Is EQ:OA now offical canon lore?

[Shemyaza]

in the GU42 preview is the following line regarding epics: "Some items touch back to FAR earlier times, so deep knowledge of history (touching on EverQuest lore and even going as far back as EverQuest Online Adventures, 1000 years in the past!)"

does this mean that EQ:OA is finally being brought into the official lore of eq and eq2 with all the inconsistancies that have been pointed out over the years?

[ke'la]

Shemyaza wrote:

in the GU42 preview is the following line regarding epics: "Some items touch back to FAR earlier times, so deep knowledge of history (touching on EverQuest lore and even going as far back as EverQuest Online Adventures, 1000 years in the past!)"

does this mean that EQ:OA is finally being brought into the official lore of eq and eq2 with all the inconsistancies that have been pointed out over the years?

Only the parts that a)are directly refered to in the Lore, and b) are not effected by the timesplit after the mortals concored the Plain of Time.

[teddyboy4]

You beat me to it, I was going to come and post that exact same line here, lol."Some items touch back to FAR earlier times, so deep knowledge of history (touching on EverQuest lore and even going as far back as EverQuest Online Adventures, 1000 years in the past!)"I think it certainly adds at least some credibility to the EQoA lore, and it certainly can't just be tossed to the side anymore. Seeing as they've been bringing in more bits of lore from EQoA as things have progressed, it definitely adds wieght to the argument that EQoA is part of canon. I'm sure you'll have some people come here and say that they still won't accept it, and this and that, but the fact that the devs are acknowledging it is enough for me. And yes, there are inconsistencies, but they are present throughout all 3 EQ MMOs, I won't even get into the non-MMO EQ games....but inconsistencies in the lore are always going to be there and you can't just throw away parts of lore b/c you personally don't like it. Something that needs to be remembered is that alot of the lore we have comes from the mouths of the residents of Norrath and are subject to their points-of-view and prejudices, so there are bound to be lots of inconsistencies.

[Arianah]

Aye *nods in agreement with teddyboy420* This is exciting, I've never played EQoA, so I'm not familiar with any of it's lore, woohoo!! 'new' lore! Since it's EQoA - 500 years - EQ - 500 years - EQII, how can they not be the same? It's all Norrath. Sure, some or lots of particulars are missing or changed in the lore due to events like the whole Planes of Power timeline and such, but doesn't mean it's not real. Alternate realities *nod*Everything on my website will remain canon to it's particular game world though.

[Cusashorn]

From what I see, it only means that only parts of EQOA are official canon lore, just like how only some parts of it is now.

We'll see if any of these epics actually make the existances of Highborn, Moradhim, or Klik'anon part of the Everquest universe, or if they will remain as little more than an excuse for those playable races to exist in the game.

[Maergoth]

I personally don't understand how hard it is to accept inconsistency.. No, they aren't alternate universes until the time split in PoP, EVERYTHING Pre PoP EQ1, including EQOA should be considered Canon, whether it's there as solid proof or not.History will always have inconsistencies and people denying the obvious, some things have just been forgotten enough that they won't seem to have ever existed or make sense at all.. I always thought of EQOA like a storybook.. a recollection of sorts.. some of it will be true, and some will be misconstrued, like all history has been.

[Ama]

Cusashorn wrote:

From what I see, it only means that only parts of EQOA are official canon lore, just like how only some parts of it is now.

We'll see if any of these epics actually make the existances of Highborn, Moradhim, or Klik'anon part of the Everquest universe, or if they will remain as little more than an excuse for those playable races to exist in the game.

Sadly i'm betting there will be some references, but EQOA will still be controversial in nature.  Would be nice if castle survived with all of the Jareth monsters in it.  Be sweet to have that link to another of the planes of existance that was shielded from the Shattering.  Plane of Time would be nice or the plane of disease. 

