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

[Phantion]

Yeah.

What I personally would like to see?

A Grey Havens Expansion which culminated with the Final Events that would be added say 1 month to 3 Months & should be 3 Months so it's the "Main Focus" after said Expansion went Live being seeing the Ship that takes Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, many other Elves and the Hobbits Bilbo & Frodo Baggins into the West. A cutscene built exactly to what Tolkien described of how that occurs. Which basically could be say Epic Quest Volume (Number here) Book (Number here) being a single Book which is the "Based on Character Level" and allows everyone Level 20 & higher to play such since the Epic Quest is Free.

The Grey Havens Expansion itself could be a "How we got here" and cover all the Events that occurred involving the Grey Havens and allowing for a lot of Content involving: Fighting that happens during the Second Age & Third Age, Glorfindel arriving, the Istari arriving, Gandalf receiving one of the Three Elven Rings: Narya, the Ring of Fire to help rekindle the Hearts & Hopes of all, etc.

Which the Second & Third Age Versions for X Content they would cover could be built in the Mordor Besieged & Azanulbizar method.

SSG could easily have this be a huge Expansion. Personally it should be THE biggest Expansion if we got to such a point it could be added.

Let the Third Age's ending, those Sailing West and the Fourth Age starting all happen with a bang.

It's still a ways off but the SSG LOTRO Team has everything available to them to ensure that it's a huge Event.

Oh ideally yes- and in the best of all possible worlds, I agree with you! The trouble is that SSG, in past language across the years, has hinted that the "Grey Havens" would be a "light's out" event. They said something to the effect of, "We hope that will be far, far ahead in the future and hope that day won't come anytime soon," more or less.

So, what's the point of having a huge expansion if, say, it came within the final two weeks or month of the game's existence or something?

I guess I'd just really love to have.............. High Elven Gondor or Rohan or Gundabad. Their Shire. That's Lindon. Their realm in-game for however long the game lasts- and hopefully enough time to enjoy it and soak it in! I feel like every other group has their "main ancestral place" except for those; I mean, if you compare the relative size of settled Elven areas in-game- meaning, Falathlorn, Rivendell, Lothlorien, Felegoth, Meluinen, etc., and put them all together, you'd barely have half of East Rohan in comparison. SA Eregion and SA Lindon would significantly level the playing field when it comes to having different groups' main necks of the woods in-game, while keeping with the lore on Elves diminishing, etc.

Hobbits also got comparably less development, and I'm glad to see they are finally moving to expand at least some of the Farthings of the Shire into new areas; they deserve it too!

I understand why, per Scenario's live-stream, they initially made the Shire smaller out of concern for making new players less bewildered. In retrospect, I wish they hadn't: it just feels far too small compared to the rest of the game-world now. I wish they'd re-design the coordinates and help flesh out some more spaces within the Shire itself. You're not supposed to be able to see the Old Forest from a hill right next to Bywater. It makes the Hobbits' journey feel too truncated, and honestly, as a then-new-player, I was disappointed by how small the Shire turned-out to be. BUT- making new Hobbit areas bigger is another good way to compensate for that

*I'd also point out that 2 years pass between Frodo's return to the Shire and his final voyage in-story-time. We've seen how long they've stretched TA 3019!

Anyways, I'll take it either way- though I'd prefer the path of the greater longevity of playing-through and enjoying the content versus not enough time, basically


Cheers!