Why no SSRA? Or are we getting a Part 3...

I made you out of clay
Drinal, Drinal, Drinal
With Drinal I shall play.

New Casino?

Wouldn't be the worst idea but wholly dependent upon the highly-subjective "worthiness" of the prize pool contents, which is probably a "can-of-worms" scenario.

While I realize it’s way too late for changes at this point, I do find the decision to not use Ssra incredibly disappointing. For those that raided during original Luclin, I’d predict most would say Ssra raids were the best. While Vex Thal was the final zone, most of the fights were just 45 minute tank and spanks that were pretty boring. From my perspective, the whole point of coming back to Kunark, Velious, and Luclin is nostalgia. Releasing Luclin without Ssra is like Velious without ToV or Velketors.

This isn’t an “I’m quitting” post, but as someone who found the current expansion to be pretty boring, I had been holding on to the excitement of getting Ssra in part 2.

The areas they chose are where some started playing the game. I do like Ssraeshza and perhaps it will be visited again some day. While I disagree about the whole point being nostalgia, this is as nostalgic to me as Seeds of Destruction including early Qeynos.

I had been holding onto excitement about Firefall Pass similarly. The western part of Shadeweaver's Thicket was mysterious and dangerous starting out and for a long time I thought the caves were the only way there, until someone trained a deadly Firefall Saurek to the low level side. Maybe they can path over sometimes, I'm not sure. Hopefully you'll like the expansion despite no Ssraeshza.

I don't think this expansion should really deal with Shissar or Ssra. Nothing about Mayong/Tserrina really fits with Shissar. Mayong fits. Tserrina being Akhevian fits.. Luclin being home to the Godess of shadows fits. The rituals of the Grimlings and twisting of Khata Shai fit + draws in Vah Shir.

Tsaph Katta/ LiS/Ssra really don't fit in. Location-wise? Sure, but not what these two expansions are hitting.


I'd rather the Shissar get their own 15 minutes of fame, than to be shoehorned in for "nostalgia" purposes, simply because these two expansions take place on Luclin.

Khati Sha was twisted in Ssraeshza. Aren't the grimlings afraid of what would happen if he learned his identity and what was done to him? I might remember that incorrectly. I'm not saying the place needs to be involved, but Khati Sha is directly linked to both Ssraeshza and Shar Vahl. I also don't know if the Vah Shir know what happened to him, but considering the beastlord/tailor class is named after him, they wouldn't be pleased.

Tailor class ?
Drakkin !

Introducing Khati Sha the Twisted fer you...

He was experimented on and ultimately killed by the Shissar. Khati Sha, however, was "reborn." The spell had both killed him and brought him back as a transcended being (Testament of Night)

Grimlings fear that if KS learns the truths of his existence, he will destroy them, hence the false history (Legend of Lies)

Khati Sha created the Grimlings (Mnemonic of Khati Sha)

also:

I do apologize if it read differently. Though, yes, The Shissar were responsible for Khati Sha the Twisted, he has no memory of them exactly.. random flashes here and there. But he was a Vah Shir, created the Grimlings, and there's a lot of dark blood-based magics involved.


It's been years since I delved into SoL lore. I became mostly disheartened when learning a very large portion of the expansion was completely scrapped.

Akhevans were -mostly- finished. The Tegi were left to make us scratch our own butt-brains. The Coterie have a broken back story. Who's the baddie Tsaph or Seru? The Vah Shir aren't innocent kitty purr purr people. Luclin's tower? WRU? Whisperlings and Spirit Anchors? (Some of that still exists) The nerf/revamp of VT key and all of the (now missing) silver links for the talisman of Akelha Ra? Tserna's involvement on luclin in attempts for immortality? Why are the shades of the Order of Autarkic Umbrage at odds with Akhevans? Why does Akhevan blood mutate other beings? How about the spire tower in Mons Letalis?


They could easily run a whole load of expansions, building off Luclin ore that was abandoned (entirely or partially).

That's the crime for which the greatest wizard of his age, Grieg Venificus, was robbed of his sanity by Luclin. His very nearly crowning achievement was that spire, one with the power to pierce Luclin's veil.

Nice lore research. The answer that you might already know is that Brad McQaid and about half of the design team left SOE six months after the start of the TSoL development. So maybe shortly after the TSoV release at the end of the year 2000 because expansion development was usually overlapping. Vex Thal got built in just four weeks ! As a comparision, Vu Nguyen had built the much smaller original zone Estate of Unrest in about sixteen weeks all alone. Then noobs got hired to build the TSoL PC models and to finish the expansion. On top of that Smed demanded that horse mounts do get implemented which took away additional design manpower. At the end an unfinished, rudimentary expansion got released.

Even being unfinished it still might be the best expansion ever in its overall complexity, quality and zone amount in a retrospective. It was not that great during its release because strategical mistakes had been done. Like way to many newbie and low level zones while the majority of the players was already above level 40. The very successfull PoP expansion got releases only 11 months later while most players were still raiding in TSoV which made the basically much better TSoL expansion quickly futile.

Interesting. I started weeks before LDoN and the newbie zones were active on Luclin. I started on Stromm though, and both the instruction manual and server name funneled us newbies there.

That's a lot of lore to read when I have time, great job.

As far as the Vah Shir not being all goodly, I do remember they have a problem with brutality to enemies and prisoners, but are tolerant until they are crossed. I suspect they are more tolerant than the manual suggested for game play reasons, but perhaps I'm mistaken. In lore shadow knights and necromancers especially wouldn't be welcomed.

