Talk:Timeline

The Assault on Gundabad

Is there an indicator how long the siege on Gundabad took? A date or something, cause I always assumed it took place for over a year so that would make it 3020 when it finishes. Hierok (talk) 11:47, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with specific dates there. I doubt it takes place for over a year though, events in Middle-earth are quite rapid. --Varghedin (talk) 14:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

The fact that we're supposed to still be pre-Scouring of the Shire kind of implies the siege of Gundabad happens sooner (and faster) rather than later, but we've also had some things overlapping and going backwards in the past (Midsummer Minas Tirith falling between the end of the Vales of Anduin epic and the start of the Minas Morgul stretch of Black Book). Practically speaking, it might make a little more sense, but I'm not positive what the intended timeline there is. (I wonder if there's something on the forums that gets into dates at all?) Thalion (talk) 18:50, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

PC?

Hey! This is impressively detailed already tbh. I wanted to ask about a couple things- for one, the choice to leave out anything about the PC (and then attribute some things they do to assorted NPCs- Halbarad recruits the dwarves of Othrikar to the Council of the North by freeing Dori from captivity among the Dourhands. for example). The Player Character's part as their own character is fairly significant in several instances; I was curious why they're assumed to not be here? Thalion (talk) 18:50, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

You're right, it was a toss-up of doing it this way, which required some liberties for the sense of coherence, or somehow trying to write the player character into everything. The problem is, how do you describe events led by a person of unknown name, unknown gender, unknown race and unknown origin to be central in a huge amount of story in any kind of way that makes sense when reading it? Using terms like "the player character" or "you" are pretty awkward and also break the fourth wall, while "the hero" or something like that is confusing to read because it looks like it refers to other people in the text. --Varghedin (talk) 19:07, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough! "you" works well enough in quest dialogue, but def a different situation than this (and runs into issues with things that technically happen concurrently and things like the flashbacks to Mordor Besieged or Azanulbizar). "An Adventurer" might work in some instances? But some of the same issues as "the hero" tbh. Thalion (talk) 23:53, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Technically, the player characters are referred to in-game as being Adventurers. Perhaps the player character could be referred to in the timeline, as well as on other pages as the Adventurer and as the <Race> Adventurer in specific instances? A clarification note could then be added in the introduction of the page.Burendandwe (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Rename Article

I propose that we rename this article as "Lore Timeline". When I came to this page I thought it would be the timeline of the development of the game. Just my two cents. --Pinkfae (talk) 12:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this page is what you were looking for? --Varghedin (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

That's a list of patches that was released. Not really a timeline of game development. Still, I wasn't looking for it. Timeline is too broad of a term. --Pinkfae (talk) 22:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree. The naming follows normal gaming wiki conventions. Look at these examples from other wikis:

* https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://reddead.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline

* https://theroom.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

--Varghedin (talk) 10:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not looking at what other game centered wikis do, but rather what this wiki does. All of the article has all background information labeled as "lore". All of this is just background information, so should follow the same logic. --Pinkfae (talk) 15:14, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any other pages that fit within the lore supercategory that start with the term "Lore" in their name, so I don't understand that logic. We can put it to a vote. --Varghedin (talk) 12:48, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Vote to move page to "Lore Timeline"

See discussion above, voting starts with 1 vote for and 1 against this move. I think this page should remain as-is, with the name Timeline, while another page showing the game development timeline could be created with the name "Development Timeline", if someone wishes to make such a page. I could not find a voting / poll template on this wiki, perhaps someone else can assist with this functionality if it exists. --Varghedin (talk) 13:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

