The Norrath globe in Skyfire

[Yoite]

Tonight I was in Skyfire on another server and I noticed the globe of Norrath that is near the druid portal, it has Velious on it, which isn't a big surprise but then I notice there is the Alaris continent from the Viel of Alaris expac. VoA was the 18th expac and didnt release until 2011. So I'm sitting here looking at this and my 1st thought is holy hell they had this shit planned out way back then?!? But i guess they could have upgraded the globe to reflect this. However the client I was playing on was Underfoot, which came out before VoA in 2009.

I don't have titanium installed anywhere atm so I'm hoping someone can help take a look for me on P99 and see if Alaris is on the globe, its a bigass island about the size of Kunark. Kunark will be under Faydwer, and Alaris will be north of velious.

[Zaela]

http://i.imgur.com/grFCKJa.png?1

Edit: the Velious part is a separate texture. They must've been too lazy to edit the original texture.
http://i.imgur.com/l0C8oZq.png?1

Edit2: if you got files from one of the free-to-play downloads or anything like that, it's not surprising that you could see some post-Underfoot changes on the Underfoot client. There's no strict relationship between the client and the client data files (except when they make changes to binary formats, which is rare and would only apply to brand new models and such).

[zanderklocke]

I recall that back in the day on Everlore someone posted the globe and everyone debated what the huge continent on the globe was that wasn't in any expansion. So I think that Alaris might have been on it. I have no idea what Alaris is because I stopped really following EverQuest expansions after Planes of Power.

[Kekephee]

I'm sure they just tossed some extra continent/continents on there thinking they'd eventually make more expansions that would be more continents. They probably changed this strategy after they released Velious, started planning for the next xpac, and someone in the room was like "I dunno guys, I think just adding continents at this point might be too predictable. People might start getting bored. We need to throw them a twist. How about CATS ON THE MOON?" And the whole series of expansions got derailed into weird things until at some point someone was like, "we're out of ideas... hey, we never did release that other continent. Let's just do that for this expansion."

I, too, have no idea what Alaris is.

[jolanar]

It's always been there. But I doubt they always knew it was going to be Alaris. Just some continent insurance for down the road. And actually from a lore perspective it doesn't even make sense that it was Alaris, because that was supposed to be a secret continent nobody even knew about. Because magic.

[Yoite]

The lore around the House of Thule, Veil of Alaris, and Rain of Fear "trilogy" is actually pretty good EQ lore. The Alarans came to Norrath back during the age of scale, and used a veil to hide from the dragons.

The Ancient Text

Translated, the Ancient Text reads:

I never saw anything so big, beautiful and terrifying. The invaders of our original planet were just horrifying. The great beasts of the beasts domain are tiny in comparison. But this being from our new home was just spectacular.

It flew in on great wings, larger than a mansion. Red iridescent scales blazed in the sunlight. They covered its body, starting from its long tail, over its strong, muscular body, across its long neck, and up over its huge fanged head to the tip of its snout. Fire billowed from its mouth as it raked over the buildings. Magic pulsed around it and slammed into the ground and the figures running from it. Its fearsome intelligence was used to great effect as it chose the best target to destroy.

But in the end it was chased away and we were saved by the power of the Spirit of Tides and a few blind dreamers.

If they had not brought such destruction, I would so love to live to see one again. But the Veil closes in.

Here is a link to a post someone made and explained a lot of the lore.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/voa-lore.192353/
scroll down until you hit a huge wall of text by poster named Axxius

[Yoite]

btw thanks for the replies!

[Gencat]

Thanks for that post Yoite! I am such a sucker for EQ lore and that really was some of the best lore introduced since PoP