Future Update Discussions

[ilovecuttingyews]

They also refer to Zamorak as the evil god in multiple quests.

But who are the NPCs that referred to him as evil? Obviously a follower of Saradomin will refer to Zamorak as evil.

[Sy_Accursed]

They also refer to Zamorak as the evil god in multiple quests.

 

Tbf they have made the point Zamorak is used as an antagonist and Saradominists have said he is evil, but of course their view is biased.

I think their trouble is over-expecting of the average player.

 

Many users around this forum have the awareness to realise Jagex are using character bias and such and ultimately, all the views we've been given where Zamorak = evil have this bias due to Saradominist sources and that therefore it may not be true, though we lack anything in-game yet to really show otherwise. But I'd imagine the average scaper is not on the ball enough to make this distinction and a half-assed DoC style quest showing this off isn't going to outweigh the mountains of other info in their minds.

 

It's also a bit silly in that, quite clearly, the original lore was built on good, evil and balance. Yes they may be trying to create more nuances now, but the foundation we have is undeniably the blue good guy, the red evil guy and the green nature guy in between balancing them out. Even as the lore evolved this kinda remained true Zaros was just a tacked on omg so bad even the evil guy wants you to forget about him. Arma and Bandos were just tacked on as war and peace/justice and other gods were just sporadic name-drops with no real solidity to them. Yet they are currently trying to make out these nuances have always existed and we should've known all along.

[Alg]

And now all I can think is that they missed the opportunity to show that the churches and teachings of each god had changed in the time since the gods were banished. Say, have Zamorak return and be disgusted at the kinds of people that call themselves Zamorakian, whether because they put too much emphasis on evil instead of chaos, or because they're chaotic stupid, or because they don't care about social darwinism and are just using his name as an excuse to be puppy-kick-evil.

 

We did get a short hint of that, where he disavows Dawn's actions, but that was downright out-of-character when his followers among the Mahjarrat are considerably worse and when every other quest that involves his faction has actions like that. So much wasted potential...

[Hedgehog]

 

They also refer to Zamorak as the evil god in multiple quests.

 

Tbf they have made the point Zamorak is used as an antagonist and Saradominists have said he is evil, but of course their view is biased.

I think their trouble is over-expecting of the average player.

 

Many users around this forum have the awareness to realise Jagex are using character bias and such and ultimately, all the views we've been given where Zamorak = evil have this bias due to Saradominist sources and that therefore it may not be true, though we lack anything in-game yet to really show otherwise. But I'd imagine the average scaper is not on the ball enough to make this distinction and a half-assed DoC style quest showing this off isn't going to outweigh the mountains of other info in their minds.

 

It's also a bit silly in that, quite clearly, the original lore was built on good, evil and balance. Yes they may be trying to create more nuances now, but the foundation we have is undeniably the blue good guy, the red evil guy and the green nature guy in between balancing them out. Even as the lore evolved this kinda remained true Zaros was just a tacked on omg so bad even the evil guy wants you to forget about him. Arma and Bandos were just tacked on as war and peace/justice and other gods were just sporadic name-drops with no real solidity to them. Yet they are currently trying to make out these nuances have always existed and we should've known all along.

 

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Even though Zamorak is outright called "evil" by Saradominists (and Zamorakians too) due to bias, you can't expect the average player to pick up on it. I'm sure that if there was a poll of the entire population, the majority of people would think that Zamorak is an evil god.

 

They really should redo older quests to emphasize that gods don't really represent things, but rather just have personalities and characteristics. Quest guides need to start helping the case too. Look at the Hazeel Cult guide on a number of sites. They refer to the Zamorakian side as evil a lot.

[Sy_Accursed]

If they actually keep going with their reworks there is a mild hope of these things working out nicely, so much of the trouble is the retconing of older content via new content in ways that aren't obvious enough retcons for the average player to realise oh that old info is wrong or leave so many huge loopholes in things.