i also vote against moving this page and instead creating a Development timeline page. i also believe this page needs some work most definitely as it is entirely too much to read. but a rework is more appropriate than a rename. it is following naming standard and to argue to a point on guidelines when you are newer to the wiki than the person explaining it to you is pretty brazen. not a good start to convincong us of your view. Tldr: i vote no. Rogue (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I’m not certain when I joined or when Varghedin joined. My first edit is March 2009 while his/hers is June 2009. Yet, longevity of membership shouldn’t be a factor of whether to voice your opinion or not. I’m guessing that you are just voting no based on time spent rather than a reasoned argument. --Pinkfae (talk) 14:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I voted, based on Varghedin's arguements - I did read the above discussiuons and happen to agree with him. That is why I voted no. The fact I mentione RANK, which can be in part by longevity but not certainly the only reasons for being ranked up the chain. Varghedin in an admin. I trust he knows our guidelines and "how we do things". The fact that he was not only questioned but also told they don't care bothered me. I appologize for my reaction there, but I stand by my vote. It is still no, why? Because I don't believe Lore is necessary here. I believe this page needs reworked to better suit it's title. I did read your argument, we do have a Lore category, and by that we have made it clear both in the distant past and more current past that Lore is not our main purpose on this wiki, it is included where appropriate to the game, not the books/movie references. If they want LOTR lore they can go to a LOTR wiki. That's why I said No to this, because it does not fit us. If they want to include Lore that's fine, but I don't believe this page should be a Lore Timeline. I will stand by that. Rogue (talk) 16:23, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn’t realize this was a military operation with rank. I that the different roles are indicating privileges of wiki functions (moving pages, locking pages and so on) rather than a control of the content. Wikis are set up to be collaborative projects and that has been my experience with all the wikis I’ve been a part of. I also don’t recall saying the he/she doesn’t care. Obviously they are putting in a lot of work into this and cares a great deal. Yet, all being said, this is just my suggestion. I brought up my thoughts and asked for other input because I believe lotro-wiki to be a collaboration. I didn’t mean to offend and I apologize that I came off that way. --Pinkfae (talk) 17:08, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for starting a discussion on this topic. Let me try to explain my logic. Yes, it is true that we don’t have any pages with “lore” in its title, but we do have a category for lore. In fact, this page is part of that category. Using the word “timeline” is pretty vague. If you look at the categories you’ll notice a clear classification of pages as game, gameplay, lotro-wiki and lore. Many of the pages in lore use lore appropriate terms. For example names of people, places, battles and so on. These are names that comes from Tolkien’s writings. If you don’t like the world lore to indicate what type of timeline we are discussing, might I suggest "Timeline of Middle-earth". The major point is that this wiki covers the game itself and the legendarium. This article is incorporating both the story within the game along with Tolkien’s works. I have no objection to the topic, but we need to make clear that this is not about gameplay, development or even just the timeline of the story within the game. I hope that clarifies my position. --Pinkfae (talk) 13:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

As for alternative names, i am not a fan of "Timeline of Middle-earth" (sidenote, i would also like to suggest not to make links to non-existing pages, when suggesting names, as currently there are 3 pages linked, out of which it seems at least one will never be a valid page, but will still show in some statistics etc.), i think the proper name would rather be "Timeline of Lotro" or "Lotro Timeline" - but it seems that because it is page on lotro-wiki, it is just omitted and called "Timeline". But i also agree it might seem too broad. However I am not sure what was expected to be found on this page. Can you please explain for me Pinkfae? --Drono (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. Also, thank you for mentioning about the dead links and why that might not be a good idea. I agree with you on that. I’ll keep that in mind for the future. I think timeline is bit broad cause it could mean about the history of the game, the history of the story within the game (epic books and quests) or the history of the story in Tolkien’s works. Right now I see it as being a combination of the latter two. When I first saw timeline I thought it was about the game itself. I just think since we do cover the mechanics of the game, in game story narratives and general lore/background it needs to be clarified. --Pinkfae (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

It is broad, but if it's about the game then Lotro Timeline seems redundent. Your point about it being both at the moment - game and books is the issue of why I mentioned I believe it needs to be re-worked. It should be more about the game timeline - than the books as again Lore about books has always been secondary and added as flavor than the main focus of any page created. Yes, the person who created this page did a lot of work toward it. But as we are a collaborative community there could have been a discussion of what to add or how much is too much for a page. Why would they? Guess that's where we are failing to encourage I suppose and most people don't ask anymore or want to join us on discord. Back in the day that's where (IRC to begin with) we bonded and talked about what we were working on, asking along the way what works and what doesn't etc. I don't agree with Lore Timeline, but if other suggestions come up that make more sense than we can vote on those as well. Rogue (talk) 18:50, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, and we can discuss the content in the article, althought it might be a bit off-topic. I initially thought about having a more game-specific timeline, having recently worked on one in another game wiki setting, and I thought it would be a very nice addition to this wiki, since it's a game that's not only heavy on lore but directly by the storyline from the books. The game does have quite a few "flashback" settings like the scenario plays and lore-tellers who run through significant parts of lore that's way before the timesetting of the main game itself. So I thought I would just do a cursory listing of the earlier events at first, as some of them play a significant role in what comes after. It's been expanded a few times since then, (not just by me), but I've tried to keep the focus in the earliest ages on the characters and related actions that do appear in the game, like Gil-galad and Celebrimbor and Sauron himself, and stay away from a lot of the other stuff that's not in the game like the Silmarils, Beren & Lúthien, Turin Turambar and all of that, which in my mind is not "worth it" in a LOTRO timeline.

