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an ambitious proposal

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AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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Fellow lorehounds,

For several years, I’ve wondered if there is a way to integrate the lore of RuneScape and Old School, or even to link the games - to allow for some kind of crossover between them, without undermining the integrity of either.

In the last week, I think I figured out a way to do it. Right away, I’ll put forward a warning: What I’m about to propose would add layers upon layers of complexity to every update. It is likely far more costly than the benefit it would add to both games. But it is up to the likes of lorehounds to consider such things, and I think it’s beautiful.

09-Feb-2020 17:58:10

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The linking is two-fold. The first part of it concerns lore.

As of now, RuneScape still gets quests for the 5th age and the 6th age. All of Old School’s quests are also set in the 5th age - as far as I know, all still in the year 169.

This won’t work without a further detail, but if we wanted to weave together the lore from both RuneScape and Old School we could start with this: Old School is simply a version of Gielinor in which Guthix never died. We could say that his power was such that death at the hands of Sliske simply wasn’t enough. Perhaps a more magnificent death would have done the trick. But as it happened, Guthix lives on in an alternate Gielinor.

This does not mean that Guthix can return to RuneScape. As far as the Gielinor of RuneScape is concerned, Guthix is dead and gone. But the laws of magic and planes might allow for parallel realities that remain parallel and are yet not wholly irrelevant to one another.

We need not work out whatever those laws are. I think it’s intuitive enough: A significant event causes a branching of realities. And the death of Guthix is an event of unmatched significance.

09-Feb-2020 17:58:33

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Immediately, it can be objected: This doesn’t work, because RuneScape and Old School have divergent storylines even in the 5th age.
Another concept from the laws of magic and planes serves as an elegant solution: reverse causality.

In other words, the storylines of the two alternative Gielinor’s started to diverge in the 5th age because Guthix would die in the future in one of them. Few philosophers or physicists in our world are open to entertaining the concept of reverse causality, but I see no reason why it cannot be at work in the planar magics of Gielinor.

Some work would be required to incorporate these difficult concepts into the lore. It would be easier if the stories of RuneScape’s 5th were brought to completion. It would also be easier if not all 5th age quests were set in the year 169. But neither of these challenges are too difficult to correct - and both are worth correcting.

Perhaps some of RuneScape’s 5th age storylines could be brought into Old School, and some of Old School’s storylines brought into RuneScape - to integrate the lore as much as possible, but also to develop the significance of the contradictions between them. Not every contradiction needs to be explained or clearly linked to the death of Guthix. But exploring possible connections between these contradictions and their relation to the original reason for the branching of realities would become fertile ground for speculation and future development.

09-Feb-2020 17:59:20

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
It might also be objected: RuneScape and Old School each have locations that the other doesn’t, in some cases in the same place. .
This too is easily corrected - locations can be moved about, land extended, islands raised, or even pocket dimensions created. The developers of Old School, for example, might even consider introducing the blood and soul altars like in RuneScape, suitably adapted so as not to undermine the methods for crafting these runes in Zeah.

Such integration need not be accomplished all at once. Every update in RuneScape need not be mirrored in Old School, and vice versa. But there is something neat about the worlds developing in parallel ways - and about a mysterious magic that governs this parallelism.

I haven’t thought out concrete examples of lore to link RuneScape and Old School. But of the two major storylines unfinished in RuneScape’s 5th age - gnomes and Amascut - I have a vague idea for the latter. Perhaps in the final quest of the series Amascut meets her death, but perhaps she also indicates that she knows the world is about to change dramatically and that she isn’t so upset about her death - without saying so explicitly, she knows that her double already lives on in Old School and carries out her designs...

09-Feb-2020 17:59:47

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The second part of the linkage is the ability to pass from one world to the other - i.e. to convert one’s account from RuneScape to Old School and back. I’ll discuss how to mitigate the destruction of both RuneScape’s and Old School’s economies momentarily. But first I want to propose an interesting in-game location where such a switch might be navigated.

In the early days of RuneScape, in the God Letters, Zamorak spoke of the legendary Flames of Lloigh-Enn - a passageway that required a magical word and a secret word in order to enter a world. Obviously this referred to the old log-in screen. But it could make a wonderful in-game location - perhaps a room or a pocket dimension near the resting place of Guthix - unlockable early or late in either game - through which one might pass from one Gielinor to its alternate.

I don’t think this would be too challenging technically. There’s only so much data associated with an account. The real challenge concerns how items and wealth, skills and xp might translate from one game into the other.

09-Feb-2020 18:00:25

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Obviously, one couldn’t bring items that don’t exist in one game into the other. Even if certain items couldn’t pass from one to the other, the excess of money and other goods could crush the economy.

To resolve this problem, the passage from one world to the other might involve adjusting the net worth of the player by an appropriate multiple (say, based on the relative price of RuneScape and Old School bonds). Or perhaps at the Flames of Lloigh-Enn, there might be a banker who offers to hold whatever items one desires in “inter-planar escrow” until one might return and presents available exchange rates for other transferable items. This could be immensely complicated in practice, but I think it is intuitive theoretically.

The different values of skills and xp presents a bigger challenge. Max xp/hour rates and costs differ between RuneScape and Old School. I don’t have much of a sense of how to translate between one and the other, but I assume an elegant solution is possible here too.

09-Feb-2020 18:01:09

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
This would of course create enormous complexity for development, since every update could have both story and economic effects across both games. But I think it is neat to consider, and I look forward to your thoughts.

You may post. :)

09-Feb-2020 18:01:29

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