Future Update Discussions

[Sylpheed]

From the looks of it, Bandos might lose this one...

 

But no worries, Tuska is on it's way, meaning we trade one beast for another...

 

As usual in the world of Gielenor; the more they change, the more they stay the same...

Except they're not really the same. Bandos is intelligent but revels in the concept of war. Tuska is a mindless animal that has achieved Godhood and is controlled by her followers.

[Quyneax]

I do rather like the concept of Tuska as a symbiosis of an unintelligent god and intelligent scavengers. Compared to that, Bandos seems rather one-sided, and he's got a *lot* more official backstory.

[strilmus]

An Avian Jmod wishing upon the death of another avian creature.

let's be real here, crows are cold-hearted mofos

[Sy_Accursed]

I do rather like the concept of Tuska as a symbiosis of an unintelligent god and intelligent scavengers. Compared to that, Bandos seems rather one-sided, and he's got a *lot* more official backstory.

 

Totally agree. Bandos plays outs as very 2D - he just looks for ways to smash stuff t every turn and purposefully creates conflict.

Tuska, even though we have little on her, seems to have more depth in that she is a mindless beast who some how gained godhood yet still manages to hold her own and has this scavenger race that uses her for it.

I mean Skargaroth chased her from world to world trying to kill her and failed a lot.

She did a number on Guthix homeworld even with Saradomin about.

Plus now shes blind in at least one eye if not both from being stabbed.

 

I think she is likely to have to die quite soon after she emerges as i expect she has swallowed an elder artefact though.

[Miss Lioness]

I do wonder how this mindless savage that is blind since the day of Guthix Ascension, became a god in the first place and also how she still manages to survive!

[Unknown_Warrior]

So can we switch sides for all the rewards or not?

[Hedgehog]

I do wonder how this mindless savage that is blind since the day of Guthix Ascension, became a god in the first place and also how she still manages to survive!

I bet she swallowed an elder artefact like sy said

[Miss Lioness]

 

I do wonder how this mindless savage that is blind since the day of Guthix Ascension, became a god in the first place and also how she still manages to survive!

I bet she swallowed an elder artefact like sy said

 

 

He edited that in later ;D

[Yoko Kurama]

Bandos is not as one-dimensional as some people are claiming. It's true that he is obsessed with war, and is the only God that is supposedly evil, but he does have certain neat qualities. He is quite intelligent, and he is one of the few Gods that has actually learned from his mistakes. If I remember correctly, after one of the wars accidentally genocides various tribes of his followers, at the next battle he actually intervenes and stops the war to avoid that sort of outcome again. Not many or maybe any other Gods that have this sort of character development. The rest seem to be arrogant douchebags who happen to think they're right and that's that. That's not to say Bandos is a good guy; he isn't, but it's interesting still.

[Alg]

And how much did you have to dig to find that example? Because I've been looking into Bandos for a while now and haven't seen anything even remotely sympathetic. :unsure:

[V O R K]

Guthix wasn't even ascended himself when he dubbed Tuska as mindless. Expected more from this ancient entity but the guthixian butterflies didn't provide much information. Tuska was being hunted, who wouldn't defend himself (and homeland) :o

 

Anyhow... let them bicker! 

 

 

 

[Saradomin_Mage]

And how much did you have to dig to find that example? Because I've been looking into Bandos for a while now and haven't seen anything even remotely sympathetic. :unsure:

http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Bandos#The_Chosen_Commander

I don't think there's much about sympathy, rather about his planning to ensure that his races aren't wiped out so that they can die for him another day.

[Quyneax]

Bandos' intelligence or learning don't change that his character has no oppositions within himself, meaning he doesn't have to think about his actions - he has no regrets, because he only has to maximize a single factor. Bandos only wants violent contest, which doesn't require much nuance, especially with the gods already at eachothers' throats. He may learn and improve his mayhem-making, but he's not changing his motivation at all. Armadyl, for example, might at some point decide that the killing is not worth the protection it affords his followers, and retire as Seren did, perhaps in the Citadels, or he might go on a killing spree that he later regrets. The same goes, to various degrees, for other gods.

[Hedgehog]

Armadyl is just a scrawny bird that somehow ascended to godhood and wants peace and justice

 

Bandos is at least a more interesting character

[Quyneax]

Armadyl wants *both* peace/nonviolence and protection of his followers, and those two are not the same thing - he will have to make choices, either lose followers or kill enemies. It's a classic opposition that is much less random than Bandos' 'idk just mayhem'. As said before, Bandos will never have regrets, doubts or anything if he stays as one-dimensional as he currently is.

[strilmus]

the fact that you have to dig into the lorecasts to find that kind of information means that we're sorely lacking in-game context for this stuff, even if in-game lore is cited in the examples

 

also, from what we can see in the art concepts, armadyl can beef up considerably, it's just that he carries a lot of self doubt due to his nature for seeking reason in his actions

[Alg]

Armadyl is just a scrawny bird that somehow ascended to godhood and wants peace and justice

 

Bandos is at least a more interesting character

You're telling me that a one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, who was intentionally written as an unlikeable, one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, is more interesting than a god of justice who has to balance his ideals with his responsibility and the realities of what godhood means during a god war?

