Geography Update Is Live!

HydraLana · Aug 29, 2021

After many months of work, the Geography Project 2021 has been as completed as it possibly can be, and pushed for release. The reasons for the assembled updates are easy to track:

Alorian Geography had a series of updates first with the southern half of Daen and Altalar regions, before MonMarty moved forward with a broader update to the world map.
The Geography page format was stale and contained irrelevant information, similar to the base Geography page itself.
The many Races and their background have substantially changed since the first Geography rewrite a few years ago.
The lack of player knowledge on Geography was, frankly, a wake-up call and told the staff that we need to both underline this lore, and better position it. Many of these regions have extreme importance to Races and background events for multiple characters, yet as little as a year ago, some were genuinely unaware of where regions like Teled Methen were in relation to the Regalian Archipelago.

Here are a list of the current pages updated:
Daen

Corontium

The Far West

Farah'deen

https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Farah'deen

Hadaria

https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Hadar

Oldt Era

The North Belt

Sendrass

Fendarfelle

https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Fendarfelle

The Far North

https://wiki.massivecraft.com/The_Northerne_Expanse

Oceans

https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Oceans

Other Pages

To list the array of changes to the lore would be too long a list but here are the four main points to take away:

Each page now lists the most significant racial population and regional cultural majorities of the discussed continent in the top info box.
Each continent is now covered in an array of new nations with updates to many geographic areas.
The Ailor now exist in a much broader sphere than was previously present in the old lore, Carrhen is an all-new continent with unique pagan locals and fun background lore to example, while emphasis has also been placed on the Proto-Velheim trade network which once connected dozens of points across Aloria.
If you are a Roleplayer, you should read this lore, at the very least the continents relevant to your character's past or their Race/Culture. A lot of fun background information has been thrown into these areas to inspire discussions between characters, or to generate future content, make use of it.

Some may have noticed however, that some continents are missing that were previously written up. Saivale and the Shadow Isles were combined into one region, Rokhara, while Dexai is pending hopefully soon-to-arrive Sihai updates. As for Ériu-Innis, due to pending updates to the Ériunin Ailor, but also the fact that the island region is no longer easily accessed via progressions, it has been noted on the page that it is out of date but left alone until it can be updated. Gallovia, meanwhile, will come soon once it has had more time to develop and refine. Finally, there is Essalonia. It has been reverted to a land of mystery and deleted. While there are Regalian-aligned nations in the area, and territories with more information about them, the region will remain unwritten until a later time.

Another thing that's important to remember is to please give us time to fill in what are sure to be a wide range of red links, and updates to outdated pages. If there are any questions about aspects of the lore presented, players are encouraged to make a ticket on the Roleplay Discord, but should hold off on making Wiki Reports for a few days.

But, please, read and enjoy all of the new content!

DrFong · Aug 29, 2021

"Dexai is pending hopefully soon-to-arrive Sihai updates"

:bites fingernails in anticipation:

Fiend_of_Massive · Aug 29, 2021

"Finally, there is Essalonia. It has been reverted to a land of mystery and deleted. While there are Regalian-aligned nations in the area, and territories with more information about them, the region will remain unwritten until a later time."

Just out of curiosity, what was the rationale for disenfranchising the Factions side of the server like this? I mean, turn this around and tell me how you'd feel if the decision came down from on high to delete Regalia's information, and revert it to a land of mystery. Some of us are really trying to form a bridge across the gap of the factions and roleplaying sides of the server, and instead of helping in that task, by say adding a dedicated Factions Roleplay section to the forums, you instead delete the very area the factions members play on every day from the lore? If you were looking for a way to make us feel like our actions on this server utterly and completely do not matter, well, yeah, congratulations, you're on the right path here.

HydraLana · Aug 29, 2021

Fiend_of_Atherys said:
"Finally, there is Essalonia. It has been reverted to a land of mystery and deleted. While there are Regalian-aligned nations in the area, and territories with more information about them, the region will remain unwritten until a later time."

