Sy_Accursed

Who says he even IS a cabbage. Perhaps he's some random elf or thzaar or human or other species that attained godhood and decided to become a cabbage. My theory is he is the perfect specimen created by the Dragonkin to break their ties to the Stone of Jas. With the link severed the exposure made him in to a god and thus he managed to escape and chose to take on an unassuming form so as to never be discovered.

Interested tidbit to do with lore in the MPD FAQ Seems to imply that Tumeken's dream which created Het, Scarabas, Ampken and Crondis has literally split him up and that he can't awaken/reform without those 4 ceasing to exist - a feat that is perhaps impossible when they have been dismantled/controlled by Amascut and we have only restored Ampken for sure. (Maybe Scarabas too, but that's less explicitly dealt with so could go either way). Going more speculative and tangential: Also makes me wonder if Tumeken can divide up like that whether or not some of the other lesser deities (eg Karamjan and Fremmy gods) may not be related to him as well. Especially if we consider in Missing My Mummy we fight 5 Tumeken's Shadows in total to reunite his shadow with his body which could imply there are actually 5 facets of Tumeken out there. Plus you could logically connect him with Karamja perhaps in that the desert kingdoms were a jungle before Amascut went bad. If we assume the jungle of Ape Atoll is something akin to what the desert was (based on the wise monkey guys choice to live there) then there is a landscape linkage between the desert and Karamja. Also looking at npcs like the tribesman that seem to be native there is an ethnicity similarity to the people found in the desert. So all told it doesn't seem like it'd be too great of a leap to suggest perhaps Tumeken was trying to expand his dominion circa 2nd age into the equally jungle lands of Karamja and that the Karamjan deity is another of his facets with the tribal people there being the remains of his attempted settlement of the land.

I by no means meant just episode after episode of different Avatars, just that in time it'd be nice if we get to see a few more of the old ones rather than continually seeing the most recent 4. Though a additional e-book or something that documented them all at least briefly would be cool. Also I know we have been told there are lots I was just saying strictly speaking there does not have to be all that many to fill out the 9000 years gap given the lifespans we are aware of. I think the thousands is an exaggeration given what we now know though: With only ~9000 years unaccounted for there can't of been thousands of avatars unless an awful lot of them died between 1 and 9 years old. I mean 100 living to 90 would fill that gap, so realistically I doubt it's more than ~200 allowing for some to die quite young and others to live to old age.

Well I think we can safely a lot of the old-older lore is just outright wrong safely, when thinking of the original God letters as that entire block has been retconned. As for parts being inaccurate or unreliable Jagex has always intentionally wrote things that way. It was established very early on in god letters Zaros did indeed exist and hinted at that Saradomin in particular had purposefully removed Zaros from history so we knew from day 1 kind of that much of the in-game lore from Saradominists was inaccurate even if they themselves did not know it was. That's part of what is good about Jagex lore they largely try to avoid larger retcons (beyond the retcon of the 3 brothers thing) instead preferring to simply one up sources with more authoritative ones in due course. For example it's perfectly plausible for Viggora's account of Zaros demise to be flawed, but as we have no other source we have to take it at face value - but at some point when Zaros, Char, Azzanadra, Zamorak or the like tell us, or we find like their diary or w/e, we will have a better source and can see where Viggora was flawed. This Nex tangent is just highly speculative because in the podcast they just mentioned they do have this current idea of Nex only becoming a big deal in the 3rd age, but they haven't fleshed it out or even verified the details against existing lore. As it stands we do not have much solid info on Nex origins and power levels so there is many ways to view what the 'nothing special' means and how well it fits with current facts.

The exact wording was 'nothing special' given the kinds of creatures and levels of power Zaros has she could've easily been reasonably high-up and still of been 'nothing special.' Though of course they did say it was an idea and they needed to double check before it was finalised and of course it was a fairly vague comment. I suspect the final version is likely to be that she rises more during the 2nd Age and then peaks in the 3rd than a literally binary of nothing to everything. Or perhaps, to view it from a different angle, her being 'nothing special' was not so much to do with her power but the limitations and restrictions imposed upon her by Zaros eg she was a high-up general but her fighting powers and true strength was not shown off so that on the world stage she was nothing special. Then with Zaros gone and a power vacuum forming she was able to stretch her muscles and make her mark. I mean maybe Zaros purposefully held her back because of her seeming affinity for humans, when the Empire as a whole looked down on humans it seems. Also side thought: Are we ever actually told when Nex got her palace? I know we are told about her and Azzanadra planning from it after Zaros death, but if that is the only time-specific reference there's also a plausible explanation in that she simply did not have it before Zaros demise. She could've simply claimed a palace vacated by one of the deserters as she rose in power.

