Thread: Next Instance Cluster - Early Next Year and back in Eriador

From the new podcast - Massive Online Gamer Podcast

Interesting tid-bit about the new instances that will probably be released the beginning of next year. In regards to the story for the new instances, now that the rangers have grouped up to head to Aragorn it has the following consequences.

"As a result of their departure, Eriador is basically bereft of so many of the folks who have have kept it safe and kept it balanced and this has opened up so many new opportunities of attack from the enemy and players will need to jump in and combat those enemies. You'll see some familiar faces...some enemies from before who have returned to make good on these opportunities and I think players will be very excited about it. In fact there's a big multi-boss raid that finishes it, which I think has our greatest challenge yet."
Edit: I hope I got it right

Any speculation on where these might be located and/or familiar faces we'll be fighting? Interesting that this will not be in Enedwaith/Dunland but in older locations? (Note: The title of the thread shoud have been "....and back in Northern Eriador - sorry for the confusion)

Another quote:

"Enedwaith is a great location, but if you remember from the original texts there's just not that much in it because the Fellowship goes through Moria and then down by Fangorn and so we're telling a part of the story that just was not dealth with much, so we felt like it would be so much richer for the players to return to some more classic battlegrounds than to pull something together through Enedwaith" ? (sounds like Enedwaithism....). "And it gave us the opportunity to focus on continuing to work on Isengard, which of course, you know, is something we are looking at for next year..."

Originally Posted by robnkarla

"As a result of their departure, Eriador is basically bereft of so many of the folks who have have kept it safe and kept it balanced and this has opened up so many new opportunities of attack from the enemy and players will need to jump in and combat those enemies. You'll see some familiar faces...some enemies from before who have returned to make good on these opportunities and I think players will be very excited about it. In fact there's a big multi-boss raid that finishes it, which I think has our greatest challenge yet."

Hmm, that sounds a bit odd, imo. One of the key points of V3B1 was that the rangers were worried about what was gonna happen to Eriador once they left, and sending us back again to battle these threats seems like it would kind of ruin that suspense. I'd rather we left Eriador behind for a while, possibly not returning until after the Ring has been destroyed (not counting trips unrelated to the Epic storyline).

Then again, I'm looking forward to finding out what old enemies will return...wasn't the new gaunt-lord in Enedwaith about to resurrect one of his brethren that we've killed?

Originally Posted by Macfeast

Hmm, that sounds a bit odd, imo. One of the key points of V3B1 was that the rangers were worried about what was gonna happen to Eriador once they left, and sending us back again to battle these threats seems like it would kind of ruin that suspense. I'd rather we left Eriador behind for a while, possibly not returning until after the Ring has been destroyed (not counting trips unrelated to the Epic storyline).

Then again, I'm looking forward to finding out what old enemies will return...wasn't the new gaunt-lord in Enedwaith about to resurrect one of his brethren that we've killed?

I noted this in the other thread, but I'll do it here too - Enedwaith *is* in Eriador. So is mostly everything west of the Misty Mountains.

Originally Posted by Arbalister

I noted this in the other thread, but I'll do it here too - Enedwaith *is* in Eriador. So is mostly everything west of the Misty Mountains.

I do realize that in-game Enedwaith is included in Eriador, but the discussion around the quote gave me the distinct impression that the instance cluster was not in Enedwaith and that we will be returning to older zones. I'm quite curious as to where the instances will be located on landscape and how the timeframe will be addressed with multiple timeframes within the zones.

Also, it will be interesting to see if it will be part of a book update (epic story) or be in a different update.

I thought she said in the podcast that the instance cluster will be in Enedwaith. I'll have to re-listen to it. As others have said, Enedwaith is in Eriador.

-Bel

Originally Posted by robnkarla

I do realize that in-game Enedwaith is included in Eriador, but the discussion around the quote gave me the distinct impression that the instance cluster was not in Enedwaith and that we will be returning to older zones. I'm quite curious as to where the instances will be located on landscape and how the timeframe will be addressed with multiple timeframes within the zones.

