Talk:Epic Quests

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Vol 3 Book 2

note: The title of vol 3 book 2 has been confirmed in a dev diary at lotro.com the description of the epic book has not yet been confirmed!!! please edit this after the patch September 2 (book 2 will go live at september 10) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Spielberg9 (Contribs • User Talk) at 18:00, 2 September 2010‎.

Volume IV?

I have seen maps about gondor, and links to volume IV quests. 1. Does this mean volume IV is released? 2. If so/not should it be added to the list here, or will we wait for further info? ⇒ Authades ⇔ Talk ⇐ 03:22, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Update 14 is on Bullroarer right now, my educated guess would be that it's going to be on live somewhere in July. Personally I'd wait with adding it to this page until Volume IV is accessible to everyone ;)
Faratalath (talk) 08:30, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I was a bit confused as to why the quests, maps, etc were on the wiki, and seemingly in the game (Bullroarer I guess), and no promotion whatsoever about it was found. Thanks for that. ⇒ Authades ⇔ Talk ⇐ 22:31, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Nominally, all of the U14 stuff should be tagged as Beta, but I've been lazy. Mainly, because it isn't linked in to the main flow of things -- like on this page, which is an intentional omission.
Since Bullroarer is an Open Beta, there hasn't been a real need to "hide" the information as has been done in past updates, and the content has been talked about in the forums and the TTHTI runs.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 23:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

what's the likelihood of future accessibility to story content? f2p or something similar to Vol III's bks 11-14? (i don't frequent the forums)
--JaqlinLeFleur (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Vol IV, Book 1 is free to all players.--Tharondir (talk) 05:46, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Comments by MoL on the distruction of the One Ring

Originally posted by: MadeOfLions
This is true: I began thinking about how we'd handle the destruction of the Ring almost ten years ago, back when the world was much smaller (and LOTRO hadn't crossed the Misty Mountains yet!). Premature? Probably: the Fellowship was still in Rivendell, and there was no guarantee that we'd even have the opportunity to move them much further on their journey, let alone all the way to Mordor. But think about it I did; it would have been harder to make me not think about it, even back then!
It seemed clear to me that there were two important goals, and maybe those goals were at odds. First, the Quest of the Ring really belonged to Frodo and Sam (and Gollum), and involving the player in the actual destruction of the Ring would be a mistake. It had to remain their accomplishment, which means it had to progress essentially as described in the book; no having the player jump out from behind a rock and pushing Gollum into the Fire, or firing catapults at the Nazgul to keep them from reaching the Mountain, or following them up the Stairs and freeing the Ringbearers from the Orc patrol they (temporarily) join. It's their Quest, and seeing it through needed to be up to them. We should still see it, because of How Important That Moment Is, so sessionplay was the clear solution. Not as Frodo or Sam, though; even as far back as 2007 I knew what I wanted. If you play as Gollum, not only do you get to see inside the Sammath Naur, but you also get to be involved in the actual destruction of the Ring in a way that really appealed to me. I've been telling almost every new member that joins the Content Team, for going on nine or ten years, that I want the player to be responsible for Gollum's last act as Ringbearer: a /dance at the edge of the Fire is just the thing. You get to be responsible for destroying the Ring, but in a way that doesn't contradict the source material. I love it.
The second important goal is that even though it's Frodo's journey, by now we've invested so much time in our own characters that I wanted to find a way for *our own characters* to be involved at Mount Doom. Just watching from the Black Gate, while completely believable, doesn't have the same impact as setting foot on the slopes of Orodruin does -- but that's not even the real reason to go with Gandalf and Gwaihir for the rescue. No, the real reason is that in order for Frodo to trust our characters enough to share the events that happened inside Sammath Naur, I needed a way to make our characters *relevant* to Frodo again. Why would Frodo share the Very Much Confidential information of what exactly happened inside Orodruin, the moment of his deepest shame, with our characters... if the last time he saw us was on Cerin Amroth in Lothlorien, and he saw us one time before that, in Rivendell? We're almost nobody to him. But if we're there at the end, if we saw some of what he saw, if he associates us with the slopes of Orodruin, if we have some shared experience... that's different.
Lots of these plans were noodling around in my head since 2007 or 2008, although active development of Book 9 was going on for about a year in advance of Mordor - it sounds like a lot for fifteen minutes of gameplay, I know it, but that's the curse of the game designer. Everything takes longer than you think it does. Could I have bloated out the length of Book 9 with lots more combat at the Black Gate, or fireball-dodging on Mount Doom? Maybe. I don't think that would have made the experience better, though. I did have to chuckle at a few of the streams and videos I've watched of people being surprised at the conclusion of Book 9: when players saw how far we progressed the storyline to in the Battle of the Black Gate, how much longer did they really think the Ring was going to last? It gets destroyed mere minutes after that, and Tolkien himself covers the end of Frodo and Sam's journey in very few pages.
I'd be interested in compiling (or seeing someone's attempt at compiling!) a chronological list of the quests in LOTRO that tell the story of the One Ring. I suspect that when they're played in sequence, Book 9 probably works better as the conclusion to a much longer story than it does when played as the individual standalone it was released as.
MoL
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:42, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Epic Books that do not require completion of previous chapters

Since every now and then people search for info on which chapters they can start without doing all the previous epic books, it might be an idea to add such a list on this page (or mark the relevent books somehow). Any opinion on this? Feuerhaar (talk) 06:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Before the Shadow (Placement on the Epic Quests Page)

It was decided in discord, wiki-general, that the Before the Shadow information would be put in Volume I before Shadow of Angmar. This is because it starts earlier than Shadows of Angmar and takes place during the same time period. Discord: 11/26/2022, around 3:43PM Eastern (EST) for those that need a time reference.

Galbus (talk) 21:14, 26 November 2022 (UTC)