Whilst The Shire remains the most instantly recognisable location in Tolkien’s legendarium, it can be argued that three of the best loved locations of The Lord of the Rings are found in the neighbouring Bree-land. The Old Forest, the Barrow-downs and Bree itself are the main locations which see the Hobbits flee from The Shire and begin their great adventure. The chapters which detail the journey from Crickhollow to the Prancing Pony, The Old Forest, In the House of Tom Bombadil, Fog on the Barrow-downs and At the Sign of the Prancing Pony are often cited as fans favourites, mine included. The appeal of reading about the seemingly helpless Hobbits blundering around from peril to deadly peril, with little or no help, and bearing the One Ring, makes for fascinating reading.
Much of the journey through the Bree-land is commonly excluded from adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. The films by Peter Jackson and Ralph Bakshi, as well as the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation, move straight from The Shire to Bree itself, missing out entirely the adventures in the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs. Additionally one of the most important, and best loved, characters of The Lord of the Rings, Tom Bombadil, has not been included in any of the major adaptations. For this reason, many players of LotRO who are unfamiliar with the books will experience these locations and characters for the first time in-game.
When Turbine looked at designing the areas of Middle-earth, some regions, like The Shire, were blessed with several detailed maps which could serve as invaluable reference material. Other regions, however, were less well mapped, and some, like the Ered Luin and the surrounding lowlands, were hardly mapped at all.
The Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) are one of only a few surviving features of Beleriand, the far north-western area of Middle-earth which was destroyed at the end of the First Age. The mountains were homes to two important Dwarf settlements, Nogrod and Belegost. We are told in The Silmarillion that both were ruined in The War of Wrath, when Thangorodrim was broken and Beleriand was submerged. The Ered Luin themselves were thrust apart in their midst and the sea rushed in, creating the Gulf of Lhun and changing the course of the river.
The lands to the west of the mountains were in the First Age called Ossiriand, the land of seven rivers, and was also named Lindon by the Noldor. It was settled by Nandorin (Green) Elves and for a time housed both Beren and Luthien towards the end of their lives. East of the mountains the land rolled away into downs and thus to Eriador.
It is important to note that the Ered Luin and surrounding lands have been home to Dwarves as well as Nandorin, Sindarin and Noldorin Elves, but never to any significant groups of Men. In this Turbine have been consistent.
I sometimes need to remind myself how amazing 3D computer generated worlds are. When I was a little gaming-brat I used to dream of being able to walk around a fantasy world and actually see all around me, go wherever I wanted and do anything. 2D worlds were fine, but it was hard to get immersed in them. You would dream that one day, far in the future, people would be able to design games which really made you feel like you were there.
The first game to give me this sense of actually being there was Elite, the space trading game. It was 3D, albeit using simple line graphics. What I really wanted was to be able to explore worlds which were familiar to me, and top of the list, surely top of everyone’s list, was Middle-Earth.
If you’d have told me 20 years ago that I would be able to log into a computer generated 3D version of Middle-Earth and walk around with hundreds of others people, I would have made some very excited noises and then probably said “Yeah, sure”.
But you can. Now. Every day. And it’s awesome!
Or is it?
Does the Middle-Earth that Turbine have built bear resemblance to the Middle-Earth that Tolkien envisioned?
I’ll have a stab at answering this question, taking each of the game areas in turn. I will look at the basic geography of the zone as well as examining the inhabitants found there. I’m not looking to pick at little errors and changes the designers made, but I will highlight any glaring differences between the books and the game. To assist me, I will be making reference to The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, an excellent guide, the content of which is generally accepted as being canon.
First up, a warning, this post CONTAINS SPOILERS. The spoilers are for the epic storyline for Volume 1. If you’ve not done Vol 1 yet and want to enjoy the storyline as the game presents it to you, then stop reading now and go somewhere else instead.
The story behind Volume 1 basically concerns itself with the threat posed to Eriador by Angmar, the region in the North East of the land which was the centre of an ancient kingdom of evil ruled over by one of the Nazgul. My first post for this blog dealt with the reasons why this region was revisited by Turbine. I want to take a moment to examine the aspects of Tolkien’s works which Turbine used to create their epic storyline.