However, We do meet Black Númenoreans and we are speficially told in-game about some of Númenor's kings, so I felt like it did belong in the timeline even though we never "physically" get to see it. I can relate to the kind of "purist" sentiment of only including in-game references and I do think there's some things in the timeline that are only distantly related to the game, but we do at some point run into a grey area, where there's stuff to mention that is not necessarily directly included in the game, but does directly influence what happens in the story at a later stage. For instance, the Two Trees. They aren't mentioned in-game that I know of, but they are a fundamental part of why Elves are the way they are. Galadriel and other High Elves have seen the light of the trees, and that makes her different from Elrond, who hasn't. Or, anther example - we can't really understand who Sauron is without knowing some about who Morgoth is and what he's done to so fundamentally affect the world.

Now, perhaps more back on topic, I fully agree with Pinkfae that this wiki is not ONLY about LOTR lore, it's about all the aspects of the game, from deeds to crafting to patches to loot. That said, when I go to read a timeline, I expect to find one detailing the story of the game, not the game's development. A development timeline does has merit, and I'm not at all opposed to having one on the wiki - but I would have the directly opposite expectation and reaction from Pinkfae's - going to a page named "Timeline" and finding only a list of development dates and no lore, I would be annoyed and disappointed. We could of course have a disambig link at the top directing different timelines to each other. Nonetheless, I remain opposed to the title "Lore timeline" or "Lotro timeline" or "Timeline of Middle-earth" for reasons stated above. --Varghedin (talk) 22:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Honestly I also would first assume a page called Timeline would be a lore page- but that's something that's going to vary wildly between people. As it stands, the page is also clearly marked as a lore page, in the description at the very top and in its categorization. I would vote to leave the page as Timeline for the time being- and if or when we do get a timeline specifically devoted to development, perhaps then moving this page.

The thing with deciding how much lore is Too Much- the problem has been and remains that it's not that easy to separate game things from book things. Like Varghedin says, there's a lot of context for Middle-earth as it stands for the majority of the Epic (3018-3019 Third Age) in the extended history, and a lot of it has become directly relevant, because of things like flashback zones like Mordor Besieged and incredibly long-lived characters like Galadriel. There is a point where the extra backstory becomes too much, for sure! It's something that will take a lot of very specific discussion to settle on even a little, though. It may be a topic to put under a different heading on this page but- Rogue, you mentioned you think some of it needs reworked. Which parts in particular did you have in mind? Thalion (talk) 01:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Thalion, In particular I meant separating the game timeline (not sure how as we do separate things already by quests, deeds, locations etc that complicate what to put in a timeline) with the Lore bits that are strickly book lore or movie lore. I am not in the mood to site bit by bit on this page - I believe it is too long and reads like a novel, which to me is not what a timeline is. But I am more of a visual person and I think of a line with sections coming off it etc. Mainly, I meant separating game information with book/movie lore bits. I understand that over the years so much has been added that the lines are blured where they were much more black and white in the beginning. I guess whether or not information gets removed and moved to another page or integrated somewhere else, this page to me is too much. Too much to digest all at once, EVEN if it were divided different, or had a timeline "list" or tree? *shrug* something that broke it down and if you want more details then you can continue on? I am trying to explain better here, but feel like I am not expressing it quite right. Rogue (talk) 02:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I would vote against moving this page to "Lore Timeline". However, if it does get moved to "Lore Timeline", then I would like to suggest that the page would be moved to "Lore timeline" because the words do not exist as a phrase in the game. Despite this suggestion, my vote is against moving this page as "Timeline" is, in my opinion, good enough.Burendandwe (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Content of the timeline

