From todays Point of view putting Dol Guldur into the Core-Set seems odd, but on release the core had to Keep the Players entertained until the first AP would be released (and that took longer than expected iirc). As the number of quests/Cards you can put into the box is limited your only Option to not have Players Speed through the Content in a Weekend is to make it challenging.

That's true but I never understood why they only had 3 quests to begin with. When it comes right down to it, a quest is really nothing more than 2 or 3 cards if you already have an encounter deck in place, so it would have been just about creating some clever ways to make use of the same cards (exactly what the player base did). It seemed silly to simply add a near impossible quest to beat rather than simply adding a few more cards.

I think an even better idea would have been to put out an IPAD or WEB app where players could create their own quests and share them. I do that personally all the time, its a lot of fun, but there really isn't a very good platform to share them.

1 hour ago, BigKahuna said:

That's true but I never understood why they only had 3 quests to begin with. When it comes right down to it, a quest is really nothing more than 2 or 3 cards if you already have an encounter deck in place, so it would have been just about creating some clever ways to make use of the same cards (exactly what the player base did). It seemed silly to simply add a near impossible quest to beat rather than simply adding a few more cards.

I think an even better idea would have been to put out an IPAD or WEB app where players could create their own quests and share them. I do that personally all the time, its a lot of fun, but there really isn't a very good platform to share them.

With the current pool of official quests as deep as it is, there's few custom quests being made. The First Age stuff is still being produced, and very high quality. But back in the Core Set days, there were a ton on BGG. That's actually how one of the lead developers got noticed and hired.

One thing I did discover is that Escape From Gul Guldur is attually super fun when playing 4 player. Its still stupidedly hard but with 4 brains at the table it creates a whole new kind of challenge.

Personally though with the exception of this one quest in the core set, LoTr has turned out to be a pretty amazing experiance for me. Its really kind of funny because when I first hear about it I was like.. Cooperative.. bleh... collectable card game? Hell no... I would have never even considered buying it or playing it except a friend of mine talked me into it and was like.. just try it I bought it.. so I abliged. Now I feel like all my fun money every month goes to trying to complete my collection.. I pretty much play it everyday going for months now. Its kind of turned out to be one of my favorite games.

I say all this because it always feels wierd to complain about this quest since I pretty much love everything else about the game I have ever tried.