A Fresh Coat of Paint - Region Polish

[Dadislotroguides]

Screenshots around Bree-Land 2

Are you using SweetFX or some other post processor?

[gildhur]

You may not consider this polish - then again its worth a try.

How about housing areas in some distinctive zones that don't have them - would it be a huge task to add a Rohan or Lothlorien housing zone with appropriately themed houses? Either normal or premium.

Yes, adding a new housing location is a huge task. They would be nice to have everywhere, but it's a lot of work to do. I could see Rohan being added as a new premium housing area down the road, but not Lothlorien.

[Hallandil]

Are you using SweetFX or some other post processor?

No. Some of the beta screenshots were taken at dusk, which is a why they have a bit of a golden glow.

[ZoneTripper]

I didn't realize that Bullroarer was closing as soon as it was, otherwise I'd have taken more pictures for this.



It's great how open the areas around Combe (and other places) are now. You can ride up the hill behind the Prancing Pony and get a great view. That's all good, but... Bree's "thing" is sort of that it's surrounded by a trench, and a fence, and spiky bits of wood, and guarded gates. With this new bit of landscape, enemies could just wander in from that side. It's completely unprotected.

Also, the efforts to make a transition from cliff to to something smoother has made the areas around the cliff look like a rockslide has just happened. It looks like there are boulders on the ground. Maybe that's the intention, but having a rockslide area around so much of the city isn't that... aesthetically pleasing, for lack of a better term. Bree has no walls on it's eastern side, due to the high hills, but with those hills being more accessible, it may be time to have the protective wall completely surround the city now. All of those hills create those "fish bowl" areas, including Bree. Hopefully it's possible to reduce or remove them.

Since a big part of it extends behind the Prancing Pony, maybe some sort of horse path could extend out the back. It might involve lowering the hills and sacrificing the view one would get up there. Is it possible to put a tunnel through the hill? I don't know if you can paint alpha transparencies in the terrain, but that could be an interesting way to let players through and perhaps have a wall above it.

Another thing I think needs attention - in Duillond, there is the Festival Garden:



When you're in there, you're surrounded by ruins, multiple waterfalls, evergreen trees - none of which are visible when you're outside the garden. Outside, there's just a very plain hump of a hill, seemingly just the sort of thing you've been trying to eliminate. It'd be great if the garden and surrounding areas meshed more closely, preferably the outside taking on the attributes of the garden.

[Marancil]

While obviously grateful for the effort, I wonder what will be left of it with Frills turned off? I usually have them off since in my experience having them on greatly reduces game performance. I do however realize than new bridges and wall/rock formations is probably not impacted by this (have not had the time to test on BR), but what else is left?

[nicolasix]

I've wanted for so long to see the towers on the tower hills from the west farthings border, the far downs - that would be wonderful! Just a view...

[Phantion]

[Snipped]

It's great how open the areas around Combe (and other places) are now. You can ride up the hill behind the Prancing Pony and get a great view. That's all good, but... Bree's "thing" is sort of that it's surrounded by a trench, and a fence, and spiky bits of wood, and guarded gates. With this new bit of landscape, enemies could just wander in from that side. It's completely unprotected. [Snipped]

Well, Tolkien described the "trench, and a fence, and spiky bits of wood," etc., going in a "half-circle" from and back to Bree Hill. The actual Town of Bree, in the lore, -climbs up- the Hill, -behind the Prancing Pony, which is at the foot of the Hill-, and the Game kind of flattened-out Bree probably because, in theory, Bree Hill, in-game, at its full lore-size, would have looked much bigger than in-game Weathertop, which would've caused another lore-conundrum.

So, the issue's actually there in the Books, where Tolkien has the hedge and the trench, etc., coming out and around and back to the Hill, while he has the actual Town -climbing the Hill- behind the Pony, with "windows facing west...", so its really an interesting design issue, because, in the lore, you're actually supposed to be able to -climb the Hill,- while the Town doesn't appear to be protected from that northern angle.

