A history lesson: Lore

So, we are going to have a massive MMORPG with a clear objective: Take down titans (or so it seems from this perspective), but you know what this means? This means there is going to be a reason to defeat titans. I have seen a really good thread in the suggestions area, made by @Zouls (Search it under “Oort Art Online”), where I give a general idea of what I’d like the titans to be all about, based on Zouls own idea.
The thing is, if we take a route of “the first to the finish line gets the cake” type of game, many of us are going to get really frustrated that they might fail several times. I am not good at fast action fighting, as I suck horribly at games like Tekken or Super Smash Bros.
What does this have to do with anything you might wonder? Well, if a player beats a titan in a world, this would make that world feel empty. No more challenges. Everyone would just leave and go to the next world, leaving away a deserted world full of abandoned structures that no one will fill again. That would be a shame for some builders.

How can we change this? Let’s play with lore a little bit. Now here I’m going to do a small disclaimer: I do not want to force myself to anyone. The devs might already have a lore for themselves, and I don’t know anything about it. I’, going to drop a little bit of ideas that I have, and this can be FULLY ignored. This is a small dream I have. This is not made to be taken like a smut remark about how the game SHOULD be, but how I’d LIKE it to be. It’s completely personal.

Okay, so, lore. Lore is a big part of any game that has an open world (except, well, minecraft. Although minecraft has a lore of it’s own.). Lore has a big role in the player’s perspective of the game. It can tell you good from bad, or how everything came to be. So let’s start by stormbraining:

In a beggining we had 3 brothers, who lived in a godly garden. They are the creators. Their names were Atbalu, Nimph and Norda.
Nimph, the older sibling, was smart and witted. He came to be thanks to the natural formation of stars. He emerged with a great spark of life, and he was the first living and sentient force of the universe. He is the creator of life and imagination, and a lover of fine arts.
Norda, the second in line, was created from the hope and love of living things. She is considered a female as she is the representation of a godly mother. She is really close to Nimph, as they together shaped the universe by whims alone and forged the planets where their own creation, the first smart creatures to inhabitate it, us.
With Norda’s love and hope, and Nimph’s genious and bravery, they could shape everything. Except something: inevitability. Death is something all living things complete. It is not to be considered “End”, but more of a “end cycle”, as everything would turn into something else. Rock to lava, and back to rock. This is how Atbalu was borned. He is borned from the force of the great cycle of life (no Lion King reference).

The 3 brothers lived in this garden, working together to shape the world. Hope, Inteligence and strenght.They would create minor gods to take care of different aspects of life, as the god of nature, ruler of the four elements water, fire, air and earth; or the god of war, a fierce deity that loved clashes of strenght and battle. All under the control of the 3 united brothers. Until one day, just like an end of a cycle, Atbalu changed.

Chapter 2: this is not going to be a short post

Atbalu felt discouraged by it’s other siblings. He felt like they were more able to protagonize the world than him, since he only worked as an instance, rather than an alterator. He could not forcibly kill anyone, as Norda could revive those worthy of it. Atbalu grew rage, anger, strong and dangerous emotions for a powerful forced that could shake the universe.
One day, Atbalu left. He abandoned the secret garden after a fierce discussion with Nimph. He left with the terrible promise of ending their reign. That day, war stroke in the heavens. Gods from each side would battle.
Even though Atbalu was at a disvantageous 2 on 1, most of the battle gifted deities were on his side, as deities like the deity of peace and the deity of order were on the other side. The battle was a clash of forces to be reckoned with.
Hopefully, Atbalu was defeated. a small bet, banished from the sacred grounds, and all because of a variable he considered inferior and that could not defeat him, an Oortian. a small Oortian took out Atbalu in a fierce bet. If the Oortian could defeat the imposible challenges posed by Atbalu, he would leave, in case contrary, he would gain full control of creation.
The bet was a difficult trip, multiple titan battles, hard as no one could ever do. But with the help of Nimph, Norda and the other deities he could stand up to the challenge and defeat Atbalu at his own game.

But now, Atbalu wasn’t done with. He resented this Oortian so much he casted a powerful curse that could not be easily dispeled by Nimph nor Norda: He created the Titans. Incredible creatures, imposible to beat, that would take ages to be taken down.
This creatures cursed the worlds where this Oortians lived, and would forever hurt this planets to their cores.

Planets were a curse now. Oortians could not live to defeat this things, and with the titans came the powerful monsters that would hurt the inhabitants. So this made Nimph try to develop a plan.
According to this plan, which all other deities agreed, Oortians would become inmortal. They would no longer be able to die, but instead re-appear in another spot, with their memories intact. They would also loose the ability to reproduce, as this would over-populate the many worlds created. Now, Oortians would have to strive to defeat the titans to remove this horrible curse from their lands.

Okay, I’m done with the wall now. This is what would be cool to add: The worlds that are cleared of the titans now need to be fixed. Monsters would still be able to appear and the titan could be safely respawned, without causing harm, but harm was already done, and players that didn’t get the chance to shine agains the titan, could now be able to shine in other ways. Say that a desert world was formerly full of wild life and plants. Then you would need a guild that should specialize in re-populating the whole world with wild-life and plants. And perhaps this might prove too might for a single guild, so many might band together, and as soon as the world reaches it’s prior populated state, a huge pedestal would appear with the names of the guilds that most helped the world’s revival, like in a ranking, for example: 1) Guild Raven: They have planted 33% of the plant-life on this planet, restored 45% of it’s wildlife and so have proven themselves.
2) Guild Naribom: Restored 23% of the wildlife…
This can add to people being able to prove themselves, aside from killing titans.

