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

[Harvain]

While I was attempting the "Lucky Sling-Stone" quest near Bindbole Wood/Bolestones in the Shire earlier today, I was poking around the edge of the map desperately (I could not find the deer-carcass that's supposed to be in the bear dens there, I think it's bugged, I've done the quest before), and at the north edge of the Bolestones, I kept getting the message that I was entering "Yondershire." I couldn't go very far into the zone- I could basically just see a continuation of forested hillside that went downward from where I was, and a lake (?) with a willow tree beside it, but it was interesting, I figured it must be an intended future zone. (I got stuck at the bottom of the hill by the way, and had to /unstuck, so I wouldn't recommend going down it.)

I can confirm the Yondershire showing up part as well and it is at the Bolestones Bear Den.



My Location: 20.6S, 70.9W Bolestones, The Shire

[Feral_Yoda]

There's definitely been some visible changes in the Falathorn homesteads... a new waterfall coming down from the east... with the tips of a bridge visible beyond it. And a new Mountain to the southeast that's somewhat bare.

And over in the shire, the little river just east of the bolestones has been greatly altered. There's just rapids now where a tumbling waterfall used to be. Swimming up the rapids, there's some obvious construction going on (the water abruptly disappears and then reappears at an invisble wall). A nice little forested lake that seems to be just below North Cotton Farm by my estimate. Which North Cotton I'm not 100% on though. It would be cool if it went all the way over and connected to Oatbarton. Would Wistmead supposedly fall in this zone? I know by the map coordinates its far to the north of Forochel, but could they move it?

I cannot wait for Yondershire, if it is to be the one finally connecting Ered Luin to the rest of Eriador. Now if we could just get land route to Frostbluff!

[Valather89]

I'm honestly surprised at the (potential) size of this new area. A narrow, corridor-like zone starting near Needlehole was all I was asking for, at least for the time being. But this Yondershire area stretching itself so far to the east, near Oatbarton, is something else.

The way things are shaping up we might get something close to the size of an actual, big region (sure, mountains and cliffs might be a big part of it, but then again that is also the case with the newer Rhovanion regions). Or at least way bigger than Wildwood, which is already bigger than the recent Angle. For now though, it definitely stands as a part of the Shire, not another region, since we get (I confirmed it too) the "Now entering ___" text that appears when one changes area, but not the notice with the name of the region above it that shows up when you change regions.

There's another possibility we may not have considered. They might have decided to close this gap between the Shire and Ered Luin in two stages: Yondershire as a way to extend the Shire region towards the northwest, and later on some extension of Ered Luin across the Lhûn river. Of course, the Far Downs and the Tower Hills would be added in the far future, after the Scouring of the Shire. Something like this:

[Phantion]

While I was attempting the "Lucky Sling-Stone" quest near Bindbole Wood/Bolestones in the Shire earlier today, I was poking around the edge of the map desperately (I could not find the deer-carcass that's supposed to be in the bear dens there, I think it's bugged, I've done the quest before), and at the north edge of the Bolestones, I kept getting the message that I was entering "Yondershire." I couldn't go very far into the zone- I could basically just see a continuation of forested hillside that went downward from where I was, and a lake (?) with a willow tree beside it, but it was interesting, I figured it must be an intended future zone. (I got stuck at the bottom of the hill by the way, and had to /unstuck, so I wouldn't recommend going down it.)

I confirm that was the "top secret information" I withheld earlier from my posts out of squeamishness. I made this discovery on Bullroarer Build 7 but "kept quiet" not knowing whether SSG wanted that known just yet. I saw the lake, the landscape building up toward the hills south of Annuminas, etc.

I can confirm the Yondershire showing up part as well and it is at the Bolestones Bear Den.

Yep! You said it, not me! *Laughs* I also knew about the "Yondershire tokens" from the other thread, but like I said, I got squeamish about it since I don't recall of it showed up in the Producer's Letter.

