I saw a picture of the map today and printed a copy from The World page in the Lore section.
There are two continents on the map - Kingsreach (Eastern continent) and Reignfall (Western Continent) - and I then wondered where each race's starting location would be and which other races would be closest to them. After reading through the Races page and some of the Lore pages, I only found 6 starting locations. I then realized that there are actually THREE known continents listed for Terminus, the last continent looks like it is called Whitethaw.
Does anyone know where it would be on the map? The Dwarves are said to have founded a city in the 'southern tundra' and called it Khadassa, so I'm assuming this continent may be south of the others? Does anyone have more info?
Here's what I figured out as far as starting locations:
KINGSREACH (Eastern continent):
Humans - Thronefast (NE corner in the Roan Mountains)
Elves - Faerthale (Western upper coast)
Halflings - Wild's End (SE peninsula)
So Humans, Elves and Halflings will be in close proximity on this continent. Pretty standard fare / traditional mix.
REIGNFALL (Western continent):
Dark Myr - Syronai (West / NW side on continent on some islands.
Ogres - The Broken Maw (Mid-south section)
Skar - Skargol (SE peninsula)
This will be an interesting continent with a couple non-traditional races (Skar / Dark Myr) on it. The Skar seem very chaotic and hostile.
WHITETHAW (? Unlisted continent):
Dwarves - Khadassa (on the 'southern tundra')
Gnomes - Skyhold, a floating city ship above Whitethaw
Archai - Island realm of Su'Roa
This continent is not shown on the current draft of the map, so I'm not sure where these starting race locations will be or if it will be added by launch.
Really fun stuff digging through the Lore section and reading up on the world-building. I have a much greater knowledge of the timelines now too. Check out the LORE forums - there are a couple great posts that are stickied at the top that are very helpful. I posted this here since this forum has better traffic + I wanted to discuss starter locations.
You are right that Whitethaw is listed in the lore as being to the South. It is not the icey area to the North on the atlas as many people assume.
Here is a thread where I went through a similar process of figuring out the starting cities location from 2016. There are probably a half dozen other threads that talk more about it as well.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3394/will-we-see-whitethaw
Yes, as philo said Whitethaw is directly to the south of Reignfall. It has come up several times and the devs said that atlas is very outdated and they hope to release a more updated one eventually. The Gnomes, Dwarves, and Archai are guaranteed for launch, so it stands to reason that their respective starting cities are also required for launch. But I'll try to get more confirmation on this.
Kilsin had confirmed unique racial starting cities back in 2017. We had originally discussed the importance of unique racial cities a long time ago approx ~2014 when there was going to be 3 starting cities with teleports that caused quite the uprorar, and, it was one of many instances that sold me on the Dev team when they were willing to listen to the community and change that original vision. The threads prior to 2015 have been locked though, so I can't link the original discussion, but here's a link to the thread where Kilsin confirmed the racial starting cities:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7468/zones/view/page/1
I would think that as long as the races are in, that the unique cities will be as well. However, I wouldn't doubt there being some overlap (even if all had potential "unique" choices) like in EQ where a Human or Elf could choose multiple starting locations - Qeynos/Freeport etc.
Raidan said:I would think that as long as the races are in, that the unique cities will be as well.
We all know the plan is to have unique racial starting cities. We also know that development has been taking a lot longer than expected, We haven't even seen Reignfall yet. It was a year ago that I started questioning the reason behind the lack of Whitethaw info...and there still hasn't been any info. Even a basic, general overview addition to the atlas.
Unforseen issues happen. Lore can be retconned. Temporary solutions can be found. I hope I'm wrong but my spideysense tells me that either Whitethaw might not make release or that release will be pushed back because of Whitethaw. Heck, it may have been a major part of the time frame delays already.
philo said:We also know that development has been taking a lot longer than expected,
No we don't. I would consider that a matter of opinion. And not mine.
philo said:We haven't even seen Reignfall yet. It was a year ago that I started questioning the reason behind the lack of Whitethaw info...and there still hasn't been any info. Even a basic, general overview addition to the atlas.
Personally I hope there are a LOT of things and places we havent heard of yet. I would hope a lot be kept back for launch.
philo said:Unforseen issues happen. Lore can be retconned. Temporary solutions can be found. I hope I'm wrong but my spideysense tells me that either Whitethaw might not make release or that release will be pushed back because of Whitethaw. Heck, it may have been a major part of the time frame delays already.
"Pushed back" ? From when, have you been given a release date? Because I haven't seen one. I don't believe a date can actually be pushed back from an unannounced date.
It may be pushed back from when YOU wanted it. But that's not what VR has said. I'm pretty sure the "date" they have given is and always has been
"When it's Ready"
They are pretty much still right on target for that I think.
Zorkon said:philo said:We also know that development has been taking a lot longer than expected,
No we don't. I would consider that a matter of opinion. And not mine.
philo said:We haven't even seen Reignfall yet. It was a year ago that I started questioning the reason behind the lack of Whitethaw info...and there still hasn't been any info. Even a basic, general overview addition to the atlas.
Personally I hope there are a LOT of things and places we havent heard of yet. I would hope a lot be kept back for launch.
philo said:Unforseen issues happen. Lore can be retconned. Temporary solutions can be found. I hope I'm wrong but my spideysense tells me that either Whitethaw might not make release or that release will be pushed back because of Whitethaw. Heck, it may have been a major part of the time frame delays already.
"Pushed back" ? From when, have you been given a release date? Because I haven't seen one. I don't believe a date can actually be pushed back from an unannounced date.
It may be pushed back from when YOU wanted it. But that's not what VR has said. I'm pretty sure the "date" they have given is and always has been
"When it's Ready"
They are pretty much still right on target for that I think.
