Quote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
I'm gonna guess they might not be happy with their past selves for not making After-Battle MT the instanced space and not building "March of the King" from Osgiliath onward to add "Midsummer MT" to it post-Mordor.
Hindsight is always 20/20 ;)
Cheers! :D
A somewhat normal version of a city on open world makes more sense to me than forever in the party it's holiday time fancily decorated version, so I'm good :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantion
(Imagine if the Party Tree was decorated, flashy and full of fireworks all year round next to Hobbiton... only larger, so like the entire Hobbiton sized, forever partying in the middle of the Shire)
I didn't notice anything in Mirkwood myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
However, I did notice they also redid how the Rohan map connections work, and the larger Rohan area map. Though they didn't make the maps satellite maps.
- The larger east/west Rohan maps seem to be gone.
- All of the sub zones like "The Wold", and "The East Wall", now properly link to their respective areas. Instead of only some of them doing it, and some not.
- Parth Celebrant has been renamed "The Great River", and now links to the Great River properly.
- The Misty Mountains label on the Rohan map now properly links to the Misty Mountains map in Eriador.
- They added the gap of Rohan, and set up the proper links to it, on the Rohan map
- The Gap of Rohan, Nan Curunir, and Mordor, now have "to Rohan" links that properly link over to the Rohan map
- The Great River had its map changed to have direct UI links to both Wildermore, and the Wold, instead of just a link to "East Rohan"
Basically they streamlined the hell out of navigating the Rohan map UI. Which is really nice since the Rohan maps were always weirdly set up and a pain to navigate the UI for.
That's nice :) The Rohan maps were certainly clunky. Though I sure hope this is not the kind of map "style" and navigation they have in mind for when they do the larger (I think?) revamp they've been thinking about. The world needs to be crystal clear, first and foremost = the game world. With current maps how they are sure it isn't. You can't tell when one open world begins and another ends, or where are connections (as in functional teleports) to another. Split everything into accurate in-game terrain representation of Eriador, Rhovanion, Gondor and After Battle "worlds" - that would have been nice, and then have it tidy and spacey enough, so things aren't cluttered, maybe have borders between zones visible too and how things connect. No "all of Gondor map" with pluses to different "worlds" = you're on After you see After MT, you're on old Gondor you see Before MT. Etc. You may just have a "to After Battle" plus on Gondor map but not outright "March of the King" plus or "North Ithilien" plus on pre-battle "world" - because that's just make things confusing and people get lost which "world" that space is actually in when it's shoved there as redirection on every mapQuote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
Though they may need higher res support for that, it's extremely limited what they can do with how things work now and with that bad res.
https://i.ibb.co/zhk4DPK/Levelsgg.jpg
OK, since I already made this extension of the map to feature the entire Gondor for "pre-zones" map representation and gonna hook it up to something cool... I really hope the devs won't be wasting time on redo of Western Gondor and we can go to Anfalas from there haha :D
Actually, contrary to what I suggested previously, I guess they could do the missing part of Anfalas on pre-battle map rather than on after. Makes sense too. They could erase a lot of these mountains to make it a nicer view into a new zone from the Belfalas housing area and the Cap of Belfalas road. The border portals between pre-battle/after-battle could be in Dor-en-ernil and Ringlo Vale. In that scenario, the only entry portals to Housing would be on the pre-battle So even better, more straightforward. They can have this new Belfalas zone as the main sort of hub for questing activity but there would be some landscape trips/or ports to lvl 100 cities of Western Gondor too, to have meetings with NPCs and such. When that's wrapped up, then we're taking that path to Anfalas into another lvl 140 zone West of Western Gondor and they can continue building Outer Gondor from there. Cape of Belfalas really is such a great buffer zones to have those teleports there because mountainous enough plus it gets very far into water so in case of boats... nicer point to split two great open seas, that I hope at some point could become traversable far from shores and perhaps even very far... seas are already there pretty much, gotta only move the invisible borders (well, tolfalas is not there so definitely gotta wait for that first!)
