What if...... Part 1

Disclaimer: I do not work for Turbine nor Codemasters.

In this series, I would like to speculate about the future of Lord of the Rings Online. dotfive has a good post on the US-forums.

So, there will be a new raid and instance-cluster (probably with a mixture of 3-, 6- and 12-mans, not sure about a 24-man raid) in the next weeks or months as well as a new raid and some instances in the Anniversary Update (which would be April 24th 2011).

The Rise of Isengard will be released in Fall 2011. He adds, that there will be three more regions for PvE and one PvP area, indicating, that this will happen in Fall 2011.

In this post I wrote about the new locations which have appeared near the stones/relics. Those could very well be where the next instances and raids will take place. The ruins in the south of Enedwaith, near the white rabbit, could be the raid-cluster for the Anniversary Update.

This would mean, that there is no new landmass till Fall 2011. Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Isengard would arrive at the same time, which would make sence, if the level-cap is going to be raised to 70, as there would need to be lots of content for those five levels.

Concerning the new zone for PvP, my guess would be the east of Isengard, with the Fangorn to the north (as a border, not a part of it). If I remember correctly, there was an statement, that the PvE would never be reachable by monster players. So there will be some kind of zoning dividing PvP from PvE.

Will the Ettnemoors be closed? Probably not, so how will they bring MPs to Isengard? Turbine has managed to suprise us in the past, so lets see what they deliver.

Monster Play will be F2P. You could be able to play a bit for free, but if you wanted to be a 'blue' or a 'red' dot (which are higer ranks than the beginning 'green' ranks), you would have to buy those perks. Would not be that difficult to implement.

So take a short look at Dunland:

Dunland, at least from the climate point of view, is no too different from Enedwaith. It should have about the same size, probably also a longer north-south than east-west.

On this map, we have all three parts. Dunland, probalby the same size as Enedwaith with Methedras in the East.

source: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/i/isengard.html

The Gap of Rohan would cover the River Isen and the peaks of the White Mountains in the south. We could even get Helms Deep with the Gap of Rohan. This is nothing more than me speculating.

Iseangard would still be big enough with Orthanc and, again speculation, Entwood.

We could meet up again with part of the Fellowship, getting pipeweed for Pippin or taking a peek into his Palantir.

If I remember correctly, when we arrive at Isengard, the Orthanc will have already fallen and the Ents are watching that Saruman does no harm. I would guess, that we would raid Orthanc as he might have still some loot hidden (yay, more climbing of towers....).

We could also have Raids in the caves behind Helm Deep and Skirmishes in Helms Deep and Session Play in Helm Deep and Orthanc.

Back to PvP. If we get mounted combat, the PvP area could be quite huge. My favourite zone for this would be the northern fields of Rohan with borders to Fangorn to the north, the Anduin in the east, Isengard to the west and Helms Deep and Edoras in the south.

The Rohirrim would be the best fraction for the new PvP area, as it could offer some nice horses for the mounted combat.

Of course, this is a lot of speculation. Neverless, this area has a lot of possibilities to offer, mightier than killing boars for food or searching for hobbit boots (not that it was not fun to do it once or twice).

P.S.: Link added according to Adam's link in comment-section http://thekhazadguard.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/dunland-and-isengard/