C
Coppelia
Guest
That, or post in a more appropriate section of the forum. This is UHall.
BTW what's the story behind the Taskmaster?
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Ok, details on the events, from what I've put together
- Thread starter Trebr Drab
- Start date
- Watchers 2
BTW what's the story behind the Taskmaster?
we lost the people who really cared about the lore and storyline fiction! the days with Inu and the magincia invasion/ ophidian invasions/ yrigor and the six ect.. all had some serious story line behind them! and alot of people loved that!..now? well we get a few words tossed our way about ricardo ect and go find some books and its over with, no disrespect to the current dev team but the lore depth that was a major part of UO's events and life! seems to have went to pasture with the loss of certain team members who gave a ....
sad but true
Oh Trebr, Trebr, Trebr!!!! I was so hoping that pulling this back up again would start an interesting discussion. Not this. Please.
So many questions to ask and no one, it seems, that can help pull together the pieces. I'd love to pick your brain on stuff like wisps and gargoyles, languages, virtue systems, etc. Please don't bail on us. I didn't pull this back up as a way to mock you. Stick around and let's have a discussion about what's happened, what it meant, and what might possibly come next.
Also, what's with that wiki you referred to? That's a pretty cool site. Do you know who put it together?
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
Thanks for the sentiments, Tina.
I don't know who put that Wiki together, but I know that in all my searching over the years, that showed up in that expanded form about the time that Draconi was putting out his stuff. That seemed like quite a coincidence to me, but I really don't know.
I really don't know what I want to do. Leave? Stay and keep trying? It seems so useless at times, and other times seems like there's got to be more to it. But nothing ever comes together. I'm always lost in this zone between "what is it?"
Even now I've got an idea to try to check something out in-game. Something that might be "proof" of something. But I know before I even go, that I won't find what I hope is there. Been there, done that, many many times. It's so damn frustrating that there's no game play here, just my imagination.
Edit to add: And that "Black Necklace" story I linked to in the first post. Do you know how cool it would be if I could track that Necklace down, and get it? How cool would it be if I went to put it in the bank and got a message "If you put that here, it can be stolen"? If I went to place it in a secure containor and got a gump saying "You cannot lock that down"? If I went to log out and got a warning "You may log out, but your character will remain in the world because you hold an Archaic Object"? And how cool it would be if GMs/EMs/controlled NPCs were after that Necklace all the time? It wouldn't have to be me, anyone, and I'd be thrilled beyond imagination.
But UO instead has to have shinies for the masses. That's their focus. Their entire focus.
Well, you at least seem to have a very good clue of what's going on with the stories in UO. I never played the Ultima games and have only played UO for about 5 1/2 years. Wasn't even really aware there were stories and lore behind the game for oh, at least the first six months if not longer. Since then, because I'm not much into role playing, I've sporadically tried to get myself caught up on the lore of UO, without much success. And that's pretty sad. Even though I don't really enjoy role playing or want to make it the focus for why I play UO, I still want to know WHY things are the way they are in UO. I suspect I'm probably not the only person who feels this way either. Something tells me that there are probably a lot of people smack dab in the middle of the range of people who play UO: people who couldn't care less about the stories and lore; people who do care but don't want to role play; and people who care and love to role play around the lore.
Please don't disappear. People like me who have an interest in the lore of UO but lack the experience and/or knowledge to contribute very much to discussing it still want you and the other "experts" around to have the discussions. And until a mod sticks his or her head in a thread like this and says this is not the appropriate forum for discussing UO lore, just ignore people who tell you to take your theories and conjectures somewhere else. I'm not sure about anyone else, but many days I would much rather plunge into a thread like this then yet another thread about cheating, how to make more gold in UO than you ever imagined possible, why tamers should be wiped out of UO, EA customer service, which client is better, whether or not there will ever be a classic shard, what the heck is a "classic shard," etc.
Don't go. And all you other people that know UO and its stories so well....stick around please and have more discussions here in U.Hall! You may get some goofy questions once in a while from someone like me who doesn't have half a clue what's going on most of the time, but maybe those are the questions that lead off into an interesting discussion you meant to have long ago but never quite got around to it.
S
Sergul'zan_SP
Guest
With way too much time on your hands....
totally agree with this! and Trebr! maybe ya should PM that dev who was mentioning not being able to find info on some of the UO history! for event purposes!! im sure you could help them out with some info before they do something messed up like turning Inu into a forgotten princess and secret heir to the throne or something
I like to re-play ultimas before their related content hits UO. I beat Ultima VI before SA came out. and I just beat U7 part one a few weeks ago. About to get started on Serpents Isle. A great throw back to Ultima I. Id recommend you all download Exult and the Ultima 7's and give em a play. Makes UO twice as fun for me.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
Draconi is gone with the last downsizing, so that's no help.
