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

[gildhur]

Cardolan seems huge: I never thought they would go all the way from Sarn Ford to Tharbad. I wish it was level cap.

I wonder if they will release both Cardolan and the Swanfleet at once. Cardolan has the size of an expansion, whereas the Swanfleet is only a subzone of Eregion. We'll see.

Severlin did say it was a "War of Three Peaks size" update. WOTP had two versions of a single zone for two different experiences. This would be two decent sized zones, so comparable to WOTP.

I have a hard time seeing 30 levels of content fitting in these two zones, but who knows what kind of tricks they've got up their sleeve.

However, that Stoorvales area sure does seem ripe for a River-hobbit intro.

[Valather89]

Being able to retrace the ("headcanoned") steps my Gondorian character made through Eriador before he started off his actual adventure in Bree-land is going to feel so great.

[Daugon]

I'm just so excited to have the road finally be completed between Bree and Enedwaith. That's a journey I've wanted to make for quite some time now. We'll finally be able to take the entirety of the road from Fornost the Pelargir!

[Phantion]

I'm just so excited to have the road finally be completed between Bree and Enedwaith. That's a journey I've wanted to make for quite some time now. We'll finally be able to take the entirety of the road from Fornost the Pelargir!

Yep- most of the way, finally!

They'll still be that little missing chunk of Wulf's Cleft (*they should just make it a "Tarlang's Crown" style heavy mob area and remove the cartoony imposters and break open the barricades already; it's going to become the lone sore thumb of the Royal Road. They can keep their story intact with the warstead of the Dunlendings as an extremely dangerous place and have it very difficult to solo and otherwise have it be the Tarlang's Crown / Limlight Gorge / Lang Rhuven of the Dunland region. It would be so much better that way! ).

---

To the thread in general:

Yep, it's a sizable chunk of terrain that's coming. Looks like they'll be expanding our current idea of "renamed Ost-en-Edhil" on the West Eregion part of the map, beyond just Mirobel and Tham Mirdain, which is great! Making Eregion a bit bigger is a very wise move on their part.

Same with their expansion of the Barrow-downs southward to Tyrn Gorthad, former capital of Cardolan. I like their "post-Gondor" revisions to older places to re-envision the scale of those places. The South Downs should make the Lone-lands feel far more expanded and not just a narrow "Gap of Rohan"-style vale.

I'm very excited for these new zones - even if they are lower-level; I have a level 5 waiting and raring to explore!

I think I'm starting to understand the quest-flow a bit more also. So maybe.... the Shire is the entrance (*though not the South Farthing from the looks of it)? Bree-land for slightly more... maybe the Cardolan zone is the level 5 - 20 in the northwestern part.... maybe the central Cardolan closer to Tharbad is level 20 - 25.... like Lone-lands above it.... maybe Swanfleet is the level 25-30....... vectors to Trollshaws, maybe, then Angle.... then Eregion......... yep I think I'm starting to see it a bit in my guessing; very big chunk of terrain coming with the two new zones combined

Cheers!

[Feral_Yoda]

Exciting news!
One thing I absolutely want in the new Cardolan area: on that little river coming out of the South downs, south of the Forsaken Inn, a hidden little view into an inaccessible cave containing a boat/pirate ship locked inside. I.E. that final chamber of the Forsaken Inn in all its Goonies glory. We've always been able to "look out" at the landscape there. I'd love to be able to look in.

[seekingerin]

Exciting to see the actual maps and have it all confirmed! I hadn't expected it so soon.

It's fun to be able to match up the original screenshots I took of the Swanfleet with the actual map. It looks pretty much as I understood it as I was exploring. The village I called "Cliffsburg" would be Glyn Helyg, and the ravines I walked through were the Stoorvales. From the hills that form the boundary between the Gloomglens and the Swanfleet, I was able to look out over the central part of the Swanfleet; I could see most of Wadewater and as far north as the hills beneath the words "Western Eregion. My view of Caras Gelebren was blocked by a line of hills. I'm actually a little surprised we'll be able to climb up into the hills around Mossward, as I expected those hills to be unclimable.

Looking at the map, the new zones look enormous. I've been trying to get little peeks at Cardolan from across its borders, but it strikes me how little of it I've seen. This is going to be an enormous chunk of landscape.

It looks like we are probably getting extensions of the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs, which will be nice. Caras Gelebren will be a nice expansion to Mirobel as well; Mirobel is one of my favorite places in the game, but I would definitely like to see it be a little bigger. It looks to me like Cardolan will stretch all the way up to the Bree-Land and Lone Lands, though it also looks like the northern half of Cardolan will be quite hilly, so it might not feel as open as we might like. Still, we're getting a massive bit of landscape consisting of two large new zones with no artificial boundaries separating them, which connect five preexisting zones (the Bree-Land, Lone Lands, Trollshaws, Eregion, and Enedwaith) and connect with two or three potential future areas (the Southfarthing and Minhirirath, and probably something to the south of the Swanfleet as well). I think these areas will punch way above their weight in terms of making Eriador feel bigger and more open and connected.

It's interesting that it's split into two zones. One zone wouldn't have surprised me; three zones wouldn't have surprised me; two zones kind of surprises me. Lore-wise, though, it kind of makes sense. Cardolan is a good name for everything west of the Greyflood/Gwathlo, but the area east of the river wasn't actually part of Cardolan, so it makes sense to call it something else.

While this area is supposed to be mostly abandoned, it looks like there are a few current settlements: Herne, Hove and Surlock Farms, and the hobbit villages of Glyn Helyg and Clegur. Sarn Ford was only recently abandoned by the rangers. Tornhad is only the borders of the new zones. And it's possible there might be another settlement or two--Mossward maybe, or possibly an elven refuge somewhere? Standing at a major crossroad, the settlement of Herne makes particular sense; goods from the Bree-Lands, the Shire, the Ered Luin, Gondor, Rohan, Dunland, and Minhiriath and relics from the Lone-Lands would pass through this location, so it's not surprising that there would be at least a small trading post here.

