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Lord Drakan
Sep Member 2010

Lord Drakan

Posts: 7,043 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I was fine with the maze, apart from the deceptive 'background mazes' that make you think you have to go somewhere that isn't actually there. The Jas bit was the quest's strong point, I agree. But my problem is;

- Sliske dialogue is laughably bad. If the name wasn't stated in the chatbox, you'd never guess that this is the same character as mentioned in the Fall of Six, various postbags, Zemouregal's notes or seen in RotM or TWW. He's not a mysterious, devious, scheming Mahjarrat here, but just a clown.
- No plot. We never found out Sliske's schemes. We don't know why he urged you to turn on the Zarosians in FotG, we don't know why he continued his game after Zaros made his return public, we don't know why he's been doing all those terrible things he has since killing Guthix. The only thing the quest gave is 'because he's bored' which makes no sense since all of tnis madness only began in the Sixth Age, and he was a loyal Zarosian before.
- Quest is completely different for people. This kind of breaks the canon, since you and I did not have the same experience. Zamorak raced for the Stone for one person; for me, he was evicted from the maze by Armadyl. Some characters, like Vorago or the Grim Reaper, didn't even appear inside the maze. (unless I missed them)
- Plot from other quests ignored. Nex was supposed to keep the gods in line and Char to watch Sliske. No comment on that. The final cutscene of Kindred Spirits was ignored - Jas only calls Sliske her agent in the quest, but absolutely nothing is explained as to how exactly he worked for her. Wahisietel and Akthanakos are notable by their absence. Zamorak-Zaros pact from CoM unused for most players.
- Lore is pretty bad too. How did Sliske even build that maze or 'turn off' divinity? Unexplained (but probably Jas). Random Dragonkin that appear at the end as dei ex machina. Icthlarin's backstory is laughable. Major character revelations revealed in off-hand dialogue easily missed. Off-screen 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-2017 13:03:32

Lord Drakan
Sep Member 2010

Lord Drakan

Posts: 7,043 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
pacts made by Zaros and Seren with other gods that are only invoked depending on individual playthroughs, whereas the one with Zamorak was a pretty big deal and wasn't even mentioned if Zamorak didn't make it to the end for you. Stuff like Saradomin's suddeenly having a daughter is more or less a deus ex machina as well. Zaros has bargaining materials that were never hinted at or relevant to the prior story; how convenient.

Where were the Temple Knights? They should've been all over this. What about the desert gods?

I mean, I could go on for a bit, but my point is; apart from some good bits that were few and far between (e.g. Jas segment, some of the cutscenes inside the maze, but then these were easily missed), I found that the quest's plot made no sense, Sliske's character was utterly warped into something completely different (but then MPD and FotG also did this...), and simply the way some of the characters were handled was...well, a bit poor. Given the huge cast, it was handled relatively well I think, all things considered, but even then some characters that absolutely should've been there (Temple Knights, Wanisietel, Akrisae) weren't, while others were simply present for flavour (which is of course nice and works well in this quest (not MPD, which did the same) but not if more crucial people are omitted).

Phew that took a while to write. :D 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-2017 13:11:06

Rondstat

Rondstat

Posts: 2,770 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I liked it!

While I don't disagree with your points, my overall view on Endgame is undeniably positive, and while there were a lot of weaknesses, I think it also had individual moments that were among the strongest of anything we've ever seen in RS.

I definitely place Endgame above any of the 2017 quests.

26-Oct-2017 22:01:50

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Maybe this wasn't outright said, just implied in the quest, but most of those answers seemed to be solved with the reveal that Jas was working through Sliske....

"Lore is pretty bad too. How did Sliske even build that maze or 'turn off' divinity?"

As you say later, Jas - either directly, or through Sliske (telling Sliske how to use the stone to do that).

IIRC, all the pacts have been made in all playthroughs, and it's hinted at(or it's supposed to be) that Zaros, at least, has been doing this with all the Gods. (Hinted at through looking at the pact in CoM, which Zaros purposely put Zamorak in a position where he had to agree to it - the inference is that the situation was intentional and that it was likely he would try that with more Gods then just Zamorak -why put all your eggs in one basket?)