Also, it will be interesting to see if it will be part of a book update (epic story) or be in a different update.

It's not a mistake that they'd make - but it could be a smidgeon of misdirection. :-)

Originally Posted by Belnavar

I thought she said in the podcast that the instance cluster will be in Enedwaith. I'll have to re-listen to it. As others have said, Enedwaith is in Eriador.

-Bel

Another quote:

"Enedwaith is a great location, but if you remember from the original texts there's just not that much in it because the Fellowship goes through Moria and then down by Fangorn and so we're telling a part of the story that just was not dealth with much, so we felt like it would be so much richer for the players to return to some more classic battlegrounds than to pull something together through Enedwaith" ? (sounds like Enedwaithism....). "And it gave us the opportunity to focus on continuing to work on Isengard, which of course, you know, is something we are looking at for next year..."

I took this as going back to back to previous zones rather that something new in Enedwaith, but I could be wrong.

As for the Eriador/Enedwaith - as I said already, yes Enedwaith is in Eriador. But "back in the other area of Eriador that is not Enedwaith" is a little wordy .

Only ones I can think of right now are Gortheron and the other Gaunt Lords.

Though I hope not. An instance filled with Undead is just ugh. There's too much undead in Eriador already.

Originally Posted by Golledhel

Only ones I can think of right now are Gortheron and the other Gaunt Lords.

Though I hope not. An instance filled with Undead is just ugh. There's too much undead in Eriador already.

Yeah, that's the only thing I could think of as well. Wights are so last year .

Originally Posted by robnkarla

From the new podcast - Massive Online Gamer Podcast

Interesting tid-bit about the new instances that will probably be released the beginning of next year. In regards to the story for the new instances, now that the rangers have grouped up to head to Aragorn it has the following consequences.

"As a result of their departure, Eriador is basically bereft of so many of the folks who have have kept it safe and kept it balanced and this has opened up so many new opportunities of attack from the enemy and players will need to jump in and combat those enemies. You'll see some familiar faces...some enemies from before who have returned to make good on these opportunities and I think players will be very excited about it."

Hate to be a debbie (or donald? lol) downer, (feel free to give me negative rep, I dont give a rats you-know-what), but this sounds like a smooth marketing ploy to excuse them from not making new landscape content...(yes I know they're "working on Isengard" -- which gives them an indefinite time period to finish..)....but they can skip a lot of the art and graphics work if re-using old instances and old areas. I dunno, I just got a really 'blah' attitude about the whole thing. Maybe time for another LOTRO vacation.

Thal

It's a month after F2P launch, I'm really hoping we learn some concrete news about future plans of the game.

IMHO, the main reason the game flopped while P2P was because of the slow stream of new content after Moria. Unless they change this, the new start they've made with F2P is going to be wasted...

They either need to hire more people, or hire better people, who won't produce stuff at a snail's pace.

It wouldst surprise me at all if the next raid cluster was spread out across multiple zones. Right now a max lvl toon has no reason to buy quest packs but if they put the new cluster all across the map non vip will need to buy multiple quest packs just for the instance cluster.

There is a big pimple on the face of eriador that could easily house the new cluster of undead. Weathertop. There can easily be a large city sized ruin inside that mountain. Read one of the merp adventure books which was about it.

Originally Posted by Arbalister

I noted this in the other thread, but I'll do it here too - Enedwaith *is* in Eriador. So is mostly everything west of the Misty Mountains.

Fair enough. When I said Eriador, I really meant the northern parts of it (let's call it Northern Eriador).

However, my original point still stands; The podcast mentioned that there would be new threats in the areas that the rangers used to guard, and that we would return to deal with those threats.
The rangers did a huge deal in V3B1 about leaving their lands behind and what would happen in their absence. I just found it odd that we would return north again to stop the upcoming threats, because it kind of ruins the whole point about the rangers not wanting to leave; Our characters could simply say "Nah, don't worry about that, we'll just pop back real quick and deal with that stuff, you go on ahead and we'll meet you again in Rohan".