Sorry for the whole post, if you made it to this point, thanks for hearing this out. Sorry that I get carried away, but as a former D&D Dungeon Master I tend to make long winded stories.

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Did you intentionally swap the parts of the word Brainstorm?

Also summery:
3 brothers (one is a she) lived in a garden
1st, Nimph is first creator god
he made the universe
2nd, Norda, she is the brother god of love (makes more sense than most Greek Mythology so… WHATEVER! Roll with it)

together they populated worlds with life

3rd, Atbalu is god of change and death (lion king reference, but not a lion king reference)

together they lived in the garden and made demigods to manage everything

one day, Atbalu, the god of change… changed (surprise!!!)

He argued with Nimph and left the garden, gathered an army of demigods and made war on his 2 other “brothers”
Maybe he lost/won?
something about Oortians and a bet?
a quest to defeat titans with the help of the other 2 gods?
apparently the Oort won the bet cause Atbalu is angry and cursed the worlds with titans that would destroy everything
and so Nimph and Norda cursed the Oortians to eternally battle titans forever and never have children
the end

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Couldn’t have put it better.

I love how Norda is in fact, neither a she or a he. All of them are just gods. Forces. Not male nor female. Norda is just considered to be female given her motherly qualities.

huh we do lore now huh? you wanna see what REAL lore looks like?

A long time ago, longer than we have count on there was only one planet, on that planet there was an almighty titan and the ancient race called oortians. The oortians and titan lived side by side in harmony.
The titan was a kind and caring being unlike what titans are today, it had a core of magic deep inside itself and it allowed the oortians to harvest some of it from time to time so they could thrive as an organisation by combining the harvested magic into a special type of stone called oort stone, that would create a power source mightier than anything ever known, it could power anything and even rip a hole in fabric and time itself. their life was peaceful and the oortians grew in power every day, but one day they had gotten so advanced that they thought themselves mightier than the titan and decided to slay it to gain all its magical power, they gathered an army and went to fight it, the titan was sad of what the oortians had decided to do but knew that a fight couldnt be avoided, and fight they did, for days they fought the titan, but they were no match. through great pain the titan wiped out the entire civilization, it looked around on all the death the possible power had caused and decided to never do it again, it slammed with all its strength down on the planet splitting it in hundreds of pieces and then hit itself so hard that it split into thousands of pieces, in different shapes and sizes. a new form of titans emerged, but they werent as intelligent as the creator, all the titans got from their creator was the love for the oort civiliazation and a desire to protect it from anything and anyone even if it meant death, they all got split on the different pieces of the planets and the pieces flew out in the universe near and far.

the titan had given some of it’s magical power to the planet when he split it and now every piece of planet had as magic core, the magic spreads through the planets as a giant web some even spreading as links to the other planet pieces., and over thousands of years that magic created both the currently living races and the protectors alike, and hidden deep within the planet the titans are sleeping in a deep slumber, waiting for the time when their protection is needed… ‘’

you just got LORED son!

To be completely honest I prefer my lore subtle

traveling in the world and finding some random makeshift grave marker with a simple name date and 1 or 2 lines about the person, how he died and/or lived
or
a named relic with a few lines of flavor text

nothing so blatant as a book full of stories

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I really wasn’t looking for a competition here. I was just sharing my own aspect of what the lore could be. I really liked that concept too. Besides, whatever the devs want to do they will do it. And again, how does that tie in to your wants for the titans? I mean you want them to be special, but with that lore killing a titan means killing the magic in that world. And that sucks.

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was meant as a joke, dont worry.

but yes. full metal alchemist quote to explain

‘‘Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy’s first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world’s one, and only truth.’’

But then god happens.

I would actually prefer a universe where there is no direct ‘godly’ presence, and if there is a religion at all, the races have an ancestral-like worship of the Oortians.

I would like the idea of where the races came from and who/what/where the Oortians were to be part of the mystery to discover in Oorta. Likewise the concept of gods, none know if there are gods or how portals/magic/worlds came to be. Yet another mystery to discover.

I am fine with different races having different views on religion and godhood, but I think it would be more interesting if there was no direct godly presence to lend more mystery to the universe.

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I would love it if all of our lore ideas were adapted into the game as different beliefs of creation. Tha can be so sweet.

I was just about to write a post about this. I would encourage anyone making a city to come up with their own lore and belief system for their people. After all, we will all have different races living in different environments on different worlds with different people with them. There is absolutely no way that one universal lore or belief would be accepted by all. I am making little bits of lore as I go along.

For example, in the city of ‘Keys Keep’, the Gortnen capital. They believe that long ago there was a great titan who held the keys to space and time, having complete control over the universe. He would bend the universe to his will, causing destruction all over the physical realm. It is this destruction that tore the land apart, creating many worlds. But then came the Oort. They were not strong but they were smart, and they managed to trick the great titan in a fierce battle. The titan was felled and his keys dropped to the ground, shattering and solidifying the state of the universe. The broken keys are the shards you see around Gortnen capital. The people of Gortnen built on the keys, and that is how Keys Keep came to be. They hope to guard the keys, for they believe that they still hold the power they once did, and that one day someone will return for them, be it the Oort or a great titan. They wish to keep the titans from its power, but they will also not give it so willingly to the Oort. Instead they will mediate their power to protect the inhabitants of this new universe.

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