So the up coming new class is Corsair?

[auximenes]

Do any Rangers use cutlasses?

[Ryvick]

Only the secret Ranger with a peg leg and eye-patch.

Edited: Huh, I just remembered that we DO have a "Talk like a pirate" day event and it is something about a Mariner isn't it? And isn't it later in the year?

[SophieTheEnchantress]

Given that Tolkien was plainly likening his Corsairs to the cruel and ruthless slave-taking variety and the real and grim history of that it's absolutely on topic. You can play devil's advocate all you like, but if the devs go with Corsair it'll be a truly terrible choice because of that.

My jests often miss the mark which brings me a hearty measure of sorrow. Though I am far from the virtuous person I long to be, I am never, ever, under any circumstances, an advocate for the Devil.

I will trouble you no further.

[Elebraen]

Do any Rangers use cutlasses?

Anyone who can wield a sword can equip the 'Dull Cutlass'. That landscape drop has never had a class limitation. That's a very weak support for the idea of there being a new Corsair or Mariner class.

Rangers can't wear heavy armor because that would naturally conflict with their nature loving ways and covert abilities. I don't believe they use two-handed swords either, so they would have one handed sword limitations and no shields but can use bows, but Aragorn is a dual wielding swordsman in the Human Prologue that dual wielding for rangers is still a possibility. The argument could be made that we already have hunters for that, but hunters don't do any spellcasting. Even Beornings can call in the bees and do some healing spells, but I would call them a shapeshifter class, not a ranger class.

[Radhruin_EU]

hair splitting, we are talking about a class that borders on mariner, corsair, swashbuclkler. The name is not really relevant, the Devs will make the story work regardless.

Also, lets not forget - the Numenorians were themselves, slavers, at different periods of their history.

The name is relevant because like the others it'll be directly referred to in dialogue in-game and hence will be 'real' internally to the game's story. And 'swashbuckler' doesn't work internally like that, not for a nautical sort of cove like this seems to be (if using a cutlass goes with it) because in that sense it's ironically a case of "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" - it's only got any sort of nautical associations by proxy from adventure novels and movies etc. where a swashbuckling type also happens to be a ship-captain and/or pirate.

As for the Numenoreans, so what? It happened when they became corrupted, and that same streak of cruelty continued through to latterday Umbar because there were still some people of Black Numenorean ancestry to be found there, i.e. people descended from the King's Men of old. Nobody's blaming the Haradrim for it exclusively but yeah, they're a slaving culture and that's seen as an evil - fostered of course by Sauron as the then exemplar of evil personified. He sets the tone when it comes to cruelty and the brutal use of power to dominate and enslave.

You really think these Corsairs are one big society, and not a lose affiliation of warring clans?

I don't think the Corsairs themselves are a society, they're just part of Haradrim society - like the real Barbary Corsairs were part of society in North Africa back in the day. And yes, they'd likely be a rabble who'd squabble among themselves but the unifying thread is what they do for a living.

[Radhruin_EU]

Anyone who can wield a sword can equip the 'Dull Cutlass'. That landscape drop has never had a class limitation. That's a very weak support for the idea of there being a new Corsair or Mariner class.

Err... it's more than that, now a cutlass is supposedly "a swashbuckler's weapon" - but what sort of swashbuckler would think of a cutlass as being their sort of weapon in particular? The inference is obvious. The whole deal with a cutlass is that it's straightforward to use and doesn't require finesse, it's a handy size for boarding actions, and heavy enough to hack through ropes and the like and that's why it's an archetypal weapon for sailors in particular.

Rangers can't wear heavy armor because that would naturally conflict with their nature loving ways and covert abilities.

This isn't D&D and so Rangers don't have especially "nature loving ways"; no tree-hugging here. And it wouldn't be at all straightforward to make Rangers a class even if that were otherwise a good idea (which it really isn't!) because of the key role they play in the game's story and the player-characters' consistent relationship with them: it's obvious the PCs aren't Rangers.

[Arabani]

While I agree with some points on both sides, imo, people waste too much breath arguing about matters that are completely out of their control. If SSG desides to make a pirate, they will do it and they will find the reason and justifications for it. As they did with hobbit champion and lore master. Thank you for it, btw! Hobbit captain and rune keeper next please.