And Inu is an Ophidian. She gave herself away when she said something about "rats, sweet, delicious rats". She may well be a princess, or something else. There had to be a reason for her madness.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
That's a good idea for anyone that's still into UO and likes the lore and all.
she was an advisor for lord british during the trinsic invasion i believe, i think that was the first encounter with her
Sorry, Trebr, but thats moving beyond wild speculation into bizzare conspiracy theory
If you read the thread with the Cliloc spoilers (http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=1752993&postcount=30), the Bane Chosen are definately human - bigoted humans at that. "We seek to take back the land of Sosaria from the uncivilized races, such as the Ophidians."
I will be greatly surprised if the "Bane" name is of any reference to the Banes Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre became during Serpent Isle. If so, it shows Mark's grasp of Ultima lore truly pathetic.
Just don't expect that the pattern set up by Draconi to be followed - at all. The arc he had planned out beyond the truncated Warriors of Destiny plot line is most likely not to be since his departure from UO.
I really wish I had more time on my hands like I did when the Inu plot was going on. So many things I'd like to get organized, so little time.
Inu first showed up when helping Clainin translate a journal:
http://town.uo.com/bnn/article_521.html
Inu first showed up when helping Clainin translate a journal:
http://town.uo.com/bnn/article_521.html
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
Those Bane Chosen are human. (Or appear human.)
Sorry, Trebr, but thats moving beyond wild speculation into bizzare conspiracy theory
If you read the thread with the Cliloc spoilers (http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=1752993&postcount=30), the Bane Chosen are definately human - bigoted humans at that. "We seek to take back the land of Sosaria from the uncivilized races, such as the Ophidians."
I will be greatly surprised if the "Bane" name is of any reference to the Banes Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre became during Serpent Isle. If so, it shows Mark's grasp of Ultima lore truly pathetic.
Just don't expect that the pattern set up by Draconi to be followed - at all. The arc he had planned out beyond the truncated Warriors of Destiny plot line is most likely not to be since his departure from UO.
There are 3 Banes of Chaos.
"I will be greatly surprised if the "Bane" name is of any reference to the Banes Iolo, Shamino, and Dupre became during Serpent Isle. If so, it shows Mark's grasp of Ultima lore truly pathetic."
Why do you want to be that way? Because it's not what you'd do?
The Ultima lore from the games were in relation to that world, or shard, whatever the case. Our shards can have a different story than that one at any point after the shattering. Because that's where our time lines separate.
Your right, I wouldn't do it that way.. I'd first introduce something of the Ophidian culture so people would have a frame of reference and it didn't seem forced.
We have Ilshenar, which is a version of Serpent Isle all mashed up (Montor, the wall of lights, etc) Unfortunately, Ilsh fiction was pretty well borked when they jammed OWO fiction into UO (Meer, Juka, technomancy), and they haven't bothered to touch it (the facet) since.
We have Ilshenar, which is a version of Serpent Isle all mashed up (Montor, the wall of lights, etc) Unfortunately, Ilsh fiction was pretty well borked when they jammed OWO fiction into UO (Meer, Juka, technomancy), and they haven't bothered to touch it (the facet) since.
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Actually, Montor can be traced back farther than Serpent Isle.
In Ultima III, Montor was a city divided by a river (or perhaps twin cities facing each other across a river), about where all the haunted ruins sit now south of Trinsic, in relation to Britain's location.
In Ultima III, Montor was a city divided by a river (or perhaps twin cities facing each other across a river), about where all the haunted ruins sit now south of Trinsic, in relation to Britain's location.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
Yeah, I agree on that.
UO has had it's internal conflicts, I'm sure. Whoever decided to force the UO2 content into UO really did the game a disservice. I can't even fathom those ideas for UO2, they just seem so out of place for Ultima. Yet, the Lost Lands gave us changed Ophidians, and Terranthians that something new too. I think it has a lot to do with our expectations, and no matter the reasoning we can't accept the Meer and Juka as Ultima lore. There's something in human nature here, I think most of us would have recognized this went too far, but someone in charge didn't.
