Birthright of the Dwarves- 2nd October 2013

[Quyneax]

The giant doesn't even show up in the quest, talk about 'chucked in'...

[Rainchase]

So glad divination is finally trainable with lamps. Can see all those spots being empty from now on. Don't think anyone who plays Runescape likes to torture themselves that much.

 

Still got to get 85 strength for the new quest but I'm looking forward to it. A boss that is actually difficult sounds like a good challenge.

[Miss Lioness]

So glad divination is finally trainable with lamps. Can see all those spots being empty from now on. Don't think anyone who plays Runescape likes to torture themselves that much.

 

Still got to get 85 strength for the new quest but I'm looking forward to it. A boss that is actually difficult sounds like a good challenge.

 

You won't see me using bonus experience on Divination ="D.

[Edmundo]

Died once to Grimmson because he kept running back and forth through me for like 3k hits at a time.

 

That quest just felt really forced. The interrogation bit was pointless, nothing came of it. Going to see that chaos woman, nothing happened as Veldaban pretty much ignored what she said anyway. What was the point?? The memory wand thing was pretty rubbish too. I also hate eoc combat that forces you to use stuns etc.. I'd much rather just let momentum do the talking for me, but that's another issue..

 

I think perhaps it's been SO LONG since there was any sort of regular update to an old quest series that we've forgotten what actually happened. I can't even tell you the name of the quest before BotD! I vaguely remember the Giant Dwarf but after that it's another blur.

 

Quests like this make me dread what they are going to do for the Elf finale. :(

[Cheefoo]

Died once to Grimmson because he kept running back and forth through me for like 3k hits at a time.

 

That quest just felt really forced. The interrogation bit was pointless, nothing came of it. Going to see that chaos woman, nothing happened as Veldaban pretty much ignored what she said anyway. What was the point?? The memory wand thing was pretty rubbish too. I also hate eoc combat that forces you to use stuns etc.. I'd much rather just let momentum do the talking for me, but that's another issue..

 

I think perhaps it's been SO LONG since there was any sort of regular update to an old quest series that we've forgotten what actually happened. I can't even tell you the name of the quest before BotD! I vaguely remember the Giant Dwarf but after that it's another blur.

 

Quests like this make me dread what they are going to do for the Elf finale. :(

 

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..."

[strilmus]

single dwarf that may have been, but when the door's locked on the other side, it's not like it's a simple matter of blowing up a door made by dwarven hands

 

also, the death/removal of veldaban won't actually be important unless they actually decide to implement keldagrim in any future content, which doesn't seem likely since nobody's heard from either dorgeshuun or zanik after their final quest, even though zanik is the most likely character to show up in the godless faction

 

this quest was put off for so long, i doubt the higher ups will want to waste any further significant time on keldagrim until they've released all the other planned fancy content related cash store merchandise first

[HunterDexter]

The fact no Solomon outfit was made for this quest also gives us insight in how unimportant this quest seemed for Jagex.

[helring]

I don't know. I seem like the only one who thought it was fitting that Hreidmar made an exact copy of the Consortium as his base. He was a defeated old man/dwarf whose dreams had been wrecked. He was already shown to be somewhat delusional, thinking that Zamorak himself had spoken to him. It fits with that sort of obsessive yet defeated nature to build a replica from which to rule.

[Quyneax]

The copy was a bit shoddy though (not in-universe shoddy, creator-is-lazy shoddy), with lots of empty space, and a trade floor with traders but almost no other Red Axe members. We've been fighting this powerful, mind-bending guerilla, and suddenly it turns out it consists of two dwarves, an ogre and a bunch of voodoo zombies. Really it should have been a less perfect copy, but also have a lot of buildings around it, and large mines with lots of troops you have to clear out with cannons and Black Guards and whatnot. Make it a bit of a lead-the-troops kind of thing.

[helring]

The copy was a bit shoddy though (not in-universe shoddy, creator-is-lazy shoddy), with lots of empty space, and a trade floor with traders but almost no other Red Axe members. We've been fighting this powerful, mind-bending guerilla, and suddenly it turns out it consists of two dwarves, an ogre and a bunch of voodoo zombies. Really it should have been a less perfect copy, but also have a lot of buildings around it, and large mines with lots of troops you have to clear out with cannons and Black Guards and whatnot. Make it a bit of a lead-the-troops kind of thing.

 

Fair enough, I just felt that the place being mostly empty and filled with nothing but basically zombies truly showed how beaten and broken he was. As his spy had mentioned earlier, he had cut all ties with his regular agents and just kind of retreated to play king and wait for death. He had given up, and this little bit was all he had left. I think if he had had this huge army then the consortium copy wouldn't have really made sense. Instead we have this broken old man playing with mindless dolls for all intents and purposes. It shows how far he really had fallen.

