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22-Apr-2014 - A Shadow Over Ashdale


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A Shadow over Ashdale

 

Set sail for strange horizons in A Shadow over Ashdale: RuneScape's latest free-to-play quest.

 

Read on for full details, or log into RuneScape now and speak to Gudrik in Taverley!

 

A Shadow over Ashdale

 

Novice quest, free players and members

 

In today's new quest, you'll sail to the glorious Ashdale, which you may know from RuneScape's newest tutorial. Veteran adventurer Gudrik wants to know why cargo shipments are returning from the island untouched, and he needs you to investigate.

 

Shadow_over_Ashdale.jpg

 

Shadow over Ashdale

 

Something strange is afoot, and the island will seem significantly scarier than it did; deserted, and eerily quiet. It's up to you to plumb the murky depths of this mystery, and save Ashdale's citizens from a fate worse than death.

 

To save the day, you're going to have to fight. Although there are no requirements for the quest, the combat scales to your level, so do suit up before you start.

 

Succeed, and you'll be rewarded with XP lamps, plus three black pearls, which can be expended to grant you bonus XP in your choice of skill, scaled to your level.

Something a Little Different

 

With A Shadow over Ashdale, we've aimed to bring you something different. We've focused on atmosphere and visual storytelling, and the environment is the true star of the show. You'll spend much of the quest exploring and investigating, discovering the story as you go.

 

We hope you enjoy it. When you've completed the quest, be sure to let us know what you think over on the forums.

 

Mod Stu and the RuneScape Team

 

In Other News

  • 12 of the existing players kits (the cosmetic customisations chosen for your base character model during character creation) have been updated with improved graphics. You can change to these by speaking to Thessalia in the clothes shop in Varrock. The originals are still there, but renamed with a 'retro' prefix. We will be continuing these improvements with future batches.
  • A new set of 'Pathfinder' hybrid armour has been added, to reward completion of various parts of the Path System.
  • We've made a big batch of fixes and tweaks to the early parts of the game. Take a look at the patch notes for more information, and for full details of other updates made today.

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[hide=patch notes]

Graphical:
 

  • Some variations to auto-attack animations have been added for short swords, staves and bows.

  • The cow models around the game have been updated to be of the same standard as the cows seen in the Ashdale tutorial.

  • The animations used on white wolves have been improved.

  • A small floating triangle in the Chemists house in Rimmington has now been removed.

  • The ramokee outfit no longer changes to its default colour when wearing a completionist cape.

  • The inventory icons for mah energy have been updated to be more consistent with other Divination energies.

  • The trading interface header bar now scales in size based on the length of the players name you are trading with.


Skills, D&Ds & Minigames:
 

  • An issue that was causing the Conquest interface to claim it was too small to use, regardless of size, has been fixed.

  • The camera controls in the Conquest minigame have been updated so players can now use the arrow and WASD keys.

  • The camera in Conquest no longer jumps back and forth when moving the camera in a single direction.

  • The Kingdom Management interfaces have been given a graphical overhaul.

  • Stealing Creation familiars now have ‘Summon’ as the left-click option on their pouches.

  • Using the Minigames interface to teleport to the god statue south of Yanille now takes the player to the Yanille lodestone, as opposed to the Ardougne one.

  • The messages displayed in the chatbox when making variations of Magic and Ranging potions has been fixed.

  • A very subtle sound effect has been added when a log is added to the inventory through woodcutting.


Quests, Challenges and Achievements:
 

  • Some tweaks have been made to animations found in the Blood Pact quest.

  • Reese now holds a bottle of poison when he completes the pact in the Blood Pact quest.

  • A client error that was occurring when players destroyed weights during Stolen Hearts has been fixed.

  • A grammatical error in the Jungle Potion quest guide has been resolved.

  • The Desert achievement 'Staff on Stryke' description has been updated to state that a full slayer helmet is required, not just a slayer helmet.

  • It is no longer possible to complete the 'Chain Store' task without meeting the 25 Defence requirement.

  • The "Your Task list will now show you Tasks appropriate to the area in which you find yourself." Message has been removed.


Other:
 

  • The Player-Owned House book interface has been graphically updated.

  • Some minor grammatical errors on the descriptions of the Minigames interface have been fixed.

  • Some audio feedback for when players receive bonus XP has been added.

  • The fidelity of the "Ga'al" music track has been increased.

  • Music around the Cooks guild is no longer Jungle/Karamja music.

  • A spelling mistake on the Kal'gerion notes (part 5) has been fixed.

