Enhance Swimming

[renorin]

I dunno about you, but I've seen under water in Evendim and it ain't pretty. Turbine uses tile sets en-masse, and when you see a large ammount of landscape at once the "eww..." moment creeps up on you.

Zoom in to First-Person, swim to the middle of Evendim, look down, and then jump up and down. You'll see momentary flashes of clearness, followed by "eww..." moments as you see all the repetitive tile sets.

But, on the other hand, it would still be cool to implement in places like Annuminas, or the shire, or such.

[Darej]

When I posted this thread I never thought I would see any responses, but it is good to see both sides of the story. Throughout the regions, we see half buried temples, lakes that look very inviting as well as the rocks that are underneath them. The real world is not only two dimensional and though this is not the real world, it should not be two dimensional either. There surely has to be something to discover under water, some ancient artifact, some beast that wants to rise out of it and attack us at a gate that can only be opened with a full moon and when you speak the word friend in elvish. I do believe that it is an area that Turbine has ignored, but probably on purpose. They haven't followed lore to the T, so why should this stop them. In the very least, please speed up the swimming at least. That can't be that hard.
Still, I happen to like to swim under water when I see vasts amounts of water to be swam in. It makes it a bit more realistic. If a person goes into a lake to swim, they don't just swim on top of the water, they go and explore to see what might be in the murky water underneath. Though it isn't mentioned in the books, I'm sure that they went for a swim or two once in a while and swam under water as well.

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Detect language » Hungarian

you say you want realism....

so..does this mean you also want folks to have to remove their armour/clothing/weapons?

for surely...any jaunt into making swimming more realistic must also have this.

i find it ludicrous we can swim at all encumbered as we are

[PF-Grumpy]

I have one reason to add swimming enhancements to rule them all.... Bikinis.


All of you against swimming should think of the game changing implications of Bikini-clad elf chicks running around.


*drifts off*

[Stormwaltz]

I don't think swimming is needed. I also don't think it fits Middle-Earth. How well can you swim in plate mail? How long can you fight underwater? It's not EQ or Oblivion, where people know spells that allow them to stay underwater indefinitely.

I would like to see (as a very low priority) a bit more effort towards making underwater look nicer. River/lakebed textures. Fogging and distortion effects when you dip the camera underwater. Something like grass frills to break up the ground textures. Decorative fish schools circling around. The occasional decorative sunken ruin or boat in the depths.

The first time I swam across Evendim and saw no ruins of Annúminas extending out across the lakebed, I was very sad.

[douglasburns]

you say you want realism....

so..does this mean you also want folks to have to remove their armour/clothing/weapons?

for surely...any jaunt into making swimming more realistic must also have this.

i find it ludicrous we can swim at all encumbered as we are

Impliment swimsuits. :P but for goodness sake improve the graphics and rendering of legs on the character models,..ewwwww.

Actaully one of the things I hated about WoW were the underwater quests, and the breath time limit.

I wouldn't be opposed if there were no breath time limit put in.

[CommoMP]

Sigh!

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Detect language » Hungarian

[Maxal]

Well first off the cave in Edenwaith does have a quest that sends you there. that is unless you find the cave first. You will still get and finish the quest to find the cave later on.

Secondly, MoL is right, there is nothing I really look to do underwater in this game. Underwater combat is not part of the lore of Middle Earth.

Third, I wish the bottoms of the lakes had a little bit more graphics. You know some large boulders, some sandy patches, so green areas. It would make the swims a little more interesting.

[FoxFire]

I would love to have the ability to swim underwater for brief periods of time, and partake in some underwater adventuring (at least to go under water for short stints to get to some cave or structure under there). It's one of the things about LotRO that I miss from other MMORPGs.

Plus it gives an additional sense of inhabiting a real world to allow us to go underwater. For so much effort and detail the LotRO development team put into creating a realistic (though fantasy) world, it seems a glaring incongruity for us to be unable to go under the surface of water that we can swim in.

[FoxFire]

Sigh!

Sigh indeed.

Are you aware of the reasoning that your post included all that black text (apparently the names of languages), which made me rather confused, and made you 'sigh' as if you know what's going on there.

What does it all mean Bazil.

[Essefen]

What sort of content would we put underwater? There wouldn't really be anything to *do* down there, and that makes it a bit harder to justify the addition.

MoL

Imagination is a skill you severely lack, huh?

[OldMadeOfLions]

Imagination is a skill you severely lack, huh?

I guess so!

Or it's possible that, while bringing lost treasures up from the deep *sounds* like a wealth of new content, in reality you'd exhaust that pretty quickly for the amount of work it would take to bring underwater spaces and gameplay up to the quality bar we'd want. And then you get into the frustration of having a breath meter, or the silliness if you don't.

It's always neat to have more: more places to go and things to do! But this is a 'more' that doesn't give you as much as you think it does.

MoL

[Eliel]

It's always neat to have more: more places to go and things to do! But this is a 'more' that doesn't give you as much as you think it does.