I'd say that they should, at least, enclose the Inn-Yard with a lower hedge or something (or whatever the lore suggests in passages describing the Inn-Yard), and assume that Enemies would have trouble climbing down the cliffs behind the Pony. Tolkien didn't have a concept for a revival of Angmar, so I don't think that the concept of, say, enemies like Orcs firing catapults behind the Pony was in Tolkien's mind (which, thanks to the Rangers and Players, fortunately is a threat avoided).

I'd also say that the changes should stay. Its very awesome to be able to get a view of Bree that, really, we lost when they changed the Character Creation screen for Men from the Hill overlooking Bree to the Pelennor in front of Minas Tirith. So, I'd say that they should definitely keep the ability for Players to climb-up behind the Pony, even though they aren't able to, say, have the Town of Bree climb the Hill (due to space-constraints from downscaling). Climbing Bree Hill is still "a thing" in the story- and so its important, at least to me, that this be reflected in-game, even if the Hill's barren of many houses in-game.

Its also important to remember that: impractical design flaws in towns and cities are -realistic- things too. The folk of Bree, generally in the story, aren't much aware of the going's-on outside their borders. They wouldn't expect an "attack from the north," because they don't have any concept of anything dangerous coming to attack them from that direction, at least not during the time of LOTR. During the time of Arnor and Angmar, yes, that would have been more of a concern. But, not during the late-Third-Age when LOTR takes place. To them, "Deadman's Dike" or Fornost is haunted, and so are the Barrow-downs, and you don't want to -go- to those places on purpose, but no one's going to come attacking Bree from those directions- to the Bree folk's very limited knowledge. Aragorn knows more, he's aware of more dangers than the Bree-folk could really handle, but they don't really listen to Aragorn about such things. They kind of live in a blissful unawareness- and one could call it innocence.

Bree's kind of described as an "island" floating in a sea of nowhere- They'd not have much to fear other than wild animals- at least from what -they- can see. When trouble comes up from the South, from Isengard's general direction, the folk of Bree certainly don't expect the troubles that come to plague their lands. They are kind of caught, really, not having much of a clue what's coming to Eriador. So, if anything, having an exposed Bree Hill without much defenses to the North is pretty consistent with what we know about the Bree-folk

EDIT: I agree that they could have more "walls" protecting Bree from the North and East, just not of the hedges, and they could maybe place a couple of houses atop Bree Hill per the lore in order to support that concept more. But, still, its important to remember that the Bree-folk really don't have an "under siege" mentality; by now, in their oral history, the wars of the past are all ancient and no one's threatening them other than a few scowling Southerners- from their perspective. So, it's not altogether unfeasible that they'd have some architectural flaws embedded from their... not-knowing-what's-out-there. A town should also be reflective of its people and their concerns, which aren't always "logical" or "practical." The Bree-folk are generally not concerned by anything north of their borders.

Meduseld, I agree, needs more defenses in the rear, because that's Rohan, and Rohan's in a position that involves multiple threats; they may not foresee Saruman's treachery in Isengard, but they certainly know that Dunland is a problem and has been a problem for many long years. Yes, Meduseld should have more protection in the rear.

[Aleziana]

I didn't realize that Bullroarer was closing as soon as it was, otherwise I'd have taken more pictures for this.

It's great how open the areas around Combe (and other places) are now. You can ride up the hill behind the Prancing Pony and get a great view. That's all good, but... Bree's "thing" is sort of that it's surrounded by a trench, and a fence, and spiky bits of wood, and guarded gates. With this new bit of landscape, enemies could just wander in from that side. It's completely unprotected.

Also, the efforts to make a transition from cliff to to something smoother has made the areas around the cliff look like a rockslide has just happened. It looks like there are boulders on the ground. Maybe that's the intention, but having a rockslide area around so much of the city isn't that... aesthetically pleasing, for lack of a better term. Bree has no walls on it's eastern side, due to the high hills, but with those hills being more accessible, it may be time to have the protective wall completely surround the city now. All of those hills create those "fish bowl" areas, including Bree. Hopefully it's possible to reduce or remove them.

I agree with you. Also behind Meduseld the cliff is open and accesable via foot without any defficulty. I do like to have the feeling of logical protection arround towns and big cities.