When we first heard that the quests in these new zones would be level 1-30, I'd imagined that we might start at Sarn Ford and move eastward. We progress generally from west to east through the rest of Eriador, and it might be dangerous to drop brand-new players too close to, say, Eregion and Enedwaith. I could also imagine an introductory instance based around the rangers who are chased out of Sarn Ford. Looking at the maps, though, I wonder if we'll actually be starting out in the Swanfleet and progressing westward through Cardolan. The Swanfleet is the smaller of the two zones, and there don't appear to be many points of interest there, so I could imagine the quests starting us there, moving us quickly through this zone, then progressing westward, culminating in the Barrow Downs and the Old Forest, by which point we could have learned about Angmar, the White Hand, and the brigands closing in on Bree and the Shire. The points of interest in the far west of Cardolan have some pretty gnarly names: "Sarch Vorn" means "dark grave," "Dol Ernil" means "prince hill," "Gaervarad" means "dreadful fortress," and "Tyrn Gorthad"--the Sindarin name for the Barrow Downs--means something like "wraith barrow." That sounds like the place we end up, not the place we start.

This new introductory area is supposed to be more race-agnostic than the other intro areas, so I think I imagine us beginning as travellers along the North-South road who run into trouble, perhaps in Tharbad. Boromir and/or the rangers rescue us, and we end up in some safe location. I could imagine an Archet-style introduction in the Stoorvales, Western Eregion, or even the Angle. Then we're released into the Swanfleet to start our adventures.

...or I could be completely wrong. I often am, lol.

[Valather89]

Speaking of settlements, we shouldn't overlook the place named Caranost either. It actually feels like quite a big ruin on the map (roughly the size of Tharbad), and it might even be what LOTRO envisions as the old capital of the Kingdom of Cardolan (although I doubt it'll be said explicitly, so as it doesn't meddle with any established lore): the "Red City" in the "Land of the Red Hills". It just fits. Granted, it doesn't mean it will be a quest hub: I can easily picture it as a dungeon as well.

And yeah I'm really confused with the 1-30 level bracket, to the point I'm sort of hoping it was a misunderstanding or something. Sure, I'm perfectly willing to give it a chance if it ends up being true, but I just don't know how they'll go about it. You create a High Elf, for example, and just start there instead of the battle of the Last Alliance-Rivendell-Celondim thing? I'm confused. The only possibilities that make sense for me atm are these two regions being specifically tailored for a new River hobbit/Stoor/River-folk race* or for a new Ranger class (that would also be a race, like the Beorning). Of course, any other race would be free to just travel there, as with the other starting areas. Even if that were the case, 1-30 is a big gap and would require a huge amount of content, so... we'll see.

* Although I don't know why would they allow base Hobbits to be Loremasters or Champions when they could have been the main selling point of a new race, akin to High Elf-Captains and Stout-axe Burglars.

[Rewak40]

So the new areas pretty much cover the "Riverlands", "Swanfleet", and the northern portion of the "Greyflood plains" from the "Announced lands" map from the wiki https://lotro-wiki.com/images/0/01/A..._lands_map.jpg

[TesalionLortus]

So maybe.... the Shire is the entrance (*though not the South Farthing from the looks of it)? Bree-land for slightly more... maybe the Cardolan zone is the level 5 - 20 in the northwestern part.... maybe the central Cardolan closer to Tharbad is level 20 - 25.... like Lone-lands above it.... maybe Swanfleet is the level 25-30....... vectors to Trollshaws, maybe, then Angle.... then Eregion.........

Shire can't be an entrance which leaves us with Breelands, except Andtrath would need to be closer to 15 (and Burrows part to 30), also can't really "lead to" Angle as a quest vector unless the Northern part of Swanfleet is like 40 - but it isn't because max 30. Vector to Trollshaws would be super off, like take this long detour through Lonelands to start questing on the Last Bridge and beyond (for reasons?). Rather than... like it's usually designed, with adjacent regions offering suitable lvl ranges in more organic manner.

the far west of Cardolan have some pretty gnarly names: "Sarch Vorn" means "dark grave," "Dol Ernil" means "prince hill," "Gaervarad" means "dreadful fortress," and "Tyrn Gorthad"--the Sindarin name for the Barrow Downs--means something like "wraith barrow." That sounds like the place we end up, not the place we start.

This new introductory area is supposed to be more race-agnostic than the other intro areas, so I think I imagine us beginning as travellers along the North-South road who run into trouble, perhaps in Tharbad. Boromir and/or the rangers rescue us, and we end up in some safe location. I could imagine an Archet-style introduction in the Stoorvales, Western Eregion, or even the Angle. Then we're released into the Swanfleet to start our adventures.

...or I could be completely wrong. I often am, lol.

Yeah, sounds like West Cardolan might be a better candidate for anything higher level, after all, and while it might play nicely with Breelands (at least the Barrow-downs part of it) it would still make Swanfleet look off, surrounded by the higher level zones and I really hope it doesn't mean "need to be safe for players so not much open-world connections in the Eastern direction, towards Eregion" (like, get rid of the barriers on the dried up river, eventually, and connect the Angle with Eregion - hopefully).

Sure, race agnostic, but... what of the epics how it's supposed to work even? Strange

And yeah I'm really confused with the 1-30 level bracket, to the point I'm sort of hoping it was a misunderstanding or something. Sure, I'm perfectly willing to give it a chance if it ends up being true, but I just don't know how they'll go about it. You create a High Elf, for example, and just start there instead of the battle of the Last Alliance-Rivendell-Celondim thing? I'm confused. The only possibilities that make sense for me atm are these two regions being specifically tailored for a new River hobbit/Stoor/River-folk race* or for a new Ranger class (that would also be a race, like the Beorning). Of course, any other race would be free to just travel there, as with the other starting areas. Even if that were the case, 1-30 is a big gap and would require a huge amount of content, so... we'll see.

Same, it feels weird and I wonder about their reasons for it - if that's true. But see, not even if it was River Hobbits exclusive it would work - reliably - as far as we can tell. Because what of the epic stories? I mean, I don't need to mention all races end up on one of the four pathways that eventually lead them to the Amdir business and Gandalf at Pony, right? Not to mention Red Maid. Unless it's like no Epics for you, River Hobbits, but you'll suddenly be called out of a blue for the Council of the North storyline without ever meeting Gandalf or Strider or anyone (technically you don't miss THAT much without the previous ones but still... you do miss a lot of context, such as Skorgrim/Dourhands, plus technically the game's storyline acts like you played through all the previous ones so PC should know various rangers and NPCs they've already encountered along the way). Overall, really makes me wonder and very curious about it. Because I would never conceive of the idea that the game needs an alternative landscape content for lvl 1 to 10 experience, you can get to lvl 10 like in a day with basic activities and quests in starter zones. In terms of early levels maybe the game could use some more landscape autobestowed quests throughout starter zones that don't force you into storylines/linear progression between hubs (for short-attention span people and explorers, so there is more freedom available once you start the game and easier to skip some linear content if someone wishes so) but whole new zone done in a business as usual way except for 1-30 players? Hmm, not really, so we shall see, really curious

[miriadel]

So the new areas pretty much cover the "Riverlands", "Swanfleet", and the northern portion of the "Greyflood plains" from the "Announced lands" map from the wiki https://lotro-wiki.com/images/0/01/A..._lands_map.jpg

and now I wish to have ALL those areas filled during the lifetime of the game, if it will ever last that long... I am hoping a fool's hope I suppose :')

[Jargonaut]

Severlin did say it was a "War of Three Peaks size" update. WOTP had two versions of a single zone for two different experiences. This would be two decent sized zones, so comparable to WOTP.

