The Geography of LOTRO: Part 3 Filling in the Gaps
I would like to once again return to the matter of the geography of Middle Earth. David Braben, co-creator of seminal video game Elite, called truly open-ended game design and sandbox gaming environments "The Holy Grail" of modern video gaming. He cited games like Elite and the Grand Theft Auto series as early steps in that direction. For many gamers, the idea of being able to freely roam a virtual world without any deliberate restrictions is a very enticing one. For Tolkien fans, the notion of being given complete freedom of movement throughout Middle Earth would be a dream come true. However, due to the way that LOTRO has been designed, Standing Stone Games vision of Middle Earth, although well-conceived is not such an environment.
The Geography of LOTRO: Part 2 Bree and Bree-land
In the second part of our look at the geography of Middle Earth, we shall be focusing of the town of Bree. It has a pivotal role in the events of the book and subsequently play a similar part Standing Stone Games Lord of the Rings Online. Before we start, let us remind ourselves exactly what Tolkien writes when introducing Bree to the reader. The following quote is the opening paragraph of chapter nine; At the sign of the Prancing Pony from The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Geography of LOTRO: Part 1 The Shire
One of the most engaging aspects of The Lord of the Rings is the expansive and detailed world that Tolkien has created. His love of maps combined with his detailed descriptions of the geography of Middle Earth, makes a credible and living environment. The Shire in particular is described in great depth, becoming a character in itself within the narrative. So, when Turbine developed LOTRO a decade ago, they were faced with an extremely difficult task of adapting this territory into a suitable MMO environment. However, the results have been well received and this region has remained a firm favourite with LOTRO players. So, I thought it would be interesting to look in more detail at selected areas of Middle Earth and explore the subtle differences between the game and the source text over a series of blog posts. So, let us start where the story begins, in The Shire.