RuneScape Forum Archive | The RS Cinematic Universe...

Apr

2020

H 1 L D A

Posts: 1,666 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Note to F Mods: This thread is placed here due to the very unique lore circumstances for both games surrounding OSRS' Desert Treasure II release being this week, which would make it a recent game update for the other game. It's kind of confusing to me which forum is appropriate for generating cross-community discourse, but maybe you guys know where to best place this thread. However, I would like to include RS3 perspectives primarily - so I'd prefer this thread to n o t be placed in the Old School RuneScape category.

Old Schoolers, I also haven't played this quest yet, but I'm quite a bit a ways off from it and don't mind the spoilers. Just don't get mad if I misrepresent something here.
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So - Who would have thought Sliske would be the entity to bust up the RuneScape multiverse in the most profound way possible? An excellent choice, might I add.

I want to call your attention to Desert Treasure II, a new quest that seemingly veers completely off the rails for what we understand to be Mahjarrat quest line lore in RS3, as opposed to making simple variations for similar events as we've come accustomed to in both games.

Sliske parades around as multiple entities - such as Wizard Mia Persten (I am Serpent) and even far-flung Zeah-inhabiting botanist Kasonde Shaw (Shadow Snake) to tie in several plot points regarding things like the Stone of Jas, or more relevant lore on Zeah as it pertains to Gielinor, as the Mahjarrat begin to congregate.

What I -have- experienced so far though, is the mini-quest 'His Faithful Servants', which is based on a small excerpt from RS3's 'Temple at Senntisten' where the player retrieves a strange device from the Barrows chest. Instead of returning it to Azzanadra however, the player gives it to the strange old man at the Barrows - who does the single most definitive deviation of lore yet.

He destroys the device...

The consequence of this is great. Azzanadra doesn't get to reconnect with Zaros.

Quest Cape Owner since 2021

Maxed

- July 31st, 2022

27-Jul-2023 05:58:43

Apr

2020

H 1 L D A

Posts: 1,666 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

(cont.)

This has been theorized to have been a significant line in the sand for Old School RuneScape.

A nice little "Hey guys. We're not going to be involving the Gods when the future begins to move this time, and we're going to chart our own path."

For the game, it's a watershed moment, especially as surveys were put out to help OSRS' team understand how players wanted the game's lore to be built upon.

I hope that this still kind of "echoes" RuneScape 3 when applicable. Part of the thing that fascinated me about Scale Theory was that it allowed for both games' world maps to be reasonably combined and for the stories that were told to follow the same rails of understanding.

Now though, OSRS truly has the freedom to branch out and go a different way. What are you all's thoughts on this development?

I'm excited.

Quest Cape Owner since 2021

Maxed

- July 31st, 2022

27-Jul-2023 06:03:48

May

2003

Tren

Forum Moderator Posts: 92,598 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

H 1 L D A said :

Note to F Mods: This thread is placed here due to the very unique lore circumstances for both games surrounding OSRS' Desert Treasure II release being this week, which would make it a recent game update for the other game. It's kind of confusing to me which forum is appropriate for generating cross-community discourse, but maybe you guys know where to best place this thread. However, I would like to include RS3 perspectives primarily - so I'd prefer this thread to n o t be placed in the Old School RuneScape category.

As you wish to discuss the lore aspects from the point of view of both games, the thread has been moved to the RuneScape Lore Discussion Forum.

~Tren

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27-Jul-2023 20:09:19

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,168 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

H 1 L D A said :

Now though, OSRS truly has the freedom to branch out and go a different way. What are you all's thoughts on this development?

OSRS always has the freedom to go a different way in any illogical way. For instance, when answering the question about the lore of breaking down T70 gear for upgrading higher tier gear, Mod Ayiza's answer is bluntly there is no lore and reason they can give why they can do it. He said RS3 can do a lot of things with Invention and Divination behind a lot lore but OSRS doesn't have any of this, so just don't ask about lore because there is no answer for it.

We can look at many other OSRS quests and say they don't make sense or at least have no lore leading to them in RSC/RS2/RS3. For instance, when we chose against Hazeel in Cult of Hazeel in 2002, we had to kill Alomone, but for no reason Alomone is alive in Secret of the North in 2023. Shrug!

