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[Sergarr]

If the next game is alternative continuity, then I want to be able to kill Frodo.

That hobbit has enjoyed the plot armor for far too long.

[Karkov]

I wouldn't mind throwing Gollum off a cliff, or to a graug.

[Quartz_Mace]

Hey, I don't have a problem with a fan fiction, which it resembles more than a storyline that they'd slip in between the books, but regarding the Black Gate, they never said he was guarding the Black Gate. Quite the opposite, I believe they were outlaws, living in their own community far away where Gondorian law would not look for them, near the Black Gate. Who's to say that there weren't such outlaws?

[Karkov]

Actually he is a ranger of Gondor stationed at the Black Gate.  There were outcasts who lived within Mordor who took one of the rangers into their fold because he married one of them and taught them how to wage war, but that was not Talion.  Talion killed a noble back in Gondor and took his wife, whom was pregnant with his child, with him to the Black Gate because Talion's father-in-law was nobility himself and cared for his daughter.

From the snippets I've gathered, Talion's father-in-law was actually supposed to be the one to go the Black Gate himself, but extenuating circumstances (murdering nobles) made him send Talion in his stead.  Which is how Talion ended up a Captain.  Game could do with a prequel so we could understand where we're at better.

[Sordid]

Yeah, the point is he couldn't be a ranger of Gondor stationed at the Black Gate within the continuity of the books and films because Gondor hadn't had any military presence there for a millennium. And the thing is, I think the developers did it deliberately. There was no reason within the story for why he should be stationed at the Black Gate specifically. The intro scene with his family getting killed could have just as easily happened anywhere else. So I think the developers did it deliberately to hint that this isn't the same continuity that we're used to and to free themselves to go wherever they want with the story in the future, even against established canon. Which IMO is a good thing. I hate foregone conclusions.

Or perhaps I'm giving the devs too much credit and they just goofed up. Also a possibility.

[Karkov]

I'm a blithering idiot.  FEAR ME!

[Cthulhu]

 Uh, well Tolkein himself is dead so they probably weren't working with him, and the tolkein estate takes a pretty dim view of derivative works

[Karkov]

This is me being dumb.  I'm going to edit my post to show me being dumb.  Ignore me and let me be dumb in peace.  How the hell did I get convinced that he was still alive somehow?  HE WAS BORN IN 1892 FFFFFFFFF.

EDIT: Okay, I think I understand how I mixed it up.  "Developers are working to keep the game true to Tolkein's world," probably missed its full mark (or any other combination made heretofore) and I read it as "They're working WITH Tolkein" or some such nonsense.  When most of them read "They're working with the thought of Tolkein's story in mind."

Add that to speed-reading most things along with very small dyslexic tendencies, and suddenly Tolkein's alive from the 1890's and wants video games to match his world, making small artistic inventions along the way.

[Rakonas]

Could I see the evidence that states that Gondor had no presence at the Black Gate for a millenium exactly? It could just be unreliable info from a character because I don't remember that (though I assumed it was the case anyway). Personally I would really like this series to be canon because it's good, and Tolkien conceived of his writings as an alternate mythology for Britain (Middle Earth) anyway. Would be a shit mythology if people didn't add their own stuff to it.

[Cthulhu]

I haven't heard that either.  I've heard that they got pretty lax about it (and that's in the game too, a lot of htem don't really remember why they're even there) and that's when Sauron came.

[Majestic7]

Huh, isn't the continuity error easy to explain? The ranger dude was simply dead for a millenia, lost in the shadowlands between life and death, before coming back with the elflord. Something simply went wrong in the summons and time flows differently in the shadow. It explains why the wraith had just been abandoned after the summoning instead of being broken for use. From the summoner's perspective, the rite failed and he was just "oh well, better luck next time". You could tie this to the Ring coming back to the world from the roots of the earth; maybe the proper summoning only happened when Bilbo came out of the mountains with the Ring. After all nobody could seem to find it when it was with Gollum deep, deep underneath.

The unnatural longevity of the captains is likewise logical enough. Sauron has been known to teach/grant unnatural longevity to his minions even without any Rings. The Mouth of Sauron, for example, is said to be several centuries old and he has no ring, he is just a sorcerer and Sauron's apprentice.

Disclaimer: I haven't played the game much yet, so my speculation might be directly contradicted by something in the game. If so, I agree that it is just lazy writing.

[Karkov]

Except that doesn't work because he meets with a ranger deserter that he let escape while he was still a captain.  Helps the deserter escape from Mordor.  Would've been a good theory otherwise.

[Majestic7]

Umm the deserter is actually dead too and by helping him escape, he actually helps his spirit escape Mordor and go where-ever dead men go? Sixth Sense: Mordor Edition.

[Sartain]

Becomes rather weird when the ghost has a wife and an entire tribe of outcasts who know and acknowledge him. Suddenly, it's a whole lot of ghosts.

[Sordid]

Could I see the evidence that states that Gondor had no presence at the Black Gate for a millenium exactly?

I don't think there's a precise date for when the Morannon itself was lost, but here's a few excerpts from Appendix B from The Lord of the Rings, which gives a timeline of the history of Middle Earth:

Third Age 1050, Gondor reaches the height of its power.
TA 1437, the burning of Osgiliath.
TA 1640, Osgiliath begins to fall into ruin, Mordor is left unguarded.
TA 1856, Gondor loses its eastern territories.
TA 2002, the fall of Minas Ithil, afterwards known as Minas Morgul.
TA 2475, attack on Gondor renewed. Osgiliath finally ruined, and its stone bridge broken.
TA 2941, Bilbo meets Gollum and finds the Ring.
TA 2942, Bilbo returns to the Shire with the Ring. Sauron returns in secret to Mordor.
TA 2951, Gollum turns towards Mordor in his search for the Ring.
TA 2954, Mt. Doom bursts into flame again. <- The game takes place here. Orodruin erupts towards the end of the game.
TA 3001, Bilbo's farewell feast.

It seems pretty clear Gondor had lost that entire area east of Anduin way, way before the game takes place.