J.E. Sawyer on Real World Knowledge and Game Design

[Crni Vuk]

Also in the camp of liking the Legion, as others already mentioned; they were something different in the setting.

To say this, I never was a fan of doing something different just for the sake of doing something different. The concept art and idea behind the Legion was or well is awesome. No doubts about that. But they still fall "flat" in the game for various reasons. Mainly because the main character behind the Legion is from the quality not as good like what you have with the NCR and a few other groups in New Vegas, like the Kings in particular for example, which I think is a really well done group, despite of it being totally ridiculous ... but it somehow works. And the Legion is quite often shown in the game to not be more then just savages, there is also a clear emphasis on the NCR where the Legion is playing a smaller role even though both groups are supposed to fight over New Vegas territory. This becomes obvious when you piss of either the Legion or the NCR, where it takes a hell lot more to get them as a "hostile" faction simply because it would not be fun to fight the NCR around every corner ... as they are literally present in almost every major location in the game ... and if you side with the Legion most of the game world also hates you. For obvious reasons. Who would seriously like it to fall under the rule of slavers?

 

[2house2fly]

Uh, what about them? I very much hope you're not referring to the utterly fail line of reasoning that the existence of the giant eagles made Frodo's journey into Mordor pointless.

Why is it fail? You have an airborne carrier that's out of reach of Sauron's forces and can easily be used to get to Mount Doom and drop the ring there.

Sauron has gigantic dragons. They don't even have to kill the eagle that's carrying the ring, they just have to get it in a fight so it drops it.

 

[Akratus]

Regarding the legion, maybe if they looked more like this concept art:
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101002082404/fallout/images/8/85/Conceptart-thefort-B.jpg
I mean, seriously. That concept art is badass. One of my favorite concept art of all time.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Uh, what about them? I very much hope you're not referring to the utterly fail line of reasoning that the existence of the giant eagles made Frodo's journey into Mordor pointless.

Why is it fail? You have an airborne carrier that's out of reach of Sauron's forces and can easily be used to get to Mount Doom and drop the ring there.

Sauron has gigantic dragons. They don't even have to kill the eagle that's carrying the ring, they just have to get it in a fight so it drops it.

I believe you are talking about the fell beasts, the winged creatures which the nazgul use as mount. While it is no where said what they really are, they definitely are not Dragons.

Smaug is pretty much the only Dragon you hear about in Lord of the Rings. I think one of the reasons why Gandalf even motivated everyone to the quest to kill Smaug was to avoid that he would ally himself with Sauron. If there are Dragons in the timeline of the Lord of the Rings left, then they have become extremely rare and hide somewhere if they are not extinct.

However there might be still some in the world LotR. Who knows. But Dragons have not been native to Sauron but Saurons master Morgoth he had a lot of powerful creatures following him, you can see one of them when Gandalf fights it in Moria, the Balrog of Morgoth. The Simarilion mentions a lot of those creatures and also the fights between the elves, humans and dwarfs against Morgoth. Can you imagine? Countless of Dragons, Balrogs, Werwolfes and Vampires and Sauron fighting for Morgoth.

 

[Tagaziel]

Sauron has gigantic dragons. They don't even have to kill the eagle that's carrying the ring, they just have to get it in a fight so it drops it.

Where? Beside the Witch King's mount, I don't recall Sauron having any flying forces. Otherwise, why bother attacking Gondor on land?

 

[BonusWaffle]

Around the time I played Fallout 3, my wife and I had gone to Washington DC and went on tour where they told us about how the Washington Monument was the largest free standing masonry structure in world, so of course every time I played Fallout 3 after that it pissed us off to end to see it with interior metal frame.

mm did you go inside the monument at all? It looks exactly the same in the game as it does in real life


And even assuming that the eagles would survive such an assault, they were not necessarily willing to commit themselves to entering a war against sauron just to do gandalf a favor. Saving him from isengard was already asking a bit too much.

 

[Akratus]

Where? Beside the Witch King's mount, I don't recall Sauron having any flying forces. Otherwise, why bother attacking Gondor on land?