[Melodee]

Having played through all 3 generations (?) of everquest, I have to admit I'm pleased to see them finally recognizing that some of the lore in EQOA is credible. I remember awhile back when I was playing the game, I was trying to gather lore for some RP I wanted to do, and all I could get was "eqoa isn't technically related to the pc game and nothing is cannon". YAY EQOA!

[Arianah]

Maergoth wrote:

I personally don't understand how hard it is to accept inconsistency.. No, they aren't alternate universes until the time split in PoP, EVERYTHING Pre PoP EQ1, including EQOA should be considered Canon, whether it's there as solid proof or not.History will always have inconsistencies and people denying the obvious, some things have just been forgotten enough that they won't seem to have ever existed or make sense at all.. I always thought of EQOA like a storybook.. a recollection of sorts.. some of it will be true, and some will be misconstrued, like all history has been.

I didn't say I didn't accept it as real history for our world, I was just suggesting you could look at it as alternate realities if you needed to in order to hate the idea less. The way I see it, it is a part of our history, it's just 1000 years ago, as far as I know, the only time split was EQ1 - Planes of Power. Everything after that may, or may not show up in our world/history at some point.I agree, we've got inconsistencies in our worlds history, why wouldn't there be any in Norrath?I doubt the devs create separate worlds and lore for each game as if they weren't connected, why else would they mention that it's EQoA - 500 years - EQ - 500 years - EQ2? They're just separate time frames, not separate stories.

[Apocroph]

I think Jimmy Eat World might have said it best..."The past is told by those who win."

[Mary the Prophetess]

Much as I like Jimmy Eat World, (especially "This is my Sundown'), I am not *quite* ready to let him upstage Winston on that quote.

/winks

[troodon]

Maergoth wrote:

I personally don't understand how hard it is to accept inconsistency..

That's an absurd position.

With regards to the OP, IMO, the only things that are valid lore from EQoA are those that are directly referenced

[Apocroph]

Mary the Prophetess wrote:

Much as I like Jimmy Eat World, (especially "This is my Sundown&#39, I am not *quite* ready to let him upstage Winston on that quote.

/winks

But Winston didn't have that feelgood melody and boyish good looks!Eh, at any rate, I'd say that much like post-PoP lore, the only bits that are valid in EQ2 are the ones directly referenced.  Keeps things from being too complicated by inconsistency.

[Gisallo]

Maergoth wrote:

I personally don't understand how hard it is to accept inconsistency.. No, they aren't alternate universes until the time split in PoP, EVERYTHING Pre PoP EQ1, including EQOA should be considered Canon, whether it's there as solid proof or not.History will always have inconsistencies and people denying the obvious, some things have just been forgotten enough that they won't seem to have ever existed or make sense at all.. I always thought of EQOA like a storybook.. a recollection of sorts.. some of it will be true, and some will be misconstrued, like all history has been.

Have to agree with you here Maergoth.  There are some basic things that need to be consistent (race age etc. basic bological stuff) but beyond that look at our own world.

as I posted elsewhere

" In "days of high adventure" many places, people and events will become Legend.  Legends change with the telling, grow in grandure or fade with time, get confused and even lost.  The fact that lore contradicts itself sort of expands on this.  You have in the real world tales of Merlin.  He is mad man made so by the horrors of war and thus given the gift of prophesy in some early stories.  In others a mythical "man without a father" whose coming was foretold and whose blood needed to be sprinkled on the ground where a tower could not be built without it falling, and instead saw with his "sight" the two dragons that fought beneath the ground, the cause of the towers fall.  He is at times minimized to simply being a wise old wizard and advisor to King Arthur.  In others again, a Baptismal Bard on par with Talesian in welsh lore.   A being half human and half fae or in more dogmatically Christian leaning times a child of an incubus or a devil, intended to be the anti-christ, but baptized at birth and thus taken from Satan's grasp.  They are all right and they are all wrong.  Thats what makes a Legend a Legend and thats what makes EQII lore, Lore.  Well thats my story at least, and I am sticking to it"

While its nice to think otherwise, our characters, while great heroes or villans, are not the prime movers of Norrath.  As such we are left sifting through the legends and lore the same as everyone else would be.  We are going to, at times, find things that contradict one another, thats the nature of Legends and thats wht Norrath is all about. 

