Grey Pilgrim

Don't they address this in the movie as well? I know it is asked in the book specifically at the Council of Elrond, and it gets shot down for those reasons, and also--as Gandalf points out--it would not keep the Ring from being discovered at some later date, and it should not be left to later generations. I always think that works well in the story, and it always feels like it's immensely applicable to life: people put off 'til tomorrow what they should do today, and in Tolkien's time, appeasement did a whole lot of hurt to the world, thanks to European actions with Hitler.

Don't approach it as a modern work of fiction, but a history or a mythology. It hits me the same way as reading Norse or Greek mythology, and has some powerful images even though it is not told in quite a fictional way.

My dad is the one that got me in to LOTR as a kid (he had the paperback set with Tolkien's watercolors on the front: we read them to the point where the books broke in half on the spine... luckily I found other copies elsewhere), but he couldn't finish The Silmarillion, either. It is quite different than the other books, as Tolkien and his publisher knew quite well. But hopefully I can get him to like The Children of Hurin, and you'll like it now as well. There are some interesting things at work in The Silmarillion.

I'm trying to figure out how you can flip-flop so much in a sentence, other than you having a very odd definition of "flawed premise." The reason for this is that you make comparisons to Dominators and their revamp, even though they did not have a flawed premise. After their revamp, they still function as they did: their initial premise or design is intact. They mez for their primary and do damage for their secondary, and their inherent works the same way... the main change was where their damage came from: rather than domination, that damage is baked into their powers.

I would agree that Kheldians need some adjusting, but I can't follow you with the "flawed premise" statement. Most suggestions I have seen that would work would at most require changes similar to the Dominator revamp, or significantly less (and I would say Peacebringers need more adjusting than Warshades). The basic idea of the AT as a shapeshifter, jack of all trades, is a fun and good one that I rather like. It needs more adjusting to get it to sit right in the CoX environment, but it's not flawed overall.

That's epic and sprawling and covers centuries of time. It would be tough to pull off, since it's basically a mythology of an entire age (or more). It makes The Lord of the Rings look like a cakewalk to make. There are some great ideas and powerful scenes in there, but appreciating it all requires a vast horde of names, information, and events. The picture of my Silmarillion is of the last Silmaril being thrown in the ocean, which I have always found striking (both for the picture, and the meaning from the story), but appreciating what that act means requires a lot of investment. Movies just aren't able to do that, and even when looking at the book, it's not for everyone.

Still, I've actually thought about how it would be possible some, and the best I think that could be done is pursuing some of the episodes within it. It's partially why Christopher Tolkien put out The Children of Hurin a few years ago. It stands on its own fairly well (though still required a little backstory to the war going on) and has some strong themes and ideas within just that episode. Biggest issue there would be making Turin sympathetic to the audience while still having the issues he does, and then also the whole marrying a relative issue, which is common in older literature and mythology, but is rather foreign and off-putting for modern audiences.

Rodoan, Sauron's defeat at the end of the Second Age put him back for a long time. However, because he put most of his power and essence was placed in the One Ring, he was able to slowly regenerate himself. I'd have to check my timeline in one of LOTR books, but I don't believe the Necromancer appeared in Mirkwood until somewhere in the 2000s of the third age (so longer than we have had since Christ or the start of the Common Era, whichever you like to go with). That's a long time. Sauron being weaker at the start is why Gandalf and the rest thought the Necromancer was one of the Ringwraiths (and the Witch King that destroyed the northern kingdom--from which Aragorn is descended--was a Ringwraith). By the time of The Hobbit and LOTR, it's been three thousand years (that's going back to King David or so).

That's why it's so important that the Ring be destroyed in The Lord of the Rings. With it being around, Sauron had been able to regain much of his power: if he were to regain it, there wasn't anything or anyone that would have been able to stop him. As it is, he still could not be defeated short of destroying the Ring.

Ho, ho, my lad? Mwahahaha.

