At last, is the Big Battle of Helm's Deep Lore-Breaking?

[whheydt]

It's an iconic event and location. I'm not sure it needs much more explaining than that. We've been at virtually all of them, or some reasonable facsimile thereof, throughout the game so far.

So was the fall of Durin's Bane.

So was the breaking of the Fellowship.

So was Frodo's escape from the Black Riders by crossing the Brandywine.

So was Aragorn repelling the Nazgul on Weathertop.

Lots of "iconic events" for which our characters weren't present, and surely more to come.

[daveamongus]

Lots of "iconic events" for which our characters weren't present, and surely more to come.

Just going to leave this here:

"or some reasonable facsimile thereof" (I said it, you quoted it, but ignored it.)

[whheydt]

It is not lore breaking at all (well, except for the hobbits). As we've discussed on another thread. Asking for Turbine to admit to a fault that doesn't exist is a little unfair, I think.

Well... Sapience has already agreed that it's a lore break...kind of. He just added a "...but it isn't really" on the end. Even you agree that having Hobbits there is a lore break, so how can you reasonably argue that it is not actually lore breaking? Would you have Turbine allow any character *other* than Hobbits to participate?

[Radhruin_EU]

It's an iconic event and location. I'm not sure it needs much more explaining than that. We've been at virtually all of them, or some reasonable facsimile thereof, throughout the game so far.

What I'm perplexed by is why you insist that this is catastrophically lore-breaking.

From the point of view of the primary characters, the people defending Helm's Deep were Rohirrim. Did they inspect all of the troops? Nope. Mostly hung out with the King. Might they have heard if there was a dwarf or hobbit or elf among the Rohirrim? Or women fighters? Maybe. But, maybe not. They had other things on their minds, and so long as they had people they could count on at their backs, that was all that mattered in that moment. Might it have made such a stir? Perhaps. Far more likely if you take as gospel that the events on the pages are the only events worth note that occurred anywhere during the months of the novels.

This is a weal argument because it requires people to be wilfully blind. There is no 'maybe' here, nobody could have missed hobbits because they would have been an object of wonderment to everyone, just as Merry and Pippin were when Theoden, Eomer and their men meet them for the first time at Isengard. They hadn't seen hobbits in real life before - they knew what they were (they had folk stories about them) but seeing them was a very different matter.

Likewise, it would have been of note if there were another Elf or Dwarf there - people wouldn't soon forget it because for most of them, it would have been the first time they'd seen either. You're just not putting yourself in the shoes of the Rohirrim at all, here. You're too used to the idea of Elves, Dwarves and hobbits as a sort of everyday thing in Middle-earth when they certainly weren't to everybody. It would have been noticed, remarked upon. Do try to RP a bit - if an Elf happened to be there, he'd want to greet Legolas. If a Dwarf were there, they'd want to greet Gimli. They wouldn't just hide out trying not to be noticed, they wouldn't be in disguise - that's just not plausible because there'd be no reason to.

[Elderban]

But then, none of my characters have ever fought either of those two, so they can consider your tales of having done so as being complete fictions. Nice stories, with no basis in (game world) fact.

So, what you are saying is that since you haven't fought either the Balrog or Draigoch, they don't exist in the game to you?

I'm going to go bang my head against a brick wall, I think I'll have better luck convincing it.

[Angadan]

So was the fall of Durin's Bane.

So was the breaking of the Fellowship.

So was Frodo's escape from the Black Riders by crossing the Brandywine.

So was Aragorn repelling the Nazgul on Weathertop.

Lots of "iconic events" for which our characters weren't present, and surely more to come.

Logical fallacy. At every event you just listed, Tolkien literally named and described EVERY person who was there (not counting orcs and trolls at the fall of Durin's Bane). That is a very different animal than an event at which dozens (Council of Elrond), scores (audiences with Théoden before his rescue from Saruman's grasp), hundreds (seeing the Fellowship in Lothlorien) or thousands (Helm's Deep) of unnamed others were present.

[ColorSpecs]

So was the fall of Durin's Bane.

So was the breaking of the Fellowship.

So was Frodo's escape from the Black Riders by crossing the Brandywine.

So was Aragorn repelling the Nazgul on Weathertop.

Lots of "iconic events" for which our characters weren't present, and surely more to come.