[Radhruin_EU]

While I agree with some points on both sides, imo, people waste too much breath arguing about matters that are completely out of their control. If SSG desides to make a pirate, they will do it and they will find the reason and justifications for it. As they did with hobbit champion and lore master. Thank you for it, btw! Hobbit captain and rune keeper next please.

What next, are you going to start solemnly intoning "The Devs are Always Right!" and expecting us to chorus along? We don't all revel in nonsense, thank you very much

[Flaxie]

What next, are you going to start solemnly intoning "The Devs are Always Right!" and expecting us to chorus along? We don't all revel in nonsense, thank you very much

They do have one point. The devs are going to do whatever the devs are going to do.
After that, it's up to each of us to either play the character or not as we choose. What
someone else chooses has no affect on our own gameplay.

[Starbuck1771]

But some people here said that Corsairs were bad people that don't get along with the free people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV6Soflcabw

Well a Corsair is just a pirate.

[Elebraen]

Err... it's more than that, now a cutlass is supposedly "a swashbuckler's weapon" - but what sort of swashbuckler would think of a cutlass as being their sort of weapon in particular? The inference is obvious. The whole deal with a cutlass is that it's straightforward to use and doesn't require finesse, it's a handy size for boarding actions, and heavy enough to hack through ropes and the like and that's why it's an archetypal weapon for sailors in particular.


This isn't D&D and so Rangers don't have especially "nature loving ways"; no tree-hugging here. And it wouldn't be at all straightforward to make Rangers a class even if that were otherwise a good idea (which it really isn't!) because of the key role they play in the game's story and the player-characters' consistent relationship with them: it's obvious the PCs aren't Rangers.

That 'Dull Cutlass' weapon has been around for a very long time. It's a prologue weapon, and I remember scratching my own head about it because there were no swashbucklers in the game, long before the coast of Gondor was ever developed. With 1-2 dps, that cutlass isn't cutting through anything. It's a prologue placeholder for the much better 3-7 dps weapons that you get out of the backpack. And I don't recall that better backpack sword being a swashbuckler weapon. It just added to my general LOTRO confusion at the time.

Candaith sits at a campfire, and so does that camping ranger in Bree, and the one in Forochel, oh yeah, the one in the Shire. I don't have to reach far to look for nature loving named NPC rangers in this game. I could Wiki the list for you, but it's not worth the effort. I rarely see rangers in walled settings. Angmar, as I recall, has a ranger in a stone fort, and also one in a tent. The key role they play in the game's story is exactly why they would make a good class. Did we deny captains a class because Boromir and Haldir play a key role as captains in the story? Boromir and Haldir are exactly why captains are a PC class that we can play.

But even if there was a swashbuckler class, what would make it special that people would want to develop it as a character? It can swim all the way to Umbar? Balance on a moving ship that we don't have yet and are not expected to ever get? Cosmetically equip a curved sword in its mouth? It's such a giant stretch of imagination because none of this is developed as a foundation yet. No current landscape biome or backstory supports a swashbuckler. That would all have to be developed from scratch and somehow inserted into a fully developed story and landscape world that could fit sensibly into the current epic line if the PC wanted to go through Moria instead of go to Umbar. As much as I love the romantic idea of swinging off of ropes with a Dull Cutlass in my mouth, I rarely see any ropes in this game to swing off of.

And your own speculative idea for a new class is... and your basis for your speculative belief is...

[TesalionLortus]

Err... yes they did, if you looked at the extras as well. The real point there is the lack of rhyme or reason in a setting if you do that to it - no real sense of place or culture, and accents all over the place (even for people supposedly from the same place). And in The Witcher's setting, it isn't meant to be random (so there is supposed to be a particular sense of place and culture to it) but the places where other peoples had entered the world were far apart and separated by natural barriers so other peoples were far off and scarce known. To top that, even if the portals had been random then after the long time the population had been there, the population would have tended to homogenise, the accents would blur and it wouldn't be diverse like that any more. Either way what they've done with it is dumb. You can make excuses for that if you like.

