Thread: Size of RoR?

On the pre-order page it says, "Nearly three times as large as moria!". Then on another page says, "Nearly twice as large as moria!". Which is it? For $70 I'm hoping 3x.

There's also the question on how much of that includes things to do and how much of that is sprawling plains to attack war bands on... I'm excited about the latter, but I wonder what standard they're measuring "large" by too.

A bunch of pixels on your future updated map.

If you compare it to Moria it's also a question of what you count.

- Do yo make a big (imaginary) square around the whole of moria saying "this is the size of the Moria expansion"
- Do you take only the parts that are mapped and say "this is the size of the Moria expansion"
- Do you take only the parts where you can actually BE with your character and say "this is the size of the Moria expansion"

Depending on which one of these are chosen one could claim anywhere from "it will be x times larger than moria" to "it will be smaller than Moria". Truth is, even when they say it's larger than moria, we don't know how they measure it

If it is gonna be open grassy plains then it will be easier to make bigger as it isnt including too much in the way of scenery higher than your feet i assume. Moria had all the walls and ceilings to write in. Would that mean it would be easier to code in wide open plains like a sea of grass? Is that how it works?

Notice how the "twice as large" refers to the landscape while the "three times as large" refers to the expansion in general.

They still don't say how they count moria, is it a square box or the parts where you can walk? What does the contents consist of? There's just too little information at this point to say anything on this matter

I think the key comparisons are size in accessible area, and size in numbers of quests. Another could be size in numbers of zones.

I don't want precise numbers, but "twice as big" sorts of comparisons would be helpful. Just needs a little precision in the use of language to properly describe what is being compared.

Perhaps a bit much to expect of marketeers!

Don't forget mounted combat, new armour, recipes, clothing etc. Worth the pre order money!

I can't find the quote but sapience has said somewhere on the forums something to the effect of:

Twice the size (landmass) of Moria
Twice the content of Isengard

Originally Posted by Brya

I can't find the quote but sapience has said somewhere on the forums something to the effect of:

Twice the size (landmass) of Moria
Twice the content of Isengard

I'd be quite happy with all of that.

Originally Posted by Eledhrim

Don't forget mounted combat, new armour, recipes, clothing etc. Worth the pre order money!

$70 is steep. It's very steep. Especially those of us with two accounts.

Keep in mind you still need either a monthly sub or money for Turbine Points to play.

Originally Posted by mjk47

I think the key comparisons are size in accessible area, and size in numbers of quests. Another could be size in numbers of zones.

I don't want precise numbers, but "twice as big" sorts of comparisons would be helpful. Just needs a little precision in the use of language to properly describe what is being compared.

Perhaps a bit much to expect of marketeers!

We all know by now how precise Turbine is with their wording. Don't you worry.

Originally Posted by Fantoma

$70 is steep. It's very steep. Especially those of us with two accounts.

Keep in mind you still need either a monthly sub or money for Turbine Points to play.

Yes, $70 is quite steep (although seemingly the norm for digital CEs nowadays, as much as I don't like it), but the main expansion is $40. Nothing in that $70 package is required.

For those of you who have not found the discrepancy yourselves, and for the devs to clarify, here are the two differing descriptions:

http://rohan.lotro.com/features.html

Discover LOTRO's largest landscape yet – nearly twice as large as Moria! Join with the Rohirrim and ride across the sprawling plains of Eastern Rohan. Raise high your sword to fight for honor and glory in the name of Théoden King! Experience hundreds of new quests, earn new favor, get new gear, achieve new deeds and more!

http://store.turbine.com/store/turbi...oryID.58516200

Explore Largest Landscape Yet!
Nearly three times as large as Moria! Join with the Rohirrim and ride across the sprawling Eastern Plains of Rohan. Raise high your sword to fight for honor and glory in the name of Théoden King! Experience hundreds of new quests, earn new favor, gear, deeds and more!

the bolded underlined text in red is where the confusion lies. So which is it, nearly twice or nearly three times the landscape as moria?

Originally Posted by Brya

I can't find the quote but sapience has said somewhere on the forums something to the effect of:

Twice the size (landmass) of Moria
Twice the content of Isengard

Well if you look at it that way we can assume(wishfull thinking:

2 raids a.k.a draigoch
2 raids a.k.a ToO
6 3 man instances
2 6 man instances
A bigass landmass
4 reputation factions

Who knows, only time will tell(or finally some in debt information from e3 or any press article that got the chance for an interview)

Originally Posted by Fralin

If you compare it to Moria it's also a question of what you count.

(whispers) Moria seems to be smaller now that you don't get lost for as many hours and since the quests are better setup to prevent some of the running about from one end to the other. Not to mention the goat!

But yes, a comparison is likely to be skewed since size really is not as much of an issue as diversity and quality/immersion of the content. You could put in a ton of tasks and quests and if they are repetitive by nature, the zone won't feel very large. Get the claws, okay, go for the teeth now, alright we need certain types of fur, now we need you to go back and kill the named one, good, now cleanse the area (really?). Lone Lands was a good example of a lot of diversity (in my opinion) in a zone. Northern Downs (for me anyway) felt like a lot of space between a little fun stuff.

Another good example is Evendim. Same size as it was before, change in content made a dull zone much more enjoyable and in fact a pleasure to play in. It's not only the size that matters.

PC Gamer says that RoR will include Helm's Deep. Is this true?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/06/lo...-way-to-steam/

Helm's Deep is not coming with this expansion and that is straight from Turbine. They're saving HD for the western half of Rohan, which they'll be releasing sometime in the future, hopefully in a free update and not another expansion.