As I said, it ruins the suspense of "What will happen to our old home when we leave it for the war in the south?"

EDIT:

Originally Posted by robnkarla

"Enedwaith is a great location, but if you remember from the original texts there's just not that much in it because the Fellowship goes through Moria and then down by Fangorn and so we're telling a part of the story that just was not dealth with much, so we felt like it would be so much richer for the players to return to some more classic battlegrounds than to pull something together through Enedwaith" ? (sounds like Enedwaithism....). "And it gave us the opportunity to focus on continuing to work on Isengard, which of course, you know, is something we are looking at for next year..."

A shame they feel that way. I think elaborating on the less detailed parts of the lore is something they've done really well, and I'd rather they'd work their magic on Enedwaith than sending us back north simply because those areas are more familiar to us.

Been running around Northern Eriador for 3.5 years now.

Dont want to go back there...again (with the possible exception of Annuminas, its very under used.)

If the epic story has moved into Enedwaith, then the new Raid should be in Enedwaith. Or even back in SoM.

Eriador & Moria - been there, done that, want something NEW!

"... so much richer for the players to return to some more classic battlegrounds than to pull something together through Enedwaith" ... "And it gave us the opportunity to focus on continuing to work on Isengard..."

I pretty much read this of the quote:
Instead of creating new instances in the new zone Enedwaith they focus on revamping the older instances in the style of Annuminas etc. So it would make sense the "more classic battlegrounds" will be Carn Dum, Urugarth etc., filled up with scaled up critters.
The time saved up will be invested into the Isengard addon next year, which should bring new "innovative" stuff.

I dearly hope they will not overhaul the older Eriador areas with something like WoW Cataclysm and fill new mobs here and there. Only because the Rangers left to the aid of their king it does not mean that all of Eriador is doomed and cannot protect itself. Since we alsothinned a significant amount of enemy forces in over 3 years. This would really not make sense.

Originally Posted by robnkarla

From the new podcast - Massive Online Gamer Podcast

"As a result of their departure, Eriador is basically bereft of so many of the folks who have have kept it safe and kept it balanced and this has opened up so many new opportunities of attack from the enemy and players will need to jump in and combat those enemies. You'll see some familiar faces...some enemies from before who have returned to make good on these opportunities and I think players will be very excited about it. In fact there's a big multi-boss raid that finishes it, which I think has our greatest challenge yet."
Edit: I hope I got it right

Any speculation on where these might be located and/or familiar faces we'll be fighting? Interesting that this will not be in Enedwaith/Dunland but in older locations?

Familiar faces = Carn Dum, Urugarth, and Barad Gularan as scaled instances
Big multi-boss raid = scaled Rift raid

By the way in the Lord of the Rings maps Enedwaith is not in Eriador, this is only the case in the LOTRO map. Enedwaith is a region on par with Eriador in the Lord of the Rings maps.

Originally Posted by Rehoboth

By the way in the Lord of the Rings maps Enedwaith is not in Eriador, this is only the case in the LOTRO map. Enedwaith is a region on par with Eriador in the Lord of the Rings maps.

Might want to check your Middle-earth maps, again. Everything west of the Misty Mountains is part of Eriador. There are sub-areas of Eriador - Angmar, Arnor, Eregion, and Enedwaith to name a few.

I have a framed 4x3 (roughly) map on the wall in front of me. :-p

Edit: Middle-earth Map

Originally Posted by trancejeremy

It's a month after F2P launch, I'm really hoping we learn some concrete news about future plans of the game.

IMHO, the main reason the game flopped while P2P was because of the slow stream of new content after Moria. Unless they change this, the new start they've made with F2P is going to be wasted...

They either need to hire more people, or hire better people, who won't produce stuff at a snail's pace.

