#old sso

[kit-catrock]

[witch-of-weaversheight]

A little something to bring nostalgia and transport you back into the crappy but somehow magical graphics of old Jorvik

(P.S. am not hating on the game as it is nowadays with this)

Edit: y’all are so sweet I love you

[earthyleo]

Sometimes im just doing random chores around the house and I naturally hum the old sso soundtrack, but it has been years since i haven't heard it. Yesterday I decided to listen to the entire old sso soundtrack playlist and oh boy... the silverglade theme were always my favorite, i almost cried when I heard it again, it's so whimsical and beautiful.

I literally don't care about the discussions around SSO nowadays ("the game is dying", "it lost its magic", "its cashgrab", you guys know the drill), but you just gotta be dead inside if you listen to this soundtrack and don't feel anything about it.

[salty-medley]

SSO Classic- your opinion?

Final result and it'll be two fashion posts!

[sinekq]

Hors..

[silverkit]

the girls

i wanted to combine the designs of all the soul riders. including the concept arts (and star academy for lisa). im always imagining them as something between the designs of starshine and sso, so i thought i'd do something with it for once

i wrote an essay in the tags so sorry about that lol

part 2

[teunip]

Alex & Tin-Can plotting to blow up a car or two ⚡⚡

[jucejjdu]

Katja from sso.

(I love her)

[dorianwolfforest]

NOT THE “LIKED BY AUTHOR” T-T

[kit-catrock]

YOU WONT FUCKING BELIEVE WHAT I JUST FOUND AT THE THRIFT STORE

[centeris2]

I think SSO had an unreleased gen 2 hanoverian that is now available to purchase at Marley's

Since they're next to retire I went to look and buy them on clearance and uh

Who are you. You're not in the database. You're not in any sso news articles on the Hanoverians.

(It's not the foal app hano, that one is a darker bay with four white stockings)

My theory is because the hanos were released in the "3 coats 3 different breed" batches this one slipped through the cracks, and when "all" Hanos got moved to Marleys they all became available.

It's possible I'm forgetting this one as a coat that NPCs rode around on, I vaguely recall npcs being on horses on unreleased coats before, but I never paid much attention to it or committed it to memory. But still, I can't find any evidence in star stable articles that this horse was released, even if it was visible in game before as an NPC's horse

Or maybe I'm crazy

[highhorsegirl]

Dark Rider reimagining... yo... no not those guys this is uhhh it's uh *looks at notes* Katya Samirah and Jaysika... CRAZY work...

[aryamistwood]

Gardener's Flowers- Valedale Championship

Today's "Deliver the flowers to the Championship" daily from the Gardener's is for the Valedale Championship. I haven't done the gardener's dailies in a while, and knowing the Valedale Champ was changed a little less than a year ago, I was curious if this quest was updated with it. It wasn't lol. They still have you put the flowers where the old Championship was, but it does frame it nicely still. I don't know why seeing it this way made me a little emotional??? Like this is an area we all used to gather at multiple times a day and now there is no reason to go up there. It must be so lonely. The big tree stands where the old board was like a monument to the past and I think that's beautiful.

[olisephaa]

The leaks abt the new Viktor VGU confirming they're replacing all of his old skins and designs with the Arcane version is.... So so disappointing. I want to cry in frustration. Old Lore Viktor is self made, he and Jayce clashed over a difference in morals that were still understandable and grounded in reality. Viktor left, created his new body HIMSELF and used his ingenuity to help the people of Zaun. To replace all that with a sleek iPad version where he just gets possessed by an infected magic orb and ascends to godhood or whatever is SUCH a let down.

[jorvik-chronicles]

🔮 ⤷ Eldritch Awakenings | Main Quest Review

Plot spoilers for the main quest below the cut. Avert your eyes!

Plot: I think the opening to the quest was one of the best we've had in a while. It wasn't just going up to one of the characters and them remembering your existence since they've been stagnant in Fort Maria for two years. Being alone for that first part was really quite cool, and I think reinforced MC's own individual part in this story, and not just as an accessory to the Soul Riders and the Druids. Taking us on a slow ride through MC's journey and growing responsibility as the fifth Soul Rider through mirages of important characters (istg when Elizabeth appeared, I audibly gasped) felt like a genuinely cool way of preparing us for what's ahead, and what MC's position actually means.

I'm not sure if it's ever been mentioned before, though I probably missed it, but I didn't know Aideen's Ascent is the place where Aideen first stepped on Jorvik? I thought that was a really cool place to have the beginning of this quest take place. To stand on the place where light first touched Jorvik, and then look out into the ocean during the vision scene and see the physical manifestation of darkness breaking loose? HELL YEAH. The imagery is *chefs kiss*.