ಠ_ಠ

Are you seriously saying that the existence of any airborne forces negates the need for any attack on land?

 

[Tagaziel]

If you have dragons, yes. Send them in, ruin Gondor's shit, then send in land forces to mop up.

Like modern militaries use helicopters and aircraft, actually.

 

[Crni Vuk]

In game of Thrones the Tagaryien family conquered the whole of Westeros pretty much only with Dragons.

Though in the Simarilion, pretty much the history of Lord of the Rings, it Morgoth Saurons master, had tons of Dragons and he was still defeated. But a lot of the characters that fought Morgoth had powers similar or even bigger compared to Gandalf. It doesn't seem like there are that many left in the third age of the LotR that can actually challenge a Dragon in direct combat alone.

 

[Akratus]

If you have dragons, yes. Send them in, ruin Gondor's shit, then send in land forces to mop up.

Like modern militaries use helicopters and aircraft, actually.

Have you even seen the movies?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOGYRaUE45U[/youtube]

 

[Crni Vuk]

have you ever seen the dragons?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgW7PRN-ADI[/youtube]

 

[Akratus]

Sauron does not control any dragons, however.

 

[Tagaziel]

Therefore, airdropping the One Ring is a viable strategy.

Plus, the movies suck when it comes to portraying combat. Human soldiers behave like headless chickens (and get slaughtered like such), but somehow it's not a one-sided battle.

I mean seriously.

 

[Crni Vuk]

though to be fair, even without the ring Sauron has proven to be a rather powerfull foe. So even if they used the eagles, Sauron would have most probably detected them and attacked them. We have no clue what force he would have used. Maybe the red eye he was would have been powerfull enough.

 

[Tagaziel]

though to be fair, even without the ring Sauron has proven to be a rather powerfull foe. So even if they used the eagles, Sauron would have most probably detected them and attacked them. We have no clue what force he would have used. Maybe the red eye he was would have been powerfull enough.

He would have no reason to watch for them, though. Just like he didn't anticipate two hobbits.

 

[Crni Vuk]

maybe its easier to detect eagles then 2 small hobbits.

I dont know if we really should think that hard about it. I mean ... after all ... if this would be somewhat realistic, would you really believe that anyone would give such a task to 2 hobbits? The noobs of the LotR world? Or would you even expect them to ... succeed? Its the core of the story after all. That no one else then Gandalf really sees something great in the hobbits while everyone else more or less just igores them.

 

[.Pixote.]

I was under the impression the Hobbits were deliberately chosen by Gandalf to perform the task because they were the least likely to be corrupted by the rings power. Who's to say the eagles wouldn't have been turned by the ring and simply passed the ring to Sauron.

One question: Sauron wasn't a physical being, so if his forces did obtain the ring and send it to him in Mordor, how was it to be used - was it capable of transforming him into a physical creature again?

 

[Akratus]

Let me just go ahead and quote myself:

The whole idea of why Hobbits carry the ring is that, the ring is a powerful item and Sauron, being powerful himself made it. He expects someone powerful to want to carry the ring, or at least a force powerful enough to face the hazards of Mordor. That's the genius of the plan to let Frodo take it with him. It could never in a million years occur to Sauron that a tiny hobbit will sneak into Mordor with the ring. It is inconceivable to Sauron that ANYONE, even his enemies, could give the most powerful magical artifact in all of Middle-Earth to such a frail, weak, and small creature. He expects his enemies to fight over the ring because of it's power. But that would be their undoing. Since the ring corrupts ones power, the more one has, the more evil and destructive one can become. Since the Hobbits had little but their courage and heart it allowed them to carry the ring without being corrupted or noticed. At first you might say they should have flown there or at least that the plan is stupid. But in actuality it was the ONLY plan that could ever have worked.

 

[Walpknut]

So in short, Josh Sawyer says that you should educate yourself on the topic you want to write about or else a Lord of the Rings debate will overtake the thread.