  • Activating the Explosive Firemaking override no longer causes Bomb Firemaking to activate.

  • Some grammar within certain Quick Chat phrases has been corrected.

  • Croziers once again appear on the Dragon Keepsake Box whitelist.

  • Players will now receive bonus XP whilst wearing demon slayer equipment when killing abyssal demons.

  • Several emotes have been adjusted to cancel if the player is attacked.

  • Private messages from JMods no longer appear in the main chat window when private messages are toggled off for that chat pane.

  • References to the Squeal of Fortune have been removed from the helper interface.

  • The Doomsayer's warning message interface has been graphically updated.


OMGE Fixes:
 

  • Players who play RuneScape in minimum and low detail modes will now see that, when paying a visit to Ashdale, some locations have been recoloured to be better suited to the material that the location was built out of.

  • The Gnome Shopkeeper in Burthorpe has had his ‘Trade’ and ‘Talk’ options swapped round for easier access to the shop.

  • The outside of the Divination tutor’s over-head icon has been tweaked to be less pixelated.

  • The Refer a Friend interfaces have been removed from around the Gielinor.

  • A missing skybox within Ashdale has been added again.

  • A selection of achievements which were used for a previous tutorial have been removed, such as the ‘Escort Duty’ series.

  • Some tweaks have been made to Fara's platform to make it feel more integrated with the game world.

  • Some tweaks have been made to the Gnome Shopkeeper's shop to make it more clear to new players that he is running a shop.

  • The Gnome banker and Gnome shopkeeper in Burthorpe have had their models updated to match the higher quality gnome models currently found around Gielinor.

  • The click area of the bank stand beside Fara has been reduced.

  • Fires can no longer be lit beside Fara.

  • A confirmation has been added when turning on the Path system, as it will clear any current Daily Challenges.

  • The challenge-specific tutorial popups close when speaking to Fara whilst on the Path system.

  • Some tweaks to Fara's dialogue have been made to explain the Challenge system more succinctly to new players.

  • Several pieces of redundant content around the Burthorpe / Taverley area which was previously used in an old tutorial have been removed.

  • The "It's carnival time!" message which was appearing for some new players on logging in after the tutorial has been removed.

  • Some floating wooden steps used in Ashdale have been removed.

  • The players' feet no longer appears through the wooden supports used in the Ashdale mine.

  • Gudrik no longer disappears briefly during the church cutscene in the Ashdale tutorial.


Engine Fixes:
 

  • Resizing the game window will no longer leave a trail behind it of what was there before.[/hide]

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Forget the new quest, cows have been graphically updated!

 

Really though scalable combat and rewards sounds pretty good and, if it works properly, hopefully future novice quests will be the same just to keep the high levels content.

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Those poor smugglers basically re-lived what the last dwarfs in Moria experienced - although it might be a bit more embarrassing to be killed by crab-squids than by orks.

 

NVM: Crab-squids can apparantly one-hit-kill anyone they see instantly. Poor guys.

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Quest far too hard, defnitely in need of a nerf

[hide]pearls for bonus xp are nice, only being able to use one per day is a pain in the ass though[/hide]

 

[bleep] OFF HOW ARE U SO [bleep]ING LUCKY U PIECE OF [bleep]ING SHIT [bleep] [bleep] [wagon] MUNCHER

 

 

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Crassian warriors: Shoot acid that instantly kills you.

 

Agoroth, Crassian Overlord: Multiple special attacks, knockback, tentacles, shielding, and can't hit over 1000 damage.

 

????????????

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This quest raised a few questions for me:

 

How come we immediately knew we needed to get to the rest of the island to 'look for people' but proceeded to not actually look for anyone and just make a beeline for our old house?

 

Equally how come our old house has a conveniently placed journal about how there's tunnels beneath it that this guy who built it made a secret entrance too and then we seemingly instinctively know that by twisting the bust head this tunnel opens up?

 

Did we full well know there was a secret tunnel beneath our house with these monster eggs in that the Smugglers quite easily found and just sort of not bother to tell anyone? Then when the town went missing were just like dam it time to raid my secret cave so I can be a hero?

 

This is the kind of quest that kinda makes it seem like the player is a bit of a douche

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How come we immediately knew we needed to get to the rest of the island to 'look for people' but proceeded to not actually look for anyone and just make a beeline for our old house?

 

...

 

Did we full well know there was a secret tunnel beneath our house with these monster eggs in that the Smugglers quite easily found and just sort of not bother to tell anyone? Then when the town went missing were just like dam it time to raid my secret cave so I can be a hero?

