Filling the Gaps: following in the footsteps of the Wildwood and the Angle

[Hierona]

Personally, if we ever go into Forodwaith, I would assume they would have us enter via the Rhovanion area.

Not so sure about that. Sticking to the shore like in Forochel gives more chance on surviving I would imagine. Going north of Câr Bronach would lead you into a desert of ice without food and stuff so not much going on. Staying in the Icebay of Forochel would give more room for life, or you have to make sure there is like a river running through.

Tbh, I suspected the Legacy of Durin to continue to the north after Gundabad, dealing with the hobgoblinthreat and Loknashra there. Would be cool to see real snowtrolls (Pls rename the ones in Ered Luin to cavetrolls), ogre tribes, hobgoblins, new ice creatures and more.

[miriadel]

alright! filling the gaps, back on track! Minhiriath when? and it better be a lvl 50 area XD

[Arnand_the_Fox]

Not so sure about that. Sticking to the shore like in Forochel gives more chance on surviving I would imagine. Going north of Câr Bronach would lead you into a desert of ice without food and stuff so not much going on. Staying in the Icebay of Forochel would give more room for life, or you have to make sure there is like a river running through.

Tbh, I suspected the Legacy of Durin to continue to the north after Gundabad, dealing with the hobgoblinthreat and Loknashra there. Would be cool to see real snowtrolls (Pls rename the ones in Ered Luin to cavetrolls), ogre tribes, hobgoblins, new ice creatures and more.

If the Hobgoblins are able to live north of Gundabad there has to be some sort of food source for them up there. so it wouldn't be as desolate as you think.

[k40rne]

And how many of these MMOs would be as interconnected in terms of their storytelling as LOTRO is? Some wouldn't. But yeah, some MMOs do that and even a lot, and may do it wrong, and then look at WoW - players are basically telling new players asking about lore or expecting to explore the world with its stories to read old articles and YouTube videos because it has become such a trainwreck with so many things changed, rebooted, discarded and replaced over the years (including models with massive visual changes that have nothing to do with previous incarnations) that it's become an incomprehensive mess of a lore.

Besides, if it's done right, like the old Bree to new Bree, then I don't have issues. The new Last Homely House is probably another good example of how to do this, though I couldn't tell yet, haven't seen it myself yet.




For any major differences and outright visual/conceptual changes - it usually happens in a reboot series, which, by definition, has almost nothing to do with what came before except when it chooses to adapt things similarly, but it has its brand new lore entirely unconnected to the old one. Is LOTRO a rebooted game? No, it's still the same one with the same continuity.







Not lore of Tolkien canon. But it is a lore of the game. (That even fed heavily into Car Bronach and Elderslade, recent content)




It literally changes the previously established lore of the game. I could understand the Galactic Senate having some slight differences in it in the movies and the Clone Wars series but still looks pretty much the same. Count Dooku isn't a perfect image of Christopher Lee but he doesn't have a yellow beard, still white. The Carn Dum situation is as if the next episode of the Bad Batch tried to tell me the Senate is located on another planet and always has been and it's now flying chairs rather than platforms, in cubical space instead of round and on the outside it has multiple giant laser canons attached to it. I'm not sure how is that "just abstraction" and "nothing to do with lore" (of the game). You can give older areas a facelift or even redefine them in modern ways that feel more real without making it an outright lore-breaking jarring reboot. I'll just say it again, why not more of an ancient city of Termessos treatment? So a familiar space with a familiar layout made more believable and real and more modern, not a reboot.

I think you could definitely do with watching this Corey Olsen video on Tolkien's understanding of adaptation. It's certainly worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqt8...gnumUniversity

[TesalionLortus]

I think you could definitely do with watching this Corey Olsen video on Tolkien's understanding of adaptation. It's certainly worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqt8...gnumUniversity

I know about this, about Tolkien's words. What does it have to do with the quoted post ?

[k40rne]

I know about this, about Tolkien's words. What does it have to do with the quoted post ?

It's a general statement, why I didn't make it about any specific text. It was just a useful video I came across recently that was apt to the situation.

