Dev blog: Fairy Tale III

[Amundogus2]

A new Dev blog about the 3rd Fairy Tale quest has been released:

 

[hide]Ive just finished the development work on Fairy Tale 3 and I should be happy, relieved and pleased with myself. But Im flummoxed, perplexed and generally vexed; the most challenging task is yet to be completed! A fairy quests subtitle is generally the most difficult thing to invent. This isnt as simple as it sounds - it requires a subtle, humorous, tantalising and yet revealing insight into the quest, but shouldnt give too much away. Perhaps I need to go on a course to improve my quest naming skills.

 

This project has taken more than the usual number of twists and turns on its unique trip through production - let me explain. The initial developer, Mod Greg, passed the Fairy Tale quest series on to Mod Ingrid. Both developers did great work and created a wonderfully whimsical world. The honour of writing the code and developing Fairy Tale 3 from the design brief came my way and Ive done my best to realise Mod Ingrids vision for the final chapter of the Fairy Tale series.

 

 

Military madness

 

Fairy General

One of the new characters in the quest has a slight tendency towards military speak and getting into this character and writing the dialogue has been very interesting. Having done some amateur dramatics and also experiencing the old school pencil-and-paper role-playing games, I know what a difference it can make to act the part in a story.

 

Writing dialogue for characters can be fun, I really try to put myself in the place of the adventurer having to deal with this person and imagine the kind of verbal interaction that would happen. But at least I dont take my work home with me. For instance, its rare youll catch me barking orders to imaginary fairy soldiers - "Get into line, you numbskulls; weve got a job to do!" That never happens.

 

 

Orkish military precision

 

NOT the bosses

Mod Chihiro mentioned in his Design Review blog that a significant element of this quest was the boss fight. He wrote, "designing a boss fight for this was challenging". Well, the boss fight certainly is challenging, not just from a players point of view, but very much from a coding perspective too.

 

In this particular challenge, we really wanted to do something a bit different, really explore the tactical possibilities for a boss battle where the player has the choice about how to take out the enemies and which enemies to take out first. Yes, thats right, multiple hard and tough enemies, all of them not liking you very much, all at the same time. Dont worry, though, well give you a few allies, though they may be a bit long in the tooth.

 

 

Initial feedback

The project has completed development and is getting initial feedback. This means that QA and some of my RuneScape Content colleagues have written what they think of the project with an aim of making it better. Most of the comments have been positive, but its clear that more improvements are possible. Ive compiled this list of suggestions and have started implementing them into the code. That which doesnt kill a project only makes it stronger. Im enjoying this phase of development, seeing the slightly raggedy edges being polished and wrought into shape.

 

 

Implementation

What I really love about developing RuneScape projects is the mixture of different skill sets it requires. It requires a technical mindset to force this chaotic creativity into the very particular constraints of a binary computer system, and it needs creativity to solve those technical problems. So, heres a silly, but not too dissimilar example of a conversation I might have with myself:

 

"Do I need to store all this information in so many variables, or can I just assume the player is going to do this specific thing?"

"We can never assume anything of our players! Theyll always do something slightly odd that we hadnt expected."

"Okay, so I have to use all these variables then? Seems like a bit of a waste for the end result?"

"Hmm, maybe youre right; but what if you put a nice PINK FAIRY in that space there, wouldnt it look nice?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah, it would... but hey, thats not answering the question..."

"But it was a boring question, just store the information in another way!"

"Yeah, but what other way?"

"If you had a PINK FAIRY, right there, she could remind the player of all the stuff that you needed to store in those variables."

"Oh yeah!"

 

And, of course, Im sure that every other developer does exactly the same thing, and if they dont, they ought to.

 

 

 

We want your feedback...

Once all the initial feedback for the project has been implemented, the project will go into QA for a thorough testing. Ive already done a lot of my own testing, so Im hopeful that the few issues that QA always find will be minor. This is usually the point at which I start to get a little nervous, even though Ive developed content for years; this is the start of the countdown for the project being ready for release.

 

And release means players, and players means feedback. I like to take a balanced approach to player feedback; read and accept all the positive comments and ignore anything negative - that works well for me! ;) But thats not exactly true, Im far too interested in doing better next time to ignore any critical comments, I always want to make my next quest the best quest ever!.

 

NB: No PINK FAIRIES were harmed during the development of this blog.

 

If you'd like to discuss this blog on the forums, please visit this forum thread.[/hide]

[Toad]

Interesting was expecting a diary too will read through it really soon :)

 

Do we get to see the tooth fairy?

[Poppet]

Interesting was expecting a diary too will read through it really soon :)

 

Do we get to see the tooth fairy?

 

No its more about "What" we get.

[Toad]

Interesting was expecting a diary too will read through it really soon :)

 

Do we get to see the tooth fairy?

 

No its more about "What" we get.

 

Selling teeth for money pl0x :angry:

[Danqazmlp]

I think the 'bit long in the tooth' hint does mean the tooth fairy.