Just some things about Ilshenar related to my thinking on this:
I had asked Raph Koster on his web site why they decided to surround The Lost Lands with mountains, why not seas. He said that the LL were just one portion of the original Lands of Danger and Despair map (NE corner I believe).
That left me thinking, can Ilshenar be just another portion?
Keep in mind that Serpent Isle is the Lands of Danger and Despair (at a later time?).
That would mean that there's a connection between the Lost Lands and Ilshenar. We have this constant battle between the Ophidians and Terranthans in the Lost Lands. Ilshenar had it's population mostly leave through the Vasgravs (?).
Yet, in Ilshenar, in Blood Dungeon there's this...
These images on the floor look like runic symbols of an unknown type.
If you look at the images on the floor, in the central room, there's 4 figures around the blood altar, facing it. See what they remind you of. The two on the east and west sides look like snake-like representations. Ophidians. The one on the south looks like a spider, maybe a spider/man.
Of course these look like Terranthans.
It's the north one that always had me wondering. Looks like the upper torso of a winged humanoid (Deamon?). Or it could be a Dragon.
But why 4 symbols? Well, for one thing, UO in 2D wouldn't be able to do 3 effectively, not in a circle around something.
But then I started think also, is this a representation of a social cast system (The Ophidian culture), or of a historic event? This is Blood Dungeon.
What if this is a representation of an event, the ripping from the Void of the Serpent of Chaos? What if this were the very place of this event?
Could that then represent (1) the Serpent of Chaos, (the other 3) the Banes of Chaos that resulted in the Serpents destruction? We'd have a serpent, an Ophidian, a Terranthan, and a Dragon. And that fits into UO.
--------------
Dupre. He was one of the Companions who were possessed by the Banes of Chaos.
In UO, Dupre was possessed, or something strange happened to him. I don't know if there was ever an event to free his mind. Even so, did it actually/really work?
Shamino. He is the representative Companion to Spirituality. And that virtue, in my original post, seems to be the one we know is under assault...maybe. heh.
I don't know of anything happening to him though, or where he stands at present.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
By the way, since no one ever seemed to notice this, from my story about The Black Necklace, I present unto thee....
The Black Necklace
Mondain's wearing it. And I think it is needed to bind the Gem or Immortality. The purple color you see on the black stone in the golden necklace is the reflection of the magical spell effects, just as you can see it reflecting off of the Gem of Immortality. It was called "Mondains Embrace", which may be meaningful to it's nature.
The Shadowlords have it now, I believe. All they need is another Gem of Immortaility, and they can take over all of Sosaria.
The Black Necklace
Mondain's wearing it. And I think it is needed to bind the Gem or Immortality. The purple color you see on the black stone in the golden necklace is the reflection of the magical spell effects, just as you can see it reflecting off of the Gem of Immortality. It was called "Mondains Embrace", which may be meaningful to it's nature.
The Shadowlords have it now, I believe. All they need is another Gem of Immortaility, and they can take over all of Sosaria.
One of the stories in the last year or two involved Blood Dungeon and some FoA, didn't it? Like a lot of other things (e.g., the stuff that happened in the wisp dungeon oh maybe two-three years ago), I was pretty lost regarding why those locations were chosen. I still want to know what's up with the wisps that would appear after casting armageddon spell and were looking for some kind of information.Yeah, I agree on that.
UO has had it's internal conflicts, I'm sure. Whoever decided to force the UO2 content into UO really did the game a disservice. I can't even fathom those ideas for UO2, they just seem so out of place for Ultima. Yet, the Lost Lands gave us changed Ophidians, and Terranthians that something new too. I think it has a lot to do with our expectations, and no matter the reasoning we can't accept the Meer and Juka as Ultima lore. There's something in human nature here, I think most of us would have recognized this went too far, but someone in charge didn't.
Just some things about Ilshenar related to my thinking on this:
I had asked Raph Koster on his web site why they decided to surround The Lost Lands with mountains, why not seas. He said that the LL were just one portion of the original Lands of Danger and Despair map (NE corner I believe).
That left me thinking, can Ilshenar be just another portion?
Keep in mind that Serpent Isle is the Lands of Danger and Despair (at a later time?).
That would mean that there's a connection between the Lost Lands and Ilshenar. We have this constant battle between the Ophidians and Terranthans in the Lost Lands. Ilshenar had it's population mostly leave through the Vasgravs (?).
Yet, in Ilshenar, in Blood Dungeon there's this...
These images on the floor look like runic symbols of an unknown type.