After following Jessica through the portal and coming up into Guardian's Dale (after using various bits of magic from our Soul Rider training), all four Soul Riders are just sorta hanging there. I'll be honest, I kinda didn't like that bit...??? I completely get that they need to get MC to play a big part in this whole thing, but I don't think that necessarily means just handing the entirety of Jorvik's fate over to us whilst the other four just sit on the sidelines (but, hey, what's new?). They kept mentioning over and over throughout this quest that 'together we're unstoppable', but WE'RE VERY MUCH STOPPABLE IF YOU'RE UP THERE BABE. It would be really nice to get a bit of balance across the group, yknow?

But!! Before we can get them down (which apparently we could have done before everything went to shit), we're invited to touch the Light Ceremony Book. Y'know, the big book that's currently dangerously floating in a pool of dark magic? And then, uh, we just do? Well played, MC.

Queue: "Oh god, oh no!! This has all gone horribly wrong!! MC, I believe in you, you can get us down! And then we can help you!!"

But before I get too caught up in that, allow me to just touch on THE DEATH OF MR SANDS???

Now THIS caught me off guard. Whilst I expected that Sands' death would happen eventually (I would have assumed during the final great battle or something), I wasn't prepared for it to happen at this point in time. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about it! I think I've grown too attached to Sands as a character throughout the various games and the books, his history and his motives etc, and am kinda sad to see him go. I think it definitely poses an interesting relationship now, as we saw, between the Dark Riders and Darko, the former of which clearly does not want to work with the latter. Wonder how this dynamic will develop in the future?

Okay, so back to saving our besties.

Avoid the various Dark Rider magic, press E, repeat.

Okay got em down, all good.

Queue: "That was awesome MC!! Okay, here's the plan. ALL OF US will distract the Dark Riders whilst YOU AND YOU ALONE DEFEAT GARNOK!! Because together we're unstoppable!! You'll do so awesome!! We believe in you!!

So, okay. I understand that there is only so much they can do in terms of fight scenes and how MC plays a part in that, in terms of keeping it PG and actually playable in the realms of SSO's mechanics, but come on! You're telling me the Big Great Battle you advertised was just 30 seconds of running around in a circle pressing E? Basically dumbed down to "hit this thing!", "now hit this thing!", "one last time, hit this thing!", "OMG you did it!! Garnok's gone now :)"

Though, to be completely honest, another massive thing that shocked me was us having to destroy the Light Ceremony Book. Maybe I'm just too caught up in the lore of the novels (my beloveds), but it's clear that that thing is so valuable, and it's just like, gone now.

Not only that, as Darko mentioned, whilst we may have stopped Garnok from breaking through right now, we've also just destroyed the one way to stop him from doing it again. Which is um, uh oh.

So, Darko wants a fight (and I fully expected us to start fighting him again) BUT no :/ everyone's just too tired to do anything else right now, and so the Dark Riders (after bitching about Darko briefly) ride off into a portal, and we ride off into the sunset for a lil cosy campfire.

And I liked the campfire scene. It very much reminded me of the Saving Anne quest :( Like, they all just want their normal lives back, and yet they're fully aware that they will never fully achieve that? That just :(( I love them really, I promise.

Visuals:

There's no doubt about it that the team went to town on how this quest looked. There were so many new animations, visual effects, and just the general atmosphere felt really nice.

In terms of character animations, I believe we got some new ones for the Dark Riders! The way Katja and Jessica glanced at each other was SUCH a fun little addition to it. No-one was just stood there like "🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️"

The animation for when Darko drags Mr Sands into the portal?? HELLO?? PERFECTION. Bro literally called him frail and decrepit and proceeded to grab him by his collar and throw him into a death hole.

The way the Soul Riders and their horses were being held up in those orb things looked genuinely quite cool. Also very reminiscent of Anne in Pandoria :( We also got another instalment of Shocked Alex™, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I could be wrong here, but the vision scene right at the beginning looked illustrated? And it looked SO good, I mean, that whole scene was just perfectly executed. The way the effects distorted everything and how we just watch as Garnok breaks out of the water?? MMM.

I would also like to acknowledge the SOUND EFFECTS?? There was a particular moment where Linda screams, and that took me by surprise icl.

Overall:

Mixed opinions for me, really. There are so many elements of the quest that I really liked, and some not so much. I will be stalking ssoblr for the next few days, though, to read people's thoughts, because I get so excited about what people think when main quests come out >:))

Also this post is a reference when I will have inevitably forgotten that any of this happened by the time the next quest comes around in 2027

[sometimesanequine]