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

[Arnand_the_Fox]

To me, it sounds like you overvalue the meaning of diplomacy in a setting like this. Historically, peace is rather fragile, and that you officially achieved it (especially if that's regarding your hateful foe) is no guarantee of peace at all. It was said Aragorn made peace with the Haradrim after the coronation, which was already adapted but these were Far Harad representatives. What does it mean if no one else send a representative to seek out peace? Clearly nothing friendly. Sure, Aragorn might try to reach out, but it doesn't mean it's something to cultivate like a fool, especially that any word from the more unfriendly clans shouldn't be trusted. Plus, to guard peace, it's in Aragorn's interest to see Harad or Rhun people squabble amongst themselves for a time, not meditate and put someone "on a throne" in each key region, which then presents perfect opportunity for this someone to maybe betray his word and turn against Gondor. This kind of thing works if you actually have armies at the ready and an intention to use them in case things go wrong - so you're basically creating a vassal in a foreign land. But if not - and here it's clearly Aragorn who would rather have days of peace, not perspective of involving Gondor in another war at this time (though he might be more willing in Fourth Age) - then there is nothing to motivate such a friend/vassal to abide by their word. For example, with Umbar, you can't trust a pirate that he will not remain a pirate and won't turn against Gondorian merchant vessels once Umbar is united and on a stable foot again. In which case, what's even the point of striving for peace and solving their foreign internal problems to "achieve it" (with your means and resources spent)? There really is none. Aragorn should strive for it of course, within limits, receive emissaries if they wanna come or send letters/some diplomats with good words, but otherwise he shouldn't beg for it nor spent his own resources, time and effort to achieve this geopolitically fragile goal. He would be no good king if he tried that, more like a naive king, still wet behind their ears.

Sounds like he is right but hardly applies to Aragorn situation since that's exactly the case, Aragorn does not want to retaliate and be aggressive here. All he gotta do is just sit and show good will, either they take it or they don't (in which case they're busy with internal affairs anyway and don't have the strength to threaten Gondor), but he does not need "peace at every cost possible" meaning wasting his best agents and resources on pressuring them into peace by meddling in their internal affairs and supporting one faction or another, albeit without the means to ensure their loyalty/friendship (how is that logical? :P). There is no self-sabotage to his rule by enjoying the privileges secured by his military victory against Sauron and then choosing to show good will to his enemies if they're willing - but otherwise stay away and let them handle their own affairs, just watch from afar and look for any signs of real danger, like unified Harad under someone nasty, but that wouldn't realistically happen too quickly, given the death of Black Serpent and political defragmentation that follows.

Again, no one said Aragon would be sending us deep into Harard, Rhun, or Umbar, to do negotiations with these groups. The most I've ever said is that he would send us to Anfalas to deal with corsair remnants, and we would run into our Corsair buddy who would lead us into a situation that proves beneficial to Gondor. It wouldn't even take that long for the story to play out in universe. A week or so at most. Out players already go off on week+ long adventures with no contact with Aragorn as is.

And no, letting the various factions squabble among themselves is not in Aragorn's best interest. That's very much NOT in his best interest since it creates the scenario where factions who dislike him take power, rally the people, and attack him years down the line. Its in Aragorn's best interest to actively seek out those groups who are willing to accept peace, make deals with them, and actively support them, in order to prevent such a scenario from occurring. That's just basic politics.

I think its also pretty telling they've set up friendly, or possibly friendly, groups in each of the three regions. The Blue Wizards out in Rhun obviously hold some positions of power, as evidenced by the cults who formed under them, and we know they actively tried to stop the Easterlings from getting involved in the war. Jajax was a fairly notable captain of the Umbar fleet who realized the whole thing wasn't going well for them. And we've already seen one Haradrim Kingdom send emissaries to Gondor for peace. All of these make for easy stories that, outside of a trip to Umbar, doesn't require us to go deep into Harad or Rhun to find peace.
-We could meet up with Haradrim emissaries in Harondor, since they want a more neutral place for negotiations after one of their ambassadors got killed.
-We would run into the Blue Wizards in Dorwinion, while tracing back whatever decistation happened in Rhun
-I've already explained an easy shortish story for Jajax and the Umbarians

It's not something that can be done overnight and it's not like he is gonna send carts and materials overnight. But it's clearly on his mind, and he is already thinking/preparing for it, as proven by his pilgrimage North and Gandalf's comments to Barliman. Naturally, first there is some scouting to do, some clean-up to be done back in Eriador (so that would include the entire Angmar situation and Drugoth), some talks to be had with different representatives of Eriador etc. That's what our player might be involved in, as his trusted diplomat.