I don't think this story has to be seen as a contradiction to the Omashu legend to do with the badger moles and the first earth benders. The Lion Turtles were giving people their power when they went out to hunt in order to protect them from the spirits and they gave the power back when they returned. When the Lion Turtles decided they did not need to protect humans any more as spirits were leaving they would not have to give them the powers and certainly we weren't shown this happening. Yes by the end of the Wan's lifetime people did seem to be bending once more, but the Legend of Omashu could've easily happened in the intervening time, as could other towns and tribes rediscovering the power to bend from these specific species that had the ability. I mean we know from Wan's training montage there was a dragon around the area the fire Lion Turtle had been. It wouldn't be a huge leap to assume the Air Nomads came upon Sky Bisons in this time and that the Ocean and Moon spirits having remaining in the human world as koi fish were discovered quite quickly by the Water tribes. Definitely loved this episode was nice to see the origin of the avatar and the fact that he was not perfect and he had his floors. I hope in time we get to see more past avatars. I mean obviously we know a fair bit about the recent lineage (Korra, Aang, Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk and Yangchen) But that only takes us from Present (ASC) - 345 BSC then leaving a gaping hole til Wan in 9829 BSC. I mean we have seen the firebender who came before Yangchen, but he wasn't even given a name. There doesn't even have to be a huge amount of them strictly speaking given the ages we do have Aang did 12 BSC - 153 ASC aka 165 years. Roku did 82 - 12 BSC for 70 years. Kyoshi did 312 - 82 BSC aka 230 years. Kuruk did 345 - 321 BSC only 24 years. Certainly precedent there for avatars having long lives I mean Roku only died due to poison gases, Kuruk is implied to of killed himself rather than face killing Koh who had taken his love Ummi's face. Kyoshi meanwhile died of old age, as did Aang and one could theorise Aang died 'young' for an avatar as, especially in body when you account for the time he was frozen, he did not have the avatar power until quite late on. Afterall he was only 12 and had just been told about being the Avatar when he was then frozen for a hundred years meaning despite dying at 165 he was biologically only really 65 and only really began to become the avatar properly at 112 in chronological terms. From that we can assume the ballpark lifespan of a non-killed, non-hindered avatar is around 200-250 years, which only needs 4-5 per 1000 years which is only 36-45 avatars required to fill out between Wan and Kuruk.

Shocking that when magic damage was uncapped by equipment in the way that melee and ranged were it could out DPS better gear in those classes...

But Zaros has 2 different lessons from the podcast: The first is during his Empire he retreated and wanted to be seen ruling less and let it be more autonomous. The second is after being betrayed he is no thinks an Empire was the best way to go about his goals at all. We do have concrete evidence he retreated in to the shadows before his demise: The jmods in charge of the story have told us he did it, as do several in-game npcs. Yes it is not in-game cannon yet, but when people like Mod Osbourne tell you something is a fact, it is. As for Torva/Pernix/Virtus: The lore doesn't contradict their idea of Nex only being some special in 3rd age. http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Nex%27s_followers This book specifically starts with 'shortly after Zamorak became a god' Nex was at the peak of her power. Zamorak becoming a god heralds the start of the 3rd age, so the peak of Nex's power was in the 3rd age, which fits nicely with her being nothing special in the 2nd age. She then thinks back on her human servants Torva/Pernix/Virtus and how they led her armies and died of old age, which does of course place them in the 2nd age, but just because she wasn't anything special in the 2nd age doesn't mean she can't of been a lower general with armies to command. As for the revenge strand, maybe his followers have alluded to it but his followers are not him. Just like all the gods so far their followers haven't told the full story or, especially in Zaros case, don't know where he is at with these thousands of years with no communication. Plus once more it comes to the fact of the jmods in-charge of these stories have categorically given an answer so it is a fact.

