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Myreque VI+ - what we know
Quick find code: 341-342-431-65125527
Review incoming.
First of all, an obvious spoiler alert and an apology; I'm very busy and I have no idea how I managed to write this up in the first place, but I feel it lacks a usual eloquence I try to incorporate into my writing.
Right, where to begin? The Myreque series is easily my favourite ongoing quest series (not least due to the novel tie-ins and, well, the general setting. And of course Tytn's brilliant), so the hype was significant when the development of the next instalment was announced. But Ana wouldn't be the lead developer - RIP. Fortunately, Mod Srowl*y - who has worked closely with both previous curators, developed Stolen Hearts and Diamond in the Rough, wrote many postbags and worked on stuff such as WGS and RotM one way or another - was appointed successor. Well, he's probably the most appropriate candidate if not Ana, herself, right? Great, that's settled, we have faith in the project.
Confirmed plot points included Ivan, Safalaan and -gasp- Lowerniel himself, so plenty about which to be excited!
Time skip to me completing the quest. Had it met my expectations? No, not quite. As in; THAT I had not expected. At all. Was the quest still enjoyable, though? Deary, no, it wasn't. So it was bad? Not quite. Quite not, in fact. It left me utterly devastated and burdened with a sense of Veliaf-esque nihilism at the end. That wasn't fun. But yes - the quest was superb (still doesn't beat Darkness of Hallowvale though
). In its own wicked way, one could add.
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
OSRS: POH ideas
&
RS3 minigames
&
achievement ideas
!
First of all, an obvious spoiler alert and an apology; I'm very busy and I have no idea how I managed to write this up in the first place, but I feel it lacks a usual eloquence I try to incorporate into my writing.
Right, where to begin? The Myreque series is easily my favourite ongoing quest series (not least due to the novel tie-ins and, well, the general setting. And of course Tytn's brilliant), so the hype was significant when the development of the next instalment was announced. But Ana wouldn't be the lead developer - RIP. Fortunately, Mod Srowl*y - who has worked closely with both previous curators, developed Stolen Hearts and Diamond in the Rough, wrote many postbags and worked on stuff such as WGS and RotM one way or another - was appointed successor. Well, he's probably the most appropriate candidate if not Ana, herself, right? Great, that's settled, we have faith in the project.
Confirmed plot points included Ivan, Safalaan and -gasp- Lowerniel himself, so plenty about which to be excited!
Time skip to me completing the quest. Had it met my expectations? No, not quite. As in; THAT I had not expected. At all. Was the quest still enjoyable, though? Deary, no, it wasn't. So it was bad? Not quite. Quite not, in fact. It left me utterly devastated and burdened with a sense of Veliaf-esque nihilism at the end. That wasn't fun. But yes - the quest was superb (still doesn't beat Darkness of Hallowvale though
). In its own wicked way, one could add.
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-Oct-2015 11:25:53
While we're off-topic; audio. The new music tracks were fantastic, even if very much unlike existing Morytania music. The reworks though... Let's start by saying Village and Mausoleum are absolutely phenomenal, and Waterlogged's pretty great too. That's exactly what I was expecting. In fact, I was expecting all music track reworks to be of this standard, after the supreme quality of the elf music reworks, for instance. But no. Lament of Meiyerditch, Natural, The Other Side, Stagnant and Th Last Shanty are overall nice but have some issues, e.g. too much reverb or formerly clear, foreground tunes being removed to the background (example of this is Lament of Meiyerditch, ~02:10 in). I was quite disappointed with Distant Land; the beginning is well done, but then the next bits (which start a minute or so in? I have no idea, but I know the track by heart
) are very much reduced to a relatively quiet sequence in the background, which is a shame. Then you have Bone Dance and Deadlands, which are...well, at most 'very reminiscent' of the old versions rather than being higher quality replicas. These to reworks follow the basic structure, but many instruments are changed, the background sounds are very different, and it basically isn't the same. And then there's the cataclysm of Dead Quiet and Shadowland. The former starts good and then it all goes downhill. Electric guitar - really?! Shadowland is an outright disaster, seeing that it quite literally sounds absolutely nothing like the original. Just release a new track if you want to do that, but don't replace a perfectly suitable track with something entirely different. To sum up, the audio in the quest was great (although apparently Lowerniel was voices like Vanstrom, but for the life of me I didn't hear anything
), the reworks outside of it cover pretty much everything between 'superb' and 'dismal'. Shame. Oh, and yay for making Vanescula Fight listed!
Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire.
OSRS: POH ideas
&
RS3 minigames
&
achievement ideas
!
) are very much reduced to a relatively quiet sequence in the background, which is a shame. Then you have Bone Dance and Deadlands, which are...well, at most 'very reminiscent' of the old versions rather than being higher quality replicas. These to reworks follow the basic structure, but many instruments are changed, the background sounds are very different, and it basically isn't the same. And then there's the cataclysm of Dead Quiet and Shadowland. The former starts good and then it all goes downhill. Electric guitar - really?! Shadowland is an outright disaster, seeing that it quite literally sounds absolutely nothing like the original. Just release a new track if you want to do that, but don't replace a perfectly suitable track with something entirely different. To sum up, the audio in the quest was great (although apparently Lowerniel was voices like Vanstrom, but for the life of me I didn't hear anything
), the reworks outside of it cover pretty much everything between 'superb' and 'dismal'. Shame. Oh, and yay for making Vanescula Fight listed!
