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

[Phantion]

My thought is that we're seeing two separate stages of landscape work here. It seems like they've shaped most of the terrain and laid down the frills and a lot of the trees and other vegetation east of the Gwathlo, but they probably still have to put down a lot of the buildings and NPCs and baddies and props and all of that. While the later-stage work is being done east of the Gwathlo, they're doing the initial terrain shaping and some of the initial vegetation work west of the Gwathlo so that the area west of the river is ready once it's time to do detail work on it. It's possible that one developer or set of developers does the terrain, texture, and vegetation work while another group of devs lays down the buildings, objects, and NPCs. Even if it's all the same people working on all stages of world development, though, they need to have at least some work done west of the Gwathlo by the time the area east of the Gwathlo is released, because people will be able to see some of it from the east side of the river. That's how I've always kind of imagined the workflow going for SSG, that they do some initial prep work on the next zone while they're working on the current zone. Even with the very unpolished landscape we can see in the terrain map, it looks like the terrain is much more carefully shaped east of the Gwathlo than west of it. The terrain looks fairly detailed east of the river, but it's still very rough west of the river, which reflects the idea that they might be at two different stages of development because they're not going to be released at the same time.

I would love it if I were wrong and you were right, though. It would be incredible to get this much terrain at once! It just feels like it's probably outside of their capabilities as a relatively small development team. For reference, it looks comparable in size to West Rohan, if not a bit bigger, and they likely had a bigger staff when they developed Rohan.

That's true I think its a 50 / 50 chance either way. To be fair, we really can't see the western side of the Gwaithlo (*yes, I'll admit I did some "wandering by accident" myself). The Enedwaith stuff was far too south and east. The Angle mostly has anything that would've been visible shrouded in distant mist. I think it does matter though that a mountain is visible from the very southern tip of the Angle when standing in the water that wasn't there before (*I had checked between updates), and so, its very possible that they had some members of their Team working on the southeastern reaches of the new zone while the rest finished up Yondershire.

The chance for the other side of the 50 / 50, which is my view, is from Scenario's own words in the Yondershire livestream. I'd have to re-listen to it and track it down again. But this is something that's taking 6 months of development as opposed to 3, and it is something that is very markedly ambitious when it comes to the chunk of landscape.

As for the small Team, let's remember that this is the same Team who did Gorgoroth, all of Eryn Lasgalen / Dale-lands / Long Lake / Erebor in a single update, all of Ered Mithrin / Iron Hills in a single update, and Vales of Anduin, all of which were pretty huge zones of this scale.

I think the reason why we've been getting smaller updates since then has less to do with the size of their Team and far more to do with their division of efforts. I've been listening to these "Casual Stroll" livestreams carefully. It sounds like they had folks working on Minas Morgul AND Wells of Langflood and maybe even part of Elderslade at the same time, which would explain why Minas Morgul was a smaller expansion landscape-wise. It sounds like, after War of the Three Peaks, they were working on Blood of Azog and Gundabad at the same time too, which explains the size of those updates. Let's also not forget the Missions, which had a fair amount of stuff to develop sub-divided between smaller instances.

It also looks like they were working on the Angle, Yondershire, and Swanfleet at the same time. This explains why the Angle is the smallest of the three. Yondershire was much larger than the Angle, and it matters that the "Plains of Greyflood" comes out at the same time as Yondershire as something visible in the distance.

So, when I piece all of this together in my mind: we don't know what's going to happen as the kinds of stuff we would have needed to see to really know are well hidden by invisible walls and mountains south of Bree and the Lone-Lands. But I think......... the surrounding terrain around the Bree-land Homesteads......... just got a lot taller, and I bet that is where the landscape bug came from. Which tells me: They are up to something down there

But if we are really looking at a September or October update (*late August is possible though I'm not sure, it'll depend on when Scenario's "6 months of development" actually started!), there is theoretically enough time for them to keep filling stuff in. They may simply have tasked some landscape Devs to work on the southeast while the rest finished polishing Yondershire.

This would also explain why they didn't want to get into paths to Annuminas from Yondershire or dealing with the Bindebole Wood between the Shire and Yondershire- if those Devs are already tied-up with Swanfleet, basically.

It all remains to be seen! It's fun to speculate! I don't think it'll be a level cap area though. That would mean putting level 140 mobs between level 61 mobs in Enedwaith and level 45 mobs in the Angle and level 20 mobs in Bree-land, and I just think it would be a big trap for wandering lower levels. I have a feeling it'll be an alternative to Moria or something of that nature, which would make some sense. I also think, story-wise, they could do a lot more in there with Saruman's pipeweed supply from the Shire when Saruman is still in Isengard and powerful, prior to the Battle of Helm's Deep. It would make a lot more sense and tie-into some of the Shire stories pretty well.

That's another reason why I'm hoping it's just 1 bigger mega-update; I'd want them to get back to level cap stuff sooner than later, even as a winter update, and to hopefully move that more toward Rhovanion, Mordor, or Gondor again. I think Middle Mirkwood / East Bight and perhaps Fields of Celduin would make sense for a new level cap area coming out of Gundabad, *shrugs shoulders.* Or who knows? That female Orc villain in Gundabad made it sound like there was some bastion north of Car Bronach or something. So, we'll have to see!

Cheers!