[miriadel]

Olsen is the last of the "scholars" I'd recommend since often he presents his opinions like "my way or the highway" as if only his vision is the right one.... but anyway, that is also going off topic, it has nothing to do with filling the gaps with landscape in lotro.

I read above some nice Forodwaith talk, and I'd be even more interested to explore that after Umbar (because going linear Harad would be 150). A Tales of Yore could even take place, if we read the first paragraph here Northern Waste - Tolkien Gateway

[k40rne]

Olsen is the last of the "scholars" I'd recommend since often he presents his opinions like "my way or the highway" as if only his vision is the right one.... but anyway, that is also going off topic, it has nothing to do with filling the gaps with landscape in lotro.

I read above some nice Forodwaith talk, and I'd be even more interested to explore that after Umbar (because going linear Harad would be 150). A Tales of Yore could even take place, if we read the first paragraph here Northern Waste - Tolkien Gateway

I don't see that at all. If anything. he is too open minded and not critical enough (from what I've seen). But clearly you disagree with his points about ROP.

It wasn't about going off topic, it was about that talk being unproductive and going nowhere, as well as lingering on, which is why I felt some people could do with watching that video & try to gain a fresh perspective.

And guess what, we hadn't talked about filling the gaps in 10s of pages, we were discussing speculation on new zones & cleanup of Gondor which is perfectly fine.

[TesalionLortus]

I don't think we'll get Tales of Yore in Forodwaith. I guess it's better to just expand current open landscape, rather than create too much of these places back in time in their own bubbles if the premise isn't strong enough. Seeing Sauron and the Last Alliance was like a mandatory thing that was missing and epic to witness, Azanulbizar contributed to flesh out the dwarven history but also provided these landscape additions around Lothlorien region with more detail and that gate in Amdan. They didn't really make the War of Sauron against Eregion and the elves, which could have been cool, but OK, not necessary and wouldn't exactly contribute to revise any of the older landscapes nor expand on them (all of these landscapes were actually quite new with Angle/CardoSwan).

Olsen is the last of the "scholars" I'd recommend since often he presents his opinions like "my way or the highway" as if only his vision is the right one...

I don't see that at all. If anything. he is too open minded and not critical enough (from what I've seen).

Well yeah something like that... I love to listen to Olsen's talks but overall... Olsen is like a guy of utter positivity and nothing else. Like, he has no consistently critical thoughts whatsoever sometimes - only creatively scholarly thoughts that launch into outright 1 hour digressions based on that one small thing he noticed. Throw anything with Tolkien's name attached at him, and as long as it has some vague material or easter eggs attached to it (look, this tapestry looks cool! what does it mean? look this sword has something written on it! what is it?) he won't really focus his attention on these other matters and legit issues people may have with something. Sure, he does say interesting and learnt things, and it's a good lecture, but it's not exactly a distanced, objective, careful and honest look at the whole picture, with some judgmentally involved - rather.. it's always positive positive positive excited excited excited, as long as it's Tolkien and has some things Tolkien in it, no matter how The Whole of the object of the discussion turned out. On top of all that, he is still so far behind in LOTRO - so he is lacking some perspective on how certain things may actually align more with lore yet still remain creative and different and new with more decent creators at the helm.

[Arnand_the_Fox]

I don't think we'll get Tales of Yore in Forodwaith.

Not even sure what they'd do there given that the only real history of the place is "people lived there, then left to become the Lossoth"

[miriadel]

well, the northern wastes were home of Morgoth's first fortress Utumno, so there is room for a tales of yore story uncovering some long lost evil that needs to be eradicated, with names appropriately changed to avoid copyright infringment... it's not like in the books there was all this lore about third age Forochel, but the devs decided nevertheless to flesh it up and make their own stories to tie the epic book

[TesalionLortus]

well, the northern wastes were home of Morgoth's first fortress Utumno, so there is room for a tales of yore story uncovering some long lost evil that needs to be eradicated, with names appropriately changed to avoid copyright infringment... it's not like in the books there was all this lore about third age Forochel, but the devs decided nevertheless to flesh it up and make their own stories to tie the epic book