So, if MoL and Scenario do send out some Hobbit Bounty Hunters with nets to nab ye both up, I'll know what happened! Perhaps they'll toss the three of us in the Lock-Holes of Michel Delving doused with flour, or worse, force the Gollum costume on us for two weeks of game-time with the ability text-tool label reading: "YOU WERE CAUGHT.......... SNEAKING! PRECIOUSSS!"

Slinker and Stinker did it again!

LOL! :P


---

There's definitely been some visible changes in the Falathorn homesteads... a new waterfall coming down from the east... with the tips of a bridge visible beyond it. And a new Mountain to the southeast that's somewhat bare.

And over in the shire, the little river just east of the bolestones has been greatly altered. There's just rapids now where a tumbling waterfall used to be. Swimming up the rapids, there's some obvious construction going on (the water abruptly disappears and then reappears at an invisble wall). A nice little forested lake that seems to be just below North Cotton Farm by my estimate. Which North Cotton I'm not 100% on though. It would be cool if it went all the way over and connected to Oatbarton. Would Wistmead supposedly fall in this zone? I know by the map coordinates its far to the north of Forochel, but could they move it?

I cannot wait for Yondershire, if it is to be the one finally connecting Ered Luin to the rest of Eriador. Now if we could just get land route to Frostbluff!

Me too! This is very crucial information: you see, there's this line of towering hills southwest of Falathlorn that I'm convinced - MUST - be the Tower Hills per the downscaling of the world, unless SSG confirms otherwise.

The analogy I'll give is Mount Doom, which is vastly over-scaled compared to the under-scaled map around it. What Tolkien has as thousands of leagues of Plateau of Gorgoroth, for gaming convenience reasons, SSG decided to compress into what's basically a valley between a to-scale Ered Lithui / Ash Mountains in the north of Dor Amarth and the vastly - HUGE - Mount Doom right beneath it, resulting in really a narrower track of land between them that reminds me more of the Lone-Lands or the Gap of Rohan in its structure.

Dor Amarth doesn't feel like vast plains of Ash; it feels like an extremely stretched-out and arced-around Nan Curunir of sorts.

So, that's my reasoning as to why I think these new prominent hills so close to the Falathlorn homesteads.......... are either the Tower Hills themselves or more or less "stand-in" versions until they're developed later on. They look like they could be a Zone Boundary for the Yondershire area.......... and we have yet to see what will be done with them. This brings me to my next point below.

I'm honestly surprised at the (potential) size of this new area. A narrow, corridor-like zone starting near Needlehole was all I was asking for, at least for the time being. But this Yondershire area stretching itself so far to the east, near Oatbarton, is something else.

The way things are shaping up we might get something close to the size of an actual, big region (sure, mountains and cliffs might be a big part of it, but then again that is also the case with the newer Rhovanion regions). Or at least way bigger than Wildwood, which is already bigger than the recent Angle. For now though, it definitely stands as a part of the Shire, not another region, since we get (I confirmed it too) the "Now entering ___" text that appears when one changes area, but not the notice with the name of the region above it that shows up when you change regions.

There's another possibility we may not have considered. They might have decided to close this gap between the Shire and Ered Luin in two stages: Yondershire as a way to extend the Shire region towards the northwest, and later on some extension of Ered Luin across the Lhûn river. Of course, the Far Downs and the Tower Hills would be added in the far future, after the Scouring of the Shire. Something like this:

I guess that's possible. But that really wouldn't make sense to me per se because of the significance of the landscape changes near Falathlorn. If you use the Terrainmap Plugin by Garan, you can actually see far better what's going on. There are marshlands above the Falathlorn homesteads and immediately east of the Shire-Gate....... and the area around the eastern shores of the Lhun is receiving some intense development. I wouldn't think that was for some zone separate from "Yondershire" down the road. I just think "Yondershire" will rub neck-and-neck with Ered Luin's current boundaries. We're seeing a lot of new foliage along the Lhun also.

