Loom Island, the Flame of Yggdrasil: where did they go?

Antreus

Sorry, I've been thinking about this, but does anyone remember the characters of the previous new character creations? For some reason my memory is a bit amphorous and I seem to have a had time differentiating Achaea's Lore from other games.

At any point did the character Clotho exist in the new character creation process? Since the new player creation introduction has been redone so many times over the years, what iteration what she in, how long ago? It would have had to be the one where you step through the Flame if memory serves.

Edit: I've played a lot of IRE titles so I think I am confusing Lusternia now. Sorry

Still, what happened to Loom Island and making sense of the Flame? Was Trial of Rebirth a thing or am I just besot with something.

Melodie

Loom Island sort of still exists - if you SURVEY the portals room, you'll see it there!

As for the Flame, of course it still exists, people still use it for resurrection and reincarnation (as well as still having its place in lore, which it touched upon quite heavily in the Bal'met Saga), just no longer for the actual rebirth trial (officially, anyway).

Halos

I like that the current intro is closer to the original one than the Trial of the Flame. 

Originally!
Newbies appeared on Loom Island, which was this magical newbie island floating way up in the sky for whatever reason. A dude named Lothariel met you there, taught you basics, and led you to a bar where you met denizens like Demetrius the barman. Demetrius and Lothariel gave you quests throughout the intro.

A random Adventurer in the bar would step up to accompany on your first quest. The Adventurer always got killed by goblins (this was so scary the first time) in Azdun and a dashing Paladin would always dramatically burst in from nowhere to save you (best part), teach you some history, then continue with you on the next quest to Delos to meet Colbey. Following this, a Scholar's delivery quest to Ashtan to meet Epicurus and still another traveling with a Merchant to Shallam teaching you about money introduced you to the main cities and guilds. After you got back you actually chose your guild and/or city. Then you finished the intro by drinking from The Fountain of Experience which would throw you back to the Ring of Portals.

The first intro was notable for introducing newbies to how big and rich the world of Achaea was early on. You actually got placed in the "real" world and would see other players interacting while you were on your quests.

But the Trial...
On the other hand was instanced. Taking place entirely within the sparsely constructed world of Ceylon, it was very controlled and  focused more on ancient history (with great character cameos from the Mythos) than modern history. I gave it points for being closer to Achaean canon but thought it was less exciting and too isolating.

Currently!
The new escape-from-the-pygmy-prison intro isn't perfect (too often targ newbies are like "i want to join a House/Order" when they aren't even done with the two-part intro) but it's a really good mix between the old ones. It gets newbies involved in a new storyline, puts them in the actual living world, and gives them simple goals to achieve.

So..
Loom Island still exists! The Ring of Portals remains there, but the bar and road don't exist anymore. As for reconciling the three newbie intros in-game, I usually don't try to. Some people do a fairly good job of writing it into their backgrounds but I think it's easier not to think too hard about the roleplay. I just handwave it.

Sybilla

For these sorts of things, it's probably best asked in the Quick Questions thread rather than make a new thread for each question.

When I made Sybilla, there was the Trial of Rebirth: you meet a crone at North of New Thera, she takes you to the flame of Yggdrasil, you touch it and are transported to Ceylon where you meet Pasiphae, Severian and Gruul who teach you the basics of Achaea, you get the dragon orb, enter the pool and end up at Portals. This wiki page explains it.

Before that, I'm not sure. I hear it was some Loom Island thing where you fought with a paladin and were given training sword etc.

Currently there's the pygmy trial, where you start in a cell, escape the dungeon with the help of two city denizens, and start unveiling a conspiracy to get you ready for city life and Achaea as a whole.

Sarapis

Sybilla said:

For these sorts of things, it's probably best asked in the Quick Questions thread rather than make a new thread for each question.

Actually no! The instructions for this section tell you to post a new thread for every question, and to do so using the 'post a question' option rather than new post, so that the OP can flag which answer answered the question the best, and it automatically surfaces to the first post under the OP's post. This lets other people in the future who may have similar questions more easily find answers than sticking everything into a giant mega-thread.