Well, I didn't exactly take a good extra look at every single extra, but still. The only very noticeable, as in overhelmingly colorful gathering of people who stayed there for some time on screen, were in Aretuza and amongst the scattered elves, which made it somewhat logically understandable. Wasn't the same like the newest series which was just moronic insanity, like these Brooklyn dryads and worse. If that was me in charge and took care of every detail, I would have done it much better even for S1-2 of course, but it wasn't that terrible overall and not in your face, so didn't exactly ruin the overall immersion as much. These are not excuses, they're just outright facts and visible difference between one approach and the other.

Err... the Stout-axes don't have anything like as far to go as Haradrim would.

There is an extra distance but not as much as to render it utterly out of a question if compared with Stout-axe. Not to mention... Stout-axe needed to escape Mordor first... which in itself would take significant amount of time and sneaking around, not to mention massive danger

It's incredibly unlikely that some random Haradrim could make it all the way from wherever in Harad and then gravitate there of all places like he's a damn homing pigeon. Why there, when it's already unlikely that people from elsewhere in the West would be there themselves? It's silly, it doesn't have to be impossible to be so - just so unlikely as to be contrived and bad from a storytelling perspective.

By this definition, Stout-axe escaping captivity of Mordor and living to tell about it is just as unlikely and contrived. Well, it was acceptable for me for a race/class, and I don't have double standards, so the same would apply to potential classes/races of the East/South. No, they wouldn't be random, they would have their story, purpose and would take a risk. No, they wouldn't be on pigeon autopilot, they would try and eventually find the land they're looking for. If that's set way before the war, they would have a wiggle room for that journey. But I already said all that.

It's made clear that there are no friendly relations between the peoples within Sauron's dominion and the West because he'd put considerable effort into making it that way. There wouldn't be neutral borderlands, the peoples living near the borders would be more tightly controlled with a no-man's-land (like South Gondor) in between them and lands still held by the West. Travel between the two would be dangerous. And if you think the people in Gondor wouldn't notice strangers or have some sort of means of keeping an eye out for people who might be spies you're having a laugh: they have Sauron for a neighbour, they would *have* to be careful. And some random guy from Harad wouldn't even speak Westron and would look distinctive, so how is he supposed to not stand out?

It's not normal circumstances! What on earth makes you think it is? Anyone like that would stick out like a sore thumb and attract attention, guaranteed. And what's this dude of yours supposed to say his business is, if someone in authority asks?

You keep repeating that and acting like Gondorians have some means to enact 21st century safety measures and border surveillance but not even Sauron can do that (well, he kinda can because he has all these mountains in Mordor, but he can't do that in the vassal territories of men). No friendly relations doesn't mean movement is totally impossible nor that they can notice every stranger on their surveillance camera and come to ask for their passport. Nobody would care about "tightly controlling" or "surveilling" villages or even towns. They would only care about having their garrisons there and a semblance of order. Town folk aren't enemies as long as the garrison is decent, it's the marching army that is. It's the marching army that needs intel (of the moment) to predict any traps or enemy movements or convenient passes, usually in real time, and to know the numbers of the enemy to make strategic decisions during warfare. Not spy saboteurs sneaking around every Gondorian village and town to make a decent list of their infrastructure like roads and train stations 2 years in advance... It's not that age. The utter complete isolation you're suggesting, with borders nobody can cross or towns nobody can enter under any circumstances, is just plain unnatural, friendly or unfriendly states

Westron? You mean like the Stout-axe right, who by all means was mega suspicious and was either very bad at Westron or needed to actually learn it from scratch (somehow) once they ditched Mordor... and they were not familiar with any nuances of Western culture, and then dwarven Western culture neither... so yeah, again, there is literally no difference between the Stout-axe or these other ethnicities, if provided the right context/narrative reason to go to Eriador, far away from their home lands

[Elebraen]

This isn't D&D and so Rangers don't have especially "nature loving ways"; no tree-hugging here.

Okay, I have to jump back into this because I'm editing these subtitles now.

From Tolkien, LOTR Chapter 9:
But in the wild lands beyond Bree, there were mysterious wanderers.
The Bree -folk called them Rangers, and knew nothing of their origin.
They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed
to have strange powers of sight and hearing,
and to understand the languages of beasts and birds.

