User blog:Baziel/Summer 2016 - Updates, Nosgoth Cancelled, Maps and More

Well, I keep meaning to do these more often and keep finding distractions to hold me off. So apologies for the now almost routine delays in my bigger round-ups. As usual, there have still been a lot of things going on. So without further ado, let's continue.

First off in late January we reached 1000 likes on our Facebook page. It may be a drop in the ocean compared to the number that visit the main website every day, but the Facebook page is still our main outlet for news and work summaries. So a big thank-you to everyone that has followed us. As for updates on the website, there is still a lot of work going on in many articles - particularly in the areas of general and recurring terms with completed pages on the World map, Ignis Fatuus, Rotatable and movable objects and Permeable barriers - with completed pages on Wheels (formally titled 'valves') and Levers hailing a makeover and examination on the different switch mechanisms used in the games. In addition there are several other completed articles which are more focussed on a single title - with the completion of the pages covering the cut Demon worshippers and Vampire worshippers of Soul Reaver 2 as well as a completed article on the penultimate Soul Reaver 2 chapter Blade of Vengeance

Alongside new and completed articles there have also been a slew of new images, perhaps most noteworthy are the area extractions created using the aid of model ex - allowing top-down views and maps of the outdoor and indoor areas of Blood Omen, to be fully realised and the addition of the maps of the Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 areas to the wiki. Something of a companion to this are the model images, which are captured in a similar manner and use model ex to render the model and give a full view of a particular environment. The PC release of 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' in early 2016 allowed us to have a look into and explore the nooks and crannies of that game and we were pleased to locate a Legacy of Kain easter egg in the form of the Soul Reaver blade hidden in one of the early tombs (which naturally requires an ability gained at the end of the game to access) - this represents the first nod back to LoK in Tomb Raider since Raziel and Kain appeared in DLC for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light in 2010 - and the first reference in the main series since Kain's portrait appeared in Underworld in 2008. Accordingly Rise was given it's own page before it was decided that the Tomb Raider articles could probably be collapsed back into a single article - hence all of the Tomb Raider titles are now covered - along with the various LoK easter eggs - on the new Tomb Raider page.

Perhaps the biggst LoK news of late has been to do with the troubled waters surrounding multiplayer spin-off Nosgoth. At the start of the year Nosgoth was preparing some final updates for a full release early in the year. Accordingly the new releases included a fantastic bonus for the old fans as the Silenced Cathedral was made a playable map - with the area appearing for the first time since the début of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver in 1999. The map was widely considered to be particularly appropriate and was met with generally favourable reviews. Some time after a new class was added, named the "Beastmasters" and themed around the power of Dark Eden and the Dark Eden triad (particularly Bane and DeJoule). With a unique ability to shape-shift and assume a winged form for a brief time, the Beastmaster looked set to redefine the human gameplay of the game... Unfortunately the update that introduced the Beastmaster was delayed several times to add additional content fixes and modifications, and when it was finally released these extra hampered the already fragile servers, making it difficult for many to log in. This was apparently the last straw for Nosgoth's ongoing technical problems and the lack of players was ultimately the determining factor behind the decision to cancel the game. Considerable efforts were made in the community to persuade the developers to rethink their decision, to revert to previous patches or to release unreleased content (including the concept art of the unseen Rahabim class) unfortunately nothing was forthcoming and Nosgoth went offline on June 1st for the final time bringing to an end nearly three years of fan interaction and development and a brief ray of hope for the dormant Legacy of Kain series. Nosgoth may have now gone but it's legacy has already begun to show life with new effort and attention diverted to the series and especially through its fans, as they have scrambled in those last few days to preserve and save as much as they could from the game for posterity, in an admirable and somewhat familiar show of support and faith for the game - and you will soon be able to see the results of their labour at new site 'Tales of Nosgoth' (Forum here and Facebook link here). Ultimately as a final gift the concepts of the Rahabim were released, providing a glimpse at the direction they were thinking of taking for the class. For us Nosgoth has been a bittersweet and complicated journey and the cancellation has left us with a difficult decision regarding the status of the game - no statement was ever made doubting its veracity, but the cancellation before final release (which was expected to contain a lot of reworking and refinement anyway) does not lend well to its credence and after careful consideration it has been decided to take the articles back from their exclusive namespace and ultimately collapse them back into the main Nosgoth (game) article. The unique status of the title as both released and unreleased means that it uniquely can attest to further considerations - therefore articles relating to Nosgoth will end up with their own 'Apocrypha' sections detailing the additions made by Nosgoth, so these can be considered without external bias on their veracity and canonicity - ultimately it may take the direct confirmation or contradiction of a future game to say definitely either way. Whichever way it goes articles relating to Nosgoth will be updated and images added soon... and further revelations about Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun recently have already prompted some additions there.

A string of community related pieces has also shown up recently both related and unrelated to Nosgoth. First off was the impressive completion of the Blood Omen comics collection in February – finally completing a long-running series rounding up the events of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Other notable work included the HD renders of the human Kain in full armour and the Soul Reaver blade by the Hylden Dimension. Perhaps the most spectacular of these was the stunning work of the Hylden in revealing a set of maps created originally for Nosgoth which perhaps represents the definitive vision of the land of Nosgoth – as technically fan works these cannot technically be counted and added to the wiki, although their astounding beauty and attention to detail probably speaks for itself. And then just to out-do himself there, Hylden used these maps to inform an awe-inspiring recreation of the Pillars area in Unity 5, combining the Pillars areas as they have been seen in the games to date and informed by the previous maps. Truly breathtaking stuff.

While the next few months without a Legacy of Kain game in development may be a little quieter than it has been recently, rest assured the work and documentation will go on. We'll see you... ooh say late October for some more goodies and a special occasion. Happy Editing Baziel (talk) 19:16, June 9, 2016 (UTC)