Of course momentum is lower dps than mashing abilities, it's meant to be and of course thats not the metagame ideal way to do slayer etc. But for mass killing like slayer where you wanna be a bit afk and spend less effort it's perfectly acceptable to use unless you are a super obesseive metagamer who absolutely cannot bare to even a millisecond of xp waste by using non optimum methods.

@ 'enjoyed that killing most things was straight forward, relaxing didn't require a lot of effort' l2momentum Everything but bossin' (and dg to an extent) works just fine with momentum and is nice and straightforward, relaxing and doesn't require a lot of effort.

But it's already something that did happen in the lore. It is established towards the end of his reign Zaros was withdrawn and only saw a few select high ups whom he trusted. If that's not ruling from the shadows I dunno what is. They did say they need to double check it, but I don't think its a problem really. Afaik the Torva/Pernix/Virtus lore doesn't given any specific dates so isn't problematic. Some comments from Viggora might contradict in passing, but it's easy enough to change that with a small retcon if they desire. I kinda like the idea Nex only became a big name in the 3rd age, it gives more potency to the fact Bandos, Sara, Arma and Zammy baned together in GWD to imprison her. Almost like this sudden threat they didn't expect because she hadn't been a big name previously, unlike Azzanadra and others they knew needed to be taken care of. Plus it fits in nicely with this idea of the Zarosian power vacuum where people suddenly had the chance to do a lot more with their master gone and had to redefine their roles with the Empire as defectors left gaps in the ranks and the Empire crumbled around them. I mean we have to remember the Zarosian Empire wasn't gone overnight; it existed for 2,000 years at least and was the biggest and most powerful Empire of it's time. Even with the main guy gone and a bit later on defections to Zamorak that kind of Empire takes time to fall apart/be destroyed and can put up a darn good fight. Plus in lore Zamorak actually disappeared for a time after stabbing Zaros before returning as a god properly, plus the 3rd Age lasted 4,000 years. So we are talking a good 500-1000 years in the late 2nd age early 3rd age for these things within the Zarosian Empire to develop before it was properly destroyed. I'm looking forward to when we learn more about the Zarosian Empire, I mean that thing was a monster! With it's seat of power at Sennistein it encompassed all of Morytanina to the east, Lumbridge, Varrock and Edgeville at least to the west, with the possibility it got even further in uncharted as of yet lore. To the North it encompassed all of Forinthry (the wilderness) and even some inroads to the mountain regions (Ghorrock) and heading south they managed to conquer at least some of the desert lands. Plus all the gods they wiped out in the process of growing would be cool to touch upon. Heck I'd just like to see a more full lore of the 2nd age and what was where and who ruled what. I mean 1st age we got pretty solid info on with the general species arriving etc. 3rd age god wars is obviously well filled out as it has 1 primary overriding theme to it (though some nuances of the Zarosian Empire falling would be awesome) 5th and start of 6th being our age has plenty of details. 4th we don't have a huge amount, but we know about the Elven empire and it's fall and the fact most life was rather tribal until humans discovered magic and gain dominance. Plus with it being tribal it's expected to be patchy. But 2nd age we have the whole near blank slate, we know there were gods here in quite large numbers bringing in new species and forming bases of power until this massive Zarosian Empire swept the land and became dominant. But we don't know who was where and doing what in any great detail.

I've realised today I had a graphically glitch that made the citadel far cooler: The floor in the throne room was missing so I just had podiums, the swirling pattern, the carpet down the middle and sky as-if it had a glass floor. I was kinda disappointed when I saw screenies and realised that cool glass floor was a glitch.

The fact the lumbridge rebuild is a community thing kinda disappoints me. How much they've touted choice and unique player experience and divergent paths something so simply cosmetic you'd think they could've let us have an individual experience on how much we manage to rebuild Lumbridge. But yes overall these October bts SUCK. After their big talk about 'more in-depth' and 'more of what you want to know' all they've delivered are BTS videos that tell us less than the old style. I mean sure you gave us a big waffle on how you concept something but where was the details on what will drop it, will it crumble to dust is it power or tank etc.

Misleading, as you could only side with Guthix upon completion of The World Wakes, correct? I doubt a bunch of novice questers have completed TWW, so supporting Guthix wasn't an option for them. Not entirely misleading though: Novices did not have the chance to pick Guthix (though TWW only needs 140 cmb so it's doable by many) and equally many may not of had the Zaros choice. Everyone did however have Sara, arma, bandos, icth, zammy and sliske choices. The fact that in spite of this limitation Guthix and Zaros still reached 2nd and 3rd most popular says something.