Creating a separate topic for this from the name discussion above, as it relates to the *content* of the article and not the page name. I think I understand what you mean, Thalion and Rogue, about the timeline being "too much" and that it "reads like a novel" more than a timeline. While I've made sure to keep any dialogue away from the timeline, I think maybe the fact that it contains the characters' thoughts, feelings, motivations and intentions, makes it read more like a novel. If we kept the information solely to the characters *actions*, I think it would appear more legible and feel more like a precise timeline. So an example would be "Brogur relocates to the Chamber of Leadership by the Twenty-First Hall, but his haste causes Bósi to worry, fearing the garrison is spreading its forces too thin." being changed to simply "Brogur relocates to the Chamber of Leadership by the Twenty-First Hall." Bósi's worries and fears do not need to be included in the timeline. I've also redone March 4th to tie directly over to the relevant story quests in-game, as an example of how it could be done differently to keep the timeline tightly in line with the game content. What do you think about that? --Varghedin (talk) 11:06, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a great start to cleaning up the timeline with the example you gave. Keeping facts short and sweet in a timeline will help for sure. In that same example and expanding on the concept of timeline - Keeping dates, people involved and events in a way that is legible - not to the extreme of a bulleted list - but where they are lined up closer together can also show the progression through the game. It would be good to see where the main characters - say the fellowship of the 9 (since our characters follow them through the story up to a point) - and knowing where we can find them when in the timeline of the game's progression would be handy. So perhaps Date-Location-Expansion? This part would be fuzzy for me. But you hopefully get the idea I am presenting. Rogue (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I put something short together- not pretty, but should get the idea across- over here. Is something like this closer to what you're trying to get at as far as a visual lineup of things, Rogue? Book Events > Date > Game Events > Quests is how it's set up for now, but that's easy enough to change. This would be one of the busier stretches of the timeline- one of the stretches where it's easiest to put solid dates to things, too. A setup like this one though would require a whole lot of detail sacrificed for the sake of conciseness and readability- how do you feel about things, Varghedin- on that count especially? It's a big difference from what you've got going already. Thalion (talk) 07:37, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I think the table is a nice addition and can aid in clarity, but I don't like separating the book and game events in different columns, as you then lose the total chronological order of events per day like the timeline is set up to show now. To me that disrupts the point of the timeline. Having the date and the Quests in separate columns like that works well because they function more like a reference list than a part of the timeline itself. Also, in the example, I think the amount of information in the events has been stripped to a point beyond what I would prefer. Perhaps we could find a more happy medium amount of information content? --Varghedin (talk) 09:00, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok! Got a second version here- I just rearranged a little, honestly. Where all were you thinking things should be expanded?

For how much information gets put in- tis true! That example is extremely pared-down. Some of it was just bc I threw it together pretty quickly, but there was some other logic behind it: some of it's on account of the sheer number of things happening in such a small window of time (and the practicalities of some things in-world, like how exactly you get from Lhanuch to Lórien so fast, are issues for other people to reconcile in their own interpretations. some of it really does not make sense but! it's what we have to work with), and some of it's on the thought that we don't need, necessarily, to enumerate every step of a quest, or every piece of an instance- that's what the quests themselves are for, and if you want all the detail, that's where you'll look- in a lot of cases it's enough to say "this instance happened, this was the major event in it". That logic doesn't quite work for everything, but it's a start sometimes.

