new quest - CASTLES????

[somenewnoob]

Minor tangent incoming:

Tolkien novels read like ancient religious texts. He had an amazing imagination and knack for creating rich and believable environments but was a terrible author in terms of pacing and flow.

LotR movie > LotR book, since it captured the essence of Tolkiens imagination but without his terrible writing. Otherwise, I'd agree with you, books > movies.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks his writing was lack luster. I figured I would get at least 8945 neg reps if I said so!

I read teh hobbit after I saw the movie (first time reading one of his books), and couldn't believe how poorly written it was. Could barely finish it. This was when i was a kid, and even then it was bad.

[Thrudh]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks his writing was lack luster. I figured I would get at least 8945 neg reps if I said so!

I read teh hobbit after I saw the movie (first time reading one of his books), and couldn't believe how poorly written it was. Could barely finish it. This was when i was a kid, and even then it was bad.

I may have to remove you from my sig list.

Sam vs. Shelob - I love this in the book... They didn't do it justice in the movie. Sam was no weepy emo loser in the book!

Now splaying her legs she drove her huge bulk down on him again. Too soon. For Sam still stood upon his feet, and dropping his own sword, with both hands he held the elven-blade point upwards, fending off that ghastly roof; and so Shelob, with the driving force of her own cruel will, with strength greater than any warrior's hand, thrust herself upon a bitter spike. Deep, deep it pricked, as Sam was crushed slowly to the ground.
No such anguish had Shelob ever known, or dreamed of knowing, in all her long world of wickedness. Not the doughtiest soldier of old Gondor, nor the most savage Ore entrapped, had ever thus endured her, or set blade to her beloved flesh. A shudder went through her. Heaving up again, wrenching away from the pain, she bent her writhing limbs beneath her and sprang backwards in a convulsive leap.
Sam had fallen to his knees by Frodo's head, his senses reeling In the foul stench, his two hands still gripping the hilt of the sword. Through the mist before his eyes he was aware dimly of Frodo's face, and stubbornly he fought to master himself and to drag himself out of the swoon that was upon him. Slowly, he raised his head and saw her, only a few paces away, eyeing him, her beak drabbling a spittle of venom, and a green ooze trickling from below her wounded eye. There she crouched, her shuddering belly splayed upon the ground, the great bows of her legs quivering, as she gathered herself for another spring-this time to crush and sting to death: no little bite of poison to still the struggling of her meat; this time to slay and then to rend.
Even as Sam himself crouched, looking at her, seeing his death in her eyes, a thought came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken, and he fumbled in his breast with his left hand, and found what he sought: cold and hard and solid it seemed to his touch in a phantom world of horror, the Phial of Galadriel.
'Galadriel!' he said faintly, and then he heard voices far off but clear: the crying of the Elves as they walked under the stars in the beloved shadows of the Shire, and the music of the Elves as it came through his sleep in the Hall of Fire in the house of Elrond.

Gilthoniel A Elbereth!

And then his tongue was loosed and his voice cried in a language which he did not know:

A Elbereth Gilthoniel
0 menel palan-diriel,
le nallon si di'nguruthos! A tiro nin, F anuilos!

And with that he staggered to his feet and was Samwise the hobbit, Hamfast's son, again.
'Now come, you filth!' he cried. 'You've hurt my master, you brute, and you'll pay for it. We're going on; but we'll settle with you first. Come on, and taste it again!'
As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand. It flamed like a star that leaping from the firmament sears the dark air with intolerable light. No such terror out of heaven had ever burned in Shelob's face before. The beams of it entered into her wounded head and scored it with unbearable pain, and the dreadful infection of light spread from eye to eye. She fell back beating the air with her forelegs, her sight blasted by inner lightnings, her mind in agony. Then turning her maimed head away, she rolled aside and began to crawl, claw by claw, towards the opening in the dark cliff behind.
Sam came on. He was reeling like a drunken man, but he came on. And Shelob cowed at last, shrunken in defeat, jerked and quivered as she tried to hasten from him. She reached the hole, and squeezing down, leaving a trail of green-yellow slime, she slipped in, even as Sam hewed a last stroke at her dragging legs.

"Come on, and taste it again!" - I cannot believe they didn't use that line in the movie...

[somenewnoob]

I may have to remove you from my sig list.

Sam vs. Shelob - I love this in the book... They didn't do it justice in the movie. Sam was no weepy emo loser in the book!



"Come on, and taste it again!" - I cannot believe they didn't use that line in the movie...

lol HEY!!