[ZoneTripper]

Well, Tolkien described the "trench, and a fence, and spiky bits of wood," etc., going in a "half-circle" from and back to Bree Hill. The actual Town of Bree, in the lore, -climbs up- the Hill, -behind the Prancing Pony, which is at the foot of the Hill-, and the Game kind of flattened-out Bree probably because, in theory, Bree Hill, in-game, at its full lore-size, would have looked much bigger than in-game Weathertop, which would've caused another lore-conundrum.

Ah, good points. The lore bits had escaped me when looking at the new landscape. It seemed weird to me, but I guess Bree is weird like that. I do agree the view is great from up top. I guess I still wish it looked less like a landslide though and had a more natural transition (unless that also is in the books). The area around the Pony has always seemed rather "fish bowly" to me.

[zipfile]

I would love to see Lone-Lands, Evendim and Angmar polished up.
But above all else, please make Forochel beautiful again, snow looks quite dated, and some of the texture work on the models found there is quite bad by todays and later contents standards.

[Phantion]

Absolutely. I'd LOVE for, for example, for them to take Forochel's forests and make them feel more like the Balewood in Wildermore: snowy and beautiful, but also harder to navigate, and a lot more heavily forested.

Yes also to ZoneTripper's idea concerning the need to update the Festival Garden near Duillond. I kind of wish they'd just plop that Garden in place of that hill and just make it open rather than in an instanced space- it is very jarring to see it "inside a hill" while not even having a cavern roof.

In general, Eriador's forests and, yes, Forochel's snow textures, need work. Many of the forests, other than the Trollshaws and the holly woods in northern Eregion, and other than the updated Old Forest, feel very lackluster. A lot of it feels more like empty plains than thick woods. I'd love to see and feel "The Wild" more in Eriador. Eryn Lasgalen's definitely set a new bar for forests in this Game- as did Fangorn and Druadan Forest before it- and I truly wish to see the Game's forested areas grow thicker and feel more like, "I could get lost in here," which is just about what "The Wild" in Middle-earth should feel like.

Oh, and if they get to the Shire, I'd love to see a much-updated Woodhall area, where the Elf-Grove where Frodo met Gildor could feel more..... thicker, more out in the middle of nowhere, more enchanted? I'd love to feel more of the "out in the middle of the wilderness" feeling in many of Eriador's spaces. We've got plenty of open plains in Rohan. Bring-on the forests!

[RubenRybnick]

Hello Scenario and nice work with this update !
I like what you've done to those places and, as an explorer, a special thanks for abandoned camp 2.0 in Andrath. ()

I really like your work here but please, for the love of exploration, for people like me who like to see what's beyond the current map, please, don't put invis walls everywhere ! We already have enough invisible walls, enough fix:me:unassigned place in the game. Out-of-bounds exploration is fun, I really like the work you've done with the world building team, but I also love the work you have not done yet ! I like to see these green plains and ruins hidden behind the map.

Please Scenario, we must win the fight against the invisible walls, for the sake of exploration.

(as always, my English is not what it once was...)

~Yao
Off-Map Explorer

[Scenario]

The Level Of Detail/Impostors have always been kind of crazy. LOTRO is a world where the scenery constantly dances in front of the players. I've never seen it like this in any other game. Does it ruin the game? No. But it's constantly jarring and distracting. And it just plain doesn't look very good.

I don't want to act like I know all of the technical issues involved, but can't we at least have an option to render object further into the distance? If this is something that can be improved, especially during this time of updating things, it would go a long way to making the game look better.

There are a few things going on in the examples you provided. Many of these issues are not items that were prioritized for this pass because the revisions in Breeland were a one-man-show. This doesn't mean we aren't open to considering improving them in the future but for the purposes of Breeland's updates, there is only so much I can influence myself (which is to say, placement and usage on the landscape).