Exactly. In this game we have followed behind the fellowship. What should have happened was either we come to Helm's Deep in the aftermath, or encounter it during session play or at worst as a solitary add-on to a solo instance like when we saw the Fellowship depart Rivendell. Even I would be disappointed in those options as an "awwww I wanted to see that" moment. So its not like I don't understand the motivation (in part. The auto-leveling piece is pure greed). But it could've provided an opportunity to improve session play so it could be more integrated into our characters. Or let us see something else on that scale elsewhere of Turbine's creation that wasn't so lore intrusive. Or hell, they could've just given us the landmass without any tech updates, added a traditional instance cluster tied to Rohan and MC, and saved all the development dollars they spent on Big Battles, putting it into fixing the lag, updating character models, and other badly needed updates they no longer seem to have the funding for.

Heck if they really truly wanted to do a big battle they could've continue on their Hobbit theme and done the siege of the Lonely Mtn. Given that we known next to nothing about it, it would be alot less painful to see hobbits taking part there.

[whheydt]

Storytelling tastes and quality vary significantly with time; what was an acceptable trope or style or what-have-you can fall out of fashion and not be acceptable to modern audiences. For example, modern audiences (for whatever reason) have become accustomed to expect a character to have arc; that is, the character will go on an emotional journey and end up somewhere other (not just in status or location) from where they started. Thus, in a highly prominent example, the very noble and kingly Aragorn, biding his time in the wilderness, becomes a man afraid of his destiny and bloodline (when he's afraid of nothing else) who grows to accept his kingship. Modern audiences would have been put off by a depiction of Aragorn that hewed more closely to the books. Likewise, Faramir.

This is not an "improvement" on Tolkien, or an assertion that anyone knows storytelling better than he did (though, I won't say there isn't anyone who knows it better), but an adaptation for a different audience, in a different milieu, in what is a different genre along multiple axes.

We can agree to disagree on this. As films, jackson's work is probably quite acceptable to most people. His treatment of LotR (and the "anticipated" treatment of The Hobbit) is not acceptable to me. That doesn't mean that I think every copy of them should be taken out and burned (though i wouldn't shed a tear if that happened), but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who has the slightest care for either LotR or the integrity of written works when adapted for film.

Perhaps it's because I've known too many authors, and--indeed--have been married to one for 42 years and counting.

[daveamongus]

And yet, the book world-wide is like number 2 best selling of all time after the Bible isn't it? So if there's a problem in taste, certainly it would show up there as well. I don't buy this line of reasoning with hyper-popular media. Sure, when it is more narrow, like say a comic book adaption; but f you're going to do a Bible story you don't change it. You adapt it into a format in which it can be, consumed (for lack of a better term) given the restrictions on the media. LOTR was too big for even three movies, just to make it doable there had to be adaptions. But there was artistic license taken that didn't need to be. Case in point, our boy Faramir.

Even Shakespeare, perhaps adapted more than anyone.. In every case I can think of where those adaptations performed poorly it was due to the departure from the "spirit" of the source material until the content was related in name only. This is what is happening with LOTRO more and more.

You're painting with an altogether too broad of a brush. No video adaptation of any part of the Bible has every been word-for-word faithful to the text, none. I defy you to name an example. Likewise, Shakespeare's adaptations are all, have all been adaptations first and foremost. The most commercially successful Shakespearean filmmaker of all time, Kenneth Branagh, has folded, spindled, and mutilated the source material in any number of ways, and the only time he filmed a word-for-word adaptation of a play, he set it 200 years after Shakespeare died.

So, again, storytelling, taste, and genre are all rather massive factors into how "faithfully" something is adapted. I've read the books, watched the movies, and played the games. I think most adaptations have done a fairly decent job of capturing LOTR's "spirit." None of them have been without changes, major or minor, and the thing as it stands is utterly unfilmable. Even if you gave it the Game of Thrones treatment, which I'm sure someone is contemplating, you'll have changes major and minor along the way.

[zalladi]

I'm wondering what it is about the Battle of the Hornburg that has some people so upset that they INSIST their characters must participate in spite of there not being anything in LotR that even hints that said characters could possibly be present at that battle.

Takes all kinds, I guess.