You obviously were not around when the game was launched then. We had pretty regular meaningful content for a while. I am just hoping they get the capital to do it again.

Originally Posted by Arbalister

Might want to check your Middle-earth maps, again. Everything west of the Misty Mountains is part of Eriador. There are sub-areas of Eriador - Angmar, Arnor, Eregion, and Enedwaith to name a few.

I have a framed 4x3 (roughly) map on the wall in front of me. :-p

Ok maybe I've been tricked by the widest view map in LOTRO, which originally had Enedwaith as a separate major region. So I'll stay out of the debate until I have more information.

Originally Posted by cicdle

You obviously were not around when the game was launched then. We had pretty regular meaningful content for a while. I am just hoping they get the capital to do it again.

He clearly said "after Moria". I agree with him completely. After Moria new content and perhaps more importantly, information on new content, dried up. This is when the populations started to diminish. Before then we had a steady stream of both. I don't mind it taking 3 months for some new content as long as I know it's coming. It's been a month since F2P launched, Turbine should give us something to look forward to. I think that would keep people playing more steadily rather than the huge amount of activity for the month following an update followed by 2 or 3 months of dead (relatively) servers.

Originally Posted by Efol

It wouldst surprise me at all if the next raid cluster was spread out across multiple zones. Right now a max lvl toon has no reason to buy quest packs but if they put the new cluster all across the map non vip will need to buy multiple quest packs just for the instance cluster.

While it may or may not for the reasons stated , you may be right. Who is to say that the instance cluster will be contained all within one zone. It would be interesting to have a group of instances added across Eriador that would have a cohesive story-line.

Originally Posted by Macfeast

The rangers did a huge deal in V3B1 about leaving their lands behind and what would happen in their absence. I just found it odd that we would return north again to stop the upcoming threats, because it kind of ruins the whole point about the rangers not wanting to leave; Our characters could simply say "Nah, don't worry about that, we'll just pop back real quick and deal with that stuff, you go on ahead and we'll meet you again in Rohan".

As I said, it ruins the suspense of "What will happen to our old home when we leave it for the war in the south?"

It does feel odd that we would do so much back and forth as well as trying to be in two places at the same time, but with the compressed timeline from this point on it will probably be closer to the norm. I'm just worried about the continuity of the timeline within the Eriador regions and how that is handled. (Talking a walk through Angmar - it's September, no look it's November....no wait...it's January now......oops my bad it's October....um no it's December and is anyone up for the summer festival?.....

Originally Posted by Macfeast

A shame they feel that way. I think elaborating on the less detailed parts of the lore is something they've done really well, and I'd rather they'd work their magic on Enedwaith than sending us back north simply because those areas are more familiar to us.

I too would have liked to see what could have been done in Enedwaith (who knows - maybe one of the instances may be in the zone). I'm one of those that would have loved to see an instance and/or skirmish in Forochel

Originally Posted by Elnaith

I pretty much read this of the quote:
Instead of creating new instances in the new zone Enedwaith they focus on revamping the older instances in the style of Annuminas etc. So it would make sense the "more classic battlegrounds" will be Carn Dum, Urugarth etc., filled up with scaled up critters.
The time saved up will be invested into the Isengard addon next year, which should bring new "innovative" stuff.

I dearly hope they will not overhaul the older Eriador areas with something like WoW Cataclysm and fill new mobs here and there. Only because the Rangers left to the aid of their king it does not mean that all of Eriador is doomed and cannot protect itself. Since we alsothinned a significant amount of enemy forces in over 3 years. This would really not make sense.

I would be surprised (and very disappointed) if this was only in reference to re-vamps of older instances and/or if the regions have been re-worked in a new timeline. I can't see them going back and gutting CD/Uru/etc. to be replaced by an updated version with a different story/setting and old enemies can't really take advantage of new opportunities with the storylines that are already in place.

