Don't most companies that have an extensive lore employ a lore-master type position? Not understanding why they would want to mess up the continuity so badly.
New game, new look kind of deal I suppose. I'm pretty sure Vahlen is the one who insisted on keeping the initial EQ2 lore somewhat in line with EQ1, since our timeline was supposed to begin immediately after Adventurers walked all over the Plane of Time lol. Whoever is on the Lore team for EQN may not have wanted it to count alongside the current Lore, probably part of this silliness involving "making it easier for new players to get into the game", even though most of us interested in the Lore seem to have played both EQ1 and 2, and some of us played OA as well XD.
As opposed to EQ1/2? Lets see: aliens? (Rodcet Nife, Ja'reth) check. Extra dimensional attackers? (Nightbloods, Succubus, Shadowmen) check. Robots? (spin-blade flying golems) check. Technology sufficiently advanced that it is indistinguishable from magic? (look at any Void Anchor, or the Temple of Life), check. There aren't any guns in EQ2, but that doesn't mean people aren't using advanced technology. Heck, you could point to the Gnomes tinkering for high technology. Sure it is a mixture of tech and magic, but it isn't traditional fantasy. It is Everquest fantasy. So is everything else. Including enough void expansions that most of us were sick of it. Also there is lots of Everquest 1 that we haven't imported to EQ2. I'm kinda thankful for that actually. I'm not too fond of dealing with Discord here. Hopefully if we do it will be completely different. That whole invading army that never actually invades bothers me. I like that the dragons were shown attacking Freeport and Qeynos even if it was only cosmetic. Extra dimensional armies that don't actually disrupt your planet aren't living up to their potential. And EQN was suppose to be a completely different Norrath. What part of "Same names, completely different story" are they not living up to?
It is only messed up from your perspective (and from the perspectives of the rest of the members of that small collection of players that appear to think that they have a right to dictate design decisions just because they might play the game). Just because they don't do it in the same manner that you would do it doesn't mean that they messed up the continuity - it just means that their opinions (the ones that count since they get paid to design SOE video games for a living) differ from yours. If the end state of the lore when EQN launches isn't to your liking, then the solution is simple: don't play it. You'll still have two flavors of EverQuest that still have your preferred deity. I personally won't miss anyone that decides not to play because of the absence of Tunare. I know that you all won't miss me either, and I'm down with that.
Are you talking about EQN? If you are...what continuity? EQN hasn't even launched yet. The only way they could mess up continuity is to have the story be internally inconsistent at launch. Is it consistent with other Everquest games? No. Should it be consistent with EQ1, EQ2, EQ:OA, EQ: Champions of Norrath? Again, no. Everquest Next is not a sequel to the other Everquest franchisee. It is a separate game that borrows bits and pieces from the other games but ultimately is a retelling of the Norrath story. It has a different beginning, middle and "end". Much like the latest offering of Battlestar Galatica by Syfy wasn't like the original show. The characters were different, the tech was different, the enemy was different, the plot was different. Same names, different shows. You want to say the new story is lame? Sure. Go for it. You want to say its wrong? Sorry, you've missed the obvious.
One of the big problems with the lore and the outline of the actual game is that it was supposed to closely follow original Everquest game mechanics and lore. This is another example from SOE of say one thing and deliver something very different. And in the case of Everquest Next, I would say extremely different, almost unrelated.
Not sure what the producers reasons were for this but EQ2 was set up as a split history the moment that Druzil Ro undid the release of Zeb from his prison. In EQ2 he was freed. In EQ1 he remained in the prison. That started a ripple effect that the farther you get from that moment the more the two threads diverge. 500 years after that incident EQ2 begins. More than enough time for our thread to be significantly different than EQ1's thread 500 years later. Part of what makes this interesting is the lack of continuity between EQ1 and EQ:OA. Significant portions of EQ:OA's content is based on EQ1, but parts of it don't exist in EQ1 and should be acknowledged if EQ:OA was just Norrath from 500 years in EQ1's past. It isn't and that inconsistency is more glaring than others. Actually EQ2 gives more of a nod to EQ:OA than EQ1 does. The explanation of threads makes it more tolerable though. EQ:OA is obviously a different thread than EQ1 even though it was originally touted as EQ1 500 years earlier. And SoE's experiences with EQ:OA is probably responsible for EQ2 and EQN being separate realities from EQ1. Simply put the people at SoE herd so many complaints about the lore being wrong that they built in an excuse for any inconsistencies.
