helring

Plus it still has the ability to buy pets with boss slayer points if you want them guaranteed. So, there is still a method thats guaranteed to get you the pet.

Honestly, Proteans seem like the best compromise we'll get. All the other stuff either can be sold for money and messes with skilling supplies market price, is straight up exp like lamps, or is bonus exp you can use for basically anything. At least proteans don't produce actual items (except flatpacks but they're generally cheap anyway.) and require work in using them.

Plus thieving, since none of the clans are a thieving clan, so 20/26

Most would have to be really rare for me to want to support that. Thieving basically killed kwuarm seeds nearly completely. They weren't high before and now they're even worse. I could support juju seeds since they're untradeable anyway, but killing the price on lants and such seems like a bad plan.

I still think the quest was rather complete. There were a few things left out, but none of the things people are pointing out seemed too major to me, just something nice to know. I never expected to really be able to save a faceless person, at that point I just assumed they were pretty much gone. A lot of the stuff we never found out had to do with stuff that realistically people may never have found out anyway. Leaving questions isn't really a bad thing. Our job was to enter that house, save anyone we could, and end the haunting. We did that and it was enjoyable. I'd rather have something like that where they test out what they can do mechanically, than some small holiday tie-in that's relatively forgettable. Most of the stuff that needed to be known was there. The son died, the father blamed himself for the death and needed to be put to rest or destroyed. Whether the father actually was blameworthy for the son's death is nice to know, but no needed. Whether it was the demon or the father that killed all those people this time and last time is again nice to know, but unneeded because we know both were killing or trying to kill people, and both needed to be stopped. We knew Nabor's notes on insanity were helpful to the spell, knowing exactly what his notes said is not needed but would be kind of cool. As far as mechanics go, I think the mechanics they had were pretty decent for the time they had to do it in. The dangers worked well enough to add a bit of an edge to the puzzle solving, but they didn't really need a bunch of other dangerous things.

I disagree, I think the quest turned out really well, regardless. I've never really considered horror games as something that needs a full explanation for every little thing. It was enjoyable to me as a puzzle quest without any combat, which we don't get nearly enough of. I'd rather have a decent sized quest with a few things that can be filled in later by player theory or dev questions than a small throwaway quest thats too short and boring.

Its not a "lore book budget" its a translation budget. Everything they write in-game needs time to be translated and coded into the other languages that runescape is available to play in (With Spanish going away, there's still French, German and Portuguese). They probably only have a couple devs that do the translations.

yea, Mod Jack had another post referring to why they had the budget issues for the quest: Basically, they were supposed to just make a really small quest, and decided to push the bounds of the budget even though it meant a few things ended up cut. Source: http://[Use Quick Find Code]/a=13/c=NRwBHRBARo4/sl=0/[Please Use QuickFind Code]?15,16,631,65506909,&showuser=Mod%A0Jack

Yea, its awful that they cut the book for budget, except that I think it was one of the best things to cut if something needed to be. Horror doesn't always need to be fully explained to work well and I thought the quest worked really well on its own even with lingering questions. I think its only because of its place in a larger game that those questions even really need to be answered. Plus, the nice thing about cutting a book instead of some of the animations or sequences in the house is that Jack can go and post it to the forums after for everyone to read, so not much is lost except the book is on forums instead of in game.

Mod Jack posted the Last Will and Testament of Ormod, which didn't make it into the game due to insufficient budget for translation (rip ...). Answers the first five of your questions. He also made a few extra posts to mention that the "surviving" faceless servant is supposed to get eaten by the monster while you're in the basement. I believe the screaming servant dies anyway because her examine text changes to "At least she's at peace now" or something to that effect. You'd expect pretty much everyone to be dead anyway, because they're not genre savvy like you. I gotta say, for someone genre savvy we did pretty much everything wrong, I'd assume more "plot armour" than genre savvy saved us. Also, posted the full text of the last will and testament and linked to it on the previous page is anyone missed it