The real surprise was Seren having done similar things, she's clearly learned from her past and from Zaros...

In terms of the Pacts, the only difference between playthroughs is which pact is actually evoked in the end (if any).

Saradomin's daughter's existence was hinted at back in Hero's Welcome, just wasn't outright stated to be an emotional weakness (as opposed to some Kryptonite kind of thing, which I at least am grateful for). As for the exact relation to Saradomin, the only thing that was confirmed is that emotionally , Saradomin loves (presumably her?) as a daughter emotionally, she may not be an exact blood relation - but then again, who knows?

Icthlarin's backstory is that he was a dog who was turned into a God - that is hinted at in the Dream of Tumeken text, and is also a staple of several mythologies, I don't know why you'd say it was laughable. It was played for comedic effect by Sliske in the maze, but that's meant to be a character defining time for the player- what do they do when something once powerful becomes helpless?

07-Dec-2017 15:49:28

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
- No plot. We never found out Sliske's schemes. We don't know why he urged you to turn on the Zarosians in FotG, we don't know why he continued his game after Zaros made his return public, we don't know why he's been doing all those terrible things he has since killing Guthix. The only thing the quest gave is 'because he's bored' which makes no sense since all of tnis madness only began in the Sixth Age, and he was a loyal Zarosian before.


Sliske saying he's bored at the end seemed to me to be his version of Cognitive dissonance. He was doing these things because Jas was controlling him to some extant. having a massive eldritch being in your mind can't be good for your sanity...

Sliske's Endgame basically shifted the question - now it's no longer "why was Sliske doing this things?" it's "Why did Jas want him to do these things?"

We don't find any of this out because Jas doesn't monologue and doesn't leave random journals for us to find like every other character in an rpg.

We also don't know exactly when Sliske came under Jas' control, and exactly how much of what he did was because of Her, but I see those as points to be explored in another quest line (the Elder Gods pillar one that was pushed off, perhaps) not as holes in this one.

Just because a quest, even an end quest, doesn't explain every last thing, doesn't mean it's a plothole (in the sense of bad writing).


Sliske dialogue is laughably bad. If the name wasn't stated in the chatbox, you'd never guess that this is the same character as mentioned in the Fall of Six, various postbags, Zemouregal's notes or seen in RotM or TWW. He's not a mysterious, devious, scheming Mahjarrat here, but just a clown.

This is an interesting one for me. Players (some of them, anyway) have been saying Sliske seemed out of character from the beginning of the 6th age Sliske story line.

To me, all of thi was kind of explained when Jas was revealed to be in his head and controlling him, to some extant.

07-Dec-2017 15:57:37

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
As I said above, having an Elder God in your head can't be good for your Sanity...

The interesting part comes in because Jmods have tried to say that he's not acting to out of character in the 6th age, it's just that since he has become more open with the player, we haven't liked his character as much as we did the character he showed before, when he was barely shown at all.

So the question is, was the out-of-character perceived by the players intentional or not?

Was he acting strange because of Jas. Was he not supposed to be seen as acting strange at all?

- Quest is completely different for people. This kind of breaks the canon, since you and I did not have the same experience. Zamorak raced for the Stone for one person; for me, he was evicted from the maze by Armadyl. Some characters, like Vorago or the Grim Reaper, didn't even appear inside the maze. (unless I missed them)

you missed Vorago, he was there. They didn't show him physically in the maze because....modeling issues, but Sliske comments on him at least once. I'm not sure (I don't remember, and don't have time to check right now) about Death, he may have been dependent on if you gave him the point back in Nomad's Elegy.

The issue is the differences in cannon for each player, and they've had that before. I don't know what they're planning on doing with that. I know for individual interactions outside of the maze's climax they intended for people to be able to replay and see all of them, and possibly even create your own cannon run through, but that got scrapped/pushed off into far distance...so how that turns out...I guess we'll see.

But while I understand the want to put player choice affecting things in the game, I also would ultimately say not to do it, but ...well, we'll see how they take it once they actually start making quests again.