• Level of Detail - older assets in particular have some rather aggressive Level-of-Detail degrades on their meshes. This is a product of the age of the game and the need to run efficiently on hardware that is vastly different than what might be considered today's "standard". Polishing LOD models would be a task that the art team would take on, but for this particular pass, it was not something we prioritized.
• Far View Assets - the reality is that we can only make assets appear in farview so far out and at some point those assets will have to disappear or pop in. There is also the potential performance concern of having too many assets loaded on the client in general. If you come across instances where you feel far view structures are popping in when they shouldn't be, please submit a bug so that we can investigate.
• Distant Imposters - Tied a little bit to the Level of Detail issue, some of these may be by-products of older assets playing by older rules. As with Far View assets, if you come across assets you feel are going to Distant Imposter too fast, or are rendering as an imposter too close to the camera, please submit a bug so we can investigate.
• Dynamic Entities - Dynamic Entities, such as Old Man Willow, have a much shorter draw distance than static assets (like trees) because of the information clients need to know about them. Because of the assets age, Old Man Willow specifically may be worth looking into from an art perspective to see if it can be brushed up.

[Scenario]

one thing I'd like to see replaced are the waterfalls in the oldest areas. Waterfalls in the old regions look like blue plastic tubes, and as the years went by we got better, prettier waterfall textures. Please replace the old waterfalls! Here is what I mean by new and prettier textures:

Waterfalls in our older regions are definitely something I think could use some attention, and did give some attention to, in fact, in Breeland.

[Scenario]

Hello Scenario and nice work with this update !
I like what you've done to those places and, as an explorer, a special thanks for abandoned camp 2.0 in Andrath. ()

I really like your work here but please, for the love of exploration, for people like me who like to see what's beyond the current map, please, don't put invis walls everywhere ! We already have enough invisible walls, enough fix:me:unassigned place in the game. Out-of-bounds exploration is fun, I really like the work you've done with the world building team, but I also love the work you have not done yet ! I like to see these green plains and ruins hidden behind the map.

Please Scenario, we must win the fight against the invisible walls, for the sake of exploration.

Was wondering how long it would take for someone to find that camp

Unfortunately, Ruben, impassability to unfinished portions of the landscape is and will continue to be a reality for the game. We want to make the impassable barriers as plausible as possible, but they aren't going away. We also have them in place to keep our in-progress work secure from exploration and exploitation until it is ready for player consumption, and to protect the player base from experiences that would be detrimental to their characters. You'll just have to be patient and wait until those areas are ready to be played - and please kindly report any situations where are find you are able to pass beyond the walls.

That said - I am totally on board with finding ways to add some extra interest to the playable areas of the regions we polish, as time is available, for the benefit of those who like exploring (as you discovered in Andrath).

[gells]

That said - I am totally on board with finding ways to add some extra interest to the playable areas of the regions we polish, as time is available, for the benefit of those who like exploring (as you discovered in Andrath).

Hi there, small request! How about adding more buildings we can enter? On occasion it is nice to find a space to enjoy with a kinnie to relax between questing. I find it also adds to the immersive experience to be able to enter more buildings rather than feeling like I'm walking through a movie-set on an old western town. Ha, thanks in advance!

[Clintwood]

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/948/27...c854da56_o.jpg

It may sound silly but there are several places like this in the game you can't visit, would be nice if maybe we could have small expansions to the maps, with a few quests to do and rediscover some places in ME that we neglect after having done them, like this ruin in Ered Luin.

[Juravael]

Any chance we'll see the housing areas freshened up sometime?

[Marancil]

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/948/27...c854da56_o.jpg

It may sound silly but there are several places like this in the game you can't visit, would be nice if maybe we could have small expansions to the maps, with a few quests to do and rediscover some places in ME that we neglect after having done them, like this ruin in Ered Luin.

Actually you can visit them, many have. I have tried several times and failed. People say that you can make you way along the rocks in the rapids below the tower and at the other beach jump you way up. I have gotten to the place where you are supposed to jump around to get above the cliff and rocks to climb up the ridges, i have seen others do it, but failed myself.

[Turin347]

Firts of all, thanks. I did not even dare to ask for a rework of the older areas, thinking of you working hard full time on the wonderful new areas released and wip. So I’m surprised and glad about your plan of updating the regions of the beginning of our adventure.
Having said this, I would like to ask for a particular treatment of Rivendell. I know that someone dont want it to be touched in the name of the nostalgia and the old days, but that is objectively one of the places that suffered the most the passing of the time (and this is funny, thinking about the LORE c.c ) and the aging of the graphic.