By all current indications, this new area will be a bigger zone, and I'm honestly thinking that's because the Angle is really a mini-update that is part of a far larger update that has 3 main arms or components RE- Housing, a Raid, and the Angle itself. Let's consider past update cycles for a moment, where you would typically have 1 new major zone in one season, another new major zone in a second season, and the third major update of the year would usually be the next Expansion.

The Angle feels more like.................. the same sort of update adding Tal Bruinen to the Trollshaws was: the addition of a smaller area that's not quite a full new zone in its own right landscape-wise but that has just enough to give it some unique identity and texture. This observation is based on the fact that the northern Angle is really just filling-in a block of terrain immediately south of the current Trollshaws, and then it narrows significantly as the rivers converge. So, that's pretty manageable landscape-wise, and when we consider that Erebor Housing and the Erebor Raid came in the same update, it makes sense as to why the Angle is a bit smaller than Wild-wood.

My point: this also allows them to make the next new area quite a bit bigger: how Yondershire would just connect all these areas. I say this especially because Scenario, in several livestreams, talked about his deep desire to fill-in that gap and connect Ered Luin to all of Eriador.

We will see I'll be far more surprised if it isn't a bigger area and just delivered in chunks. I mean, if you replace Erebor Housing and the Erebor Raid with Yondershire Area B closer to Ered Luin and Area C just south of there on the Falathlorn side, that would correspond, to my mind, development-wise, with Yondershire Area A that's closer to the Shire and the Angle of our analogy here

In theory, they could well pull off a bigger region, and I'm really hoping for this!

Cheers!

[auximenes]

But this Yondershire area stretching itself so far to the east, near Oatbarton, is something else.

Many years ago I escaped the game grid (gotta get my Tron references in when I can) by the Greenfields and travelled west along what appears to now be Yondershire. It was really just unfinished green landscape with jagged polygonal landscape and sheer drops. You could get almost to Ered Luin.

(Yes MadeOfLions I reported all of my escapes back in the day via bug report.)

[Harvain]

Yep! You said it, not me! *Laughs* I also knew about the "Yondershire tokens" from the other thread, but like I said, I got squeamish about it since I don't recall of it showed up in the Producer's Letter.

Well it was bound to be revealed regardless as "Yondershire" didn't seem like a placeholder name or anything like that.

Best just get the "Screenshot" out of the way and mine is more innocent with just showing the name of Yondershire.

It'll be interesting how they roll out Newer Regions between Ered Luin, Evendim and the Shire.

[Phantion]

Well it was bound to be revealed regardless as "Yondershire" didn't seem like a placeholder name or anything like that.

Best just get the "Screenshot" out of the way and mine is more innocent with just showing the name of Yondershire.

It'll be interesting how they roll out Newer Regions between Ered Luin, Evendim and the Shire.

I know! I figured it was high time for me to "fess up" so the Devs didn't accidentally think I knew something even more than that! *Laughs*!

The extent of my knowledge were the fringes on Shire and Ered Luin, that little spot in the northern Shire where you can accidentally cross-over and see something, and of course, what Terrainmap's tiles show us from naturally leaking-over from one version of the map to another.

Cheers!

[Harvain]

And to add onto "New Content" coming down the pipeline for filling in more of the map plus advancing LOTRO's Main Story.

Hopefully we don't see a for example 80% or more for Content involving a Hobbit Theme for 2+ Years. We can't have a repeat of the Black Book of Mordor + Legacy of Durin & the Trials of the Dwarves which had so much focus on one Theme in the long run and what has been the majority of SSG's Content they've put out. Too much focus on one Theme eventually leads to burnout and lack of interest.

Every 2 to 3 Updates should be another Theme as usually an Update lasts 3-ish Months, meaning that pending how things go in a Yearly Cycle, we can see up to or more than 5 Updates in a Year with how the Previous Year worked out.

Which I hope we see a return to a Multi-Story/Theme approach again and going forward.

Tolkien himself gave the Blueprint: Have a Central Story, split into several Stories, bring the Stories together for a key event, split the Stories, bring the Stories together for a good while and repeat the process from the Central Story again.