(Hopefully they can reflect the cosmetic changes of Eastern/Central back to pre-battle, so same rocks everywhere, and then they can of course just spice things up with those rocks back in the old pre-battle Western - also more dev time to address Dol Amroth perhaps and some of these other things, if they don't need to develop entire new version of landscape of that size. Or even go back to Eastern/Central if they won't be able to address some of these things for their releases)
Pretty sure Scenario said on the stream that they are redoing Western Gondor. He said Update 38 would have "the rest of Kings Gondor, Outer Gondor, and Umbar" Or something pretty much along those lines.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
Given that Umbar is stated to be a fortress city, I wouldn't be surprised if we get something along the lines of the Minas Morgul expansion. Here the rest of King's Gondor/Outer Gondor is like Mordor Besieged, and Umbar is Morgul Vale. Or I guess like how Iron Hills/Grey Mountains was released is also a good comparison. Though, with the new landscape tools seemingly allowing them to do large landscapes easier, it would be larger than Iron Hills/Grey Mountains, or Mordor Besieged/Morgul Vale.
He pretty much said they don't even know yet what they gonna do I think. Because he was still confused what exactly is going to be done with Belfalas. So sound to me like it's not set in stone and I really can't see sanity in redoing something that's already beautiful clear skies. We don't need to see the entire Middle-earth "after the war" full of new quests (that can be easily put on older landscapes, when essential, and that's how this game always operated) Getting rid of Dawnless Day I can understand - beyond that seems like a waste of time really. Because then we'll be seeing a lot less of new places if they redo things all the time, nevermind that redoing means these changes and new assets they can't restrain themselves from putting so even more work to bring it over and have the exact same landscapes on both versionsQuote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
Rewatching the stream nowQuote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1772446606
- At around 45:45 he says update 36 will include Kings Gondor, going all the way to Linhir, and update 38 will include the rest of King's Gondor, a new region they're calling outer Gondor, and Umbar.
- At 50:50 he answers a question from someone asking if we will finally have access to that inner mountain north of the cap of Belfalas, and Scenario said not in U36, but it will be in update 38.
- At 59:20 he answers a question someone asked about "what, are they coming to reclaim Belfalas Housing?" and its here Scenario says they aren't sure what they are going to do with this version of the Cap of Belfalas.
The only thing he says they aren't sure on is the Cape of Belfalas housing area, not all of Belfalas. So the Havens of Belfalas aren't an issue. At least based on what he said. And he confirms we are getting access to that mountain rage north of the Cape of Belfalas. Dor-En-Ernil, and that mountain rage west of it/north of the cape of Belfalas, is part of the rest of King's Gondor in U38.
So it seems like U38 is going to give us everything from Linhir, all the way to Dol Amroth, and into Anfalas, and then Umbar.
That's an insane amount of land if true but your confidence is flawed with this because "ending at Linhir" means they aren't done with Central by update 36 - meaning they still gotta finish Central for 38, add valleys to it, which may connect to further reaches of Lamedon - potentially - and do new this region in Belfalas too. All of that plus Western Gondor too redone and Outer and Umbar? Makes me feel like it's either impossible or if that's actually their "ambitious" then going to be rushed = won't bring over any changes back because time/self-sabotaging ourselves (like with these rocks) and overall the result for the integrity of the world they curate will be a little bit... disastrous... Hopefully not!Quote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
Also, if that was true, if I'm supposed to pay for expansion that 1/4 ? of (in terms of landmass) is entire Western Gondor redone... and 1/2-1/3 even more of Gondor after a year of just Gondor (and previously massive Cardolan which was pretty Gondorian aesthetically wink wink)... that's kinda... underwhelming? So I really hope Umbar isn't just a city. :) Morgul Vale is small compared to what Umbar coast should be including its bay and maybe some early teases for Harad etc.
Not as insane as you might think.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
As I've noted before, the map for Gondor ends about midway through Anfalas. The rest of Anfalas, as well as Andrast, the Druwaith Iaur, and the Westmarch, don't exist on either the Eriador/Gondor maps.
