Calling All Lore Junkies! (EQ2 Vhalen Interview)  

Calling All Lore Junkies!

EverQuest II is a dynamic and ever changing game. Some changes for the good, and some for the less than good. There are wildly differing play styles and a little something for everyone. The one thing that holds it all together? No, not Halfling summoned pie. Lore.

With that in mind, I cornered and harassed EQ II Lore God, Tony "Vhalen" Garcia. He was kind enough to spend some time answering questions. He gave us some great answers! Enjoy.

Zam: Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions! We'll start with the easy ones. Can you introduce yourself, please? Name, what do you do at SOE, that sort of fun stuff.

Vhalen: I am Tony "Vhalen" Garcia. At SOE, my title is senior game designer, but my design specialty is developing and maintaining the world of Norrath as it relates to EverQuest II.

Zam: What got you started in the gaming industry?

Vhalen: I had always been developing fantasy worlds for novels I hoped to write and Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Bill Trost, a primary creator of EQ, was a fellow D&D player. We also used to work together on designs for possible board and video games. One day he needed someone to assist the EQ team in developing the game world and supplying it with rusty daggers so he came knocking.

Since that day, my life became the world of Norrath.

Zam: Was this something you'd always wanted to do, or did it just happen to be a happy coincidence that you had a talent for writing and liked video games? Did you go to school specifically with this in mind?

Vhalen: When I was growing up, I dreamed I would be working for ILM. Well, that or becoming a Green Beret. As I got older, I became enthralled with fantasy games and movies. I had plans to create fantasy novels and short stories. I took classes to further that goal, but I ended up getting a great job in another industry that fooled me into thinking that the world of golf would be the dominant realm in my career. Fortunately, Norrath reminded me there were better worlds to dream of.

Zam: Of the other things you've done, what was your all time favourite project (including EQ2 stories)?

Vhalen: At the inception of EverQuest II, I created a massive atlas of the entirety of Norrath as never before seen, maps included. This included many areas that were not created for EQ. I even mapped the oceans, the Underfoot and undersea regions. This was to be the foundation of Norrath in the Age of Destiny. The project would see many revisions of that original design, but I always reference that EQII atlas when creating current content.

I would like to mention another favorite of mine. It is not a large project, but it was something unique. The first Everling forum quest was something I enjoyed planning. It was based on community interaction in and out of game, something I have always enjoyed monitoring since the early days of EQ.

Zam: Obviously, writing for an MMO is very different than a console game. How do you go about preparing a story line for each? Do you outline loosely and go with the flow, so to speak? Or do you plan each step?

Vhalen: Well, it was and still remains a daunting task. The way we handled it for EQII was to first map out the world in the Age of Destiny. We needed to define what transpired and what remained. Then, Jindrack and I came up with a single mystery that has never been told in any EQ project. That mystery would become the backbone for the events that would take place on Norrath. The mystery is so large that it had an affect on most current events in Norrath. All areas of interest have their own stories to tell, but the larger picture always looms in the background. It is impossible to sway from the path it is leading us on.

We also have a Norrathian Universal Timeline that gets filled in with notable historic events that have taken place or will take place. We create a picture of the entire world of Norrath as it currently exists in the Age of Destiny. We then have options as to what area we want to work on, always knowing the current state of events of any of those regions. After that, we make additional entries in the Norrathian Universal Timeline that directly relate to the region being worked on.

In the end, we have this magnificent web of lore.

Zam: So... Lore Master. I always envision you in this basement at SOE surrounded by thousands of big leather-bound and dusty tomes. I'm sure that isn't really how you keep up with all the lore even though I want to believe it. So how do you keep up with it all?

Vhalen: You're close, but a basement probably has more room. I actually keep a lot of original EQ documents in hard copy form. There is one for just about every zone on Norrath. I also have a few large binders that contain design documents for various EQ projects. This added with reference books creates a little EQ archive. I've lugged these tomes around from office to office! Moving offices is not good. I think it has given me a bad back!

Much of the information on the older documents has made it into a database of the Age of Destiny, a Story Library of sorts. Although the Story Library does contain a great deal of information and is the primary source of reference for all EQII developers, there is still a vast amount of information that is kept on my personal hard drive. This includes EQII original design documents for content that has existed, will exist or was dropped.

Aside from the maelstrom of reference material, we do our best to monitor EQ lore for other projects as well to see if it has any impact on the world we craft. With the help of such designers as Jindrack and Ilucide, we have been able to do our best to tame the beast that is EQII Lore.

Zam: Do you bear the brunt of all the writing or do you have minions who help you to craft the world?