Which has always been my argument against it. I'd much rather get new parts of Middle-Earth that are places I've been in the book.

I mean, you can either get a bunch of quests to do at the bottom of Lake Evendim, or you can have Enedwaith. Me? I'd much rather have Enedwaith.

Not to say I wouldn't like to get some quests that involve uncovering secrets just under the water in Annuminas. And yes, the entire story of the Ring starts with Deagol scooping it up from the bottom of a river. But at most that renders into a "diving" mechanic, where you click "dive" while swimming, disappear and come up from the bottom automatically, and see if you found something, rather than a full-fledged underwater swimming mechanic.

[Macfeast]

When on the topic of Annuminas; Wasn't a key point of the questline "The Blade That Was Broken" (also known as the one with the Tomb of Elendil-instance) that by earning the favour of Gwindeth, the Blue Lady, she would remove the water blocking Elendil's Tomb and allow us access to it? It would kind of ruin the whole storyline if our characters could just say "don't mind that, I'll just swim there by myself."

[adamantiumdragon]

There is not much to do under the water right now anyway. I had a bug near Annuminas and found myself walking around on the bottom surface under the water, but walked up the stairs and got out. Besides the camera would not go down there with me so I had to look at myself at the bottom through the water reflections...
Swimming under water just doesn't seem that big of a deal to me.

[Emperor-King]

While I understand where MoL is coming from, I definately agree with the original poster.

For me, the biggest draw to this game is the theoretical idea of eventually being able to explore every inch of Middle-earth, so having all the boddies of water be empty pools that we just sort of float accross breaks that immersion factor for me. I'd love to be able to dive down and see fish or explore ancient flooded ruins (such as Tharbad, whenever we get there.)

Ultimately, while it shouldn't necessarily be a priority, the lack of underwater environments in this game dissapoints me, especially when the technology already exists in older Turbine games.

[CommoMP]

Sigh indeed.

Are you aware of the reasoning that your post included all that black text (apparently the names of languages), which made me rather confused, and made you 'sigh' as if you know what's going on there.

What does it all mean Bazil.

The language thing has been posting on my responses or threads ever sense the new forums started up. I have tried to delete them, but they keep coming back ever so often. I have no idea how it got there.

[CommoMP]

I guess so!

Or it's possible that, while bringing lost treasures up from the deep *sounds* like a wealth of new content, in reality you'd exhaust that pretty quickly for the amount of work it would take to bring underwater spaces and gameplay up to the quality bar we'd want. And then you get into the frustration of having a breath meter, or the silliness if you don't.

It's always neat to have more: more places to go and things to do! But this is a 'more' that doesn't give you as much as you think it does.

MoL

Well, at least maybe make swimming faster then? I can enjoy underwater swimming in DDO, as I have not played any of the other games that have the underwater action before, this is the only one I was aware that had the option. Swimming is too slow, but even in SWG encumbrances in water are a pain in the butt.

[Jhenox]

This is the only MMO I have ever played that didn't allow swimming underwater. The end.

[Darej]

This is the only MMO I have ever played that didn't allow swimming underwater. The end.

this is also probably the only mmo you have ever played that doesnt have any reason to content wise. the end.

[Khafar]

This is the only MMO I have ever played that didn't allow swimming underwater. The end.

That's odd. Of the 10 or so I've played, only two did: WoW and DDO. While interesting, it wasn't exactly a game-making feature in either of those.

Khafar

[douglasburns]

That's odd. Of the 10 or so I've played, only two did: WoW and DDO. While interesting, it wasn't exactly a game-making feature in either of those.

Khafar

THIS. And both were annoying, due to breath time limmits.

[a_nerd]

There's nothing on the bottom. It's quite barren underwater, so it would be incredibly boring.

/agree with MadeOfLions

they could put monsters underwaterlike fish which cant come out of water and you cant get xp for killing them if youre out of water

[clamdip14]

Well, for example Annuminas... Sunken scholar nodes, some kind of a quest (free someone trapped, search a dead body etc), enter an instance from underwater.

Nothing pressing, but there is a "cool" factor to it..

Hey they could add rebreathers and scuba gear purchased from the Turbine Store!!!

[Jojoba]

Yes, we should be able to Dive! Afterall, how was the one ring found by Gollum? Furthermore, monsters could be implemented to reach out of the water and pull us in, like the undead. But wait, the bottom line of that consequence would mostly be death.

Honestly, I feel they should let us have a new mount, called the Fishing Boat! Which we could use to sail or fish from when we are on the water. To me, the boat sounds more time worthy. Although, being able to dive would be fun, maybe a new hobby. Collecting Shells. Haha!

[jherrick]

Honestly any sort of underwater activities would not be very attractive at this point. Swimming is so freakin slow that most of the time i decide to run around a body of water rather than swim across it. Increasing swim speed should be a much higher priority than producing any underwater content.