Gap of Rohan - really?

[Palantir]

I believe this picture is the games idea of the "Gap of Rohan."

The "gap" was a plain over 20 miles wide divided by the River Isen, this is a Mt. path... and heavily fortified to boot!

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Didn't any of the current bunch of developers read the books? :angry:

 

[Redwolf]

The same thing happens why I go on vacation and they say it's a beautiful valley with a river and lots of old fortresses. Bunch of tents around a pond

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I believe this picture is the games idea of the "Gap of Rohan."

The "gap" was a plain over 20 miles wide divided by the River Isen, this is a Mt. path... and heavily fortified to boot!

Didn't any of the current bunch of developers read the books? :angry:

The rest of Middle Earth is rendered in something between 1:20 and 1:2000 scale, though, so I'm not sure why you would expect this to be different??

I've actually kind of wondered what the exact scale is but never got around to calculating it. Individual buildings may be at or near 1:1 scale, possibly 1:2 scale, but if it took 2-7 days to cross the Midgewater Marshes, Barrow Downs, Lonelands, etc., the fact that one can cross them (admittedly, at a run) in a couple of minutes suggests there is some serious scaling down. I think it is 18km from Bree to Rivendell or something like that in the game. Even if one toggled to "walk" you can do in an hour what it took the better part of the novel to do.

I'm quite fine with the scaling down, as long as it looks close; they obviously need to do this for playability. Oddly enough, Weathertop is actually a lot bigger than what I would imagine it to be given the book's description, and the movie's imagining of it.

 

[Palantir]

The rest of Middle Earth is rendered in something between 1:20 and 1:2000 scale, though, so I'm not sure why you would expect this to be different??

I'm quite fine with the scaling down, as long as it looks close; they obviously need to do this for playability. Oddly enough, Weathertop is actually a lot bigger than what I would imagine it to be given the book's description, and the movie's imagining of it.

For all the $$$ they say they are making from F2P I'd expect some research into getting it close... Scaling is understood but this is about as far from close as you can get, a flat plain (rolling maybe) 20 miles wide between Mts does not equal a narrow Mt pass less than 100 yards wide. (The movie was not much better depicting the Rohan country side.) They could have just made the (a) river bed with steep sides & the Ford as the only crossing point- with a small outpost.

It seems "constricted" is the standard transition they now use from zone to zone, a narrow gorge, canyon or passageway. About the only ones they got right were the wide passage into Enedwaith & tunnels into Moria.

But true to Turbine's graphic credit it does look nice as always.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

For all the $$$ they say they are making from F2P I'd expect some research into getting it close... Scaling is understood but this is about as far from close as you can get, a flat plain (rolling maybe) 20 miles wide between Mts does not equal a narrow Mt pass less than 100 yards wide. (The movie was not much better depicting the Rohan country side.) They could have just made the (a) river bed with steep sides & the Ford as the only crossing point- with a small outpost.

It seems "constricted" is the standard transition they now use from zone to zone, a narrow gorge, canyon or passageway. About the only ones they got right were the wide passage into Enedwaith & tunnels into Moria.

But true to Turbine's graphic credit it does look nice as always.

Okay, I see your point more clearly.

I wonder if there is a fear of stepping too hard on Jackson's toes, and so they are deliberately straying from the movie portrayal of some of these things?

Or perhaps the game play is guiding some of the decisions. No idea. I agree that the book should be a guiding principle though. I've seen some subtle deviations in Breeland from the book - and I'm not a hard-core fan of the book by any means - that don't seem to have any real purpose other than whim. But, like you say, it looks nice and seems to play well.

Not sure I buy my own premise - they flashed through so many places in the movie so quickly that I doubt it is a concern, but it may be something to consider. There is other source material, of course, including decades now of illustrated books, etc. with competing visions.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

It seems "constricted" is the standard transition they now use from zone to zone, a narrow gorge, canyon or passageway. About the only ones they got right were the wide passage into Enedwaith & tunnels into Moria.