OSRS may also do things the deus ex machina way like the Elder Horn magically appeared in Entrana without any lore.

28-Jul-2023 22:45:59

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Great question, Hilda! I haven’t read up on DT2, but for years I’ve been comparing in my mind RS3 and OSRS to the split timelines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and to the timelines of the Zelda universe and, even older, to speculations of what could have happened to the world of Enroth of the Heroes of Might and Magic games 1-3/Might and Magic games 6-8 after the “Reckoning”).

I’d love to see the lore of RS3 and OSRS integrated in some complex way - like explicitly tracing the split to the death of Guthix. It could be argued that Guthix could not be killed so simply. At best Sliske could kill him in only one timeline; a second timelines had to come about. It would be too easy to say that this is just because Guthix was so powerful. Instead, I’d love to see/develop a theory that addresses something analogous to unfulfilled storyline potential. Somehow, if a story went untold, it couldn’t end so easily. Kind of why some souls linger as ghosts while others pass on. A similar dynamic might have been used by the Mahjarrat to draw people into the Shadow Realm.

So my hope is that the lore of RS3 and OSRS could someday get entangled. I don’t know how that might look. But maybe like the mysterious connections between parts of the Wilderness and the Spirit Beast Realm but in a grander and more subtle, lore-focused way.

Questions I’ve long pondered: If a timeline splits, is one privileged and the other doomed to wither and die as its residual potential is exhausted? Do the timelines always ultimately merge? Can both be vibrant? And if so, will they merge? And how?

31-Jul-2023 12:07:24

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,168 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Games are fictions. Of course, everything is possible, but it is up to the writers of the fictions. OSRS doesn't want Guthix to wake up. If he diesn't wake up, he won't die. So it is OSRS doesn't want the story to timelines of RS3 and OSRS to "merge".

Besides, it is always the question of whether some story is logical. Even *IF* OSRS wants Guthix to wake up and die, they don't have any lore behind it. Rest assured, they *CAN* do it the deus ex machina way and tell us for no reason Sliske just stumbles upon Guthix's grave and coincidentally also finds a Tbow lying outside his hiding place. He then drops a runecrafting pouch and it magically turns into godslaying arrows. He proceeds to shoot Guthix and kills him.

Rest assured, if Sliske can gets his hands onto previously totally unmentioned Elder Horn and Frostenhorn and manges to destroy the Forestenhorn just seconds later the incredibly duex ex machina way, Mods Ed and Ash can just do the same and have Sliske magically finds a tbow and godslayering arrows within one second in the next quest and kill Guthix.

I don't doubt some OSRS streamers may find this kind of story "hugeeee", but the question is whether all the other gamers really think such an OSRS story is "fun".

01-Aug-2023 20:01:16 - Last edited on 01-Aug-2023 20:06:13 by Dilbert2001

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Just killing Guthix sounds like a terrible way to merge the storylines. The merger could be way out in the future but anticipated by all sorts of fascinating lore in the meantime that works out how the merger comes about - i.e. the lore could explicitly acknowledge the split timeline, maybe asymmetrically just from the OSRS side. Or maybe they never merge but exist in some kind of explicit relationship. To be fair, I haven’t worked out a vision of how this works…

03-Aug-2023 02:33:46

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,168 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

AttilaSquare said :
Just killing Guthix sounds like a terrible way to merge the storylines. The merger could be way out in the future but anticipated by all sorts of fascinating lore in the meantime that works out how the merger comes about - i.e. the lore could explicitly acknowledge the split timeline, maybe asymmetrically just from the OSRS side. Or maybe they never merge but exist in some kind of explicit relationship. To be fair, I haven’t worked out a vision of how this works…

It is far more terrible to tell us in DT2 Sliske popped out of nowhere and found the Elder Horn, the previously totally unmentioned Forstenhorn of the North magically found its way in the tropial Entrana, and even more mind blown why Sliske want to let us have the Elder Horn when he can just give us a goat horn.

RS3 has 22+ years of lore, especially the prized episodic lore since Daemonheim. There is absolutely no quick way OSRS can put in so much info in a short time and expect gamers to make sense out of it.

04-Aug-2023 17:20:18

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