Maybe they show show that in the War of the Ring happened in Rhovanion and Erebor - Battle Of Dale, siege of Lonely Mountain, battle in the mirkwood, attack on Lorien and assault on Dol Guldur? Then they can show heroes like Thranduil and Galadriela, support silvian and dale.

@legolas - blue wizards will surely spring up at some point in this game- they are like a designer's dream (or worse nightmare?) ..so much you can do with them. but they have to make sure they go on tokiens last words! he changed his mind on them a lot! theres a big difference between cult leaders and helpers in the war of the ring

@caesar- good ideas. i think they may even come up as saga packs rather than APs as they are set events. though i suppose the designers could use the events as a springboard into their own quest ideas

rich

I've been dreaming of a hunt for the blue wizards scenario. It would have to be mostly made-up locations and speculation though.

Any chance our heroes could strap on some scuba gear and go searching for the lost ruins of Beleriand?

i almost like how the blue wizards are an enigma in the rich and well versed world of middle earth. i'm not sure how i'd feel if there were quests associated with them (although it would depend on the manner in which they were involved i suppose...like looking for them but not actually finding them)

I've been dreaming of a hunt for the blue wizards scenario. It would have to be mostly made-up locations and speculation though.

Any chance our heroes could strap on some scuba gear and go searching for the lost ruins of Beleriand?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!! YES!!!! Awesome!!!! Great Idea!!! ohhhh man i really like the hunt for blue wizards idea. wow you really got me exited now..... it would be cool if you had to pick up clues and traces of them. like maps and talk to strangers that said they knew of a wizard type that had been around and stuff. Kinda like a mystery hunt. Except rather than a senario it would be even better if it could be a cycle. I still feel like I want to visit Dol-Guldur again. But not when it's inhabited. Like search for some clue or trace of the BLue wizards that were at Dol-Guldur in some secret passage underneath the watch tower were who knows what enemies could be down there. great idea.

I've been dreaming of a hunt for the blue wizards scenario. It would have to be mostly made-up locations and speculation though.

Any chance our heroes could strap on some scuba gear and go searching for the lost ruins of Beleriand?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!! YES!!!! Awesome!!!! Great Idea!!! ohhhh man i really like the hunt for blue wizards idea. wow you really got me exited now..... it would be cool if you had to pick up clues and traces of them. like maps and talk to strangers that said they knew of a wizard type that had been around and stuff. Kinda like a mystery hunt. Except rather than a senario it would be even better if it could be a cycle. I still feel like I want to visit Dol-Guldur again. But not when it's inhabited. Like search for some clue or trace of the BLue wizards that were at Dol-Guldur in some secret passage underneath the watch tower were who knows what enemies could be down there. great idea.

i also like this idea. would make an excellent cycle as you say

When i see this game first time and understand the concept i say to myself: Wow we can follow the blue wizard story go to Harad and even Angmar in the time of Arnor and Rudaur.

That would be epic. Also, I was thinking of the LOTRO Forochel when I was talking about that too! haha. The designers did do a good job on some of the landscapes in that game, but like you said, Angmar is horrible. And I absolutely LOVE the Unfinished Tales. It has so much information on everything. I would also love to see a "Hunt for the Blue Wizards" type of scenario. But there's so little information on them too. Looks like we need a little dark magic from Sauron to bring Tolkien back from the dead, just so he can answer all of these darn questions.

Okay. Get out of my head. The first three things I thought when reading Rich's initial post were 1) Forochel, 2) Angmar (especially now that we have that uber-crazy-good Glorfindel to head up there), and 3) head East to find a Blue Wizard or two.

Rich, I was trying to envision a lot of the LOTRO landscape as well. And I think that's why Angmar and Forochel jumped to mind... try and make up for that rushed job (even though I love that game as well).

I'm not sure how deeply FFG would want to get into "the far East" concept (whether we wish them to or not). With so little being actually written/published about those wizards and where they went, I would have my doubts that 1) the Tolkien estate would license them the go-ahead to speculate heavily on that region, and 2) FFG would even want to broach a subject that a) would require creating more material (rather than relying on know/written material) and b) would inevitably invite criticism from hard-core Tolkien "scholars"...

b) would inevitably invite criticism from hard-core Tolkien "scholars"...

i may as well be honest here and say i would be one of the people to end up over analysing any harad pack.

not that im a snob (yes you are richard....) but as i said earlier in this thread, so many have got it wrong, and ffg are up there with some of the best designers of middle earth. i wouldnt want them to ruin it.

that being said, perhaps the fact they have done such a great job means that they could handle such a vague element of middle earth. it would certainly be interesting to see the outcome...and on a more serious note, i could actually forgive mistakes after keeping so well to the lore...but not too many that it ruined the feel of the game. every game has hit and misses right?

and on an even more serious and 'deep' thought, such a vagueness surely allows for one's own perception....everyone probaby has their own ideas of the unkowns of middle earth and it would be hard to please everyone

i think the outcome of great or awful would not be so much on the created content, but on how 'natural' it felt in place in middle earth....certainly a tough thing to do with such dedicated fans

lastly, i think another difficulty is the fact there would be essentially no areas that give that lovely 'nostalgia' i (and others) get when they visit much loved areas. i think it would be near impossible to give it that tolkien feel.

so yes, despite many wanting to see harad and rhun and others, it is not certain will shall see them which leaves even more debate for where we go next

i think more success would be had from the ruins of the north kingdom as there is far more to base things on, but thats just my opinion.

rich

i think more success would be had from the ruins of the north kingdom as there is far more to base things on, but thats just my opinion.

rich

Yeah I agree......but i mean, what enemies would we fight besides creatures?

i think more success would be had from the ruins of the north kingdom as there is far more to base things on, but thats just my opinion.

rich

Yeah I agree......but i mean, what enemies would we fight besides creatures?

i would need to look in the appendices to answer that properly. taking the lotro as an example again (not that ffg should be taking tips from them of course) they had sort of barrow down inspired spirits as a main enemy, evil men i think, wargs (though i think they were barghast), and then mainly orcs of different sorts.

i guess the base enemy would be orcs....you cant really go wrong there as they were pretty much the standard enemy in middle earth. the designers would have to be careful not to imply they roamed too far south down the greenway, otherwise the breelanders would soon discover how rubbish the rangers were at protecting them

the witch king was supposed to send the spirits to the barrow downs, so i suppose its not too far a stretch to take inspiration for that and have the ruins of carn dum inhabited with evil spirits..perhaps even some roaming trolls, though i dont think it should be rebuilt as in lotro as we dont hear of any battles there during the war of the ring, which would surely have played a part if it was.

evil men or bandits would surely roam the greenway, though what for i cannot guess as no one used it. perhaps a few of them went so far as bree for supplies, so after a shire/breeland cycle we could make our way north up the greenway after hearing of strange tales in the prancing pony inn from butterbur.

after that we could visit each of the main places. i dont think we could visit it per kingdom, as in the civil war, as arnor covered most of eriador, so we would end up revisiting the shire again...but i think we could go to fornost, annuminas, the far north to angmar

sounds quite promising to me!