I figure that in the game world, you would have tried looking around town, only to realise that it was empty and the west side barricaded off, so when you finally found that girl you'd ask how to get to the other side to continue your search.

 

When you got there, you'd look around again, only to find it also empty, so when you eventually got to the house and happened to find the journal did you discover the secret tunnel.

 

Perhaps it's not really your house, just somewhere you stayed for a while, and this was the first time you read this journal. Instinctively turning the bust, I have no idea on that.

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Nice little quest.

Had lovely graphics, and even though the camera was a bit annoying all the time it did add to the storytelling of the quest.

Also, cows cows cows

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Overally I felt their experiment in 'visual story telling' was a bit of a fail.

 

I don't see how this was any different to many other quests where we have the camera stolen from us to pan around and very obviously show certain things. And largely the 'visual' part didn't really tell any story.

 

The npc told us in dialogue where the sewers were before we went down there.

Showing us each mucus door opening didn't really tell any story.

The really emphasised pan to the lever felt redundant since it was very clearly on the wall in front of us and the only option of where to go other than towards the monster.

 

All the story was in the smugglers journal really, the actual quest just felt like a run of the mill run a dungeon to reach a boss affair.

 

When they said visual story telling I was expecting to be SHOWN things happening opposed to being told about them, not just have the camera cut away from me every few steps to highlight something very obvious given I'd just done it several times already.

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I remember seeing somewhere they plan on making the boss repeatable. They just need to poll what kinds of rewards playerd would like. I suspect some weaker versions of black pearls, medium quality raw fish and maybe random fishing supplies? I'm sure caskets too... maybe a new higher level casket?



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I remember seeing somewhere they plan on making the boss repeatable. They just need to poll what kinds of rewards playerd would like. I suspect some weaker versions of black pearls, medium quality raw fish and maybe random fishing supplies? I'm sure caskets too... maybe a new higher level casket?

I don't see why they'd give it a higher level casket or anything remotely so good, remember despite scaling this is a boss from a requirement free novice quest - in theory its lower down the pecking order than even the Giant Mole as pvm bosses go.

 

And I don;t think that would be a bad thing, it'd work nicely as a pvm experience specifically aimed at the very beginning of the game, people could then get into pvm and filter through the likes of mole, kbd and kq on their way to hitting GWD and finally progressing to nex, kk, vorago and rots

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I remember seeing somewhere they plan on making the boss repeatable. They just need to poll what kinds of rewards playerd would like. I suspect some weaker versions of black pearls, medium quality raw fish and maybe random fishing supplies? I'm sure caskets too... maybe a new higher level casket?

I don't see why they'd give it a higher level casket or anything remotely so good, remember despite scaling this is a boss from a requirement free novice quest - in theory its lower down the pecking order than even the Giant Mole as pvm bosses go.

 

And I don;t think that would be a bad thing, it'd work nicely as a pvm experience specifically aimed at the very beginning of the game, people could then get into pvm and filter through the likes of mole, kbd and kq on their way to hitting GWD and finally progressing to nex, kk, vorago and rots

When I was thinking a higher level casket I was thinking maybe larger quantities of unenchanted jewelery up to diamond and higher chances for ruby and diamond gems.

 

Edit: also no ninja fixes?



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I think the ninja team's time has been occupied with the Master Capes... Which should be "soon".

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I think the ninja team's time has been occupied with the Master Capes... Which should be "soon".

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Seems our ninja team has been taking break for "art class" :p.

 

I can't wait for the next three polls to be honest. We have two days and should see a whole new set since they are holding off on replacing the slayer poll.

 

I would imagine they might poll more elf city training methods. I think we should see a dungeoneering poll Because linking that and the elf city would be hard. I would imagine the poll looking like this:

 

How would you like to train dungeoneering in the elf city?

 

A. Be asigned to venture to bilrachs resource dungeons for resources to rebuild the city. Returning grants bonus dungeoneering xp and further xp in skills for turning in what was found.

 

B. Be assigned to explore daemonhiem on behalf of the elf city to learn about the unnatural elements there. You will gather bonus experience based the floor and a side helping for the skills you train the most while inside.

 

C. Be assigned a random floor/theme to explore for bonus dungeoneering experience and tokens.



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I think the ninja team's time has been occupied with the Master Capes... Which should be "soon".

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Seems our ninja team has been taking break for "art class" :P.