I could very easily see it being a situation where Anfalas ends where it does on the Gondor map, with that little peninsula bit which, using the map you posted above, would result in something like the image below. Where Outer Gondor is only an area around the size of like Blackroot Vale.
https://i.imgur.com/tsSyB9c.jpg
You're missing Pinnath Galen, which is in between Anfalas & Andrast, also apparently they will add Tolfalas if i'm not mistaken, which is a massive island landmass. but Tolfalas might be already partially completed & just never added, because i'm sure I've seen it on one of those yt videos showing Gondor from our Unreal 5 former dev friend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
Actually, in lore Pinnath Galen is a hilly area within Anfalas. It's not a separate region between Anfalas and Andrast. That just something that one LOTRO fan map maker did for some reason. Anfalas just goes from Blackroot Vale to the river that separates Andrast from Gondor. And Pinnath Galen is shown on the Gondor map.Quote:
Originally Posted by k40rne
https://lotro-wiki.com/images/c/c9/Gondor_map.jpg
So when done in-game it would be like
https://i.imgur.com/o4XFWBW.jpg
Sure, I never expected them to add everything blank to Andrast all in one go when I heard them say Outer Gondor. But... consider what they've done so far...
Update 36 -Lossarnach, Upper Lebennin, Lebennin with Linhir - copied over at the start but they're also changing things and adding new valleys/spaces which will certainly have their own locales in them (like that dwarven fortress). Sounds like your regular amount for a quest pack update (compare with the old release of Upper Lebennin with 1/2 of Pelargil, Lossarnach, South Ithilien with Osgiliath, the numbers seem to match, though they can certainly do some things quicker these days and focus on detail instead, like these rocks or dirty floors scenario talked about).
AS of now, they have landscapes and lots of "new look" for the key places work done, still not finished though and haven't even touched any of the towers/wings and who knows if they ever will if we're to believe MoL - I find it a little hypocritical it's fine to redecorate geology with rocks or erase entire mountains adjacent to cities... but not even be sure whether they can bring it over to old one... yet no touching these towers, look of cities overall, etc, many things players have been pointing out over the years and whenever Gondor subject pops up there are always some comments about how the space seemed rushed or unpolished, for whatever reason - whether that's actually true or not doesn't matter, what matters is it's being perceived that way persistently, so clearly doesn't come from nowhere - but these things don't even seem to be on their radar up until this point :D oh well, strange, but fingers crossed!)
Update 37 is just the mission pack from what I understand.
So then, Update 38 - Dor-er-ernil, Ringlo Vale, new space in Belfalas which is region-sized, that's 3 again, plus new spaces in the valleys, which may potentially connect to Lamedon or even Blackroot as well, given Scenario's comments. Anfalas, as it's own at the very least region-sized space, if not more to it. And then Dol Amroth with Havens, Lamedon and Blackroot too, in addition and actual brand new things and "biomes" in Umbar for expansion? All in this update? Which may also have boats in it? Maybe it's not impossible, given quick work and less content throughout Gondor, but... it really may point towards less time/work/attention/polish given to all these spaces here plus to Umbar bay/city-state (or coastal kingdom) itself. So yeah, I would rather not have Western Gondor "After", if that was to be the case. It would be redoing something for very little. Anyway, if you take Western areas out of the equation, then the amount of work seem to match the one that's in Update 36, so maybe that's actually the case, given that there will be also expansion with that too, that's not small and hopefully means a sizeable, cool bay of Umbar.
Yes, I consider it all Anfalas (the region) myself, but it's referred to seperately on the map you mention, so I'm saying his Outer Gondor is not even a full Anfalas, i've also seen that area referred to as Nan Lefnui. I'm just wondering why he thinks it's not the cut off before the river Lefnui, that separates it from Andrast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
So irrespective of what we call it, this Outer Gondor should at least contain up to the Lefnui river, if not Andrast itself at some point.