What representatives of Eriador? The Dwarves of Eriador are Longbeards who serve the King Under the Mountain, who already sent ambassadors to Aragon. The Elves in Rivendell are under Elrond, who is Aragon's great uncle, and who already acknowledges his right to the former northern Kingdom. The Hobbits of the Shire don't really have room to negotiate since the Shire is only theirs as part of a treaty with the Kings of the North. Aragorn has no desire to take it back from them anyways, and not only expands the bounds of the Shire, but make it a protected enclave separate from the rest of the reunited Kingdom. The only human settlement of note is Bree, a single small town with no real political sway, and the rest of the very few inhabitants of Eriadors are generally one off farmers, and people squatting in old ruins like those in Ost Guruth, and Ost Forod. There is no substantive organization in Eriador that has any real political sway that Aragorn needs diplomatic efforts that he doesn't really have. That's kind of the whole point of Eriador, pretty much no one lives there outside of the Shire, Bree, and the Grey Havens. The Ring wraiths were having to bribe people to try to learn the location of the Shire because Eraidor is such a middle nowhere, almost no one lives there, mess they didn't even know the Shire existed.

I guess they could just streamline the legendary weapon a bit, make it separate from the Epic or something, to be received at Elronds and thus better tied into the new Tracery room (lol, maybe some tutorial quests for the Traceries? because this gotta be the most confusing thing in the game right now)

I'm sure Elrond is just keeping a vault full of legendary weapons around for giggles. But at this point the whole concept of an alternate to Moria has taken on a rather long list of excuses to try to justify it, ranging from redoing the whole legendary weapon introduction, to make an entire other branch of leveling zones, but not giving them epics to narratively justify the alt leveling experience. This is really just taken on the form of trying to make a square peg fit a round hole.

The "why" we can't have boats has been partially revealed by Orion, I think. Because that would be a new system similar to mounted and mounted has problem/contributes to lag. But that's something on their list of problems to solve sometime 2023 and if they can solve that/eliminate its issues - then it's proven "boat mount" is feasible and then it's just a matter of implementation (and that would clearly need to be attached to something like expansion). If, but it remains to be seen, nothing is set in stone

They would be useful everywhere, seriously. Waterfalls are there sometimes but they're no issue, you can just swim down the river, down the waterfall and then summon a boat again. And nobody reasonably expect to swim upstream up a waterfall. Also, lots of areas still left to explore are... near the coasts. So there is still a lot of attractive waters to come. Much more than before. I mean, East Rohan was like 6 zones? It wasn't one, no expac is just one zone. There is no river on Tolkien map/lore (he wasn't very descriptive of places such as Harad) but reasonably there would be a river, zoom in on any google map place and you will always find some rivers. LOTRO does include/invent some of the non-canonical rivers and tributaries quite often, I think, to make it feel natural.

They would be fairly useless in most places since the older maps weren't designed with the idea of there being boats, so the most effective form of travel will still be on land paths originally designed. Most rivers in LOTRO are far to narrow for any number of players to travel on them in real time, and waterfalls in LOTRO tend to kill players very often due to the sheer drops. You can't just swim down them then re-summon the boat. You would have to boat to the waterfall, get back on land, walk down whatever maze like landscape path they made to the bottom of the falls, and then get back in the water/re-summon the boat. Why would you do that when you can just take the land path to begin with, or auto-stable? For new maps along the coast, 95% of the content is going to be on land, not in the water, since there was one port of the Numenorians along the Eriador coast, that being Lond Daer. Having boats there would lets you travel down the sliver of water on the edge of the map, but isn't going to help much in regards to the rest of the area. And with Umbar's navy gone, there isn't exactly a naval force of note to provide much in the way of content along the coast besides auto traveling anyways.

As for Umbar itself, Umbar is in Near Harad, which is a desert. There is no river there since the area around it is a desert. And East Rohan was one zone, that being East Rohan. It was broken up into small parts, but none of those small parts had the content of a full zone, nor are they treated as such. Saying East Rohan has 6 zones is like saying Bree Land has like 6 zones because there is Bree land proper, but Archet, North/South Barrow Downs, the Old Forest, and Wildwood, each have their own clickable maps.