I think you mistake "Tales of Yore" - by which I understand full-on in the past maps - with just regular treatment of the region then, so present day plot/map with potential for some memory instances/sequences. I mean I think that's the case... since you used the word "uncovering long lost" and that indicates present time. In that case, yeah, clearly, there is a lot of what they could do in Forodwaith

[Arnand_the_Fox]

well, the northern wastes were home of Morgoth's first fortress Utumno, so there is room for a tales of yore story uncovering some long lost evil that needs to be eradicated, with names appropriately changed to avoid copyright infringment... it's not like in the books there was all this lore about third age Forochel, but the devs decided nevertheless to flesh it up and make their own stories to tie the epic book

Utumno is stated to have been in the Iron Mountains, with the frozen wastes of Forodwaith to the north.

Based on the maps of Arda, the ruins of Utumno would be located right in that gap between Forochel and Angmar, just ever so slightly to the northwest of Carn Dum.

Somewhere right about hereish...





Which I guess would be a cool plot point to include if they ever add that gap between Angmar and Forochel at some point.

[miriadel]

for northern wastes I mean everything above Forochel since that is the current stop point of the map, but yes, that's the gist basically. Idk, I think it would be fun to jump so much north after we'll be exploring the far south with Umbar. Not to mention the sudden climate change XD and aside from Forodwaith... there's way too many regions I'd like to explore without having to wait months in between patches

[Arnand_the_Fox]

Looking at it closer, the path from the Iron Span in Forochel, to the path in Angmar, would pass directly through the ruins of Utumno. Would be cool if we got a map, in the next round of "non level cap gap filling releases" thats set between our defeat of the Angmarim in Forochel, but before Carn Dum falls in Shadows of Angmar, where we take the path to stop the Angmarim from trying to dig out old relics from Ultumno.

[k40rne]

Not to mention the sudden climate change XD

What about those words do you find funny?

[miriadel]

going from a deserty land to an ice one, simple as that. don't even try to start an argument about this, since clearly I wasn't talking about real life but a game

[CloudCastle]

Looking at it closer, the path from the Iron Span in Forochel, to the path in Angmar, would pass directly through the ruins of Utumno. Would be cool if we got a map, in the next round of "non level cap gap filling releases" thats set between our defeat of the Angmarim in Forochel, but before Carn Dum falls in Shadows of Angmar, where we take the path to stop the Angmarim from trying to dig out old relics from Ultumno.

I like this idea! I'm a real sucker for old abandoned ruins with tragic pasts too.

[provamail10]

Has anybody seen on Bullroarer if there are more landmass changes around Gondor?

[Phantion]

Has anybody seen on Bullroarer if there are more landmass changes around Gondor?

It looks like we'll be getting a "rebuild the Rammas Echor" quest-line near Harlond - or simply the appearances. They are definitely developing that spot to have more reconstruction going on with a camp of masons, from the looks of things.

But it would appear that Scenario et al. learned their lesson with CardoSwan, the "best kept secret of last year" - hahahaha

We can't really see anything other than the Harlond area because, well . . . there are zero changes in South Ithilien, and we could only have viewed a distant Lossarnach from the upper hills of an "after-battle South Ithilien." The invisible walls are stronger than Shelob's webs and the Watchers of Cirith Ungol! I did notice, just swimming along the invisible wall in the Anduin itself, that some parts of Harlond also look more reconstructed and/or under reconstruction / less ruined. But that's all I can see; the rest of Lossarnach visible from the river waters looks like a copy / paste of "before battle" Lossarnach with blue skies.

We can only "narrow" things down, pun intended :P No noticeable changes north or east or southeast of the Pelennor. This means "After Battle Gondor" must be "western East Gondor" and "Central Gondor" - pretty much anything from Harlond southward but no Ithilien.

They might save "after battle South Ithilien" for heading southward in Umbar's direction, perhaps . . . it just looks like we're getting re-worked, after-battle versions of the Gondor zones we already have "before battle."

