RuneScape Forum Archive | ‡ The best quest ever? Vote! ‡

Sep

2010

Lord Drakan

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

Rondstat said :
Oh yeah, that's a tough one. If you don't mind an oblique and utterly non-specific hint~

The clues are both far more literal and far more mundane than you'd probably expect. Think of the most boring way those two things could be true.

Thank you, after so much time an utterly non-specific hint might be the best way forward. I've been thinking both literally and metaphorically about the hint, but I guess I'm overcomplicating things, as usual. 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

26-Oct-2016 08:09:53

Dec

2014

The Lamppole

Posts: 1,186 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I adore The Fremmy Trials

30-Oct-2016 01:04:57

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thought I would write up my thoughts on Children of Mah, if that is OK.

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When it was announced The Watch would be working on Children of Mah, it is fair to say I had major concerns. The history of The Watch when it comes to quests has been extremely poor and their general attitude fails to inspire confidence.

They seem to prefer combat updates and I have no complaint with that. I disagree that there should be such a focus on combat but that is an problem with higher management’s focus.

My issues with The Watch doing the quest is the following

- They did not have any experience doing serious quests so not a huge fan when we get so few quests of them being used as experiments for people to train on

- When given lore content in the past, it has been given low priority by them e.g. in the Heart there is little lore or as a joke e.g. Beneath Cursed Tides was incredibly poor

- The Call of the Ancestors play through had Deg say “We did a quest about Goebies as we don’t like doing quests with characters with lots of history”. Their own words. Implies The Watch aren’t ideal for a delve into the Gods history.

- The fact all the teams before 2016 chose to at least two quests expect The Watch that chose to pick up none. Simple fact is people tend to produce better work of things they like. I would prefer people who like and enjoy quests to develop quests rather than quests being something handed off to people who were made to do it. Whilst I do not love the Myreque series, you can see Rowley’s dedication flowing out of it. I don’t see burning passion for the storyline or lore in Watch quest content.

03-Dec-2016 02:58:20

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The excuses given tended to be “trust us” which is another way of saying “We don’t have a good response to your complaints but shut up we are doing it anyway” or “Don’t worry, Osborne will babysit them” which again fails to convince me because why would I trust people who need babysitting to make good content? Strong quest developers don’t need babysitting; this practically admits this is not the ideal team for the job.

So it is fair to say I went into the quest less than enthusiastic. If they were the right people for the job, I wouldn’t have questioned it and I couldn’t have as Jagex would be able to answer with facts. Saying “trust us” means there is no evidence they are the best people for it so is an acknowledgment of quests are being treated as poorly. Six quests a year is bad enough and MMG admitted it wasn’t good enough. Now we get even less resources in these quests and it is given to whoever is free.

Their attitude on the Tuesday QA before realise also didn’t impress me. It seems The Watch have little idea why people thought they were a bad choice for the quest, they came across incredibly arrogant and I still don’t think they even understand why people like quest content.

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To briefly discuss the tie in event which was the Throne room excavation. This was pretty poor. The lore notes, which I believe were written by Mod Jack, were interesting and covered a range of topics so kudos on that. The gameplay however was extremely uninteresting and lacking. It was high click intensity, very repetitive and low experience. As someone who was interested in adding some variety to my agility training, it was incredibly tedious. I know it was targeting low levels but seemed poor for even then. I would encourage people just to do daily challenges and Guthixian caches.

03-Dec-2016 02:59:57

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The tie in events this year have been pretty poor. It is supposed to make good content from reusing assets being developed from the big updates but none have produced a good impact and in this case I would rather they just have added some challenges to the skills. This was poor, so poor that I personally would have rather not had this event and just left the throne room to the quest because this added nothing to November.

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As for the quest, generally it was fine. The main focus was on dialogue and discussions between the Mahjarrat about their history. Most of this seemed to go off without any problems, although there was the much criticised Enhraka was Kharsai’s attacker error that made it into release.

The best part of the quest was the betrayal memory where you could interact and inspect with other players. The bringing together of all the different characters of Zaros’s empire and seeing the much referenced event was nice.

There are two issues I have with this section. Firstly the discovering the clues section was extremely easy. I get why, so those who don’t care about the lore can easily progress but really it was far too simple and just didn’t make sense the iconic betrayal was done with obvious Zamorak symbols and such terrible attempts at sabotage. It took you out of the second age because if Zaros can be that easily fooled he doesn’t even see things in plain sight on the walls, the whole empire isn't a buyable story.

03-Dec-2016 03:01:15

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Secondly is the choice of why Kharsai sided with. This was awful. I can understand the intention of wanting to offer a choice between Zamorak and Zaros in the quest. But this was not it. This was us as Kharshai. You can write off players not asking all the dialogue options as making the quest quicker for non story invested players. But this choice is silly. This is something that happened, not to the player, to Kharshai. It should not have been a choice. At best, this will be ignored in the future. At worst this quest has harmed Kharshai as a character as it now makes little sense if we get his history when players could chose for him to publicly embrace Zamorak and the next writer has him on the Zarosian side during the God Wars or vice versa. It was a terrible place to add a irrelevant choice that added nothing to the quest. You can’t write in a diverging past - that does not make sense.

To discuss the gameplay of the quest, simply put - it was lacking. Even the biggest fans of this quest I have not seen a single one praise the gameplay. There are three sections I would classify as gameplay - collecting the memories, the lava surfing/ getting to the ritual site and the puzzle at the end. Collecting the memories was barely worth mentioning. I suppose many will appreciate it not being as long as Mahjarrat memories but seemed superficial and how it was seemed to be a forced in break just to get the player to do something. It should have been slightly longer or engaging to make it worthy to be a section of the quest.