So what would you prefer;

Choice A: Come Helm's Deep, there is no instance for players' characters to fight in the iconic battle in LotR history. Instead, there is a session play (much to your pleasure) in which players have to use different skills, different playstyles - probably in a solo space with no other session players around to enjoy the content. Similarly, there would be no group versions of the fight; only the said solo space. Additionally, upscaling would then be futile, so the minimum level to participate in the session play would become 95.
As there is no other instance content arriving, a large majority of players would leave, probably causing the game to shut down.

Choice B: Come Helm's Deep, there is content where players can fight with their own characters and participate in the epic LotR Battle of the Hornburg. There are group versions of the battle available, so players enjoy working together to achieve goals and aims of the battle, and to enjoy each others company. Similarly, if executed efficiently by Turbine, the existing player base will stay, with a good possibility of new players joining in to witness one of the greatest battles of all fantasy history - and they can do this from level 10.

What would you prefer, I ask again;

• An expansion that sticks to the lore of the battle, but creates mass disappointment for players that don't get to use their years worth of work to complete the new end-game content, ultimately resulting in loss of players and a monotonous hole in the expansion sales.
  Or
• An expansion that drives off from lore (as if we've not done that already) in such a small detail (hey, I wonder what your responses would be should they implement flying eagles, legendary craftable rings of power, or let us fight our way in a 24-man Barad-Dur raid?) allowing players to use their own characters and work with others.

All in all, the lore has been kept to relatively well since the start of the game. For the sake of a game (alternative name; ''Entertainment''), I am glad I can participate in the battle of Helm's Deep and enjoy the experience as fully as possible - much like many LotR lovers' dreams.

I just hope they execute the system effectively.

[DanteIL]

Well... Sapience has already agreed that it's a lore break...kind of. He just added a "...but it isn't really" on the end. Even you agree that having Hobbits there is a lore break, so how can you reasonably argue that it is not actually lore breaking? Would you have Turbine allow any character *other* than Hobbits to participate?

Okay I hope you remember this when someone else comes along and willfully chooses an alternative interpretation of something that you have posted, just to fit their view of the world. You are putting additional phrases into his mouth. It is other people in this thread, not Turbine, who have suggested all kinds of lore-circumventing ways that our characters could have been there even if this wasn't documented in the books. Now, perhaps this is what the lore-monkeys in Turbine HQ actually had in their heads when they signed off on Helm's Deep. We don't know. All Sapience said was that they "[keep] as true to the lore as possible while still affording us the ability to include players in areas the lore says they should never be" and "[do] their best to make sure that when we have to have lore breaks they are done in ways that at least works within the spirit of the lore and Middle-earth without, hopefully, running roughshod over it." If the phrase "spirit of the lore" is what is offending you (because it's 'weasley'), then you are picking an odd time and place to get offended because that ship sailed the instant this game was created.

[whheydt]

Or hell, they could've just given us the landmass without any tech updates, added a traditional instance cluster tied to Rohan and MC, and saved all the development dollars they spent on Big Battles, putting it into fixing the lag, updating character models, and other badly needed updates they no longer seem to have the funding for.

No.... They really need to develop the "Big Battle" tech, since it is going to be needed for Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate...battles, i might add, that--at least to me--do not have any implication in lore to prevent player characters from participating. Gondor was dragging in every live body that could handle a weapon, however poorly, that they could.

Once again, Big Battles...looks to be a good idea and an interesting mechanic. I'm not in the slightest way arguing against that development.

(Makes me wonder if Tolkien gave even a passing thought to the way the RAF was throwing pilots with less than 10 hours of experience flying Spitfires into the Battle of Britain, especially considering that Christopher T. served in the RAF during WW2.)

[daveamongus]

We can agree to disagree on this. As films, jackson's work is probably quite acceptable to most people. His treatment of LotR (and the "anticipated" treatment of The Hobbit) is not acceptable to me. That doesn't mean that I think every copy of them should be taken out and burned (though i wouldn't shed a tear if that happened), but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone who has the slightest care for either LotR or the integrity of written works when adapted for film.

Perhaps it's because I've known too many authors, and--indeed--have been married to one for 42 years and counting.

Please don't swing the "I've known too many authors" thing around in here. You may seriously, seriously embarrass yourself.

