Hidden Nuggets we see all the time...

[Polymachos]

The best one is when you're doing the chicken quests and go to someplace where a squirrel monologues at you about his plan to take over the world.

To you, this may look like an absurd joke. Unfortunately, the background of this story is by no means funny.

The introduction of the Eastern Grey Squirrels into Europa has had a negative impact on the population of the indigenous Common Red Squirrels. They are a threat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern...rels_in_Europe


Greetings, Polymachos

[Dolnor]

Another immersion-breaking easter egg...

As a chicken, if you pass the farmer tending his crops outside the Combe Gate, he'll say...




TQQdles™

[she-elf]

During the Anniversary Festival, I noticed that at the Bree Fireworks show, one spectator said something about how beautiful the fireworks were and that "Gandalf the Grey would be proud." I thought it was a fun reference to Gandalf's less serious skill.

[Caileen]

Not so plain to see, and i do not recognize i've seen it posted before. but i ran into some children hiding in a cave in Rohan today. The cave is well hidden, enterance is at 'Rhovanion: Eastfold: 64.9S, 67.6W'.

[miriadel]

I think this classifies as a nugget

(I had very little time to grab a screenshot before being incapacitated again, so, sorry for the pic quality)


While trying to swim from Dol Amroth to Tol Fennas, I got the debuff you see in the screen. Thought it was pretty neat (after a wut? moment as to why my character was losing health...) even more as the character I tried to have swim across is also an elf. Yay immersion!



Amroth beheld the fading shore
Now low beyond the swell,
And cursed the faithless ship that bore
Him far from Nimrodel.
[..]
From helm to sea they saw him leap,
As arrow from the string,
And dive into the water deep,
As mew upon the wing.

[auximenes]

Yay immersion!

Very punny.

[Sunspot6]

I dont know if this was mentioned in this thread and if it is an easter egg or just a curious thing: Anybody knows what is written in the note in the wall in the guest house in Rivendell?

[ferrariroger]

I dont know if this was mentioned in this thread and if it is an easter egg or just a curious thing: Anybody knows what is written in the note in the wall in the guest house in Rivendell?

I also was curious about that

[gildhur]

I was playing my Beorning briefly on Thanksgiving Day, adventuring in Rushgore in Great River, when I happened to see a plump, juicy turkey (or very, very large chicken since turkeys are native to North America) on a table in the camp of Rohirrim there.

[HunterGreen]

I was playing my Beorning briefly on Thanksgiving Day, adventuring in Rushgore in Great River, when I happened to see a plump, juicy turkey (or very, very large chicken since turkeys are native to North America) on a table in the camp of Rohirrim there.

Nice catch.

Of course the Shire has several other things native to the New World already. Tolkien Estates may have pulled back on that, but they aren't getting rid of taters, so as far as I'm concerned, that ship has sailed. Turbine must think so too, with pumpkins in so many places.

[Yuffie67]

don't know if this one was spoted yet, worker in Thornley's worksite:

This one is kinda neat, cause 2009 to now, its changed some.

They've made progress! He he he he.

Same with camp down road west of bree. was a nice suprise one day when making a new character (10th or 11th) and road past, and was like... WHOA! they got somewhere!

Always been quite happy to find cats, and follow them about. Like one in Endwaith cave, just roaming back and forth. Always neat to see them placed.

[Stryker1487]

I'm glad this thread still exists

[Pdt_the_Confused]

I'm glad this thread still exists

yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.

One nugget or at least a wow factor that I had in the beginning (SoA), but no longer exists....The Old Forest. It used to be DANGEROUS to enter on-level. So many of us died and lost our chance at Undying titles due to this little garden. lol (even Frodo fell victim to it, until Tom saved him)
No waiting till you hit various mobs (trees etc) to start attacking, no 10 second (or whatever it is now) limit before they attack...and... NO MAP, other than what players created and shared.

And best of all... fitting the lore of the books... each update the paths changed (rendering player maps obsolete.)