Welcome to the forums Zork.
Here is old info from the the FAQ on the front page(disclaimers included). We all understand timelines are fluid and not set in stone. This was the timeline at one point but things changed, delays happened. It is just part of the process. It wasn't an opinion. Just a statement of what has happened. :
Quote from FAQ:
"What are the approximate timeframes for Alpha, Beta, and commercial release?
There are many variables involved and developing a massively multiplayer game is not an easy thing to do. Our goal is to be in alpha by the end of 2015, in beta during 2016, and to release the game in 2017. But this is not set in stone, and the above dates are subject to change."
I pledged back in February 2015 after following for a few months and I will confirm what philo is claiming. The original goal was to have the finished product by Christmas 2017. This was fairly quickly changed, but it was the original goal.
Based on what we've seen I think they are closing in on finishing off Kingsreach. But with having to find a new worldbuilder, it might be a while before we start seeing new zones. We might not get an updated map showing Whitethaw for quite a while, maybe after we start seeing Reignfall zones.
Whitethaw is an icy continent to the south of Reignfall. Somewhere on that continent there is a zone called The Frozen Sanctum. The Archai of Su'Roa and the Dwarves in Khadassa are there. 'Above' it is a (presumeably) floating city named Skyhold where the Gnomes live.
much of that info comes from the Age of Chaos page in the lore section, however I think a bit of it came from some Dev post I read and failed to bookmark for future reference.
I put the race names on a copy of the Atlas for my own convenience. Hopefully I've managed to post it here for anyone else to use. Enjoy.
i read on these boards that brad/pantheon/vr ..whoever, completely scrapped the entire game in late 2014 and started all over... and that took 2017 off the table.
this came from one of the original kick starter pledges. no idea where that quote is now tho....
Flapp said:i read on these boards that brad/pantheon/vr ..whoever, completely scrapped the entire game in late 2014 and started all over... and that took 2017 off the table.
this came from one of the original kick starter pledges. no idea where that quote is now tho....
They didn't really completely scrap the whole game, but they did do some significant overhauling to pursue an even clearer vision. Most of the info from the Kickstarter page is outdated, but not necessarily all of it. If the Kickstarter had succeeded, they likely would have launched in 2017. But of course now they are getting funding from other sources and more importantly, are working to make the game even better than originally planned.
What if they hold back on Whitethaw for launch and have the lore giving us some sort of threat that drove off the races? The three southern races have to start as refugees in other cities for a time and they release the continent for quest and adventure a bit later and once the first group of people defeat the threat, boom we get our continent back for dwarves, gnomes, and archai in a small update. Could be a fun incentive to hit the content and make the world more alive. Also, might buy the devs time to work on the third continent as a post-launch content addition (if they end up needing it). If I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong) this essentially happenned for Kunark and Velious in EQ, which were originally planned for inclusion at launch but they didn't have time to finish them.
Just an idea.
Dunlen said:What if they hold back on Whitethaw for launch and have the lore giving us some sort of threat that drove off the races? The three southern races have to start as refugees in other cities for a time and they release the continent for quest and adventure a bit later and once the first group of people defeat the threat, boom we get our continent back for dwarves, gnomes, and archai in a small update. Could be a fun incentive to hit the content and make the world more alive. Also, might buy the devs time to work on the third continent as a post-launch content addition (if they end up needing it). If I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong) this essentially happenned for Kunark and Velious in EQ, which were originally planned for inclusion at launch but they didn't have time to finish them.
Just an idea.
I like that idea. Maybe Necros and Whitethaw in the first expansion.
philo said:I like that idea. Maybe Necros and Whitethaw in the first expansion.
Ohhh, true. Roll out the red carpet for the class. I can dig it.
philo said:Dunlen said:What if they hold back on Whitethaw for launch and have the lore giving us some sort of threat that drove off the races? The three southern races have to start as refugees in other cities for a time and they release the continent for quest and adventure a bit later and once the first group of people defeat the threat, boom we get our continent back for dwarves, gnomes, and archai in a small update. Could be a fun incentive to hit the content and make the world more alive. Also, might buy the devs time to work on the third continent as a post-launch content addition (if they end up needing it). If I'm not mistaken (correct me if I'm wrong) this essentially happenned for Kunark and Velious in EQ, which were originally planned for inclusion at launch but they didn't have time to finish them.
Just an idea.
I like that idea. Maybe Necros and Whitethaw in the first expansion.
I'm not really fond of the idea. I prefer a subtle later game than an incomplete one. As one of the example, Velious was not needed at launch at all, and Kunark with iksars was made a standalone. Whitethaw is meant to be the home of 3 of the races, some of them beeing usually iconic (dwarves), some beeing revisited (gnomes) and some beeing completely new (Archai). That would make the game quite incomplete at launch.
I'd rather have 2 fullly designed/optimized/well implemented continents than 3 with 1 or 2 that were rushed. Some people are pushing 5 years at this point. I'm curious at what point do they decide to go with what is available? by 2020? 21? 23?
I know some people will say they will wait for as long as it takes but that might not be realistic from a financial/player retention point of view.
I'm sure the team already has a tentative plan for the first expansion. It could be Whitethaw already considering the amount of info we have seen about it.
I can't wait to see the 'final' map.
It also makes me wonder about expansions. How they plan to do them.
Is every expansion going to be like WoW? Increase the level cap and annoy the crap out of you with new items and stuff.
Or is there going to be horizontal expansions. Adding new spells and skills, new races, potentially new classes, and a new continent to explore - all while not increasing the level cap, and even adding in alternate advancement of some sort.
I hope its more of the 2nd part... not having to level up to a new level cap every time and expansion releases would be nice.