That said, I do wonder if they will do something similar to what they did with the Rift Skirmish - re-use a location in a different way while keeping previous content inta-ct and/or updated with scaling.

Originally Posted by robnkarla

It does feel odd that we would do so much back and forth as well as trying to be in two places at the same time, but with the compressed timeline from this point on it will probably be closer to the norm. I'm just worried about the continuity of the timeline within the Eriador regions and how that is handled. (Talking a walk through Angmar - it's September, no look it's November....no wait...it's January now......oops my bad it's October....um no it's December and is anyone up for the summer festival?.....

The compressed timeline I can understand, and I'm happy we have it. We would miss out on so much good stuff otherwise. Heck, I'd love to see our characters take a detour to Erebor and Mirkwood after we're done in Rohan, before heading for Gondor. It's just that in this case, at first it felt like there was a huge plotpoint and foreshadowing that there might be terrible stuff about to happen that we're not gonna be able to do anything about because we're riding south.

What I'm trying to say is, the storyline gave me the impression that we would leave northern Eriador behind, and might come back to something completely different after the war, and now all of a sudden that's not the case, because we're gonna be around to prevent that from happening. I'd rather this journey south stayed more permanent.

In short; The storyline told me one thing, and now this dev chat told me the opposite. That's what felt odd to me about the whole thing. It would be like the next book telling us that "There's no chance either the Grey Company or our characters will reach Helm's Deep for the siege" and then the devs tell us "Your characters will be fighting in the siege." I'm getting mixed signals.

I think a factor in all this is that they need to continue revamping the content that free to play people see when they venture outside the starter zones. People often complain about how there's a kind of a lull in the mid to late 30s where the content somewhat dries up. Too low for a lot of Angmar, too high for a lot of the North Downs stuff and so on (you actually can find plenty to do if you look, but it's so scattered). If the new instances are scaled they may be justified by the whole Rangers leaving thing, but they may also scale all the way down to level 25 or 30 so both new and veteran players have more to do. You can say let's put all the effort where the epic story has reached, but Turbine needs to make sure the new revenue stream from all the new players is supplied with enough attention that the new players don't quit before they make it to the latest and greatest. If they're level 30 more level 65 stuff is not going to sound all that interesting to them in the short term.

The Great Barrows is a good example of a set of instances which have taken on a new relevance to endgame players while also serving the influx of the new ones. Some fallout of the change was not well thought out but there's got to be more of this kind of dual planning in the future.

Originally Posted by Efol

It wouldst surprise me at all if the next raid cluster was spread out across multiple zones. Right now a max lvl toon has no reason to buy quest packs but if they put the new cluster all across the map non vip will need to buy multiple quest packs just for the instance cluster.

This makes sense to me as well. I would've probably dropped to a premium sub, but I wanted to go back and run Annuminas, Helegrod, and the Eregion instances on my 65's. If they keep putting new level 65 content in old regions, people will either have to buy the quest packs for those regions or keep their subscriptions active.

We are talking two updates before this new cluster. Its quite possable that in the next two updates the Rangers are pushed even further south and at least one instance/raid will be held in the Gaunt castle in south west Enedwaith.

If they start putting instances all over ME that would be pretty cool though, with Instance Join it doesn't really matter per say, but as long as the story kicks *** all will be good.

I agree with the posters who believe a return to Northern Eriador would be bad storytelling. In my view the best part of 3.2 was the buildup of tension surrounding what would happen to the Grey Company as they travel south. I felt that the last few chapters of 3.2 dealing with Nar managed create a pleasing sense of menace and impending doom. Running off back to Northern Eriador at this juncture just seems silly, and in my view it would inflict some pretty serious harm on the Vol III Epic storyline that they have been building up. I recognize that a full fellowship/raid cluster of instances isn't going to be an integrated part of the Epic line, but it really should be an adjunct to the story being told (c.f., Barad Guldur). It just seems bizarre to me that Turbine would go through the trouble of creating a sense of doom hanging over the Grey Company, introducing the last gaunt lord, sticking a big fortress/tomb right in our southern path, and then NOT use it as an asset for a major instance cluster that supports the current storyline. If instead we are diverted back to the north, it kills the southern momentum and (even worse in my view) severely cramps the scope of what they can do with the Epic line storytelling portion of the next update. Recent history has demonstrated that Turbine is committed to making the Epic line entirely soloable (or nearly so). If they yank the major group content out of the zone, it is going to be really, really hard to buy into the story concept of there being potential disaster hanging over the Grey Company like the Sword of Damocles.