The Old Forest was built to do this from the beginning, the paths changing all the time.
In the beginning, the Old Forest really did feel like it seemed in the books: dark, deadly, and unpredictable.
Now... yeah well... maybe they can change it back, but put some sort of warning on entrance, so players know they enter an area where they stand little to no chance on-level. (there are a few of the experiences of SoA I would include in this, given the option. Excellent learning experiences for players, all of them.)

[West-northwestook]

A nugget of the horrible kind can be found in several orc camps on the Pelennor; the severed heads of slain gondorian warriors which will be used as munition during the siege of Minas Tirith.

[Daeross]

Something curious I found while fooling around the 'Net, being a linguaphile...

During the Battle for Erebor instances, we're met by Jangovar Easterlings. And they do nothing but fight...which makes perfect sense, given that 'jangovar' is an Uzbek term for stuff that has to do with combat, warriors, military.
What's more, in the Bells of Dale, the Jangovar are joined by a slew of animals...and at the end of the instance, we end up fighting Tabî-kohin, a mighty sorcerer who is, essentially, an Easterling Lore-Master. Given that, no one should be surprised that his name can be translated as 'Nature-Priest', in Uzbek.

Perusing an Uzbek dictionary granted also some insight into other named Easterlings.
Maraz means 'ulcer, sore'; he's the guy found in an Ost Celebrant-instance.
Nafrati is close to nafrat, which means 'hate, disgust, abhorrence': he's a Captain at Tik Botokh, in the Rushgore.
Ulugh means 'great': he's at the Woodyard in the Wold.
Urush means 'war'; he's a leader of a warband in the Wold.
And so on and so forth...

[miriadel]

I wonder who traversed the river on a rope... (never noticed this gem in all the time I quested in the area)

[Polymachos]

I dimly remember some of it...

The fellowship climbed into some trees to stay there for the night, but a group of elves came along, spotted them, and demanded to know who these strangers were. After some negotiation, they were allowed to enter, and one elf threw a rope across the river, which was tied to a tree on either side; and the fellowship was asked to cross the river by the means of said rope. Most hesitated, but Legolas just jumped on the rope and ran across to the other bank. Aragorn had to ask the Galadhrim for a second rope, then he explained how to move over the water, while keeping hold on the second rope. Finally all arrived safely on the other side.

Edit: I messed up the sequence, the Elves brought them to a flet, then to the rope bridge. See http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Haldir_(Lorien)


Greetings, Polymachos

[Ceredig]

Something curious I found while fooling around the 'Net, being a linguaphile...

During the Battle for Erebor instances, we're met by Jangovar Easterlings. And they do nothing but fight...which makes perfect sense, given that 'jangovar' is an Uzbek term for stuff that has to do with combat, warriors, military.
What's more, in the Bells of Dale, the Jangovar are joined by a slew of animals...and at the end of the instance, we end up fighting Tabî-kohin, a mighty sorcerer who is, essentially, an Easterling Lore-Master. Given that, no one should be surprised that his name can be translated as 'Nature-Priest', in Uzbek.

Perusing an Uzbek dictionary granted also some insight into other named Easterlings.
Maraz means 'ulcer, sore'; he's the guy found in an Ost Celebrant-instance.
Nafrati is close to nafrat, which means 'hate, disgust, abhorrence': he's a Captain at Tik Botokh, in the Rushgore.
Ulugh means 'great': he's at the Woodyard in the Wold.
Urush means 'war'; he's a leader of a warband in the Wold.
And so on and so forth...

Yet another great bit of detective work by yourself. So where do we currently stand with LOTRO's attempts at linguistic verisimilitude? Old English > Rohirrim which is a Tolkien given; Welsh > Dunlendings which Tolkien suggested ; Breton > Men of the White Mountains which Turbine extrapolated from the former; Finnish > Lossoth and now Uzbek > for at least one Eastering group. Am I missing any others?