Your hobbyhorse is yours. Ride it off into the sunset. But your foot-stomping attitude toward "lore-breaking" and those who are willing to accept the game on its own merits is absolutely unnecessary. Register your complaint with Turbine and move on. I won't make you try to accept the game as perfectly consistent with your vision of Middle Earth, and you can stop trying to demean the enjoyment of others.

[Angadan]

Well... Sapience has already agreed that it's a lore break...kind of. He just added a "...but it isn't really" on the end. Even you agree that having Hobbits there is a lore break, so how can you reasonably argue that it is not actually lore breaking? Would you have Turbine allow any character *other* than Hobbits to participate?

Of course, but--for fun's sake--I will not demand that they leave the poor hobbit toons out (plus, who am I to DEMAND anything? I'm just one player among thousands). I'm going to accept that Turbine are Imperfect Protectors of the Holy Lore (but may nevertheless be doing a better job of balancing competing demands than I ever could), and enjoy the game even as I regret the hobbits being set loose from the Shire. Just as I've accepted those pesky hobbits running amok for the past half-decade. I will not blow a gasket over it, or resign from the game in protest, or demand that Sapience bow before the Almighty Truth of my perspective, or refuse to enjoy the content that breaks the lore. It is, after all, just a game.

[EmyrSelyf]

nobody could have missed hobbits

Tell that to Bilbo in Goblintown

[whheydt]

So what would you prefer;

Choice A: Come Helm's Deep, there is no instance for players' characters to fight in the iconic battle in LotR history. Instead, there is a session play (much to your pleasure) in which players have to use different skills, different playstyles - probably in a solo space with no other session players around to enjoy the content. Similarly, there would be no group versions of the fight; only the said solo space. Additionally, upscaling would then be futile, so the minimum level to participate in the session play would become 95.
As there is no other instance content arriving, a large majority of players would leave, probably causing the game to shut down.

Choice B: Come Helm's Deep, there is content where players can fight with their own characters and participate in the epic LotR Battle of the Hornburg. There are group versions of the battle available, so players enjoy working together to achieve goals and aims of the battle, and to enjoy each others company. Similarly, if executed efficiently by Turbine, the existing player base will stay, with a good possibility of new players joining in to witness one of the greatest battles of all fantasy history - and they can do this from level 10.

What would you prefer, I ask again;

• An expansion that sticks to the lore of the battle, but creates mass disappointment for players that don't get to use their years worth of work to complete the new end-game content, ultimately resulting in loss of players and a monotonous hole in the expansion sales.
  Or
• An expansion that drives off from lore (as if we've not done that already) in such a small detail (hey, I wonder what your responses would be should they implement flying eagles, legendary craftable rings of power, or let us fight our way in a 24-man Barad-Dur raid?) allowing players to use their own characters and work with others.

All in all, the lore has been kept to relatively well since the start of the game. For the sake of a game (alternative name; ''Entertainment''), I am glad I can participate in the battle of Helm's Deep and enjoy the experience as fully as possible - much like many LotR lovers' dreams.

I just hope they execute the system effectively.

You forgot the possibilities of Options C, D, and so on.

The 20Q thread already made mention fo thinking "outside the box", so why are you restricting Turbine's choices to being inside the previous boxes?

[ColorSpecs]

You're painting with an altogether too broad of a brush.

No I'm not. I've said over and over now that I agree 100% that there are changes to be made that are necessary to make the game fundamentally exist. There are compromises that have to be made. Turbine has been making them since Day 1 with, as Sapience said, for example the Gaunt Lords storyline. But they don't contradict the source material, either in content, spirit or tone. Hell, I'm a pvp'er, I fight next to Uruks all day in the Ettenmoors, that's a huge lore-break. So its not like I'm being too strict here.

But this is a contradiction being made with an artistic license for the purposes of expediency. This is nuking the fridge. And my concern is this fridge seems to be getting nuked more an more. It was one thing to be dealing with a Balrog in Angmar considered hidden from view and intentionally forgotten. Then comes rune keepers and hoplites after the 300 movie came out, er I mean wardens. Then somehow a character from WOW escaped and shows up at the bottom of Moria in 2.6.8. Then we fight, successfully, a Nazgul. And then a Dragon, a creature powerful enough to have driven out thousands of dwarves from their mountain fortress home. Then we battle through Orthanc itself and defeat Saruman, who not even Gandalf could stand against as the Grey. Then comes the giant-demon thing with icicle skin in Rohan. And it feels as if the instances where we are nuking this fridge are speeding up to the point where it is happening as a core occurrence of every expansion or update.