[spartan153]

There appears to be mobs in the yondershire as well lvl 20ish

[itshuntah31]

There appears to be mobs in the yondershire as well lvl 20ish

Interesting, perhaps an alternative to the Lone Lands?

[Garan]

...and of course, what Terrainmap's tiles show us from naturally leaking-over from one version of the map to another

As it happens, there's been a fair number of tiles that I purposely left on my 'junk' region that actually fill in much of the area between Ered Luin and the Shire (basically the area labelled Yondershire and the purple area labelled ??? in Phantion's image). I originally kept them out of TerrainMap because they were obviously not intended for release. They started as just markup and at some point evolved into something resembling future expansion. They will probably make it into the next version of TerrainMap but will definitely not make it to the Google map until they get released - mostly because it is such a major pain to update that map when the tiles change (I'm not looking forward to the amount of work just to get the Angle onto the Google map )

[seekingerin]

I was thinking about those images shared by Thormund and have attached what I think is likely for this zone, based on the description of where these images were located and how large the zone would potentially be.

In the image below, the orange Xs are roughly where the images were from, based on Thormund's descriptions (please correct me if I'm wrong). That makes the red area what I think is likely to be added if this is a 'filling in the gaps' kind of zone.

However, given there's no natural barrier along the south of this zone, I wonder whether this is actually part of a bigger piece of development which will extend further south (the blue area), to cover all of the western border of the current Shire (potentially even including the Grey Havens?)

Either iteration of the zone, however, is certainly much bigger than the Wildwood or the Angle, although it certainly is filling in a long remarked-about gap!

I'm very curious what they're doing with Yondershire. There's a very large area being developed; I think this map gets the extent of the zone right (though I think it will only include the area marked out in red, not the area marked out in blue). If you look at Garan's in-game terrain map, you can see there's been development as far northwest as the Wardspire, as far southwest as the Falathlorn Homesteads, as far southeast as Little Delving, and as far Northeast as the borders of Evendim. And in addition to the in-game changes that others have mentioned, if you look through the gate between Ered Luin and the Shire from the Ered Luin side, you can see elven ruins to the southeast, at the base of a large hill/mountain and climbing up the hillside/mountainside. The area involved is comparable to the Shire or Ered Luin in size, so I think it's better to think of Yondershire as a full-fledged zone rather than a small filler zone like the Wildwood or the Angle. It will probably be bordered on the south by a stretch of hills or mountains, perhaps the Tower Hills. And there's probably going to be a lot going on in this area; there are large ruins in the northeast and northwest, elven buildings in the southwest, and, as Tirian-Hammerfist has pointed out, several hobbit villages that should be located within Yondershire's borders. The White Towers may or may not be accessible from Yonderland as well.

What I wonder about is what level the quests and enemies in Yondershire will be. It's a region situated between two starter zones, and it's the only physical connection from Ered Luin to the rest of the game world; it's likely there will be people trying to venture into this area at around level 10. It looks like they're planning to have a path leading into Yondershire from Little Delving, where hobbits are dropped immediately after the Archet introduction, so there could be players as low as level 5 making a wrong turn and entering Yondershire by accident. So it would be dangerous to make this an end-game area. And besides, this would be an excellent opportunity to the devs to show new players how good the graphics and world design have gotten in the years since the game was released. So my first inclination would be to assume that this will be, say, a level 10-20 or 10-25 area.

As I said, though, this would be a large area. Several times larger than the Wildwood and the Angle. Would they really put so much time and effort into developing a new zone that wasn't at level cap? That seems dangerous in its own way; level-capped players get bored easily, and creating Yondershire uses up development time that could be used to feed hungry level-cap characters. For that reason, it's also tempting to think that Yondershire could be a level 140 region.