 

Hazeel Cult is a great example it's got the setup of Zamorak = evil and it's got all these weird muddled roots of oh Hazeel used to rule ardougne until the carnillena family took over and he is in a coffin like some vampire we are resurrecting but oh look now he's a mahjaratt. Let us just pretend there is no issue at all with the fact nothing particularly in lore suggests Zaros kingdom got quite that far so why would Hazeel be there? And that Ardougne would not exist to be ruled, the current settlements are products of the 4th and 5th age. And that the Carnillean's clearly have nothing to do with ruling Ardougne like at all, not even any sort of ancestor statue or portrait in the castle. And that the mahjaratt all kinda vanished during the godwars so how on earth does this random puny cult even know about Hazeel. And if Hazeel is right there why has Khazard done nothing about it when he is literally swanning about right near by on a battlefield. And if Hazeel can be so easily resurrected (and Khazrad for that matter too) why are they not just killed at each ritual to save numbers going down.

 

And so on and so forth, just so many loopholes where these old quests have been retconned in to the new more coherent story of runescape yet just do not hold up to scrutiny even with allowances for character bias.

 

In many ways the elf Dark Lord thing is quite clearly another example; they are obviously changing course now but it was quite clearly one of the two (Zammy or Zaros) intended to be the dark lord that has since been usurped by Daemonheim and the creation of the mahajaratt. Heck even Zaros and Seren concept art showing distinct similarities between them re-enforces the idea. And let us not forget the other silly loose end of that quest series with Iban being Zamorak's 'son' and the Well being a portal to Zamorak (both easily wiped from existence with only minor edits)

[helring]

 

They also refer to Zamorak as the evil god in multiple quests.

 

Tbf they have made the point Zamorak is used as an antagonist and Saradominists have said he is evil, but of course their view is biased.

I think their trouble is over-expecting of the average player.

 

Many users around this forum have the awareness to realise Jagex are using character bias and such and ultimately, all the views we've been given where Zamorak = evil have this bias due to Saradominist sources and that therefore it may not be true, though we lack anything in-game yet to really show otherwise. But I'd imagine the average scaper is not on the ball enough to make this distinction and a half-assed DoC style quest showing this off isn't going to outweigh the mountains of other info in their minds.

 

It's also a bit silly in that, quite clearly, the original lore was built on good, evil and balance. Yes they may be trying to create more nuances now, but the foundation we have is undeniably the blue good guy, the red evil guy and the green nature guy in between balancing them out. Even as the lore evolved this kinda remained true Zaros was just a tacked on omg so bad even the evil guy wants you to forget about him. Arma and Bandos were just tacked on as war and peace/justice and other gods were just sporadic name-drops with no real solidity to them. Yet they are currently trying to make out these nuances have always existed and we should've known all along.

 

 

The only thing in game that really mentions Zamorak in even a half-decent light is the God Emissary book but its flawed in many respects. First, you have to sign up with an emissary before even receiving one which may make a person not want to change their opinion even after reading the book. Sort of an "I've already selected so why change". Second, you have to assume that the players will actually read the book when many players even complete quests without actually reading the dialogue. Lastly, you need to have really done Nadir to realize how terribly Moia was treated by Lucien so that you can see how much her confidence and self-worth has been restored in that book. It really takes a decent amount to realize the guy burning a village in the Book of Zamorak isn't completely evil.

[helring]

If they actually keep going with their reworks there is a mild hope of these things working out nicely, so much of the trouble is the retconing of older content via new content in ways that aren't obvious enough retcons for the average player to realise oh that old info is wrong or leave so many huge loopholes in things.