I'm just saying we can find a better way.

[whheydt]

Please don't swing the "I've known too many authors" thing around in here. You may seriously, seriously embarrass yourself.

Your hobbyhorse is yours. Ride it off into the sunset. But your foot-stomping attitude toward "lore-breaking" and those who are willing to accept the game on its own merits is absolutely unnecessary. Register your complaint with Turbine and move on. I won't make you try to accept the game as perfectly consistent with your vision of Middle Earth, and you can stop trying to demean the enjoyment of others.

I was under the impression that, in the few direct exchanges I've had with Sapience in this thread that I have, to some extent, done just that--taken my complaint up with Turbine.

As for the rest... /shrug Those are your opinions and you are welcome to them. I would considered saying more, but I try to avoid ad hominem arguments.

[daveamongus]

No I'm not. I've said over and over now that I agree 100% that there are changes to be made that are necessary to make the game fundamentally exist. There are compromises that have to be made. Turbine has been making them since Day 1 with, as Sapience said, for example the Gaunt Lords storyline. But they don't contradict the source material, either in content, spirit or tone. Hell, I'm a pvp'er, I fight next to Uruks all day in the Ettenmoors, that's a huge lore-break. So its not like I'm being too strict here.

But this is a contradiction being made with an artistic license for the purposes of expediency. This is nuking the fridge. And my concern is this fridge seems to be getting nuked more an more. It was one thing to be dealing with a Balrog in Angmar considered hidden from view and intentionally forgotten. Then comes rune keepers and hoplites after the 300 movie came out, er I mean wardens. Then somehow a character from WOW escaped and shows up at the bottom of Moria in 2.6.8. Then we fight, successfully, a Nazgul. And then a Dragon, a creature powerful enough to have driven out thousands of dwarves from their mountain fortress home. Then we battle through Orthanc itself and defeat Saruman, who not even Gandalf could stand against as the Grey. Then comes the giant-demon thing with icicle skin in Rohan. And it feels as if the instances where we are nuking this fridge are speeding up to the point where it is happening as a core occurrence of every expansion or update.

I'm just saying we can find a better way.

Did you see what I said before about the lore-within-the-lore? The historicity of the Red Book itself?

The "lore" itself, within its own construction, is a memoir of sorts, assembled out of the remembrances of some of the people who experienced it, long after it was over. According to the text, Legolas did not run around fighting wood trolls in the Trollshaws. But, it also doesn't say that he didn't. It doesn't say that there were any other adventurers abroad, just that the fellowship didn't encounter any that they could recall years later AND that the author felt were significant enough to include in the Red Book.

This is not the same as categorically stating that these things did not happen. There's very little that Tolkien categorically stated did not happen, and it's actually very reasonable to infer that where he made sweeping generalizations in the text, the author of the Red Book may have been ignoring a sea of details in order to paint a broad picture. There is room in the text for all of this.

Tolkien worked in legend and fable. By their nature these things present a world that is very simple, almost impressionistic. It is not meant to be a detailed, "realistic" detail of every bit of working of Middle Earth, if it existed as a real place. Treating it that way, I would argue, is just as disrespectful to the text as having a hobbit juggling chainsaws on the top of Barad-dur.

[Angadan]

Very well said, Dave Among Us. I could not agree more.

[daveamongus]

I was under the impression that, in the few direct exchanges I've had with Sapience in this thread that I have, to some extent, done just that--taken my complaint up with Turbine.

As for the rest... /shrug Those are your opinions and you are welcome to them. I would considered saying more, but I try to avoid ad hominem arguments.

A complaint that you've spread through nearly every thread on this topic since I've been on the forums. And some other threads where you could work it in.

Also? The "I'd say more, but then I'd have to resort to calling you names" thing is childish.

If you don't want to engage with my critique of the lore, that's fine, but don't set yourself up as some kind of arbiter of what is and is not "true to the lore." It's what's acceptable to you. I find your vision of the lore depressingly narrow, and I wish you would stop smearing it through every thread where it's even remotely germane.