Anyway! that was my reasoning, at any rate. How much expansion do you think is necessary (and how does necessary compare to your ideal amount of information?)? Thalion (talk) 02:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I like this version much better. And I understand what you say about the detail and the unnecessary "travel logs" - the reason I included much of that was trying to place people in a way that made any kind of sense. That's why I have Nona travelling from Lhanuch to Lórien over the course of several days (and showing that in the timeline), rather than just showing up the next day. I've tried to minimize the "teleporting" that the game allows the PC to do from also happening to the NPCs, and so in a few cases, I've had to ignore in-game chronology for it to make any kind of sense. If we let the Fellowship depart Lórien, then let Galadriel write a letter, then send that to Elrond, then Elrond waits 2 days for some reason before collecting the Grey Company, then goes out and summons them from the furthest reaches of Eriador, then they travel to Rivendell, and THEN they start to travel south to meet Aragorn - that's actually just impossible time-wise. So I had to make Galadriel write her letter many days earlier as a response to her seeing something in her mirror for it to be coherent. There are several of those types of examples. So some of the detail is really there to help me be able to put in-game events into the timeline in a way that can work, rather than providing critical information about the story. So I can retroactively go back and remove some of that and at least cut down on the detail to make it more reader-friendly. --Varghedin (talk) 07:43, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the contents of the timeline, I believe that it should only contain information derived from the game itself as well as the developers. In other words, I do not think that the timeline should contain information from Tolkien's books that are not mentioned or alluded to within the game itself. After all, this wiki is about The Lord of the Rings Online]] specifically, and there are other wikis (Tolkien Gateway in particular) that exist which specifically deal with Tolkien's works. People who wish to know things in Tolkien's legendarium that are not mentioned or alluded to in the game itself could go to those wikis. Making the timeline about the game's universe specifically would keep the timeline from getting too overcrowded. In addition to this, maling the timeline specifically for the game's universe would keep things as simple as possible for new players and players trying to understand LOTRO's lore without the context of Tolkien's works. Besides this, parts of Tolkien's lore have the possibillity of needing to be altered by the game developers for various reasons in the future. While this may not come to pass, there is always that possibility, for instance, Annatar was changed to Antheron. That may be a small example, but it is evidence that anything in Tolkien's lore, no matter how significant or insignificant, may in fact be altered for a variety of reasons.Burendandwe (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

For sure! There's quite a few times (especially in Vol. III) where it's just. physically impossible to cover as much ground as the Epic assumes you do, short of being able to fly- or to teleport like we see a couple Black Númenóreans do (and honestly? even then it's debatable). There's a balance somewhere between "this is not practical" and "this is how the Epic goes"; leaving out a singular PC does give you a good bit of leeway in that, though, if you're not having to justify why or how one person gets around this much. Still. is the justifying really the point of this? as opposed to just a chronology of game events placed relative to the known dates we have from the appendices? (Not that I don't get looking at things and going "....you just. could not do that." but is resolving that the point here?) Thalion (talk) 19:46, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not the point as such, but I did want to attempt to fit it all together rather than ignoring too much context - it's actually a fun challenge sometimes, if I can make it seem like it almost works. :) --Varghedin (talk) 20:00, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I do not believe that we need to mention anything in Tolkien's works not mentioned in the game as it confuses people as to what is in the game itself or is mentioned by the game. we should mention the <race> Adventurer (Player Character). This game us after all an adaptation and does not have the rights to a lot of the things mentioned in the timeline.Burendandwe (talk) 20:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

As things stand right now, there is honestly very little in the Timeline besides some of the very earliest events that hasn't been mentioned or alluded to in game at this point- some of the finer details from the Silmarillion, and perhaps some of the middle rulers of the Númenórean kingdoms mostly. A lot of this comes from the appendices in The Return of the King- well within rights boundaries. (Some things, like Tárasánë and the Huntsman or the alternate names for the sons of Isildur push a little harder against things that can be named outright)

There are some difficulties in including a PC, separate from those in omitting them entirely. Any sort of roleplay or character-driven choice (Halros's choice, for one)- anything that gives the PC a solid character or backstory outside of what the game provides can be... iffy, when trying to put together any sort of objective timeline. There's also issues of things happening concurrently- the Before the Shadow books offer an entire alternate route up to Book 4 of vol1. At the very least, you would need multiple PCs up through that point- and where do they all disappear to after that? There comes a point where we would start just telling our own version of the story- something that has been done quite well many times, but isn't really ideal for this sort of project. A no-PC at all version can approach that, too, but it is perhaps easier to avoid creating PCs with accidental extra story that way. Thalion (talk) 21:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It now makes sense why the Player Character is not mentioned, however, I still do not see why things not mentioned or alluded to in the game need to be in the timeline as this wiki is for the game, and there are other wikis that focus specifically on Tolkien's works.Burendandwe (talk) 00:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I have gone through the page again and removed a ton of content from the Third Age to make it less novel-like and more timeline-like. I can have a look at the earlier ages now and pick out some of the least game-relevant bits. --Varghedin (talk) 06:44, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I would not delete to much from the earlier ages, it is pretty good already. It helps paint a picture of what happens in later ages and I would try to maintain that as much as possible. I added extra titles in because the last 2 years take up a great portion of the page already. Hierok (talk) 17:46, 12 March 2023 (UTC)