I don't like the idea of being (playing) a fallen hero... because I will have to stay up endless nights creating a back sotry for My character. A backstory I have no say so in.
Although, the idea of being a seed (descendant) of a fallen hero.. is more appopriate for becoming one of the fallen, than being reincarnated. It has more belief and acceptance.. than being reincarnated and have a past glorious life. I prefer the concept, that within your bloodline, was a fallen hero.
I also assumed it was the race or clan that were left in this aftermath and the hero's would be those brave enough to forge ahead in the calamity of Terminus. So if this is true then the name still makes sense. im with the OP I could care less as pantheon sounds just as good to me.
In every MMO, even the ones where you start from nothing, it was given that the players had the potential to become extraordinary within the world. The unseen AI masses made up the bulk of the "normal" people. Within the PC ranks, you then defined just how extaordinary you actually were by levels, gear, raid ranking etc., within an already elite subset of the population.
While I'm not a fan of the pre-rolled hero concept, I don't see it as anything more than a plot point in the basic storyline. It's unlikely to have any significant effect in the day to day game play.
Liav said:Realistically speaking, you don't need any lore at all. I don't think the game is any worse for having lore, though.
Lore is good, but it's for NPCs, not really for players. And it doesn't fulfill exactly the same role, since not every NPC needs to be a hero. You have shopkeeper NPCs, banker NPCs, guards with no special role. So, how many NPCs are there in a zone that really require lore behind them? Ten? Twenty, maybe, in large and complex zones? Rarely even that much. Most of them get the general lore for their race, class etc.
So you get a NPC king, his wizard, elf ambassador, they can have some personal lore, and then some lore for their people in general.
But this is not really applicable to a hundred players in that zone, or 3000 of them on the server. They don't need that kind of a lore, they make their own, and even if you give them some lore, what will they be? You can't make different background lore for every player. And having everyone have the same lore (fallen hero) just shows how they all are the same. In that case... it's better not to have lore, since the players usually want to be unique, not same as everyone else.
The whole lore thing is simply not well suited for MMO player characters.
Aradune said:
"The 'fallen hero' is really about lore and setting. You absolutely start as a 'nobody', level 1, just like most MMOs. But as you level up, acquire powerful items and abilities, you are becoming the powerful individual you were in a former life. This is true for every player, and simply describes why players are (eventually) so much more powerful than, say, NPC townfolk. There's a lot of cool lore that explains why all of these new people (player characters, entering the world when the game is launched) are, over time, becoming heroic and powerful. It's really no different than most MMOs, except we're explaining the appearance of players in the gameworld, many of whom will become formidable characters. I think it's pretty cool, but would caution against reading more into it than what I've said here. You can remain nobody, or you can make friends, or join a guild, etc., just like any other MMO. We're simply, from a lore and story standpoint, explaining why, in the current age, all of these player characters are appearing.
If you're someone who enjoys immersing yourself into an MMO's lore and story and setting, I think you'll see what we're up to here. If you don't care so much about lore and setting, the Fallen Hero explanation of where you and the other players are coming from is simply something you can ignore."
I've read this quote and then all of the threads on this post. I think that there are 2 separate issues here, but I could be wrong.
First: all fantasy MMO's of this type, encourage players to advance and give them the opportunity to do so. As far as they want and are able to. This is not a new concept. This statement from Aradune seems to be saying just that. A bit deeper and I believe he is saying the lore gives the background on each race and how and when it arrived on Terminus. And some of the arrivals don't seem to be the pick of the litter imo. They are survivors from distroyed worlds who have no real idea of why they survived.
Can you really call the Skar heros? They distroy their own home grounds, enslave or eat the other races and fight among themselves and practice canniblism when there is no one else to eat.
Second: As I've read the lore I think that the Fallen does not necessarily reffer to just the races of the worlds that were distroyed. There is a force field around Terminus preventing the Pantheon of Gods and Goddess from reaching their people now. And the races know this, and have no idea why they have been abandoned.
I think that the Fallen is the Pantheon of religions. The races have to rebuild thier lives. And their Gods/Goddess.
Imo.