RuneScape Forum Archive | Sure wish I coulda been there.

Ojacha

Posts: 404 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Beware of the angry lorehound ahead!

So, apparently Jagex has released Death of Chivalry 2 alongside City of Senntisten. After the Battle of the Monolith, you can speak to Sir Owen who seems to be standing there for no reason. Then, you can experience the long-awaited sequel to one of the first sixth-age quests ever made...

Through dialogue...

Yup. Turns out Owen, Saradomin and Fern went on their little journey without you, the actual player of the actual game.

They go to the wilderness, encounter undead centaurs, they fight, the centaurs move on to the afterlife, and the wand of ressurection is now broken. Badabing, Badaboom.

This is just another part of a trend I've seen going on with Jagex lately, which is narrating the story of RuneScape to us, rather than having us experiencing it first-hand. When they cheapened out on cutscene cost by conveying important plotpoints through hastely drawn artwork and boring narration, I was willing to put with it. When they released the less than turbulent Battle of the Monolith, while telling us about the more interesting tidbits through newspost, I was willing to put up with it.

But releasing a whole quests worth of story through NPC text is beyond pathetic. I understand quests are expensive to make, and Jagex' resources have to sometimes be directed elsewhere, evident by the long time it sometimes took for a new sequel to be released. But I never minded waiting, because I knew the wait would always be worth it in the end (save for Salt in the Wound).

Imagine Jagex is building hype for a new boss monster. Years go by with all players waiting for it. Then suddenly, the raptor appears in the Grand Exchange and says: 'Remember that boss monster that was going to appear in Gielinor? It's already dead. I killed it. It had this very dangerous smoke attack. But you can't fight it anymore.'

I just hope that this trend doesn't continue... Because the story is my main enjoyment of playing the game...

'If there is no one left to stand behind, then I will have to stand alone.'

26-Jun-2021 17:56:06 - Last edited on 26-Jun-2021 18:39:08 by Ojacha

Apr

2007

The Amun Ra

Posts: 109 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I do feel disappointed that we didn't get to see the second part of Death of Chivarly but when I think of it overall, I think the developers backed themselves into a corner regarding Sir Owen in terms of chronology. While it makes sense to me that they can still release 5th age quests and simply label them as 5th age quests because there are old storylines left unfinished, let's not forget that they already made a second "reset" in terms of quests in 6th age and that was Sliske's Endgame. Quests released post-Sliske's Endgame don't require earlier 6th age quests and unless they're explicitly 5th age quests, they all chronologically take place after Sliske's Endgame. "The Death of Chivarly" sequel would almost certainly need to take place before Sliske's Endgame so we already have a messy timeline here.

I think the hard truth is that the era when we would have multiple ongoing questlines at the same time is long gone. I also believe the developers changed their approach to 6th age... I imagine it was originally meant to be more god wars like with player choices more mattering but they likely changed those plans. The developers are now taking way more linear approach to the story and also, lore is not limited to quests only anymore. Archaeology as a skill is actually a big pile of lore and miniquests are also becoming big part of the game now, usually being directly connected to "ongoing story". While I feel they may still wrap up the 5th age storylines in future, I think anything related to 6th age lore will be more linear and we won't have an era anymore where we would have 10 ongoing questlines at same time.

26-Jun-2021 20:16:59

Autumn Elite

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

It is pretty much impossible to view this as anything other than extreme laziness. Questing is clearly not held in high regard at Jagex and we are in an era of all time low quests that it seems like we will never exit. Cuts have been made everywhere - post quest dialogue is a thing of the past, voice acting is gone, cutscenes are now seen as too expensive, etc. Anything that can be reduced has been and there is no reason to think these things are coming back.

But to wait eight years after a very well received quest which was left on a cliffhanger only to then put out the absolute laziest version of 10 minutes of written work to resolve it is a disgrace. When there is no guarantee that storylines will be resolved with any effort, why should people be invested? Even when a good update is released, it may just be left for years and then an internet types up a “resolution” 10 minutes before leaving for the weekend so it can be added in game on Monday.

And to also have the *audacity* to play it off as a joke and it being the players fault? Absolute trash, whoever wrote that shouldn’t be allowed near the game. It is borderline gas lighting.

02-Jul-2021 22:07:42

Nov

2023

Lego Miester

Posts: 35,339 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This is Epistle Three all over again.

It's good dialogue, I enjoyed reading the story, but yeah, sure wish I coulda been there. Good character development on Saradomin's part.

Honestly how hard would it have been to just bring Tiffy instead of Owen to the reveal of the leader of the temple knights? Then as long as they don't kill off Saradomin they can fit that quest in wherever. Just model swap whether he's wearing his crown or not like they do for Seren's models. Headcanon Haven, where everything is made up and the points don't matter.
OSRS Lore: Xeric
Slepe Tight - Slepe Lore

03-Jul-2021 16:04:18 - Last edited on 03-Jul-2021 16:08:14 by Lego Miester

Apr

2007

The Amun Ra

Posts: 109 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Lego Miester said :
This is Epistle Three all over again.

It's good dialogue, I enjoyed reading the story, but yeah, sure wish I coulda been there. Good character development on Saradomin's part.

Honestly how hard would it have been to just bring Tiffy instead of Owen to the reveal of the leader of the temple knights? Then as long as they don't kill off Saradomin they can fit that quest in wherever. Just model swap whether he's wearing his crown or not like they do for Seren's models.

