Thurinphir from CSTM’s Steam Group posed this question about LOTRO’s future and how Turbine might depict it. Specifically he is asking about Minas Tirith in Gondor and what sort of access us as players will have to it.
The Lord of the Rings describes Minas Tirith as such:
For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced half south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned first this way and then that acreoss the face of the hill.
Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 1
This seems like a pretty massive structure! So let’s have fun and take a guess. How do you think Turbine will implement Minas Tirith in the game? Thurinphir shared some ideas for the poll but you are welcome to leave your own ideas in the comments section below.
How do you think Turbine will implement Minas Tirith?
- All the levels are available but are Rep-gated (47%, 415 Votes)
- All the levels seen in movie/mentioned in book with swift-travel between all of them (27%, 238 Votes)
- Instanced-only versions of various levels (15%, 131 Votes)
- First and last levels only, with a portal in between (8%, 72 Votes)
- Other (leave a comment) (3%, 20 Votes)
Total Voters: 875
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December 15, 2012 at 9:12 am
Each level available for 1000 TP each.
December 15, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Lol. So true
December 15, 2012 at 9:24 am
I might guess more like Moria. Mostly self contained with travel between zones.
December 15, 2012 at 9:26 am
All the levels of the movie, the 2nd level will be Instanced with portals at the beggining and the exit. This is because the 2nd level will be a new Housing homestead for players.
P.S. I just said 2nd because i forgot which one would be for houses.
December 16, 2012 at 11:06 am
I’d be very in favor of one or two of the levels holding a new set of housing instances (one for personal, one for kinships).
December 16, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Make this happen Turbine!
December 16, 2012 at 11:42 am
that would be an awesome idea for housing
December 15, 2012 at 9:31 am
I can see it being like Moria with a self contained majority of its location and stable masters between levels. But I guess it really depends on how much quests happen inside – preferably not a bunch of “go find so and so to tell them this and that” over and over.
December 15, 2012 at 9:50 am
I trust Turbine with things like this. They may rep-gate, but I’m 99% sure we’ll get the whole thing.
December 15, 2012 at 10:29 am
I don’t think that we’ll be let in on very much of it, especially not all of the levels. However, ideally that is what I would like to see- especially for the sake of role-players or people who like to really explore the scenery, there is a lot of opportunity for Miras Tirith. I would love to be able to walk around all of the levels, rep-gating or not.
December 15, 2012 at 10:31 am
If I just look to what they have done in the past, I would think they would try a similar approach to Lothlorien when you could only access the area when you had standing and then you could only access the city when your rep was high enough. I could see a similar setting as when Pippin became a guard he was taught the minor passwords to allow him to move in the city. I hope we get to look at city in stages as that would be more appropriate to the lore.
December 15, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I think that we’ll be able to see quite a bit of it but that our ability to interact with it will be very, very limited. The outer system of ramps and such will be visible but inaccessible and we’ll probably do most of our traveling inside the fortress itself where we can use stairs and ladders and just pop out on different vantage points.
December 15, 2012 at 5:57 pm
MORE BATTLE.LESS EXPENSIVE GRAPHICS.
It should be the longest instance. I think like Singela, i will try to say something constructive to this idea. In addition, Turbine could give more information to make an argument founded. Regarding instance, I think it best to make it rich in variables,at the expense of graphics quailty (not performance)<yeah problem&solution. This deserves the longest playtime in instances ever, but we need something achievable and the performance is basically, like Singela has argumented "accidentally", who rules. Something playable and funny please.. A ramp, a tower, a PART(limited) of wall, and orcs' stairs cant be incompatible with the facts to interact with it (and a lot of non-interacting scenary, maybe not beauty in some downgrade pc-specs/graph perform, but entire). I prefer to do more in facts of battle that runs everywhere. All that helps to do the entire battle, like swifts between, not if the part of the batlle will be in the way. Probably my post is causing more doubts.. hehehe
December 15, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Mix of everything.
Somewhere like the citadel at the top could be rep gated but I think the overall access would be locked by quest.
If the map was as big as it should be for a city then swifting about would no doubt come into play. Probably with the map being split into smaller sections to avoid the inevitable issues that come with what should be a large bustling city.
If a town like bree can cause issues then a city sized settlemtn would make it worse.
Instances would cover areas like the guards quarters, houses etc, much the same as with the current insides that we have.
December 16, 2012 at 11:46 am
I think it would be cool if we could man the armaments and let go a flaming boulder or two at the encroaching hordes. lol
based on what I have seen the team do in other areas, the citadel will be accessible and richly interactive, able to enter bldgs and homes, and full of meaningful npcs. there will be multi quest lines to aid in the prep for siege and war. the final level will prob be rep gated or instanced with open access to the cliff view and tree.
December 16, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I guess there will be a few levels accessible directly and some instances. But not all levels will be implemented, I think.
