Of Vampires, Hair Styles, and Lore

Covic and Gninja have had their share of the hotseat lately over the appearance and lore of the new Freeblood vampire race. After the jump, their insight and responses to questions on these subjects, including some further revelations about the fate of Marcus Thex and the Evernight Abbey fight.

First, on the looks department from Covic:

Those are actual game screen shots in Mistmoore. The textures and geo are at what you will see in game. She is standing next a candle I saw in the zone to help with lighting, but its the same render that everyone should see at home.

about the new blue dress shown in the most recent screenshot..

We have not shown much of the new armor going into Velious so I put the blue set on her as a preview of the cool looking sets to come.

About hair styles…

I have made as many new hair styles as I can with spending more time setting up the dynamics for hair movement. The hair dynamic system has been on some hair styles before but too subtle to notice. Depending on the style some will have more movement then others.

I also have been adjusting some older hair styles to fit and updating the dynamics to give more options.

So, er, will the vampires be friendly?

Ya pretty much all vampire lore, as far as I can think of, has them eating us humans as food. So I really dont see them being too friendly and sparkly.

Meanwhile, Gninja was questioned about the events in Evernight Abbey leading up to the battle between newly turned vampires (the players) vs. Lord Marcus Thex:

Actually Marcus never fully became a vampire. The ritual they were trying to perform was not completed. Which is one reason during the boss fight in Evernight Abbey he uses the sun against you since you had become a vampire throughout that story.

and later:

[Marcus turning into a vampire] is one of the outcomes the players can choose to persue but the story which is canon to lore is that the players interrupted the ritual which they were trying to perform to turn him into a vampire and they did not succeed.

This is a very good example of how stories can be told within game that are complete one offs to the actual story being told. It was one of those “Hey wouldn’t it be cool if the players could let him turn into a vampire then get some sort of different reward from it?”

Illiam of Antonia Bayle challenged with:

That makes no sense. Before you can enter that portion of the dungeon, you must become a vampire. No mortals can enter there. How, then, could Marcus Thex enter and remain mortal? It seems to me that there’s a massive gap in your logic/lore. Solufein’s story is infinitely better than the official one.

To which Gninja clarified:

The vampires made that barrier to keep anyone from disturbing the ritual. The barrier was placed there after Marcus was brought in.

I really am not trying to confuse folks. This was a situation where players were given a choice on the outcome if the story went off of everything that happened or could have happened in that particular case Marcus would be a vampire AND not a vampire… only one of them can be canon. I agree these things should be spelled out a little better and its something I am personally trying to do a better job with when I make content.

Sorry for the confusion.

Read Further

Normally we don’t focus so much on Lore, as that could be its own EQ2 site, but the Lore and place in the world for Vampires, specifically the Freeblood, has been of interest to many people not normally versed in such subjects (including myself).

You can submit your own comments on this subject on the EQ2 Forums:

• • The Freeblood: More Information and Images
  • The new vampire lore is a joke