If you look at the images on the floor, in the central room, there's 4 figures around the blood altar, facing it. See what they remind you of. The two on the east and west sides look like snake-like representations. Ophidians. The one on the south looks like a spider, maybe a spider/man.
Of course these look like Terranthans.
It's the north one that always had me wondering. Looks like the upper torso of a winged humanoid (Deamon?). Or it could be a Dragon.
But why 4 symbols? Well, for one thing, UO in 2D wouldn't be able to do 3 effectively, not in a circle around something.
But then I started think also, is this a representation of a social cast system (The Ophidian culture), or of a historic event? This is Blood Dungeon.
What if this is a representation of an event, the ripping from the Void of the Serpent of Chaos? What if this were the very place of this event?
Could that then represent (1) the Serpent of Chaos, (the other 3) the Banes of Chaos that resulted in the Serpents destruction? We'd have a serpent, an Ophidian, a Terranthan, and a Dragon. And that fits into UO.
Was a nod to other Ultimas, where Wisps were often the ones to give you the Armageddon spell in return for exchange of knowledge (books usually). The spell is considered a higher form of knowledge than most humans can comprehend by the Wisps, so those that get close (or are able to but know not to cast it) are of interest. In the Ultima universe, Wisps are the pan-dimensional gathering collective of all knowledge.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
"A sufficiently dense form of information", wasn't it? I'm still wondering too.
Like I said, generally a book. I don't think they were programmed to actually accept anything, just to say it merely as a reference, since asking for knowledge exchange is always what they do.
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
I don't know. I can't accept that they'd put it in and not have something for it. You could be right, hard to tell since no one has found anything.
In the original fiction for the Lost Lands, it was found UNDER Britannia in a cavern with an artificial day/night cycle. The mountains are merely the canyon walls that we can see (limited by the isometric perspective).
Having T2A be a broken part of the Lands of Danger and Despair makes sense, and they should have put that in the original fiction. *sigh*
However, trying to say that the Ophidians are 'The Ohpidians' from Serpent Isle is a stretch, unless something went horribly wrong when they went through the Wall of Lights. We can make all sorts of wild speculation and spin cool theories, but UO fiction has gone through too many hands for any sort of subtle plot threads like that to survive. (I.E. some idiot trying to pass off T2A as another facet...even though you physically reach it through tunnels...)
In Ultima VII, Part 2, the Ohpidians were humans helped by the Great Earth Serpent after the destruction of the Gem of Immortality when their lands were 'severed' from the rest of Sosaria. Time moved at a different rate there, thus allowing for a new belief system and civilization to emerge. The original history of Ilshenar is the same basic story with the addition of wisp involvement (light and dark). Of course, this was tossed aside for the laughable inclusion of the time traveling Meer and Juka.
Re: Wisps. What the wisps say about "A sufficiently dense form of information" is a direct pull from Ultima VII. I would wager this was more to connect the story rather than indicate some Wisp easter-egg that nobody has ever found...Or it was laziness and lack of imagination. *shrugs* Either way, we can't read into this too much. (After all, they simply pulled ALL the books from Ultima VI and threw them in Ter Mur in UO, even though many of them make no sense in the context of UO. That was laziness.)
The wisps could be used as the main story telling devices here as a 'see all, know all' type entity, but only if someone is able to write consistent fiction which ties up all the loose ends (some of which have been dangling for over a decade).
I fear for the inclusion of the Guardian, I think we all know that’s coming, if not done right it could break not only UO's continuity, but its tenuous continuity with regular Ultima cannon (which yes, we need).
Having T2A be a broken part of the Lands of Danger and Despair makes sense, and they should have put that in the original fiction. *sigh*
However, trying to say that the Ophidians are 'The Ohpidians' from Serpent Isle is a stretch, unless something went horribly wrong when they went through the Wall of Lights. We can make all sorts of wild speculation and spin cool theories, but UO fiction has gone through too many hands for any sort of subtle plot threads like that to survive. (I.E. some idiot trying to pass off T2A as another facet...even though you physically reach it through tunnels...)
In Ultima VII, Part 2, the Ohpidians were humans helped by the Great Earth Serpent after the destruction of the Gem of Immortality when their lands were 'severed' from the rest of Sosaria. Time moved at a different rate there, thus allowing for a new belief system and civilization to emerge. The original history of Ilshenar is the same basic story with the addition of wisp involvement (light and dark). Of course, this was tossed aside for the laughable inclusion of the time traveling Meer and Juka.