Well, copying and pasting a region, adding some decent bits & (hopefully) tweaking those areas with a wider asset range isn't nearly as time consuming as starting from scratch. So the only areas they will need to start from scratch if they include it are Anfalas (which goes all the way to the river Lefnui), Belfalas if they redo the cape without housing & add some large mountain views and that bit of Dor en Ernil they never included.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
From what we've seen they haven't even tweaked the common aesthetic in Gondor, only adding some stuff in the mountains, and playing with landscape a bit. So basically for the year they'll be working on Umbar & Anfalas from scratch (which they might be a fair bit along in), the rest are just some nice additions and cleaning up the landscape, possibly adding new section of Belfalas where it meets Dor en Ernil. We have no idea what kind of quest additions we'd get for King's Gondor, but for now i'll just assume its mainly the epic quest with some new dwarf stuff and Harlond rebuilding added.
Pretty sure we won't be getting S Ithilien redone yet or Southguard either, since they appear to be going with the old Strongholds of the North approach.
And from the way they defended Western Gondor on this forum, I can't see them even touching Dol Amroth, Northwest Belfalas, Lamedon, Ringlo Vale or Blackroot Vale.
So, from what we can tell, it will have been an entire year or more to get a reworked Lossarnach, both parts of Lebenin, Dor en Ernil, Southeastern Cape Belfalas partially reworked. & a new Anfalas & Tolfalas (which had the geography at least partially started) & an entirely new Umbar (we don't know if its just the city or a decent chunk of the bay).
I do expect a full Anfalas at least, & yes it's huge geographically, but it should be quite spread out, speckled with a lot of farmland presumably, but of course it depends on how big Umbar is & how they resource it with quests.
I personally doubt they will go all the way up to the Lefnui river. Not only because the Gondor map doesn't go out that far but, IIRC, @MiniExpBounder said before that the Gondor territory in the game data doesn't even go out far enough to allow them to do all of Anfalas. Or maybe it was all of Anfalas/Andrast. I don't recall 100%, I just recall there was some mention in the past of it not going out far enough to allow for all of something in that direction.Quote:
Originally Posted by k40rne
Anfalas is said to be only sparsely inhabited, so I could see SSG making the eastern half of it be the inhabited part, while the western bit is just woods/wilderness. With some thick woodlands preventing us from going further west.
Well we only know we're getting something in that mountain range. Scenario never said we would be getting the whole mountain range. I just circled the whole thing for the sake of following the lines that already existed. And the only valleys I recall Scenario talking about are the two valleys in "King's Gondor" that were already there, but inaccessible in regular Gondor. I don't recall him saying they would be adding valleys to the existing maps, just making the already existing ones available. So there's not really any new valleys to add/do in the western part of Gondor.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
If by "A somewhat normal version of a city," you mean mostly absolutely ruined on the lower tiers and surrounded by blasted lands, open trenches, war implements, and corpses, then . . . sure :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
My point is: The one missing part of "King's Gondor" will actually be the version of MT where Aragorn is the crowned King of Gondor - and I suppose that'll just have to be the case :)
At the least, I'd wish they'd consider expanding "Minas Tirith Midsummer" to include the Pelennor up to the Causeway Forts with Rammas Echor as the border and a portal leading to the new King's Gondor from the South Gate into Harlond - it would feel more consistent that way! :)
Anyways - it does sound like, oddly enough, they'll be those alternative versions of West Gondor as well. They may not - change - anything the earlier artists did. But I'd hope they'd consider - adding - some more details (*like . . . the statues of certain Kings of Gondor who look like Swan Knights) and things of that nature. It would be nice to visit an Edhellond that isn't swarmed with Corsairs - maybe the Avorrim come out of their cave to remember what once was? Some "Tales of Yore: Amroth and Nimrodel" instances?