Zikar, I always took the Necromancer references as notices that this was a great world with many different things going on, which adds to its realism. Gandalf leaving is key to Bilbo growing, and also keeps the story from "here's a smart wizard that will save us from everything!" So the Necromancer is in there as much as he needs to be (it's good to remember that Tolkien did not know that the Ring was the Ruling Ring when he wrote The Hobbit, too. The first edition has Gollum being all nice to Bilbo and apologetic when he can't find the Ring for him, which Bilbo won fair and square. That got changed up once Tolkien started work on LOTR).

There's other things going on in Lord of the Rings that we don't see all the time, so I don't mind it all that much. Same thing for most books... you don't need to know everything that is happening. I'd just say that Tolkien handles Gandalf's references to it when he returns late in the book too roughly. The earlier stuff is fine.

I haven't heard much about the Blu Ray stuff for Lord of the Rings... is there going to be much extra from the DVDs? I don't have a Blu Ray player (and I wouldn't want to sink more money into yet another version of those films), but I am curious.

If you're on during primetime in the evening, I know that there are a fair amount being run all the time. I see shout outs on the channels all the time, and when someone says they're going to start one, I usually see plenty of interest.

I thing people got burnt out on them, so there aren't three going at once. If anything, I think some people have branched out to other things after they heard about Keyes, just so they wouldn't be too burnt out then.

Necro, a lot of people have decent alts, so I think getting their primary out of the way isn't a big deal. I ran my tank first off, and then I've been running with my Controller or Blaster, whichever was needed more. Anyone I'm running with in the trials has their rare Alpha, too. I'd say if you're leading it's okay to see if some people will switch... most are more than willing to do so, and have an alt they can run with.

The original design has some issues, but any adjustments that are needed don't require a complete rework of the AT at all. The varying forms can work overall with the required need to not overleap each other by too much: we've been able to come up with plenty of good ideas here on the subject already.

I still don't know what the original devs were thinking with how Kheldians first came out, but there was a solid idea behind them that was still fun to play.

Necromancer=the dark sorceror at the south end of Mirkwood, who captured Thorin's father, and who the White Council (led by Saruman) is meeting to attack during the events of The Hobbit. They did not know this at first, but the Necromancer was actually Sauron. The White Council at first thought it might be one of the Ringwraiths, because of the corruption that was being caused to Mirkwood (it's why it's so dark and the spiders are in there).

So it is related to The Hobbit, but looking at the actual fighting with the Necromancer is going to be rather tangential and not really needed for the storyline of Hobbit. Depending on how they set the two movies up, it might be easier to see it as a different story, touching on the events of Hobbit, so we'll see how it goes.

*sings in a warbly voice*

"The grea-test adventURE!" I have a fond spot in my heart for that movie... used to watch it all the time as a kid. I liked certain aspects of the first LOTR movie, too, though it was overall a little wonky and just ended randomly like the story was over with the events of The Two Towers.

A lot depends on how they intersperse the other content. Just going off of The Hobbit material, I could see a decent ending coming with the escape from the Orcs and Wargs... that's about halfway for the big events, and a suitable climax for an ending. Though maybe they wouldn't like to end both movies with the Eagles sweeping in (or that could be appealing, who knows).

But depending on what else they are wanting to include, that might not do it. Part of my difficulty with the two movie content using info from other Tolkien writings is how much it'd diverge from the story of The Hobbit. It's certainly possible to have more than one storyline going at once (look at the original LOTR books), but those are dealing with the same overall events: the Necromancer is pretty off course from the overall plot of Hobbit.

We'll see how it goes... I'd actually feel better about two Hobbit movies if they were just dealing with the Hobbit storyline, actually.

Wait on the xp conversions... the prices are coming down significantly on Tuesday (assuming the June 9th notes are accurate still). 1 million inf a pop, rather than 2.5. Same thing for shards to threads, that conversion is a million now. Just wish I hadn't spent a fair amount on the xp conversion already... BAF really is slow for gaining XP if you run it without "farming" the mobs. Though that should be helped once rewards are counted league-wide, rather than just on your team.

Still, you should use the XP sparingly... just use it once you have all the components for a slot, is usually how I go with it. I usually get a little impatient with Judgement, though... that's a fun power.