Just out of curiosity, what was the rationale for disenfranchising the Factions side of the server like this? I mean, turn this around and tell me how you'd feel if the decision came down from on high to delete Regalia's information, and revert it to a land of mystery. Some of us are really trying to form a bridge across the gap of the factions and roleplaying sides of the server, and instead of helping in that task, by say adding a dedicated Factions Roleplay section to the forums, you instead delete the very area the factions members play on every day from the lore? If you were looking for a way to make us feel like our actions on this server utterly and completely do not matter, well, yeah, congratulations, you're on the right path here.

My wording was a summary of multiple reasons why the Essalonia page as it existed was removed, and why a new one was not ready to take it's place, so I'll list those out now.
1) The old page made frequent mention of and served as heavy support for the Colonial Ailor Culture, which due to the updates to Unionism, will need to undergo massive changes.
2) Similarly, when Aloria's map updated, Essalonia was vastly changed and became as I said, a land of greater mystery. We were explicitly told within the Lore Team that almost none of the named regions in the western half of the Essalonian mainland have much known about them beyond their extreme factionalism, and dislike of the Regalian Empire. So, ultimately, there was a limited base of information to draw from.
3) A lot of the area's attached lore, with the joint removal of Colonial Culture and the rearranging/additions of new regions, would require extensive rewriting. That will need to happen anyway, but after having written some 20+ long-form pages, we chose to wait for when the exact information on Essalonia would be available to do so, and it was better to remove the anchor content now along with other deletions/updates than wait the long period of time it would take to update it and its surrounding pages.

In summary, Essalonia's status as heavily out of date with the new map changes, and more, required it to be deleted. As for some of the rest of your comments, I'm very confused. Essalonia has not ceased to exist. In fact, Faction territory takes up almost half of the entire continent, with the northeast largely being the current "Essa" Factions map. Just because the page doesn't exist, doesn't mean the lore doesn't exist. That's like saying because there's no flora page for orange trees on the Wiki, players can't use oranges in RP.

(Factions territory is outlined in orange, and as you can see, it is a considerable portion of the continent)

As for your comment about Regalia, honestly, I wouldn't really mind. As I said myself, Essalonia's removal is not permanent. But there is also the fact that Wiki pages being deleted and later returned is a routine part of the lore. For example, the standalone Undead page, written by myself, was deleted when the Bintaar lore update came out, and merely became a redirect. But, just this past week, Undead was returned to full page status and now serves as an Affliction. Regalia too, has been deleted in the past, though not for very long given its core role. Essalonia as it's own page, similarly, will return when it is deemed suitable, and I am sorry that this fairly routine action has offended you.

EricKilla · Aug 29, 2021

HydraLana said:
Finally, there is Essalonia. It has been reverted to a land of mystery and deleted. While there are Regalian-aligned nations in the area, and territories with more information about them, the region will remain unwritten until a later time.

IMHO this actually is fine. So long as the "Warring Factions Land" hasn't been nixed I'm happy. Thanks for the clarification!

Do you think that at some point, a "Regalicized faction" (or whatever you'd want to call a canonized, lore-complaint faction) could replace the "Regalian-aligned" nations in the lore?

HydraLana · Aug 29, 2021

EricKilla said:
IMHO this actually is fine. So long as the "Warring Factions Land" hasn't been nixed I'm happy. Thanks for the clarification!

Do you think that at some point, a "Regalicized faction" (or whatever you'd want to call a canonized, lore-complaint faction) could replace the "Regalian-aligned" nations in the lore?

I have no idea. But each has a place, and not all of them are total mysteries, a handful already have lore-determined origins/backgrounds like the Velheim island off the Essalonian mainland with Arlora, Torse, etc. It's more likely if any lore canon factions emerge, it will be in that territory outlined in orange.

Geography Update Is Live!

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