What I'd really hope, though, is that they'd go back to West Gondor to correct what I consider the longest standing Gondorian worldbuilding inconsistency: Garth Lotheg's ruins. I've looked very carefully at that Session Play with Erech and very carefully at the snippets of that landmass available below Rohan on the terrainmap: and I've deduced where Garth Lotheg is supposed to be.
The location is precisely in the eastern cleft of Tarlang on the Lamedon side of the mountain, where it dips inward toward the west - or is supposed to do so. Now they have a river flowing in there . . . and nothing. No ruins, absolutely nothing. So, if they do revisit West Gondor for U39, I'd love them to go back to that location . . . and get those ruins of Garth Lotheg in there, even if it involves chopping off some chunks of mountain and redeveloping. It would make for a cool new "enemy camp" location in "After-Battle West Gondor" as well as a good place to add to the pre-battle version.
I also much agree with you that the Outer Gondor landmass can prove far larger based on CardoSwan with Umbar as just the city . . . and I'd predict "a long slow march to South Ithilien" from Umbar afterward, unless they leave it dangling.
Cheers! :D
It's normal since it's set in that time when the corpses are there, been in this game since... forever, and no doubt very visible with places like Rohan etc. But the city does look decently. A bit in bad shape, but it's not unlikely that it would still be like that only 2 months in. (They did renovate in grand style for wedding, sure, and it was nice to have that version, but is more realistic it still wouldn't be fully complete 2 months in and indeed we were running around for Epics in the damaged version only a few days/weeks before).Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantion
Anyway, feels better to me for immersion as part of open landscape than festival version which is a festival for a reason. They're flashy and such, happens only once a year. The actual inconsistency introduced is due to outer walls - these walls belonged to the narrative of Pelennor right after battle. Ok, granted, they were in the untraversable part but they did belong to that narrative. They could have easily hidden King's Gondor and all the restoration stuff neatly behind the walls, into Lossarnach, rather than rewrite this space so visibly, so yeah, it will clash now with the corpses on the Pelennor. But they've made that bed with their own choices here - don't blame me :D A minor annoyance though, as long as the pre-battle Gondor isn't just left behind and inconsistent
Well then, we'll see. I'm still holding out hope they don't have this grand idea that they just gotta have a complete King's Gondor now, for some reason. Which goes against the entire philosophy of the design so far, pretty much, and in this same space exists Osgiliath, March of the King, Black Gate Before the Fall of Sauron when there was still no king etc... you know, the standard until now. Not saying that just because of what I mentioned about Western Gondor above but something else too... because then what next? Are we gonna just sit 1-3 years and wait until they redo entire Rohan worth of two expansions with Westmarch attached to this version, redo of Dunland After Saruman with the road completely traversable (but the old space left as is, destined to rot untweaked, coz no time!) and then have their Scouring in alternate version of Eriador too? Rather than, you know... actually keep growing the world in impressive ways in new places, and there is lots of ground to cover with places like Harad or Rhun... spacey enough to accommodate 10 Rohans and Gondors... not to mention all the gaps that need to be filled and other great prospects
Someone during the stream asked scenario about a rebuilt Rohan, and similar such spaces, and Scenario's response was that it would make sense for a "further adventures" style update. They don't seem particularly driven to do rebuilt Rohan, or w/e, as normal landmass updates/expansions. Not to mention doing those would probably require making new territory spaces, whereas King's Gondor can just be put in the existing Mordor territory.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
Well, it's more about the overall "methodology" or mindset, because who is to say they won't be suddenly driven to do that once they actually start tinkering with ideas of Frodo taking the road back home. At the very least they made sure they have space for non-dawnnless Anorien if they moved things. So that doesn't mean there is no space for some of Rohan :P Well, but yeah, hopefully not. It's really not as essential and not really worth it given how much of the world there is still to explore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arnand_the_Fox
Everyone is talking about dwarves but now that we talking about this it made me realize I'm kinda burnt out with... no expansive new landmasses as cap? When was the last time, if we don't count the very gloomy ones? Emmm... Western Rohan? :P Even updates were mostly these more contained spaces due to where we were going, like in Gondor, the vales, near dwarven keeps. I guess Strongholds of the North felt a little bit more spacey in width when combined but these still were pretty much like two different regions joined together into one. The Minas Morgul and Besieged, which were two things split. It was only filling the gaps in Eriador that actually felt that spacey individually but nothing from higher level stories and with the Gondor rework, especially if they're doing West Gondor too, and if Umbar is more "contained" rather than some lands around it and the entire bay with all coasts surrounding it.. gonna be another year without "openness", in that case. Unless a little bit in Anfalas at least, maybe. So well, another reason why I would hope Umbar won't be that contained but if it's not even released as its own thing, like Mordor was... then it surely gonna be yeah. So can they at least fill the map with water from Anfalas to Umbar in a straight line and give me the traversable seas for openness? :P Pretty please (But wait, they're not doing any Eastern shores yet, so I guess not...)
