forums.rs

Forums

Sixth Age - Criticisms

Quick find code: 341-342-569-65853471

of 7
Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Posts: 1,658 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
With CoM out the way, we are a month away from the endgame, and hence a large chunk of the 6th Age Gods storyline. Reflecting on the Sixth Age, while it certainly has been a fun ride, it has unfortunately failed to deliver in a few substantial ways. The question is then, what could Jagex have done to make it better, and what can they learn from the Sixth Age moving forward?

Some thoughts:

Lack of dialogue. What Jagex should have done was make a team of 1-3 people whose sole purpose is to update and add new dialogue to all sorts of npcs, particularly about the Sixth Age. While they tried doing this to some extent, they didn't do it anywhere near enough, and as a result it makes the Sixth Age feel distant from the world instead of part of it. Although I think that even outside of the Sixth Age this should be done, since it develops characters and is one of the best ways to do world-building.

Continuing from that, I think minigames/tales of the sort we saw this year (including Meg's cases) is a good step forward, and should be done more. It's the best alternative to the now-scrapped idea of bottled quests. Last Christmas event also showed the potential that serialized stories have, and I think this is one of the crucial aspects missing from the World Events.

Too many gods introduced at once/Fifth Age stories not finished. Of-course the Sixth Age will move super slowly when you have so many major and minor gods to deal with. We don't even have a Godless or Armadylean quest yet! Either Jagex needed to finish a large chunk of fifth age stories or they seriously needed to consider how to approach so many gods without players being bored for months/years on end when nothing happens with their faction. I think the better approach would have been to only add a few gods at first, and expand later when they developed the gods already released. So I think Jagex shouldn't rush to add even more gods atm. The Godless/Armadyleans for example have higher priority. I'm too Unaligned to have a forum signature.

22-Nov-2016 16:58:24 - Last edited on 22-Nov-2016 22:50:24 by Eren Lapucet

Kemtros
Aug Member 2022

Kemtros

Posts: 5,407 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The Endgame is next month.

The lack of dialogue I assume refers to random NPC's not acknowledging, and really, why would they waste time on it?

They've acknowledged that there are Fifth Age stories left unfinished, and they try to use the polls to make sure that doing something about that would be a popular decision. However, the polls had typically been in favor of the Sixth Age. A Godless quest and Rite of Passage were also part of the poll released during the Summer Summit. They recognize the priorities, but the polls are meant to affirm what the majority of players want. I believe the way Mod Osborne described the recent poll results was that people want Fifth Age stories, but with a Sixth Age lean, which I think means Fifth Age stories that actually lead directly into the Sixth Age.

They also realized that plenty of Fifth Age stories tend to have some big areas tied to them, such as Menaphos for the Desert series, Acheron for the Penguins, Arposandra for the Gnomes, and so on. This gave the impression that the Fifth Age stories would likely be continued in corresponding expansions, much like how the release of Menaphos next year will continue the Desert series.

While we've not had a good amount of quests this year, I do think we can use this year as an example. We had Lord of Vampyrium last year, so they wanted to finish the series. Their priority is to wrap up a series while it has "momentum", but first they need to get that momentum going.

22-Nov-2016 20:35:58

Chaos Lupus

Chaos Lupus

Posts: 9,633 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
This is how I would have handled it:

First of all, every existing Fifth Age quest series would have been completed prior to TWW to ensure focus on the Sixth Age once it finally did roll around and eliminate the need to work around unfinished stories.

Secondly, the world gate should have been introduced as low level content right from the beginning, so that other planes aren't locked behind a lengthy list of requirements.

Third, a small series of quests should have been entirely devoted to each of the young major gods (Zamorak, Saradomin, Bandos, Armadyl) and their factions. This would allow players to really get a feel for each god's personality, ideology, and history in depth, as well as the culture of their followers, before making any major decisions. No gods getting killed off pre-maturely. These could then have culminated in a MPD-styled quest which would have brought all of the gods into contact for the first time since the Third Age. And of course, the second Gielinorian God Wars would commence.