The trouble is Sliske's plan turns peaceful gods violent and only kills off the weak and disinterested gods. It's a battle where the survivors would be the worst of the gods to remain and, in killing each other, they would garner more power making it less possible to remove them. God's likely to be killed in such a game are the Desert Pantheon, Marimbo, Brassica Prime, Fremmink Gods, Karamajan Gods, Seren and Armadyl all gods (ignoring Amascut) with little intent to do harm or seek power. Gods who have existed peacefully with little influence on wars and fighting. Those left behind will be Zamorak, Zaros, Saradomin, Bandos and their kin; those whose power and ruthlessness outstrips all others and in having killed other gods they would've garnered more power and more battle lust to inflict on those who remains. Just because it is about killing gods does not mean wars can't be fought with civilian casualties and massive damage; heck the power of two gods directly fighting alone causes massive damage. You think Saradomin is going to march in without his centaurs and white knights or Zamorak without his demons and behemoths and seekers? You think just because the goal is to kill each other they are only going to fight 1-on-1 without any of the devout followers trying to protect them or punch a whole in the defence of other gods? You think their fighting, even 1-on-1 won't destroy huge segments of the landscape? Look what happened to Lumbridge from Saradomin and Zamorak coming to blows. The best way to minimise damage is to not incite battling at all and do everything in our power to stop gods battling whilst figuring out other ways to dispose of those who would fight. A war may be coming, but that war was unlikely to engage ALL of the gods like Sliske's plan does and it was likely to be smaller battles in more contained areas as gods target the weak spots of faith. Sliske's game is just an invitation to get every last god in Gielinor to start battling in every corner of the world as the fancy takes them. Targetting big seats of power rather than outlying places to secure more power. It's asking for god's to descended on Falador to disrupt Saradomin. It's asking for the sky citadels to be turned into battlefields that could crash down almost anywhere. As for the elder artefacts, protect them from the gods, certainly. Collect them up big no no. The only way to protect such artefacts is for them to be lost, the way we tried to lose the Stone of Jas. Merely collecting them up just creates a big target for gods to attack and one that could easily causes other to ascend if they come too close.

