In October of 2014 we released the Beastclans feature, introducing new opposition in dominance, a lore dump, and new Beastclans familiars. Since then, much has changed—us as developers, you as a community, and our overall education about how the world around us directly and indirectly influences and impacts our work.
And it’s time to address it.
[Image Description: A banner image of a rocky scene with humanoid bird-person, a harpy, in the foreground. They have short hair and are wearing clothing similar to a toga. The harpy is concentrating on the clay pot they're painting and their tongue is sticking out of the side of their mouth as they do. The text overlaid on the banner image reads: "Harpy Lore" and "Beastclan apology and plans for the future".]
What happened?
The Beastclans were several new species that came into being in the third age. Their origins date back to when the mysterious civilization of the second age reached new heights of magic and technology before eventually destroying themselves and much of the planet. This event gave rise to powerful elemental beings, new flora and fauna, and the sapient Beastclans.
The idea behind the conflict was intended to be dragons vs (not)humans. Our goal for this particular conflict was for it to go alongside the dragon vs dragon and dragon vs Shade setups, providing a variety of tasks to accomplish and conflicts to resolve, with dragon clans working to carve out places of peace in a volatile landscape of elemental catastrophe and Shade-infested life.
Adventure Mode is still a planned feature, but its many delays created a near decade-long gap, where the players being told dragons—their dragons—are engaging in or engaged in monstrous acts that hold parallels to real world events. And they're supposed to play as these dragon clans and enjoy the game.
An Apology
Many of you have rightly pointed out that the Beastclans on the Rise setup has several disturbing parallels with colonialism, where colonizers invade indigenous populations and commit violent crimes against humanity in order to steal land and resources from the people who were there before them.
With Beastclans on the Rise, we've put players' dragon clans in this role for years, with no acknowledgement of the problematic story communicated to players or way for them to resolve it. It's a dangling plot thread that's gone on for too long. Specifically, a dangling plot thread with harmful implications we never wanted to convey and one that left our players to deal with it on their own. Regardless of our original intent, these implications are harmful, and we owe you an apology.
We apologize for the original Beastclans on the Rise update and our ignorance on the underlying implications. We regret our lack of follow up on the issue for so long. We know that this has concerned and made many of you uncomfortable, and we’re sorry our ignorance negatively impacted your experience with our game.
Moving Forward:
We will be adding a disclaimer to the Beastclans on the Rise page in our encyclopedia and removing the video from our Youtube channel. The Beastclans on the Rise page will be removed from the encyclopedia index, as it is no longer canon lore, but will remain on site, linked from this post and the reworked Beastclans index once it is available.
- This disclaimer will link to this announcement thread.
- This disclaimer will note this lore is no longer canon and undergoing a rework for the reasons stated in this post.
- We are not deleting the page as accountability. The fact is, the US culture and institutions we (Flight Rising team members) grew up in clearly had influence and impact on our early work. We released this as official content and it’s wrong to pretend we didn’t.
- The Beastclans will still be in Adventure Mode, but the standing of relations with dragons will be greatly changed; you don’t need to start from a place of horror to have impactful quest lines and objectives.
- When reintroduced, dragons will no longer have been vying for territory with the Beastclans. There will still be conflicts and mysteries for players to find solutions for and story opportunities available, and we think that this change can make Sornieth and Adventure Mode all the richer for it.
We will be rewriting and expanding each Beastclans entry to have as much information about each Beastclan as a player would get with a new species of dragon, and conflict with the dragons will not be the central focus.
When we add a Beastclans Encyclopedia entry, we will also be including a new illustration, new familiars, and a scene from their territory.
We will look into having new Beastclans shopkeepers in the future, so that players can have ways before Adventure Mode to positively interact with the Beastclans.
Beastclans will also remain on the Dominance board. They present a non-player controlled faction, they are a force unto themselves, and they serve a necessary gameplay function.
Thank you to everyone who reached out to us with your concerns regarding Beastclans on the Rise. We appreciate you, your time, and your effort.
With this in mind, we’d like to (re)introduce everyone to the Great Flock: The Harpies of Sornieth!
Revised Harpy Lore:
The revised harpy lore is now available to read in the encyclopedia here!
In addition, we have added new harpy familiars that feature the everyday lives of harpies, and a new scene depicting a harpy city. These items will be stocking in the treasure marketplace, and also have a chance to drop from iron & gilded chests and Pinkerton's Pile. The treasure marketplace stock has been increased for one week, after which time these new familiars and the scene will stock at the same rate as other familiars and scenes.
Last edited on Dec 14, 2022 11:23:59 by Undel