Or, if that's all true, might feel less exciting of a journey to Umbar than I imagined but on the other hand, assuming those boats really are coming... One might say they're "saving" development of all these coastlines that don't exist yet for after the release of these boats with the expac (with the exception of a little bit of Anfalas/Outer Gondor, but that's not as large). So yeah, that would make sense, all things considered, and a big plus if that's actually part of their reasoning with King's Gondor. Though I would still expect them to show off with "pathing on waters" world design and spacey bay of Umbar with nice coast features and tricky islands/rocks/cliffs/caves to get to, in that case :D
Well, we're kinda at a point where the only real expansive, open, areas left in this part of Middle Earth are likeQuote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
- Minhiriath/Enedwaith/South Farthing(very likely lower level zones)
- Southguard/Harondor(high level)
- Dorwinion(high level)
Most other areas I can see them doing are things like
- Mountain areas: Northern/Southern Erid Luin, White Mountains, Heath Lands, Emyn Muil
- Forested regions: Middle Mirkwood, Deep Fangorn, Deep Northern Mirkwood, Lune Rushes
- Coastal lands: Mithlond, Harlindon, Forlindon
I guess the Brown Lands could be open, but I think that would be mid level, and gloomy since its supposed to be all dead.
That's more of a "why we can't have flatlands approach" list though. Literally everything around Mirkwood and East from there is good for "spacey" not to mention into the direction of Harad of course. Even Nurn could be if it's that entire missing part of Mordor all at once. Between Ered Luin and Evendim and up to Forochel, depending on how far/close they place actual high mountains is good candidate too, and into Forodwaith of course and any potential area North of North Downs. Meant spacey as in less of a tunneling experience, with more things and bordering lands around the region we're questing in. Rohan is contained by mountains on each side (actual ones not just fishbowls), so it's not as perfectly flatland where you can look into the distance into one direction and see flatter horizon, but still feels like probably it was the last truly spacey lvl cap area/stroke of updates/expac we got.
And even if we count gloomy too... then it was only Mordor and that was of course far more tunneling-like than Rohan was. When joined together the areas around Mirkwood up to Gundabad are pretty nice and a bit more spacey but how they were introduced we were mostly travelling through these tunnels with mountains on all sides and Mirkwood has missing chunks, so it's a bit of a buffer in its own middle spot, without any connections between things, plus the cliffs on the Vales side a little too restrictive for my liking, maybe in the future they can take them down a bit. (Geographically fits, but it's a bit of a stretch that you only have one narrow entry point and then they're these cliff walls across the entire long border, this may even appear a little make-belief - or at least somewhat off, even if believable - when viewed from the Eagle's vintage point, it's like the entire forest is atop this cliffy elevation).
There were bugs in the old version of the map that required updating locations on it - updating the map to the new style was the easiest way to resolve those bugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by TesalionLortus
New versions of map have even more bugs, as examples Lothlorien have messed coordinates for talans, and Enedwaith map totally broken like 10 mm down from coordinates on mapQuote:
Originally Posted by Scenario
Is there a fix for the 'Downholt' typo in the queue?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scenario