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Oct

2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I should update my top quests here.

For one thing, I can say that Dimension of Disaster is definitely my favorite quest overall. That one blew me away completely.

One Piercing Note and Broken Home are up there as well...

Branches of Darkmeyer and Lord of Vampyrium+River of Blood are also up there (maybe I shouldn't be thinking of those last two together, but they are).

The World Wakes is still there too...

While Guthix Sleeps and Ritual of the Mahjarrat are also up there , though they didn't have as much of the emotional "this is great" reaction from me like many of the above did, they were more of me looking at them from an 'objective" sense of what a "Quest" should be, and saying they fit that (Did that make any sense? I don't think so)

Dragon Slayer and Death of Chivalry are notable to me as great examples of Free to Play quests specifically.

Still love the puzzles in the entire Elemental Workshop (with 3 and 4 being most notable) series, as well as Mourning Ends II

As a side note, It's not at all near the top of a quest list for me, but I have a fond memory of doing the Eagle's peak quest puzzle....might have been the first real quest puzzle that I figured out all on my own and that I remember specifically working out (as opposed to pulling a bunch of random levers till something worked in Earnest the Chicken)

Birthright of the Dwarves (and the entire Dwarf series) is an interesting one for me. I wasn't particularly wowed by them like I was in the quests I mentioned above. they were ok, but nothing very special....
But I was much more wowed by reading Rondstat's review of them, and by his review and thinking of them in that sense - It's really weird.

Void series, especially The Void Stares back resonates with me for some reason...possibly because the core theme of the series is one I tend to empathize with/think about/identify with a lot...

04-May-2016 15:33:00

Sep

2010

Lord Drakan

Posts: 7,043 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Half Centaur said :
Chaos Lupus said :
Lord Drakan said :
Right - River of Blood anyone?

Definitely not for me. It's not even in my top three quests of the Myreque series. It was one of the most disappointing quests I've played. Not terrible, but not nearly as good as it should have been.

Really?

I quite liked it. Not as much as LoV of Bod, but it was still very good.
I enjoyed it much more than TLoV and overall think it's a great quest but very incomplete. I.e. should've had a few months more time. Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire. OSRS: POH ideas & RS3 minigames & achievement ideas !

Perhaps you're half right; perhaps we can't win. But we can fight.

— Zanik

04-May-2016 15:53:51

Rondstat

Posts: 2,770 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

So, River of Blood. Let's do what we do. This might get kinda long.

I almost feel like I can't fairly review the Myreque Finale, because it's not complete. We were not given the whole quest - it is missing its third act.

Note, I am not saying that the quest should have had a third act, or that the denoument was disappointing (though those are both, to a certain extent, true). I am saying that this quest was conceived, laid out, and written with a third, final act , which was sliced out with the edge of a rusty tin can as RoB sunk into development. It is abundantly clear, and so much is set up - the villains, the early conspirator reveal, vamp Seergaze, the vyre alliance, among MANY others - to support a final major sequence that has our Varrock/Myreque forces allied with the vyres against a common foe. Time and budget constraints led to this being cut out, and being replaced with some highly expositional dialogue and some very unsatisfying returns.

A simple look at the structure bears this out. We take the previous three quests. tLoV establishes very early on that the goal is to kill Drakan, and though the quest primarily deals with survival, the ****** is still the final battle. Same with Branches, a quest dealing with infiltrating vyre society holds its initially stated goal - defeating Vanstrom - as ******. Or even Legacy, in a player-driven quest, maintains creation of the flail as its high point.

In River of Blood, its central conceit the showdown between Misthalin and Morytania, the ****** of the action is - a boss fight against a Wyrd. A fight tuned to be far more forgiving than Vanstrom or Drakan. The narrative apex is a long, uninterrupted string of conversation between our allies and Vanescula, where her forces conveniently abandon her and everything is neatly tied up.

A tense, static exchange of dialogue is what the whole series boils down to?

07-May-2016 20:40:24

Chaos Lupus

Posts: 9,633 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Half Centaur said :
Chaos Lupus said :
Lord Drakan said :
Right - River of Blood anyone?

Definitely not for me. It's not even in my top three quests of the Myreque series. It was one of the most disappointing quests I've played. Not terrible, but not nearly as good as it should have been.

Really?

I quite liked it. Not as much as LoV of Bod, but it was still very good.

It wasn't a bad quest, but it was a poor finale and extremely disappointing. They ruined wyrds, Safalaan's sacrifice is now meaningless, the werewolves claimed independence way too easily (could be corrected in a werewolf series), the splinter group and werewolves crossing the Salve were completely unimportant, Ivan didn't do anything except wave his hands around, the end was far too optimistic and didn't suit the tone of the series, Lowerniel's death wasn't treated like a big deal at all, and there was no actual battle.