Well, since not a lot is going on here, may as well give this some scrutiny.

There aren't a lot of these "transitions" discussed in detail in the book, are there? I agree that many in the game are very small points of entry, for example Rivendell north to the Misty Mountains (which is one of my favs, that long climb up where you shift from the sultry river valley into the cold clime of the mountains, and subtly). I remember it took me forever just to find the path into Eregion, which was frustrating but also really cool at the same time, almost a quest all of its own.

I think the path from the Midgewater Marshes into the Lonelands is relatively broad and interesting, and though the terrain is mentioned in both the Hobbit and LOTR, is not discussed in a lot of real detail (I think the Hobbit passes over it in a paragraph or two IIRC).

I was frustrated as a low level character to have the (narrow) path north into Forochel barred by those bandits, back when the game was difficult, but it gave one something to look forward to also and I would not change that. I actually miss the days when there were places you couldn't go at will. They are now fewer and farther between, though my perception is coloured by my levelling up as well.

The choke points seem to make sense from a game stand point; I suppose they help to divide server load also - ? - RW can probably speak to that, I don't have a clue. They do seem artificial and give you that "rat in a maze" feeling of a FPS, but with a world so big, seem like less of an issue to me on this scale. And there are enough wide open transitions (go from Bree to the North Downs, for example, and you can get to Kingsfell two entirely different ways - via Trestlebridge, or go the long way with a right hook over the Downs, past the turtles and then a long swim) that it makes up for the narrow choke points.

But I can see your point that a broad transition as famous as the Gap of Rohan should probably be one of the wider ones - but I'll wait until we see the final release before passing judgement. I do think that in general, all these expansions will tend to be smaller and smaller, and nothing as expansive as Moria, which will be too bad.

 

[Palantir]

They can't get the size of the Gap of Rohan right BUT they are getting it right with enemy camps & combat now! :clap:

Just from these shots there are dozens of NPC's walking around the LARGE camp (and not the usual one with 5 guys standing around looking lost). You can see them moving in the vid.

Their info that hundreds of NPC will be fighting at one time while you fight along side is great news that the game is actually doing well in F2P.

I have hope again (for now) that we will actually make it to Mordor! :joy:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A1d6g50Wa8M

 

[Redwolf]

Things are really looking up.

Kind of glad I don't have to learn a new game

 

[BlitzCanuck]

Been ages since i read the books but didn't it take the hobbits weeks or at least several days to get to Bree from the Shire?
But in the game you can run from Hobbiton to Bree in 10 minutes.
So it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone that the Gap of Rohan is scaled way down too. Having said that, it is considerably larger than what is shown in that pic in the topic starter's post ^^.

For me, the expansion is a mixed bag. The quests are given intelligently, seemingly with a view to reduce the amount of running back and forth to the quest givers that was always a huge annoyance to me and presumably others.
And you get quite a lot of quest reward XP.
So levelling from 65-74 goes very fast. Faster than any other 10 levels with the exception of levels 1-10.
Another positive is the relatively high rate of item xp given. And the resource nodes are plentiful.
Additionally, i found levelling up in the new areas to be fairly lucrative in terms of how much gold you acquire.

The thing i don't like about the expac is how linear it is. You might've noticed above that i said level 74 and not 75. Unfortunately, if you start questing in the new area at level 65, you end up having to do repeatables or skirmishes to get to the cap because there aren't enough quests to get you to 75.

Basically this means having to do every single quest in the expac.

Now that i know this, for capping my other alts, i'll quest in Enedwaith until at least level 67 before starting in on Dunland.

To me though, the best part of the expansion are the updates to the character class skills and traits. I've got 7 alts and i'm liking the changes pretty much across the board.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Been ages since i read the books but didn't it take the hobbits weeks or at least several days to get to Bree from the Shire?
But in the game you can run from Hobbiton to Bree in 10 minutes.
So it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone that the Gap of Rohan is scaled way down too. Having said that, it is considerably larger than what is shown in that pic in the topic starter's post ^^.

