Tuesday, May 21, 2013

[Chapter Summary]: Terminus

Terminus Zone Summary
 
     I hope the first part of Karazhan's tale was an interesting read. It was often quite tricky to keep the two girls as two separate entities with their own traits, personalities and opinions. Karazhan is from a different culture, has different views on the world, and often has different reactions to things. It took a very long time to actually write up this section of my blog because I kept wanting to redo my character or look over a certain part of the storyline again after I'd already completed it. That's the frustrating part about redoing Terminus or Mathosia. You can't just go back and get more pictures, or re-read some dialogue, because its an instanced zone that you complete. So I have to delete and start over. Not that I mind because each time I do it, I find something else out that I didn't know before, which is really fun. Anyway, here's the summary of the Terminus story. Of course Karazhan's story is far from finished. In fact, it has only just begun, poor girl. Here she was hoping she'd get to rest when she made it to the past. Oh well, it will definitely make for an interesting read later on. Some things that I mention here, both on the summary page and in the actual chapters, will be inconsistent with a newer player's experience upon playing through the storyline due to Trion changing up the starter zones to be more streamlined for new players. A lot of the lore and story bits have been snipped out and replaced with tutorials and such, which I understand but it makes it just that much harder for lorehounds and roleplayers to really immerse themselves into the game or find story in the endless stream of quests.

*Quest update*: When I started this story, the setup for the starting zones for Rift were quite a bit different than they are now! For instance I'm sure if you did the starting zone now (I'm writing this update July 18th, 2016) a lot of the quests have been removed to allow for "a more streamlined questing experience". Which means that all quests that are fluff or are just lore or additional exp have been removed. Instead, we get tutorial quests and suchlike to help new players find their way around the crazy Rift mechanics and abilities. I understand why they did it, but I still miss all the race quests!
 
         Chapter One List:                                                          List of Lore Pages:
0.5: Defiant Introduction Letter                                      Archive I: The Price of Progress
1.0: Ascended of a Different Variety                               Archive II: History of the Life Factory
1.1: Apocalypse Now                                                     Archive III: Lastlight and Terminus
1.2: The Town of Lastlight                                              Archive IV: Asha Catari
1.3: Fanatics                                                                   Archive V: The Defiant (Defiant PoV)
1.4: Tempest Station                                                      Archive VI: The Failsafe Device
 
Off Topic Discussions:
 
 
 
The Story Thus Far:
     Karazhan, a Kelari mage brought back from death and accidentally placed into the body of a Bahmi, has been thrust into a future where the world has been all but destroyed by the dreaded Regulos the Destroyer, member of the Blood Storm, . Was it fate's design for her to be the one chosen for Ascension over the original host soul, or was it merely a fluke that she was given control over the soul matrix instead? Her soul was obviously a promising choice among many fished out of the Soulstream and given a new body, new abilities, and new immortality. Now she is a Machineborn Ascended, rival to the Guardian Ascended in power and ability. She is now a Defiant, a faction of heretics who believe the gods are useless. In the distant future she has become apart of, Karazhan learns that she is the last remaining hope of saving the doomed Telara. The minions of Regulos press upon the meager defenses of the last bastion of hope that the world has left. Through a series of short missions, Karazhan learns that the Defiant's goal is to enter a machine called the Failsafe Device and go back through time to the past, where she will have the knowledge and power required to stop the Blood Storm and their cults before the grim future that she came from happens. Along the way she meets many prominent members of the Defiant faction, helping out where she can with her small supply of Mage spells. As she leaves the Life Factory on her journey to the Rubicon to use the Failsafe, she learns more about her new abilities and her own determination, surprising herself with her resourcefulness and appreciation of her newfound life. Karazhan also learns of another faction of fanatics who have survived the end of days with their faith shaken so badly that they have lost all reason. The Guardians of this timeline believe that if they purge the Defiant from Telara that the Vigil gods will forgive them and forge a paradise for their faithful children. Fortunately the Guardians are few in number and disorganized and so pose no real threat. The undead and cultists are also easy to manage, as each seems to be out only for themselves. And the fiends and minions of the cults are little more than mindless drones, easily picked off by our Bahmi hero as she continues her mission. After many an hour struggling against the ilk of Regulos, Karazhan comes upon the Failsafe anchor machine, where Stavel Rosso, Sylver's assistant, awaits her. There, he spins up the Failsafe device, only to realize that the vast amount of sourcestone being used has drawn the gaze of Regulos himself, who sends one of his legion, Alsbeth the Discordant, to distract and slow down Karazhan until he can arrive and put an end to this petty rebellion. Asha arrives in the nick of time, able to divert Regulos's power and attention onto her own self using unique and mysterious magic. While Regulos is busy fighting against her, Karazhan makes use of the distraction and slips through the temporal stream that is created by powering the Failsafe device, finding herself lost in the temporal matrix, wondering if she'll even arrive at her destination in one piece. Only time will tell.
 