 

Hazeel Cult is a great example it's got the setup of Zamorak = evil and it's got all these weird muddled roots of oh Hazeel used to rule ardougne until the carnillena family took over and he is in a coffin like some vampire we are resurrecting but oh look now he's a mahjaratt. Let us just pretend there is no issue at all with the fact nothing particularly in lore suggests Zaros kingdom got quite that far so why would Hazeel be there? And that Ardougne would not exist to be ruled, the current settlements are products of the 4th and 5th age. And that the Carnillean's clearly have nothing to do with ruling Ardougne like at all, not even any sort of ancestor statue or portrait in the castle. And that the mahjaratt all kinda vanished during the godwars so how on earth does this random puny cult even know about Hazeel. And if Hazeel is right there why has Khazard done nothing about it when he is literally swanning about right near by on a battlefield. And if Hazeel can be so easily resurrected (and Khazrad for that matter too) why are they not just killed at each ritual to save numbers going down.

 

And so on and so forth, just so many loopholes where these old quests have been retconned in to the new more coherent story of runescape yet just do not hold up to scrutiny even with allowances for character bias.

 

I read a thread on RSOF a while back where a guy went through all the sources dealing with late 4th age/early 5th age and he seemed to have a somewhat coherent time frame for events http://[Use Quick Find Code]/a=13/c=lcV9-USkfEQ/sl=0/[Please Use QuickFind Code]?341,342,139,65098718

[Sy_Accursed]

Coherent or not there is no way Hazeel could've really ruled Ardougne within the facts we have, let alone from a random manor house that seems to have no actual connection to the rulers of the area.

1st Age - Hazeel would be in Frenskae

2nd Age - Hazeel would've been with Zaros in his kingdom far away from the area.

3rd Age - Hazeel would've been involved in the godwars and given Zaros/Zamorak regions and aims would still have been nowhere near the area.

4th Age - Hazeel ought to be dead/hiding or on his way there and Ardougne would be yet to exist, especially since the Baxtorian Kingdom existed in the general Ardougne area.

5th Age - Hazeel would must definitely be dead and Ardougne would exist but still be relatively new.

6th Age - Hazeel is clearly not ruling Ardougne and is busy doing Mahajaratty stuff

 

There is no point in time when he can logical be in the area, with the city existing to rule it.

 

It's a prime example of retcons that have serious loopholes in them and not uncommon for Mahajaratt considering the vast majority of them were retconned in to being such. Lucien, Zemergoul, Hazeel, Khazard, Kharshai and even Sliske to an extent pre-date the idea of Mahjaratt. Azzandra, Athankos and Enkhara are all on the cusp, I don't think they were official Mahajaratt on inception but they were close enough that it was probably at least in part planned. Bilrach, Wahistiel and Jhallan are the only ones who really truly postdate Mahajaratt as a concept.

[helring]

Coherent or not there is no way Hazeel could've really ruled Ardougne within the facts we have, let alone from a random manor house that seems to have no actual connection to the rulers of the area.

1st Age - Hazeel would be in Frenskae

2nd Age - Hazeel would've been with Zaros in his kingdom far away from the area.

3rd Age - Hazeel would've been involved in the godwars and given Zaros/Zamorak regions and aims would still have been nowhere near the area.

4th Age - Hazeel ought to be dead/hiding or on his way there and Ardougne would be yet to exist, especially since the Baxtorian Kingdom existed in the general Ardougne area.

5th Age - Hazeel would must definitely be dead and Ardougne would exist but still be relatively new.

6th Age - Hazeel is clearly not ruling Ardougne and is busy doing Mahajaratty stuff

 

There is no point in time when he can logical be in the area, with the city existing to rule it.

 

It's a prime example of retcons that have serious loopholes in them and not uncommon for Mahajaratt considering the vast majority of them were retconned in to being such. Lucien, Zemergoul, Hazeel, Khazard, Kharshai and even Sliske to an extent pre-date the idea of Mahjaratt. Azzandra, Athankos and Enkhara are all on the cusp, I don't think they were official Mahajaratt on inception but they were close enough that it was probably at least in part planned. Bilrach, Wahistiel and Jhallan are the only ones who really truly postdate Mahajaratt as a concept.

