What is Lore?
While I wouldn't call lore a crucial aspect of many video games, for some it certainly is nice in order to really build a world around it. For myself I don't care as much about it but there are certainly cases where it made me fall in love more with certain games. These are mostly open world games where there is actually a lot to explore.
I guess when thinking about it, Zelda Breath Of The Wild is one that comes to mind with so many stories around to explore in a very fun way. I remember a couple having a fight about chickens and when you talk to them separately they did their story and you help them get back together which are things that really added to the charm of the game.
In Overwatch, I remember that the videos on each of the characters which made them feel more real and there were also certain interactions in the game between some of them that were fun and helped to build the world. However, as more were released this all faded away and in a game like Apex legends there were always these videos at the start of each season but I never watched or cared about them.
Does Splinterlands Need Lore ?
The simple answer I would say is no as I just can't imagine anyone caring. Splinterlands never felt like a world and I don't think it ever will. It is a pay2win card game where 95% of the players are running bots and even more care most about their assets and potential earnings. if everything was sunshine and rainbows, I guess having some kind of lore would be nice. However, the lore in Splinterlands is just a wall of text on each of the cards while we live in a world where people don't read anymore and have the attention span of a goldfish. I just have a very hard time believing that anyone actually cares also because cards are printed at such a high rate and old cards are taken all use case that it is hard to actually connect to them in one way or another.
I'm also not sure how much money was thrown at the dev who came up with all the lore or if it even is any good and I guess I don't want to know seeing how the team is now trying to milk the DAO for more money.
Why Splinterlands Has Lore ?
What it comes down to is that there was a time when there weren't as many cards and where most were worth quite some money while the team just did a pre-sale for the Land. So they wanted to build a story and a narrative around Praetoria to make it look more interesting. I guess coming up with some text around each cards was actually way easier than actually developing the land since 4 years later it's still in the very early stages with a request to the DAO to give 200k to actually start developing it.
Exploring Splinterlands Lore!
Personally I have never read a single line of lore text in Splinterlands as I simply don't care. However, for this post I'm making an exception and will try to see what it's about for one of the monsters that I used to enjoy playing a lot before I was forced to make the archmage bot fully take over.
On the darkest nights in Mortis, the great Nightmare herd can be seen from a hundred miles away, lighting up the Death Splinter's hazy sky as they burn for evermore. Their story is one of anguish and endless suffering, but also of hope and salvation. A Death sorcerer named Foglip Kraven who has long since passed to the Dark Eternity is the one who first discovered that living animals can be enlisted to the Death Splinter. Before his passing nearly 500 years ago, Kraven was responsible for the saving of the herd, one of the only heroic acts in all Dark Eternal history.
The 200 year period known as the Peaceful Crusades was not always peaceful. In fact, many of the bloodiest battles ever fought in the Splinterlands were fought during this time, as the Lord of Darkness tried desperately to bring great numbers of the living into the dark. One such battle in 275 A.S. has been remembered as the Battle for Lyveria's soul. In this battle, the walls of Lyveria were almost brought to rubble, but the Dark Lord's forces were ultimately held back until they retreated. The weapons Lyveria employed were especially savage; they catapulted huge masses of fuel and tar, which exploded in flame wherever they landed. Tragically, a herd of wild horses was caught on the hillside in the all-devouring flames. They did not die immediately but stampeded off toward the mountains, screaming in pain and flaming rage.
The herd was intercepted by Foglip Kraven himself who swooped in on the back of his mighty battle drake. Moved by the suffering of the herd and not willing to let their souls perish without dark salvation, Foglip used the greatest of his dark magic power to enlist the soul of each and every horse in the herd. Then one by one, they fell dead to the ground. Moments later in faraway Mortis, a herd of flaming horses emerged kicking and neighing from the Tarpits of Creation. Since the birth of the Nightmares, their run across the Wastes of Mortis has never ceased.
I honestly tried to read this but it kind of was a torture and I just can't imagine anyone actually getting excited about this. Maybe if there were way fewer monsters and summoners around and if the lore was properly explained in short movie clips it could make me like cards and the game a bit more. But this is just total nonsense and unneeded at least for someone like me but I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
Conclusion
While I get why lore was introduced to Splinterlands, right now it just feels totally useless as there are way bigger problems that need to be handled first which is how the get more new players into the game. Most mainly care about the asset values and possible earnings while having a goldfish attention brain so I hope from here on out the 'lore' is just automatically generated by some AI instead of wasting development funds on it. So with all the best will in the world, I personally don't care about the lore and I'm not going to pretend that I do. |  |  |
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