We'd love to hear from you" OH REALLY? WHY ALL RIGHT THEN --- oh, comments disabled. lol oops.
Yes, but the YouTube discussion wall is open, on which I've been replying, I'm afraid Nosgoth doesn't have like a dozen community personnel, It's JUST me and I physically can't stay on top of everything, as much as I'm trying to.
Those typos hurt my soul, I hope you were typing from an iphone or something. Nupratros?? But I saw you spell Nupraptor's name correctly later so okay...
Apologies for my sloppy typing, I'll do my best to not let it happen again.
This reads like fanfiction. Sorry.
I'm sorry you feel that way and with respect, I disagree. Let's break it down.
We know why Kain throws Raziel into the pit. We also know Kain is patiently waiting for Raziel's return when he emerges, even going so far as to say he expected Raziel to arrive at the Sanctuary of the Clans sooner. We *also* see that Kain hasn't suffered any of the effects of Nupraptor's curse over time in the same way as the other Lieutenants and their Clans. AND we also know that Kain has kept a somewhat light touch on his Empire during Raziel's time in the Abyss, given Rahab's comments in the Drowned Abby, apparently only making an appearance every so often when he sees fit and demonstrating a knowledge of future events. Additionally, Kain actively demonstrates a disregard for his Lieutenants (as well as their offspring and his whole Empire in general) and would have no reason to share his intricate plans to salvage Nosgoth and reclaim his role as the Scion of Balance with them. Plus, we also know Kain has access to and has been actively using the Chronoplast. Therefore, it seems overwhelmingly likely that Kain had skipped forwards through time, and not long after Raziel had been cast down judging by his not-as-devolved-as-the-Lieutenants appearance.
Therefore,
Kain physically isn't around during the majority of Raziel's time in the Abyss, meaning his Lieutenants were in joint rulership of Nosgoth. So how do the Razielim die out? Well, we also know that the Lieutenants were jealous and capricious, eager to curry favour with Kain and to gain power for themselves. It's overwhelmingly likely, therefore, that - having misinterpreted Kain's decision to cast Raziel into the Abyss - the Clans would have fallen on the Razielim in an effort to destroy them, believing that's what their Lord and Master wanted and also to claim the now leaderless Razielim's lands as their own. With new (for the first time in centuries) possessions at stake, this in turn would no doubt have led to infighting, perhaps even civil war between the clans.
Either way, we already *know* that the Vampires must have been distracted enough somehow during this period (obviously without Kain's iron will to guide them), because at some point in this era, Humans - who, up until this point, had been entirely enslaved - start attacking Vampire strongholds and even incapacitate one of Kain’s lieutenants, Dumah, for several centuries (as evinced by his comparative lack of devolution in comparison to Zephon and Melchiah). This is where the series demonstrates strong internal logic, as for Vampires three or four centuries is not very long at all, but for Humans that's several generations!
All we're doing is filling in the gaps at the early part of this period, before Dumah has been staked but after Kain has absconded his throne and hopped into the Chronoplast. We're saying that with the Vampires focused on their internal squabbles, Nosgoth’s Human population seized the chance to grow stronger, rebuild cities, relearn skills and recovered their power to the point where they could retaliate against their Vampire masters. This credible threat would naturally have reunited the warring Vampire Clans in the face of a common enemy. Enter my previous quote about the Razielim here.
Had all the Razileim been killed by that point? Well, obviously not, 'cos they're in our game. Do we even know whether the Razileim were actually ever destroyed completely? If you've done your research, you'll know Amy Hennig was purposefully vague on this point... and so are we. (Plus, we do actually have some pretty cool plans to *show* you what happened to them after Raziel got cast down without using cut-scenes. It's actually pretty exciting stuff).
So PLEASE don't denigrate our narrative efforts by (a) calling it "fanfiction" and (b) using that word in an undeservedly pejorative sense. I mean, it's true in one sense in that we're fans and it's fiction, but we've gone to as greater lengths as possible to make sure nothing contradicts pre-established canon and actually expands what we know of this era in interesting ways
Please explain what these "elements" are. Concretely, what the hell are "right market conditions"? Why would anyone think the market wouldn't want another LoK sequel and instead would want this deathmatch crap? Sorry, but that kind of PR content-free buzzword really irks me.
I'm afraid this is a much bigger question than a lowly community guy is able to answer. Sorry, I know I'm a rep of the company, but I'm not THE company and so I'm not party to all our decision making processes.
It doesn't matter what in-game rationalizations you can come up with, these areas still look like boring crap. LoK is known and loved for its awesome gothic and dark fantasy architecture. Some wooden shantytown, even if you can explain it away with your fanfiction in-game lore, is still completely uninteresting. Someone said it looks like a rejected map from Tomb Raider, and I agree.
Fair enough, and your entitled to your opinion, however let's take a look at Blood Omen. Uschtenheim and Nachtholm weren't exactly on the same scale as Willendorf or Avernus, were they? We will be exploring other locations, both Human and Vampire, of differing size, scale and upkeep. This is a live game, and the quantity of in-game content we go live with for Closed Alpha is *very* different to the quantity of content we'll have for Open Beta.
Moreover, we do see an example of a human settlement in Soul Reaver and its architecture is pretty damn cool. So yeah, the excuses won't fly.
Not everything is as fully built up as the Human Citadel. And, naturally, we want to hold onto some of the more impressive content for later use. So, please give us a chance, we're still growing.
I remember primitive flamethrowers, but not hand cannons.
What, you mean
these hand cannons?
Besides which, they're still lame and generic weapons found in every shooter. Why anyone would play as the humans is beyond me, the only vaguely neat thing about this game is the novelty of playing a vampire with vampire powers.
Please take a look at the two impressions pieces I linked out to earlier in this thread. After playing the game, some people think the Vampires are overpowered, others think that the Humans are. It really does depend on your play style. If you're a sniper, for example, you'll obviously prefer the Scout to the Tyrant.
I can understand not wanting to moderate so many comments. At the same thing, this is only an issue if you know full well the reaction is going to be overwhelmingly negative (and I'd like you all at Squeenix to wonder why that is, and no, "they're narrow-minded" is not the real reason). Moreover, the like/dislike rating have also been disabled. Because we know that bar would be bright red, yes? So this has nothing to do with a lack of moderating manpower.
As I said, (and apologies for repeating myself verbatim here), I didn't want a wall of negativity to be the first thing people who are new to the game saw when they watched the video on our YouTube channel. I'd much rather people be allowed to come to their own conclusions about the game rather than have their opinions coloured in advance. After all, there are loads of places for people to vent about the game or to express their displeasure to us directly on multiple forums and even our own official forum, Facebook page and Twitter feed. It's not good for the game and for me, what's good for the is the highest priority.