I wonder about the graphics argument. The best quest this year, by far, was One of a Kind, and that used very few new environments. The new environments it did use were mostly cobbled together from existing models, but it didn't feel cheap or jarring because the story was constructed in such a way that these recycled models
made sense
.
A great quest makes us feel like adventurers, explorers, heroes. It doesn't take fancy graphics to do that. The first half of Missing Presumed Death
far
exceeded the second half, and that all took place in a tiny sliver of Silvarea.
I think it comes down to numbers. Mind-boggling as it may seem to the questing community, the majority of the playerbase does not actually like quests. They slog through them with a guide in one tab and the spacebar taped down. We questers and lorehounds are the biggest nerds in RS, we have the biggest investment in the story, and as such are also likely to be the most faithful.
As such, from a business perspective, they don't
need
to appease us. Updates that ease the constant grind towards 200m, updates that create bigger things to kill, and updates to the microtransactions that keep the lights on at Jagex are what will be the most lucrative, and quests are largely just an oversized, resource heavy oddity that is unique to this game. Somewhere in the past two years, somebody decided to stop treating quests as the game's biggest strength, and instead regard them as an awkward step child.
Now all our lore comes in the form of books, add ons to skills and existing rewards that carry the story - gifts from the developers who try to advance the tale of Gielinor, seemingly not because of, but in spite of their superiors.
15-Nov-2014 08:46:31