I think by the time Sir Owen made a reappearance in Azzanadra's Quest, his original sequel was already scrapped or at least not developed in any way. The developers already said in February stream that by the time of Azzanadra's Quest, it's assumed the sequel to the Death of Chivarly had already happened and that they consulted with Mod Stu, who developed the original Death of Chivarly and he was on board with bringing Owen back into the story. Since Sliske's Endgame, the timeline has been in quite messy position because now we don't have Fifth Age and Sixth Age quests anymore, but we also have a second "reset" of story after Sliske's Endgame so all future quests, unless explicitly specified as 5th age, all take place post-Sliske's Endgame. Another thing that changed regarding 5th/6th age is that they included "real time" to the chronology. All our 5th age playtime was originalyl supposedly happening in year 169 but since 2020, they established real time chronology in terms of when the quests were released. "The World Wakes" takes place in year 182 of 5th age, Sliske's Endgame takes place in year 4 of 6th age and now we're in year 9 of the 6th age. Now every quest that gets released and is not specified as 5th age quest, takes place in the "real time" chonology year.

03-Jul-2021 20:57:46

Aug

2013

Jeremy Cheng

Posts: 25,639 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Would be nice if the sir owen pack included a corrupted arm skin to reflect on his current predicament of his corrupted arm. Surely azzanadra can use his new god powers to restore sir owen in gwd3, then saradomin would in indebted.

04-Jul-2021 23:21:40

Darelzel

Posts: 3,587 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I realize that at this point, the ship had sailed as far as 'Death of Chivalry 2' goes, and if Mod Stu had known it was going to turn out this way, he wouldn't have ended the quest on the cliffhanger he left it on. Still, they could have handled it better.

Perhaps instead of a lengthy dialogue sequence, they could have instead had a 'Fremmenik Saga' type miniquest where the player gets to control Owen while teaming up with Saradomin and Fern. THat would allow for plenty of lore drops as well as action and a resolution to the story, while not making the player feel entirely left out. Granted, the resolution would end up being a flashback, but a flashback is still better than just having it an offscreen adventure told entirely in dialogue.

And it could be replayable, with rewards for both partial and full completion, like the Fremmenik Sagas. It'd also be appropriate, as Sir Owen first appeared in a Fremmenik Saga ('Three's Company') long before Death of Chivalry. It'd be bringing Sir Owen back to his roots, sort of.

That would have been a preferable alternative.

08-Jul-2021 02:47:13 - Last edited on 08-Jul-2021 02:48:20 by Darelzel

Nov

2023

Innert

Posts: 225 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Yeah, that would have been a fantastic quest. It clearly was just a case of plans being cancelled as the game's focus shifted away from quests, and they felt they had to address it now that Owen was playing a role in the story again.

It's a shame what's happened to questing in recent years. I used to play constantly, back in the days when we got 10+ quests a year. These days it's rare I subscribe for more than a couple months per year, as there's almost no quest content anymore.

12-Jul-2021 09:17:04 - Last edited on 12-Jul-2021 09:21:17 by Innert

Darelzel

Posts: 3,587 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The more I think about it, the more I wonder about whether the story related by Sir Owen was the originally planned conclusion.

If it was, then I suppose I can see why a budget-conscious Jagex might not want to waste time and resources on what ends up mostly being a plot cul-de-sac as far as the larger storylines go. Nothing changes aside from Fern and the centaurs moving on peacefully to the other side, and the Wand of Resurrection being broken, taking both off the table. The larger story arcs don't really advance beyond what already happened in Part One.

It seems that if this were an actual quest, the only benefits to the player would be some XP rewards and maybe another skilling area, or a repeatable boss fight like the Corporeal Beast or something like that.

However, I suppose it is possible there were earlier ending ideas that would have led to more content (i.e. a few new centaur allies, a setup for a god conflict event that never happened), that were eventually discarded, leaving basically the scenario Sir Owen outlines to us. It certainly seems likely that by the time Sliske's Endgame turned up, the never-seen sequel was more or less no longer relevant.

And so with Sir Owen's character arc resuming in Azzanadra's Quest (where his loyalties are tested), everything not directly involving Sir Owen ended up being just loose ends that needed to be tied up. And since those loose ends weren't going anywhere that was relevant to the current storyline of the dragonkin and the Elder Gods, it probably didn't seem worth the effort to actually show that conclusion in a playable quest.

It's very disappointing, especially as The Death of Chivalry was a well-written and engaging quest. But it's understandable.

13-Jul-2021 20:23:46

Ojacha

Posts: 404 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Autumn Elite said :
And to also have the *audacity* to play it off as a joke and it being the players fault? Absolute trash, whoever wrote that shouldn’t be allowed near the game. It is borderline gas lighting.

Are you referring to Owen blaming us for his corruption? Or are you saying Jagex actually said this somewhere?

Also. Some poeple here are saying that Jagex did this to tie up Owen's plotline before starting the new elder god war one. Even though this may be their reasoning, I still can't see why they couldn't just release an actual quest even after the elder god war. So far, there are zero connections between the centaur and elder god war storylines. So assuming both Owen and Saradomin survive the coming conflict, why not just release a quest? Have Owen fight Dragonkin and Tokhaar and whatever and then have him go back to resurrecting dead centaurs. There is nothing that prevents this from being possible. It would make for a clunky character-arc, but who cares? Anything is better than what we got. Hell, release it as a prequel if you have to. Or if we are going to be lazy, just put some models in the wilderness, have them do a little fight animation, write some dialogue around it (just like you did with the battle of the monolith) and call it a miniquest. I don't care if it takes 10 more years. Just give us something that's actually engaging.

I'm sorry for going off on a rant like this. But storytelling is something dear to my heart. And seeing a story I have always enjoyed butchered like this just hurts...

'If there is no one left to stand behind, then I will have to stand alone.'

15-Jul-2021 19:56:50 - Last edited on 15-Jul-2021 20:14:06 by Ojacha

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Sure wish I coulda been there.