So, what lore do folks have questions about?

[tigersfan]

Arrow to the knee, of course.

:-D

[Mánagarmr]

Perhaps this has been asked elsewhere, but how the heck does an amoeba become an overlord?

Or are they placeholders? 

Answer: it doesn't.  That was placeholder, and was removed back in nov or dec.

Awww. I for for one will miss our old amoeba overlords... (okay, I butchered that meme)

[Mánagarmr]

Also, in making a more sane post that is not simply spam: I'm a sound believer in "less is more" approaches. While playing games like Oblivion, Skyrim, Dragon Age and OH GOD ALL THE FF GAMES I've found that my eyes sort of glaze over at all the incessant lore spam that you are subject to. In the FF games it's even worse, because bloody all of it is voice acted in 6 hours of cinematics with over-the-top effects and adrogynous characters (I don't like FF, how can you tell?).

So while Lore has a place, definately, make it not overwhelm the player.

[Martyn van Buren]

Why can't you see other continents until you defeat an overlord?  For that matter, how does an overlord actually sink a continent?

[TerraSleet]

I would also like to know the lore/reasoning behind the current EP system and continent sinking, etc.

[Martyn van Buren]

What's at the boundary between different time shards?  Is there a clean break?  A gradual transition?  A towering wall of madness and entropy that prevents all but the Ilaris' chosen from passing? (+1 for towering wall of madness and entropy)

[BobTheJanitor]

What's at the boundary between different time shards?  Is there a clean break?  A gradual transition?  A towering wall of madness and entropy that prevents all but the Ilaris' chosen from passing? (+1 for towering wall of madness and entropy)

Add that towering wall at the end of surface areas so it doesn't seem like every place in the world is a mostly horizontal plane that ends in a mile high cliff face.

Or come up with a lore reason for those mile high cliffs.

[Martyn van Buren]

What is the darkness?  It doesn't work like earth darkness --- you know, here a bright light illuminates a place a long way off a little bit, but light in Environ works more like a drop of oil in some water.

[Toll]

What's at the boundary between different time shards?  Is there a clean break?  A gradual transition?  A towering wall of madness and entropy that prevents all but the Ilaris' chosen from passing? (+1 for towering wall of madness and entropy)

As far as I understood it, there is no real "boundary" between them. The cataclysm just threw everything together, so there's nothing special about passing from the ice age into the industrial age, other than the fact that they shouldn't be next to each other.

[Ixiohm]

How did people get turned into consciousness shards, is this still happening in some places? How come bosses and some more advanced enemies like the clockwork probe drop masses of consciousness shards? What is the Ilari using the consciousness shards for? Is it possibly slave labor?!

[Martyn van Buren]

If the high-tech stuff is mysterious to everybody, what happened to the people who made it?

[BobTheJanitor]

Bump because I thought of another one. After failing many NPC rescues lately: how are these NPCs surviving out in the wild? I thought that was glyphbearer only country and normal people could only survive by huddling next to an Ilari stone like the random cave NPCs you find.

And as a follow up, when a rescue fails (i.e. whenever I'm the one doing the rescue) the dead NPC leaves a vengeful ghost behind. That's fine, but it makes me wonder where all the rest of the vengeful ghosts are for the rest of the population that appears to have died during the cataclysm.

[Dizzard]

What's with the buildings that seed in mission nodes. The one that looks like a temple. Is there any significance to it?

It feels kind of weird going into a temple like building and then being outside during the mission.

[x4000]

What's with the buildings that seed in mission nodes. The one that looks like a temple. Is there any significance to it?

It feels kind of weird going into a temple like building and then being outside during the mission.

That's a simple one.  You simply are passing through the mission entrance (just some ruins, you don't actually go into a building directly) and go off elsewhere in the region.  Could be in an exterior area, another building, whatever.  It's just skipping the walking around steps, like it skips your crawling through the vent ducts indoors or holes underground.

[BobTheJanitor]

It's just skipping the walking around steps, like it skips your crawling through the vent ducts indoors or holes underground.

Saving that for the 'slowly crawling through a dark maze of ventilation ducts' DLC, eh?