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Will RS ever be Scaled Up?

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Scheneighnay

Scheneighnay

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Sooner or later, Jagex will realize there's no room for new content.
They should have realized that a few years ago already. The game is extremely cramped.

The longer they wait, the more content they'll have to move, and the more difficult it will be.

Best to do it ASAP Pro Patria Vigilans
Non Sibi Sed Omnibus

05-Jul-2016 22:44:39 - Last edited on 05-Jul-2016 22:51:20 by Scheneighnay

Ak-Xo

Ak-Xo

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Full support.

With so many varying pieces of content in such close proximity to one another, with only a handful of teleports actually considered to be useful, and with the future addition of mounts, scaling up the map becomes almost a necessity.

I would gladly wait any length of time without any significant updates if this were in the works.

05-Jul-2016 23:28:21

Lego Miester
Nov Member 2023

Lego Miester

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Some actually realistic things they could do though:

-since they seem intent on cramming so much into the f2p map, give f2p more map. Blocking them off somewhere around Seer's Village and Ardougne would give them a lot more open space to work with with relatively little content. (So they'd get, for example, the ranging guild, Fishing Contest, Catherby, maybe a bit of the King Arthur questline, but they wouldn't get Ardougne, The Legend's Guild, The Fishing Guild, or Relleka.

-graphically update the older areas so they look better with NXT, especially mountains and regions that were previously invisible due to render distance like the terrain around Prifddinas

-utilize the Eastern Lands and new worlds for new content instead of trying to cram it in the already choked overworld

-nerf lodestones to maybe 7 total worldwide. Do we really need ones for Burthorpe, Taverley, and Falador all within 10 seconds walking distance of each other?

Ak-Xo said :

I would gladly wait any length of time without any significant updates if this were in the works.

You'd be willing to wait, let's do a ballpark estimate, 2 years of no updates for this? Stretch goal of 3 years if this includes graphically overhauling the old areas. Headcanon Haven, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
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05-Jul-2016 23:59:15 - Last edited on 06-Jul-2016 00:00:31 by Lego Miester

Jon Stryder

Jon Stryder

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Lego Miester said :
Some actually realistic things they could do though: Without a full and detailed working knowledge of Jagex and the Runescape code, I'll take the 'actually realistic' statement with a pinch of salt.

Lego Miester said :
-since they seem intent on cramming so much into the f2p map, give f2p more map. (That's what we're trying to do.) Lego Miester said :
Blocking them off somewhere around Seer's Village and Ardougne would give them a lot more open space to work with with relatively little content. Oh, you mean give them access to more of the member's map, like they did with Burthorpe and Taverly. To be honest, this is probably going to cause no end of problems with regards to balancing and restricting access to members content from non-members.

And what do you actually gain in terms of map space? You get White Wolf Mountain, next to Catherby, next to Camelot, next to Sinclair Mansion, next to Sears Village, next to the Flax Field, etc. The amount of undeveloped forest area that can be utilised for future content is still relatively small, and will soon fill up and become just as bad as the existing F2P area (just look at Burthorpe and Taverly as they are now.) But at least you are trying, and have suggested something new and constructive, so I'll give you points for that.

Lego Miester said :
-graphically update the older areas so they look better with NXT, especially mountains and regions that were previously invisible due to render distance like the terrain around Prifddinas. This will probably happen over time anyway. But if areas are just graphically reworked, without new content being added, players complain about 'no-update weeks' - hence the need for things like the Invasion of Falador, or the forthcoming Raid on Port Sarim as an excuse to slip in the rework. –= MEGA Construction Rework =–

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06-Jul-2016 18:16:37

Jon Stryder

Jon Stryder

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cont.

I'd also be interested to know how you plan on reworking a mountain, so that it looks more mountainous, without increasing it's footprint.

Lego Miester said :
-utilize the Eastern Lands and new worlds for new content instead of trying to cram it in the already choked overworld.
This is the alternative, but it also isn't without its drawbacks.

The first is balancing. Players will tend to go to the places that benefit them the most, whether that's the most profitable or quickest xp or best source of resources. So any new area needs features to attract players and keep them coming back otherwise it will just end up as dead content as players revert to the more convenient locations they already know. If however the new features are attractive, and players do keep returning, those players have to have come from somewhere. So some other area will lose popularity as a result, and that area is then at risk of becoming 'dead'.

This leads to the second drawback, dividing the community. If all the resources, features and attractions are in the same place, then players have a chance to meet, interact and socialise. But all the time you are creating new areas and hiding them in a dungeon, or through a portal, or on another distant continent, then it contributes to the further fragmentation of the community. It is not just the resources that are being hidden, but the players using them too.