There are scenarios where Yondershire could contain low-level content and high-level content as well. It could primarily a level 10-20 zone, but with a small area devoted to level 140 players. There could be missions and a set of epic-style quests for level 140 players, and perhaps even an instance or two. Perhaps they could do something similar to Tales of Yore, where the version of Yondershire that's directly connected to the landscape is level 10-20 but there's a closed-off version of the area that's level 140, similar to what they've done with the Tales of Yore areas, War of the Three Peaks, and the many different iterations of Minas Tirith; this could be a nice opportunity to show how the situation in Eriador has changed since we left it, which could in turn direct us elsewhere in Eriador to undo the damage that's been done during the war. Or maybe they're even going to roll out some fancy new version of layering or phasing or level scaling that allows Yondershire to exist at both levels at once.

However they approach the level of Yondershire, I'm eager to see this area. I'm one of those people who's been begging to see this area filled out since the beginning of the game, so I'm happy to see it's finally coming to pass.

[Feral_Yoda]

As it happens, there's been a fair number of tiles that I purposely left on my 'junk' region that actually fill in much of the area between Ered Luin and the Shire (basically the area labelled Yondershire and the purple area labelled ??? in Phantion's image). I originally kept them out of TerrainMap because they were obviously not intended for release. They started as just markup and at some point evolved into something resembling future expansion. They will probably make it into the next version of TerrainMap but will definitely not make it to the Google map until they get released - mostly because it is such a major pain to update that map when the tiles change (I'm not looking forward to the amount of work just to get the Angle onto the Google map )

This is just a brief thank you to Garan, for TerrainMap and its updates, and all the hard work you put into the Google version too. I've used the google one to bring in multiple new players to the game. Both are great resources for the game.

[Harvain]

A Youtuber by the name of Jediwarlock has covered the Yondershire a bit, even having a bit of footage when he got into part of it that he was able to for those interested. Link to channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Jediwarlock/featured



Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7TbxVW0j3s

Going to be an interesting 2022 & 2023 when LOTRO sees more & more of Middle-Earth brought to life.

[Phantion]

A Youtuber by the name of Jediwarlock has covered the Yondershire a bit, even having a bit of footage when he got into part of it that he was able to for those interested.

Going to be an interesting 2022 & 2023 when LOTRO sees more & more of Middle-Earth brought to life.

Indeed! You know: I wonder if................ see, I'm remembering back to our discussions about the "Main Story" versus stuff like Black Book and Legacy of Durin, etc., and here's what I'm actually wondering:

I wonder if this is their way to kind of............. "pause" their "Black Book" stuff without going straight toward the Scouring, basically, to maintain the timeline of their storytelling while still giving players "another slice of Eriador," basically?

It feels like it's a "compromise approach" between those extremes, where they don't necessarily want to "rush" toward ending the Main Story quite yet, but at the same time, are maybe giving us a break from stuff east of the Misties?

It's like they are giving us some more "Hobbitry," sort to speak, and Dunedain, between Yondershire and the Angle, without quite meddling with whatever their "Current Story" timeline plans are; it's fascinating!

Here's my sense of their potential current timeline directions, and by "current," I mean, immediately post-Legacy of Durin:

A- Middle Mirkwood and the Fields of Celduin. This could encompass both the missing chunk of Mirkwood that's south of Eryn Lasgalen and directly east of Hultvis and the lands immediately south of Long Lake and the Ironfold areas that are closest to Long Lake, all meeting at the East Bight. This could potentially connect all three Mirkwood regions via the landscape. You'd need this chunk of landscape developed before you could get to Rhun, or else Rhun would be it's own island of terrain to connect later on as Strongholds of the North used to be, etc.

B- Nurn and Southern Mordor - more or less extending south and southwest of Imlad Morgul, Lhingris, and Talath Urui, perhaps up to the two rivers drawn on the map that straddle the middle of the Sea of Nurn. I'd see Eastern Mordor and that Glamhoth area as it's own thing.

C- Southern Gondor - heading south of South Ithilien toward Harondor and the fringes of Umbar and Harad.

D- "Far Gondor" - heading west of West Gondor out toward Anfalas and the Green Hills.

