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Chaos Lupus

Chaos Lupus

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Some of my criticisms of the quest:

1.) The stakes never really felt as high as they should have despite an army looming just across the Salve. More of the quest should have focused on people scrambling to prepare for a desperate attempt to repel an undefeatable army, not Drezel and Ivan sending us to look for ways to prevent them from crossing the river. An actual battle could have been epic but instead we went on a weird headache-inducing LSD trip. This was especially disappointing as the impending sense of danger was handled so well in LoV when we were being hunted down by Lowerniel.

2.) This wyrd was not portrayed nearly as well as the one from the novels. In the novels she's an agent with a purpose, not an attack dog. She's mysterious and creepy and the threat feels more real because you never know who her next victim will be until the link between her targets is discovered. With Safalaan, he's just an out of control beast. That could have potentially been interesting if his internal struggle had felt more believable (which could totally be done with werewolves in the future). As it stands, he felt more one dimensional, just someone out of control who hates “creatures of light” until he finds out Efaritay is his mother at which point he just stops fighting and lets you have his blood no problem. He just keeps saying he’s going to lose control again and that’s it. I wasn't convinced of the back and forth. I'm also not a fan of the explanation for how wyrds are created, just having icyene blood is less interesting than, say, a unique and freakish science experiment. Also, the whole hybrid blood thing just seemed way too convenient/contrived as a way to prevent the vampyres from invading.

Continued...
The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

20-Sep-2016 21:37:29

Chaos Lupus

Chaos Lupus

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3.) The ending wasn't nearly as dark as it should have been. We should have ultimately put a stop to Vanescula's plan, of course, but it should have been at a great cost that left an emotional impact. It just didn't fit with the dreary, hopeless tone that the rest of the series had, and even went so far as to undo a lot of the impact that LoV had with Safalaan’s death. Our victory was too clean cut. Hopefully we'll see some negative repercussions in future content (possibly with the werewolves).

4.) A lot of loose ends weren't properly tied up. Werewolves crossing the Salve and the splinter group were entirely irrelevant to the rest of the quest. And I know that Draynor has been kept pretty separate from the series, but it would have been nice to at least acknowledge him at some point. And on top of that, Ivan didn't do anything except for wave his hands around. He's been built up to be an extremely important individual, one would think that he'd accomplish something important other than just surviving.

5.) The world didn't feel the impact of Lowerniel's demise. It should have been a huge deal, he's been perceived to be one of the most dangerous potential threats on Gielinor with the absence of the gods. The only real result was that Vanescula had the freedom to invade Misthalin and that didn't even happen.
The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

20-Sep-2016 21:37:45

Hazeel

Hazeel

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I could have handled all of those flaws if they had just given us more choice. The inability to decide the fate of Morytania was deeply disapointing, forcing us to spare Vanescula was worse, and the whole "cure" thing was utter nonsense. You shouldn't be able to cure hunger for crying out loud. It removes the entire grey morality conflict as well as a great oppurtunity to make these kinds of difficult choices.

There should be sacrifices as consequences. The ending was just way too lighthearted. The villain is forgiven--even though she did nothing to earn it--we somehow managed to find a cure to hunger and Safaalan comes back to life. That's just boring. Runescape doesn't need a hero...it needs a villain. An all encompassing force of evil that will remain ever-threatening and use chaos to make the peoples of Gielinor tolerate each other, grow strong together, and fight side by side against this evil. I am that villain.

20-Sep-2016 21:47:06

Hguoh

Hguoh

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Gilvain said :
So I wasn't the only one who thought the quest was bad. Seriously, it needs a heavy rework because nothing interesting happened on it. And it being only the end of the Myreque series is no excuse at all.

Okay, I get that you didn't like how the quest turned out and wanted to voice your opinion on it, but did you really have to dig up a thread abandoned almost half a year ago to do it? Is it really that hard to make a new thread?

20-Sep-2016 22:02:39

NotFishing

NotFishing

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Yeah, I watched a video of it on YouTube, and it was disappointing.

At a glance it really just looked like a massive fetch quest. Go here, find this, go back, fight this, go revisit this area, go revisit that area, come back, another fight, revisit more areas, boss fight, quest complete.