 

I can't wait for the next three polls to be honest. We have two days and should see a whole new set since they are holding off on replacing the slayer poll.

 

I would imagine they might poll more elf city training methods. I think we should see a dungeoneering poll Because linking that and the elf city would be hard. I would imagine the poll looking like this:

 

How would you like to train dungeoneering in the elf city?

 

A. Be asigned to venture to bilrachs resource dungeons for resources to rebuild the city. Returning grants bonus dungeoneering xp and further xp in skills for turning in what was found.

 

B. Be assigned to explore daemonhiem on behalf of the elf city to learn about the unnatural elements there. You will gather bonus experience based the floor and a side helping for the skills you train the most while inside.

 

C. Be assigned a random floor/theme to explore for bonus dungeoneering experience and tokens.

 

I feel elf city dg would be an ideal way to break away from the mini-game esque idea that dungeoneering is only ever about daemonheim/bilrach magics and expand it into more of a general magical dungeon raiding skill and thereby put it to use with the library and stuff that was underneath where the city was (will be?) in some way and they could easily make a link because they could be situated near a rift to another world where this 'dark lord' of theres resides leading to a reality bending situation similar to that of daemonheim leading to a rift to 'Zamorak's world'

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I could almost imagine jagex taking the basic building blocks of dungeoneering and using it in random discover and siege of new lands, castles and dungeons. Its very easy really... it just needs a lot of work.



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I think the ninja team's time has been occupied with the Master Capes... Which should be "soon".

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Seems our ninja team has been taking break for "art class" :P.

 

I can't wait for the next three polls to be honest. We have two days and should see a whole new set since they are holding off on replacing the slayer poll.

 

I would imagine they might poll more elf city training methods. I think we should see a dungeoneering poll Because linking that and the elf city would be hard. I would imagine the poll looking like this:

 

How would you like to train dungeoneering in the elf city?

 

A. Be asigned to venture to bilrachs resource dungeons for resources to rebuild the city. Returning grants bonus dungeoneering xp and further xp in skills for turning in what was found.

 

B. Be assigned to explore daemonhiem on behalf of the elf city to learn about the unnatural elements there. You will gather bonus experience based the floor and a side helping for the skills you train the most while inside.

 

C. Be assigned a random floor/theme to explore for bonus dungeoneering experience and tokens.

 

I feel elf city dg would be an ideal way to break away from the mini-game esque idea that dungeoneering is only ever about daemonheim/bilrach magics and expand it into more of a general magical dungeon raiding skill and thereby put it to use with the library and stuff that was underneath where the city was (will be?) in some way and they could easily make a link because they could be situated near a rift to another world where this 'dark lord' of theres resides leading to a reality bending situation similar to that of daemonheim leading to a rift to 'Zamorak's world'

 

I agree with this, skill of going in dungeon. Does not make sense. Expand.

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I think it is inevitable they need to break dg away from being just daemonheim because there's only so much content you can wedge resource dungeons into just to use it outside that one area before it becomes ridiculous.

 

Though I will say I think it ought to be a case that other dungeons/areas/content that utilise the skill ought to be at least level 50+ if not higher so that daemonheim is where you begin and initially learn how to come with locations that are somehow misshapen by magic and cut off from the outside world. Plus I think any method/area added that gives anything more than one off xp definitely needs to maintain the self-contained-ness of the original daemonheim; which could be done in many ways.

 

Eg lost islands you can only swim to and therefore cannot take any gear with you forcing you to forage and make stuff there or a rift wizards have been trying to study and dont want contaminated so wont let you take stuff in or a site of historical significance (eg fossil island) that you can't take stuff too in order to preserve it. Could even make new areas have different main themes like daemonheim is predominantly about combat you could have ones geared to hunting down a specific elusive beast or collecting specific samples or performing a jailbreak and some could be designed to be solitary rather than team.

 

And that break would give it greater scope for skill usage as, for example, things like mep2 or temple of ikov where you head into previous unknown dungeons could require the skill.

 

With the tech from daemonheim itself and from something like heist with its random generation it shouldn't be too big a task to code new randomised experiences, the bulk of it would be the graphics.

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seeing as gudrik says there's probably more mutant crab people, i guess they might still be there? would explain why my house is once again barred to entry

 

they could also repurpose the kidnapped villager cage to hold a pile of treasure qbd style

 

as for elf dg

 

it's already been established that the structures are dragonkin, so we don't NEED a link to zamorak

 

i think it'd be neat if they put some crazy shit in the area under the ape atoll temple

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