I think what PCGamer was trying to say is that the Riders of Rohan expansion is coming later this year and that Rohan is the land of the horse lords and Helm's Deep. At least, that is how it read to me.

Twice the size of Moria, with none of the content! Come pick up berries and kill boars for 10 levels and then do your favorite skirms and classic instances that you have been doing for three years, all in a much bigger zone!

That just says that Helms deep is in rohan, Not that its in the expansion.

Originally Posted by nolins12

Twice the size of Moria, with none of the content! Come pick up berries and kill boars for 10 levels and then do your favorite skirms and classic instances that you have been doing for three years, all in a much bigger zone!

This is sort of how I feel, and mainly why I quit playing. How can it be 2x or 3x the size of moria content-wise, if it doesn't include instances at launch? $70 for an xpac with no instances is pretty steep, especially when you can buy say guild wars 2, for the same price with no sub fee. Turbine burned me with RoI, I used to love the game, just wanting some clarification.

Two things.

There is this incorrect notion about Moria being one of the biggest zones we have. Moria is actually quite a small area in terms of accessible landscape. I am guessing the illusion of 9 sub-zones and being jam packed with quests/monsters is the reason of this misconception. Surely the biggest expansion in terms of playable content (will we ever get another expansion that launches with 7 full fellowship instances?), but it isn't exactly massive when it comes to landscape size.

Rohan could easily be the biggest zone we get. It could even be twice the size of Forochel, including the bay. I'm not saying it will be, just could be. Why? A huge part of it will be vast plains. Empty areas. So that a lot of players can comfortably engage in mounted combat at once. It is up to the developers to decide how big is comfortable enough.

I'm hoping the size comparison refers to content as simply more land area without more content would be boring.

About the length of a piece of string apparently.

Seriously though. I hope the size is measured in 'approximate hours of entertainment'. Hard to measure in any case.

As for large open areas. I do like it when regions have large amounts of 'obsolete' landscape. I dont mean in detriment of quest content, but in addition, think of it as terrain padding. Its relatively easy to create extra landscape with a few landmarks here and there, even if most of the quest content centers around certain hubs and areas. The extra landscape is great for people who like to explore around and enhances the feeling that you are in 'middle earth' so to speak. That idea fits in quite well with what Rohan is meant to be.

Plus it makes for great spaces in which to fit later quests or deeds in smaller updates, or places to take you to when the epic quest line decides to make you move you around a little and you bump into places in that older region which you never saw when you were levelling.

Originally Posted by nolins12

Twice the size of Moria, with none of the content! Come pick up berries and kill boars for 10 levels and then do your favorite skirms and classic instances that you have been doing for three years, all in a much bigger zone!

Nail. Head.

I can't honestly believe people are expecting it to be different?

If it's the geographical size without the content to match then thats not good. We know that the plains of rohan will be big open spaces but if that just means taking 5mins to run from one npc to another and back then it's not good at all.

With the warbands you kind of have to have wide open spaces to prevent eh horse taking a nosedive off a cliff or smacking itself into an invisible wall, hopefully the warband stuff wont be content thats relied on to level off.

Given the lack of content to level off at the release of RoI (lvl73-74 when quests ran out) then the content really has to be more than RoI unless they're going to go in with the xp boosted.

I´m not too fazed about deriving quality predictions from size. Its about what you DO with the existing landmass. Tkae RoI. There is no reason at all to visit 5 of 7 of its parts after you have finished the on-rails quests (unless for farming crafting nodes and deeds). It is dead content the moment you pass through it.

Why they did not bring all the separate battlegrounds at least as repeatable content, I cannot explain (Wulfs Cleft, the Dunbog Orc camp, the Culling Pit, just to name a few).

It better have twice the bacon....

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

Why they did not bring all the separate battlegrounds at least as repeatable content, I cannot explain (Wulfs Cleft, the Dunbog Orc camp, the Culling Pit, just to name a few).

Wulfs cleft at least could have been an awesomely fun skirmish. Kind of missed the boat on that one now though.

It must be pretty big on account of the price they are charging us for it...

Why can't they just tell us in meters and kilometers? That's the unit of distance we use when we're playing the game? Or call it two Breelands long, one Breeland wide or something. We can relate to that.

Of course I'm expecting marketing ppl to actually have played the game. Silly me.

I think they use that words to say its a very big area not to give a specific measure.

Originally Posted by Moneydie

Wulfs cleft at least could have been an awesomely fun skirmish. Kind of missed the boat on that one now though.

I kind of agree here. After spending the whole first half of Isengard's story building up to Wulf's Cleft, it was kind of a let down to get just one solo-instance and then essentially forget about the place as we become Saruman's prisoners. Even worse was that they toted the technical features of Wulf's Cleft (the massive battles, phasing, and NPC selection) as major selling points of Rise of Isengard, but then did not even include a reflecting pool so that customers could replay the instance to their heart's content.

Alas, I digress. As for the size of Riders of Rohan, it is a selling point that I refuse to buy into. With one hand, they claim that the size of Rohan is bigger than anything they've released so far, and thus they expect us to shell out the extra dollars to meet RoR's unreasonable selling price. Yet with the other, they tell us that because the new war-mounts are the fastest mounts in game, we'll be covering a great deal of space in a short amount of time just participating in mounted combat.

After hearing this, I can't help but worry that we're about to get the same amount of content as we always get, but with quest hubs separated by expansive and otherwise boring fields of grass in which they expect us to participate in mounted combat. It's too early to tell right now, but for the price they're selling it, I'll be very disappointed if all this content and "size" turns out to be a couple of Eastern Bree-Fields lumped together and littered with mounted mobs.