Zone Details:
  • Mob Types
    • Undead
    • Planar
    • Humanoid
  • Level Range:
    • 1-9
  • Total Time Spent in Zone:
    • 3 hours
  • Level Upon Leaving Zone:
    • 8
  • List of Questgivers:
    • Sylver Valis
    • Dacia Ultan
    • Koke Tegus
    • Vexa Ix'thla
    • Asha Catari
    • Kain Sunsworn
    • Rahn Chuluun
    • Ignacia Bulwart
    • Faceless Man
    • Raj Tahleed
    • Isach Undugar
    • Stavel Rosso
  • List of Quests:
    • Ascended of the Highest Quality-speak to Dacia
    • Trial of Ascension-kill 6 Telaran husks
    • Our Last Stand-activate 5 defense consoles
    • Thorn in My Side-kill 3 endless dominators/5 spectral harvesters
    • Gathering Power-collect sourcestone ore from harvesters
    • Flipping the Switch-activate the Temporal Flux in the Sinkhole cave
    • Paving the Way-kill 6 hulking phantasms
    • Bound in Blood-collect 6 essences of the Bahmi
    • Walking the Dogma-kill 2 guardian sergeants/6 guardian zealots
    • Turning the Knob-Replace the missing resonance capacitor part
    • A Matter of Training-report to Mistress Ashear at Tempest Station
    • Reduce, Recycle, Re-educate-use the soul reclamation device on Shyla
    • This Might Hurt a Little-use the soul cleanser on Shyla's soul
    • You Reap What You Sow-collect anima essence from soul callers and soul fragments from decaying/risen Telarans
    • No Quarter-begin the ascent to Rubicon
    • Into the Time Machine-speak with Stavel Rosso at the Failsafe
  • Locations of Note (by co-ordinates):
    • 1085, 1003-Soul Informer
    • 1073, 1008-Knowledge Collector
    • 1072, 996-Soul Informer
    • 1071, 1030-Soul Informer
    • 1069, 1047-Construct Components=green quality armor
    • 1067, 1021-Knowledge Collector
    • 1044, 1016-Soul Analyzer
    • 1037, 1049-Knowledge Collector
    • 1029, 1021-Book=The Price of Progress
    • 1016, 1014-Knowledge Collector
    • 894, 1030-Puppet Master <Priest of Regulos> (level 2 Undead)=white quality weapon
    • 864, 1024-Andretta the Hag (rare) =green quality weapon
    • 860, 988- Abandoned Belongings=green quality armor
    • 789, 973-Slave Driver (rare)= green quality weapon
    • 769, 942-Knowledge Collector
    • 764, 966- Knowledge Collector
    • 761, 963-Sourcestone Box=Buff, AP, health, armor, resistance
    • 740, 1048-Harvest Master (wandering mob)=white quality armor
    • 738, 1034-Forgotten War Machine (wandering mob)=white quality armor
    • 730, 1076-Offering to Regulos (altar) =green quality item
    • 699, 1084-Raging War Machine (rare)=green quality armor
    • 594, 1006- Knowledge Collector
    • 583, 892-Alaric the Fanatic=green quality armor
    • 556, 858- Captain Thrace=green quality weapon
    • 548, 941-Memloch the Inquisitor=green quality weapon
  • Map of the Zone:
 
My Opinion of the Zone:
     As I went about doing the Defiant starting zone, I made sure to catalog all the neat things I saw, which meant that I gained quite a few more levels than I would normally if I was just wanting to get through the zone. So that's why I stated that the max level of the zone was 9. I'd say the average player would leave the zone around lvl 6-7. Obviously if you really wanted to you could stay for even longer and keep getting more exp, but I was eager to move on to the next area, as the Terminus storyline is only the prologue to a very fascinating book! That's what I love most about Rift and Trion's efforts with it. It's the storyline! Even though it's quite obscure, confusing, and sometimes even backwards, the story IS there, you just have to be adept at looking for it and piecing all the little tidbits together into a greater picture. Which is mostly why I'm even doing this blog!
     Well, this starting zone certainly wasn't as engaging as the Mathosia storyline. There were so many interesting little things to discover in the Mathosia starter zone that kept my interest as I investigated and explored. For Terminus, you really had to go out of your way to search for the little gadgets and items. And the rares were very rare indeed. I found only 2 in the many times I was in the zone, and never did I see two in the same session. Also, the theme was darker and more grim and urgent. You definitely got the sense of the world coming to an end in this zone. And that actually lent a realistic flair to the environment that I rather liked. All in all, the zone wasn't that bad to play through and since I prefer the Defiant over the Guardians, I enjoyed myself running through Terminus. I would give the zone a 4/5 because of it's lack of engaging oddities like the Mathosia zone had as well as the removal of specific player race quests that would give a tiny bit of info on each race.


Back to the Prologue
Karazhan's Story Chapter 2 Summary

 
 
Extra Screenshots:
 

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