I'm not saying that Turbine isn't actually planning to do the next instance cluster back in Northern Eriador. I am saying that I think it would be a major mistake.

Originally Posted by Grampsaz

We are talking two updates before this new cluster. Its quite possable that in the next two updates the Rangers are pushed even further south and at least one instance/raid will be held in the Gaunt castle in south west Enedwaith.

If they start putting instances all over ME that would be pretty cool though, with Instance Join it doesn't really matter per say, but as long as the story kicks *** all will be good.

One thing to keep in mind, just because there is an update we don't know if it will mean that there will be an update to the Epic story with each one. I probably am wrong, but if there are 6 updates in a year that may only be 2-4 book updates with the other updates relating to classes/instances/skirmishes/etc.

The story of these instances (the Enemy will play while the Rangers are away) may very well be completely unrelated to the Epic Storyline other than they happen sometime between the 3.1 and the end of the war. This way they could be released during a non-book update. Just because it is an instance cluster it does not have to tie 100% into the epic storyline. It would actually be nice to see concurrent story-lines (one for single-player and one for fellowships).

Either way, I 100% agree that as long as the story (and/or gameplay/rewards depending on what each person enjoys the most) it does not matter to me if they are in Enedwaith, Angmar, Evendim, the Iron Hills, or anywhere else .

Originally Posted by robnkarla

The story of these instances (the Enemy will play while the Rangers are away) may very well be completely unrelated to the Epic Storyline other than they happen sometime between the 3.1 and the end of the war. This way they could be released during a non-book update. Just because it is an instance cluster it does not have to tie 100% into the epic storyline. It would actually be nice to see concurrent story-lines (one for single-player and one for fellowships).

This I wouldn't have a problem with. That already seems to be the case with skirmishes unrelated to the Epics; To me, they seem more like an alternate timeline (the Bree skirmishes would be if we stayed instead of riding south, for example, and the Bruinen one takes place who knows when?) and something we are doing "out of order". As such, I'm willing to accept if the new instances do that as well, as we already do enough stuff that wouldn't make sense if we were to make a story out of everything (skirmishes, instances, mapping home, AH visits, etc...). However, tie these new instances in the northern Eriador to the Epic storyline and, as Vilnas said, it would be bad storytelling and kill all the momentum building up down in the south.

Originally Posted by Vilnas

I am saying that I think it would be a major mistake.

This is exactly how I feel as well.

Originally Posted by Kheld_UK

Been running around Northern Eriador for 3.5 years now.

Dont want to go back there...again (with the possible exception of Annuminas, its very under used.)

If the epic story has moved into Enedwaith, then the new Raid should be in Enedwaith. Or even back in SoM.

Eriador & Moria - been there, done that, want something NEW!

My feelings, exactly. Do not wants 'back there' again. New zones (or at least Rohan), plz. Spending more time backtracked in the old zones is going to equate to a uber snore coma for me, regardless of who's attacking it, and this is going to be a direction that points toward massive ZZZ's on my part. Blah.

Originally Posted by Kheld_UK

Been running around Northern Eriador for 3.5 years now.

Dont want to go back there...again (with the possible exception of Annuminas, its very under used.)

If the epic story has moved into Enedwaith, then the new Raid should be in Enedwaith. Or even back in SoM.

Eriador & Moria - been there, done that, want something NEW!