Cheers!

[provamail10]

It looks like we'll be getting a "rebuild the Rammas Echor" quest-line near Harlond - or simply the appearances. They are definitely developing that spot to have more reconstruction going on with a camp of masons, from the looks of things.

But it would appear that Scenario et al. learned their lesson with CardoSwan, the "best kept secret of last year" - hahahaha

We can't really see anything other than the Harlond area because, well . . . there are zero changes in South Ithilien, and we could only have viewed a distant Lossarnach from the upper hills of an "after-battle South Ithilien." The invisible walls are stronger than Shelob's webs and the Watchers of Cirith Ungol! I did notice, just swimming along the invisible wall in the Anduin itself, that some parts of Harlond also look more reconstructed and/or under reconstruction / less ruined. But that's all I can see; the rest of Lossarnach visible from the river waters looks like a copy / paste of "before battle" Lossarnach with blue skies.

We can only "narrow" things down, pun intended :P No noticeable changes north or east or southeast of the Pelennor. This means "After Battle Gondor" must be "western East Gondor" and "Central Gondor" - pretty much anything from Harlond southward but no Ithilien.

They might save "after battle South Ithilien" for heading southward in Umbar's direction, perhaps . . . it just looks like we're getting re-worked, after-battle versions of the Gondor zones we already have "before battle."

Cheers!

Many thanks indeed for the info! I would have liked to get the Southguard too, but Western and Central Gondor sounds OK to me.

[Phantion]

Many thanks indeed for the info! I would have liked to get the Southguard too, but Western and Central Gondor sounds OK to me.

Yep The "western part of East Gondor," to clarify; I meant to say Lossarnach and Upper Lebennin (*the original East Gondor had both of those plus South Ithilien and Osgiliath; I'm not convinced South Ithilien is on the way)

Cheers!

[Maedol]

We can't really see anything other than the Harlond area because, well . . . there are zero changes in South Ithilien, and we could only have viewed a distant Lossarnach from the upper hills of an "after-battle South Ithilien."

Don't you think that they decided to postpone Ithilien until the moment after the wedding of Faramir and Eowyn and their accession to the hill of Emyn Arnen? Then returning specifically there would make even more sense.

Of course, I would like to see there some kind of analogue of Hytbold with the construction of a city, a dream of a dream..

[Maedol]

Just saw the updated beautiful map of Mirkwood and thought about two things.

Firstly, it surprises me that the name is not "Southern Mirkwood (although it does not even cover the entire south of the forest, rather the southwest)

And secondly, in the north and south there are no signs to future locations.

Do you think we will ever get a continuation of this location, or will it remain cut off from the whole world because of the prologue? (like Ered luin once or Etten now)

[TesalionLortus]

Wow, that's surprising. I thought they were only updating these when they work on nearby terrain, as was usually the case, but that change came out of nowhere surprisingly? (But weird they haven't done Evendim, for example, even though they worked with some terrain during Yondershire development)

Looks nice. I sure hope they create high res backups of these new maps too, so they're prepared if they ever update the UI to handle 4k and higher res files. You can always just upscale the current versions but... the result would be much nicer if they had the original project file with high quality terrain snapshot and rendered everything in higher res.

And secondly, in the north and south there are no signs to future locations.

Do you think we will ever get a continuation of this location, or will it remain cut off from the whole world because of the prologue?

They can always add the new "to X" indicators later, it's not something that they haven't done before. But yeah, turns out making this region part of open landscape is more difficult with complexity of how it was setup before with weird (still entirely incomprehensible to me) phasing? and whatnot, nevermind some quest conditions and logic. So they're not eager to do that.

Still, I really think - in that case - they should just add item teleports to allow travel in more directions where it makes sense (with condition fulfilled that you've completed the prologue, so same mechanic as the boat teleport across Anduin) to allow travel from South to North. Plus, what Scenario talked about, pushing that river barrier a bit further to the shore, so you can swim on the Anduin. (Maybe it's something already in the plans, taking boats into account..)