The time split was nothing more than a developers ploy to free them from the constraints of EQ1. And, while it freed up the EQ2 team to develop their game independently from EQ Live, it was a disaster as far as lore goes. It didn't just allow them to cover up inconsistencies, it allowed them to deliberately *create* lore inconsistencies, without fear of being taken to task, which they proceeded to do with relish. While Vhalen was here there was at least an attempt to maintain some lore continuity. Since then it is a hopeless task. The lore boards used to be the most active boards in the community. That torch passed years ago to the Homeshow forums. Now they are going to do the same thing with EQ Next. in spades. There is no more EQ lore. There is only EQ Live lore, EQ2 lore. EQ Next Lore. Nothing to bind them. No continuity. No knowable fantasy milieu. Just three separate worlds with less and less in common. . It is not a franchise based upon a familiar fantasy world. It is a franchise masquerading as Norrath, but it isn't really Norrath. it is three or four separate Norraths. Not just snapshots from different time periods, but totally unrelated Norraths with little in common but a name. That may be appealing to some, but there are more than a few that have given up on the lore of Norrath altogether. All one must do is look at the posts in this thread. There are only a couple of voices trying to defend the decisions about lore for EQ Next, and many more that question them. In their effort to free EQ Next from any lore constraints from previous games they have succeeded. But they have thrown the baby out with the bath.
here's how I see EQNext right now. it's like this, if I went to DC comics, and bought the rights to Batman. and then went to tell the fans that I'm going to Reimagine the batman story, your going to love it! except in my Batman, Bruce Wayne isn't a billionare. his parents were never shot in front of him. Thomas and Martha are very much alive, and Bruce's round the world training wasn't done it's all cybernetic implants. his gadgets? those are just incorporated gizmos in my new batman's body. the Batmoblie is the same, and he still has the Batcave, but it's more to mantain his implants then anything else. Catwoman is there, but she's now his version of Robin, because in my version Batman is gay, and the tragic incident that created batman was Jason Todd (not robin anymore, but bruce wayne's BF) being beaten to death by Two-face with a crowbar because in my batman, the Joker was murdered by a random cop, he was shot in the back. (who may or may not be Commissioner Gordon now! suspense!) People would be rightfully upset with me. and I see the same thing in EQN so far. We don't have access to the Planes, because they chose to make the Dal Empire an intergalatic slaver culture. the elves are slavers. you know, the good guys of Eq1/2 are now the Shissar/Iksar for all intents and purposes. Lord knows how bad the iksar and Shissar are going to have to be made now to be in the 'darker side' to that. the Koada'dal are basically an elvish KKK. the Teir'dal are no longer corrupted by a dark god, the were 'corrupted' by having to spend several generations on a harsh Abyss like world, which made them even more pragmatic and violent, considering they were Dal versions of Navy SEALS/Army Rangers Tunare is dead, killed by Random Monster Horde 01. (but it's a really SPECIAL monster horde, honest!) there is no Claws of Veeshan, it's all the Ring of Scale. Jaled Dar isn't an idealist that moves to show his ideals are correct, he's a powermonger looking to usurp Yelinak in a very 'evil twirling his mustache' type manner. the Ogres are from another planet. I can't see it any other way from the enemy of my enemy stories. it's made pretty clear in that narrative that they are from another world, and that the elves conquered them. with the main characters being several generations down the line, all born into slavery, and learning from an older one that has told them about their homeland/homeworld in an effort to preserve what little of thier culture they had left. the same thing with the dwarves. he constantly talks about how he's arranging to go home, their REAL home. which is another planet where everything including trees is made of stone. the Ashen order, though I liked the story, is not an order of human monks. it was founded in the desert by 3 dal and a kerran. and they are a very 'kung fu' ish culture, refusing to train people unless under very strict guidelines. a very Jedi like order as well, with people being turned away if they are too angry, or to aggressive. Majdul isn't a place, it's a person. a pirate/raider legendary captain, who's soul seems to be able to possess other bodies, making their eyes glow with blue fire. actually come to think of it, Maj'dul, and the archmage from the bastion/mage of the teir'dal stories are the only indications we've seen that Necromancy even exists in EQN. Much like my 'reboot' of batman example, it's like they just took the Everquest name, slapped in the the box, named drop a few people/places were familiar with just to get the EQ fanbase to hopefully jump ship. Not to say I prolly won't try it, but at the rate it's going right now, it won't take very much at all to get me to abandon it quickly when I do. and I probably won't be starting with a gold/member account.
