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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

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Has anyone had a problem with the outcast missions? My completion screen says I'm at 15/24 but I can't find any more. Other than that I've got 100% so it's kind of annoying.

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Have you progressed to the "next area" yet? 

 

Like if you got spotted in a stronghold with a captain inside, he would gain invulnerability to stealth finishers for the duration of the alarm.

 

That would be really cool. 

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I just started playing this game and I'm not very good at it. When I head towards my target kill sometimes I get ganked by mobs of orcs. Even if I'm stealthy, if I mess up a bit and one Orc spots me, it turns into a mosh pit. I saw a dude beat the "hard" parts of the game by hitting his head with his keyboard, so I feel like I'm missing something. The concept is neat, open world Middle-Earth, but I'm like target practice for orcs.

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Has anyone had a problem with the outcast missions? My completion screen says I'm at 15/24 but I can't find any more. Other than that I've got 100% so it's kind of annoying.

 

I'd suggest getting on a caragor and just riding around until you see a white fist on the minimap then kill all the nearby uruks.  I think those are randomly generated and it seemed to me that the game tries to place them nearby because I never had to go very far to find them.  For clarification, I don't mean the mission start markers, I mean the groups of slaves you free to unlock the missions in the first place.

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Yeah, getting Outcast missions to unlock is based on the number of slaves rescued. They don't have icons on them or anything, just any old slave will do.

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I reaaaly want to play this game but I don't think my laptop will be up to it and I no longer own a console :( I really need to get round to building my own desktop!

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Yeah, getting Outcast missions to unlock is based on the number of slaves rescued. They don't have icons on them or anything, just any old slave will do.

 

The slaves that actually unlock the missions do have icons.  It's the same white fist icon that's used for the actual Outcast missions.  The way you unlock the Outcast missions is to free the slaves that have the white fist icon on the minimap, and then the actual quest will become available.  The slaves always have some kind of line asking Talion to rescue his friends because they attacked a slaver or poisoned the grog or stole weapons or something.  You don't actually have to talk to the slave to unlock the quest, just kill the uruk nearby.  I think the slaves that unlock the missions are randomly generated and seem to spawn relatively close to where you are at any given time instead of specific spots in the world.

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But those white fists don't appear at all until you've rescued a certain number of basic slaves, right?

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I've been running around saving unmarked slaves for quite a while and I haven't seen a new marked mission that whole time.

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But those white fists don't appear at all until you've rescued a certain number of basic slaves, right?

 

That could be.  I never bothered to figure out what caused the icon to appear.  They were always popping up.

 

I've been running around saving unmarked slaves for quite a while and I haven't seen a new marked mission that whole time.

 

Are you checking both maps?

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Hi,

 

"Long time" listener, first time poster.  How are spoilers handled on the forum? I have an idea about the end that I think holds water.  It's how I initially interpreted it and thought "that's clever" but I might be alone in this interpretation.

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post-27841-0-42553100-1414078452_thumb.jpg

 

Skills pay the bills

 

or just type      [spoiler ]text[/spoiler ]       around your text if you're on mobile (without the extra spaces at the end of spoiler)

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Wait, hang on.

 

Marek Dance?

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Wait, hang on.

 

 

Edit: Well, no idea what that ^^^^ is.

 

Also, this is a soiler.

 

Edit again: Cool.

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I have no idea what I'm doing

 

Oh I see, youtube that's not allowed to be embedded or something due to music copyright

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Alright, as a new dad with a very active social life, I spent all Friday night typing this up and doing laundry. I'll make a quick test post to make sure my spoiler tags don't do anything stupid (that I do anything stupid), sleep on it, and try to find time to edit and post tomorrow.