Re: Wisps. What the wisps say about "A sufficiently dense form of information" is a direct pull from Ultima VII. I would wager this was more to connect the story rather than indicate some Wisp easter-egg that nobody has ever found...Or it was laziness and lack of imagination. *shrugs* Either way, we can't read into this too much. (After all, they simply pulled ALL the books from Ultima VI and threw them in Ter Mur in UO, even though many of them make no sense in the context of UO. That was laziness.)
The wisps could be used as the main story telling devices here as a 'see all, know all' type entity, but only if someone is able to write consistent fiction which ties up all the loose ends (some of which have been dangling for over a decade).
I fear for the inclusion of the Guardian, I think we all know that’s coming, if not done right it could break not only UO's continuity, but its tenuous continuity with regular Ultima cannon (which yes, we need).
With regard to the books from the Percolem and Axem quests, last time a few of us pooled our information about which books have been handed out (http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?p=1642769), the only book that no one had received at the time was "The Third Age of Darkness." (That assumes, of course, that there is such a book, based on the titles from Ultima VI.) Do you think there is any significance to that particular book possibly being the most rare book in the collections of the gargoyles (or the one they hold most sacred and don't give out to just anyone who strolls in off the street)? I believe one of the devs did make a comment about that particular aspect of the books. I'll try to dig it up.
What's in that book anyway?
http://lofs.uorpc.net/wiki/index.php?title=U:VI_The_Third_Age_of_Darkness (site has all the books from Ultima VI to IX, including UO)
Title: The Third Age of Darkness
Author:
Once Minax was gone, peace reigned for twenty years. And then the last of Mondain's legacy became known. For he and Minax had together produced an unholy creation known only as Exodus. For many years it had stayed hidden, patiently gathering information to heighten its powers. Finally it chose to exploit the results of its diligence. Creating a mighty castle to reside in, Exodus brought forth a third plague of monsters, and nowhere in Britannia was safe from its relentless evil. This was the greatest challenge yet for our hero from another world; yet once again the Avatar proved triumphant. And with the defeat of Exodus, a new era of prosperity began.
---
If the books indicate that Ter Mur is somehow more aligned with Britannia/Sosaria Prime then the rest of UO is, I smell a red herring to cover up the fact nobody bothered to vet the Ultima VI books.
If Ter Mur is, and always has been, a part of each shard that notion is illogical. Thus, without some lame magical loop hole, they would have no direct knowledge of the defeat of Minax, Exodus, or 'other' Shadowlords until they met Britannians after we defeated our Shadowlords. If we’re to believe this, why bother to live our lives when the gargoyles 'know what’s going to happen next'?
If you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns...
Title: The Third Age of Darkness
Author:
Once Minax was gone, peace reigned for twenty years. And then the last of Mondain's legacy became known. For he and Minax had together produced an unholy creation known only as Exodus. For many years it had stayed hidden, patiently gathering information to heighten its powers. Finally it chose to exploit the results of its diligence. Creating a mighty castle to reside in, Exodus brought forth a third plague of monsters, and nowhere in Britannia was safe from its relentless evil. This was the greatest challenge yet for our hero from another world; yet once again the Avatar proved triumphant. And with the defeat of Exodus, a new era of prosperity began.
---
If the books indicate that Ter Mur is somehow more aligned with Britannia/Sosaria Prime then the rest of UO is, I smell a red herring to cover up the fact nobody bothered to vet the Ultima VI books.
If Ter Mur is, and always has been, a part of each shard that notion is illogical. Thus, without some lame magical loop hole, they would have no direct knowledge of the defeat of Minax, Exodus, or 'other' Shadowlords until they met Britannians after we defeated our Shadowlords. If we’re to believe this, why bother to live our lives when the gargoyles 'know what’s going to happen next'?
If you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns...
T
Trebr Drab
Guest
Martyna, maybe the Gargs have been cross sharding. heh
Seriously, UO needs to get a lot more involved in this, but there's only so much money, so many man hours, so much they can do. And we all know that most of the players just want a new shiny. It's such a shame that something with this much depth has sunk to this level.
But we have two choices. We can just kick it all aside and forget about it, in which case we have nothing except shinies, or we can go with the flow and allow for some problems.
Seriously, UO needs to get a lot more involved in this, but there's only so much money, so many man hours, so much they can do. And we all know that most of the players just want a new shiny. It's such a shame that something with this much depth has sunk to this level.
But we have two choices. We can just kick it all aside and forget about it, in which case we have nothing except shinies, or we can go with the flow and allow for some problems.