Yes to all.

For me, the expansion is a mixed bag. The quests are given intelligently, seemingly with a view to reduce the amount of running back and forth to the quest givers that was always a huge annoyance to me and presumably others.
And you get quite a lot of quest reward XP.
So levelling from 65-74 goes very fast. Faster than any other 10 levels with the exception of levels 1-10.
Another positive is the relatively high rate of item xp given. And the resource nodes are plentiful.
Additionally, i found levelling up in the new areas to be fairly lucrative in terms of how much gold you acquire.

The thing i don't like about the expac is how linear it is. You might've noticed above that i said level 74 and not 75. Unfortunately, if you start questing in the new area at level 65, you end up having to do repeatables or skirmishes to get to the cap because there aren't enough quests to get you to 75.

Basically this means having to do every single quest in the expac.

Now that i know this, for capping my other alts, i'll quest in Enedwaith until at least level 67 before starting in on Dunland.

To me though, the best part of the expansion are the updates to the character class skills and traits. I've got 7 alts and i'm liking the changes pretty much across the board.

After months - literally - of going back and forth to the eastern "doorway" of Moria, I finally buckled down and gained enough rep to advance past the Anduin and into Lothlorien. Kept getting picked off by the Elf snipers in the trees. I've been in no rush to either level up and am playing no alts, just the same character from when I bought the game in 2008. I am still amazed at the capacity of the game to interest me, and I spent an enjoyable afternoon just kicking about Lothlorien enjoying the scenery and running some of the quests in the Vineyard and losing myself in the immersiveness of it all. I regret not having followed the epic quest line, having lost the thread in Carn Dum, and so when I ran into the ring bearers up in a tree in Lothlorien, I kind of had to use some memory bleach and promise myself to go back and see if I could find the thread again. But I'm still in no hurry to rush myself through the upper levels. I did take a trip across the river into Mirkwood, completed a single quest there on the near bank, but didn't go any further. I've done almost nothing in Enedwaith and have not yet purchased the latest module.

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"This is the furthest I've ever been from the Shire!"​

 

[BlitzCanuck]

I think i might be starting to get burnt out on the game.
I've played quite a lot. I've got my LM to 75, my Champ to almost 74, my hunter and Guard are sitting at 65 and three other alts ranging from level 41 down to 20. Additionally, all of my alts' skirmish soldiers are at the same level of the alt they belong to. Plus i've fully levelled up a Cook, Scholar, Tailor, Metalsmith, Jeweller, Weaponsmith and Woodworker, at least 5 of which are Master of the Guild along with an SM farmer and 2 SM prospectors. And all of this in a span of about 20 months.
I don't find myself immersed anymore and it's become almost a chore at times.

I think my problem is that i've been playing LOTRO to the exclusion of any other game. Nothing else has grabbed me although i am eagerly anticipating the release of SW:TOR.

 

[Palantir]

That's some good leveling to 75 & 74 already.

I took my 65 Warden on a resource gathering trip clear around Dunland & to the Ford of Isen, it seems kind of small. But the graphics are good & I love that the camps actually look like armed fortified camps & not just 2 guys and a tent in the open.

I found it very easy at 65th to wander about at will among the 70's mobs as their aggro range is very small @15'. Plus they only gave chase for a short distance if I triggered one .

All-in-all RoI looks good even the actual Ford of Isen fit in well not counting how they made the Gap a small passage.

I do find that having a number of alts at various levels & craft specialties breaks up the game. When I get tired of Moria I can jump to a 65th & cruise Dunland or pick up my 7th lvl & kill bugs in Ered Luin. Some quests & lines are fun to redo but others are just a burden to get thru.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Some quests & lines are fun to redo but others are just a burden to get thru.

I am guessing that is why they keep pushing that idiotic store in our faces. Personally, I'd rather they just slow down the levelling race and offer more content for one character rather than make it easier to recycle multiple characters but I suspect I am in the minority. If it was up to me, they would be bankrupt trying to please me.