[Yoko Kurama]

I just did the quest (I didn't have time prior to today). As usual, it was far from the standard of GM quest; it would have been best left graded at a Master Quest at most. I am not sure why they keep pretending hastily-developed quests are GM worthy. It was a fun little quest, but so obviously not a GM quest. There's nothing wrong with a quest not being GM level, but there is something wrong with giving rise to false expectations, and then trying to meet those false expectations in a ramshackle and half-assed way (the quest as some other posters in this thread have mentioned, was done in a few months). An easier solution would be simply to label such quests as Master, rather than GM, and then there will be no heightened expectations or inevitable disappointments.

 

And there were quite a few graphical glitches that were very annoying, during the fight and the cannon part.

 

Still, I enjoyed it somewhat, though it was short.

[Sy_Accursed]

I just did the quest (I didn't have time prior to today). As usual, it was far from the standard of GM quest; it would have been best left graded at a Master Quest at most. I am not sure why they keep pretending hastily-developed quests are GM worthy. It was a fun little quest, but so obviously not a GM quest. There's nothing wrong with a quest not being GM level, but there is something wrong with giving rise to false expectations, and then trying to meet this those false expectations in a ramshackle and half-assed way (the quest as some other posters in this thread have mentioned, was done in a few months). An easier solution would be simply to label such quests as Master, rather than GM, and then there will be no heightened expectations or inevitable disappointments.

 

And there were quite a few graphical glitches that were very annoying, during the fight and the cannon part.

 

Still, I enjoyed it somewhat, though it was short.

In this case I do not think the GM tag is what is to blame for the expectation. The blame lies squarely with it being a finale for one of the most popular story lines we've had in-game and yet, somehow, it managed to resolve next to nothing and even create some extra loose ends we didn't have before.

[Alg]

Define "Grandmaster".

[Saradomin_Mage]

Define "Grandmaster".

Purely a matter of skill requirements and not quest length/depth, according to Mod Mark.

[Sy_Accursed]

 

Define "Grandmaster".

Purely a matter of skill requirements and not quest length/depth, according to Mod Mark.

 

And yet TWW was tagged Grand Master despite being a deep quest with next to no requirements. Afterall, all you strictly require is 140 combat and that boils down to 69 Defence and 69 in Att/Str/Ranged/Mage/Summ.

[aerendil]

 

 

Define "Grandmaster".

Purely a matter of skill requirements and not quest length/depth, according to Mod Mark.

 

And yet TWW was tagged Grand Master despite being a deep quest with next to no requirements. Afterall, all you strictly require is 140 combat and that boils down to 69 Defence and 69 in Att/Str/Ranged/Mage/Summ.

 

Grand master in storyline..... if nothing else

[Urza285]

At least it wasn't the elf storyline finale. I mean that thing has been culminating for what? 9 years? Maybe 10? I remember jagex stating that it was the first quest of its kind with an overarching storyline supposedly spanning 10-12 quests. Now we know it's more likely to only span 3/4 of that. But my point is damn... We really dodged a bullet here.

 

This is all my perspective. I am sorry for anyone who was really looking forward to this quest. I feel a lot of holes in this one will be patched. Hopefully... I mean I feel that there are so many holes, gray areas and unexplored/unexplained things that it is enough to make another content update on its own.

[Yoko Kurama]

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.

 

The thing is, usually Jagex is *very* good at grand narratives (just see the Gods/Mahjarrat storylines). I was expecting more, a lot more, particularly for a finale. This was an unusual letdown.

[Edmundo]

There was a point I think with the memories section, and on my laptop I could see this mass of bright blue behind every wall and floor.. Amazing QA there. Oh and as everyone has mentioned the Red Axe version of Keldagrim... (I got totally confused and thought I was in a dream version or something it was that bad) It looked like something from the release of RS2.

 

re: quest difficulty, I hate the way Mod Mark basically called players wrong in that video/podcast/whatever. It's not about an 85 strength req, and let's be honest even the WC Bots have got that, or having 270 quest points. WGS was so detailed, well scripted, the battles were fun, the puzzles took a bit of effort and at parts you're kind of left to just explore on your own, no hand-holding, the culmination of a very long build up, RSC and the Temple of Ikov!

 

Let's have a quick run through;

 

- Nomad's Red - 2nd GM quest I think, it was so much shorter than WGS that was everyone's main concern, ok not every quest will take 3+ hrs, but still it was a massive let down lore wise, nothing has ever come of the quest. It was a terrible throwback to RSC where they just made things up for the hell of it. See so many early RS quests.. Pre-EOC i'd say Master because of the combat. Not even bothered with the dom tower in EOC though so feel free to lower it even more!