VT is also 90 degrees off axis in game. And yeah, I know why it was released in the state it was in.. but there are soooo many loose ends.. it's just kinda sad.

Same with Greig and the spire thing. The spires predate the Combine Empire and little is known about the original builders.. yet here's Greig. How old is he? Why does he look like an Erudite (pre-change)? GE was altered post-launch into what it is now. I don't think Greig even transforms during his fight anymore. There's little to no backstory about him, just the reasoning for his current state. The spire was completely abandoned with only speculation that it may feed to why the Nexus works.. but there's no "proof" that I've seen. Greig's also used to be much more menacing to traverse, before they made it static. I can understand why, but it was pretty cool how it was before.

The nerf of the VT quest is what really hit home back in SoL era. I had collected all of the links and the Unadorned Medallion. Combine and give it back. You got a completed medallion back. Go through the AR portion to get the container version (same quest stuff basically, only you handed in the medallion and got a container version back). It became a 2-slot container for 2 gems: Glowing Orb of Luclinite) and Shaded Sphere.(Light and Dark.. get the theme?) Emp didn't drop Rifts, but these clickies that turned into Shaded Spheres, which combine to create the final medallion (It was revamped at this point so I don't know).

Original text:

The Wisperlings are pretty huge. There are only 2 known to be left in game. One is in UP, near Vah Kerrath. One spawns in Shar Vhal but the quest line is not finished. There are many others (allegedly) though I only personally found one more in The Deep chasm. They were location triggered AND time triggered, so you had to be at the right place at the right time to get one to show up. This played upon the inability to tell game (Norrath) time while on Luclin. The whole spirit anchor thing ties into Tserrna and the giant firepot in ME.... as well as the Akhevan "immortality." Most of that is/was lost not long after Luclin's launch =/

The Tegi are of the 4 elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. We see them as Brown, Red, Blue (Ice), and Light Blue(???) The Shadow Tegi (black) were twisted by introducing Akhevan blood. Unknown as to who did it exactly, but possibly Valdanov Zevfeer.

There's some additional lore about the crowned shades (non-Akhevian model guys) like IV in Akhevia, TVX's in Vex Thall, XT and Shadow Overlord in Maiden's. There's possible (opposing) relation between them and the Autarkic.

There's just so much and this talk is all tip of the iceberg stuff. No Seru/Katta/Ssra triangle, No Kitty-Ssra-Grimling triangle, nothing about the Recondites or Thought Horrors, or Shadow Haven or "the great evil behind the gate" in Shadowhaven that came from Netherbian Lair. They could easily relaunch a full-blown Luclin w/o the Mayong influence theme and still have leftover toys in the sandbox.

So far all of the people citing Lore as the reason why Ssra doesn’t make sense for this expansion, I hope you enjoy your Cosmic Owlbear and attack of the killer gum drop raid. When I think of Luclin, I always look back to the good times of being attacked by Dots candy from the movie theater!

Edit:
Spoilers, but they are part of lore.

It might be in Luclin lore but not really relative to the Mistmoore storyline in part 1. Obviously you can spin a story to incorporate virtually any content which was really the point about it not being difficult to include Ssra.

Darkpaw clearly has shifted the focus to an even younger and female audience with all those childish and very colorful components like cosmic animals and the two zones there: Deepshade and Darklight Caverns. Not the best concept because it could alienate older customers which are the core of the game and EQ should be too old to catch young players as there are plenty of childish and colorful games around with more modern graphics and an easier arcade style gameplay which I do classify as junk games. It is funny to notice that my owlbear jokes got caught but it would be better if EQ is staying in its niche and adapt to older and senior players (30-70 years) instead. The market is lacking serious medieval orientated high fantasy games with a decent real life orientated colored game world.

I definitely would like to read some feedback on that from our younger and female players !

Holy Poe's Law I hope that's not what you actually think.

One: That last line.. Ewww

Two: There have always been parts of EQ that pushed people. Alarans.. Luclin mushroom trees and butt-brain aliens.. Morell's Castle + Sanct Som? Ship-to-Ship combat!!! everything about Katta Kastrum's "habitat" zones... Don't stop there, let's warp through time and other dimensions with the whole discord line. Face it.. EQ hasn't been "medieval oriented" for a long time now, unless the static armor look since Luclin qualifies it as such.. and then.. wouldn't this as well?

The Lore is exactly why... as well as the story line they are following. I'd much rather see an expansion focused on the Ssra, than splitting the already strained dev resources to give them another awful cameo (I'm looking at you TBS). While TBS was pitiful to the Shissar (and a horrible zone to boot) it does set them up for their own appearnce in the future.. same with Vyz from RoF. If people really liked the snakes as much as they drone on about the lack of them in NoS... they would embrace seeing an expansion featuring them.. not just as an added aside to please the masses.

Thing is, those didn't need to be mutually exclusive.

I expected this second half of Luclin to BE focused on the Shissar, at least halfway, with the other half being Mayong. A plague of undead Shissar running rampant, Mayong opening a full portal to the Plane of Blood at the top of Ssra Temple, etc.

If the Shissar aren't getting featured in these Luclin remakes, I don't expect them to ever get "an expansion featuring them".

You're defending NoS with a hypothetical. There's no future expansion on deck for us to embrace.