So, in the first place, the graphic: we have simple solid models of structures with plain, low-res textures faking in a bad way the shapes and the angles, bi-dimensional doors in the best case, or buildings without doors at all as the worst.
The Last Homely House suffers tremendous textures, windows painted everywhere even on walls that stand technically between the rooms, lighting and resolution/skybox visible from inside the House that would be old even for a late 90s game. And a friend asked me to mention the waterfalls and the shame of their textures, and the need of going into first-person view to avoid eye-injuries, since the models of the flowing and spreading water are...not good.

As second, I would ask for a rework of the settlement, like you did with Bree some year ago. I know asking this I will light the ire of the faction “The old is better because yes”, but…well, Imladris was supposed to be a fortress, and such fortress was besieged by the whole army of Sauron, an army that succeeded in almost destroying the entire Eriador during the Second Age. I’m not sure that two elves in front of a path between two hills would have stopped the black tide for so long.

Thirdly, that damn tree-bridge…I know it’s cool as concept, but c’mon…we’re talking about a 3500+ old fortress, have the elves never had the time to replace such a provisional bridge? Could a tree last for so long without rotting? Where have they found such a tree that is never found in the Trollshaws biome?

Fourth, just to have nothing missing, I wish there were more interiors…we have only two so far, and it would be a dream to have some more for roleplay stuff or just flavour…

Thanks for the efforts, and for the wondrous job. You are really making the Middle-Earth.

Duf of Ark

[schlumpfencowboyjoe]

Was wondering how long it would take for someone to find that camp

Unfortunately, Ruben, impassability to unfinished portions of the landscape is and will continue to be a reality for the game. We want to make the impassable barriers as plausible as possible, but they aren't going away. We also have them in place to keep our in-progress work secure from exploration and exploitation until it is ready for player consumption, and to protect the player base from experiences that would be detrimental to their characters. You'll just have to be patient and wait until those areas are ready to be played - and please kindly report any situations where are find you are able to pass beyond the walls.

That said - I am totally on board with finding ways to add some extra interest to the playable areas of the regions we polish, as time is available, for the benefit of those who like exploring (as you discovered in Andrath).

What about the mysterious cemetery in the old forest? Will it stay there?
And the dwarven fortress in the mountains near Nen Hilith?
The dourhand tavern in western Ered Luin?
Or the E3 hobbit village west of michel delving?
The dancing hobbit and squirrels in Dol Dinen?
The hidden village in southern Lone-Lands?
These are historical places that need to remain untouched, that have always been there since the beginning and that need to be visitable by players (or, at least, explorers) and not get cut out/erased out of the game.
Put the invisible walls and teleporters behind these palaces, not in front of them. Please.

https://picload.org/view/doororca/ol...yard1.jpg.html

https://picload.org/view/doororii/er...ess24.jpg.html

https://picload.org/view/doorodll/lo...ire_b.jpg.html

https://picload.org/view/doorooai/lo...lage8.jpg.html

[FoxFire]

Love that this is being given a work over. Great job! And welcome back!

I think I speak for many (if not most) LOTRO players that one of the main reasons we play and love this game is the landscape, and being able to live in and explore Middle-earth! Whenever there is a new update or expansion the number one thing I'm interested in is new landscape and areas to explore. If I could have my druthers the entire map of Middle-earth would eventually be in game, including all the areas on the farthest edges of the known maps. Lotro Middle-earth is truly becoming a world you can live in and feel like there are places in far off lands that some of your alts can only dream of ever seeing. (Raise your hand if you have level-disabled alts who live in the newbie areas, and it feels like a daunting if not impossible task to ever go to distant foreign lands).

I wanted to comment on the distant imposters and the popping effect while traveling. It is a distracting thing to see and can detract from the beauty and immersion of being in Middle-earth (although interestingly sometimes it's neat to see what the landscape would look like without some of the foliage, trees, and other things there before they spring into view, still I would give up that occasional look for the more natural feel of seeing them well in advance if not always).