 

Spoiler: It's currently way too long. But a little ranty is ok, right? :)

post-33986-0-30410100-1414215377_thumb.gif

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I recently beat Shadow of Mordor and thought to myself “a rushed, but interesting ending.” Wondering what other people thought of it, I began to read online comments, and the topic was discussed on some of my favorite podcasts (ehem). I was a bit surprised by how others had interpreted the events of the game.  While I don’t consider the story particularly strong, I have a slightly higher opinion of its direction and consistency than most.  So I figured I’d lay out what I thought happens during the course of the game. This will contain heavy, *heavy* spoilers for a story you’ve been told to disregard, but proceed knowing it will ruin what might otherwise be an interesting twist.

 

The game starts from the perspective of the ranger Talion as his family and then himself are murdered in the opening moments of the game. Their blood sacrifice used to cast a necromancy spell, binding the spirit of an amnesiac, ancient elf lord to his body. Thus begins their joint quest for revenge against the forces of Sauron. They proceed to grow in immense power and kill a whole lot of orcs on their way to kill the three Black Captains of Sauron.

 

Except, that’s not really true.  I’m not sure how to really begin this explanation, so I’ll start at the end:

After the quest is complete, and the final servant (The Black Hand) lays dead, Celebrimbor suggests they leave for the afterlife. That they can never defeat Sauron. Talion turns to him and says “Could you really rest for all of eternity, knowing you had the chance to stop him but did nothing?”

 

Celebrimbor fades, joining again with Talion as they begin their bro-quest to take down the big bad himself.  But how? Sauron is too strong. Talion continues to say: “The time has come for a new Ring.” And then his eyes glow #@%$ orange.

 

“Talion” is Sauron. And this is a long con.

 

This is why The Necromancer would raise Celebrimbor. It’s the one thing this ghost can do compared to all others.

 

I’ve never read the Silmarillion. There might be huge gaps in my Tolkien lore logic, but this is the conclusion I came to given the thematic throughput and cinematics presented during the game, mostly revolving around this eye glow and some fiddly tidbits.  You see, as the ghost elf reclaims his memories, he realizes he is Celebrimbor, the greatest smith of the second age, and the creator of the Rings of Power.  In his past, he was tricked by Sauron into creating the Rings, who presented himself in the guise of an elf. During each and every cinematic containing Elf-Sauron (almost every CG sequence in the game), his eyes glow orange as a This-is-Sauron cue. A nudge to the audience that this figure is in fact that giant armored fiend and, in a few of the cinematics, he even shifts between forms in front of Celebrimbor’s eyes.

 

Of which, Celebrimbor’s eyes glow blue.  Even after learning of Sauron’s trickery, being beaten and captured, and subjugated to the power of the One Ring. Even as he chants in the Black Speech, when it looks like he is fully corrupted and helping Sauron with the One Ring: Celebrimbor glows blue. He makes the One Ring glow blue as he steals it from Sauron’s grasp and uses it’s new invisibility trait to help him escape Mt Doom. During gameplay, as Celebrimbor binds orcs to his will, their eyes glow blue. On the game’s first boot up screen, where you see a big profile of Talion with shades of the wraith, pressing a button makes his eyes glow blue before progressing to the main menu.  As

would point out, even the thing on the main menu can be of great importance.

 

Most of the other characters lack glowing eyes. Orange isn’t the color of someone who is corrupted by the ring, as witnessed by Gollum’s extensive presence.  Some Orcs and the Servants of Sauron have orange eyes, but they do not glow.  *The exceptions:

-The Tower glows with power during his fight, including his eyes, but this looks more like an  “Over 9000?!” power level than it does a nod to allegiance.

-The Black Hand of Sauron has eyes that glow orange.

While the theme of succumbing to the power and having Talion ‘fall’ is consistent with Lord of the Rings, it doesn’t seem as strong a connection to the eye glow which is presented less as influence and more as “I’m actually Sauron” in each instance of its use in cinematics.  After all, Celebrimbor is also seduced by the ring, and considers it his right to wield it when confronting Gollum’s accusation that he’s a thief.