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-Oct-2015 11:26:31
That all aside, back to the quest. Lowerniel appears. Aaaand he sees through our little plan. Heart attack number 2. It's only at this point really that we realise just what the flaming demonikin we have got ourselves into; this isn't just some upper-class extra buff mark two vampyre we're fighting. It's a primal force of evil, a relentless hunter, virtually unstoppable. This is the moment we should have run. But alas, a confrontation ensued, Safalaan exploded again and we were captured and taken to Drakan's original castle on Vampyrium. And then it all went to Infernus. (it's fine if I say it
)
Before we go on, let's examine Lowerniel's character. He embraces his origins and his ********** and seeks to shrug off the civilisation imposed upon him by Zaros, and in turn upon Morytania by himself. Unexpected, intimidating and it works from a storyline perspective. What better way to depose of him when his ideals clash with pretty much every vampyre's? (as it turns out, by running far, far away, but ignore that - we stopped the Death Guard from massacring West Ardougne so we should probably prevent Drakan from annihilating Morytania's populace, right? Right. At least we know what he'd been up to over the years)
From a development standpoint, this makes no sense though. Suddenly Vampyrium becomes massively important in the story. Heck, we even go there and it's in the quest's title. All of thwt when it had only been obscurely mentioned once without context in a decaying tome. It's not reaaaally introduced in this quest either. Of course, Zaros speaks about Vampyrium in Fate of the Gods, but that's not relevant here. In a series with so many subplots and loose ends (though the quest dealt with a fair few of them, which was nice), it seemed very strange to focus on something entirely new like that. Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire. OSRS: POH ideas & RS3 minigames & achievement ideas !
)
Before we go on, let's examine Lowerniel's character. He embraces his origins and his ********** and seeks to shrug off the civilisation imposed upon him by Zaros, and in turn upon Morytania by himself. Unexpected, intimidating and it works from a storyline perspective. What better way to depose of him when his ideals clash with pretty much every vampyre's? (as it turns out, by running far, far away, but ignore that - we stopped the Death Guard from massacring West Ardougne so we should probably prevent Drakan from annihilating Morytania's populace, right? Right. At least we know what he'd been up to over the years)
From a development standpoint, this makes no sense though. Suddenly Vampyrium becomes massively important in the story. Heck, we even go there and it's in the quest's title. All of thwt when it had only been obscurely mentioned once without context in a decaying tome. It's not reaaaally introduced in this quest either. Of course, Zaros speaks about Vampyrium in Fate of the Gods, but that's not relevant here. In a series with so many subplots and loose ends (though the quest dealt with a fair few of them, which was nice), it seemed very strange to focus on something entirely new like that. 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-Oct-2015 11:26:43
This was a scary moment; we were in serious trouble, but somehow we had all made it through alive up till now. Mornid is slain by Lowerniel and Kael is mercilessly massacred by a venator when he is overtaken by guilt for running away when his friend had died near the blood altar ruins. The hunt is on. Of course, Lowerniel could have easily killed everyone present with a flick of his hand. But this is exactly what he lives for, why would he spoil his own fun?
Upstairs, we visit Lowerniel's library and find out the rock he had been allegedly searching for is the Stone of Jas. Makes sense, since Movario's notes hint at the Stone's having been in Morytania at one point, but still I reckon daeyalt would have been more interesting. It's hardly a plot point, though, so whatever. The books in the library provide some excellent flavour. Kudos for Tenebra's memoirs in particular! If the castle ever becomes accessible again, I hope some of these can be taken out and read. This floor also features very pretty portraits of the three Drakans (no picture for Draynor?
), these look great.
One thing though: we're supposed to be on Vampyrium at this point, so why are there texts so clearly written on RuneScape (Tenebra, Barrows...) in here?
While blocking the huge window, another venator swoops in and kills Mekritus. Another heart attack; I've always liked Mekritus. He's hardly any more physically fit than any starving Meiyerditch citizen but he's loyal, he's tough, and he's a friend. And now he's dead. This is pretty much when the quest stopped being explicitly fun and I was just thinking 'get us out of here,' but then I reckon that's intended. Skipping the next puzzle and the delightful Ana and Tytn references, we go upstairs. Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire. OSRS: POH ideas & RS3 minigames & achievement ideas !
Upstairs, we visit Lowerniel's library and find out the rock he had been allegedly searching for is the Stone of Jas. Makes sense, since Movario's notes hint at the Stone's having been in Morytania at one point, but still I reckon daeyalt would have been more interesting. It's hardly a plot point, though, so whatever. The books in the library provide some excellent flavour. Kudos for Tenebra's memoirs in particular! If the castle ever becomes accessible again, I hope some of these can be taken out and read. This floor also features very pretty portraits of the three Drakans (no picture for Draynor?
), these look great.
One thing though: we're supposed to be on Vampyrium at this point, so why are there texts so clearly written on RuneScape (Tenebra, Barrows...) in here?
While blocking the huge window, another venator swoops in and kills Mekritus. Another heart attack; I've always liked Mekritus. He's hardly any more physically fit than any starving Meiyerditch citizen but he's loyal, he's tough, and he's a friend. And now he's dead. This is pretty much when the quest stopped being explicitly fun and I was just thinking 'get us out of here,' but then I reckon that's intended. Skipping the next puzzle and the delightful Ana and Tytn references, we go upstairs. 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-Oct-2015 11:27:25
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