That sounds pretty nature loving to me. Like Radagast.

[Atonu]

Okay, I have to jump back into this because I'm editing these subtitles now.

From Tolkien, LOTR Chapter 9:
But in the wild lands beyond Bree, there were mysterious wanderers.
The Bree -folk called them Rangers, and knew nothing of their origin.
They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed
to have strange powers of sight and hearing,
and to understand the languages of beasts and birds.

That sounds pretty nature loving to me. Like Radagast.

It sounds like as people that spend a lot of time in the wilds, it would be advantageous to be able to interpret the actions and "words" of animals and birds in your path. It sounds more like a practical skill than a product of personal interest.

[Radhruin_EU]

That 'Dull Cutlass' weapon has been around for a very long time. It's a prologue weapon, and I remember scratching my own head about it because there were no swashbucklers in the game, long before the coast of Gondor was ever developed. With 1-2 dps, that cutlass isn't cutting through anything. It's a prologue placeholder for the much better 3-7 dps weapons that you get out of the backpack. And I don't recall that better backpack sword being a swashbuckler weapon. It just added to my general LOTRO confusion at the time.

Yeah, but it means they've had that idea in their heads that swashbuckler = nautical guy and that's odd. In itself it's got nothing so particularly to do with swinging from the rigging with a cutlass between your teeth

Candaith sits at a campfire, and so does that camping ranger in Bree, and the one in Forochel, oh yeah, the one in the Shire.

Sitting at a campfire doesn't make someone nature-loving, he could be inwardly cursing how he has to be sat at that campfire because it's his job. I mentioned it because I've seen people reflexively fall back on the D&D stereotype before, as if these Rangers are there to protect trees and critters rather than people, first and foremost, which is what they were really all about.

But even if there was a swashbuckler class, what would make it special that people would want to develop it as a character?

If it were just a dashing swordsman with some cool skills who defeats his enemies with wit and bravado*, what's not to like? It's making it specifically something nautical that'd be odd.

And your own speculative idea for a new class is... and your basis for your speculative belief is...

Like I said on another thread, I'd quite like a 'real' swashbuckler, complete with a buckler to swash.


*Swinging from chandeliers, fencing with a roasting spit with a roast chicken still on it, and saying things like "Have at you, varlet!" might however be involved

[Elebraen]

*Swinging from chandeliers, fencing with a roasting spit with a roast chicken still on it, and saying things like "Have at you, varlet!" might however be involved

LOL, Talk Like a Pirate day is in September. I have the eyepatch and head bandana, but I'm still missing the cutlass in my teeth.

People who talk to beasts and birds and sit around campfires and avoid living in cities don't sound like nature lovers at all... or do they?

Nah, it's just a job that they don't really have the heart to do and would get out of it if they could so they could sail on the high seas instead and talk to fish. It was their FATHERS who were the bird and beast nature lovers. Young rangers from Angle want to be swashbuckling pirates and fight Corsairs to make their own name.

[Elebraen]

So check out this Shipwrecked Mariner from Cosmetic Lotro



Head: Mariner’s Eyepatch – default
Shoulders: Ascot Scarf, red dye (Harvest festival)
Chest: Isengard Prisoner Shirt, Ashenslades green (reward Bk.4 ch.19)
Hands: Isengard Prisoner Gloves, Ashenslades green (reward Bk.4 ch.19)
Legs: Shabby Leggings, Ashenslades green dye (Yule festival)
Feet: Dwarf-smith’s Boots, white dye (Quartermaster in Skarhald)
Back: Tattered cloak, default (Steel-bound lootbox)
Weapon: Ceremonial Easterling Sword (Bert Bartleby in Harwick)

The sword does 3 - 5 damage and it has no description, but it doesn't look like a standard issue longsword. If all you want is the pirate look, you can do that with what we already have in game.

[Elmagor]

Why they don't call him Pirate, without connection with Corsairs of Umbar, and in same time that proves Cordovan's words what new class name wasn't Corsair?

[Radhruin_EU]

Well, I didn't exactly take a good extra look at every single extra, but still. The only very noticeable, as in overhelmingly colorful gathering of people who stayed there for some time on screen, were in Aretuza and amongst the scattered elves, which made it somewhat logically understandable.