December 17, 2012 at 2:26 am
as one kinnie pointed out (joking, referring to hytbold): “just wait until minas tirith, we’ll have to rebuild that too”.
the closest thing to minas tirith i’ve seen in any computer game is in my case divinity’s reach in GW2. that was beautiful, and i hope turbine take a hint from their competition and make it 10 times bigger and 10 times better.
December 17, 2012 at 4:07 am
After RoI I would have voted for “First and last levels only, with a portal in between”, but after RoR I voted for “All the levels seen in movie/mentioned in book with swift-travel between all of them”. I trust Turbine will put the same effort into it as they did with Rohan, especially with Meduseld. It was so “real”.
December 17, 2012 at 1:32 pm
789 TP per tier unlock.
December 17, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Gated via the Epic Quest Line, especially the Citadel.
December 17, 2012 at 10:17 pm
I voted first and last, but in truth I think it will be 1st, 2nd, & Top essentially. You need to have some between tier travel that isn’t a warp, but likely won’t have all levels outside of instanced events.
December 17, 2012 at 11:46 pm
I think there will be rep gating, but also have quest gating to other layers, or phases of the city. Similar to Tal Methedras in Dunland, where first we wander around helping the people, then after our vacation in Orthanc we return to a different town.
I’ve been thinking about this regarding Orthanc as well. My best guess is that we will continue to have access to RoI’s Orthanc via Dunland and the Gap of Rohan. Then with Helm’s Deep battle and the Fall of Orthanc, we will access a destroyed and Ent controlled version of Orthanc.
This is likely to be similar with Minas Tirith. Some kind of gating among levels of the city, but then something different after the great battle is over. The battle itself will be interesting, and likely be as part of an Instance Cluster. We should be able to ride into the battle with the Rohirrim, but also stand by the guards of the Citadel during the battle.
In my mind, they have been testing this kind of game play on us for a while now. Tal Methedras phasing. Hytbold rebuild phasing, and Langhold phasing. As for the actual large scale feeling battle, Wulf’s Cleft (At the east end of the Gap) and the battle fought there. (Anyone else wishing to have been able to explore that a bit more than just the one instance?)
But yes. Rep gated levels of the city, with phasing during the battle as we follow Epic? Or another story arc with Instances or Skirmishes (or a mix of both perhaps?)
December 21, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Everybody has some really great thoughts about this, and I don’t want to be negative, but I can’t help it. We are at least 2 years away from MT, more likely 3 years, so I feel it is way to early to be thinking about how it is going to work or look. We have to get to East Rohan next year, then they will probably do something with Dunharrow and the druidan Forest, and maybe something with Ithilien before we get to MT. again not trying to be down and sorry if I have offended anyone, just how I feel.
December 21, 2012 at 5:33 pm
The question wasn’t when are we getting to Minas Tirith. I’m fairly certain every single person voting knows this isn’t for a while.
December 21, 2012 at 7:43 pm
In my simple perspective implementation has many meanings. Mechanics, Graphics, NPC’s all of these and more are so involved. Simply though, I can see it much like Breeland and Bree, where the surrounding area is it’s own map with the city being a self contained map with levels much like Moria as it was mentioned above but more like Bree. The top would be the smallest of the multilevel map of the the city and the base the largest, seeing that the city is so huge and tall, it woul dbe similar to the Endles Stair in the FOundation of Stone in Moria. Gane play would be interesting as an instance portraying the final battle would be quite complex and very full of characters, of course it most likely would have to be played out in at least two sections, one on the plain in front of the city and one within the city and maybe even a third for the events on the top level. Just a simpal perspective I have to offer after being on LOTRO for a while. Quite an interesting question about an interesting part of a future expansion, Thanks GoldenStar, this has to be one of my favorites!! Absolutely food for thought
December 21, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Excuse my mis-spellings, been at work all day and quite tired
December 26, 2012 at 10:37 pm
I’d love to see Minis Tirith in LOTRO. However, since the Mirkwood expansion does not include King Thranduil’s (woodelf) Realm in the north, nor does the Rohan expansion include Edoras, I am skeptical whether a Gondor expansion will include Minis Tirith.
January 5, 2013 at 3:51 pm
My expectations for the size of things in LOTRO are pretty low.
I suspect it will be a tiny fraction of what we envision in our minds Minas Tirith to be. I suppose more than anything this is a landscape issue which to me is FAR too compact. I think they went too far to the low end of distance vs. travel-time frustration in that regard. For many enthusiasts like myself we’ve always envision massive grand vistas and landscapes in Middle-earth (which obviously they can’t do in a game, but they could have increased distances by 50% and I think that would have been satisfactory).
( I hope I’m wrong and Minas Tirith will be realized as a massive wonder, but I think it’s best to keep expectations low).