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Mod John A

Mod John A

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Mock Turtle:

1) Do you plan on making Dissy and Zenevivia have any more quest adventures together with us?

2) Will Zanik be out adventuring alongside us in the near future?

3) Will the death of important NPCs (e.g. in While Guthix Sleeps) be something we might encounter again in the future?

--

1) I think Ash has answered that :)

2) Probably not. I'd love to write more Zanik stuff, but her storyline is finished there are lots of other characters we want to use (e.g the Signature Heroes).

3) Possibly, but we don't want to over-use this device.

23-Jul-2010 21:54:52

Mod John A

Mod John A

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Whisker:

1. Why does/did the cartman who brings you to shilo village have horses? (horses are mentioned if you travel with him without using the right click option)

2. Will we ever be able to move our rooms in our poh?

3. Why can we only have one of each of the Fist of Guthix gloves?

4. Why did you take away the QuickChat option to say the amount of exp needed to level up? Will it ever come back?

5. Do you think there is a macro problem, especially at chins? If so what are you doing about it?

6. Why do dragonslayer gloves give no range/mage bonuses?

7. Will half dung exp for lvl 90+ players on f2p be changed? Especially since members can now finish dungeons faster with new rings?

8. What is your opinion on "We pay we say" and other ideas of p2p being better than f2p?

9. What will you do about the cost of magic?

10. Are there any plans for group quest/group quest bosses?

11. Will you consider making a way for ex-mems to easily find their f2p items to clean out their bank?

12. What are you doing about ex-mems who cannot dungeoneer because of not being able to deposit items?

13. Why does autocast not automatically turn off when the weapon is switched and runes are no longer available to cast that spell?

14. Any plans for an update to party room to reduce lag or allow laggy people to get balloons?

15. Will you do anything about team stacking/imbalance in soul wars?

16. Can you let us un-buy aquanites from kuradal? No refund is fine but having to waste another ban slot is annoying.

17. Why do free players not get colored boots?

---

I'm afraid I can't answer most of these, since they're outside Ash's and my areas of expertise.

1) Yeah, we haven't really been consistent about whether horses don't exist in RS, or whether they're there somewhere but you never get to see them. I will leave it up to you to decide.

23-Jul-2010 21:54:54 - Last edited on 23-Jul-2010 22:00:08 by Mod John A

Mod Ash

Mod Ash

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
In Profanity:
"Is there any plans for the future for high level monsters with unique drops such as Dragon claws, hilts and God armour..."

While I don't know what's planned, I'd say it's a dead certainty that we'll add more high-level boss encounters in future. People seem to be speculating more and more about a certain door in the GWD, and I look forward to seeing what we decide to put in it.

23-Jul-2010 21:55:33

Mod Ash

Mod Ash

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Quantum Bean: "Will we ever be seeing the WOM in action again?"

See some of my previous answers :-)

Mr Schuester: "Mod Ash, what projects are you currently working on?"

See my previous post about a player design screen.

23-Jul-2010 21:56:52

Mod Ash

Mod Ash

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Dinstruction:
"How do you think your strategy of not hyping Dungeoneering turned out, and will you use it again for the next skill?"

I think it worked better than what got done to Summoning, where the tension was built up for months in advance, but that's just my 5 cents. The marketing guys will make the call on how to proceed next time we're releasing something like that. I must admit that I steer clear of publicity questions.

Mind you, I loved the video trailer for the Void Knight quest. I'd have liked one of those for Love Story.

23-Jul-2010 22:00:07

Mod John A

Mod John A

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
98penguin1:


I'm uncertain if you can answer my question, but I've put alot of faith into Jagex and it's Moderators. Can you tell us players anything about Menaphos? Here is a short list of what questions I have:

1. Will it ever be unlocked, in the distant or near future? (If so, please say which if possible)

2. Will the next desert quest take place in this secretive city?

3. There is an iron gate, next to Menaphos, which is very out of place and appears to be from Draynor or from anything east of the River Salve. If possible, can you explain this odd, misplaced item?

---

1) I hope it'll be unlocked someday, but I don't think it's in the near future, sorry.

2) Who knows?

3) I don't actually know and it's possible I'm wrong, but it's probably just one of those things that look a bit odd but don't really mean anything. Sorry.

23-Jul-2010 22:02:29

Mod John A

Mod John A

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Polerlord

1) What sort of stages does a quest maker go through in order to make a quest?
2) How do you come up with the ideas for quests?
3) How long does it normally take for a quest to be released from the day it was originally thought of?

---

1) I did a series of dev blogs on the last dwarf quest which used that as an example of the quest-development process, so see that if you want more detail, but in a nutshell the process is:

- Mod Mark tells us the basic requirements of the quest, e.g. where in the world it'll take place, roughly how long it'll be, roughly what the level requirements are, any other particular things we need.
- I go away and brainstorm and pull out my hair and scribble things on post-it notes until I have an idea that I like.
- I show the idea to Mod Mark, and hope he likes it, otherwise I have to go and make another one.
- I develop the idea into a design brief, which explains in detail how the quest works.
- I write the code and in-game text for the quest, while the graphics people make the graphics and the audio people make the sound and music.
- QA checks it and we iron out the bugs.
- We release it!