Vhalen: Minions? Lol. I did create the foundation of EQII lore. Because of that, I maintain it as well as usually approve lore that is being developed for future EQII projects, but I am not the sole creator. Jindrack, Ilucide and I have this sort of lore think tank going. We often develop the foundation of the lore. But there are ideas that spring forth from every developer, be that designer, artist, etc. As they work with the foundation, they create greater detail to our world of Norrath.

I do have to mention that we are fortunate enough to have some new designers that are great writers. If you don't believe me, check out the "Escape from Guk" story on EQ2 Players. It is a fantastic story that was crafted by one of my favorite writers, Doomcookie.

Zam: How do you come up with ideas for Norrath? Does the dev team throw you tidbits to inspire you or do you just cook it all up on your own?

Vhalen: As I mentioned above, there is always a foundation that has been developed since the inception of EQII. When we begin a new EQII project, we have formal and informal meetings on these new areas of interest and come up with what we need without breaking the foundation.

Zam: How is it working with such a well established world as Norrath? Does it make things easier with regards to writing for the game or does it put a lot of constraints on you, having to keep with what's already been written?

Vhalen: We decided to split the EQ timeline so that we could create a parallel universe that is not affected by the events in any ongoing EQ projects. It actually fell in nicely with events that took place in the Planes of Power. This allowed us to create untold history and map out the future of EQII.

There are not many constraints. We do our best to stay loyal to the original EQ lore and try not to stray from the original themes.

Zam: How do you deal with writer's block?

Vhalen: That actually happens a lot. The best way I deal with it, get out into the wilderness and let the grandeur of Mother Nature rejuvenate me. If there is not enough time for that, just spending time with the games, books and movies that inspired me when I was younger will always do the trick. And if there is not enough time for even that, just sharing ideas with my fellow developers will help hurdle over that writer's block.

Zam: Pirates or Ninjas?

Vhalen: Let's see... Rum or Sake? Ahoy matey!

Zam: Cake or Pie?

Vhalen: What goes better with rum?

It's great to have such a dedicated guy making sure that all of our back story to EQ II is nice and fleshed out. And clearly he's a smart man, after all, he chose Pirates! The next time I get a chance to sit down with Vhalen, I'll make sure to ply him with lots of rum and find out what the big mystery is!!

Thanks for taking the time to share with us, Vhalen.

Escape from Guk - Part One

Escape from Guk - Part Two


Extra special bonus question!!

Vhalen:  When I started designing the dungeons that would be available for the world of EverQuest II, Nektropos Castle was one that I did not want to leave off the list. It had a brief mention in the original EQ design document, but was never given attention.

Along came EverQuest II and I was sure to include Nektropos into the zone list. The lore of the zone, albeit brief, was enough to begin crafting a deep and immersive background to this horror themed dungeon.

Since the beginning of EverQuest II, Nektropos Castle was to be part of a trilogy of dungeons. In this progression, the Obelisk of Lost Souls came first. Following that dungeon's mysteries would be Nektropos Castle. Finally, the last dungeon was supposed to be one called Shade, you try and figure out who lived there. Shade was going to be designed in such a way as to have two instances to it. The first would be a seemingly abandoned ruin. The second would be a dimension twisted mirror world to the abandoned ruin. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, Shade never got off the ground.

Sorry to ramble on. You were asking about Nektropos Castle.

As work on EQ2 went on, Nektropos Castle began to evolve into an important zone to the primary storyline. It always maintained a localized story that could stand on its own, but it had themes that hooked to the "great mystery." The House of Everling dealt with artifacts taken from around the globe and beyond. They crossed paths with many of the secrets of Norrath. If there is a mystery to be solved, the Everlings probably have a few clues to offer. Because of this, I doubt we are through seeing the Everlings or learning more about their curses.

Nektropos Castle was always intended to have multiple instances. We have seen a lot of those, but one that has yet to be created is a purely quest instance. There were a few ideas as to wheat this would be. One of the ideas was to have the Everlings send certain players invitations to visit the castle. You were supposed to enter the castle as a guest. You could then interact with quest npcs, possibly haunts, and learn a great deal more about the Everlings. That instance would also be timed, having you feel as though you were there for dinner, drinks, sleep and in the morning you wake up outside the castle walls. However, that is much more design work than you might think. Building quest zones and zones like Unrest take a great deal of time.

You may not be seeing "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at Nektropos" anytime soon, but there are plans to create more "Everling only" quest content this year. We will be learning about curses and the family trade.

EverQuest II Wikibase™