E- Emyn Muil, actually, I could see as a level 90-95 alternate leveling area to connect with the Dead Marshes level 100 content; I could see that more as an upper level "Wild-wood" equivalent. I'd think though that any extensions eastward of East Wall, the Wold, and Great River would need some more content fleshed-out as far as, say, where the River Celduin stands in relation to Southern Mirkwood coordinates-wise on the LOTRO map.

They could jump us forward to the "Homeward Bound" and "Scouring" if they wanted to. I also figured out how "Tales of Yore" Eregion could, in theory, be linked to the "Homeward Bound" chapter and thus the Main Story: Galadriel, Elrond, and Gandalf (Bearers of the Three) actually go out away from Frodo and the others in Eregion and almost blend-into the landscape, communicating in thought for a very long time, and perhaps remembering and reconciling over all that had happened over the wider arc of Sauron's rise and fall. This happens before Galadriel and Celeborn head back over the Redhorn Pass while the others continue back to Rivendell; it happens - after - their encounter with Saruman and Wormtongue in Enedwaith - so that would be an opportunity to showcase SA Sauron and what happened.

Speaking of which, "Homeward Bound" would actually need yet another version of Nan Curunir: the Treegarth of Orthanc, where Treebeard and the Ents have revived Nan Curunir completely in our absence, and players could, in theory, have an Epic chain taking them across Rohan and Dunland resolving all those storylines, along the way.

Of course, Tales of Yore could take us anywhere in the time-line, and I guess there's always a chance Eriador would remain "the main focus" this year with an emphasis mostly on lower-level stuff for quite some time too, but I would really hope will get some good level-cap stuff entering game this year- I'm with you now on the need for a yearly Producer's Letter, btw!

All of this, of course, assumes the game will keep going across the next few years. Either way, it's fun to speculate! We'll just have to wait and see I guess

Cheers!

[Harvain]

Yeah, they can keep Stories going for pretty much any Pre-Sauron Defeat Moments but we're at the point for the Main Story that if anything happens it would have to include Frodo Baggins talking to King Elessar & Queen Arwen after their Marriage which begins the Return to the Shire Events.

Especially as we're heading into the Post-Gundabad & Legacy of Durin Story now with the Main Story.

August Third Age 3019 has King Eomer return from Rohan so Theoden King could be escorted from Minas Tirith to Edoras and "Never had any King of the Mark such Company upon the road as went with Theoden, Thengel's son to the land of his home."



Really, this would be the perfect time for having Multiple Main Story Lines happening as all those involved will head to Edoras to honor Theoden King and all of the Rohirrim who fought & died upon the Fields of the Pelennor, those who fought with the Forces that took Cair Andros and especially those who marched with the Host of the West and the Victory at the Morannon before the Black Gates of Mordor.

Then once this celebration has happened, various folks begin taking their own paths: some staying in Rohan, some returning to Gondor, others riding further west to Helm's Deep, Isengard and finally taking leave of the King of Gondor as the Elves begin their journey to their homes and the Hobbits to Rivendell. Then finally back to Bree & the Brandywine River. All taking several months for all this to happen.

Plenty of other Storylines that can be happening alongside such and would go a long way to ensure that things are staying fresh, interesting & covering likely several things that will keep everyone interested at least in one Story.

But we'll see, the SSG LOTRO Team clearly has an Internal Plan and are moving forward with such.

[Valather89]

Indeed, right now anything can happen.

Basically the only clue/hint we got from Scenario was that they were eager to leave darker environments like caves and Minas Morgul, and that we would be visiting sunnier landscapes this year.

Which is as vague as it can get. And IMO it only rules out Middle Mirkwood out of the big names that usually appear when talking about the immediate future of the game (and, even then, I could easily be reading things completely wrong here).

Other than that, anything is possible and anything can happen. South of Gondor, Rhun... anything.

We can't even rule out more Mordor, since it's much more than the dark Plateau of Gorgoroth: Núrn is supposed to be this fertile, grassy land, while Líthlad might mean "plain of ashes" but at least in the Shadow of War games it is said that "[it] lies under a punishing sun". So yeah, they might not seem like the most joyous of places, but "sunnier landscapes" technically fit that description.

