Birthright of the Dwarves- 2nd October 2013

[Alg]

-snip-

Dear Jagex,

 

Please hire Q. She will make everything better.

 

Love, Alg

[Edmundo]

So you're saying the only "real" grandmaster quest was the first one? It doesn't work like that. You can't just hold everything to the standard of the highest contender when in terms of classifying things. It doesn't work like that. It's like saying "the only real soda is Coca-cola because it's the best (or at least I like it the most)" or "the only actually 'rich' person in the world is Bill Gates".

 

Don't get your hopes up so high after WGS. Part of its hype was the huge buildup and entirely new concept of dealing with powers of the gods first-hand, and if it was released now, people would probably criticize it for having too much filler, requiring too much running around, and obtuse puzzles. You're only setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

 

See Quyneax's fab post and below:

 

In my opinion WGS is still the best quest released (although one could debate Sheep Herder in classic for sheer hilarity). I think it set the benchmark for Grandmaster Quests. Like many unique and boundary pushing quests before, RSC Underground Pass, RSC Legends, MEPII, Desert Treasure, it raised the bar considerably for what Jagex could do with their game. Since then almost 5 years on and it doesn't feel like we've seen another quest which has really made that much of an impact.

NB Special mention does go to One Piercing Note. The lore, voice acting, beautiful graphics and a good storyline. And that was from a novice quest which hands-down was much more enjoyable to play through than the utter-tosh that is Birthright. In fact it's one of my favourite quests ever.

 

The ones that have been branded as GM after only have this "level requirement" that Mod Mark has so pompously decreed as law. WGS was the culmination of years of effort, teasers, taunts and finally we got a massive rewarding pay off. If you release WGS and then say that those following quests are on the same level they clearly don't play the game like a normal RS player. I expect that after 9-12 months of working on a quest the effort you've put into it makes it feel more deserving of an accolade or degree of difficulty than it might actually be, who knows. I feel that the GM brand should be reserved for quests like WGS. Huge expansive works of art that take you across the world, resolving integral plots to RS Lore. Not slapping a combat or die quest underneath a frankly pointless minigame.

 

And If you're telling a grandiose storyline woven into the fabric of RS Lore at least make the ending respectful to all the content before it. That's where I feel RotM failed, it had so much before it for years about this confrontation between the Mahjarrat, going to "the north", stories from the Fremennik about the sky turning to fire and lightning and they all stood in a semi-circle and pulled a frozen guy out of the ground? Pfft. In many ways RotM was set up to fail by the success of WGS, as was anything they dared to brand GM after it.

 

This is of course all my own opinion, one which has been forged from 11+ years of playing and damn proud of it.

[God Of Lego]

They spend to much time trying to look grand than being grand. RS3 wasn't anything major. To me it was just like every other update. The Battle was the content. I loved the intro. Saw that all it was is BoL and it went down hill. Yet in every article they right about 2013, they are all like "TEH BIGGEST UPDAYTE ROONSCAP HAS EVAR SCENE" In reality everyones reading that and laughing. Unless they believe everything Jagex says. I bet at the end of the year there will be a MMG post saying how exciting the year has been. And how next year will be even better.

 

Grand master is now a title that just grabs attention. When they first announced it it meant something. They were actually "Grand". While Guthix Sleeps came along, with a catchy title and a flawless quest structure. I just hope the next Elf quest matches or beats that.

[Alg]

I don't care about quest requirements (I used to, but not anymore). They could be 0 for every single quest from now till eternity. What I care about is quality and length. And to me, despite Mod Mark's flippant responses, GM means it is an epic, long, and immersing quest. This just wasn't that. Graphical glitches, too short, untied ends, and unimpressive -- that was the problem.

Finally!~ \:D/

 

Especially considering that none of the levels required for the quest were actually used in it.

[Cheefoo]

 

So you're saying the only "real" grandmaster quest was the first one? It doesn't work like that. You can't just hold everything to the standard of the highest contender when in terms of classifying things. It doesn't work like that. It's like saying "the only real soda is Coca-cola because it's the best (or at least I like it the most)" or "the only actually 'rich' person in the world is Bill Gates".