Yeah Sam was BAD in the movies. I kept waiting for him to make out with Frodo. I think we know who the woman would be in that scenario.

[Malky]

Going to need a miracle first.

Just throw Westley a rez and storm the castle

[Zyerz]

I want to defend a castle, like the fight at Helm's Deep...

I want to be up on the wall and see 10,000 orcs charging the walls... I want to shoot arrows down into the mass of invaders, I want ladders to be raised by the invaders (and I want to be able to push them over).

I want to see catapults hurling stones. I want to see a battering ram breaking down the gates. I want to see Stone Giants smashing breaches in the walls.

I want to fall back to the inner castle walls.

That's what I want...

Edit: Oh, and I want to hurl a dwarf.

You've got LOTRO lol

I love DDO, and I do like the castles Idea, but I like the whole thing about traveling to other planes. It's pretty cool imo.

[axel15810]

I would love to see more castle maps. But we do have several already - Kobold assault, Gladwatch outpost, Eyes of Stone, Minotaur village...that's all I can think of right now but there's probably a few I forgot

[Delssar]

I would love to see more castle maps. But we do have several already - Kobold assault, Gladwatch outpost, Eyes of Stone, Minotaur village...that's all I can think of right now but there's probably a few I forgot

Kobold Assualt and Gladewatch are the same place which is a small fort, eyes of stone is inside lordsmarch plaza which is just a district in Stormreach, the minotaur village is just that, a village. Theres no REAL castles in this game, its disapointing.

[quickgrif]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks his writing was lack luster. I figured I would get at least 8945 neg reps if I said so!

I read teh hobbit after I saw the movie (first time reading one of his books), and couldn't believe how poorly written it was. Could barely finish it. This was when i was a kid, and even then it was bad.

Your not the only one, many well known authors acknowledge the pacing problems in the LOTR books.
He was great at world building but needed some more practice at the storytelling part.

[Cendaer]

This is Eberron.

Castles are sooooo last millenium. *yawns*

Please do NOT waste time on silly castles.

Give us Sharn instead.

After all, it is an all-important port city, through which many of us came while on our way to Xen'drik.

Sharn Excerpt

Sample Maps from WotC

What's a mere castle when compared to this?


Another insteresting reference/view of Sharn.

No castles, more towers.

Thank you.

[Lehmu]

What is bastion of power about if not storming a castle? Come to think of it, most of the yugoloth favor quests (all of them?) could be considered storming a castle of a sort.

[FlimsyFirewood]

Interesting opinions guys.

I am the designer who built Framework, Storming the Beaches, New Invasion and Bastion of Power. Although I want to give credit where it's due, another person (who isn't working at Turbine any more) helped with the construction of the fort in Storming the Beaches, and she did an excellent job. If you couldn't tell, I like castles.

I like the medieval sort of castles most of all. They aren't very common in Eberron. But, Eberron does have a lot of historical sites and Xen'drik is full of them, although the architectural style of the ancient giant empire and quori ruins are quite different.

Luckily for us there are many different races living on Xen'drik now, so I do try to sneak in as many castles and other fortifications as I can, when they are thematically appropriate to the story we're telling in the update.

As to attacking or defending against armies of 10000 orcs, we do have to deal with certain engine limitations. There are plenty of tricks we designers can use to make the castle encounters interesting and grand, but trust me when I say we won't throw 10000 bad guys at you all at once. That would be cruel and unusual and a bit laggy.

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

In closing, while working within the engine limitations, I'm looking forward to throwing more castles at you in the future. Cheers!

[Spiffyspiffy]

As to attacking or defending against armies of 10000 orcs, we do have to deal with certain engine limitations. There are plenty of tricks we designers can use to make the castle encounters interesting and grand, but trust me when I say we won't throw 10000 bad guys at you all at once. That would be cruel and unusual and a bit laggy.

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

Couldn't you fake it, by having the graphical representation of a large mob of bad guys actually implemented by a single (or small number) of individual game entities?

[NytCrawlr]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks his writing was lack luster. I figured I would get at least 8945 neg reps if I said so!

Add me to the list of agreeing and you can call on me to fight back some of the fan-personism onslaught.

[Thrudh]

Interesting opinions guys.

I am the designer who built Framework, Storming the Beaches, New Invasion and Bastion of Power. Although I want to give credit where it's due, another person (who isn't working at Turbine any more) helped with the construction of the fort in Storming the Beaches, and she did an excellent job. If you couldn't tell, I like castles.

I like the medieval sort of castles most of all. They aren't very common in Eberron. But, Eberron does have a lot of historical sites and Xen'drik is full of them, although the architectural style of the ancient giant empire and quori ruins are quite different.