That said, my completely baseless bet right now is that we're going to keep getting more Rhovanion, which means Fields of Celduin and/or Barding-lands. Then again, I keep changing my mind and just two months ago I was leaning towards Harondor.

[auximenes]

If you look at the Stablemaster's map in Collections you can scroll the map down to reveal a big chunk of undeveloped land to the south. Why change the map so that it could scroll down that far if there isn't work going on down there?

[Harvain]

If you look at the Stablemaster's map in Collections you can scroll the map down to reveal a big chunk of undeveloped land to the south. Why change the map so that it could scroll down that far if there isn't work going on down there?

Eh, that map can't be fully believed.

Just some examples of how there is conflicting Information within LOTRO itself:

- Forodwaith: The desolate landscape in the Northern part of the Main Continent of Middle-Earth has more of it shown on the Stable Master Map. A lot more to the North of Forochel is shown on that map compared to the Main Game Map. The Stable Master Map also makes out that Gundabad is well into Forodwaith when it's not.

- Rhun: A good chunk of Rhun is not being shown. If the Stable Master Map was to be believed, this would imply Rhun & the East above Mordor is not the direction we are going in the Near Future.

- The Sea of Rhun: This is shown on the Main Game Map but isn't seen on the Stable Master Map.

- Eastern Mordor: The area of Eastern Mordor, especially the East Side of the Lake of Nurn is not seen on the Stable Master Map.

- Wildwood: The area which Wildwood is at on the Stable Master Map is still blank.

And so on, those however are some of the largest examples of how it's best not to look to into the Stable Master Map.

Now if we do head South into Southern Gondor with Harad & Umbar being the Direction going forward and we don't go in any Eastward Direction for years, then it would be that the SSG LOTRO Team and specifically whoever made the Stable Master Map change to show off below Southern Gondor had tipped SSG's hand too soon.

Only time will tell.

[Aleziana]

All those posts about "yodenshire" seems promising but why not discuss the fact that Senario on his latest stream show us another possible filling the gap area?



check the latest Casual stroll the last 10 mins of the stream. Maybe it was a tease? maybe not. I believe this Yodenshire area you guys speak has more chances to come live as i see they planning a Men-Elf-Hobbit-Dwarf style areas in a row first.

[Harvain]

All those posts about "yodenshire" seems promising but why not discuss the fact that Senario on his latest stream show us another possible filling the gap area?

check the latest Casual stroll the last 10 mins of the stream. Maybe it was a tease? maybe not. I believe this Yodenshire area you guys speak has more chances to come live as i see they planning a Men-Elf-Hobbit-Dwarf style areas in a row first.

You mean the old area that was supposed to be the Original Dunland but had to be scrapped due to Enedwaith becoming a thing?

No, that is just a relic that they keep within the Game like many other areas that are akin to that.

[Phantion]

Yeah, they can keep Stories going for pretty much any Pre-Sauron Defeat Moments but we're at the point for the Main Story that if anything happens it would have to include Frodo Baggins talking to King Elessar & Queen Arwen after their Marriage which begins the Return to the Shire Events.

Especially as we're heading into the Post-Gundabad & Legacy of Durin Story now with the Main Story.

August Third Age 3019 has King Eomer return from Rohan so Theoden King could be escorted from Minas Tirith to Edoras and "Never had any King of the Mark such Company upon the road as went with Theoden, Thengel's son to the land of his home."



Really, this would be the perfect time for having Multiple Main Story Lines happening as all those involved will head to Edoras to honor Theoden King and all of the Rohirrim who fought & died upon the Fields of the Pelennor, those who fought with the Forces that took Cair Andros and especially those who marched with the Host of the West and the Victory at the Morannon before the Black Gates of Mordor.