There was a book that didn't make it into the quest because it was too long so it didn't have the translation budget. Would have been found in the two sarcohagi in the basement. [spoiler=Ormod's Last Will and Testament] ORMOD'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT My work here is done. The servants have been discharged. No more shall this life trouble them. I have taken poison, and now I retire to my tomb to rest beside my wife. The voices call me murderer, but I know that history will remember me as an entrepreneur and visionary. My father was a merely a crude tribesman, but it was through imagination and hard work that I made my fortune through the forging of civilisation itself. Many were the warlords who wished to control Misthalin, and runestones were the key. I established the supply and trade of these precious rocks, and grew wealthy from it. My work was important, and it kept me busy. I loved my wife, but I had not the time for our son or his foolish distractions. When the pox took her, Saradomin did not care to double the hours in my day. My work was what kept this great house over our heads, but a stupid boy of two winters cannot understand such things. I took on a nursemaid to care for him, and simply required that she keep him constrained to the nursery tower. His needs were satisfied. He had food and books. When the nursemaid committed a grave error by damaging one of my relics, I disciplined her as any good master ought to discipline a servant. Perhaps I did lose control of myself, but history will agree that the blame for her death lies with her. Had she been less clumsy, it need not have happened. It was many weeks before I remembered the boy in the tower. By that time he was quite dead. That fatuous nursemaid had failed to provide him with an adequate source of water. Another death to lay at her feet. May Saradomin have mercy on her black soul! It was some time after this that I found myself becoming inexplicably prone to unsettled moods. I sought a solution from the Orders of the Wizard's Tower with whom I did business. I made it clear to them that some sort of curse or other magical malady was to blame, and they laboured to create a spell to remove it. They failed. Their excuse was that they did not have an explicit understanding of what had befallen me, but I named them as the faithless traitors that they were and sent them away. I sought insight instead from tribal seers and soothsayers. One toothless, sightless elder told me that the my freedom lay buried deep beneath this very house, although he could not tell me what it was or how it would help. With no other recourse I dug deeper and deeper beneath the house. I had seen fragments of ruined stonework to the south, and it was possible that something lay buried down there. I was proved correct when my crew opened a deep cave, and in that cave a great door, magically sealed. The door resisted every effort to open it. No man or tool or spell at my disposal worked. I attempted to contact the Wizard's Tower but they compounded their earlier mistake by refusing to even speak with me. Whatever lay beyond that door would remain there. I sealed the basement away and put it from my mind. Clearly the soothsayer had been wrong. I thought on the matter for some time and eventually realised the answer to my predicament. My malaise was an inevitable result of my knowledge and experience of life itself. In retrospect it seems obvious to me that a life which would take away a hard working man’s wife and child is not a life worth living. This realisation made, I knew what had to be done. Before I could rest, I would pass on the wisdom of my discovery to the servants so that they need not suffer as I had suffered. To make their final hours more entertaining I sealed the mansion with magic and hunted them one by one. To my sister Briaca I leave the mansion and all of its contents. May it shelter you better than it has me. http://[Use Quick Find Code]/a=13/c=zXar0VDxzFo/sl=0/[Please Use QuickFind Code]?341,342,168,65506462

[hide]Plot twist, we caused it all unintentionally and there will be a quest in the future where we go back in time to do something and inadvertently cause all of this.[/hide]

Yea, I'd much rather they fix skilling than pvp or another chain of combat updates

I was actually thinking of it as sort of an anti-One Piercing Note

[spoiler=Quest Spoiler] Kind of shows a dark sense of humour when the absolute nicest outcome for the quest is that the child has its soul eaten, the insane murderer's soul gets to rest easy, and we save a demon from insanity.

I enjoyed it. Completed all the after challenges. Its not too bad once you start remembering the layout of the mansion, world map helps quite a bit there too. I don't know why but I had my sound on and graphics on high and didn't really notice anything too scary. Still loved having a decent puzzle quest. Time trial ended up taking me 32 minutes.

I think the main issue was that for a long time they weren't even really sure they would do anything special for the 200th. Then someone probably said "I have an awesome idea for quest 200". So they decided to go with that, mention it at Runefest and all that. But we're already on 196 with 197 planned for October and we know of 2 other quests in development atm (Zammy Heist and Elder God). Which means they started the project too late because they have so little time before the 200th is needed. Can't say how much is true, but I know for a while they were waffling on whether they'd do anything for the 200th, and its just getting started now while Mod Stu is still working on Elf Batch 2 and on the team for Ports update after. That seems to me that they were basically asking for last minute volunteers to take on a bunch of extra work in addition to whatever they were currently planned for.

I wouldn't be that alarmed. He says he's getting about the same amount of time for this quest as most quests get. Its just that he's also working on finishing up Elf City batch 2, going to be working on Ports update, and has this quest which as a "special" quest is really like several quests in one. So, its not that he's getting less time and resources than most, he's just not getting the extra time he thought he would.

Trying to figure out the quickest way to get yourself killed without help as a high level player. Best I can come up with so far is games necklace->corp, or possibly max guild portal->GWD with no god items on

The basic belief was that Nomad's master was Lucien and Nomad was gaining power to stop him. This was confirmed in a Q&A but never in-game. This storyline was made kinda useless once Lucien got killed. So now what they're going with is that Nomad was trying to stop Lucien from gaining power because Nomad is a loyal Zamorakian. It fits, but mainly because there really was next to nothing learned about Nomad in Nomad's Requiem.

It seems more like a "the 200th is a big quest, I've got limited resources so I better see what player expectations are like so I can do the best I can with what I've got".

Mod Stu wants feedback again for the 200th. http://[Use Quick Find Code]/a=13/c=uPke6wgRGDc/[Please Use QuickFind Code]?341,342,384,65504270,3,333611260

A lot of the pets aren't lore-worthy. Pandas, Barrows Bobbleheads, inari. Pets generally aren't within the things they require to remain within the lore. People wanted these types of pets since old school got them and people liked them, so we're getting them. I love the lore, but not all cosmetics need to fit.

I figured since Defender of Varrock was a failed one, then shield of Arrav seemed kind of a waste vote.