 

Rital of the Mahj - In terms of story etc it was good, combat was fun.. Slightly disappointed with the puzzles coming after WGS, it all felt a bit too easy. I'd say it stood about Master level.

 

Brink of Ext - Master. Lore ok.. Bit confusing at times with the Tzhaar + Tok people. I still don't fully understand their race. New for EOC, combat was fun. Not entirely challenging once you master EOC.

 

Void Stares Back - Hard. Really really does not deserve to be a GM.

 

WGS - GM. Fact.

 

World Wakes.. Almost feels like a tutorial to Runescape 3 and the 6th age. Obviously they had to move the whole world into the 6th age and the fact the reqs are low reflect this. But for the ease of finding the temple, it just appeared one week, again being lead through under the guise of other characters in game. Hardly any puzzles and the "security" was pretty crap for a gods hiding place. The Stone of Jas resting place was much harder to find, I guess it's more important than Guthix and he knew it.

 

Birthright. Let's not even joke and just call it a "Hard" quest.

 

Let's forget all about this quest and look forward to the next novice quest, which will probably be more interesting and intriguing than anything they've released in the past 3 years :\

[helring]

I don't know, I know its not really a reason behind this one but I kind of fear for the future of quests. We've been getting less of them, and they've been getting shorter. Now that they seem to have decided to voice all of the future god related ones thats just going to add one more complication. Sometimes the voices are really cool but I'd rather the quest got more resources dedicated towards making them longer and wider.

 

Also, kind of sick of the mostly corridor quest types. It worked ok for Death of Chivalry, but honestly I even miss one small favour for those world-spanning quests.

 

The fact that elf has been held up this long because they know it would have to be long and epic is also kind of sad to me. If they have trouble finding the budget for an ending to one of the most sought after quests, then that really seems like the budget is pretty bleak for future quests.

 

I would love another 2005. There were 26 quests that yea last I counted. There were a few other updates sprinkled in but they really focused on the storylines. Thats what got me hooked on rs in the first place, and while they say they're focused on it, they don't seem to really be as focused on it as I wish they would be. They're aiming for 1 quest a month....there was a time when that would be a given, when 1 quest a month is the minimum and there were often 2 or even 3. But they seem to have let that slip.

[Sy_Accursed]

I don't know, I know its not really a reason behind this one but I kind of fear for the future of quests. We've been getting less of them, and they've been getting shorter. Now that they seem to have decided to voice all of the future god related ones thats just going to add one more complication. Sometimes the voices are really cool but I'd rather the quest got more resources dedicated towards making them longer and wider.

 

Also, kind of sick of the mostly corridor quest types. It worked ok for Death of Chivalry, but honestly I even miss one small favour for those world-spanning quests.

 

The fact that elf has been held up this long because they know it would have to be long and epic is also kind of sad to me. If they have trouble finding the budget for an ending to one of the most sought after quests, then that really seems like the budget is pretty bleak for future quests.

 

I would love another 2005. There were 26 quests that yea last I counted. There were a few other updates sprinkled in but they really focused on the storylines. Thats what got me hooked on rs in the first place, and while they say they're focused on it, they don't seem to really be as focused on it as I wish they would be. They're aiming for 1 quest a month....there was a time when that would be a given, when 1 quest a month is the minimum and there were often 2 or even 3. But they seem to have let that slip.

I think the 26 quest of 05 were all meh old style click around for no real reason.

 

To me by and large newer quests have been much better, even this quest isn't a bad quest in itself it just is not worthy of ending the series or being a grandmaster.

 

I much prefer their current system whereby we usually get ~12 quests a year, yes this year has been a bit quest light but they have referenced that several times and readily acknowledge it alongside the promise of 'business as usual' as it were in the post-rs3 times, which excluding delays they have been keeping with DoC for August, BotD for Sept, Mpd for Oct and we have been told there are quests on the cards for nov and dec.

 

I also think its unfair to try and make out we've been getting 'corridor' type quests and nothing else. Yes DoC, Botd and TWW fit this model, but there have been others like Bringing Home the Bacon and The Ariane quests that have had more room to manoeuver, plus with most of these quests being low-end quests it not too surprising they are tightly controlled. I'll admit that we have perhaps had too many 'corridor' quests of late, but I don't think that's all we've been getting.

[Cheefoo]

There was a point I think with the memories section, and on my laptop I could see this mass of bright blue behind every wall and floor.. Amazing QA there. Oh and as everyone has mentioned the Red Axe version of Keldagrim... (I got totally confused and thought I was in a dream version or something it was that bad) It looked like something from the release of RS2.

 

re: quest difficulty, I hate the way Mod Mark basically called players wrong in that video/podcast/whatever. It's not about an 85 strength req, and let's be honest even the WC Bots have got that, or having 270 quest points. WGS was so detailed, well scripted, the battles were fun, the puzzles took a bit of effort and at parts you're kind of left to just explore on your own, no hand-holding, the culmination of a very long build up, RSC and the Temple of Ikov!