[Shemyaza]

i'd rather they just decided it was either official lore or wasn't. cherry-picking parts will only make the whole of eq lore more of a mess than it already is. that's not even mentioning the fact that if the eq1 devs ignore it then it questions the validity of all eq2 lore.

[Maergoth]

Convenience isn't necessarily correct.. it scares me somewhat when even the most fanatical of fans would rather have their steak tasteless and tender rather than delicious and tough..I've always loved EQ for the latter, I'm not looking forward to that changing. It can be official lore without cherry-picking.. some things are easily noticeable as consistent, some things.. not so much.. but that doesn't mean it goes out the window just because there are bridges to be built between the two.

[troodon]

Maergoth wrote:

Convenience isn't necessarily correct.. it scares me somewhat when even the most fanatical of fans would rather have their steak tasteless and tender rather than delicious and tough..

C'mon, you know that's far from the truth.  I don't want Norrath to have less lore or less interesting lore in it.  The fact is that SOE made some games in which the developers chose gameplay and setting over consistency with established lore.  Look at Lords of Everquest, a game which said that Erudites were around and Iksar were running around Tunaria before the fall of Takish'Hiz and the Elddar Empire.  No one comes onto these forums and says that there might be a little bit of truth to that, why should EQoA be treated any better?  They're both about equally related to EverQuest and its sequel (EverQuest 2), I don't see any reason for preference.

I understand where EQoA vets are coming from.  If I had played that game I would probably agree with them, because I would have an emotional attachment to the game and I would have a problem with simply abandoning that.  All the same, there are major problems with EQoA's place in the timeline and it's simpler and less absurdity-inducing to just ignore it.

[Maergoth]

There's a smidge of difference between amount of lore and quality of lore..  EQOA is a prequel, EQ2 is a sequel, aside from that.. no claims were ever made that the other games lore should be considered in the least. We're sticking with the trilogy here.There are very few things that can't be explained between the 3 games.. some of them take some stretches, but all of them have explanations. Whether or not the real explanations are given to us or not, that should not mean it is to be tossed aside and ignored.I have never played EQOA.

[troodon]

Maergoth wrote:

There's a smidge of difference between amount of lore and quality of lore..  EQOA is a prequel, EQ2 is a sequel, aside from that.. no claims were ever made that the other games lore should be considered in the least. We're sticking with the trilogy here.

Why isn't Lords of EverQuest considered a prequel and who ever said there was a trilogy?...

[Maergoth]

I haven't played it to assess their claims or timing.. but no LoEQ lore has ever really tied into the actual game from what I've seen.. I've never seen anything tagged as originating in LoEQ.. I'd need someone who's played it before I can respond to that.Somehow the case is different for EQOA, but that alone makes me think that LoEQ really hasn't contributed to lore as much as it's taken guesses at it.. like the lore team wasn't even working together with them

[Cusashorn]

Lords of Everquest and Champions of Norrath arn't part of the EQ MMO timelines.

[Gisallo]

Cusashorn wrote:

Lords of Everquest and Champions of Norrath arn't part of the EQ MMO timelines.

Even if they were you have to take context into the equation.  How many times in our history have ancient peoples (or even today's people in the holy land) tried to make claims "we were here first" using some logic to explain why they aren't there now, or try to shoe string their lineage to another completely unrelated in order to justify some claim.  If an Erudite in LoEQ said his people were running around before the Eldar Empire you could easily say that this was a motive for the statement.

In the games we are RARELY, if ever, getting the Lore from a Book written by the Norrathian version of Thucidies or Josephus, but rather characters with agendas.  When you use this lense I think it eliminates at least half of the "inconsistencies" as being in game spin doctored or revisionist history. 

[troodon]

Cusashorn wrote:

Lords of Everquest and Champions of Norrath arn't part of the EQ MMO timelines.