I have a hard time seeing 30 levels of content fitting in these two zones, but who knows what kind of tricks they've got up their sleeve.

However, that Stoorvales area sure does seem ripe for a River-hobbit intro.

He was probably referring to the quantity of content rather than the map area. Cardolan is pretty large, and contains a couple of ruined cities. Much larger than WoTP geographically. Swanfleet might be closer in size but also contains a very important ruined city. There will be plenty of room for future content in Caras Gelebren. Dungeons/Interiors, instances, and probably a raid or two. It could end up a very important area due to its central place in the background lore.

[Jargonaut]

Yep- most of the way, finally!

They'll still be that little missing chunk of Wulf's Cleft (*they should just make it a "Tarlang's Crown" style heavy mob area and remove the cartoony imposters and break open the barricades already; it's going to become the lone sore thumb of the Royal Road. They can keep their story intact with the warstead of the Dunlendings as an extremely dangerous place and have it very difficult to solo and otherwise have it be the Tarlang's Crown / Limlight Gorge / Lang Rhuven of the Dunland region. It would be so much better that way! ).

There will still be a gap along the Greenway? We need to start lobbying immediately for some sort of fix. The Greenway must be open from one end to the other!

[Jargonaut]

And yeah I'm really confused with the 1-30 level bracket, to the point I'm sort of hoping it was a misunderstanding or something. Sure, I'm perfectly willing to give it a chance if it ends up being true, but I just don't know how they'll go about it. You create a High Elf, for example, and just start there instead of the battle of the Last Alliance-Rivendell-Celondim thing? I'm confused. The only possibilities that make sense for me atm are these two regions being specifically tailored for a new River hobbit/Stoor/River-folk race* or for a new Ranger class (that would also be a race, like the Beorning). Of course, any other race would be free to just travel there, as with the other starting areas. Even if that were the case, 1-30 is a big gap and would require a huge amount of content, so... we'll see.

You are thinking of the old-style of questing. What have they invented in the last year or two? Missions! There will definitely be missions in the new content for these areas.

Auto-adjusting content will make leveling up quite a bit simpler. I'm beginning to wonder if they will add missions to some of the old starter areas.

[TesalionLortus]

You are thinking of the old-style of questing. What have they invented in the last year or two? Missions! There will definitely be missions in the new content for these areas.

I'm beginning to wonder if they will add missions to some of the old starter areas.

PLEASE NO. What the game urgently needs as it consolidates and opens up its open world is unlocked landscape content / autobestowal landscape stuff, so you actually wonder the world and can do some activities, even if you didn't progressed though all the quest chains.

Missions means being reduced to a closed-off instance/mini adventure, the very opposite of OPEN, grindy activity at worst, cool adventure you can run once or twice at best.

Auto-adjusting content will make leveling up quite a bit simpler.

Same thing, the delving system is all about instances, so doesn't "open up" the world more. Will give you exp if you wanna do lots of innis regularly on level/as challenge OR if you have the "grind exp!" mentality and that's your idea of "fun" so you gonna run it over and over again. Otherwise it doesn't offer anything to peeps busy playing their chars who want to enjoy landscape and immerse themselves in Middle-earth in old and new ways while gaining exp (that would be autobestowals I mentioned, could also be little boats to traverse rivers with associated activities that reward exp)

[Phantion]

There will still be a gap along the Greenway? We need to start lobbying immediately for some sort of fix. The Greenway must be open from one end to the other!

Yep! The Greenway becomes the Great South Road that passes down through Enedwaith and the Bonevales and out past Galtrev and down through Starkmoor. It is barricaded at the northern entrance to Wulf's Cleft, so you have to detour on the Dunlending foot-paths through Carreglyn and even lose that road and have to cross-country to get back to the eastern entrance of Wulf's Cleft to rejoin the road as it follows the Isen till it banks right through the Fords of Isen, with a northern spur heading to Isengard.

It becomes the Royal Road that passes Marton, Deeping Coomb, Edoras, Aldburg, and eventually crosses into the Beacon Hills . . . it becomes the main road through Taur Druadan, and there is some Variag territory with barricades but - unlike Wulf's Cleft - you can jump over those (*and seriously- we're able to sneak all over Enemy territory in Pelennor Fields and Osgiliath before the Battle, but we can't pass through a Dunlending warsteading in Dunland???) - and eventually it makes its way out into Old Anorien and weaves down to the North Gate and out in front of Minas Tirith. Technically, it's final spur leads through the Causeway Forts and up to the entrance to Minas Morgul, and while the bridge is broken, we can still cross the river via swimming, etc. The other spur of it then becomes the main road of Gondor that heads out to Pelargir and eventually to Dol Amroth, etc.

So yeah, it's a serious gap. It's like how we ALMOST have the full Great River Anduin EXCEPT the part that runs parallel to the Mouths of the Entwash and comes out near Taur Druadan; it's blocked by reeds that really need to go.

Shire can't be an entrance which leaves us with Breelands, except Andtrath would need to be closer to 15 (and Burrows part to 30), also can't really "lead to" Angle as a quest vector unless the Northern part of Swanfleet is like 40 - but it isn't because max 30. Vector to Trollshaws would be super off, like take this long detour through Lonelands to start questing on the Last Bridge and beyond (for reasons?). Rather than... like it's usually designed, with adjacent regions offering suitable lvl ranges in more organic manner.

There is one way, since "Shire" is on the map as the entrance near Sarn Ford.

I've been studying from higher land in the Shire what they are doing. They aren't developing the South Farthing from what I can see. But some mountains / taller hills rose up heading due south and west of the Marish- which strikes me as a "natural" border.