But it was very noticeable compared to the novels and games (especially multiple characters being race-swapped at random, very hit and miss), the loss of a coherent sense of place and culture that went with that, and that whole cavalier attitude towards the source material is what ended up giving us Blood Origin as well as Henry Cavill bailing on the series (and good for him). To my mind you're a bit too quick to shrug when stuff like that's done to an existing IP given that it almost invariably goes on to affect characterisation and storytelling as well as other aspects of the writing, such as careless use of overly modern phrasing. Or to put it another way, I could see the rot setting in and I was damn well right, wasn't I?

There is an extra distance but not as much as to render it utterly out of a question if compared with Stout-axe. Not to mention... Stout-axe needed to escape Mordor first... which in itself would take significant amount of time and sneaking around, not to mention massive danger

Extra distance and natural barriers (either sea or likely some desert needing to be crossed if coming from a ways off in Harad) as well as a profound cultural barrier. Joe Average from Harad would have no idea how anything worked about society in the West, who was what, what was where, how to speak the lingo or anything else you care to name. Dwarves are Dwarves, they at least all have cultural stuff in common and seeing an unusually dressed Dwarf wouldn't be quite so startling as seeing a Man from Harad if you'd never seen one before. (You can refer to how Gollum describes them in LOTR if you like, he'd never seen Men like that before either).

It strikes me that you're relying on nothing more than the way the game itself ignores time and distance but when it's something so drastic that you're proposing (people coming from so far away to some really obscure place because they supposedly have a destiny or something) then that's just a bit much. It's like someone in Libya or wherever (or somewhere way out past the Urals, if we look eastwards) in medieval times being told they have to go to some obscure village in England. Completely bonkers.

You making excuses for why Gondor wouldn't even have basic security measures within its borders despite being on a war footing and having Sauron right next door and pretending I'm talking about any sort of 21st century expectations won't cut it, either. People in the villages and towns would notice that sort of stranger. Questions would be asked.

And there's the small matter of getting across Harad in one piece as well... just because he's from one place in Harad wouldn't mean he wouldn't stand out in others, and totalitarian regimes do tend to have controls on free movement. Crossing that no-man's-land between Harad and Gondor might be particularly hairy. And all these barriers are cumulative, each makes the whole thing more and more unlikely. And saying that if it's not impossible it's okay is weak as hell.

[Radhruin_EU]

People who talk to beasts and birds and sit around campfires and avoid living in cities don't sound like nature lovers at all... or do they?

Point is, it's not the main thrust of what they do, it's not their raison d'être and they're not out in the wilds because of that either, it's their calling. And the game has them out in the wilds because Rangers are a great excuse for having people in the middle of nowhere to hand out quests, so you're maybe trying to read meaning into something that's purely that way for gameplay reasons.

[Fealhach]

Why they don't call him Pirate, without connection with Corsairs of Umbar, and in same time that proves Cordovan's words what new class name wasn't Corsair?

The Pirates who sacked Pelargir = The Corsairs of Umbar. One and the same. No such thing as a friendly Pirate.

Cheers

[Arnenna]

They do have one point. The devs are going to do whatever the devs are going to do.
After that, it's up to each of us to either play the character or not as we choose. What
someone else chooses has no affect on our own gameplay.

This ^^

It surprises me that players still present arguments with such tenacity, given that SSG have never listened to the same, tenacious arguments brought up before. It's why I gave up on it. Banging my head against the wall and expecting the outcome to change has proven futile over the years of creating classes, and often, class changes too. If I think something is really out of place nowadays, I'll state my case then hope for the best and expect the worst. Gone are the days where I will sit on a forum thread for days or weeks trying to change it.

Middle-earth is now full of little magical hobbits. I see them all the time. They make me chuckle with their little staves that could act as a high elf toothpick, but they don't bother me or my game play. I created a brawler when they introduced them, but I don't play it hardly ever. It just doesn't feel right. I have a few High Elves, but they play in a certain way that avoids jumping at all costs. The minute they start that tumble-tossing nonsense, I want to shelve them. So unfitting of any elf, let alone one so high.