 

Why do you assume that just because Zamorak was defeated that Hazeel would have been dead or in hiding? The general idea is that he and Khazard are the ones that brought down Baxtorian's Kingdom. Hazeel probably still had troops after Zamorak's defeat and the other God's banishments in the 4th age. Hazeel ruled what would approximately become Ardougne. He was ousted by the Carnilleans, but the Carnilleans just ended up as a powerful family and not the ruler of Ardougne. 

[Sy_Accursed]

Because the current facts we have explicitly tell us all the Mahajaratt were dead, in hiding or imprisoned after the Godwars and we know quite objectively Hazeel was infact most definitely dead prior to the quest in question.

 

I'm not saying it is entirely impossible they could explain it away, just within the current framework of facts where retcons have been awkwardly applied to old old content it is full of loopholes that take too much effort and work to explain away that they are just nonsensical to the average scaper.

 

I mean even if you decide Baxtorian Kingdom fell at their hands there's issues. History we have suggests it fell after the betrayal of the other elves leaving it to slowly die out cut off from their homeland, not some great conquering.

Equally if Hazeel and Khazard, who are among the weakest Mahajaratt, did conquer them how did they do it? They have no particular force of troops that we know of, Khazard basically has no followers and Hazeel has some tiny little cult. No demons or vampyres or dragonriders or w/e. Even if they did have such forces did Zemergoul and the other stronger guys just let them march off? How did they get this army all the way over there and still manage to defeat an entire Elven empire?

Why would they even do it? Both their potential gods are gone and they are being actively driven in to hiding, why would they randomly set off half way across the world when there are plenty of Zarosian fortresses they could vanish in to and survive much easier?

I mean lets just consider the roster of mahajaratt here.

In the big leagues we have Azzandra, Zemergoul, Lucien and Sliske - by this point in time Azzandra is imprisoned despite his power, Zemergoul has locked himself away in his fortress, Sliske has vanished in to the shadow realm and Lucien has donned disguise too (as far as we can tell since he survived).

In the minor leagues Kharshai has disguised himself as a human and erased his memories to survive, Wahistiel has similarly disguised himself as a human and gotten out of dodge by heading back to the desert, Jhallan is hidden away under the ritual site already, Bilrach must've secreted himself away somewhere to begin his search for Zamorak, Athankos is trapped by Enkhara who is lurking around the desert in disguise.

 

So basically all the mahajaratt regardless of power are either imprisoned or in hiding, yet it's supposed to be plausible that two of the weakest some how gathered an army and marched half way across the world unhindered enough to successfully conquer basically the only remaining major civilisation that has some stability.

 

These are the kind of issues Jagex has setup with their retcons on lore that are quite major loopholes that yes we can scramble about and tie things together and make up a version of events that can tie them all together if we really want, but ultimately to the average scaper just leave a maze of contradictions and nonsense resulting in the "incorrect" assumptions about things like Zamorak = evil.

[helring]

Because the current facts we have explicitly tell us all the Mahajaratt were dead, in hiding or imprisoned after the Godwars and we know quite objectively Hazeel was infact most definitely dead prior to the quest in question.

 

I'm not saying it is entirely impossible they could explain it away, just within the current framework of facts where retcons have been awkwardly applied to old old content it is full of loopholes that take too much effort and work to explain away that they are just nonsensical to the average scaper.

 

I mean even if you decide Baxtorian Kingdom fell at their hands there's issues. History we have suggests it fell after the betrayal of the other elves leaving it to slowly die out cut off from their homeland, not some great conquering.

Equally if Hazeel and Khazard, who are among the weakest Mahajaratt, did conquer them how did they do it? They have no particular force of troops that we know of, Khazard basically has no followers and Hazeel has some tiny little cult. No demons or vampyres or dragonriders or w/e. Even if they did have such forces did Zemergoul and the other stronger guys just let them march off? How did they get this army all the way over there and still manage to defeat an entire Elven empire?

Why would they even do it? Both their potential gods are gone and they are being actively driven in to hiding, why would they randomly set off half way across the world when there are plenty of Zarosian fortresses they could vanish in to and survive much easier?

I mean lets just consider the roster of mahajaratt here.