Luckily for us there are many different races living on Xen'drik now, so I do try to sneak in as many castles and other fortifications as I can, when they are thematically appropriate to the story we're telling in the update.

As to attacking or defending against armies of 10000 orcs, we do have to deal with certain engine limitations. There are plenty of tricks we designers can use to make the castle encounters interesting and grand, but trust me when I say we won't throw 10000 bad guys at you all at once. That would be cruel and unusual and a bit laggy.

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

In closing, while working within the engine limitations, I'm looking forward to throwing more castles at you in the future. Cheers!

Oh you don't you have to render 10,000 orcs at once! Just show them teeming below us (kind of like when you look down at the armies of Droam), and only render the ones climbing up the ladders, and a few dozen archers down below.

Over to the side off in the distance, you can see them using a battering ram against the main gate (again just background static motions)... When the captain of the guard tells you to get over there to help, you go through a door into a new instance where the guys using the ram ARE real... Maybe you get there just as they break through...

We assaulted a castle... I'd love to defend a castle.. It could be done...

Pretty please!

[Thrudh]

Oh and ban somenewnoob's forum account for daring to say that Tolkien was a sucky writer.

[somenewnoob]

Oh and ban somenewnoob's forum account for daring to say that Tolkien was a sucky writer.

Don't worry, a few more points and I'm there.

[AZgreentea]

Oh and ban somenewnoob's forum account for daring to say that Tolkien was a sucky writer.

The Two Towers was awful. The whole book can be summarized by saying "Some other stuff happened, but anywayz..... " Even the movie adaptation was boring, and was the least popular of the three. Really, you could skip that book and not lose much of the story.

[Thrudh]

The Two Towers was awful. The whole book can be summarized by saying "Some other stuff happened, but anywayz..... " Even the movie adaptation was boring, and was the least popular of the three. Really, you could skip that book and not lose much of the story.

Helm's Deep was boring??!!

I found the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring to be the most boring to reread.

(Although the first time I tried to read it... at age 9-10 I think... I got so scared of the Black Riders that I had to put it down, and didn't try to read it again for another year)

[Captain_Wizbang]

Interesting opinions guys.

I am the designer who built Framework, Storming the Beaches, New Invasion and Bastion of Power. Although I want to give credit where it's due, another person (who isn't working at Turbine any more) helped with the construction of the fort in Storming the Beaches, and she did an excellent job. If you couldn't tell, I like castles.

I like the medieval sort of castles most of all. They aren't very common in Eberron. But, Eberron does have a lot of historical sites and Xen'drik is full of them, although the architectural style of the ancient giant empire and quori ruins are quite different.

Luckily for us there are many different races living on Xen'drik now, so I do try to sneak in as many castles and other fortifications as I can, when they are thematically appropriate to the story we're telling in the update.

As to attacking or defending against armies of 10000 orcs, we do have to deal with certain engine limitations. There are plenty of tricks we designers can use to make the castle encounters interesting and grand, but trust me when I say we won't throw 10000 bad guys at you all at once. That would be cruel and unusual and a bit laggy.

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

In closing, while working within the engine limitations, I'm looking forward to throwing more castles at you in the future. Cheers!

Good news indeed. I'd love to see a land based siege like you did in the Sentinel series

[Vazok1]

Interesting opinions guys.

I am the designer who built Framework, Storming the Beaches, New Invasion and Bastion of Power. Although I want to give credit where it's due, another person (who isn't working at Turbine any more) helped with the construction of the fort in Storming the Beaches, and she did an excellent job. If you couldn't tell, I like castles.

I like the medieval sort of castles most of all. They aren't very common in Eberron. But, Eberron does have a lot of historical sites and Xen'drik is full of them, although the architectural style of the ancient giant empire and quori ruins are quite different.

Luckily for us there are many different races living on Xen'drik now, so I do try to sneak in as many castles and other fortifications as I can, when they are thematically appropriate to the story we're telling in the update.

As to attacking or defending against armies of 10000 orcs, we do have to deal with certain engine limitations. There are plenty of tricks we designers can use to make the castle encounters interesting and grand, but trust me when I say we won't throw 10000 bad guys at you all at once. That would be cruel and unusual and a bit laggy.

Dungeon alert would have an aneurism. And then a server might melt...

In closing, while working within the engine limitations, I'm looking forward to throwing more castles at you in the future. Cheers!

I bet you can't wait for Khorvaire . or even more Droam stuff, The Great Crag would be fun to make as well I bet