Nurn or Harad, or even parts of Gondor. Sounds like they knew first what they were going to build - kind of? for narrative purposes they came up with? - and it's only THEN they investigated where they could build it and where they could settle on that specific story/place, to the point that not even its region was definitive here (and with lore places it usually would be). Sounds like filling-the-gaps sort of thing too, especially in one of the older layers like Eriador or Rhovanion, since these are probably pretty crowded outside the bounds with stuff like instances, interiors etc and these might get in the way? Plus, they may be constrained by sizes of these gaps that they may wanna fill in. While something like Gondor and Mordor layer are still pretty "virgin" and cover very precise/not yet as big/more condensed landmasses, plus I assume around Gondor/Mordor they were probably much more mindful of where they put some of these outside spaces/interiors/instances, as in not to get in the way later.
Oh, and they're back to continuing their narrative in 2023 which Scenario sounds really excited about but that may of course mean anything, given how Gundabad itself was a main narrative, but itself pretty much separate, other than Hrimil which tied back way to Mordor. So not much to glimpse from this statement.
So really, I have no idea! Given the Angmar clue from Orion, maybe indeed towards Forodwaith and between Angmar/Forochel? And I guess there might be some troublesome unseen-to-players and not even seen on Garan's maps stuff or instances out there up in the North of Eriador. Also, based on Scenario's remarks about how they are comfortable to put teleports at borders that they've decided to settle on (with example of Car Bronach) because they are "highly unlikely to expand that way" that means No to Iron Pass too. But in that case the sea salt would be the frozen salt! Something I speculated is a possibility but still considered highly unlikely, but now it's probably my top guess because don't have other ideas. Technically, lack of space and things being troublesome may refer to areas around Mirkwood, for example, but since we're not going to Rhun this year apparently, that direction doesn't lead to sea salt. And it sounds like this year's updates are going to be more in line as parts of one narrative rather than random, separated chunks and huge detours all the time, but time will tell. But Nurn or Gondor coasts, or Umbar - that's a "no discussion land expansions", so unlike "where would we put it, hmm, maybe gotta move something?" because if you're doing these then you're doing these with everything that they encompass lore-wise from major cities to their lore borders, no wiggle room to wonder and pick here.
Based on that hint from Scenario, plus the salt water thing, surely Numenor fits the bill best? More standard places probably wouldn’t encounter the same location problems? Just my first thought when reading that!Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
That's the thing though, any such "out there, neither here nor there" place could be effectively done on a different new layer = no need for troubles. Or maybe they even have a comfortable huge empty layer for all of these, since on Garan's plugin it is called Tales of Yore (though only Azanulbizar shows up). To me it screams "doing something in the middle of things or at the corners next to other things"Quote:
Originally Posted by Tirian-Hammerfist
Or, perhaps, they were lying all along! (call it diversion : D) And it's Lindon/Tower Hills/etc. and specifically Grey Havens/Tower Hills, it feels like it is indeed a bit non-spacey at these parts where these are supposed to be, given how the current landmass aligns + who knows what lies out there. But like, yeah, that's only if they were all in conspiracy repeatedly lying to us :D
There are many options, so who knows? It could even turn out to be Emyn Muil, since it's clearly the last gap in Frodo's journey and its placement would certainly generate a debate about in which region (meaning Rohan/Rhovanion vs Gondor) they would choose to develop the zone and whether they would need to move some things (like the Dead Marshes) to give it some more space. Certainly nothing about saltwater there, though.
Just adding that possibility to this discussion.
ok, I'll narrow down my speculations to 3: Nurn, Umbar for Sev's (and now Scenario's hint) Iron Pass for Orion (which I hope not because I want to go far from Eriador :( )
I think they could could make a really awesome Numenor, but it would have to be a full-fledged expansion to give it justice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tirian-Hammerfist
As a matter of space, the questing landscape of Gondor (R3) (and of Mordor R4, since it was created by duplicating the former) is placed near the South-Eastern angle of the Table that constitutes the whole possible Open Map.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
This would meant for both a Nurn region and a Near Harad region to be at best in contact with the physical, true edges of the Map on their eastern and southern side respectively.
It is up to you any further consideration about other possible areas in these Regions.
