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Are the lore write-ups for each race still happening?

I asked this on the discord, but I figured it probably got buried there and it might be better to have answered on the forums anyway.

Early last year there were discussions on the discord server about there being lore write-ups for each race, it was said they'd be in-depth enough to include things such as naming conventions.  It wasn't to be "spoiler lore" but pre-game lore for us to understand the setting better.  Initially this was talked about as if it would be happening early last year, but with the Kickstarter immediately after, PAX, and everything else—it's completely understandable that it was moved to the side for more immediately important things.

Is this still in the works?  And if so, any idea of when we might see it?  Not all that many new games focus very much on their lore, so it would be really great to see something like this and I think maybe even some people who initially aren't very interested in the settings of the games they play in might start thinking more in-depth about the universe of Ashes of Creation if this sort of information was given out.

"What cultures am I the most interested in?  What kind of name should I pick for my character?  What kind of a background would my character have come from?"  It'd be really amazing to see what people can come up with.

( @GMSteven )

Comments

  • To be sure, Steven is constantly writing and refining the lore for a whole game. From what we know, he is doing most if not all himself. Not releasing stuff at a pace that an ever rabid base will consume and then proceed to pick holes in is a decision he is sure to have made with keeping optimal interest in the game vs. spoiling the product before launch with information fatigue and over-hype (No Man's Sky comes to mind)
    You can look to the 64 class name variants to see how this bites him in the ass when he does release information. From his statements he spent a lot of time and effort coming up with names that made sense to him. Only to have people spend the next months saying shit like "WHY NO DRUID!?!" "MAH LIST IS MAKES MORE SENSE!!" and multiple people chiming in saying they know better. The fucking hubris and hyperbole of the internet gaming crowd.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    To be sure, Steven is constantly writing and refining the lore for a whole game. From what we know, he is doing most if not all himself. Not releasing stuff at a pace that an ever rabid base will consume and then proceed to pick holes in is a decision he is sure to have made with keeping optimal interest in the game vs. spoiling the product before launch with information fatigue and over-hype (No Man's Sky comes to mind)
    You can look to the 64 class name variants to see how this bites him in the ass when he does release information. From his statements he spent a lot of time and effort coming up with names that made sense to him. Only to have people spend the next months saying shit like "WHY NO DRUID!?!" "MAH LIST IS MAKES MORE SENSE!!" and multiple people chiming in saying they know better. The fucking hubris and hyperbole of the internet gaming crowd.
    Oh yeah, definitely.

    I figured I'd ask because it was being talked about March 2017 as being something right around the corner that would be there with the race reveals—but we didn't get it then.  Which is fine, 'cause as I said stuff happens.  I'm pretty patient.

    That's mostly why I figured I could ask now just to see if it was still going to be a thing or not, since we've gotten lore since then but not the more in-depth stuff on each race that was supposed to be there when the races were revealed.

    Plans might've changed, which is fine and expected, just wondering if/when that'll be happening or if that got put to the side for now.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    The lore is going to be hard to explain without holes.  To me it looks like time portals or multidimensional travel. It's hard to explain all the stuff in a logical way. Glowing plants, plus middle Earth, plus Boston Tea Party and dinosaurs, plus magic, and starships. My latest theory is that someone ate a bad burrito and fell asleep in the library. It's all just a dream.
  • sunfrog said:
    The lore is going to be hard to explain without holes.  To me it looks like time portals or multidimensional travel. It's hard to explain all the stuff in a logical way. Glowing plants, plus middle Earth, plus Boston Tea Party and dinosaurs, plus magic, and starships. My latest theory is that someone ate a bad burrito and fell asleep in the library. It's all just a dream.
    They did explain it a bit, but that's more for other threads.  General rundown:

    →Thousands and thousands of years ago there was a cataclysm that hit Verra.
    →Our ancestors fled that.  Everyone but the Tulnar left through portals to another world without magic.  The Tulnar hid deep underground.
    →All of this time later the stories from that time are essentially myth and legend—until the portals open up again.  By now various nations and races have formed and split over time.  The Pyrian Empire became the Empyreans and the Pyrai.  The Aela humans who fled Verra split into the Vaelune and the Kaelar.  The Kaivek Orcs from before the cataclysm split into the Vek and the Ren'kai.  The Dunkenzell Dwarves from that time split into the Nikua and the Dunir.  The Tulnar (or "The Forgotten") hid deep underground and became a mixture of various races.
    →Our various governments and (I assume) just general individuals are passing through to explore and colonize this new territory.  As such we re-enter Verra from the other unnamed (as far as I know) planet and enter a world where magic exists again.

    It makes sense that there's such a huge variety of stuff thematically.  It's a big world, and presumably the one everyone-but-the-Tulnar fled to is a big world too.  Gonna see a wide variety of stuff.