Here's my thought: In theory, they could have a South Farthing entrance that's closed / barricaded for now by, say, Lotho's henchmen --- and have just a narrow, winding road heading due south and west from the Marish causeway along the Brandywine to the Sarn Ford. It would avoid the South Farthing proper as of yet due to the taller hills they've built up, assuming SF isn't on their immediate docket yet. But it would at least extend some of the terrain south and east of the Marish along the river. But, who knows? You're probably right. Marish at least would make some sense as a lower-level way to get in there though, more so than the level 15 brigand-guarded Andrath, etc.

Cheers!

[auximenes]

It's fun to be able to match up the original screenshots I took of the Swanfleet with the actual map. It looks pretty much as I understood it as I was exploring. The village I called "Cliffsburg" would be Glyn Helyg, and the ravines I walked through were the Stoorvales. From the hills that form the boundary between the Gloomglens and the Swanfleet, I was able to look out over the central part of the Swanfleet; I could see most of Wadewater and as far north as the hills beneath the words "Western Eregion. My view of Caras Gelebren was blocked by a line of hills. I'm actually a little surprised we'll be able to climb up into the hills around Mossward, as I expected those hills to be unclimable.

Thanks again for your covert scouting missions and reports.

So the new areas pretty much cover the "Riverlands", "Swanfleet", and the northern portion of the "Greyflood plains" from the "Announced lands" map from the wiki https://lotro-wiki.com/images/0/01/A..._lands_map.jpg

Oh, I like that map. Thank for sharing.

[TesalionLortus]

There is one way, since "Shire" is on the map as the entrance near Sarn Ford.

I've been studying from higher land in the Shire what they are doing. They aren't developing the South Farthing from what I can see. But some mountains / taller hills rose up heading due south and west of the Marish- which strikes me as a "natural" border.

Here's my thought: In theory, they could have a South Farthing entrance that's closed / barricaded for now by, say, Lotho's henchmen --- and have just a narrow, winding road heading due south and west from the Marish causeway along the Brandywine to the Sarn Ford. It would avoid the South Farthing proper as of yet due to the taller hills they've built up, assuming SF isn't on their immediate docket yet.

No, the distance is obviously too big, so what would be the point and the amount of ridiculous natural borders you would need along the river next to said road? It'll be an impassable river, probably (strong current, or just invisible walls on the other shore).


Take a look, that's a decent chunk of terrain, I doubt that would be available and there is also the matter of the Old Forest which grew in size almost x2 - the second part won't be available yet, I guess, but may come with South Farthing

(sorry for bad quality, just a screenshot from my open project in PS, wanted to stich all of these together)





When it's all put together and the same scale I can actually get my head around it and I must say, the new regions look like they are at least the size of Yondershire, Shire and Breelands put together. Granted, there is a lot of water here but still. Also, though hard to compare, Caras Gelebren looks like it might actually be the size of Bree or even larger

[Phantion]

No, the distance is obviously too big, so what would be the point and the amount of ridiculous natural borders you would need along the river next to said road? It'll be an impassable river, probably (strong current, or just invisible walls on the other shore).


Take a look, that's a decent chunk of terrain, I doubt that would be available and there is also the matter of the Old Forest which grew in size almost x2 - the second part won't be available yet, I guess, but may come with South Farthing

(sorry for bad quality, just a screenshot from my open project in PS, wanted to stich all of these together)





When it's all put together and the same scale I can actually get my head around it and I must say, the new regions look like they are at least the size of Yondershire, Shire and Breelands put together. Granted, there is a lot of water here but still. Also, though hard to compare, Caras Gelebren looks like it might actually be the size of Bree or even larger

Whoops! You're right! Sorry - I underestimated how much the expansion of the Old Forest is- thank you for putting those maps together!

My eyes thought the Old Forest was the part that's inaccessible near the South Barrow-downs; I see now it's a far more expanded version, and that there's quite a bit more Brandywine between the Marish and Sarn Ford. I stand corrected there.

Agreed- the scale is very huge - it reminds me of Forochel (*including the actual ice bay).

Mentally, if I put Mirobel, Tham Mirdain, and Caras Gelebren together: I definitely see the ruins of "Ost-in-Edhil" on the scale of Minas Tirith, which is very appropriate for the last known city of the Noldor in the history of Middle-earth (*especially since Forlond / Harlond are smaller ports and Rivendell is more of a refuge).

The South Downs also look bigger than the Lone-Lands. Now if only they could extend those Lone-Lands northward without touching the Moors......... it's just a ton of fun to see these places expand a lot

I'm also very intrigued by the landscape between Sarn Ford and Tharbad......... in the Second Age, it was the site of Sauron's greatest defeat. He had the One Ring on his finger and his full armies, had conquered Eregion and had Gil-galad trapped in Lindon and Elrond in Rivendell and Galadriel / Celeborn forced to flee through Moria and Moria's gates shut..... until Numenor arrived with its great fleets up the Lune, Brandywine, and Gwaithlo rivers.......... and decimated Sauron's forces so bad he had to flee with his personal guard, the sole survivors.............. it'll be interesting to see how they refer to that past in those areas between quests, deeds, etc.

Cheers!

[Phantion]

Exciting to see the actual maps and have it all confirmed! I hadn't expected it so soon.

It's fun to be able to match up the original screenshots I took of the Swanfleet with the actual map. It looks pretty much as I understood it as I was exploring. The village I called "Cliffsburg" would be Glyn Helyg, and the ravines I walked through were the Stoorvales. From the hills that form the boundary between the Gloomglens and the Swanfleet, I was able to look out over the central part of the Swanfleet; I could see most of Wadewater and as far north as the hills beneath the words "Western Eregion. My view of Caras Gelebren was blocked by a line of hills. I'm actually a little surprised we'll be able to climb up into the hills around Mossward, as I expected those hills to be unclimable.

Looking at the map, the new zones look enormous. I've been trying to get little peeks at Cardolan from across its borders, but it strikes me how little of it I've seen. This is going to be an enormous chunk of landscape.

It looks like we are probably getting extensions of the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs, which will be nice. Caras Gelebren will be a nice expansion to Mirobel as well; Mirobel is one of my favorite places in the game, but I would definitely like to see it be a little bigger. It looks to me like Cardolan will stretch all the way up to the Bree-Land and Lone Lands, though it also looks like the northern half of Cardolan will be quite hilly, so it might not feel as open as we might like. Still, we're getting a massive bit of landscape consisting of two large new zones with no artificial boundaries separating them, which connect five preexisting zones (the Bree-Land, Lone Lands, Trollshaws, Eregion, and Enedwaith) and connect with two or three potential future areas (the Southfarthing and Minhirirath, and probably something to the south of the Swanfleet as well). I think these areas will punch way above their weight in terms of making Eriador feel bigger and more open and connected.