 

Don't get your hopes up so high after WGS. Part of its hype was the huge buildup and entirely new concept of dealing with powers of the gods first-hand, and if it was released now, people would probably criticize it for having too much filler, requiring too much running around, and obtuse puzzles. You're only setting yourself up for disappointment.

Yes. Yes it does. He's not doing that. It doesn't, but he's not doing that. It isn't and it isn't.

 

We should have reason to. Yes, but that's not all. No, no, and no. Yes, I'm afraid we are.

 

Really why should we expect less from Jagex than the level of WGS, or Legend's Quest, or Underground Pass? Making huge, revisitable dungeons/jungles full of senseless* elaboration is way preferable to copy-pasting an existing area and having it as a one-time instance. Quests are made by the Easter eggs, the elaborate surroundings and the potential to take a wrong turn and still do something worthwhile. You need to be able to immerse yourself, which doesn't work if there are inconsistencies, loose ends and too-narrow paths.

 

For example, in Birthright of the Dwarves, I went to visit the Red Axe dwarves on Jatizso, or rather the king there, to verify some details. As it happens, the relevant dwarves were actually on the island, I was simply unable to speak with them (clicking 'talk-to' walks you over and then does nothing). The king, his advisor, the locals and even the royal cat had no dialogue whatsoever related to this quest. It's a Grandmaster quest, with no apparent ties to the world at all.

 

Reasonably, I should've been able to talk to the king, find the captain of the ship and interrogate the crew. Hell, maybe I should have been able to re-route the ore shipments to my personal storage in Keldagrim, for a fair price of course (to be paid by the Red Axe).

 

Now, for the chaos druid, I should have been able to choose: infiltrate the coven (initiation rites?), defeat the coven through combat (but stun the leading druid?), collapse the cave on top of them (save the druid? intercept them at their respawn point?) or maybe just bribe them (cash, items?). I should have been able to visit a few high-up Zamorakians (say, the mage who teleports you to the Abyss, Surok Magis, the witch who bound Iban to her service - for a full list see here) to get some further info or some authentic clothing. I should have been able to visit some Zarosians for background on Zamorak's curse, maybe find a way to mitigate it, I'm sure Azzanandra has ideas?

 

Now Hreidmar says during the quest that he has 'given up'. This just drops from the sky and explains the shoddy copy-paste, but fails to explain the rather powerful (targeting!) cannons they have. If my cannon hit 3000+, I wouldn't be hiding in a near-empty hall with deranged followers and Grimsson, I would be camping Nex for epic loot and xp. Hreidmar had the resources to build a copy of the Consortium building, and the manpower, and he had a mind-wiping ogre and I don't know how many spies and supporters (Zamorak, for one, who has just returned even!), yet he's given up and everyone is OK with that. Surely, when a leader 'gives up', the ambitious second in command steps in and leads the assault, taking the throne for themselves?

 

And so on and so forth. We, adventurers, know so many crazy/powerful/important people, there should be a hundred cross-references in every GM quest.

 

---

*In terms of the quest storyline.

 

 

I'm trying to say not every grandmaster quest should be compared to WGS just because they share the same label. You wouldn't compare highschool freshmen to seniors just because they're both "highschoolers". I'm glad people at least aren't taking it a step further and comparing every single quest to WGS. That being said, I think WGS itself is a bit over-rated and mostly hyped up.

 

I agree that the quest was rushed, and it could've been better, but for what it is (a low budget quest with a development period of an umpteenth of the norm) it worked well enough. Of course it could've been expanded on, of course it could've had deeper interaction with other quest lines, but those things (especially the latter) would require far more dev work and turn out quite costly. Maybe they could've waited for a chance to really make the Dwarf quest go out with a bang, but who knows how much longer we'd have to wait - I have no idea how Jagex's budget and schedule work, but as we have heard with many quest lines, elves in particular, things can take a very long time to process and have a good release window planned.

