The Storm Legion and the terrible Ethian Power

[squafro]

http://i.imgur.com/YyQrr.png

[Kreiri]

So... was anyone able to read that microscopic blurred text?

[squafro]

Only remnants remain of an ancient Ethian power so terrible that (?) Kings themselves ordered its destruction. The Storm Legion must be stopped before they learn to harness the power for themselves.

This was taken from the loading screen of a raid in development, sorry for the low quality, it was captured from a video feed.

I'm guessing this Ethian Power is the Infinity Gate that Crucia speaks of in the newly released expansion teaser trailer: http://au.gamespot.com/rift-storm-le...-6379495/?hd=1

[Lutinz]

One of the screenshots on the Rift facebook page of a collosus called Volan powered by Empyrian Technology. This could mean we are looking at a different civilisation than the Eth that mastered either Magitech or some other form of planar energy powered tech. Do remember we are talking about a place on a completely different part of the world.

Crucia's Storm Legion came from somewhere and it wasnt the Eth or the Malthosians.

[Maeloda]

IMO Etrian (the possible 'new race'?) almost = Ethian.

The Ethians advanced throughout almost all of Telara. Sure the IPP/Moonshade/SM areas are not part of it so much, but almost all of the rest of Telara has some form of Ethian ruin (Sagespire in Scarwood, for example).

It isn't inconceivable that a civilization broke off from the Eth (or something) and developed their own technology, very similar to magitech. Now Crucia covets it and will use it as part of her plan.

[Xenoheart]

Sorry might be off topic, but I was thinking about this power that she discovered and basically I think its the power to use the air element to power magitech...aka electricity.

As such she can reanimate war machines, etc you saw in the video.

She also is able to use the infiniti gate, which in my assumption is a gate that allows access to another dimension unabstructed. This allows her to flood the armies of air into telara without needing a rift. In essence, I think once we defeat her, we get access to that technology, and take the war directly to the planes themselve using infiniti gate technology.

Just my guess.

[Maeloda]

Sorry might be off topic, but I was thinking about this power that she discovered and basically I think its the power to use the air element to power magitech...aka electricity.

As such she can reanimate war machines, etc you saw in the video.

She also is able to use the infiniti gate, which in my assumption is a gate that allows access to another dimension unabstructed. This allows her to flood the armies of air into telara without needing a rift. In essence, I think once we defeat her, we get access to that technology, and take the war directly to the planes themselve using infiniti gate technology.

Just my guess.

Sounds about right! This is all about finishing (most of) the content of Telara itself, and gaining the tools to take the fight to the planes. I'm sure of it.

[Akyaevin]

Only remnants remain of an ancient Ethian power so terrible that (?) Kings themselves ordered its destruction. The Storm Legion must be stopped before they learn to harness the power for themselves.

This was taken from the loading screen of a raid in development, sorry for the low quality, it was captured from a video feed.

I'm guessing this Ethian Power is the Infinity Gate that Crucia speaks of in the newly released expansion teaser trailer: http://au.gamespot.com/rift-storm-le...-6379495/?hd=1

It's "the Priest Kings", and it's the loading screen for Charmer's Caldera.

[Myuriel]

It always bothers my lore bone when entire new continents and races are introduced to established games and lore. Lore says the long-lived races were created a long time ago, and it also says that there were Elves sailing the seas (Blade Dancer lore) -- yet, suddenly there is this (potentially) new continent area (or two) that no one knew existed.

I'm hoping there's some sort of lore reason given why we were all so ignorant of entire huge gigantic land masses, especially for races and cultures that have been well traveled and magically inclined for thousands upon thousands of years.

Geographic expansion is definitely part of the MMO genre/design that makes you suspend your disbelief.

[GothWulfe]

It always bothers my lore bone when entire new continents and races are introduced to established games and lore. Lore says the long-lived races were created a long time ago, and it also says that there were Elves sailing the seas (Blade Dancer lore) -- yet, suddenly there is this (potentially) new continent area (or two) that no one knew existed.

I'm hoping there's some sort of lore reason given why we were all so ignorant of entire huge gigantic land masses, especially for races and cultures that have been well traveled and magically inclined for thousands upon thousands of years.

Geographic expansion is definitely part of the MMO genre/design that makes you suspend your disbelief.

I can think of a few reasons why no one "knew" of them....

1. People did, but until Aky was put down there was no way to get there any more, much like Ember Isle...and with no refugees from there on our continent, it simply wasn't brought up, kind of like Shing-Ma. Think of it like Antarctica....everyone knows it's there...but how often to people REALLY bring it up?

2. They were hidden by some powerful magic or magitech, either keeping them "hidden" or simply erasing peoples memories of them after they left.

3. The seas were simply too treacherous to get there, so they remained "undiscovered".

There ya go....3 perfectly good reason right off the top of my head *grin* I would personally go with the first one, though with the whole Infinity Gate thing, who knows...it just might be the second.

[Maeloda]

It always bothers my lore bone when entire new continents and races are introduced to established games and lore. Lore says the long-lived races were created a long time ago, and it also says that there were Elves sailing the seas (Blade Dancer lore) -- yet, suddenly there is this (potentially) new continent area (or two) that no one knew existed.