Podcast keypoints: Mods and projects: Mod John A wrote the Zaros God book (from emissaries)Mod Jack is working on the details of Zaros in the 2nd ageHe has also sketched a comic around the topic of Zaros BetrayalThe comic is not intended to be released as a comic, though we should learn the contents at some pointMod's dislike the 'Zaros tripped and fell on the staff' part of Zaros BetrayalThey are working to flesh it out, giving more depth to Zamorak's motives and building more of a battle in to it.Part of this is Viggora's version of events is unreliable. He did not see everything and did not fully understand all of what he saw. Plus as he was very anti-Zaros he may of changed details to make Zaros seem stupid (eg the tripping) Zaros is different: Zaros is extremely different to other gods:He was always sort of immortal and immensely powerfulHe never ascended like other gods did, he just is that powerfulHe has never owned or used elder artefactsHe was the biggest god in the 2nd age and held the biggest empire.Zaros would take elder artefacts to keep them safe from other gods, but he has no interest in them otherwise. Several may of been within his Empire previously but he didn't take note of them.Guthix, Good or evil & God of: Guthix, though, was never aware of him since he came conquered and 'died' all during Guthix's nap.Zaros would have probably preferred Guthix to live as someone to be his equal and as they had no conflicts.Zaros is meant to be mysterious and represent something beyond mortalityHe is a god of control, fate and in some ways orderHe likes to be in charge or control in quite an authoritarian way - everything has its place.He is meant to be a predominantly 'good' god though he does have undercurrents of evil in being manipulative (eg the dragonriders deals) Other Gods and their characters: Bandos is the only current god who is just meant to be out and out evil. He is supposed to be a simple villianous, evil, bully figure without any redeeming cause.Zamorak and Zaros are both more good than Bandos as they do have a purpose and good intention to their actions.Saradomin, Zamorak and Zaros are intended to be complex personalities where the judgement of good or evil comes down to personal opinion of their aims.There was a lot more gods in Gielinor in the 2nd age who were either killed by Zarosian Empire or became part of it and are long since lost and forgotten as they were much weaker. Solomans factoid: Of the four god robes on Solomans, Zaros has sold the most by far. Zaros ruling style 2nd Age: During the 2nd Age Zaros wanted to be seen as ruling and powerful but as the empire grew withdrew more and more as he began to desire to 'rule from the shadows' allowing the Empire to consist of self-sustaining systems that only needed the odd nudge.Zaros 100% did not know about the plot to overthrow him and let it happen, despite some player theories. When the plot happened he was already very withdrawn and only directly saw a select few in the aims of being safe. This select few included Azzanadra, Zamorak and Char, possibly with 1 or 2 others also.Whilst being withdrawn in the 2nd age he kind of assumed everything was going to plan and everyone was content, showing some naiviety.Zaros was quite awful to humans, pretty much all humans in his Empire were peasants dedicated to supporting the demons, dragon riders, vampyres etc. Pandemonium, Demons, Vampyres and Dragonriders: Pandemonium and the Infernal dimensions are the same place - the demon home world. Most, but not all, creatures called demons within Gielinor are genuinely demons originating from Pandemonium.The Kal'ger demons do originate from Pandemonium.There is a story written about how and why Zaros visited Pandemonium and recruited the demons.It details the highly ordered and legality-centric style of demon society (eg contracts as mentioned in other lore)It touches on Zaros specifically wanting an army to invade GielinorIt is possible there is at least 1 Dragonrider still alive in some form and concept art for them has been created.Demons and Vampyres, among others, may not of always been 'evil' races - even during Zaros' empire. However Pandemonium and Vampyrium are considered very broken worlds, explaining some of the races 'evilness'In the 3rd age there would've been Zarosian vampyres still, but they are all dead by now. Zaros 3rd age til now: Zaros has not been away plotting his return for all this time. His incorporeal form after fleeing his body could not think or do anything for thousands of years whilst it was reforming into a conscious entity.Gielinor is important to Zaros for some reason.Zaros is not in the Shadow Realm and he has not returned. He is however somewhere the players know of/have heard about.A quest will decide if Zaros returns or remains where he is and, currently, that choice will be up to each individual player. Runefest, godly rankings and power sources: The fully god hierarchy, both tiers and how they stack up within the tiers will be revealed at RunefestThe upper tiers atleast have specifcally defined powers that lower tiers cannot do - eg Tier 1 can create and destroy worlds and species.Zaros is still just about a tier 2 god - When he was stabbed he lost a lot of power and may have gone much lower, but he has some power source that he has been using to regain power putting him back up in tier 2 aka the most powerful of the current gods.Zamorak's power is derived from a mixture of power directly stolen from Zaros and gained from elder artefact exposure. Zaros looks, Empire, goals and Sliske: Zaros look has moved away from the motion comic appearance a bit and concept art exists of his look.Three concepts exist - one for his 2nd age appearance, one for his current appearance and one for his 'naked' appearance (his true form beneath his clothes)Zaros has learnt a lot from his betrayal, the fall of his empire and how other gods behaved in his absence.The Empire was never his final goal, it was a means to reach the final goal.He no longer thinks the Empire was the best way to achieve his goal, but if on returning it appears to be the best route he would do it again.Zaros and Sliske do have a connection and Zaros wants Sliske to do certain things. Sliske, however, is unlikely to follow these orders fully and wull put his own spin on them.Upcoming content will give a definite answer to the Zaros/Sliske relationship and Sliske's god status. Zaros feelings, plans and the player: Zaros will not come back seeking revenge, he still has his greater goal in mind.Zaros does not understand revenge and maybe no emotions at all. He simply see things as useful or not useful, a danger or not and reacts accordingly.Something about the World Guardian status is vital to Zaros' ultimate goal.Our centrality to everything is intriguing to Zarosians and has probably caught Zaros' attention now he knows of us.Zaros is interested in unique and powerful things. Nex, Char, Azzanadra: Nex wasn't anything special in the 2nd age, she came to power in the 3rd age - This idea needs double checking against Viggora, Pernix, Virtus and Torva lore, but is their current concept for Nex backstory.There is content on the distant horizon dealing with how Nex came to be a Zarosian, she did not serve anyone before Zaros.There is no romantic link between Char and Zaros, though she may have feelings for him. He did however enjoy her company.Azzanadra is still trusted by ZarosAzzanadra was not a general in the 2nd age, he had a different role. He became a general when defections to Zamorak left a power vaccum. Chaos Elemental Hint: Dark mom will be happy to hear that his slan/slane are Runescape's Carthaginian Raw notes: Edit: Tidied and tried to loosely group similar topics.