100% agree.
How many times are you going to squeeze another meal out of last years leftovers?
Been in the freezer a long time, not too tasty.
I hope this time the raid loot doesn't have garbage stats on it compared to things from book solo book quests.
If you look in the lorebook under EPIC, you find a link to Annuminas there.
But I've had more than enough of UNDEAD after bg and the wraiths.
MORE THAN ENOUGH UNDEAD UNSEEN to last quite a while.
And please try to design a fight that's reasonably playable unlike the shameful mess you've made of the LT fight.

I"m going to bet they wheel out old Ferndur the gaunt lord, since....

Spoiler


They were trying to resurrect him in the undead.. eww... undead solo instance in the Lich bluffs.
Gag
Undead.... absolute gagfest.

Originally Posted by Umbrael

My feelings, exactly. Do not wants 'back there' again. New zones (or at least Rohan), plz. Spending more time backtracked in the old zones is going to equate to a uber snore coma for me, regardless of who's attacking it, and this is going to be a direction that points toward massive ZZZ's on my part. Blah.

Agreed. Book 3.1 had us running all over old ground in Eriador and was, shall we say, not well received by a significant chunk of the playerbase. For my part, I understood that it was a necessary first step for the Volume III story that Turbine wanted to tell, and it was actually a little bit cool to revisit all those areas. The problem was the timing. Folks had serious cabin fever and were really wanting to see new lands. 3.1 sent us on Pony Express missions across old zones and many people were turned off. 3.2 did finally give us a new landmass, and that was a great breath of fresh air.

But here is the issue as I see it. After I finished the 3.2 epic line, there wasn't anything in Enedwaith I really felt like doing. I don't feel like grinding Algraig rep for a housing trophy. I don't feel like grinding gold stars for scrolls of empowerment. Instead, I'm spending all my time back in Eriador doing old content that has been made relevant again because the classic scaling. My point is that Turbine has already played that card. I believe that it is pretty clear that if Turbine doesn't put group content in Enedwaith, hardly anyone is going to spend any time there after the Epic books are completed (and that doesn't take more than a few days to a week, depending on your playschedule). It seems to me that it would be a major waste of the resources that went into creating Enedwaith if Turbine is not going to support the zone with repeatable group content (beyond the small fellowship repeatables to kill landscape drakes and giants). It just seems like a bad business strategy to put the next big instance cluster back up north in the "classic" zones - it is disjointed from a storytelling perspective and it would be a waste of the resources that went into creating the new Enedwaith zone.

Originally Posted by robnkarla

From the new podcast - Massive Online Gamer Podcast
Another quote:

"Enedwaith is a great location, but if you remember from the original texts there's just not that much in it because the Fellowship goes through Moria and then down by Fangorn and so we're telling a part of the story that just was not dealth with much, so we felt like it would be so much richer for the players to return to some more classic battlegrounds than to pull something together through Enedwaith"

If Turbine is serious about this statement, I don't get it at all. For crying out loud, ANGMAR is nothing more than an appendix entry in LotR. Yet we are supposed to believe Turbine can't make rich content to fit places that aren't featured in the books. The whole design premise of LOTRO (in my view) is that Turbine is fleshing out and creating great storylines in the parts of Middle-earth that Tolkien did not painstakingly detail (because it is simply not feasible from a lore perspective for us to hold hands with the Fellowship during their travels). So, with all due respect, I really have to call BS on this statement about not being able to create a rich enough experience in Enedwaith. That simply flies in the face of everything Turbine has created so far in LOTRO. Furthermore, if that is really Turbine's perspective, if they don't feel that Enedwaith is important, then how do they expect the players to care about Enedwaith?

Hrm. Getting pretty riled up there. But that quote is very troubling to me.

This part doesn't make much sense either:

Originally Posted by robnkarla

"And it gave us the opportunity to focus on continuing to work on Isengard, which of course, you know, is something we are looking at for next year..."