The problem with Runescape is the constant pressure on its developers to churn out content on a weekly basis. Of course the quality of the lower-priority updates is going to drop as a result. I sincerely hope Jagex considers abolishing their unwritten "several updates per month or die" restriction that's quite clearly choking some of the more promising quest lines. Runescape's quests and stories have so much potential that remains untapped because of the average player's NEED for STUFF right NOW.

Also I'm going to repost these related points I had earlier on in the thread to which nobody replied (or upbloated lel).

 

The interrogation was enjoyable. You had to figure shit out yourself, look for clues, seek people out. It may not have been integral to the plot, but it was an interesting look into dwarf society.

The discovery of the memory wand was a bit "convenient", but looking into the characters' memories was interesting and important to get to know the characters better. The game mechanic itself was a bit frustrating, especially when that ogre was zapping the fragments.

The chaos druids in Taverley were an important discovery because it explains how chaos dwarves are created, and proves that it isn't just the Red Axe capable of making them. The "player created content" was the model of the druid herself, not the plot relevance.

The boss fights were great. Sure, they could easily kill you if you don't know what you're doing, but that was the fun of it: figuring out their patterns. If someone honestly thinks they should be able to AFK grandmaster-level boss fights with momentum, I kindly suggest they go play OSRS.

I have to admit, the quest definitely seemed rushed, especially with the Red Axe's base being a straight up copy-paste of the Keldagrim castle. The chaos dwarf traders were funny (Selling chaos!) but they seemed out of place. Tricking grumpy little comedy reliefs into allowing you through a door guarded by a single chaos dwarf doesn't really fit the "final obstacle our heroes must overcome before they face the villain" that I would expect from a climactic scene.

Furhtermore, I was confused when Hreidmar and Grimmson said they've "given up" and "have no plan". The bad guy should go out fighting (which I suppose they did technically), perhaps their forfeit was to show how thoroughly beaten they were by the player and Veldaban, but Hreidmar said he's too old to have enjoyed his time at king anyway, which leads me to believe, unless he aged 50 years in between quests, he wasn't entirely motivated from the beginning!

By the way, I chuckled when I was able to urge Veldaban to step down as king after, just minutes ago, I was begging him not to give up to save his life. It's like he turns around, looking for my continued support in his monarchy and I'm like "let's be realistic now..."

this new quote system is garbage

[Yoko Kurama]

The quest seems so rushed that Veldaban doesn't have any post-quest dialogue. No summary, no questions, nothing. He doesn't even want to see Hilda's memories (which he hinted during the quest that he might).

 

The more I think about it, the more I realize this was the most rushed and most incompetently developed GM quest ever. Bar none. Everything about it screams "did it the night before by pulling an all-nighter".

[Ruinous Edge]

The quest seems so rushed that Veldaban doesn't have any post-quest dialogue. No summary, no questions, nothing. He doesn't even want to see Hilda's memories (which he hinted during the quest that he might).

 

The more I think about it, the more I realize this was the most rushed and most incompetently developed GM quest ever. Bar none. Everything about it screams "did it the night before by pulling an all-nighter".

if you chose to kill him at the end he states he doesn't need to see Hilda's memories because he remembers her.

[The Onion]

lol creative...

[Ts_Stormrage]

Is it me or...

 

RS has been buggy lately, and doing this quest probably required me to reload the client about a dozen times... As a result I think I missed a lot of cutscenes, and I didn't ever get the option to put Drunken Dwarf the 3rd on the throne...

 

Nor can I find Veldaban anywhere (I didn't kill him)...

 

I tried logging out and back in, but that didn't help...

 

Suggestions?

[Sy_Accursed]

Servers are buggy, but rest of what you said is not bugs.

 

Drunken Dwarf king only occurs if Veldablan dies and you keep royalty.

If you remove Veldblan from throne (alive of course) he disappears.

 

Mod John A has had a thread on rsof for a couple of weeks now gathering post-quest npc/dialogue ideas to be put in most of which revovles around all the npcs that just vanish/have no comments Like Veldblan, the spies, the ogre (if alive)