No. It's a fun scenario, but it's the most unlikely thing ever. Also, it would effectively trash on all the lore of the TWW and all the events that have followed, completely. Also, Guthix is not the sort of person who would lie to the player or mislead him. Sliske is not the good guy, or a closet Guthixian. It would be a completely illogical plot twist. I don't think our World Guardian remit would be to collect super powerful artefacts where only we can use them becoming uber powerful ourselves and making a big bullseye for people to attack. Nor do I think it includes killing gods, we are meant to protect the world from gods, attacking them is just going to lead to wars and possibly more damage like the wilderness and the bol. And by all accounts Guthix is as much a pacifist as Seren, even in the face of the God wars he didn't raise an army or attack anyone.

This. You could make more variety with balance, but metagame will find the best then the complaints of lack of variety will return. Or you could make purposefully metagame equal but different options and then people will still complain there's no variety because it's the same. Making unbalanced stuff will just be worse because unbalance leads to very clear winners and losers in metagame and therefore more ignoring of the loser thans if they are only marginally worse.

Respectfully, I think your point has no point. Alliances are temporary and used only to achieve short-term goals, made in hopes to benefit all parties in the alliance in the short-term. The indifference is the benefit, the goal is self preservation above all else or else obtaining the stone has no point. If you're looking for a more formal declaration, yes, that has not been introduced yet. But what you have defined is effectively an alliance and you're quibbling over details that haven't been brought into question. Alas you don't seem to understand the nuance of my point either. Just because we know they worked towards the same goal does not an alliance make. An alliance requires formal co-operation and unified tactics, neither of which we have any evidence of actually happening; all we do have is them pursuing matching goals in self-interest. Perhaps I may be 'quibbling over details' but when debating whether a formal alliance against Sliske could work or be a viable choice for the gods, with prior 'alliances' being used as evidence of it working I think it is a rather crucial detail whether or not these former instances were true formal alliances or merely a temporary alignment of causes that allowed them to ignore the other for the duration. Because in the framework of Sliske's game a formal alliance is required to have any level of security against being immediately backstabbed, where as an informal one leaves you utterly exposed to being killed by another party when your back is turned. In the prior examples no-one had anything to lose by defeating Zarosian forces whilst they were weakened, only the removal of an opposing force and the potential to expand your power; in this case whilst there may be winnings to be had in defeating Sliske there are potential loses too if you leave yourself open to others knowing your tactics and plans as they could bump you off to thin the herd and further themselves in the game.

That doesn't seem to be true any more now that combat tiers cap the amount of damage you can do. You can't use t60 gear and expect to remain competitive against the guy with t80. Across the same tier of the same class seems to be more in-line with what you're suggesting, but not the same tier across classes. But I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong. I meant that there is a metagame choice within tiers Eg dual wield > 2h And in the case of chaotics: claws > cls/rapier/maul And faster weapons are better for tagging in competitive areas. The fact that higher level gears trumps lower level (outside special attacks) is nothing new for the EoC

I never understand this line of argument. One of the biggest lines of argument prior to EoC was it was boring/stupid because in each level range of gear there was 1 or 2 items to be used the and rest was pointless, so they fixed it now within a given tier every single weapon is a viable option creating more variety. Yes a metagame still exists as to what the best choices are, but it is not as vital to have that best choice to be competitive. Plus in the context of PvP what does it matter? So what if someone can use a dragon weapon other than a scimitar and still put up a decent fight? How does it make things any worse? All it does is give some visual variance to fighters opposed to just scimmy scimmy scimmy scimmy. As for the remove of, pick hands thing it's done this way for very simple reasons firstly not all weapons can be off-hand and it is far easier to make a system that excludes the possibility entirely of them accidentally ending up there; not to mentioned the existing equipment system, without being re-written from the ground up, is designed for any 1 item to have 1 place it can be equipped. Also the hand choices don't work because of animations. If you could reverse hands then all the attack and defence animations would have to exist in reverse, but with that in place things won't line up right when you face someone using the opposite hand to you.

