i wonder how far they can take this games concept... i mean over all its about fighting uruks, gathering intel and killing captains. (more or less. but i love the sandbox-y aspect of promotions and always new captains.)
what if the nemesis system could be adapted to other races too? elves? dwarves? humans?
imagine the current map as the "HQ" of the orcs and attached to that with several entrances is a big open area map i.e. like skyrim.
the orcs are connected in the south east with their HQ map.
the elves are connected north east with a forest-y hq map.
the dwarves could be north west with a cave-y mountain hq map.
the humans have a town map south west.
(imagine the south east part of the lotr map from mordor up to the elf forest then west to the mountains and south to the human areas/forts. or as other example imagine something like the guild wars 2 wvw maps. with the towers and outposts etc.)
actually just one big map might work best with the races main strongholds in the corners instead of extra instances attached to the "battle map". maybe 1/4th the size of skyrim? or so... or 2x the size of the current shadow of mordor map? well i guess it should take a bit to get from one end to the other. i dunno.
and all the races fight over the big open world map that is filled with farms and forts and outposts etc in a big free for all. (no idea if there is lore wise a time when pretty much everyone fought everyone.)
and you are a wraith (? something) that can posses any person (maybe? maybe once per day/week/month/time acceleration) i.e. a human ranger like now... or a orc captain you defeated or a dwarf or an elf. and depending on who you are it might influence how the other races/captains/leaders react to you. a newly recruited captain might not get to the leaders that easily where a higher ranked one has better chances. or maybe the guy you possess is hated by other captains and even try to duel you when they see you (like they might would anyways in their power struggles if you wouldnt have captain x possessed).
and you can influence all races similar to how you can influence the uruks/orks right now with "power" missions (or like you influence the races in that space game "the last federation") i.e. help a gondor supply caravan reach a stronghold in their hq from a outpost of the big map while orcs get a mission to raid it or so.
well or just raid it yourself hindering the humans with supplies... that might lead to demotions in their ranks or less troops/alarms/danger in some outposts that you try to infiltrate to fight some gondor captain to get intel on an elf lord the gondor fought earlier in a siege when the elves attacked a human stronghold in their hq.
or you dominate that captain that went to the dwarves to prevent a short alliance between humans and dwarves vs the elves. etc
basically there would be ranks and captains and leaders for each of the races... all with their own power struggles, demotions, promotions, parties, recruitment, intrigues, duels, friendships, hatred against each other etc.
and all races would fight over supplies and forts etc on a bigger map. and captains usually lead armies around attacking camps and towers or defending or raiding or recruiting/training troops, where lords, leaders and warchiefs are mostly in forts and the hq map (harder to infiltrate/influence/kill/etc) but they would also move around to lead bigger sieges or alliance talks etc.
and if one race might lost most of their stuff they might be enslaved for a while by the winner... and other races might try to liberate them again. or you yourself help them in secret or influence/weaken the slaver leaders so they rebel on their own.
who knows.
edit: well this would have its own problems...
-if you can possess different people skills might be a problem, you are a ranger+wraith now but what if you possess a giant spider and attack a fort with some spiderlings for food (giant citizen kabuto
)... what happens to your ranger skills? (well there could be different skill tables for different races (dwarves, elves, humans, orcs, monsters, etc))
-also possessing a farmer or random slave is probably doesnt make you a killing machine who can fight 50 uruks out of nowhere with a hoe and win easily with counters and stuns etc.
-and the "everyone is your enemy" "1 vs every uruk you see" might make walking around in human towns or so kinda "boring". (or even more assassins creed-y... in that case "1 vs every uruk you see" liek its now works pretty well to keep the game interesting with fights everywhere)
-and humans/dwarves/elves dont tend to murder eachother that often like uruks do in powerstruggles/duells. well for the ranks there could be demotions then.