It's interesting that it's split into two zones. One zone wouldn't have surprised me; three zones wouldn't have surprised me; two zones kind of surprises me. Lore-wise, though, it kind of makes sense. Cardolan is a good name for everything west of the Greyflood/Gwathlo, but the area east of the river wasn't actually part of Cardolan, so it makes sense to call it something else.

While this area is supposed to be mostly abandoned, it looks like there are a few current settlements: Herne, Hove and Surlock Farms, and the hobbit villages of Glyn Helyg and Clegur. Sarn Ford was only recently abandoned by the rangers. Tornhad is only the borders of the new zones. And it's possible there might be another settlement or two--Mossward maybe, or possibly an elven refuge somewhere? Standing at a major crossroad, the settlement of Herne makes particular sense; goods from the Bree-Lands, the Shire, the Ered Luin, Gondor, Rohan, Dunland, and Minhiriath and relics from the Lone-Lands would pass through this location, so it's not surprising that there would be at least a small trading post here.

When we first heard that the quests in these new zones would be level 1-30, I'd imagined that we might start at Sarn Ford and move eastward. We progress generally from west to east through the rest of Eriador, and it might be dangerous to drop brand-new players too close to, say, Eregion and Enedwaith. I could also imagine an introductory instance based around the rangers who are chased out of Sarn Ford. Looking at the maps, though, I wonder if we'll actually be starting out in the Swanfleet and progressing westward through Cardolan. The Swanfleet is the smaller of the two zones, and there don't appear to be many points of interest there, so I could imagine the quests starting us there, moving us quickly through this zone, then progressing westward, culminating in the Barrow Downs and the Old Forest, by which point we could have learned about Angmar, the White Hand, and the brigands closing in on Bree and the Shire. The points of interest in the far west of Cardolan have some pretty gnarly names: "Sarch Vorn" means "dark grave," "Dol Ernil" means "prince hill," "Gaervarad" means "dreadful fortress," and "Tyrn Gorthad"--the Sindarin name for the Barrow Downs--means something like "wraith barrow." That sounds like the place we end up, not the place we start.

This new introductory area is supposed to be more race-agnostic than the other intro areas, so I think I imagine us beginning as travellers along the North-South road who run into trouble, perhaps in Tharbad. Boromir and/or the rangers rescue us, and we end up in some safe location. I could imagine an Archet-style introduction in the Stoorvales, Western Eregion, or even the Angle. Then we're released into the Swanfleet to start our adventures.

...or I could be completely wrong. I often am, lol.

Hehe

The settlements actually make sense lore-wise. It's mentioned by Butterbur I think that there are a lot of refugees fleeing "war to the south" - but the exact nature of that in an Eriador context really isn't fleshed out by Tolkien. What sort of war? Saruman? Or is fear of Mordor reaching Gondor and they're fleeing in that direction? It's not quite clear yet because Tolkien, in his writing, hadn't quite conceived of how far "south" his "south" would ultimately be RE- Eriador.

So it's a good place for the game to fill that gap with tales of their own.

I'm a little skeptical, though it's always possible, that it would start in Swanfleet level-range-wise only because of what it's adjacent to: a level 40-45 Angle, a level 48-50 Eregion, and a level 61-65 Enedwaith. It seems a bit......... tight........... for level 5-10 to start out near? Wheras the Tyrn Gorthad and Dor Ernil places seem natural extensions of the current Barrow-downs storylines. It'll be interesting to see how they pull it all off!

Cheers!

[TesalionLortus]

I'm also very intrigued by the landscape between Sarn Ford and Tharbad......... in the Second Age, it was the site of Sauron's greatest defeat. He had the One Ring on his finger and his full armies, had conquered Eregion and had Gil-galad trapped in Lindon and Elrond in Rivendell and Galadriel / Celeborn forced to flee through Moria and Moria's gates shut..... until Numenor arrived with its great fleets up the Lune, Brandywine, and Gwaithlo rivers.......... and decimated Sauron's forces so bad he had to flee with his personal guard, the sole survivors.............. it'll be interesting to see how they refer to that past in those areas between quests, deeds, etc.

I wonder how would they even tackle it with quests though, considered it's like lvl 1 at first so a player shuld be considered a newbie in-universe... in theory, they can always use NPC who "does the thing" in their dialogue but still, if a 1-10 player character is suddenly taken on a grand archeological trip and hears them talk about such things (ugh ugh, Sauron's Celembrimbor "banner") that's kinda tough. Also, the Angle seemed like a nice intro for such a trip regarding old eleven heritage but that would be higher level than this new region so doesn't fit together at all.

The settlements actually make sense lore-wise. It's mentioned by Butterbur I think that there are a lot of refugees fleeing "war to the south" - but the exact nature of that in an Eriador context really isn't fleshed out by Tolkien. What sort of war? Saruman? Or is fear of Mordor reaching Gondor and they're fleeing in that direction? It's not quite clear yet because Tolkien, in his writing, hadn't quite conceived of how far "south" his "south" would ultimately be RE- Eriador.

So it's a good place for the game to fill that gap with tales of their own.

Would be nice, at least in some ways, though the more I look at the map and how they'll do at least one more hobbit settlement and how it has places actually called farms... I'm starting to think it won't tackle Saruman's half-orcs and brigands "origin point" at all (aka the dangerous, wild "Stolen Lands" we talked about). More like it will be an intermediary area - more empty and a bit more wild but still semblance of Eriador civilization, kinda like Lonelands/Trollshaws/Angle. We've heard those brigands at the blockade in Enedwaith from Bingo storyline be described as regular farmers who turned to brigandry but never held a sword - so that kind of crowd, with their little farms at far end of civilization but not bloodthirsty experienced robbers like the Saruman kind. The Saruman kind must have infiltrated from beyond Tarbath/maybe Miniriath? (or they are like all bred in Isengard but that would have been... kinda strange? like ALL of them?) They barricaded at Andrath and Enedwaith Gate because they're natural choke points but I guess that's all for their story here, not much backstory, Saruman's involvement etc.