Fourth, world events should never have been a thing. They were all a flop, the story and the mechanics. Instead of doing a series of temporary events, there should have been an ongoing conflict, ensuring that the God Wars actually feel like wars. The entire world of Gielinor would have been involved. Each additional quest released in the series following MPD would drastically alter the landscape and the tide of the war. The dragonkin would also be involved throughout, without requiring their own pillar. Zaros and Seren would be introduced toward the end of the series, bringing with them closure to end of this particular series and sparking the events that lead to the elder god series.

So basically, my three story pillars would have been,

1.) Individual young gods/factions

2.) God wars

3.) Elder gods
The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

22-Nov-2016 22:46:18 - Last edited on 22-Nov-2016 22:46:41 by Chaos Lupus

Voraiya
Mar Member 2021

Voraiya

Posts: 448 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Jagex kinda of rushed to kill off Guthix and didn't really think afterwards and kinda of rushed all the world events. They make up or create this plot or quest series...after that leave it..go make another sub plot..leave it..and go make another one. Most of all..they allow "some" of the 6th age quest..idk..they just allow people to walk in and start playing.

Same thing for armors and weapons. They went from T80 Chaotic and T80 Nex armor and went to T85 port armor...next thing..T90 weapons...T90 armors..they back track to T85 weapons..next thing...T90 tank armor..Next thing...T85 with T80 damage and T90 accuracy...and...Refine Anima armor as T85 power armor...all the sudden....T80 tank armor Linza..now all the sudden....T88 ancient warriors...t87 and t88 weapons.

Instead of going order by order such as 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc etc. Jagex go from 1. Skip to 13. Back track to 2. Skip to 14. Back track to 5. etc etc.

22-Nov-2016 23:54:51

A Mighty

A Mighty

Posts: 2,337 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Loopy hit the nail on the head. Jagex wanted a flashy storyline to go along with the release of RS3, but the really should've finished the 5th age quests first and killed Guthix off either last year or this. Then MPD could've been longer, more low level quests, etc. Basically everything Loopy mentioned. Also there's been too much focus on the, well Children of Mah, and not on the other gods, and especially the Godless. No wonder they became Brassica content.

#SixthAgeWasReady
To those cursed by war and pest, Come into the light of Armadyl and rest. This is the law of Armadyl.

23-Nov-2016 00:26:40

Voraiya
Mar Member 2021

Voraiya

Posts: 448 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Bandos was killed off too fast. Yes, the players decide. We fuck up. We aren't fit to decide or vote.

But most of us didn't even know fully about Bandos. And because of Jagex..they never gave him his own lore and his own detail to detail storyline.

We all know about Zaros and Seren. Jagex gave them a good detail and background lore. That's why they got players who follow them. Same for Zammy, Guthix, some what on Saradomin and Armadyl.

All we know about Bandos are.....He's the big high war god. He loves war. He mad. He ugly. He commands those brute force like monsters. He wanted to reclaim the Cave Goblins. AND throughout all the Cave Goblin related quest...we were opposing Bandos. Idk..because WE ARE THE PLAYER..so..we see our self as the HERO. THE GOOD GUY. So, we SAW Bandos as the EVIL AND MEAN one.

23-Nov-2016 01:05:13

Raxxess

Raxxess

Posts: 2,236 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I partly agree with a lot of what has already been said.


The thing I really don't like about the sixth age at all is the popularity aspect of it all. Bandos died because he lost a popularity contest. They put in Garlandia and other really badly written pieces on Saradomin for the sake of hurting his popularity to even out world events.

RoP and DoC2 were back burnered because they kept going up against Mahjarrat or Seren related quests that offered way more rewards, and honestly this was a pattern that expanded well beyond lore with Runelabs we had a near constant flow of bossing or PvP updates that died a few months after they were released and now popularity is based on rewards.
Saradomin Lore clan
- Aegis of Saradomin

23-Nov-2016 23:16:30

Quick find code: 341-342-569-65853471 Back to Top