[ColorSpecs]

Did you see what I said before about the lore-within-the-lore? The historicity of the Red Book itself?

The "lore" itself, within its own construction, is a memoir of sorts, assembled out of the remembrances of some of the people who experienced it, long after it was over. According to the text, Legolas did not run around fighting wood trolls in the Trollshaws. But, it also doesn't say that he didn't. It doesn't say that there were any other adventurers abroad, just that the fellowship didn't encounter any that they could recall years later AND that the author felt were significant enough to include in the Red Book.

This is not the same as categorically stating that these things did not happen. There's very little that Tolkien categorically stated did not happen, and it's actually very reasonable to infer that where he made sweeping generalizations in the text, the author of the Red Book may have been ignoring a sea of details in order to paint a broad picture. There is room in the text for all of this.

Tolkien worked in legend and fable. By their nature these things present a world that is very simple, almost impressionistic. It is not meant to be a detailed, "realistic" detail of every bit of working of Middle Earth, if it existed as a real place. Treating it that way, I would argue, is just as disrespectful to the text as having a hobbit juggling chainsaws on the top of Barad-dur.

In Star Wars, as the Rebel Alliance was attacking the Death Star, instead of shooting a laser beams from turrets at the ships, what if the Death Star open up on its axis and started eating the x-wing fights in giant robot crunches like Homer Simpson with a bag of pork rinds in slow-motion. It would certainly have been doable. Its science fiction after all.

But I guarantee you, there would not have been an Empire Strikes Back.

[daveamongus]

In Star Wars, as the Rebel Alliance was attacking the Death Star, instead of shooting a laser beams from turrets at the ships, what if the Death Star open up on its axis and started eating the x-wing fights in giant robot crunches like Homer Simpson with a bag of pork rinds in slow-motion. It would certainly have been doable. Its science fiction after all.

But I guarantee you, there would not have been an Empire Strikes Back.

I appreciate your frustration, but your reasoning and sense of scale is...flawed to say the least. By definition any change to Star Wars that would have changed the ending such that the next movie could not possibly have happened is not something happening within the gaps. A single person, or even twelve people among 2000 who were not positively identified as being racially distinct from the 1988 people around them, does not rise to that level. Not even close. That you want to make them equivocal demonstrates an intellectual bankruptcy to your argument.

[Vincent_Price]

Well that about sums it up for me.

Don't wanna specifically count each one, but by the end of the 2nd page there were more than 20 players that were fine with our personal characters fighting at the battle, while there were only 4 people objecting, not liking the idea.


I have to say that many of those 20+ posters have said everything i'd like to say and use as argument.
By this time i don't think wheydt or colorspecs can be convinced. That's not a bad thing, it's they're opinion that was shaped by experiences in their real lives and they can stick to it.

The only thing i didn't like was misquting Sapience getting the wrong idea of what he'd like to say or in some cases prejudging certain situations that are only known to the dev team.
Or accusations that other users were Turbine employees or that because they belonged in a certain team, the conversation is over. Really?


Anyway, tomorrow i'll return with something more

Edit : And yes Colorspecs, of all the examples you could use, that one is the least common with hobbits/dwarves in HD. You're taking it to an extreme, (while on HD it's not extreme at all) and the point is lost.

[ColorSpecs]

I appreciate your frustration,

Lol, trying to discredit what is being said by trolling who's saying it isn't going to work on me. I stick to the subject at hand.

but your reasoning and sense of scale is...flawed to say the least. By definition any change to Star Wars that would have changed the ending such that the next movie could not possibly have happened is not something happening within the gaps. A single person, or even twelve people among 2000 who were not positively identified as being racially distinct from the 1988 people around them, does not rise to that level. Not even close. That you want to make them equivocal demonstrates an intellectual bankruptcy to your argument.

What I am saying is, tone matters. Unfortunately for Turbine, they don't get to set the tone. Historically they've done a good job staying consistent with the tone with a few gaffs on the way. Lately they seem to be nearly utterly abandoning that. Given the fact that without the IP this game is probably somewhere on the C-List now (being generous) in terms of engine, mechanics, support and infrastructure, it needs to be very strict in tone to make me want to continue to play it.