I'm a little skeptical, though it's always possible, that it would start in Swanfleet level-range-wise only because of what it's adjacent to: a level 40-45 Angle, a level 48-50 Eregion, and a level 61-65 Enedwaith. It seems a bit......... tight........... for level 5-10 to start out near? Wheras the Tyrn Gorthad and Dor Ernil places seem natural extensions of the current Barrow-downs storylines. It'll be interesting to see how they pull it all off!

I may dream too much but it would make the most sense if these zones turned out to be an early implementation of the landscape lvl scaling feature that they mentioned somewhere sometime back and that they would like to experiment with it. You can have a few sweet NPC spots for some flavor but otherwise lots of landscape autobestowed as well (seeing how there aren't many settlements here) and all of that landscape content could scale to your level, so kind of a sweet spot for free-roam leveling up accessible from almost ANY direction in Eriador (so then it might as well become an alternative to Moria if someone chooses so, they just enter from Eregion from the East and stuff scales to their level). So stories aren't really tied too strongly to any adjacent regions (or any particular point in time because they might as well happen at ANY point between the Breeland storyline and our venture into Rohan at war), so maybe only gentle nods, also no need for all the vectors because you would need an insane amount of them I guess. Anyway, maybe I dream, but until we hear more about it and considering 1-30 lvl range IS such a strange choice... let's just allow a slight possibility 1-30 is like a testing framework/base range but they might put a scaling system on top of it eventually. Because where else? Cardolan and Swanfleet look like they're PERFECT spots for something like that... so makes me wonder

[seekingerin]

No, the distance is obviously too big, so what would be the point and the amount of ridiculous natural borders you would need along the river next to said road? It'll be an impassable river, probably (strong current, or just invisible walls on the other shore).


Take a look, that's a decent chunk of terrain, I doubt that would be available and there is also the matter of the Old Forest which grew in size almost x2 - the second part won't be available yet, I guess, but may come with South Farthing

(sorry for bad quality, just a screenshot from my open project in PS, wanted to stich all of these together)





When it's all put together and the same scale I can actually get my head around it and I must say, the new regions look like they are at least the size of Yondershire, Shire and Breelands put together. Granted, there is a lot of water here but still. Also, though hard to compare, Caras Gelebren looks like it might actually be the size of Bree or even larger

This image, and another I spotted on Reddit that shows Cardolan and the Swanfleet along with their surrounding zones, really help me understand how huge these areas are. I think this is probably the single largest chunk of landscape added to the game since launch. If not THE largest, it must be close. It looks to be about four times the size of Yondershire, which really feels like an enormous area already.

Last night, out of curiosity, I rode from the crossroads just west of Bree's west gate to the Ford of Bruinen, and from the northern end of Eregion to Fordirith in Enedwaith; those distances roughly match up with the distance from the west side of Cardolan to the east side of the Swanfleet and the average distance from the north end to the south end of the new areas. The Bree-to-Bruinen ride took me about 11 minutes riding at 15 m/s on my light warsteed; the Eregion-to-Enedwaith ride took me about 5 minutes. So, in a sense, we can think of Cardolan and the Swanfleet as being approximately 55 "square minutes" in area.

I also rode across East Rohan, which was touted at the time as the largest landscape addition to LOTRO since launch, on the same horse at the same speed. It took me about 8 minutes to ride from the southern end of East Rohan to the northern end and 4 minutes to ride from the Anduin to the Entwash. That makes East Rohan about 32 square minutes in area, or only about 60% of the area of Cardolan and the Swanfleet. The only other landscape additions that might be comparable in size are West Rohan and Mordor.

Another way to think about the size of these areas: you could easily fit the entire Yondershire within the South Downs, or probably in the area around Ruddymore and Herne. You could probably fit almost two Yondershires in the Swanfleet, which is the smaller of the two areas. The Wadewater alone appears to be about half the size of the Lone-Lands. And yes, the area labelled Caras Gelebren appears to be bigger than Bree. These areas are absolutely ENORMOUS.

I don't see any reason this landscape wouldn't be large enough to allow players to level from 1 to 30. Levels go by fast in the early game. A player could reach level 30 just from questing in the Bree-Land and Lone Lands, and these areas are MUCH bigger than that.

As surprised as I was to hear this would be a level 1-30 area, it shouldn't be SO surprising. In at least one of his Casual Stroll videos, Scenario expressed the desire for LOTRO to have an alternate levelling path all the way from beginning to endgame, and in another video, when asked what his dream project in LOTRO was after Yondershire, he said he was currently working on it. It looks like this may be the first step toward creating that alternate levelling path. The natural pause after wrapping up the Gundabad storyline, the recent work on adding more low-level areas and "filling in the gaps," the Amazon series, and the Casual Stroll videos have probably all contributed to shifting SSG's attention in that direction. This, moreover, allows SSG to create a starting zone that looks as good as the higher-level areas and with more modern approaches to questing and storytelling, which could be good for getting new players interested in the game. And fresh low-level content could appeal to new or returning players who find the journey to 140 daunting.

This is, incidentally, another reason why I wonder if the quests in the new areas will flow from east to west. The parallel levelling path, if that is indeed the intention, could then take players to the Southfarthing or Minhiriath, and then they could continue through the rest of southern Eriador and the western reaches of Gondor.

My worry, of course, is that development time spent on an alternate levelling path would take away from development time spent on the endgame, much like the focus on lower-level areas has left the endgame in stasis this year. Time will tell, I suppose, if they can figure out how to balance that. I gather they've had an influx of money and that the team has grown a bit larger, and I know Scenario has been exploring faster ways to build landscape; that would help.

As has come up, there is the awkward question of the epic story, too, both with Cardolan and the Swanfleet and an alternate levelling path overall. There are three ways it could go, I suppose. There could be a parallel epic that takes us through the alternate levelling path and tells an entirely different story. There could be alternate books that introduce the same story threads and characters but get us there by alternate means, in the same way that Archet/Thorin's Gate and the racial prologues get us to Bree with the sense that there are dangerous forces at work in Eriador but get us there through different stories. Or it could just be our responsibility to seek out the epic quest regardless of where we're questing, in the same sense that it's our responsibility to take the time to do the second half of volume 1 even though we quickly outlevel those quests and their associated rewards without the help of a Stone of the Tortoise. Ideally, we should be able to move between the different levelling paths at will so that we could, say, follow the original path through Eregion, then quest in Western Enedwaith from the alternate path instead of Moria/Lothlorien/Southern Mirkwood, then jump back to the original path with OG Enedwaith without the storyline becoming incoherent.