I don't understand how creating an instance cluster in old Eriador would take more resources than creating it in the Lich Bluffs (or anywhere else in Enedwaith).

Unless of course the plan is simply to repurpose existing assets and turn them into skirmishes, ala the Rift skirmish. If that is indeed what Turbine has in mind, my crystal ball says that there will be a lot of teeth gnashing in the playerbase - or even worse, complete disinterest.

As usual, more questions than answers and too much speculation to go around. This is worse than LOST, because with Lost it was fun for your brain and talking about it with your chums, this is turning into a nagfest. So far what I have got out of this thread is:

+ Enedwaith is most likely part of Eriador depending on who you ask
+ If we go back to older areas (CD/URU/BG) it would be bad story telling

I will wait for a more formal announcement before commenting or sharing how big MY Middle Earth map is on my wall

Originally Posted by Vilnas

Hrm. Getting pretty riled up there. But that quote is very troubling to me.

Agreed. That quote goes against everything we've come to expect from Turbine after giving us Angmar, Forochel, Evendim, and the like. If they've really had a change of opinion and now feel that way, it doesn't look promising for those of us (me included) who want to go north to visit Thranduil's realm, Erebor, Dale and whatever the devs could cook up in the area. I realize this is Lord of the Rings Online, but I think it would be a huge mistake to go straight for Mordor via Rohan and Gondor, and leaving everything else untouched.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a revamp of the North Downs and perhaps a complete overhaul of Fornost and Dol Dinen. I say bring it on!!!

Originally Posted by Vilnas

But here is the issue as I see it. After I finished the 3.2 epic line, there wasn't anything in Enedwaith I really felt like doing. I don't feel like grinding Algraig rep for a housing trophy. I don't feel like grinding gold stars for scrolls of empowerment. Instead, I'm spending all my time back in Eriador doing old content that has been made relevant again because the classic scaling. My point is that Turbine has already played that card. I believe that it is pretty clear that if Turbine doesn't put group content in Enedwaith, hardly anyone is going to spend any time there after the Epic books are completed (and that doesn't take more than a few days to a week, depending on your playschedule). It seems to me that it would be a major waste of the resources that went into creating Enedwaith if Turbine is not going to support the zone with repeatable group content (beyond the small fellowship repeatables to kill landscape drakes and giants). It just seems like a bad business strategy to put the next big instance cluster back up north in the "classic" zones - it is disjointed from a storytelling perspective and it would be a waste of the resources that went into creating the new Enedwaith zone.

Ah, but a crux will be if players will still be in Enedwaith even if there is an instance in Enedwaith? With the instance join, there is no need to actually be on landscape in the zone you are running an instance in and I would be curious to see where the new population centers are or will be. I've seen a large spike of people calling Lothlorien/CG home with the increase in ixp available from repeatable quests. Many players will run repeatable dailies in Loth while waiting for x instance.

I think one downside to instance join is the disconnect that will continue to grow between instance locations and the landscape. While I would love to see a rich storyline within Enedwaith connected to group instanced content, unfortunately the importance of the physical location of the instance has diminished compared to pre-F2P I, for one, would hope to see a strong intertwine of the landscape story with new instances to hold the disconnect at bay.

I'll be the one to say it. What does it matter where they put it? All we have to do is use the lame Instance Join Panel and your there anyway. Sure it's convenient, but It so much better to travel to some epic location (like the Rift) than hit a button and be there. Cappy summons are still there but you're at least outside the door and can roam around.

Auto instance joins are lame IMHO.

Originally Posted by Indy-in-IN

I'll be the one to say it. What does it matter where they put it?

It's not where they put it. It's how/if they connect it with the Epics we're (or I at least, I'm not gonna act like I speak for everyone) concerned about.

If they at least make new instances for the cluster then it won't bother me as much. But for some reason I'm just picturing it as CD/UR/BG/Rift being scaled and having that called the "new cluster".