2) I get ideas from all sorts of places: other games, books, films and TV, sometimes even music, or even things that have happened in my own life. Often I couldn't say where my ideas come from.

3) It varies by the size of quest and whether the developer has other responsibilities, but it's a number of months.

23-Jul-2010 22:08:07

Mod Ash

Mod Ash

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Whisker: "I've compiled a list of questions many players or myself want to know the answers to."

Woah, that's a lot.

"1. Why does/did the cartman who brings you to shilo village have horses? (horses are mentioned if you travel with him without using the right click option)"

The text refers to "urging the horses on". That could just be someone's poetic expression for putting a lot of effort into it. Maybe the developer was hoping you'd imagine horses even though he hadn't got any graphics for them. It's not a teaser for horses, as people often seem to think!

"Please, when answering these questions, don't just put 'that's not in our plans right now.' But instead, talk about why not and what you think about it."

For what it's worth, there are gazillions of things we could be doing at any moment, and many of them would be extremely popular but just won't happen because we were doing something else instead. Sometimes it's about which one got into development before a better idea came along, sometimes a job would involve getting Game Engine and Graphics to do lots of work too, etc. So when I say we've no plans to do something, I'm not trying to fob you off; it's generally the most honest answer that I can give.

"4. Why did you take away the QuickChat option to say the amount of exp needed to level up? Will it ever come back?"

It was originally meant to say how much XP you needed for your next level. Except it didn't give the right numbers, and the game engine team was unable to help us make it work.

Next it got changed to say "The total XP from this level to the next level is..." but people kept being confused by why we had a phrase for that, and they thought it was supposed to be something else. Ultimately we just got rid of it because it seemed simpler that way. It could certainly come back if there were a major demand for it.

"10. Are there any plans for group quest/group quest bosses?"

Quests often appeal to the more solitary players, and people who don't have time for clan-activities and I would hate to see us alienate them with a quest they couldn't do.

"13. Why does autocast not automatically turn off when the weapon is switched and runes are no longer available to cast that spell?"

Probably 'cos whoever implemented it didn't think of that, or ran into a technical problem with detecting that you didn't have enough runes for the selected spell at the time when you switch weapons. I'd be willing to take a look at changing it like you describe, if that'd be popular.

23-Jul-2010 22:09:28

Mod Ash

Mod Ash

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Polerlord:
"2) How do you come up with the ideas for quests?"

I think John's handled the other questions...

I start with a basic concept. Such as "Team up with the WOM to defeat some foe who hates you personally for doing quests", or "Use the WOM to save a place from attacking monsters" (Swan Song).

From that, the rest just flows fairly quickly. Usually I'll end up trying to think of reasons to require various skills too.

My Arm's Big Adventure was different in that Mod Mark asked me to write a quest where you teach a troll to farm, and "how about a cutscene where he goes to that village and smashes it up to get goutweed?" Beyond that, my job was to just flesh out the story and characters (including deciding to use an assistant troll called My Arm) and write funny chat.

23-Jul-2010 22:13:44

Mod John A

Mod John A

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user
Memoroid:

1) - How do you get the ideas? Personally, my ideas just pop into my head, so I write them down, and when I get enough of these ideas, I write a quest. How do you work?

2) - Are you planning on any Dungeoneering quests? For I am very interested into the Dungeoneering storyline.

3) - How does it feel to have the power to affect on the RuneScape storyline?

4) - I've heard that you are going to continue the dwarf series and more. Are these storylines nearby to the end?

5) - Can you add me so we could make quests together? :D

6) - What are the most successful projects you had in your opinion? Or your favorites?

7) - I'm currently writing a three-part quest series about the Barrows Brothers. It tells about how you travel in the past and see the stories of Fall of Six & Crumbling Tome with your eyes. It also tells more about Zaros and has many connections with existing quests, such like Temple at Senntisten. The most tricky part is that I can't change the history of RuneScape so I'm only using the existing material. This means for example that the upcoming quest - the Ritual of Mahjarrat could greatly affect on my quests since Sliske would make an appearance there. Can you give me any tips?

---

1) I answered that in my last post. Basically: all over the place.

2) I'm afraid I can't say whether we're planning any Dungeoneering quests.

3) It feels pretty good actually! Although it's not like I can do whatever I like; Mod Mark will keep an eye on whatever we're writing to make sure the whole universe goes in a consistent direction. (I wasn't allowed to add spaceships :( ).

4) The plan is for there to be two more dwarf quests: the one I'm writing at the moment, and then one more after that.

5) Sorry, I can't let anyone else in on my secret quest-writing technique! :P

6) My favourite project that I've worked on is The Chosen Commander .

7) Honestly, do whatever you like. If you want to deviate from the established game-world or make up new details for the sake of your story then go for it. Certainly don't worry about being consistent with stuff we haven't released yet, or you'd never be able to write anything. You might as well just write whatever you like and have fun.

23-Jul-2010 22:15:24

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