In the big leagues we have Azzandra, Zemergoul, Lucien and Sliske - by this point in time Azzandra is imprisoned despite his power, Zemergoul has locked himself away in his fortress, Sliske has vanished in to the shadow realm and Lucien has donned disguise too (as far as we can tell since he survived).

In the minor leagues Kharshai has disguised himself as a human and erased his memories to survive, Wahistiel has similarly disguised himself as a human and gotten out of dodge by heading back to the desert, Jhallan is hidden away under the ritual site already, Bilrach must've secreted himself away somewhere to begin his search for Zamorak, Athankos is trapped by Enkhara who is lurking around the desert in disguise.

 

So basically all the mahajaratt regardless of power are either imprisoned or in hiding, yet it's supposed to be plausible that two of the weakest some how gathered an army and marched half way across the world unhindered enough to successfully conquer basically the only remaining major civilisation that has some stability.

 

These are the kind of issues Jagex has setup with their retcons on lore that are quite major loopholes that yes we can scramble about and tie things together and make up a version of events that can tie them all together if we really want, but ultimately to the average scaper just leave a maze of contradictions and nonsense resulting in the "incorrect" assumptions about things like Zamorak = evil.

 

Khazard has enough followers even now to wage a longterm war with the gnomes. Azzanadra was so powerful that Saradominist and Zamorakian forces joined to lock him up, whereas Hazeel would have nothing to fear from Zamorakian forces. Lucien and Sliske both seem to prefer hiding and plotting. Zemouregal was powerful enough to try to take over Varrock during the 4th age. Kharshai was attacked and branded with a Zamorakian symbol, which means he may have been attacked by Zamorakians which again would not be Hazeel's issue. So, of the Zamorakian Mahjarrat, only Lucien really seemed to go into longterm hiding. The Zarosian forces were pretty much decimated during the God Wars so it makes sense that those Mahjarrat may need to go into hiding since there were still large amounts of Saradominists and Zamorakians remaining afterwards. The time when Hazeel took out Baxtorian's Kingdom would be during a time when Baxtorian had took many soldiers and left it unguarded, so I could see Hazeel and Khazard  taking many of the remaining Zamorakians and trying to set up a stronghold away from where the Saradominists main remaining followers were. Khazard obviously succeeded to a decent degree since he still has his own territory, and Hazeel managed to be overthrown in a coup by Saradominists.

 

 

Ultimately I don't think there are any plotholes here, but it should probably be spelled out a bit better. I agree that Zamorak needs to really be shown in a better although not perfect light within the game.

[Hedgehog]

 

At the witch's house in Taverly

[Sy_Accursed]

But still you are using assumptions and ideas derived from limited facts to make a coherent version of events without plotholes in it.

 

As it stands the facts in-game, with no embellishments or extra theories, do have plot holes in and not plot holes that are simply a bit of a grey area or have only 1 or 2 logical fillers or are a sizeable gap in our knowledge with 0 details, but plot holes that have a fair few facts surrounding them that at face value quite strongly contradict each other and require the weaving together of a mishmash of sources in a very specific arrangement that only just manages to not contradict anything in the final theory.

 

It's not good retconing or lore on Jagex's part when such measures have to be taken for things to make sense together or to spot the nuance that stops you making "incorrect" assumptions.

 

Of course all lore has plotholes to some degree that get filled in due course, but there is a difference between something that is just missing (eg why Zemergoul went after Avvarocka or how Lucien figured out the Staff of Armadyl/Stone of Jas thing) and something that is quite problematic due to conflicting facts that requires serious thought to make any sort of coherence from (eg one of the weaker mahajaratt being so far away from their gods kingdoms without being stopped or killed in the wake of a god war that i susppoed to have seen them all vanish in one way or another and apparently ruling a city that ought not to of existed at the time and would've been part of an already established kingdom that would've had to of been breached and passed through to reach the area in question).