Meanwhile all the other places proposed for Eriador (R1) and Rhovanion (R2) have -technically- no contraints in terms of space. Instances can be moved (as it happend with the North CottonFarm - Instance version with the release of Yondershire).
If they were to make Numenor I would prefer to see it in the Tales of Yore (R14) Region; else it could be placed far off the Shores of Gondor, but breaking the coherence of the distances design would be something I would very much dislike.
Thanks, I would not think of it that way because that's kinda... bad? Like, why would they place both of these so near the corner, given that outside of Anafalas gap they would literally never have to build towards the West/North West from Gondor and especially from Mordor. Unless it's possible to move ALL things to get room and they were actually willing to do that, that would mean we're stuck with smallish Gondor/Mordor landmasses that can't really grow and interconnect with the world, and we'll need brand new R layers for majority of Rhun and East soonish. Which will leave us with Rhovanion and Eriador as these true mega open worlds, and all others kind of smaller ones, split into chunks. I mean, that's not as... enthusiastic as you would hope for? Given the impressive sizes of Eriador and Rhovanion that WILL continue to grow and become even more impressive. Gondor is more of a war timed zone, so that one is okay, but you kinda wish the Mordor layer was able to expand into a sizeable portions of After Gondor, Khand, Nurn and Harad, as much as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by MiniExpBounder
There is of course a possibility that if they have Harad and Rhun wholly on their own layers, perhaps including some of the lead-up landmasses, these would eventually transform into diverse East and South that are both almost as big as Eriador and Rhovanion, since that would make a lot of sense, and then only Gondor/Mordor would be their own smaller ones, but I'm not sure, sounds a bit like a pipe dream, that they would grow these as much as they did the West, and push as far as Orocarni/Far Harad and beyond. But who can tell, if that was their motivation and they're not going to "shrink" these landmasses too much from how expansive they appear on maps - so in the end you can tell they are entire kingdoms with something like Khand being an equivalent of at least one Rohan in its size and dominated by the sheer size of the rest of the East - well... then I'm on board! For another 20 years of THIS and can suffer some smaller split into chunks layers along the way until they significantly and consistently grow in size.
So what you're saying there is a lot of space North of Eriador, before the map edge? Well, that's nice, they can certainly fit even entire bay of Forochel and some Forodwaith if they wanted. Hmm, but yeah, given your revelation about the edge near Gondor/Mordor, I guess Scenario's comments could easily refer to regions as in R layers, which I previously assumed they didn't because Gondor and Mordor are so small that I wouldn't think there might be R layers space issues involved in planning of their future directions. I assumed Scenario referred to regions of Middle-earth, as in lore zones and gaps
We do not take making a whole new set of region files lightly. So any time we expand landscape, we have to take into consideration:Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
- What is the landscape like in current regions?
- Can existing landscape be expanded?
- Have we built "satellite" or duplicate landscapes in those locations marked for potential expansion? (for example - Helm's Deep has several physical copies of it representing the different stages of the battle)
- If we have made satellite landscape in the space we are potentially expanding into, can feasibly be relocated? (such as we did for the North Cotton Farm instance space)
If, after all that research and consideration, we decide that we can't expand into existing space, only then do we consider a new region. Sometimes this is problematic because Past Us might have done something that isn't particularly helpful for Present/Future Us (again - such as North Cotton Farm, which at the time we built it, we didn't specifically expect we'd make the Yondershire. Silly Past Us). And as we continue to think about the future of the game, Present Us is now trying to make sure that what we do isn't too burdensome for Future Us.
That's great to hear! Well, yes, it is certainly more difficult and not as easy if being constrained or there are things "out there." It's always nice to hear these little "from the inside" insights, so to speak, very interesting. I assume there are probably reasons of convenience for it but it always made me wonder why all the (or at least most of!) instances/interiors/differently timed double zones aren't just all on completely separate "region," - say, keep R1/2/3/4 and potential future ones for consistent landmass additions, and then R01, R02 etc for everything else. I mean, just matters of convenience and Past Us habits probably, that it wasn't done like this from the start? Or is more regions in the game somehow affecting game performance by any chance? So it's not as easy to have a whole bunch of those?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scenario