[YamydeAragon]

I decided to pay a visit to my hobbit cousin at North Downs & yah he is still there dancing with squirels inside that hole on the top of a mountain:



Ok! This is one that you don't see all the time unless you try really hard to get to him.

[YamydeAragon]

Yet another great bit of detective work by yourself. So where do we currently stand with LOTRO's attempts at linguistic verisimilitude? Old English > Rohirrim which is a Tolkien given; Welsh > Dunlendings which Tolkien suggested ; Breton > Men of the White Mountains which Turbine extrapolated from the former; Finnish > Lossoth and now Uzbek > for at least one Eastering group. Am I missing any others?

Sindarin have a lot of Latin language. Example Talan (sindarin) = tall tree; talus (latin) = tree stalk or support of the feet on animals.

[Daeross]

Am I missing any others?

Khuzdul = Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.), which is pretty much attested by Tolkien, and apparently (happily) enforced by Turbine
(In Moria, we have, for example, Jundul-dûm. Dum is attested by Tolkien, as is the suffix -ul. As for *jund, consider Arabic: jund = group of soldiers/army, jundi = soldier. And there's more.)

There's also the suggestion that Dwarves took their names from, and Beornings, North-men, used languages related to (Old) Norse.
For example, the language of Dale (so far unattested in LotRO, I think) is by Tolkien's own admission be Old Norse:
"The language of Dale and the Long Lake would, if it appeared, be represented as more or less Scandinavian in character; but it is only represented by a few names, especially those of the Dwarves that came from that region. These are all Old Norse Dwarf-names." (Letter 144)

We also have the Hillmen of Angmar, but it seems that, like Dunlendish, their language is based on Welsh, too. Or Scots Gaelic. (I really need to delve into it.)

There's Black Speech, too, used by Orcs, mostly. A Russian historian Alexander Nemirovski has suggested that it shares a lot of features with Hurrian, an ancient Metopotamic language.

And Adûnaic, used by the Corsairs of Umbar and here and there in Dol Amroth. Given that, in-universe, it's an amalgam of different in-universe languages (including Quenya and Khuzdul), I don't think it can have an RL-equivalent.

Sindarin have a lot of Latin language. Example Talan (sindarin) = tall tree; talus (latin) = tree stalk or support of the feet on animals.

Well, given that Tolkien was a scholar of Old English and Old Norse, and Latin influenced English (as did Old Norse), yes. But most influences for Sindarin comes from (once again) Welsh.
(We can thank Finnish for Quenya. Personally, I hear a lot of Italian in the High-Elven Tongue, too.)

[Urwendil]

We also have the Hillmen of Angmar, but it seems that, like Dunlendish, their language is based on Welsh, too. Or Scots Gaelic. (I really need to delve into it.)

Tha latter according to Berephon:

While we don't have a lot of non-name words from multiple languages in use beyond Forochel and Dunland, we use Scots-Gaelic in Angmar, Uzbek for the Easterlings, Anglo-Saxon for Rohan (with a leaning towards Mercian, which Tolkien used), the Eglain, and Dale-men, and as we expand, we will choose other languages for roots as appropriate.

[Daeross]

Tha latter according to Berephon:

Woohoo! I don't have a single recollection of this talk!
Granted, 2013 was a...dreadful year for me, RL-wise.
Thanks for this, Urwendil!

[PrinceOfVagabonds]

As a linguist myself, the languages of the various races of men in LOTRO has been one of my favorite nuggets! sadly, that Berephon quote was from before we got to Gondor and the introduction of the Haradrim and men of Khand. Now, I've sluethed that the Variags are a kind of Slavic/Nordic blend, much like the historical Varangians, who were a group of Vikings who settled in what is now Russia/Eastern Europe. But I cannot for the life of me figure out what the Southron tongue is base off of! Anybody got any ideas?

[Daeross]

-But I cannot for the life of me figure out what the Southron tongue is base off of! Anybody got any ideas?

Corsairs use Adûnaic, the language of Númenor; you don't mean that, do you?
Could you toss a couple of examples of the Southron's tongue?