I'm hoping there's some sort of lore reason given why we were all so ignorant of entire huge gigantic land masses, especially for races and cultures that have been well traveled and magically inclined for thousands upon thousands of years.

Geographic expansion is definitely part of the MMO genre/design that makes you suspend your disbelief.

No, it makes sense.

-The new continent exists. Don't know about Dusken or Brevane (the two new continents), but one of them could contain the area of Shi-Ming. In fact, this could have been Tempest Bay's former name. We don't know yet. What we do know, is that there IS a stated land to the east, that isn't the Ember Isles.

-They know lands exist. It's just that, you know, millenia and a Blood Storm War has happened, lol. After the war, I'm sure exploration just outright stopped, and the dwarves went to their delves, the high elves settled in Silverwood, and the humans split into two separate 'tribes', while the bahmi retreated from persecuation(?) and etched out their own settlement in their canyon.
This doesn't mean that other races didn't exist - just that their fight wasn't on the continent that the Defiant and Vigil story focuses on right now.

-The Gamespot article says 'where Telaran civilization developed', but I'm thinking he's talking about the Etrians. This might be the new race, with possibly more forbidden tech than even the Ethian Empire developed, like the Infinity Gate, which might (imo) allow access to any of the Planes without needing to pierce any Ward or anything, or it might do more than that.(?)

-Elves may have sailed the seas, but we do know that they also tend to largely stick to their own land and wander it. For all we know, they only sailed as far as what became the Ember Isles, and Shi-Ming. Just because South America gets discovered, doesn't mean that what is now California is discovered too...

-I think Rift just set up this stuff nicely. Storm Legion will be about (kinda) finishing the Telaran story with a new chapter, apart from the Eth/Mathosian/High Elf (and later Kelari/Dwarven/hopefully Bahmi soon) stuff, and into a more exploratory phase.
I'd wager the patches will develop this further, with possibly even more new zones.
Then 3.0 would be expansion into the planes/using the Infinity Gate, etc.

The whole idea is expansion. Even the difference from doing Freemarch compared to Shimmersand/Stillmoor is significant enough. Now the jump is from those zones (and Ember Isle) ...to new continents. The Ascended have traveled almost all known land now, and it is time to maybe use the Travel Stones of old (pre Blood Storm Wars) to discover the rest.

For all we know, we might just run into known races there.. like with the Farclan...

[Maeloda]

I can think of a few reasons why no one "knew" of them....

1. People did, but until Aky was put down there was no way to get there any more, much like Ember Isle...and with no refugees from there on our continent, it simply wasn't brought up, kind of like Shing-Ma. Think of it like Antarctica....everyone knows it's there...but how often to people REALLY bring it up?

2. They were hidden by some powerful magic or magitech, either keeping them "hidden" or simply erasing peoples memories of them after they left.

3. The seas were simply too treacherous to get there, so they remained "undiscovered".

There ya go....3 perfectly good reason right off the top of my head *grin* I would personally go with the first one, though with the whole Infinity Gate thing, who knows...it just might be the second.

Well all we know so far is that one continent is very Death focused, in more of a 'horror' way (compared to the more 'sad' theme of Death in Mathosia), and one is more about the ancient history of Telara that the Vigil and Ember Isle stuff only gets to hinting at.

High Elves, Dwarves, and Humans may have been the first races, but that doesn't mean they were the beginning of Telara. In fact, there could be a lot more to the story than we are aware of.

Dunno about Dusken though. It's gotta be at least 2-3 zones though (one being Dusken Spires?), so I wonder what it will look like. I suppose we may see more 'Shadavarians' (Ceremony of Attunement) and less 'Mathosian zombies'.

[Pixel Monkey]

the infinity gate is a time machine


/stirs pot

[Maeloda]

the infinity gate is a time machine


/stirs pot

Oh I only quickly considered this too!

That would be awesome, and likely involve the Defiant a great deal

In fact, it could basically make one continent more Guardian related (Dusken?) and one more Defiant related (Brevane?). Though of course both can and will strongly involve both factions in significant ways, so don't get me wrong.

With zones like Steppes of Infinity and Eternal City...yeah...

[Galibier]

It always bothers my lore bone when entire new continents and races are introduced to established games and lore. Lore says the long-lived races were created a long time ago, and it also says that there were Elves sailing the seas (Blade Dancer lore) -- yet, suddenly there is this (potentially) new continent area (or two) that no one knew existed.

I'm hoping there's some sort of lore reason given why we were all so ignorant of entire huge gigantic land masses, especially for races and cultures that have been well traveled and magically inclined for thousands upon thousands of years.

Geographic expansion is definitely part of the MMO genre/design that makes you suspend your disbelief.

Well from the beginning the devs said much of the world has been blocked off. It seems likely the lore devs for this game did something similar to what was done in EQ and EQ2. The lore and nature of the various lands are known in advance but due to the limitations of the PC's societies they are isolated from such knowledge. We had the first blood storm, followed by the Ethian Cataclysm, followed by the latest cataclysm. In a world with no real long range communication or transport infrastructure managing to hang around for long it's really not surprising.

Just think of what happened in Europe after the fall of Rome. Some communities honestly thought the Mongols were demons from hell because of their odd clothing and starkly different appearance. Even if some educated people may have been able to piece together they were asian, those people were the exception rather than the rule.