And some of the stuff was too convenient. I mean, there's this whole other library in the Temple that Drezel never once thought would be useful? He never even suggested it to us as a point of interest? Wasn't there even a point early on in the series where we were researching stuff about the Seven?

The stuff about Ivandis being a Vampyre comes out of nowhere... and then they just gloss over it. Drezel has a brief moment of outrage and denies it, and Ivan tries to be open minded... but that's it. It is never brought up again and has no bearing on the plot. Instead of writing that Ivandis just killed himself, why not make it so that Ivandis sealed himself away or something, and then either a) he is feral and you have to fight him, or b) he is sane and helps you.

Then the bossfight with Safalaan. The whole Wyrd thing just felt like an attempt to shoehorn in another bossfight, and at first glance appears to come out of nowhere as well. They made a mistake by not ending the series with Drakan's death. He was the most powerful Vyre - another bossfight that came afterwards would have either been weaker or half-baked.

Finally, Safalaan and Veliaf felt far too... I don't know... compassionate? Idealistic? Forgiving? Their people have been oppressed for thousands of years, they have been forced to live in caves and basements that were also underneath ghettos where they could hear and see their people suffer. They have watched men and women under their command die. And then they're just... totally cool with peaceful co-existence all of a sudden. Beneath the gold, the Bitter Steel.

20-Sep-2016 22:13:34 - Last edited on 20-Sep-2016 22:20:46 by NotFishing

NotFishing

NotFishing

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They should want revenge - Veliaf in particular literally has nothing left to lose. And then there's the people of Meiyerditch, as well - they should want the Vampyres all dead. The quest mentions that there will be tension and conflict between the humans and vyres, but it seriously downplays it in favor of a quick and easy resolution.

Finally, back to Veliaf. You just sort of track him down, say: "Here's what you missed." And he's just like: "K, I'm over it. Going back to Safalaan now." The fact that he gave up, lost all hope, and told Ivan to get lost is never addressed. He never comes back on his own, either. He just felt like an afterthought.

It felt like Lord of Vampyrium was the climax of the series, and River of Blood was more an attempt to tie up some of the loose and gently tuck the series into bed, despite the ending of previous quest hyping up something far more exciting. It's like they just had a checklist of things that needed to be resolved, and just sent the player off to do those things one by one.

Edit: Oh, and Efaritay! She just sort of shows up. That's it. Sure, she helps you build a better Vampyre slaying weapon, but you have like twelve of those at that point just gathering dust. She talks to Safalaan as well, but again, his ending was disappointing too. Beneath the gold, the Bitter Steel.

20-Sep-2016 22:17:46 - Last edited on 20-Sep-2016 22:30:19 by NotFishing

Hguoh

Hguoh

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NotFishing said :
The stuff about Ivandis being a Vampyre comes out of nowhere... and then they just gloss over it. Drezel has a brief moment of outrage and denies it, and Ivan tries to be open minded... but that's it. It is never brought up again and has no bearing on the plot. Instead of writing that Ivandis just killed himself, why not make it so that Ivandis sealed himself away or something, and then either a) he is feral and you have to fight him, or b) he is sane and helps you.

He did seal himself away (apparently the Salve couldn't kill him). It was confirmed that the vampyre in the coffin at the top floor of Paterdomus was Ivandis. He dies when we put the cure for vampyrism into the Salve (presumably having changed back to human at which point his extreme age killed him).

He also goes even more feral earlier in the quest (clicking the coffin reveals that whatever is inside is thrashing about even more than normal) when the first attempt at bolstering the Salve with his potion fails (the ones that turns the juvinates feral).

20-Sep-2016 22:32:26 - Last edited on 20-Sep-2016 22:34:56 by Hguoh

NotFishing

NotFishing

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Honestly though, I guess we really can't be surprised about the ending. Thinking about it practically, there were quite a few side activities tying in with the Myreque series - Temple Trekking and Vyre-burning come to mind. I always figured they would try to pull an ending that was like: "Drakan was defeated, but his army was still there", because they would need to find an excuse to justify the continuation of those events, and also so that they wouldn't have to completely remodel Meiyerditch or Darkmeyer. Beneath the gold, the Bitter Steel.

20-Sep-2016 22:37:13 - Last edited on 20-Sep-2016 22:38:11 by NotFishing

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