For a very long long time in MMO's and in most MMO's today lore is a side-story in the overall production of an MMO product. Even Vhalen and Bill Trost themselves were regular scripters/coders that happened to love creating the lore/world-building and got to input the most knowledge/memory of making EQ1 when making it for there were many others who inputed as well like Aradune and others. Most MMO's don't have a "dedicated lore dev" as most MMO's including those in the EQ franchise instead have developers who know lore... (or in some cases think they know it) and simply input it into quests/storylines as they and the rest of the not-as knowledgeable and more knowledgeable team-mates do as well. Rarely have I ever heard of an "overall" lore dev of a franchise making sure continuity is maintained ...(not even Vhalen though thats a conversation for a different day)... probably b/c the game-industry as a whole has been in a rut when it comes to successful MMO creation for at least half a decade. Devs change jobs/companies mid-quest script and those quests while some trivial other quests epic.. simply sit unfinished (due to contract or messy-code reasons). A commitee, is the best way imo, to keep good dramatic/comedic/light-hearted/dark forshadowed/evil/good/induring stories of lore consistant and plausible. The commitee members wouldnt have to be totally devs either, but as devs are the world-builders a heavy chunk of future events to come would be input by them since they'd be the ones w/the knowledge of events to come and be coding/scripting it... ... but maybe also... have some others... perhaps well lore versed players/fans/writers that can scan over and edit the work to make sure it's not a steaming pile. *puts the soapbox down*
That committee exists, except it only has 1 or 2 members and they go by the title "producer". If the producer cares, it gets done. The way the producer wants. If you have a producer that cares about Lore then continuity is going to be looked after. If it isn't a priority then things are going to happen. In general the various SoE producers have shown care for Lore. But Lore is an internal thing, not an external thing. The story needs to make sense inside of the game. It doesn't need to make sense between games because they aren't toted as being from the same universe. They actually go out of their way to say the new game is in a different universe because the developers want freedom to make something new. Lets step away from Norrath for a bit and look at a well known example of another franchise with Lore inconsistencies: Star Trek. After the original show if you look at any other show your going to see episodes where the continuity of the galaxy is broken. From little things like star dates that don't match up with previous episodes (both in other series and its own show), to forgotten technologies that saved the ship 2 episodes ago being completely ignored in a situation they could use it again, to nobody talking about using time travel even though they just came off a stint of violating the Prime Directive with a time travel plot. Then there is the last TV show Enterprise which from day 1 broke cannon and it didn't stop breaking cannon until its last season when all that mess got cleaned up just in time for nobody to care and the show to be canceled. Then there are the latest movies. Star Trek rebooted, in a different universe where they use the same characters but are definitely not the same. While I have issues with the movies (Kirk: civilian to captain over Spock. Really?) they aren't because they break lore. A reboot is a different story. Lots of people can't get over the fact that the new show is not the old show they grew to love. Others will discover the new show and never know the old one. Others will get to know the old and the new and some will appreciate the new show for what is it. Now anyone that believes I'm defending EQN: I'm not. I don't give 2 figs for it, I haven't look at anything for it besides what gets posted on these forums. By you people. I am sick of hearing a bunch of nonsensical accusations based on a willfull ignorance of the basic premise. While I tend to agree that the story sounds absurd and based on lore alone it sounds like Norrath isn't a fun place to be I'm also going to say I'm not informed. Honestly, I don't want to bother with EQN enough to become informed. But regardless its their story. Go sing it over there and leave EQ2 in peace will ya?
The whole skeleton/undead rising out of Tunare's blood was the tipping point. Who of us that know who Tunare is would ever subscribe to such a ridiculous turn of events.
And as best I can tell, no one outright disagrees with you here. For the record I agree with you, it's not how my mind sees the very blood and essence of Tunare, but in as best as I'm reading there are two camps: the lets wait and see folks and the this makes zero sense folks, and there seems to be some overlap between the camps even. It makes no sense to me and Rainmare's post demonstrates the bizarre feeling this reboot seems to leave many of us with. I guess that I'm the sort that if that much changed in this other Norrath to the point of blowing up the known lore and rearranging like a sort of lore scholar Salvador Dali might, then how come this vastly different thread/other other Norrath even has stuff with the same names in it? Wouldn't those place names and people's names be shaped by the alter-shape of their Norrath and its unique history (and stories)? It would seem so to me. Plus if it ain't broke, as the saying goes... But the other side being presented here doesn't seem so much pro-neo-Norrath as they do wait and see. They place more faith in the producers than perhaps these first glimpses at eqn lore lead me to have faith. I don't like where the story is heading tbh but it's probably out of our hands completely. I'm not proposing apathy so much as I'm proposing that we have the luxury of expressing our opinions and then getting to watch the tale of this different Norrath unfold. Maybe course corrections will happen as time goes on, maybe it'll only get more bizarre and we will end up with Halas as the name of a pipe smoking cat that grins, and a Queen Lucanna screaming off with their heads! Hm. Come to think of it he already does that so making him an equally tyrannical woman might work fine.