    What I'm asking about is the lore of the people who step back into the world, and the cultures they come from.  The Elves, the Humans, the Dwarves, the Orcs, the Tulnar.  They said we'd be getting more detailed descriptions at some point, so I'm just curious where we are on that.
  • The lore of a game for me must be as good if not better than the gameplay. Any game can become a good game but its games with background and history they are the games that live on.
  • nagash said:
    The lore of a game for me must be as good if not better than the gameplay. Any game can become a good game but its games with background and history they are the games that live on.
    Agreed, and it's the lore and story that drives there to be other games/movies/comics etc. within a franchise and for people to be interested in it.  You see even the least invested of players developing attachments to important elements within a world if the lore is engaging enough.  There's just so much potential there.

    And it's why I'm excited (and a little anxious, admittedly!) to see if they're still going about this stuff.
  • Well anything that is hard to explain in the lore can always be attributed to magic :lol:
  • Well anything that is hard to explain in the lore can always be attributed to magic :lol:
    Or the dead ^^
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    More lore would be the best thing bi weekly drops of lore entries like the dillas dairy would be great. Especially since I feel like all the lore we have, does is raise more questions then answers. Hopefully one of the announcements they mentioned were coming is lore updates. I would really like to have enough to write and read stories in this world but if I did I feel like so much of it would be conjecture and theory. @Maevynn and @nagash Could not agree more good lore can propel a franchise to insane heights if done right.
  • I would love to see at least some detailed racial/cultural overviews so those of us in the RP portion of the community can begin working on our characters.  Or, in the least, it would be nice to know which race suits our intended preferences for character culture origins.  +1 to this thread for bringing up a valid concern.
  • I seem to recall IS stating that they wanted exploring lore to be part of the gaming experience, and that's another reason they are holding it back?

    Which would make sense, if we are returning to a "forgotten" world, we wouldn't really know anything more than we have already been told.
  • Dekina said:
    I seem to recall IS stating that they wanted exploring lore to be part of the gaming experience, and that's another reason they are holding it back?

    Which would make sense, if we are returning to a "forgotten" world, we wouldn't really know anything more than we have already been told.
    Definitely understandable with that stuff!  They did also mention, however, there would be pre-release lore that would help us understand the cultures/backgrounds our own characters come from.

    Not asking for lore from the "Forgotten" world, but the known world that our characters come from.  The cultures/backgrounds of each of the races, and what they do know/believe when stepping into this forgotten world.
  • we have two years of waiting but in that time I would love to have lore on anything and everything. 
  • nagash said:
    Well anything that is hard to explain in the lore can always be attributed to magic :lol:
    Or the dead ^^
    Or written in a journal hidden inside a tree in an Elven forest protected by the faeries.
  • nagash said:
    Well anything that is hard to explain in the lore can always be attributed to magic :lol:
    Or the dead ^^
    Or written in a journal hidden inside a tree in an Elven forest protected by the faeries.
    see you blame me and I just blame the elves 
  • I did find where they'd mentioned this in more detail: Here!

    Steven: "We also are going to be doing some in-depth overviews of each of the races as we move forward in the coming weeks and months.  Some in-depth overviews of each race, a little bit of their history..."

    Jeff B: "A little bit of the lore they come through the portals with.  So each of them will have a little bit of story to give you guys a flavor of who they are as a race and kind-of where they're coming from and what their mythologies are."

    Knew I wasn't imagining them saying they'd be somewhat in-depth!  There's also this as well:


    So that's more that's confirmed that we can look forward to!  In their latest stream they mentioned they'd been talking about the lore and that after they hit their next milestone they'll be getting more of it to us—So hopefully this all is being considered as a part of it!
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    nagash said:
    The lore of a game for me must be as good if not better than the gameplay. Any game can become a good game but its games with background and history they are the games that live on.
    Agreed...1000 times agreed.  Well said yer undead lordship :p

    One thing I really loved about the late and much lamented Everquest Next (silently shedding a tear for what might have been :'( ) was the short stories they kept releasing telling the lore and story of the world.  I couldn't wait to read them whenever they came out.
  • Some of the lore of the game Stven is purposely keeping hidden/secret because he wants it to be a surprise.  There is more already fleshed out than we're aware more-than-likely.  I would expect a strong description/background on each race when you click on them in-game during character creation.
  • In addition he has stated that some of the lore before release will intentionally be misleading or false, just to throw off people who think they will gain some advantage over others by knowing that Nikua like pineapple on their pizza or other examples.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    In addition he has stated that some of the lore before release will intentionally be misleading or false, just to throw off people who think they will gain some advantage over others by knowing that Nikua like pineapple on their pizza or other examples.
    I do really have to hope that he's joking, or that if it is there that it's nothing major—because I don't really see any point in putting in the extra work just to mislead people as to what the lore is.  People will get an idea of it in their heads, write it down to wikis, incorporate it into their characters (a lot of roleplayers are waiting for some lore to start building their characters), maybe include the elements in stories—only to learn: "Just kidding, that's all fake!  Here's the real lore" When release rolls around.

    If they're dead set on doing that in any major ways it would probably be better to just not give us anything before release.  Why even go through the trouble of creating misleading/false lore instead of just cutting out the portions he doesn't want revealed?

    Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source on the quote?  I'd just like to know how it was he phrased it.
    Elderborn said:
    Some of the lore of the game Stven is purposely keeping hidden/secret because he wants it to be a surprise.  There is more already fleshed out than we're aware more-than-likely.  I would expect a strong description/background on each race when you click on them in-game during character creation.
    Yeah, I honestly don't know of any game that just laid all of its lore on the table with no surprises whatsoever when it comes to deeper and more important lore elements.  Like I've said a few times I'm just talking the introductory stuff they've said they're going to do.  They specifically said they're going to do a detailed write-up on each race before the game is out, and even said that would be in "the coming weeks/months" last year.  I even more specifically asked if there'd be stuff like naming conventions in there, which Steven said there would be.

    It was clearly pushed back, which is fine—I'm patient—but there is some detailed stuff we seemingly are supposed to be getting before the game drops in our hands.  That's more of what I'm talking about with this stuff.

    Definitely 100% true though, he has said (and I'd expect) he wouldn't just throw all of the lore at us.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2018
    Maevynn said:
    In addition he has stated that some of the lore before release will intentionally be misleading or false, just to throw off people who think they will gain some advantage over others by knowing that Nikua like pineapple on their pizza or other examples.
    I do really have to hope that he's joking, or that if it is there that it's nothing major—because I don't really see any point in putting in the extra work just to mislead people as to what the lore is.  People will get an idea of it in their heads, write it down to wikis, incorporate it into their characters (a lot of roleplayers are waiting for some lore to start building their characters), maybe include the elements in stories—only to learn: "Just kidding, that's all fake!  Here's the real lore" When release rolls around.

    If they're dead set on doing that in any major ways it would probably be better to just not give us anything before release.  Why even go through the trouble of creating misleading/false lore instead of just cutting out the portions he doesn't want revealed?

    Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source on the quote?  I'd just like to know how it was he phrased it.
    I'd think any surprises would be more related to verra and it's history then the playable races current lore. Historians will get stuff wrong and the stories we are told about verra won't be 100% correct. We might a story of the sword of jeffery being crafted in the old dwarf city but find out that this wasn't true. There could also be stories about old conflicts on verra that painted one side as the heroes and we find out that side was really the aggressors of the conflict.

    I don't think any story changes should affect your characters back story. I doubt they would make a change to the current culture of the races as they come to verra. Only thing we might see change is their history.
  • I'd think any surprises would be more related to verra and it's history then the playable races current lore. Historians will get stuff wrong and the stories we are told about verra won't be 100% correct. We might a story of the sword of jeffery being crafted in the old dwarf city but find out that this wasn't true. There could also be stories about old conflicts on verra that painted one side as the heroes and we find out that side was really the aggressors of the conflict.

    I don't think any story changes should affect your characters back story. I doubt they would make a change to the current culture of the races as they come to verra. Only thing we might see change is their history.
    That I can definitely get behind.  It'd be an amazing narrative tool to tell us things about the lore that our characters would believe about Verra that end up being wrong.  The "unreliable narrator" scenario when looking at Verra's (as well as Sanctus's!) history is something I definitely hope to see.
  • Immersion makes the game great when you aren't engaging in the combat. IMO lore is extremely important and if we have a reason to read, people will stick around longer.
  • August 2018


    Still cant wait for that lore 👍🏻 @GMSteven
  • While I can understand the desire to have this information in hand for many (particularly my fellow RPers), I feel inclined to point out that there will also always be the people such as myself out there as well. There will be an elven character (probably high, but possibly wood) named Lythawan out there, even if it completely flies in the face of whatever naming conventions are established. If it fits, that's great, but if it doesn't? Goes to show that his parents were non-traditional and explains why Lyth's attitude on Verra will be along the lines of "This is a new world, and it's time for us to shed the yoke of oppressive convention". Creativity is the skill of making the outlandish and unlikely possible and plausible, after all.
  • Once upon a time there were two fairies who dreamt of being as big as humans so they used all the magic power they could muster to cast spells on each other. Sadly, they couldn't grow very much because they didn't have enough magic power so they only grew to 3 feet tall. Now that they were so big their wings couldn't lift them any more so they fell off and that's how dwarfs were created. The end.
  • sunfrog said:
    Once upon a time there were two fairies who dreamt of being as big as humans so they used all the magic power they could muster to cast spells on each other. Sadly, they couldn't grow very much because they didn't have enough magic power so they only grew to 3 feet tall. Now that they were so big their wings couldn't lift them any more so they fell off and that's how dwarfs were created. The end.
    sounds more like halfling to me but I can see it happening 
  • I am definitely looking forward to seeing and reading more about the lore of this game and universe. Race lore would be very helpful,, so we can start crafting character back stories. Something I always loved doing in the various games I have played over the years. 
  • My character is blind but he's a Tulnar so he's a combination of dolphin and bat and uses sonar instead. He can also fly and swim really well. The drawback is that he likes to drink blood. He's really intelligent tho so that helps him trap prey.  His favorite weapon is his mouth. 
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