He could already observe without the communication portal directly, in that very quest he destroys the Zamorak statue at the Zamora Wine temple right as the portal opens showing he can see at least that far.

Yes they did. The lore makes it unequivocally clear that there was an alliance at various times in the history. Not something accidental or coincidental where they all just ended up doing the same thing, but rather very conscious and intentional alliances. Like the one where they all banded together to re-imprison Nex. Or the joint Saradominist-Zamorakian campaign against the Senntisten which did not halt despite Wahisetal's best efforts to turn the Zamorakians and Saraominists against each other -- they must have had a relatively decent level of trust. You entirely missed my point. Just because they worked together does not mean they had a true alliance. As I detailed they each had their own aims to go after Zarosians and would've done it with or without an alliance, and given the immediate betrayals following such joint efforts they don't seem to be true alliances, just a temporary indifference whilst their aims matched up.

On the topic of god alliances Did they really have all that much of a truce or an alliance in the 3rd age? Or did they just all follow their own aims as always? Having been a Mahjarrat and thus Zarosian Zamorak had a natural cause to go after Zarosians to secure his status. Saradomin and Zaros were the big 2, with Zaros out of the picture it afford Saradomin a chance to stomp out a weakened kingdom and claim more for himself. Bandos just likes fighting and proving his strength, Zarosian forces were notably strong and a good target to attack when left leaderless. Armadyl wants justice and equality and is some what naive and would gladly bandwagon on to a common goal thinking the gods were united. But were they ever united? 3 of the 4 there have purely selfish reasons to focus their attention on taking down Zarosians and as seen in the GWD as soon as that aim was met quite gladly turned on each other without a second wasted. Plus it is entirely different circumstances in this case, for the most part none of them have cause to work towards a common aim. Sliske is promising the stone to whoever kills the most gods. Bandos loves killing, he's not going to make an alliance or hide when he can happily hack and slash and potentially get a big reward for it. Saradomin thinks he is the one true god and wants the others gone and has just had a power booster coupled with an ego boost of stopping Zammy. He probably thinks he could take down a few with little effort. Zamorak obviously hates Sara and with the zaros:zammy tensions has reasons to fight there too. Plus alliances and inaction pose risks of their own: If you do nothing and try to hide you may well survive but you are faced with the prospect of another god getting the stone, the stone that can give you so much power you can banish all other gods as Guthix did. If you try and form an alliance you leave yourself exposed to backstabbing; it's not like there is no precedent backstabbing by those you trust is how Zaros 'died' and Zammy rose. Bandos forces turned on Sara and Arma in the GWD. Sara tried to trick Zammy, Arma and Bandos in GWD too with the amulets given to each side. In terms of pros and cons: Option A - Ignore it and hide Pros - More chance of survival Cons - Basically handing supreme power to another on a platter and running the risk of them killing or banishing you anyway. Possible outcomes - On Gielinor and weak, Banished, Dead - aka all kinda sucky. Option B - Make alliances Pros - Better chance of beating other gods who lack an ally Cons - Leave yourself highly exposed to being killed by backstabbing and risk dying in the fight. Possible outcomes - Victory, killed by backstabbing, On Gielinor and weak, Banished, Dead - So there's 1 good outcome, but there's a lot of bad outcomes too and the options are expanded by the potential of being backstabbed Option C - Go it alone. Pros - Can't be backstabbed Cons - Less power against higher gods/alliances. Possible outcomes - Victory, On Gielinor and weak, Banished, Dead - Of all the options this gives the best ratio of good:bad possibilities (A being 0:3 B being 1:4 C being 1:3) So unless you can 100% secure a 100% water tight alliance with 100% certainty of no backstabbing by far the safest option is to go and give it your all and since none of the gods can really trust each other or like each other...

My stance has nothing to do with Jagex responding to public reaction. It is purely to do with the mechanics of the change and the fact that if you do not care about it, it has literally zero impact upon you negative or positive. So I fail to see any reason to be soooooo anti it that you want to stop it happening. It'd be like trying to stop a parent at a kid's party going down the road to buy ice-creams for those who want them because you don't want one. Whether or not the ice-creams are bought has no impact on you, either way you go without, but it deprives others of something they desire.