Then once this celebration has happened, various folks begin taking their own paths: some staying in Rohan, some returning to Gondor, others riding further west to Helm's Deep, Isengard and finally taking leave of the King of Gondor as the Elves begin their journey to their homes and the Hobbits to Rivendell. Then finally back to Bree & the Brandywine River. All taking several months for all this to happen.

Plenty of other Storylines that can be happening alongside such and would go a long way to ensure that things are staying fresh, interesting & covering likely several things that will keep everyone interested at least in one Story.

But we'll see, the SSG LOTRO Team clearly has an Internal Plan and are moving forward with such.

Yep!

Let's also not forget there's a lot of stuff they'd need to wrap-up in Gondor first before heading back north with Frodo and the main story. SPOILERS:










Lord Golasgil of Anfalas died at the Black Gate; his last words were for Players to go tell his people how he died. That's Far Gondor / Anfalas, and months have passed in-story-time before this could take place. Since MoL or someone set that up, I don't want to see it forgotten before we start heading back to Rohan.

Faramir and Eowyn are supposed to resettle Bar Hurin as their dwelling at some point; so, that could open the door for an "After Battle South Ithilien" with blue skies and some renovations with a new, shiny Bar Hurin before Harondor enters game. We also never really resolved the storylines of Lossarnach, Pelargir, Lebennin, Dor-en-Ernil, and those other Gondor regions.

I also kind of wish the Hobbit Allegiance Hall in North Ithilien would finally have a landscape version with a portal entrance, but that's neither here or there

If we are returning to the Main Story, I'd really like them to consider "reversing" the trajectory as far as wrapping-up stuff goes, and I think Far Gondor would be unique in that you have the White Mountain Dwarves (*ugh more Dwarves, I know.......) and the Gondorian cultures coming together out there.

In short: There's just a lot of stuff going on, and I can imagine the Epics would be pretty complex and vast in scale for those areas. If the updates need new regions, for the Gondor wrap-up, I'd say Anfalas and maybe even parts of Andrast, with After-Battle South Ithilien as a set-up for the road south later, and for the Rohan wrap-up, I'd say there's a missing triangle of Rohan south of the Gap between the Isen and Adorn Rivers, and there's also the Glittering Caves as a Dwarven area with Gimli they could look into.

The wrap-up for the High Elves in Eregion could be a Tales of Yore thing as I've mentioned; the Dunland resolutions could ultimately lead to us trailing "Sharkey" toward the Shire.

Anyways: there's an awful lot of storytelling in Gondor, Rohan, and Dunland before the Hobbits can return to the Shire, basically Tons of material

Cheers!

[Garan]

...and there's also the Glittering Caves as a Dwarven area with Gimli they could look into.

Interesting that you bring that up. The devs added a map for Glittering Caves but did not connect it to either the Epic Battle version or the landscape V3B13C9 version (they have different coordinates and ever so slightly different terrain). I originally thought this was an oversight - you can manually select the Glittering Caves map from the map selection list - but now I'm wondering if this map is instead supposed to be for a post war Gimli version and was just included in the client prematurely.

[Harvain]

Interesting that you bring that up. The devs added a map for Glittering Caves but did not connect it to either the Epic Battle version or the landscape V3B13C9 version (they have different coordinates and ever so slightly different terrain). I originally thought this was an oversight - you can manually select the Glittering Caves map from the map selection list - but now I'm wondering if this map is instead supposed to be for a post war Gimli version and was just included in the client prematurely.

Hard to say but that was back during Turbine and it's fairly safe to state they had no Goals beyond seeing the One Ring destroyed and in the aftermath of the Helm's Deep Expansion as they got closer to no longer being the Development Team were going as fast as they could to reach that moment and still came up short.

[Garan]

Hard to say but that was back during Turbine and it's fairly safe to state they had no Goals beyond seeing the One Ring destroyed and in the aftermath of the Helm's Deep Expansion as they got closer to no longer being the Development Team were going as fast as they could to reach that moment and still came up short.

I think you misunderstood my reference to the Glittering Caves map. It was added in the most recent update. It is brand new.