[TesalionLortus]

As surprised as I was to hear this would be a level 1-30 area, it shouldn't be SO surprising. In at least one of his Casual Stroll videos, Scenario expressed the desire for LOTRO to have an alternate levelling path all the way from beginning to endgame, and in another video, when asked what his dream project in LOTRO was after Yondershire, he said he was currently working on it. It looks like this may be the first step toward creating that alternate levelling path. The natural pause after wrapping up the Gundabad storyline, the recent work on adding more low-level areas and "filling in the gaps," the Amazon series, and the Casual Stroll videos have probably all contributed to shifting SSG's attention in that direction.

I wish Scenario took a look at my Additional Quests For Free-Roaming suggestion and at least considered this alternative possibility - if what you're saying is true. Because I feel like what he is trying to achieve is a great amount of work and NOT very effective, all things considered (I'll say why I think so in a moment). Btw thanks for posting this, because I didn't realize Scenario said that!

This, moreover, allows SSG to create a starting zone that looks as good as the higher-level areas and with more modern approaches to questing and storytelling, which could be good for getting new players interested in the game. And fresh low-level content could appeal to new or returning players who find the journey to 140 daunting.

People said that about the Angle and Yondershire but... is it really? If you improve game graphics and shaders all across the board, for example, all regions would benefit, regardless of their date of creation (so maybe that's eventually on the horizon, at one point in the future, who knows, but it is possible). But otherwise, while 2020ish areas might have a few extra tricks up their sleeve... they don't look more mighty impressive unless you try to make them look better by piling all these extra effects on top of them (mists, for example). Bah, I've been recently to Barrow-downs and the mist effect in that place is really good and very climatic, so these things are good as they are already (unless it's already an overhauled, more modern mist?). Anyway, what I'm saying is new areas may certainly look a bit better in some aspects or scale but that's not a tremendous amount of visibly better to make a difference and impression on a new player who is going to judge the game's visual appeal all across the board, they won't even notice slight differences between areas here and there. And old areas, after some of the overhaul work done, such as new vegetation and stuff... look pretty good and almost no major immediately noticeable difference between them and new ones. So this "benefit" is outright non-existent or doubtful at best. Sure, the old settlements are not Minas Tirith scale of big, so what? It's not like you would expect that of Eriador and Breelands in starter areas of Middle-earth, and even if Eregion's capital is bigger in scale they're still just ruins - you can't really recreate the might of Minas Tirith, Edoras or Minas Morgul in Eriador for starter areas nor should you.

Same goes for questing and storytelling - what's so different about it between old zones and new ones in Eriador? Classic SSG, they know how to write their kind of Tolkien. Quest design? Go from quest hub to quest hub or vector NPC to vector NPC, do a bunch of quests in order, usually involves a regional, lengthy storyline (where their storytelling shines through ideally!), so out-of-order possibility is either NOT recommended and confusing/might be even locked out to avoid story confusion. Landscape autobestowals? Sure, not well utilized in older zones yet they're present because they did some quest overhauls in the past and added some autobestowals, so it's present and accounted for as far as "experience of more modern quest design" goes - yes sporadically at best but that's the same as some modern regions, in Gundabad for example. So... different quest design argument doesn't work either. Unless of course they approached quest design completely differently in this new zone but we shall see, for now I assume they didn't.


New or returning players who find the journey to 140 daunting, you say? The old ones I get, they're just tired of same, same, that's obvious, so they will welcome anything new and alternative. But new ones? There would be no difference between old pathway and new pathway if the quest design is roughly the same. So not buying that it is helping new players deal with the "daunting journey".

This is, incidentally, another reason why I wonder if the quests in the new areas will flow from east to west. The parallel levelling path, if that is indeed the intention, could then take players to the Southfarthing or Minhiriath, and then they could continue through the rest of southern Eriador and the western reaches of Gondor.

Which again begs the question what would be the point because as I said - if there is no difference between one and the other, in terms of significant shift in quest design and storytelling, what's the point? Just for the sake of merely having a "parallel leveling path" so old timers like devs and veteran players can feel good about it? So you gotta choose between 1-50 path A and 1-50 path B, both of them mostly linear progression as usual? And that's so "wow" ? If the intention is to appeal to new players to make the journey "less daunting" you gotta make the journey actually less daunting, not add a single alternative to the usual sort of daunting and make a player choose between the two similarly daunting experiences. Old players may be just bored of the same old, so it's not surprising they may like the idea, but let's discuss those new players here shall we - they don't even know the game and its old content yet so their "daunting" isn't due to exhaustion, it would usually involve one of the two: 1) they are tired of SSG's storylines and don't care about them from the start, they just want to level up and do low attention span activities and "exciting" content (might be very hard to satisfy them fully, though satisfying the cravings of group 2 might actually appeal to this group as well in some ways!) 2) they are fine with cool lore and linear storyline but they would like a free-roaming experience in the world of Middle-earth before they fully commit themselves to these storylines in perfectly linear fashion - or some possibilities for free-roaming with exp gains simultaneously but they're also engaged in lengthier, main storylines, which is the kind of experience that most modern games of this type provide, so kind of what you would expect. You want to fix that and actually change something for new players? Well then, gotta have more free-roaming that provides exp points, across both new and old zones, which means less linear stories, more scattered quests in some ways, a lot of autobestowals added where they are missing, make use of empty areas or those with quests locked behind storylines (that a player might miss if they ignored storylines and hubs, or entered area from wrong direction etc) and add optional autobestowed activities to these places. Perfect solution, IMO, and you don't even need new areas for that, there are lots of spaces in older zones that might benefit from this approach.

My worry, of course, is that development time spent on an alternate levelling path would take away from development time spent on the endgame, much like the focus on lower-level areas has left the endgame in stasis this year. Time will tell, I suppose, if they can figure out how to balance that. I gather they've had an influx of money and that the team has grown a bit larger, and I know Scenario has been exploring faster ways to build landscape; that would help.

Except if the great aspiration is to release so much content that they are able to cover 1-140 and forge this "alternate" pathway... this is still a lot of work and the payoff/advantage minimal if not non-existent as discussed above, the SSG team and additional crew better spent on releasing more content/better content that's engaging to cap players and continuing their already started story threats. Also, with minimal effort (if compared to creation of whole zones worth of 1-140 content!!!) it is possible to create Additional Quests Packages and provide so much exp juice it's enough for everyone, with A LOT more alternatives/increase in replayability than this alternate pathway Scenario mentioned could ever provide - so lower lvl areas don't need to be created except maybe only sometimes for flavor here and there, where suitable, like they did with Angle, Yondershire, Wildwood.

