RuneScape Forum Archive | History of the Lore Community

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This is a brief history on the lore community that I started on a few months ago. I got bogged down on school work, and only really picked it up and finished it today. It starts from the very beginning of time (okay, maybe a little after that) and ends in the current time.

There are at-least two problems that one faces when writing about the history of something. The first is factual; the second is interpretative. While I believe i have all the factual information correct in the broad strokes, I may have made several errors on specifics that need correcting. As for the second issue, while I have tried to be as objective as possible, no one can ever be perfect or without bias.

For these reasons I am leaving this history as constantly subject to change. If you believe something should be changed, removed, or added, I will try to see if I can implement it as soon as possible. Little details can also be helpful, even if they don't seem particularly important. If you have any broader critiques or issues, please bring them up as well and I will see what I can do about it.

I have been in the lore community since around 2011, so I myself have a good idea of a lot that has been going on, especially since I'm both in TSP and Lore FC. At the same time, I know little of what has been going on in other communities, so if you are part of them and have information to share, please do. I would finally like to thank Sliske, JNKiller and Moerdred for filling in information about FUN, and AttilaSquare for providing me info and records on Tales of Zaros. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:04:50 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:41:08 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Table of Contents

1) Early History
2) The Future Update Community
3) The Great Divide
4) Rise of the Lore Community
5) The Sixth Age
6) Current Era I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:06:01 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:40:58 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Early History

It can be argued that Jagex didn't take story and lore as seriously until after 2007/2008, which saw the development and release of While Guthix Sleeps. From that point onward, story and lore steadily grew in renown, both in terms of Jagex's focus on it, and players interest. But what about player interest before that time? Sadly, few records exist; threads on the ORSF from that era were long consumed by Chewy (the Page 51 Monster), and RS fansites were really only getting popular around 2007.

Roughly after 2005/2006 however, it's known that a considerable lore presence was being born on the ORSF. Before that, if any lore communities existed, they have fallen into obscurity (and probably wouldn't have called themselves a 'lore community'). Despite this, there were players interested in quests, characters, story and the like for quite some time. Jagex introduced several mediums catering to those interests outside of the game, which gathered some popularity. The God Letters had 27 issues, ending in 2004. Postbag from the Hedge took over in 2005 and continued to 2013. The Players Gallery came out in October 2006, and Lores & Histories came out in September 2008.

While very little was known about the Runescape gods, there was a fair amount of interest in them due to their prominence in story and minigames like Castle Wars. While "factions" didn't exist in the same sense as they did after the Sixth Age, some players affiliated themselves with gods. Dressing up in the clothing and colors of a god was a thing, as well as some light roleplay. As early as the beginning of 2007, there were lore-related articles, discussion and stories in Runescape fansites such as Zybez, Salmoneus, Tip.it and RuneHq, in addition to articles on gods and their iconography. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:06:22 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:40:39 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Closer to the end of the 2007/2008 period, Runescape was getting a reputation for its quests, and was considered by some players to be a selling point over other games such as World of Warcraft. However, the majority of players still didn't like quests; only a small portion of players were fans of quests, and did not skip dialogue/use guides etc... To a large degree it remained this way for several years, until the present day.

The Future Update Community

By 2004/2005, Future Update News (FUN) was born. FUN was a community of individuals interested in future updates, as advertised in BTS and hinted ingame and in other sources. It consisted of forum threads, and a main thread series which had 20 incarnations. According to one of the co-founders Drakolord7, on his wikia page, FUN "directly led to the creation of the Future Update Forum". In addition, when the Future Update Forum was removed in 2010, FUN successfully petitioned its return.

FUN was the largest community of its kind, although it was more a collection of individuals/sub-communities which were later unified under one friend chat. Examples of sub and offshoot communities include Next Update News and Caped Carousers, which was a quest clan.

While FUN had a general community with diverse interests in all sorts of future updates, quests and lore was a very central part of FUN, as that's where a good chunk of the speculation came from. It was also not much of a thing outside of FUN, so FUN attracted players with with those interests. However, Tales of Zaros, a somewhat separate lore community on the forums, also attracted players, and arguably had a stronger focus on lore. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:06:56 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:40:14 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Tales of Zaros was made in response to the Curse of Zaros miniquest that came out mid 2005. There were five main thread iterations, which were on par popularity-wise with the main FUN threads. The first two of these threads, created by Cypher Kain, focused a lot on the lore of Zaros, who was very popular in the early days. Afterwards it expanded to include other lore, like "Gods, Majharrat, and each race, the Metaphysics of Magic, Planar Theory, geography, timelines, and Gielinorian Theology and Philosophy" (as stated in the fifth thread iteration).