 

The former can easily be dealt with by an average scaper to form the 'right' conclusions Jagex wants us to reach as they don't need to worry about that blank (though of course lore hounds can freely theorise on it), the later however poses a problem as the average scaper is likely to reach 'wrong' conclusions based on the order they learn facts in, which facts they do or don't recall and blind random choice as without serious thought to weave them together these things are flat out contradictory. And there in lies the problem - whilst it may all make sense to those of us who dig in to the lore and take time to think it through the average scaper is not going to reach the coherent story which negatively impacts their experience of future expansions based on it.

 

Eg (to bring this back to the original starting point) Viewing Zamorak as out and out evil thanks to outdated examines, dialogues etc combined with the necessity to think things through to realise the overall bias nature of everything we are ever told about Zamorak in-game to date.

[Sylpheed]

 

At the witch's house in Taverly

Dat continuity.

[Yoko Kurama]

It doesn't help that despite their insistence that he's really a 'noble' demon, that they make him do things that are so blatantly 'evil'. His motto is supposed to be strength through chaos or struggle -- because he thinks that peace makes people stagnant and decadent -- I can dig this. However, then BoL starts, and he just comes and starts trashing the place, until Saradomin comes to stop him. That's not really something newer players will be able to sympathize with. I don't really like Sara, so I went with Zammy in BoL (and he had much cooler armour), but, Zammy did seem evil to me...

[strilmus]

I've handwaved all of the previous depictions of gods the same way Jagex does: they explain that gods can choose their forms, so over time, they have had many forms, and even then, other people choose to depict them the way they think they look, so it's all relative.

 

as for trashing the place

 

you do realize that zamorak could easily rationalize that everybody mostly participated in the event for the rewards? he would say that provided a tangible benefit, even as it took from others, and that's his philosophy, right

 

he would even go as far as saying all of those builders who were involved with the reconstruction, and the players who were gathering those materials, all wouldn't have had anything to do if that fight didn't happen

 

also, some people would say that having a tiny volcano in the middle of that valley is actually kinda cool

 

this kind of thinking is difficult for a lot of people, though

[Urza285]

How about the notion that the dark lord is the evil creator god? That has some reason now for unleashing zamoraks fury and dooming the world. Also maybe the elves came from a world the evil creator god had an influence on.

[helring]

How about the notion that the dark lord is the evil creator god? That has some reason now for unleashing zamoraks fury and dooming the world. Also maybe the elves came from a world the evil creator god had an influence on.

 

I still like the theory that Zaros and Seren are one of the Elder Gods, just split up like Tumeken did.If you look at the concept art....Zaros, Seren, and the Elder God all have the same 8-eyed pattern. Zaros and Seren also both have the 4 ovals on their foreheads making a diamond (this is on current Zaross, not 2nd age one). So, an Elder God splits itself into two extremely different aspects...almost as opposite as you can be but both very powerful. Seren, often associated with light, walks among her people but believes in segregating them away so that no God need fight. Zaros, often associated with shadows, stayed about as far away from his followers as possible and only gave orders here and there, and believed at the time in building an empire (although it was not his final goal). So the Dark God could be Seren's opposite, Zaros, who is the same as Seren yet different.

[Ammako]

[Miss Lioness]

I saw!!! That's Fantastic! Geronimooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[Tim]

Thank god. I'm pretty sure the black-ish coat design only got picked by everyone because "umg game of thrones look!"

[Ammako]

I beg to differ, I picked it because I genuinely thought it looked better than the rest.

[helring]

I liked the one that got picked because it wasn't just another skimpy outfit for women. Iridescence's wasn't bad either, but unless you're a man, k_aylee's looks like it belongs on a stripper.

[Yoko Kurama]

If only all these supposedly community oriented J-Mods would actually talk to us about things that are really important rather than silly costumes...

[Lord Zophar]

If only all these supposedly community oriented J-Mods would actually talk to us about things that are really important rather than silly costumes...

Yeah, like why they would go and make the hardest boss in the game -- which probably less than a thousand players are able to kill -- even harder, without adjusting the rarity of the drops.