I just get the feeling that this new class, if it goes the way people are expecting it to, will be much of the same. I don't think I could manage another class with modern combat moves such as ballerina pirouettes and swinging off beams. All it would need is a feline mask at a festival to turn it into Puss in Boots Online.

[TesalionLortus]

To my mind you're a bit too quick to shrug when stuff like that's done to an existing IP given that it almost invariably goes on to affect characterisation and storytelling as well as other aspects of the writing

Or to put it another way, I could see the rot setting in and I was damn well right, wasn't I?

Well, like I said, Witcher setting got some of these magical excuses, and I did see some of the rot, but was not overboard and it did not bring Dryads back and even made a joke (kinda) about them in S2. Also, I didn't really see any of it play too much into characterization. So, given that's Netflix unfortunaly,,, where you gotta do things to get picked up to begin with... is a bit different. I saw a few of those tactics before, used by some shows, satisfy woke BS and then go all out without BS. Rarely but happens. But with Witcher it turned out maybe it was just one guy with brain cells (and actors like Cavill) who were keeping it from mass collapse and insanity. With products like LOTRO, where I know there are some decently sane creative people on board, I would sure not let it slide if we had Mexico Black hobbits parading in the Shire in droves alongside whites.

Joe Average from Harad would have no idea how anything worked about society in the West, who was what, what was where, how to speak the lingo or anything else you care to name.

Which applies to Stout-axe too. Also, not Joe Avarage, since they would either be forced into it, for their survival, or have other reasons.

Dwarves are Dwarves, they at least all have cultural stuff in common

They clearly don't. Not in LOTRO's anyway.

and seeing an unusually dressed Dwarf wouldn't be quite so startling as seeing a Man from Harad if you'd never seen one before. (You can refer to how Gollum describes them in LOTR if you like, he'd never seen Men like that before either).

Gollum may be referring to the entire attire, yes, and as I already said, I don't mean an unusually dressed person but someone who tries to blend in. And even if Gollum was referring to skin specifically that bridge was burnt/adapted differently anyway, given how the game portrays Gondorians and hints at some skin tones being intermixed due to territories they historically covered, different climate zones, closeness of different ethnicities etc.

It strikes me that you're relying on nothing more than the way the game itself ignores time and distance but when it's something so drastic that you're proposing (people coming from so far away to some really obscure place because they supposedly have a destiny or something) then that's just a bit much. It's like someone in Libya or wherever (or somewhere way out past the Urals, if we look eastwards) in medieval times being told they have to go to some obscure village in England. Completely bonkers.

That's literally not what I'm relying on. There is like 7 days of journey between the start of the Dead Marches passage to when Frodo was taken at Heneth Annun in the book's time. Journey on foot in days would be different on different terrain but you can basically take something like that (or other from the book), translate as reference onto the map, add some days as extra, and get a "rough" estimate of days travelled. Not going to do that now, though could be fun, but I'm pretty sure it's not from Urals to England. Middle-earth is smaller in scope

You making excuses for why Gondor wouldn't even have basic security measures within its borders despite being on a war footing and having Sauron right next door and pretending I'm talking about any sort of 21st century expectations won't cut it, either.

Basic you say, but you never say what kind of, and why would they worry about every single person of different skin shade.

People in the villages and towns would notice that sort of stranger. Questions would be asked.

So, again, you just say it but not how. What I said- any such person would blend in and try not to stick out. Assuming it's not just a super backyard place with 15 individuals in it. Even if you were noticed based on your strange accent or skin tone (but you might be from nearby Gondorian village that's racially mixed, in that case) what would "efficiently" happen? Someone phones the guards and they're there 30 seconds with ID check? Or tavern people all band together and throw a stranger into prison based on that prejudice? What matters is to spot a weird stranger snooping around places they shouldn't, not a regular guy someone didn't like enjoying a peaceful meal at the tavern

And there's the small matter of getting across Harad in one piece as well... just because he's from one place in Harad wouldn't mean he wouldn't stand out in others, and totalitarian regimes do tend to have controls on free movement. Crossing that no-man's-land between Harad and Gondor might be particularly hairy. And all these barriers are cumulative, each makes the whole thing more and more unlikely. And saying that if it's not impossible it's okay is weak as hell.

