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

[Phantion]

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Ty for this Valather! *Smiles!*

One of the things I want to point out is that there is an inaccuracy on this map.

Look at Erebor in particular. Notice how the Lonely Mountain is surrounded in "orange" signifying developed terrain. However, that's not strictly true. There's a blockaded road leading north of the Iron Hills due north of Utterby. There are marshlands visible to the northeast by east of the Withered Heath. However, there is no contiguity - no landscape connections - between those zones. We may not, in fact, ride around the Lonely Mountain as the image would imply. Nor may we ride from the north side of Erebor and down into the Iron Hills from the north. It isn't developed terrain. Only the Iron Hills and the Iron-fold leading out to it = developed.

Oh, I don't think the game is going anywhere any time soon, and I hope it doesn't. I just thought it might be an interesting thought experiment and a way to frame a discussion about what areas of the game we're most interested in seeing.

Much agreed! Keep this thread alive!

It's interesting to note some of the areas the devs have not marked as developed on this map. There's the far north of Mirkwood, as you mention; the bit of Mirkwood west of Dol Guldur; portions in and around the Misty Mountains to the north and South of Moria; the area between Angmar and Gundabad; the Weather Marches/Goblins of Mount Gram area; even the stretch of the White Mountains east of the Paths of the Dead is unmarked. That doesn't necessarily mean we're going to see all these areas developed, but it does mean SSG knows and acknowledges them as undeveloped and may consider them in play for future development. It would have been easy for them say, nah, we've done Southern Mirkwood, or we've done Northern Mirkwood, or we've developed all the way up to the Misty and White Mountains, so we can fill in all the mountains and the northern and southern ends of the forest. We've done enough. But they haven't done that, which had to have been a deliberate choice. They've identified and acknowledged the gaps.

Yes, and I've noticed a couple more inaccuracies: Central Gondor. Actually, that orange area should be thinner on a vertical axis as we can't access those vales between some of those spurs of the White Mountains that are closed-off to player access; we may only see them from a distance.

A year ago, I would have thought it was unlikely that we would ever make it to Forodwaith, since it's such a barren land; but Loknashra's storyline is unfinished, and we've gotten some hints that there are things afoot with the hobgoblins in the north. I think a Forodwaith is very much in the realm of possibilities.

Yes. It'll be interesting to see how they might plan to have "Drugoth" play a role in what comes next; it'll mean he's the last, even if a spirit, of the evil started by Agath-Kali in Bar Nirnaeth and the Witch-King in Minas Morgul.

I'm really hoping that CardoSwan and the technologies they've been leveraging and the work Scenario has been doing in recent years mean that we might get larger zones in the future. Rhun, as you say, warrants it; so potentially do Harad, Khand, Nurn, Forodwaith, and southern Eriador. There are many places in Middle Earth that would probably have been too large, too lightly populated, or too far away to develop properly a few years ago. But I think the technology and techniques that made CardoSwan possible could also make a lot of other places possible and raise the likelihood that we may actually get to see all the far-flung corners of Middle Earth someday.

Much agreed! It'll be fun to see how they fill-out the world moving forward! My hope also is that this will lessen the "Iron Hills" effect, where they, in my view, made a mistake to under-scale the zone more so than other zones under the pretext it might be "boring" to have to ride that far. Well, I beg to differ. Those Iron Hills should be a great deal further east of Erebor than they are, and it would've been fun to have other Dale-ish towns like Utterby out there . . . maybe some hidden delvings to hone-in on the "Howling Pit" theme a bit more. I'm very glad that they are adopting the opposite philosophy with CardoSwan *smiles.*

I also think that the River Carnen, because Iron Hills is too far west, is way too close to the Celduin; the rivers are practically parallel. So, as with the Royal Road in CardoSwan, I think they should do 2 things: A- Expand the Iron Hills eastward, maybe by having an "eastern exit" from an expanded Jarnfast; B- Just redirect the flow of the Carnen due eastward for a bit, away from that line of cliffs that borders Long Lake, just so that the two rivers don't get too close to each other and converge closer to Dorwinion. I still can't stress enough: A Dorwinion without Elves of any sort will make me pretty sad; I really hope they'll do something magnificent. Tolkien hinted in his drafts there are other hidden Elven realms out there - like Thranduil's in Felegoth.

My favorite way of imagining Dorwinion is like this (*Scenario, please do feel free to rip any of these ideas XD ): Perched higher above cliffs, with perhaps a wide vale brimming with vineyards, perhaps some hills / mountains surrounding it, smaller river tributaries running through it. I like to imagine a hidden Elven realm built beneath the cliffs / mountains right on the northwestern Sea of Rhun Felegoth-style, maybe with great "windows" - meaning, just big openings in the cliff-face, overlooking the sea from farther above, perhaps a hidden harbor several levels below, and that perhaps, whatever devastation afflicted Rhun, they may have hidden themselves and survived. This could be a neat concept for a player main hub and explain where Thranduil was really getting his wine from - and that, perhaps, it was indeed Elvish wine!

The Chayasir could've dwelt in the vale itself, above-ground, while the Elves --- like the Avorrim cave Elves near Dol Amroth - largely kept to themselves in their own hidden vastness. There's just so much fun stuff they could imagine out there . . . and Tolkien left plenty of room for it. These "Avari" could have their own made-up name; Thranduil could have visited them and could've taught them how to build a hidden realm of Felegoth's sort . . . they could be cut from the same cloth, as it were, as the Wood-Elves.

I still can't thank the Devs enough, especially Scenario, for all they're doing All my commentary's stemming from pure enthusiasm, nothing more or less All in good spirits!