From 2007 onwards, FUN, ToZ and other offshoot communities became very active on the Future Update Forums, and were essentially the precursor to the current lore community, with a strong future-update focus. In addition to main/general lore threads, several players made threads focusing on specific areas of lore, such as a quest series (eg. Myreque Future), or topic (eg. Planar Theory).

Again, because of the lack of information back then, Gods and Mahjarrat were very prominent in lore discussions. Back in the day, many still believed, due to god letters and evidence ingame, that Guthix created Gielinor (and some lifeforms), and that Zaros was an evil god (although there was much dispute over this). Some interesting ideas and theories included Guthix having no gender, and Saradomin being a Mahjarrat (and idea also found in Salmoneus.net's god page). The elf series and elf city also made up a good chunk of discussion, and its lasting popularity possibly contributed to Prifddinas winning the poll in January 2014. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:07:25 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:39:25 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Between February 2009 and June 2010, Jagex discontinued BTS. In April 2010, the Future Game Update forum was removed - and upon its return was not nearly as active as it used to be. For these reasons, among others, FUN was mostly disbanded by the end of 2010, although remnants existed of it for another year or so. Other major communities such as Tales of Zaros seem to have faded away, although players interested in lore continued using Future Game Updates upon its return.

The Great Divide

On January 21, 2010, Yuccon, who had previously run the Future Update threads, founded the Scrying Pool clan. Like other clans before the clan chat update in mid 2011, TSP was a friends chat (which was called clan chat back then). It was quite popular on its own, even getting Jmods in the fc occasionally during updates. Whilst continuing their interests in future updates, TSP became largely a lore clan, making it the first bona fide lore group, or at least, the first major/successful one. TSP slowly grew in size and renown, and as the FUN community was simultaneously dying, many FUN members interested in lore moved to TSP (roughly 200 players joined the new clan chat upon release).

At the same time, another community was born. On November 9, 2010, The Draziw founded Clan Quest, reconstructing a quest help clan he founded a year earlier. Clan Quest grew and became that largest quest-focused clan, eventually absorbing no less than nine disbanded quest clans. It remains one of the largest and most active Runescape clans. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:08:06 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:39:03 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

With TSP and Clan Quest becoming the largest lore and quest clans respectively (until this day), the community became split between players who had more interest in lore, and players who had more interest in quests. While there were overlaps between the two, there was enough of a distinction that the two communities rarely interacted with one another.

Rise of the Lore Community

From 2010 until early 2013, most of the lore community was found either on the Future Update forums, and/or in the Scrying Pool clan. In the Future Update forums, lore-centered threads were becoming more and more common. Players discussed new quests, lore, and future update hints, came up with theories and speculation, and made other unique types of threads. Examples of some of the more popular threads included the Lore Test, Quests in the Making and Myreque Future. Outside of the Future Update forums, some players experimented with lore stories and mock quests during this period.

TSP was a vibrant community and gained renown as the largest lore community, even being recognized by Jagex Moderators. TSP created an offsite forum, had official clan meetings and a lore meeting monthly, and had a presence on the Unofficial RS Wikia. In May 2010, TSP created Lords of the Wait, a popular ingame meeting before updates that continues to this day (but has now separated from the clan). On the Wikia, TSP members contributed to the lores project, which would create more lore articles and transcripts. Early in 2013 TSP, with the help of then leader Robo Hobo, petitioned for the creation of a lore forum, which was created on July 30, 2013. In 2014, TSP won the p2p and f2p Clan Quest Cup in 2014, which won them references in the Dimension of Disaster quest. Some TSP members have their own notable accomplishments, via lore projects and/or becoming experts in lore. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:08:26 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:38:40 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A major reason that the lore community was able to flourish during this time was because of the attention that Jagex put into lore and future updates. Dungeoneering, released in April 2010, was the first skill to be deeply intertwined with lore, and as such generated much discussion in the lore community in addition to being a good event for groups. Quests became more lore-y, serious and improved in quality, with titles such as The Temple at Senntisten, Blood Runs Deep, The Void Stares Back, Do No Evil, Branches of Darkmeyer, Ritual of the Mahjarrat and One Piercing Note (this of course is subjective; this is a list of quests many players consider the best).