"And there's the small matter of getting across Mordor in one piece as well... [insert all the rest you said]" which can be applied to Stout-axe in equal measure. So I'm not suggesting anything different than there already exist in game and works fine as far as racial intro excuse is concerned

[Radhruin_EU]

Well, like I said, Witcher setting got some of these magical excuses

Not natively it doesn't, as I already pointed out, so that's just more hand-waving. Trying to contrive an internal reason for it like that when we had the exact same nonsense in WoT, RoP and others.

Which applies to Stout-axe too.

Not to the same extent, again as I already pointed out.

Gollum may be referring to the entire attire, yes, and as I already said, I don't mean an unusually dressed person but someone who tries to blend in. And even if Gollum was referring to skin specifically that bridge was burnt/adapted differently anyway, given how the game portrays Gondorians and hints at some skin tones being intermixed due to territories they historically covered, different climate zones, closeness of different ethnicities etc.

Cherry-picking, much?

'More Men going to Mordor,' he said in a low voice. `Dark faces. We have
not seen Men like these before, no, Sméagol has not. They are fierce. They
have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears; yes, lots
of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks;
and their flags are red, and the tips of their spears; and they have ro
shields, yellow and black with big spikes. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men
they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger.'

It's not just their attire that makes them stand out. They'd almost certainly be darker-skinned than anyone you might see in the West because they're fresh out of Harad. And it had been a long time since Gondor had held Umbar (more than a thousand years) so the limited diversity there might have been from intermarriage with people from Harad would have declined (tending to diffuse out into the wider population, eventually becoming all but imperceptible after such a long time). As for more recently, again there's no friendship between Gondor and either the Easterlings or the Haradrim so that's a complete red herring - stop talking about this as if it's a normal situation. They have Sauron as a near neighbour, for goodness' sake.

Basic you say, but you never say what kind of, and why would they worry about every single person of different skin shade.

He'd look and sound foreign and would have no idea about social customs. That would stand out and attract attention. He wouldn't be able to blend in. You talk about him visiting a tavern - what's he using for money? And again, they're on a war footing. That'd mean more vigilance for people who don't fit in.

[Oldwiley]

This ^^

It surprises me that players still present arguments with such tenacity, given that SSG have never listened to the same, tenacious arguments brought up before. It's why I gave up on it. Banging my head against the wall and expecting the outcome to change has proven futile over the years of creating classes, and often, class changes too. If I think something is really out of place nowadays, I'll state my case then hope for the best and expect the worst. Gone are the days where I will sit on a forum thread for days or weeks trying to change it.

Middle-earth is now full of little magical hobbits. I see them all the time. They make me chuckle with their little staves that could act as a high elf toothpick, but they don't bother me or my game play. I created a brawler when they introduced them, but I don't play it hardly ever. It just doesn't feel right. I have a few High Elves, but they play in a certain way that avoids jumping at all costs. The minute they start that tumble-tossing nonsense, I want to shelve them. So unfitting of any elf, let alone one so high.

I just get the feeling that this new class, if it goes the way people are expecting it to, will be much of the same. I don't think I could manage another class with modern combat moves such as ballerina pirouettes and swinging off beams. All it would need is a feline mask at a festival to turn it into Puss in Boots Online.

Indeed, way back when arguments were taking place about war goats and the addition of elk mounts, female dwarves etc... I had long since taken the position of standing there watching people draw lines in the sand on lore issues time and time again.

Now I tend to pop in with a comment like why not war-ostriches, hobbits would look great on them. Amusingly back when they are arguing about war goats I kept dropping video's of War pigs by sabbath - the irony that they have now become a thing just makes me chuckle.

Am I against the loosening of lore in the game, nope, never have been. Am I going to join in drawing more lines in the sand? Nope. Do I really give a monkeys? not really.

It'd be almost impossible to play this game if true immersion mattered to you a lot. Folks I think enjoy arguing about the minutiae of changes even though they know its not gonna make a blind bit of difference.

As my 10 year old sig says.... it has forsaken these lands ^.^

Nice to see you still hopping about.