 

It sounds good, but i laughed at the last paragraph with him talking about the feedback. And his conversation with himself, that guy is crazy haha.

[Master_Smither]

Ok so a wordy way to say it's time for the QA team to test it. I've never really liked the Dev blog because they just through out pointless information that can be summed up in a few sentences. The Dev diaries are much better and are actually interesting.

[Talset65]

I cannot find this on the Runescape site, where is it located?

[Lielac]

I cannot find this on the Runescape site, where is it located?

Scroll down to the bottom of the main page. There'll be a section headed "Developers' Blog" beneath the news, and the first link is "Subtitle yet to be approved", by Mod Tytn.

 

Or just click here if you're that lazy :D

[Talset65]

I cannot find this on the Runescape site, where is it located?

Scroll down to the bottom of the main page. There'll be a section headed "Developers' Blog" beneath the news, and the first link is "Subtitle yet to be approved", by Mod Tytn.

 

Or just click here if you're that lazy :D

 

Ah cheers, I am so bad at finding things :(

[Den]

Cant wait for it.

The godfather doesnt look happy.

 

I liked the conversasion he had with himself :P

Just add a PINK FAIRY there and everything should be good. :lol:

[Romy]

That's one funny blog :).

[Amundogus2]

Am I the only one happy that Mod Tytn has taken over the project? =) For anyone who doesn't know, he's the developer of the Myreque series.

[meb]

Ok so a wordy way to say it's time for the QA team to test it. I've never really liked the Dev blog because they just through out pointless information that can be summed up in a few sentences. The Dev diaries are much better and are actually interesting.

 

Rest In Peace Behind the scenes.

[Master_Smither]

Ok so a wordy way to say it's time for the QA team to test it. I've never really liked the Dev blog because they just through out pointless information that can be summed up in a few sentences. The Dev diaries are much better and are actually interesting.

 

Rest In Peace Behind the scenes.

 

It's not so much that I miss behind the scenes that these dev blogs are pointlessly wordy. I do enjoy the short twitter messages that hint on the next update though.

[Bauke]

Well it made me curious. Hope they release it before the end of the year.

[Aneron]

Am I the only one happy that Mod Tytn has taken over the project? =) For anyone who doesn't know, he's the developer of the Myreque series.

 

ooh that's cool

 

hopefully QA can hurry it through and we can play it soon

[Demoli]

Am I the only one happy that Mod Tytn has taken over the project? =) For anyone who doesn't know, he's the developer of the Myreque series.

 

To be honest i don't think that's a good thing, the quest will most likely be awesome, but i want the conclusion to the Myreque series (one quest left) rather than the conclusion of FairyTale, but it's a good thing seeing JaGeX finally finishing their storylines (only took them 5-6 years).

[HunterDexter]

Well, I have great respect for Tytn, he's one of the first mods Paul and Andrew gathered. A lot of the old quests are on his name, same as the myreque series, one of my favourites. :D

[Mdeoxys]

NB: No PINK FAIRIES were harmed during the development of this blog.

:3

 

 

I'm really looking forward to all the plots in this quest, hope it comes as soon as possible. :)

[Den]

Am I the only one happy that Mod Tytn has taken over the project? =) For anyone who doesn't know, he's the developer of the Myreque series.

 

To be honest i don't think that's a good thing, the quest will most likely be awesome, but i want the conclusion to the Myreque series (one quest left) rather than the conclusion of FairyTale, but it's a good thing seeing JaGeX finally finishing their storylines (only took them 5-6 years).

 

I couldnt place him before you said he worked on the myreque quests. I expect great things. :thumbup:

 

I would also like to see the ending of the myreque quest, but I doubt it will end anytime soon. We still havent entered castle drakan, explored the area and houses in front of the castle, north of Meyerditch. There is also loads of black space for a big vampire city to the east of there.

If anything, im expecting 3 more myreque quests.

[J35u5_M4]

Den is right, why get myreque end now? We can wait for more myreque quests before the end :P.

 

On topic, finally we'll get rid of those lurking orks at Zanaris

[Mercifull]

Its been a fair few weeks since the last Fairy blog and not long ago a dev blog was released about something and then the update came out a day or two later. I am fairly confident that next weeks quest is FTP3.

 

And along with it a complete revamp of Zanaris... will this be the first time we seem bloom lighting/particle effects etc?

[Dax]

Can't wait, but I love my quests, so I can't wait for any quest!!

 

I wasn't thinking Tooth Fairy for the 'bit long in the tooth' hint thingy, I was thinking Gorak, maybe they team up? :mrgreen:

 

EDIT:

And along with it a complete revamp of Zanaris... will this be the first time we seem bloom lighting/particle effects etc?

 

I hope so, I want to see how it turns out.

[Saunamajuri]

It`s good to see, that they are making sequels for older series. Hope that devious minds gets sequel soon. :thumbsup:

[Badgers]

I'm excited, the Fairy Tale quests have been my favorite lines :D