My suspicion is that this also has to do with the 32-bit client nature of the game and not being able to load enough things into memory (video memory) without exceeding the limits. Hopefully something which can be alleviated by the eventual (hopefully) release of a 64-bit client.

In the mean time, however, one of the things I noticed was that often the distant impostor will disappear a second or two before the 3D asset loads/appears. I think this is more jarring and detracting than if you could superimpose the two first, before removing the distant impostor. So rather than seeing a disappearing impostor tree, then nothing there for a second or two, and then the 3D model tree, they would briefly exist on top of each other. This could give us a more 'muddy' looking tree at first since the 3D tree and 2D impostor are not an exact match, but I think that would be preferable to the disappearing and reappearance of things like that.

What do you think? Is that something that is possible, or would that too possibly exceed memory limitations?

P.S. On a related note, I find that 'hitching' is significantly increased with Distant Impostors turned on. I hate hitching, but I refuse to detract from the beauty of the landscape by turning distant impostors off. Maybe something that can be looked in to.

[siipperi]

Question. So im going to crash on old areas like on new ones? At least the experience will be more uniform.

[ZoneTripper]

Firts of all, thanks. I did not even dare to ask for a rework of the older areas, thinking of you working hard full time on the wonderful new areas released and wip. So I’m surprised and glad about your plan of updating the regions of the beginning of our adventure.
Having said this, I would like to ask for a particular treatment of Rivendell. I know that someone dont want it to be touched in the name of the nostalgia and the old days, but that is objectively one of the places that suffered the most the passing of the time (and this is funny, thinking about the LORE c.c ) and the aging of the graphic.

So, in the first place, the graphic: we have simple solid models of structures with plain, low-res textures faking in a bad way the shapes and the angles, bi-dimensional doors in the best case, or buildings without doors at all as the worst.
The Last Homely House suffers tremendous textures, windows painted everywhere even on walls that stand technically between the rooms, lighting and resolution/skybox visible from inside the House that would be old even for a late 90s game. And a friend asked me to mention the waterfalls and the shame of their textures, and the need of going into first-person view to avoid eye-injuries, since the models of the flowing and spreading water are...not good.

As second, I would ask for a rework of the settlement, like you did with Bree some year ago. I know asking this I will light the ire of the faction “The old is better because yes”, but…well, Imladris was supposed to be a fortress, and such fortress was besieged by the whole army of Sauron, an army that succeeded in almost destroying the entire Eriador during the Second Age. I’m not sure that two elves in front of a path between two hills would have stopped the black tide for so long.

Thirdly, that damn tree-bridge…I know it’s cool as concept, but c’mon…we’re talking about a 3500+ old fortress, have the elves never had the time to replace such a provisional bridge? Could a tree last for so long without rotting? Where have they found such a tree that is never found in the Trollshaws biome?

Fourth, just to have nothing missing, I wish there were more interiors…we have only two so far, and it would be a dream to have some more for roleplay stuff or just flavour…

Thanks for the efforts, and for the wondrous job. You are really making the Middle-Earth.

Duf of Ark

Yes, Rivendell seems less like a refuge by ancient elves and more like like a ski resort. For such a legendary location, it's hardly awe-inspiring. If you're not visiting Elrond for the umpteenth time or using the stable, there's not much of interest there (except returning to some NPCs for quests). Imlad Gelair is initially interesting, until you realize that it's a big empty space with two reputation vendors.

One simple thing that I think could be applied to all elf areas is to make them "glowy". Like when you enter the Old Forest, everything gets a greenish, hazy glow to make it more spooky. Have all elf areas turn up the bloom and maybe apply a certain tint to them to give them a mystical feel.

[Lady_Lethargy]

Please don't introduce any invisible walls. Past few years, SSG has gone over kill with invisible walls that just break immersion.

This. I love the new look of things, but the invisible walls are just disappointing. They're lazy, unimaginative, immersion-breaking, and honestly infuriating; they don't have a place in LOTRO. All should be removed. If you need to keep us out of places, find a better way to do it.