 

Anyway, if you begin to accept this as a possibility, it’s another Bioshock-y twist game. The game doesn’t begin with Talion; it begins with Talion already dead. The early moments of training with his son and sneaking up on his wife to kiss her, their murders by the Black Hand, are presented as flashbacks. The game begins with Celebrimbor’s summoning and in the wraith world.  Despite “Talion” acting confused and Celebrimbor providing some knowledge of the situation they are in, the game is entirely framed around Celebrimbor’s perspective. His entry, his amnesia. After finding the first relic, Celebrimbor learns of his family fate and hypothesizes that’s why they are joined (since “Talion” already shared his backstory).  He doesn’t know why they were bonded together before that.

 

The Player is the ghost bonded to an entity, not the other way around as we assumed.

 

It’s certainly possible the shared death experience helped link their souls. Or maybe someone referred to as “The Necromancer” (or, if separate entities, his direct servant who shows equal capability in the final boss fight) is capable of casting the spell as they intend. The opening cinematic refers to Sauron as “Shadow and Flame” that has returned to Mordor. The duality of the title ‘Shadow of Mordor’ refers to Sauron as much as it refers to the wraith. And the entire game is about summoning and tricking Celebrimbor into crafting a new Ring of Power (again).

 

That’s how I had looked at it anyway. What do you guys think? Oh, and then there’s the small fiddly stuff, mostly revolving around the Black Hand. His eyes glow. The first orc interrogated says “he’s a fiend. Made of thin air…”  You never get to fight him (despite a small clip of a fight appearing in one of the trailers?).  When he claims the wraith for himself he appears in the guise of Sauron. Somehow “Talion” can fight him sans ghost and a slashed throat, despite earlier “Talion” couldn’t even knock away a staff of a half-possessed human.  But at the end of the boss fight, the Black Hand’s body lays in the same position as Talion’s wife as her voice clip plays about “being together soon. Forever.” His in-game bio entry hints that he might be Sauron himself in fair form. He’s able to summon the voices of Talion’s family to taunt him shortly before the fight. The recent (neat and uncommon that it’s free) DLC let’s you play as him, his power set obviously a mirror of “Talion’s” as the player character.

The Tower is able to communicate through the dead, and uses Talion’s memories of sneaking up on his wife to ‘provoke’ him into killing him (instead of Branding him like “Talion” had attempted several previous times in the boss fight). Some of these points would lead me to think that the Black Captains have access to Talion’s memories. “Talion” also kills the Hammer rather than Dominate him, which Celebrimbor remarks on. Dominating either would have revealed the ploy to Celebrimbor.

“Talion” generally discards the lost relics that trigger memories, but pockets the smithing hammer used to forge the rings when he finds it mid-game.

Also, as a powered up “Talion” approaches Mt. Doom at the end of the game, where the Black Hand is also, that’s when the volcano becomes active and erupts. Lore here states it’s dormant without Sauron, and becomes active as he returns.

And, according to the wiki, Talion is derived from the latin for lex talionis, an Eye for an Eye. A nod to his revenge story, or the loose english foreshadowing to the Eye of Sauron. Or is “Talion” (another) Hand of Sauron? Or are the Hand, “Talion” and the Eye all shards of the same entity? Or is the Hand never really around post-necromancy, he is "Talion" the whole time? I have no idea.

 

I don’t know what to make of all the fiddlies yet, but they may gel together with further analysis, other opinions, or future content.  I’d prefer not to get too distracted on them, as just the themes of the eye glow and the core concepts of deceit, disguise and trickery to create the Rings of Power seem strong on its own.

 

Lastly, while looking up the Wiki on Talion, I learned this game has both Troy Baker and Nolan North as voice actors. Hah!

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I didn't read into it quite that far. What I got from the eye color change was more of a "since you killed the Black Hand, you become the new one" sort of thing. I'll have to watch the ending again when I get the chance and reply back with more.

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