In particular, Ritual of the Mahjarrat had a lot of discussion and speculation before of its release due to its importance and it being a sequel to WGS (whom many players considered the best quest and/or that got them into lore). Ritual of the Mahjarrat also was the first quest to put a lot of powerful NPC's in the same location, a trend carrying on the Sixth Age, which some people disliked.

Outside of the game, Jagex also started sharing more information about lore and future updates. In 2010, partially due to BTS's removal, Jagex started giving update hints on Twitter and Facebook. BTS returned in June 2012, and Jagex starting making BTS videos in May 2012. From March 2006 to April 2012 the Chaos Elemental from Postbag in the Hedge gave cryptic hints about future updates which FUN and later the lore community tried decrypting. Jagex tried doing some other unique things, like making quest trailers (the first being Deadliest Catch in June 2011) and making ingame teasers (most prominently the Strange Power and the Daemonheim Peninsula, but which was preceded by the Spirit of Summer teaser in July 2008). There were also quite a few update leaks between 2010 and 2013 which fueled discussion, such as the famous leak of a continent to the north east. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:09:32 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:38:14 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Several prominent Jmods also had an interest in lore, and interacted with the community. After around 2012, Jmods occasioned at the TSP chat, and later even in Lore FC. These Jmods and others involved in quests and lore-y projects became strongly associated with lore. In November 2012, Mod Osborne had a lore podcast with Mod Mark, which was one one if not the first major lore videos. After that, Mod Osborne grew in esteem and became the figurehead of lore due to his enthusiasm of lore and his position as Senior Narrative Designer. After that, Jmods made more and more videos, podcasts, FAQ's and the like on lore.

The Sixth Age

Jagex's increased focus on lore bolstered the lore community. And in turn, the success of the lore community bolstered Jagex's desire to go even further with story and lore. The release of The Sixth Age, god emissaries and World Events did just that by making story and lore a central part of Runescape. While it still remained true that the majority of players didn't care much about lore, it created a new generation of players who were interested in lore and what the Sixth Age had to offer.

While some players joined TSP, many joined new lore clans. On the one hand, some did not want to go to TSP because of some internal issues and criticism TSP faced at the time. But mostly, players just wanted to be part of faction-based communities, which were starting to develop at that time. Faction-based fc's and clans were composed of players in certain factions (Saradominist, Zamorakian, Zarosian etc), with particular focus on Sixth Age lore and faction discussion. While there were many members in TSP that were part of a faction, there was never really a focus on factions before or after the Sixth Age, which in some ways made it distinct from the faction-based lore community. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:09:45 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 01:37:52 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Quite a few of these new lore clans were created, but some did not last long, and some longer lasting ones were recreated, merged, or met their demise. Faction-based clans had different rules about who could join their clan, some maintaining that only members of their faction could join, while others became multi-faction and/or allowed members of other factions to join. Faction clans had different stances towards other faction clans, ranging from friendly to hostile, although some might argue that hostile relations resulted from individuals rather than the collective.

AZA (Armadyl-Zamorak Alliance) was one of the more influential clans early on. It was created at the beginning of World Event 1 by Armadylean and Zamorakian players, and was originally an friends chat which would later influence the creation of Lore FC. AZA gave rise to a sub-community of 'Red Armadyleans' who sought to unify Armadylean and Zamorakian philosophies, although not everyone was a Red Armadylean, and later other factions entered the clan. The clan was eventually renamed to The Undivided due to faction differences, and split after World Event 2.

The Armadyleans left the clan and created the Crystal Wings clan along with Serenist players. It existed for over a year, and like its predecessor, was very active and later included members of other factions. The clan was renamed to Arcane Chroniclers, but eventually disbanded, while the Armadyleans moved to another clan, The Avianse Crew. Meanwhile, as many Zamorakians remained in The Undivided, it became a Zamorakian clan and was renamed to Flames of Chaos. The Hallowed Order was another notable clan from 2013, which was recreated several times and is now Aegis of Saradomin. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

29-Aug-2016 03:10:02 - Last edited on 02-Sep-2016 18:43:54 by Eren Lapucet