The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

07-May-2016 21:19:42 - Last edited on 07-May-2016 21:20:55 by Chaos Lupus

Rondstat

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Here are the three 'acts' of this story, as I believe they were scripted.

Act I: Preparing for Vanescula's descent on Paterdomus. This act is permeated with dread and anticipation, and establishes us as the underdog against an overwhelming foe. It is meant to introduce the idea that the action necessary to repel evil means assuming some of that evil oneself - hearkening back to the moral peril themes of Branches - and we see this reflected in both our actions (rendering enemy soldiers into mindless beasts), and in the wyrd, one who's gone too far into evil in the hope for good.

The major reveals for this act are the fate of Ivandis (implied to be the Paterdomus coffin), and the reach of the separatists - responsible for werewolves crossing the Salve, the merc protocol, aiding both vyres and Myreque, etc, in their quest for full-out war.

Act II: Efaritay's defense against vyres. This act is themed around hope - not the false hope of tLoV, but true hope borne of ingenuity and hard decisions - hope to recover Safalaan, Sarius's hope for the fate of her father, hope to rescue all of the turned humans, hope for a lasting freedom for Meiyerditch. These are all big concept issues, particularly the last two, but they're introduced in a way that makes sense and respects both the reveals and the holes left in prior quests, filling them together in a way that makes it seem to interlock more like a puzzle than like an obfuscating coat of paint. It is more self-driven and exploration based, meant to evoke some of the feel of the Tytn quests.

The key reveal is the nature of Daeyalt and its role in haemalchemy.

07-May-2016 21:23:30

Rondstat

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Act III: The battle on the Salve. This is what the quest was supposed to boil down to, and was compressed into a few lines of dialogue. In this act, Vanescula and the player prepare to negotiate, before Raispher declares that he will not tolerate a peaceful solution, and reveals his role as leader of the separatists. Turncoats on both sides break with their ranks, together with a large contingent of werewolves, and vow warfare to draw their gods to Gielinor. Vyres and humans must work together to oppose this threat possibly against (or with the aid of) a vamp**ized Ivandis Seergaze. With the separatists neutralized due to cooperation, the vyres and humans realize they work far better as allies than enemies, and agree to rule Morytania cooperatively. In an otherwise bleak quest series, this act is themed around triumph, and the consolidation of both light and darkness - balance.

There is a huge amount of setup in the first act. When I read the separatist book, I was intrigued and impressed by the direction I thought the developers had chosen to go. Rather than reduce Vanescula to a straightforward villain, we would uncover the separatists as manipulative puppetmasters in both sides' conflicts, and face them as our final big bad. A creative and satisfying idea, I thought.

Instead, it's never mentioned again. We ultimately 'win' by being the bad guy, through gross and dishonourable means. When we aren't robbing our enemies of all will and reason, turning them feral, we are stripping them of their vampyrism altogether, a forced voluntary extinction, something which Vanescula might, reasonably, interpret as a form of genocide. We turn her forces against her, humiliate her, back her into a corner, and then, at the moment where she's full of more rage and betrayal than anywhere else in the quest series, offer negotiation. We drive her to hatred, not cooperation, and without some crucible that pushes us together, we've no reason to trust her.

07-May-2016 21:39:05

Rondstat

Posts: 2,770 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I think the visuals support this as well.

Now, the pan over the human and vyre armies is VERY impressive. There have been assembled armies in quests in the past, but this is the first time we've got to see the sort of scale that matches npc descriptions, and I absolutely loved it. However, it's used very strangely, appearing towards the beginning of the quest, immediately disappearing after a rather minor scuffle, then appearing again at the narrative ****** - an event which involves no combat, puzzles, or even player control. This cheapens the effect, and robs a VERY impressive visual of the impact it was supposed to have.

I believe this is because it was intended to be the major set piece that thrusts us into the Third Act. We defeat and restore Safalaan, he aids us in negotiating with Vanescula, the separatists reveal themselves. With the final act cut out, the developers realized that they had no action to accompany the army reveal, so introduced the weird scuffle at the top to make it seem more relevant. It would have been far better realized as the backdrop for a single long, climactic sequence than a couple of short, less relevant sequences.

Just look at the overuse of tableaus. There are a few fixed camera angles that get recycled in this quest, but the worst by far is player, Ivan, and Vanescula on Paterdomus bridge. High, awkward angle, no room for movement, and it comes up four separate times. Again, I think this was probably meant for a single encounter/sequence (which would be perfectly fine), but extended as they had to break up their use of the mega-army.

I believe the missing act is also responsible for Raispher's change in character. He has always been depicted as a very capable agent with his own ineffable agenda. Here he is comic relief, an impotent coward, and no one reacts to him save the player. This change perhaps became necessary when he could no longer be revealed as mastermind.

07-May-2016 21:55:50

Rondstat

Posts: 2,770 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I had been expecting this quest in October, and honestly, I think the devs probably should have waited.