The first few chapters of the Book tie in well with the story that players will be familiar with from The Fellowship of the Ring. They are either just ahead of, or just behind, the Hobbits in their journey to Rivendell. Later, once the Ring reaches Elrond, players assist the Fellowship in preparations for their journey. Much of this is taken up with searching for one of the Nazgul who was unaccounted for after the ruin of the Fords of Bruinen. The fact that the missing rider is taken straight from The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the best fits to the ‘lore’ that LotRO has to offer. I must admit that I didn’t realise that one rider was unaccounted for until I played the game. When I got to that point in the Epic quest I went right off to check my copy of the book, just to make sure! This kind of plot device, taken directly from the books, is gaming gold, and Turbine must have thought they were dreaming when they discovered this nugget.
Eventually, the epic story turns north, to Angmar. You are sent to search for the whereabouts of a group of Dunedain who went to Angmar to investigate rumours of growing evil. The Witch-King himself hasn’t returned to his old stomping grounds, but he’s sent a Regent. Mordirith, a Wraith, just like the Witch-King. Angmar is being fortified again and an army is preparing to move against Eriador.
You assist the Dunedain in Angmar to defeat Mordirith (literally Black Guard), however, Amarthiel, previously a Champion of Angmar, now steps up to assume command. The remainder of the epic quests deal with the fight against Amarthiel.
Now, this really is your last chance, SPOILERS HERE. Don’t read any more if you want to discover the twists of Volume 1 for yourself.
Lord of the Rings Online is a pretty generic MMORPG. It borrows heavily from earlier games and introduces little in the way of innovation. There are differences, but any player of Everquest II or World of Warcraft will feel very familiar with the UI on LotRO, which was naturally the intention of Turbine when they designed the game.
So, whilst the game can, at first glance, seem like WoW with Hobbits, it is worth taking a look at how Turbine has taken staple MMO mechanics and tailored them to fit into the world of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. In this follow up to my previous post on how Turbine uses the background material in it’s game I want to examine the role-playing game itself.
Of course, every fantasy RPG ever made, be it computer or paper and pencil based, has drawn heavily on Tolkien. Games like Dungeons and Dragons were almost identical in their use of certain character classes and monsters. Computer RPG’s, single player or otherwise, have used Tolkien as inspiration for a ‘class based’ approach. Bilbo Baggins, the classic fantasy Burglar, in The Hobbit is the main inspiration for this approach. Tolkien makes it clear that the job of Burglar is a specialised one, and a Dwarf simply cannot do it. The idea of clear roles being applied to characters in books was nothing new, but the way in which Tolkien used it so prominently in a fantasy setting was, and it’s effects are still felt today.
So the basic idea of a fantasy RPG is essentially compatible with Tolkien, regardless of the setting. Turbine had it easy in this respect. Their initial choice of classes was easy as well one would imagine, but the way in which they have linked the members of the Fellowship to each class was inspired. Some of the choices take a bit of imagination to reconcile, such as Sam Gamgee as a Guardian, but you can see where the developer is coming from.
Whilst The Shire remains the most instantly recognisable location in Tolkien’s legendarium, it can be argued that three of the best loved locations of The Lord of the Rings are found in the neighbouring Bree-land. The Old Forest, the Barrow-downs and Bree itself are the main locations which see the Hobbits flee from The Shire and begin their great adventure. The chapters which detail the journey from Crickhollow to the Prancing Pony, The Old Forest, In the House of Tom Bombadil, Fog on the Barrow-downs and At the Sign of the Prancing Pony are often cited as fans favourites, mine included. The appeal of reading about the seemingly helpless Hobbits blundering around from peril to deadly peril, with little or no help, and bearing the One Ring, makes for fascinating reading.
The Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) are one of only a few surviving features of 
The first few chapters of the Book tie in well with the story that players will be familiar with from The Fellowship of the Ring. They are either just ahead of, or just behind, the Hobbits in their journey to Rivendell. Later, once the Ring reaches Elrond, players assist the Fellowship in preparations for their journey. Much of this is taken up with searching for one of the Nazgul who was unaccounted for after the ruin of the Fords of Bruinen. The fact that the missing rider is taken straight from The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the best fits to the ‘
has taken staple MMO mechanics and tailored them to fit into the world of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. In this follow up to my previous 