You will probably argue that this has already happened, and you are probably right. But that is no reason to continue on this same path and make a bad situation even worse. –= MEGA Construction Rework =–

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06-Jul-2016 18:17:06 - Last edited on 06-Jul-2016 18:23:06 by Jon Stryder

Jon Stryder

Jon Stryder

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cont.

Lego Miester said :
-nerf lodestones to maybe 7 total worldwide. Do we really need ones for Burthorpe, Taverley, and Falador all within 10 seconds walking distance of each other? You really don't like lodestones do you. But what about other teleports? What about fairy rings? I don't see any calls to nerf those. So perhaps the problem here is that lodestones are too convenient, which is a little ironic given the arguments against resizing the world generally focus on the inconvenience the increased distances would create.

Lego Miester said :
You'd be willing to wait, let's do a ballpark estimate, 2 years of no updates for this? Stretch goal of 3 years if this includes graphically overhauling the old areas. I would love to know where you buy your crystal balls, as you seem to state this '2 years of no updates' with absolute certainly. I have no idea how long a project of this scale will take, but I find it highly unlikely that all other development work would simply stop while it is carried out. Resizing the world would predominantly require the involvement of the environmental artists, leaving many other Jagex employees still able to work on other unrelated updates. Some allowances would be made, sure. So for example you may find that updates during this time focus more on off-world locations to minimise the disruption, or updates that do not require large new areas to be created.

In the meantime, if your crystal ball happens to show you next week's Lotto numbers, I'd be grateful if you let me know that information. ;) –= MEGA Construction Rework =–

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06-Jul-2016 18:17:58 - Last edited on 06-Jul-2016 19:58:19 by Jon Stryder

Weird Tomboy

Weird Tomboy

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Having experience in programming I can confirm this is a colossal task.

Unless Runescape runs off an extremely unique and unusual engine, everything in the game that is set to a position (Like enemy spawn points, item locations or movement in cutscenes) is based off an x, y and z axis. Meaning if the landscape is moved, the coding will continue to spawn and move things in the original location inside the world, the code won't adapt to the new area and spawn things in the comparatively correct place.

So basically every surface oriented, none-instanced aspect of the game in the past 15 years potentially would need to be looked over and altered; so that everything spawned and moved in the proper new location instead of clinging to the old. That is if the game runs off a normal engine, it may not due to its age. So, while this may vastly improve the atmosphere in the game, it may cause modern triple A developer levels of glitch pandemics if something goes wrong.


Making the world big again and less cluttered would be great and make it look more professional now; but if it's as complicated as it might be it may not be worth it. The game is getting old, in what may possibly be its last few years I'd rather the developers focus on re-vamping skills and completing all the quest lines first. Tired of the promotions, dead, temporary and grind content? Support the Deadscape thread.
Runescape may be dying, but unless something is done; it will not die with dignity.

07-Jul-2016 23:50:52

Jon Stryder

Jon Stryder

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Weird Tomboy said :
Having experience in programming I can confirm this is a colossal task.

Unless Runescape runs off an extremely unique and unusual engine, everything in the game that is set to a position (Like enemy spawn points, item locations or movement in cutscenes) is based off an x, y and z axis. Meaning if the landscape is moved, the coding will continue to spawn and move things in the original location inside the world, the code won't adapt to the new area and spawn things in the comparatively correct place.
If the following conversation from a similar thread is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt it) then I'd say Runescape was built on an extremely unique and unusual engine, but not in a good way.

Original message details are unavailable.
Original message details are unavailable.
There are a few old streams that devote some real time to both modeling and world design. While the devs try to speak diplomatically and skirt around the issue, there are some great moments that show off just how archaic their internal programs are. A lot of items are linked to discrete tiles, some to other elements in the landscape. Some buildings are modeled right into the terrain, some are props, some are untrackable items. It's an insane system, and expanding the world means rebuilding EVERYTHING.

If they're system is THAT old it might be worth it to upscale anyway so they have a much better base to build content on. If they can keep NPC logic and quest trigger logic than they can remove a huge part of making a new map.
As Archmage MC said, if the system is that old, then it would be a worthwhile exercise to go through the whole map anyway just to fix and standardize all these issues. The efficiency savings when making future updates would justify it alone. And while this is being done, maybe areas can be group together with positions defined relative to a single insertion point. –= MEGA Construction Rework =–

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08-Jul-2016 15:31:13 - Last edited on 08-Jul-2016 15:31:26 by Jon Stryder

Deihex Bane

Deihex Bane

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The best they can do right now is to start with some areas (Falador for example).

Make the target area an instance and build it up (so they wont have to scale everything around Falador) and work slowly towards scaling up everything.

09-Jul-2016 08:57:30 - Last edited on 09-Jul-2016 08:59:51 by Deihex Bane

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