Now, there are some aspects of continuity that are carried over between tLoV and RoB that I absolutely adore, and I don't think could have been accomplished had the players and developers not both been so recently familiar with the material. One that particularly stands out is the refinery/vamp**ization assembly. In tLoV, we saw a tonne of ominous machinery, torture implements, blood-powered devices without a clear function that mainly served to heighten the claustrophobic atmosphere of Castle Drakan.

Here, we see those same implements - iron maidens, tubes and tanks - but in motion, changing their significance from one of aural fear to one of visceral horror, writhing bodies baptized in blood and reborn as monsters. It lends an existing property much different, greater significance, and I always love seeing that done.

The hallucination sequence also heavily relies on our familiarity with Drakan's hunt through the castle, and is probably the most brilliant part of this quest. I loved the camera effects - the pulsing, the high contrast black and white, the colour/light fades - and so many little details - flickering objects, sudden snatches of dialogue, switching portraits - truly put you in a hallucinatory frame of mind. You feel unsettled, paranoid - my heart skipped a beat and I frantically spun my camera around when the window broke, only to find nothing there. The disembodied heads truly highlight our failures, and it feels like you wade through the darkness to reach the light.

But, there was quite a bit that spoke not only of a lack of resources/dev time, but a lack of knowledge of how limited these resources would be. Some reveals are explored in depth, while some are introduced then forgotten. There are instances of placeholder dialogue surviving to live - particularly in the refinery mood puzzle ("I'm remorseful&quot

.

07-May-2016 22:12:22

Rondstat

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I suppose the most disappointing aspect of this is how much was introduced without paying off. The revelation of Mauritys as still-living, key to both vamp**ization and its undoing. The far-reaching actions of the separatists. Seergaze's vampyrism, or the fate of the imprisoned monsters near the Salve. The ultimate fate of Ascertes (were we meant to infer that the Burgh de Rott Crypt and bloody journal were his? Was he Vanstrom?).

That said, I was quite impressed how certain loose ends were tied up very quickly while still feeling organic, unforced. The monks'/separatists role in the Temple, the separation of Seergaze from his brothers. Sure, some of it was a bit contrived, but no more than anyone who's ever played a video game is able to gloss over as willing suspension of disbelief.

There was a bit of lore reframing in this quest. Most of it I'd say was effective.

-7 priestly warriors as purely Saradominist, Temple Knight-affiliated expedition. Nowhere has it been explicitly said any of the warriors were Guthixian, and this provides a good background for their willingness to stretch morals, while removing an unneeded layer of complexity that would require far more effort to explain.

-Efaritay's Castle in the south. This maintains the thematic purity and continuity of vyre architecture, which is designed to show visible evolution, makes the otherwise odd location of the Icyene graveyard more sensible in retrospect, and even alludes to some more obscure lore - the tale of Drakan rising from beneath her castle.

-Daeyalt refinery. The smaller scale works, with previous 'city' descriptions all coming from delirious, malnourished workers motivated by fear. Its ingame incarnation tones down the awe while heightening the horror.

-and other, more minor points, that I think can mostly be glossed over with how tenuous a grasp Morytania's historians have had.

07-May-2016 22:25:47

Rondstat

Posts: 2,770 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

But, this quest did have one of those huge, distracting lorefails that puzzles me so utterly, I'm not even sure how to respond.

Seergaze developed Guthix Balance with the help of a nature spirit AFTER the battle on the Salve that claimed the other priestly warriors.

What?

Why? How did msrs. Rowl*y and Stu come to this conclusion, that this would best serve the story, or even that Guthix Balance potions were a thing that needed explaining? When I read this, I thought it perhaps evidence that Drezel was right, it really was a fabrication, and we would later discover the truth. Perhaps that would have happened in the third act.

This quest pays a lot of attention to established lore, even more obscure aspects. Look at the dating used in the library puzzle, Efaritay's dialogue which gives credence to tall tales, priestly warrior appearance, etc.

Seergaze used Guthix Balance potion with his staff all through the priesly warrior's campaigns. This is something stated multiple times in game. The whole reason we even KNOW about the potion is because of how well-documented it was, in books and on the stone tablet. It makes no sense for it to only have been invented AFTER the time that history remembers as Seergaze's death. How could they have missed this?

It would be such a simple fix, too. "I had studied herblaw - a potion of balance was one of many weapons in my arsenal against darkness. But under her tutelage, for the first time I understood the spirituality of the druidic arts, the quest for balance in the world and within myself" One sentence like that would be enough to fix it. Though I know most Lorehounds have already played through, I REALLY hope that they would be willing to change this text, for the benefit of future players (and POH bookcases). We all make mistakes - the problem is when we don't admit and attempt to correct them.

07-May-2016 22:39:33 - Last edited on 07-May-2016 22:55:56 by Rondstat

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