The abandonment of Thuringwath: an unfinished quest line?

[TesalionLortus]

Yes, you could technically handwave and say they got locked into a battle of wills...

Yes, you could say that and that's 100% true - unless they mess up and contradict themselves, but so far so good. Newsflash: ever since Thuringwath Gandalf hasn't appeared in any other storyline, so all is consistent.

but its clear as day that the questline is unfinished, considering the fort full of gaunt men further up the road (that you would only need to explore for pages/chests) and the nightmare factory that is the Houses of Lamentation. Hopefully they can finally flesh this out one day, seeing as it's technically the finale of the Morgul landscape quests (reclaiming Minas Morgul aside), it really needs to be tied up a lot more neatly. Here's hoping!

People keep saying that but I think they just *don't get it.* Someone from SSG already said it was intentional because it's not like everything needs to be tied to dense questing and this mysterious area was supposed to be a bit of an exploration territory. So unless they lied, which I doubt, I'm going to believe that - because it fits the area and the premise. At this point, Gandalf trusts you enough to trust you'll be fine where some of the rangers had failed (rather than hold your hand) and the player is supposed to be a skilled adventurer they are and explore on their own. Also, you do get a couple of autobestowed quests, pages/lore, the weird gaunt-lord fortress area in the middle that ties into the Reclamation storyline and the Houses of Lamentation have an entire instance going on for them. So how is that NOT content? All of these spaces are used somehow. Plus, not being handheld and suddenly left alone to explore on your own in this dangerous dark territory, with Gandalf preoccupied with unknown mysteries, while listening to the horrors of Mordirith's origins story from the pages, and then bumping into the instance entrance... it was very climatic and neat narrative decision. Loved it.

What I think the game could use more of is more of this approach sometimes, actually. With exploratory "in the wild" activities or areas where the player isn't handheld through them but has the initiative (though, in such case, they may very well house more regular quests than Thuringwath had - all depends on narrative). This is also the kind of gameplay that goes in line with our player being such a seasoned adventurer now, it gets stupid pretty quickly when you've been through countless wars and servants of the enemy, are considered a veteran of War of the Ring, but most of the time - narratively - player rarely gets initiative and free rains (so rarely gets to be a seasoned detective of sorts), instead you're just running between spaces because someone else said so and someone else is playing detective using you as their muscles. Like, why not have more parts of the game be a bit more like Fangorn, for example? It was one of these rare occasions in the game where you could really feel the independence of the player character as breathing being with their own actions, feelings and decisions. When we're alone and try to make a visible effort to communicate with something or figure something out on our own (the asleep huorn, for example) rather than outright being told what to do by someone else. Or unexpected encounter NPC, something that's a bit different and more confrontational than your usual cry for help from someone, like that encounter with "the old man." Sure, the result is the same, kill x something, go here and there, but narrative is a bit different and frames the situation differently and that's a breathe of fresh air that's sadly extremely rare in the game.

So pardon me that it bothers me the wrong way when I hear that Thuringwath was "unfinished" It was pretty neat alight, you people are just soooo accustomed to be handheld through everything with a literal 21st century GPS attached and NPCs orchestrating your movements like PC is just their puppet :P

[Jargonaut]

I suspect they will continue this when we return to Mordor for Nurn. It seems likely they would place the vectors there rather than go the long way around to get us to Nurn. Then again, maybe this was supposed to be the lead-in for a raid and they will didn't get to it. In which case, maybe they can repurpose the loose end.