The lava flow section did not work well. I am not that informed on the technical limitations of gaming so it may be down to the tick system but if it was, the puzzle should have been adjusted accordingly earlier. It was not a interactive experience, just click and the character takes too long so takes damage despite people doing it correctly. Overall this segment might have seemed like a good idea but in reality did not work.

03-Dec-2016 03:01:34

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The lava surfing section was accompanied by a fight Mushaps until a big one shows up and breaks the path so you can continue area. Again this was not well done. It felt tagged on, it felt copied and pasted so many times without variation just to add a gameplay section onto the quest and it wasn’t difficult. I get that Jagex struggles with making things actually difficult - often just adding a time limit, more hit points to a monster or a insta kill mechanic and saying it is difficult - but this quest is not a grandmaster standard. I’m aware of the grandmaster status comes from requirements excuse and it is that - an excuse I never bought before and don’t buy now. I do appreciate content being on the side of too simple over being tedious (Nomad’s Elegy, take a bow) but simply put, this quest was not grandmaster.

One of the great things about the original Fate of the Gods was how the gameplay enhanced the narrative. For example, the environment of Freneskae and the slayer monsters the Nihils and Mushap added to the story being told. Freneskae was not simply a gameplay obstacle to lengthen the quest - it was interesting, it was challenging and it subtlety boosted the story, letting players understand why the Mahjarrat left the planet. The Nihils also commented on Nex’s origin before we got to Zaros, allowing us to understand and visualise this creation. No one would have criticised Fate of the Gods for not giving details on Nex but Rowley used what would have been merely a fight to add to the narrative.

03-Dec-2016 03:02:10

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Children of Mah failed on this account. The gameplay sections felt like first draft section there just to break from the narrative. The Freneskae of Children of Mah did not have the atmosphere or danger of Fate of the Gods and because of this it is weaker. There is no sense of danger, the fact we are on an alien planet feels dull and consequently the narrative aside of the fallen mahjarrat on their way to Zemouregal’s birth doesn’t sell. I, someone awful at combat and in very basic gear, felt like it was a pushover so I wasn’t sold Mahjarrat would die there.

A lot of the quest suffered from this. There was little attempts to establish at atmosphere or stakes. It was almost like we were supposed like the characters because they previously appeared so no effort was put into investing the audience in this narrative. I had no reaction when Kharshai was kidnapped as no effort had been made to make me think he was in danger. With little effort make to hook the players, whilst information in the quest was interesting, it pails in comparison to other quests like Fate of the Gods, The Light Within ect. I am sure Children of Mah will be referenced in discussions but there is no shine or idea that stands clear as excellent.

To wrap up my thoughts on the gameplay, the end puzzle was fine. Again it suffers the quest problem of what feels like repeating one puzzle several times to get the money’s worth so to speak. It was nice there was a option for an easy mode. The puzzle was not hard but the third time was a little tedious on a trackpad due to the quick changing and the Mah checker taking up a lot of space near to the light zones. It would have been nice if the puzzle added more to the quest delving into Mah’s fears; seemed like a missed opportunity.

03-Dec-2016 03:02:29

Autumn Elite

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Speaking of the puzzle, the Nightmare slayer creatures felt absolutely tacked on for the sake of it. This is especially disappointing when Fate of the Gods made such good use of its rewards. Nihils and Mushaps were part of the story, expanded on Zaros and the lore and felt like parts of the quests expanded upon naturally to be a reward. The Nightmare creatures did not, no connection to the quest, especially odd when dialogue explains the Mushaps will eventually fade from existance. It felt like either The Watch added slayer as that is a reward they felt comfortable making or higher management felt like it needed a slayer task. Either way it sticks out as a separate irrelevant part of the update that is below the potential for the update. A better relevant monster could have enhanced the quest, these did not.

In many ways this did not feel like a quest. The player did very little, the sections they did do felt forced to break up the sea of dialogue and really this could have been a saga. At times it simply felt the player character was there because this will become relevant later on and Zaros and Zamorak made up off screen would not be taken without complaint further down the line.

At the end of the quest, Seren kills Mah. This really didn’t feel as momentous as it should. An elder god died, you would think this would be a impactful moment. But it did not play out as that - maybe because of the reliance of previous set up to be invested, maybe the lack of difficulty in the quest means it couldn’t feel like a hard struggle. The ability to talk to the Mahjarrat at the end was excellent, really liked the discussions had.

03-Dec-2016 03:02:49

Autumn Elite

Posts: 3,487 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The Mahjarrat redesigns seemed good overall. Enhrakra being “unique” but having a identical recolour was a moment of amusement in the BTS but I don’t mind reusing assets as long as the time saved is used not recycling to be lazy however I do wish a tad more effort would have been done to make it not so obvious. Azzanadra I think I prefer his face from Fate of the Gods but it isn’t bad now. Hazeel I was surprised to see wearing green. It was a shame the Mahjarrat never really got to digest and rethink Zaros after seeing Zamorak’s memory. A great amount of discussion and reflection seemed to be lost from being in a group setting that prevented the player delving into the minds of the Mahjarrat really until the end. Only Seren do you really get any alone time with that develops her character.

Obligitary criticism for lack of post quest dialogue. Yes I know they mentioned this before the quest was released. No, I don’t consider it a valid response. If The Light Within had less development time yet managed to pull off similar lengths and more features, why has a year where Jagex releases less updates seen the updates that are released being of lower quality? There was time for post quest dialogue, there was resources for slayer monsters, it should have been done.

03-Dec-2016 03:03:25

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