 

Let's have a quick run through;

 

- Nomad's Red - 2nd GM quest I think, it was so much shorter than WGS that was everyone's main concern, ok not every quest will take 3+ hrs, but still it was a massive let down lore wise, nothing has ever come of the quest. It was a terrible throwback to RSC where they just made things up for the hell of it. See so many early RS quests.. Pre-EOC i'd say Master because of the combat. Not even bothered with the dom tower in EOC though so feel free to lower it even more!

 

Rital of the Mahj - In terms of story etc it was good, combat was fun.. Slightly disappointed with the puzzles coming after WGS, it all felt a bit too easy. I'd say it stood about Master level.

 

Brink of Ext - Master. Lore ok.. Bit confusing at times with the Tzhaar + Tok people. I still don't fully understand their race. New for EOC, combat was fun. Not entirely challenging once you master EOC.

 

Void Stares Back - Hard. Really really does not deserve to be a GM.

 

WGS - GM. Fact.

 

World Wakes.. Almost feels like a tutorial to Runescape 3 and the 6th age. Obviously they had to move the whole world into the 6th age and the fact the reqs are low reflect this. But for the ease of finding the temple, it just appeared one week, again being lead through under the guise of other characters in game. Hardly any puzzles and the "security" was pretty crap for a gods hiding place. The Stone of Jas resting place was much harder to find, I guess it's more important than Guthix and he knew it.

 

Birthright. Let's not even joke and just call it a "Hard" quest.

 

Let's forget all about this quest and look forward to the next novice quest, which will probably be more interesting and intriguing than anything they've released in the past 3 years :\

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.

[Quyneax]

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.

[helring]

 

I don't know, I know its not really a reason behind this one but I kind of fear for the future of quests. We've been getting less of them, and they've been getting shorter. Now that they seem to have decided to voice all of the future god related ones thats just going to add one more complication. Sometimes the voices are really cool but I'd rather the quest got more resources dedicated towards making them longer and wider.

 

Also, kind of sick of the mostly corridor quest types. It worked ok for Death of Chivalry, but honestly I even miss one small favour for those world-spanning quests.

 

The fact that elf has been held up this long because they know it would have to be long and epic is also kind of sad to me. If they have trouble finding the budget for an ending to one of the most sought after quests, then that really seems like the budget is pretty bleak for future quests.

 

I would love another 2005. There were 26 quests that yea last I counted. There were a few other updates sprinkled in but they really focused on the storylines. Thats what got me hooked on rs in the first place, and while they say they're focused on it, they don't seem to really be as focused on it as I wish they would be. They're aiming for 1 quest a month....there was a time when that would be a given, when 1 quest a month is the minimum and there were often 2 or even 3. But they seem to have let that slip.

I think the 26 quest of 05 were all meh old style click around for no real reason.

 

To me by and large newer quests have been much better, even this quest isn't a bad quest in itself it just is not worthy of ending the series or being a grandmaster.

 

I much prefer their current system whereby we usually get ~12 quests a year, yes this year has been a bit quest light but they have referenced that several times and readily acknowledge it alongside the promise of 'business as usual' as it were in the post-rs3 times, which excluding delays they have been keeping with DoC for August, BotD for Sept, Mpd for Oct and we have been told there are quests on the cards for nov and dec.

 

I also think its unfair to try and make out we've been getting 'corridor' type quests and nothing else. Yes DoC, Botd and TWW fit this model, but there have been others like Bringing Home the Bacon and The Ariane quests that have had more room to manoeuver, plus with most of these quests being low-end quests it not too surprising they are tightly controlled. I'll admit that we have perhaps had too many 'corridor' quests of late, but I don't think that's all we've been getting.

 

 

Thats fair I suppose. The Ariane quests combined would probably be in my top 5 quests. I really did love those. Though I think a lot of the 2005 quests were excellent. Maybe I just feel fearful because its been a while since we've had steady quests, once they actually start producing them every month again without huge delays and such it might seem better. I'd still prefer they shot for say 16-20 quests a year and if they fell short then we'd still end up with 12. One of the worst parts about them shooting for 12 a year is that its got nowhere to go but down. They won't shoot for 12 and accidentally do 15, but they could very easily shoot for 12 and end up at 9 or even 8.

[helring]

 

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.

 

 

That sounds amazing, and I must admit I was kind of disappointed when I realized that the solution to the spies was just checking their stories against eachother instead of heading out to Jatizso. I was ok with the Chaos Druids until you mentioned it, it did seem a bit too little for that part of the quest. I also think it could have been interesting to actually have a chance to cure the dwarves. Giving dwarves back magic might have been an excellent way to close out the series.