.... and EQoA is?

They're all video games.  They're all released by the same company.  They all claim to take place in the same universe.  Why are the single player games tossed aside?  If an EQoA defender is to be intellecually honest they should defend the inclusion of these games in canon as well.

[troodon]

Gisallo@Lucan DLere wrote:

Even if they were you have to take context into the equation.  How many times in our history have ancient peoples (or even today's people in the holy land) tried to make claims "we were here first" using some logic to explain why they aren't there now, or try to shoe string their lineage to another completely unrelated in order to justify some claim.  If an Erudite in LoEQ said his people were running around before the Eldar Empire you could easily say that this was a motive for the statement.

In the games we are RARELY, if ever, getting the Lore from a Book written by the Norrathian version of Thucidies or Josephus, but rather characters with agendas.  When you use this lense I think it eliminates at least half of the "inconsistencies" as being in game spin doctored or revisionist history. 

These games aren't stories or histories, you're sitting there actually observing things happening in the world.

[Cusashorn]

troodon wrote:

Cusashorn wrote:

Lords of Everquest and Champions of Norrath arn't part of the EQ MMO timelines.

.... and EQoA is?

They're all video games.  They're all released by the same company.  They all claim to take place in the same universe.  Why are the single player games tossed aside?  If an EQoA defender is to be intellecually honest they should defend the inclusion of these games in canon as well.

For one: LoEQ takes place 10,000 years before EQlive, yet claims that all the current existing races and thier cities have existed long before that. Why arn't there great legends and myths of the heroes that exist in LoEQ referenced in the MMOs?

2. Champions of Norrath has locations that DONT EXIST in EQOA, EQlive, EQ2, or thier Pen & Paper counterparts.  You're gonna have to refresh my memory on the story of Firiona Vie getting captured by Innoruuk, and the brave adventurer who traveled to the Plane of Hate to free imprisoned souls from a fate into fiery pits of lava.

[troodon]

aCusashorn wrote:

For one: LoEQ takes place 10,000 years before EQlive, yet claims that all the current existing races and thier cities have existed long before that. Why arn't there great legends and myths of the heroes that exist in LoEQ referenced in the MMOs?

2. Champions of Norrath has locations that DONT EXIST in EQOA, EQlive, EQ2, or thier Pen & Paper counterparts.  You're gonna have to refresh my memory on the story of Firiona Vie getting captured by Innoruuk, and the brave adventurer who traveled to the Plane of Hate to free imprisoned souls from a fate into fiery pits of lava.

For one: EQoA takes place 500 years before EQlive which would put the fall of Takish'Hiz within the lifetime of every single race on Faydwer and yet not only does no one in the game ever speak of it but residents of Norrath during the Age of Turmoil were until SoL under the mistaken impression that the Combine spires were built by the Combine Empire even though the Combine Empire arose after the fall of Takish'Hiz (and therefore even more within living memory of Norrath's inhabitants).

2. Champions of Norrath EQoA has locations that DONT EXIST in EQOA, CoN, EQlive, EQ2, or thier Pen & Paper counterparts.  You're gonna have to refresh my memory on the story of Firiona Vie getting captured by Innoruuk Mistmoore waking up in some tomb on Tunaria, and how brave adventurer who traveled to the Plane of Hate to free imprisoned souls from a fate into fiery pits of lava Qeynos managed to have only 4 monarchs in the 500 years that separate EQoA from EQ1

[teddyboy4]

troodon wrote:

".... and EQoA is?

They're all video games.  They're all released by the same company.  They all claim to take place in the same universe.  Why are the single player games tossed aside?  If an EQoA defender is to be intellecually honest they should defend the inclusion of these games in canon as well."

Wrong. The reason that EQoA and EQ2 are different, and separate from LoEQ or Champions of Norrath is quite simple. EQoA and EQ2 were touted specifically as prequel and sequel respectively, EQoA taking place 500 years before, and EQ2 taking place 500 years after. The other games, as far as I know, were never touted as such, or even being directly related to EQ exceot for taking place in the same universe and sharing similar races and some places.