As has come up, there is the awkward question of the epic story, too, both with Cardolan and the Swanfleet and an alternate levelling path overall. There are three ways it could go, I suppose. There could be a parallel epic that takes us through the alternate levelling path and tells an entirely different story.

So they might as well do away with this game and create a new one on the same engine, called LOTRO 2, and then have the two games running at the same time except LOTRO 1 shares its resources with LOTRO 2. The amount of content and attention to detail required in zones themselves, not to mention new epic chain, would be INSANE. So what's the point when you can do Additional Quests for Free-roaming that solve the same problem and elevate the game to more modern standard? I really do not see the point nor benefit.

There could be alternate books that introduce the same story threads and characters but get us there by alternate means, in the same way that Archet/Thorin's Gate and the racial prologues get us to Bree with the sense that there are dangerous forces at work in Eriador but get us there through different stories. Or it could just be our responsibility to seek out the epic quest regardless of where we're questing, in the same sense that it's our responsibility to take the time to do the second half of volume 1 even though we quickly outlevel those quests and their associated rewards without the help of a Stone of the Tortoise. Ideally, we should be able to move between the different levelling paths at will so that we could, say, follow the original path through Eregion, then quest in Western Enedwaith from the alternate path instead of Moria/Lothlorien/Southern Mirkwood, then jump back to the original path with OG Enedwaith without the storyline becoming incoherent.

Except it would always become more incoherent, no matter how hard you tried, in either of these scenarios. Also, even if they tried to introduce a different quest design philosophy on the alternate 1-140 pathway... you would end up with such vast differences between how the classic zones and "parrarel" zones are designed that it screams we're doing LOTRO 2.0 screw you and yes, would probably undermine some of their storytelling quality, and we don't want that. So what's the point when you can do Additional Quests for Free-roaming that solve the same problem, introduce new ways to progress though landscape but don't compromise your own amazing storytelling that requires said linerality? Because a different free-roaming quest philosophy wouldn't touch the stories of new zones, it would exist as additional content available for all zones - a parrarel content that opens up these playstyle possibilities and alternative leveling pathways across Middle-earth (that you can keep adding to the game without a whole new zone attached) but your main content/zones is business as usual. Again, perfect solution, so devs should consider.

Swanfleet and Cardolan are cool, I don't mind them, no matter how they're designed (though their very existence and how connected Eriador will become makes you wish for player-shaped free-roaming possibilities even more!). So I don't mind them but if I hear they're doing a next one for 30-50 or something and they're really proceeding with that crazy plan you referred to, totally oblivious to everything I said here, I will bash my head against the wall because that's not "exciting" parallel experience at all compared to what they could do at lower cost


To illustrate my point further and how this new zone makes it even more valid, as you noted it is a big zone and one of the largest addition to the game up to date... so let's take a look at the map - which when it is stitched together like this perfectly illustrates the enormous potential of the world as open world experience vs the utterly hermetic zone-to-zone one - and ask yourself this question... as amazing as it looks, even if just for the geeky "museum" value of it, how attractive/useful the zone such as Sweenfleet/Cardolan really appears (especially for new player!) if I can't take a somehow productive stroll though interconnected Eriador? Say, I've completed some Midgewater March quests and then I feel like moving Eastward so I find myself in Lonelands and from excitement rush towards Weathertop which is such an iconic location (which won't offer me any quests and exp points... without dealing with storyline and the hidden Candaith's Encampment), then I wonder the wilderness maybe curious to find some activities but nothing, eventually make my way through the Dourhand infested fortress (and again nothing without dealing with the hub first, so just killing mobs that reward poor exp ), let's say there is connection there now so I emerge in South Downs and once again I find no activities... because maybe that's the wrong direction to enter (with vectors and NPCs gathered near Andrath or something) and hardly any obvious spots to pick up activities. So not very appealing. The "hermetic quest design with vectors from one direction to the other AND NOTHING ELSE" worked well enough in the past because there were still only so much quests so needed them all anyway, plus you progressed in one direction between zones most of the time...but it quickly falls apart and it appears as annoying and unfunctional (or extremely frustrating at best if you can't meaningfully wonder Middle-earth AND progress in some ways) when it appears there is an actual opened up world that surrounds you from all directions (and unlike one of ESO where it's fake because transition screens and surrounding mountain blockades everywhere so makes it organically more hermetic... whereas LOTRO has almost none and does away with the old blockades and invisible walls)

[miriadel]

let's hope it's not going to be another "mini expension" gimmick

lol called it! Going by the dev con infos, the 2 regions will be the next mini expansion

[TesalionLortus]

lol called it! Going by the dev con infos, the 2 regions will be the next mini expansion

Yeah, official news article says levels 1-32 and 4 new "Books for new characters", so it's indeed the introduction of "parallel leveling pathway" full-on with its own vectors and epic books! LOL. If that's a one time thing, OK, but if they're already planning more - literally what I said above, stop this madness because it doesn't solve the problem you're (probably) trying to solve and more alternate epic books hardly makes sense anyway, Shadow of Angmar is as good as it gets besides they can tell low level stories in new regions (on occasion) without epic books for them

What are they even going to be called now? Epic Book Volume 1B??? Or same name only it locks you out of the legacy book? I mean, I don't even need to say how utterly needless and confusing it sounds. They could just open up the world more by having more quests (or different landscape activities that actually reward exp) throughout existing and future zones - and then all would be fine, a player will choose their own way towards cap if they aren't interested/don't want to do the old SoA content (or any other content they happen to dislike for that matter). Very efficient, can be done step by step in smaller content packages/frequent updates and doesn't really slow down cap content as much because you don't actually require a whole new lower lvl expansion-sized landscape to proceed with it. So seriously, @Scenario MoL Sev and everyone, read the Quest Pack: Additional Quests (For Free-roaming Adventure Across Middle-earth!) under suggestions and keep track of, I'll post a whole proof of concept soon given some free time to put it together into a readable format, full with quest texts and examples I came up with when running in Ered Luin

[OldMadeOfLions]

So seriously, @Scenario MoL Sev and everyone, read the Quest Pack: Additional Quests (For Free-roaming Adventure Across Middle-earth!) under suggestions and keep track of...

If I tell you I saw it will you stop spamming it everywhere?

MoL