Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-33763020-20180101200418/@comment-33763020-20180108094324

173.220.210.106 wrote: You say that you don't want to be on enemy land, due to the lack of interesting and beautiful scenery. however, if you do want to be good, there is still an "evil" faction with this kind of appeal. Near harad fertile is beautiful, great to explore, has tons of enemies to SLAUGHTER, but has the downside of distance (probably being fixed next beta anyways [whenever that is]), and lack of traders (to my experience). The reason I mentioned the scenery is because as soon as I enter the Morgul Vale for example, the sky turns to a depressing dark that is not the kind of gloom you want to have looming over you for your future 100+ hours of gameplay in Middle-earth ;). Or imagine spending more than a few hours in Utumno with its eerie "music" that chills your spine :D. Off-topic, I must congratulate Mevans for his ability to create an atmosphere that makes exceptionary immersion possible. Truly a work of art, this mod is! The biomes, the colours, the gameplay mechanics, all of it is just amazing.

I agree that that gloom does not apply to the lands of Men, even if they are enemies, so there are surely hostile lands that have aesthetic appeal. Just built a small base in the Trollshaws on advice ofGlflegolas (thanks!) and found it to be one of the prettiest biomes so far with useful loot from the Troll hoards. A shame only that Trolls seem to spawn less than I thought and their loot has not given me any mithril (yet) after slaying dozens of Trolls.

I admit I have not even entered Near Harad yet, since I'm rather new to the game, but have seen YT videos on its variety. As I mentioned earlier however, I try to immerse in the "classic" LotR experience as when I read the book and Near Harad is a far cry from that feeling. There is still so much to do and explore in the northern part of Middle-earth that it will be a long while before I head south to explore and currently I am looking at setting up camp, which is different from exploring. Traveling is not an issue with the fast-travel system though, especially on a fast Rohirric horse that gives the enemy no chance of holding you up while you explore (except the occasional drop in a ravine due to lag..).

The other reason I mentioned was that neither desert, nor jungle appeals to me and as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, based on what I've seen so far from Near Harad, I have yet to find areas that I would be interested in putting a base at. The quality with which Mevans keeps creating scenic biomes though, I can easily imagine something coming up that takes one's breath away :).