So Maj'dul (which only exists in EQ2) becomes an extra planar being that uses bodies it finds in Norrath? So that makes it a Djinn? An Efritti? Even possibly a Shadowman but that breaks with the Arabian theme. Honestly, nothing special about the name Maj'dul. It would be like having an Anton Qeynos ruling over the city of Bayle. Hehe, I wonder if they do Freeport and they have Elven Slavers will Freeport be made up of the former slaves? A Freeport dedicated to actual Freedom. What a novel concept.
I haven't read much of the Maj'Dul related lore in EQ2. Is there any source in EQ2 that gives a definitive origin for the name of the city, Maj'Dul? I ask, because there is plenty of precedent, both in the real world and the EQ / EQ2 game world for places to be named after people. (A real world example: Washington - either the city or the state; a game example: Antonica*.) * I know in EQN it is Amaril, but I'm just saying that it doesn't defy reason to have a person after which a city or land is named - albeit, probably considerably later in the time line.
Thanks, I can't help but recall what EQN's Omeed Dariani said. He let us know wasn't a fan of lore, as he said in his 1st podcast concerning it. Which I took as he did just what he said he did in the discussion, "its the text to click through before you get to the next part of a quest or doing something". While he did come around some later I'm sure... others... helped him become more P.C and not make comments openly like that since they can be/were viewed construed as negative. He's no longer with the EQN team and no longer at SOE leaving a little over a week ago saying his goodbyes and farewells. Tunare being dead,.. killed, slain by a horde. Odd.. that a god could be killed so randomly even for EQN with it's multi-planet/planar jumping. I suppose others with moor insight into the situation either had a hand in it or would know more about it. What god would take her place in the Pantheon then? We know Anashti's creator from EQ2 is on EQN so maybe they'll slide her over to take her spot, though I think Anashti's a goddess of death or something in EQN. I'd like them to take it one step further from the "Playing it safe" move of killing one of the druid/tree hugging fan's gods like Tunare for dramatic effect... lets see what happens if they find another fan favorite was slain but instead of one who's fans are mostly passive agressive make it a god's whos fans act like rabid animals at times... ala slay off Innoruuk.. or even the Tribunal or Zeb, (if they are even in that games pantheon) and have them slain by a small elven toddler girl who somehow finds a bottle containing that god's essence/heart and drops it shattering it and the contents within while playing tea with her dollies... eh well you get the idea. Anyways as for EQN I will hope for the best as the example with the Star Trek franchise shows, I'm not much of a StarTrek fan so I just assume everything said about it was true.
There are not, nor should there be, any sacrosanct entities in the EverQuest franchise. Disagree if you choose to do so, but know that doing so is not taking a position based upon logic, but rather taking a position based upon emotion. Emotion < Logic.
Agree with you, but kinda agree w/ his statement that an elven toddler needs to accidentally kill Inny or Zeb I am an emotional person about 45% of the time, after all.
and that's the problem. some things ARE sacrosanct. you wouldn't reboot startrek without Kirk/Spock/Bones/Scotty. you can't reboot Batman without the Joker/Catwoman/Robin/Alfred. they are primary characters and some of the most well known to the franchise. if there are ANY 4 characters of EQ that should be sacrosanct, it's Lanys/FV/Inny and Tunare. and they kept Lanys, they kept FV (she's the EQN postergirl) but Inny is 'missing' and they flat murdered Tunare just for a 'lets make this more dramatic/we need a reason to make Kithicor undead' they are also killing things by this BS of neutrality. you can't have Grey, without Black and White. you can't have Neutral, without Good and Evil. and that includes in the Pantheon and in the classes. so far we have no pure evil, pure good deities. none. not everything can be grey. there can't be just neutral. without the extremes, there's no cause for the middle.
