[SPOILERS] Shadow shard--wait, what?

I like to think of Rularuu himself as a Farnsworth Parabox.

At any rate, it's note worthy that Lanaru the Mad is the one held responsible for shattering the Shadow Shard by pulling himself free of Rularuu (brought up in Faathim the Kind's TF). The mental instability of Rularuu seems directly related to the shattered nature of the shard. Beyond that, we also know that Faathim and Lanaru both forged places in the Shard, the Chantry and Storm Palace respectively.

Because not everyone agrees on what a "spoiler" is.

And you can't be "arsed" to start a new thread instead of hijacking someone else's. Which do you want to be, the pot or the kettle? At least my stance is consistent: the entire world does not have to measure its words with coffee spoons to avoid injuring someone's delicate sensibilities. If someone says something you don't want to hear, shove your delicate sensibilities where the sun doesn't shine and get over it.

Over the years, different developers have given different answers about the Shadow Shard. It was created a long time ago by people who aren't at the company any more. It would not surprise me at all to find out that no one left at Paragon Studios actually knows what the deal was with it. Earlier remarks vacillated between claiming the Circle of Thorns was responsible for trapping Rularuu and stating Rularuu trapped himself thanks to the whole split-personality thing. Now the Midnighters are getting wrapped up in it, further obfuscating matters.

Wish it did. Makes the tech support forums nicer too.

The Circle of Thorns have also been know to posses the Malleus Mundi, Hammer of the World, which holds the power to reshape reality and pop holes in dimensional barriers. That seems like the perfect weapon to use against something that may be a dimension itself.

"Trust me, the worst thing you can yell at a movie theatre isn't 'Fire!', it's 'Bruce Willis is dead!'" —Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt, King of the Hill

This is a spoiler.

This is an ignorant remark that doesn't take new players into consideration.

This is an excuse for bad forum etiquette.

Any questions?

Also, I'll just beat someone to the punch by stating: this is a crappy post by a crappy poster. Insert other ad hominems as desired.

Longbow captured Fort Darwin for heroic purposes. That doesn't make it right.

That's a bad analogy.
It would be more like a spoiler was mentioned, your friend complained somewhat, and then someone responded to him, and then most of the group got dragged into the new conversation.
Would you tell the whole group to shut up and get back on topic then? When they all clearly want to discuss the new one?

Yeah, if a friend just started ranting, and everyone else was just staring at them. Then you tell them to stop. But that's not what happen here. Here, everyone else joined in too. Sometimes conversations evolve abruptly, that doesn't make the change less justified.

So it's the second post by the same person that makes it a "thread jack" then? Or is it the quantity of posts total that does it. If several off topic posts were made, but never by the same person twice, would that be a "thread jack"? In that case who's responsibility would it be to make the new thread?

What about posts that talk about the new topic, but include a paragraph on the old topic at the end, do those avoid being labelled as "thread jacking"?

What about your own post just there? That's your second post in a row on the subject of thread jacking that doesn't even have a token paragraph discussing the original topic. Surely you're thread jacking now?
And you can't claim that it's okay because you're discussing the original topic in a meta way, because the discussion of spoilers has exactly the same claim.

Which is where consideration comes in.
You consider that other people may have a more extreme view of a spoiler than you, so you warn ahead even if you don't think it's necessary. That's what being considerate is.

Starting an entirely new thread, and adding a warning before a post you were going to make anyway, are entirely different levels of effort.

No, I can't be bothered to make a whole new thread, making sure to bring in all the key points from the old one when it's quite likely to be futile anyway if everyone just keeps posting about it in this thread anyway.
I can be bothered to warn about spoilers however.

So's the KKK's.

Well obviously they don't. That doesn't change the fact that it is nice to.

No. I don't want to.

The main issue with the CoH lore is that it's never been created in its entirety, with all the facts kept together for the writers to refer to. It's created bit by bit with information just completely left out.
It's quite possible that the Midnighters used the Malleus Mundi to created the shadow shard, but I find it likely that no-ones ever actually decided how they did it. They just didn't write that bit.
And that's not good story-telling, all good stories build an entirely consistent world first and then write the story in the world. That's why the Lord of the Rings was so good, and why the Elder Scrolls games can have such an immersive world, while many NPCs with-in it can seem lacking. The world's been written beforehand, but the NPCs' own stories get written by whoever comes along.

I don't agree that good story telling requires an entirely consistent world. Heck, Tolkein even changed Goblins into Orcs between the Hobbit and the LOTRO.

Terry Pratchett is an advocate of the opposite view to yours. I can't remember where it was, possibly the original Map of the Discworld, but in one of the forwards he said that he found creating a map of a world before writing to be restrictive. The only reason one was made was he realised that if it takes a day to get to a place in one book it shouldn't take a week in another.

He also goes on to say that there are no inconsistencies, there are only alternate realities.

Wait....Dumbledore dies?!


(couldn't resist, sorry)

You're absolutely right, I was generalising far to far.

What I mean is that having a consistent world built beforehand really really helps with avoiding plot-holes and other writing pitfalls. This is especially true when you have a writing team, rather than just a single writer.

Claiming it was absolutely true was absurd of me.

While I agree with this, the reverse of this is equally untrue. You can't have a good story in a very inconsistent world. To a great extent, a good story involves its audience, brings them into its world, allows them to understand this world and even invites them to speculate on how the story might unfold. You can't do that in a world where ret-con is the first law of reality. You can't engage your audience if you make it clear to them that nothing matters. At that point, it's no longer a story so much watching the Mystify screen saver. To quote spy dogs: "Things are happening in places all over the world." Things happen, but we have no reason to care, because the author doesn't care enough to not wipe these things out of existence in the next chapter.

A good story does not need to start with a previously prepared whole world. It can very much build the world around the main narrative. That's fine. But it has to build a world which is at least consistent with itself, and consistent in at least the elements that concern the main plot. Otherwise, you get "The Hamidon is a what what of what?!?"

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

You know, reading the forums is how a lot of people learn tips and tricks when they're starting out in a game... Forums aren't an exclusive vets' club. Helping newbies is a big part of why they exist.

So, what I'm trying to say is deflate your head a little and stop being such an elitist.

Sure they do. Plot-centric information that is only revealed late in the storyline. Basically like walking up to someone reading a mystery novel in the first few chapters and saying "Oh, Bob did it..."

Yes, spoilers are INCREDIBLY rude by most peoples' standards.

DJ Zero creates them too.

This is old, old information. If he had talked about the newest "Who will die" arc, you might have a point. But this is like getting annoyed at someone wearing a T-shirt that says "Vader is luke's father!"

The alternative is to avoid any and all lore discussion on the forum AT ALL. Which would be ridiculous.

To a veteran player. Not to a new(er) player. Hell, I didn't know it myself and I've played since launch. Just never messed with the Shard lore much.

Shadow's getting his wise on. Good analogy is good.

And, yes, the SS was 'created' by the Midnighters, in as much as it was where they trapped Rularuu.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

No, but I might shortly into watching Fight Club.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."