07-Dec-2017 16:06:24

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
- Plot from other quests ignored. Nex was supposed to keep the gods in line and Char to watch Sliske. No comment on that. The final cutscene of Kindred Spirits was ignored - Jas only calls Sliske her agent in the quest, but absolutely nothing is explained as to how exactly he worked for her. Wahisietel and Akthanakos are notable by their absence. Zamorak-Zaros pact from CoM unused for most players

Kindred Spirits finale wasn't ignored - it was explained further a bit ( we didn't know then who Sliske was conferring with, and the reveal that it's what is most likely the most powerful being in the universe is a pretty big one) but not fully explained. Leaving more room for future quests to explain exactly why Jas did what She did.

Wahisietel and Akthanakos have been absent from Zaros' machinations for a long time...Zaros clearly either has something else in mind of them, or just has no use for them. And like truly loyal Zarosians, not wanting the spotlight for themselves, they await Zaros' command. That is (among other things) what separates them from Zamorak as a character.

The Zamorak-Zaros pact is notable in the fact that it exists, not in whether it's used or not. The whole point of Zaros making it in CoM was not to say "Zamorak is working for Zaros" it was to say "Zaros is clearly trying to bend the rules here, what else might he be doing." The important aspect is that he tried to bind all the other Gods into his service...which would have worked had Seren not dropped her previous isolationism and stooped to playing his game, and had the Dragonkin not upset things.

As for the play through differences between players I (sort of, mostly to say I understand why they're doing it but don't think it was the best choice personally) addressed that above.

07-Dec-2017 16:14:23

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
As for Char and Nex....well, honestly, that was something that from the beginning seemed laughable to me. How the heck, based on what we know of their strengths and abilities, were Nex and Char supposed to complete their tasks?

In terms of raw power, perhaps they could be useful in a fight, but for sheer utility and ease of movement, there was no way (that I could see) for them to follow, trace, or keep a handle of the Gods/Sliske in the first place. To me , the fact that they were unable to and didn't (as far as we can tell) is exactly what I expected, I just don't understand how Zaros/the writers expected those jobs to be done in the first place.

Where were the Temple Knights? They should've been all over this. What about the desert gods?

The temple knights would have been just more cannon fodder....but technically, the white knights shown are also( and they could have been temple knights, for all we know, just wearing regular armour, but that's probably not the case and besides the point anyway).

The whole point of the Temple Knights is that they do underhanded work. They're the Section 31 to the White Knight's Starfleet (I hope someone understands that reference). It would have made no sense for them to be chosen by Saradomin for this kind of mission, they were his covert operations.

The Desert Gods...well, they've already explained that the Desert Gods are not really a part of this storyline - they're kind of way to embroiled in their own little was among themselves, and a bit below the notice of the rest of the Gods. Tumeken or Elidenes possibly might have intervened, but they've both been missing the entire time to begin with. What happened to them is (at least to me) one of the biggest mysteries of the desert storyline as a whole.

07-Dec-2017 16:23:29

Goldmage162
Oct Member 2009

Goldmage162

Posts: 1,457 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I found that the quest's plot made no sense, Sliske's character was utterly warped into something completely different (but then MPD and FotG also did this...), and simply the way some of the characters were handled was...well, a bit poor.

Given the huge cast, it was handled relatively well I think, all things considered, but even then some characters that absolutely should've been there (Temple Knights, Wanisietel, Akrisae) weren't, while others were simply present for flavour (which is of course nice and works well in this quest (not MPD, which did the same) but not if more crucial people are omitted).


To me, the Quest's plot, and the entire Sliske Storyline, makes sense in retrospect given the reveal that Jas was working through him.

Akrisae should have been there, but was apparently "forgotten." I'm not sure how they forgot him, but it may be something along the lines of (code script: put category:"barrows brothers in fight," but no one ever checked that Akrisae was included. I dunno, I know nothing about coding...).

The others - well, I explained that already. I guess on the developer level it boils down to which characters you consider essential to be shown. Clearly, they disagree with you on the relative importance the Gods needs of the characters you mentioned.

07-Dec-2017 16:29:26

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