CoE Signature Quest History and Lore Goodies (Spoilers)

yes your right that there is the idea of just because we haven't seen it in EQ2 doesn't mean it's not there. but alot of the pointing out is that after PoP, anything EQ1 does is Eq1. nothing to do with us unless one of their ideas strikes an EQ2 dev as great and they decide to pop it in. it's also vice versa, just like Eq1 has never seen a Ratonga or Roekillik, even though they had an entire expansion based around the Underfoot and Brell.

and some of us take a look at the ideas they presented in the Buried Sea, of their suddenly being Shissar living and Kedge living, and would prefer that it stay out of our realm. we don't need Altantis over here. would I like to see Taelosia? sure. I'd love to see an non-invaded war ravaged Taelosia. Make it like Mara where there's no real 'enemy' it's more trying to establish peaceful relations.

I want the Shissar to stay dead. I want them to be that legendary race that scares that hell out of everyone, and makes the Iksar even more imposing by wondering just how many of the Shissar's secrets they might really know. if we encounter them, I want it to be in Ethernere. at the height of thier glory. Or see them as undead in Norrath..a foolish attempt by some necro to harness the essence of a being far beyond his power, or perhaps some of the Liches from Luclin's temple..come to Norrath to 'reclaim' what they think is thiers. then you could build it about how truly frightening their mastery of Necromancy really was.

but I don't want to find some hidden sect somewhere of living Shissar that had some convoluted idea of how they escaped the Greenmist. I don't want to see the Kedge, let them remain dead as part of the tragedy that was Phinny's story...the idea of he got what he wanted (immortality) but lost all he had (his family/the rest of his race)

I understand your point of view but it's important those of us that do want to see some of these things stand up and make a case for it as necessary - the same goes for eq1 bringing in eq2 ideas too :] (big universal timeline fan here!)

A fantasy world, be it a book, a movie, or a roleplaying game, must operate under a set of rules. These rules allow the player to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in the game.

In an MMORPG, accepted convention and lore play a very important, (perhaps even a vital), role in this immersive aspect.

Scholarly works on the study of the belief in myths and magic, have tried to quantify these beliefs into a basic list of laws.

There are several dozen so-called, 'laws of magic', but for our purpose we need only consider the following four:

The Law of Infinite Universes.
The Law of Personal Universes.
The Law of True Lies.
The Law of Pragmatism.

Fantasy worlds only 'work' because of these laws.

An individual can, and does, create within their imagination, a Presonal Unviverse, which is one of the Infinite Universes which may exist.

In the case of MMORPGs, this Personal Universe is created by the designers of the game. This universe is subject to it's own laws, (True Lies), which, for the purposes of the game, are taken to be true (Pragmatism). It is the acceptance of these laws that allows us to suspend disbelief, and immerse ourselves into a fantasy world.

We, as players, then create our own Personal Universes, (in the form of background for our characters, beliefs, associations, etc.), within the Designer's Universe, (Norrath).

It is when the laws of True Lies and Pragmatism are unknown, discarded, or are not universally known and accepted, that the game loses the aspect of a fantasy world, (Personal Universe), and becomes nothing more than a video game.

The whole time split issue has disrupted these laws in the sense that it has violated the Law of True Lies; giving the players two sets of equally valid, and often contradictory 'truths' with which to assimilate and deal with. It has streched the suspension of disbelief; perhaps not to the breaking point, but to it's limit.

The same may also be said of mixing different genres into an amalgarim, (science fiction with fantasy, for instance).

They put an unecessary strain on the believability of the system.

To introduce more uncertainty (chaos) into the system could threaten to break it entirely as a believable, and knowable Personal Universe.

Re-uniting the various 'spin-off' Norraths might go far in rectifying some of these problems. Whereas creating yet another Norrath would only compound the problem. Unless EQ Next contains NO elements at all from previous Norraths, then it will only exacerbate the conflicts which were caused by the first time split.

Though perhaps not impossible to achieve, I think it would be a dangerous and difficult task to accomplish, at least from a roleplay point of view.

Mouse over him and the tooltip contains a brief description of his history..

I understand the desire to have a "true" history of Everquest. I also understand the constraints the producers of the game placed on the story of each game. That from the launch of EQ1 upto the Planes of Power expansion everything in EQ1 is in EQ2. After that point the development teams of both games arn't responsable for maintaining the same lore. While they do communicate, what one team creates doesn't directly affect the decisions of the othe team.

When the time split was created the description was of two scrolls that were nearly identical but that dirvirged the farther out you went. While it is natural to take it to mean the dirvergences are only in one direction (the future) it also aludes to the further you go in any direction the more changes you'll find (which would include the past as well).

And we can even go a step further. From what I've been told in the past, Norrath was destroyed in EQ1 so when it was "fixed" who knows what changed? Also from what we know of Chrono-magic any time travel we do involves alternate dimensions which can dirvirge considerably from our own. Examples include the Skyshrine Sigature quest line, and Trail to the Past HQ. This and the recent trouble in the Ethernere can lead the the conclusion that there are many different "Norraths" out there that divirge at different points in different ways. Instead of trying to wrangle them all into a "universal history" can't we just talk about EQ2 here?

That's what my posts were about pointing out that some of the kedge lore pre pop is minimal and/or from beta sources and because of that it leaves it open to give eq2 some kedge fun as there is no specific mention of them all being annihalated world wide :] Feel like i'm going in circles here!

Perty much we're down to that point. Between the two of us we have fundamentall differences in opinion that can only be solved by new content entering game. And honestly there isn't going to be lore that enters game that contradicts your position because such a thing would be meaningless to add to the game so the only possability here is that I get proven wrong eventually or not.

Or a dev goes nuts and actually responds to this post backing either of our positions. I wouldn't hold my breath for that one.

Which one ? Raid / Heroic or the Signature-Quest one ? I've done the Signature, so that's no longer possible...