Also, I understand that some things in the "trilogy" (as a poster above put it, which does make sense) don't line-up exactly to everyones liking, but whether or not they are canon is not for us to decide. As far as I am concerned, anything that was included in those three games IS canonical lore. It came from " the source" and was put there for a reason, whether or not the things put in the games retcons previously known things is irrelevant. Yes, it is painfully obvious that places such as Moradhim and Klik'anon existed in EQoA simply as a vessel to allow the inclusion of the Dwarves and Gnomes in the game by giving them a "home city", or base of operations on Tunaria, but in the end, does it really matter? In the original EQ, many of the cities, places, and people were probably created in a similar way, and for similar reasons, but does it matter? No. Their inclusion became canon simply b/c they were included, it doesn't matter whether they were mentioned before or after, they were included and therefore THEY ARE.

[Cusashorn]

troodon wrote:

aCusashorn wrote:

For one: LoEQ takes place 10,000 years before EQlive, yet claims that all the current existing races and thier cities have existed long before that. Why arn't there great legends and myths of the heroes that exist in LoEQ referenced in the MMOs?

2. Champions of Norrath has locations that DONT EXIST in EQOA, EQlive, EQ2, or thier Pen & Paper counterparts.  You're gonna have to refresh my memory on the story of Firiona Vie getting captured by Innoruuk, and the brave adventurer who traveled to the Plane of Hate to free imprisoned souls from a fate into fiery pits of lava.

For one: EQoA takes place 500 years before EQlive which would put the fall of Takish'Hiz within the lifetime of every single race on Faydwer and yet not only does no one in the game ever speak of it but residents of Norrath during the Age of Turmoil were until SoL under the mistaken impression that the Combine spires were built by the Combine Empire even though the Combine Empire arose after the fall of Takish'Hiz (and therefore even more within living memory of Norrath's inhabitants).

2. Champions of Norrath EQoA has locations that DONT EXIST in EQOA, CoN, EQlive, EQ2, or thier Pen & Paper counterparts.  You're gonna have to refresh my memory on the story of Firiona Vie getting captured by Innoruuk Mistmoore waking up in some tomb on Tunaria, and how brave adventurer who traveled to the Plane of Hate to free imprisoned souls from a fate into fiery pits of lava Qeynos managed to have only 4 monarchs in the 500 years that separate EQoA from EQ1

Thats right, Troodon. Avoid answering my questions by trying to justify your own.

[troodon]

Cusashorn wrote:

Thats right, Troodon. Avoid answering my questions by trying to justify your own.

lol, I apologize, I obviously haven't been clear enough about what point I'm trying to argue.  I'm not arguing that LoE (or CoN for that matter) should be looked at as valid sources for lore; I'm only arguing that EQoA should be treated in the same manner.  That purpose is absolutely served by showing (as I did) that the same sort of questions that can be leveled against LoE and CoN can be directed instead at EQoA.

I always address the problems others point out regarding my posts, surely you've learned that by now Cusa

[troodon]

Eandiil@Lucan DLere wrote:

Wrong. The reason that EQoA and EQ2 are different, and separate from LoEQ or Champions of Norrath is quite simple. EQoA and EQ2 were touted specifically as prequel and sequel respectively, EQoA taking place 500 years before, and EQ2 taking place 500 years after. The other games, as far as I know, were never touted as such, or even being directly related to EQ exceot for taking place in the same universe and sharing similar races and some places.

I'm open to this being the case, if you have any evidence to defend your allegation (advertisements or public releases for example) I'd love to see it.

No. Their inclusion became canon simply b/c they were included, it doesn't matter whether they were mentioned before or after, they were included and therefore THEY ARE.

Then why aren't the inclusion of facts found in other EverQuest games (mentioned previously in the thread) considered "canon simply b/c they were included"?