 

I will never understand this forum.

[helring]

 

Armadyl is just a scrawny bird that somehow ascended to godhood and wants peace and justice

 

Bandos is at least a more interesting character

You're telling me that a one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, who was intentionally written as an unlikeable, one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, is more interesting than a god of justice who has to balance his ideals with his responsibility and the realities of what godhood means during a god war?

 

I will never understand this forum.

 

 

I think they'd both make for some great quests. Bandos as more of an opposition character. Maybe a Chosen Commander part 2. I actually though thats where WE1 was going to go with Bandos attacking Lumbridge to get at the Dorgeshuun and either Saradomin protecting Lumbridge or the Godless protecting the Dorgeshuun.

[Hedgehog]

 

 

Armadyl is just a scrawny bird that somehow ascended to godhood and wants peace and justice

 

Bandos is at least a more interesting character

You're telling me that a one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, who was intentionally written as an unlikeable, one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, is more interesting than a god of justice who has to balance his ideals with his responsibility and the realities of what godhood means during a god war?

 

I will never understand this forum.

Yeah cuz armadyls personality is really softcore

[Kimberly]

And this is why killing off either of these gods so early in their emergence is a crappy idea.

 

Thanks Obama Jagex World Event 2!

[Yoko Kurama]

And how much did you have to dig to find that example? Because I've been looking into Bandos for a while now and haven't seen anything even remotely sympathetic. :unsure:

 

I didn't have to dig at all. I remembered it from the quest and one of podcasts/possibly Wiki. 

 

 

 

 

Armadyl is just a scrawny bird that somehow ascended to godhood and wants peace and justice

 

Bandos is at least a more interesting character

You're telling me that a one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, who was intentionally written as an unlikeable, one-dimensional "kill-crush-burn" god of war, is more interesting than a god of justice who has to balance his ideals with his responsibility and the realities of what godhood means during a god war?

 

I will never understand this forum.

 

 

Oh, please. Armadyl is just as one-dimensional as Bandos. Oh, look, there's the most cliched and archetypal 'good' guy. Throw in the theme of 'justice' in there, and bam! We have got a good guy. I haven't seen any thing sophisticated from him either. And there's nothing unusual about Bandos in that sense. So he finds purpose in war (as even humanity did for quite a lot of its history). Nothing really hard to swallow. In fact, Armadyl is hideously cliched and naive in his pacifism. He's been here for thousands of years, and was here for most of the bloody and destructive God Wars (which lasted about 4,000 years), and in the Sixth Age he was still trying the "let's just use reason and not fight please, guys!" route. That's sort of pathetic. Sometimes violence really is the answer, and it's sort of annoying that Armadyl has only just now realized it.

 

Bandos is interesting (though I don't care for him) in the sense that he knows the reality of war, enjoys it, and is driven by it. There are no regrets, internal dialogues or anything of the sort. That's just what he is. That's starkly different from most good guys, or gray characters like Saradomin who make mistakes or do horrible stuff and try to half-heartedly apologize for it later. In short, Bandos is a warrior, he lives by the sword, and is willing to die by it. There's something appealing and refreshing about it, and that sort of character certainly has a place in a fantasy MMORPG. Not every character could have been a gray character like Saradomin and Zammy -- otherwise it would become trite and overused; gray characters are by definition rare and are there to contrast black and white characters. Bandos is that black/white character. 

[Alg]

If the gray characters are rare in what you're touting as a gray conflict, you're doing something horribly wrong. Even then, that's not really what a gray character is... And I'm not sure how a mindlessly violent villain is anything other than the most cliched archetype in fiction.

[Hedgehog]

You're thinking of Bandos as a supervillain instead of a chess player/military commander, which is causing a lot of problems

[Sy_Accursed]

I don't think Armadyl being an archetype or cliche in anyway makes him on-dimensional.

 

The fact he fits perfectly in to an archetype or cliche that already has lots of nuances to it, gives him a depth automatically from our preconceptions in-spite of the lack of lore and info surrounding him thus far in game.

 

Meanwhile Bandos fits an archetype or cliche that is defined by its one-dimensionality - the guy who wants nothing but war and conflict for no other reason or purpose, just because. And even with a good chunk of lore in-game from the god books and Cave goblin series and a multitude of races with small lore fragments around their lifestyles and cultures he hasn't moved beyond it.

 

I'd agree there is a place for that sort of character in fantasy, but Bandos is the most boring one we have who fits that bill. Zamorak, Lucien, Zemergoul, Moia, Tuska, Skargaroth, Amascut, Sliske, the Raptor and a few others can all easily fall in to the archetype of conflict for conflicts sake and have more nuances or intriguing missing details to them than Bandos has been shown to have. Heck even, for many, the player is that character.

 

Also, as a writer, I'd say in a good fantasy setup the vast majority of characters ought to be grey characters with the one or two big white or black characters acting as the driving forces that make these grey characters face crisis on a personal and global level. Because black and white characters are one dimensional and quite simple, the grey characters are the ones who have dilemmas and internal conflicts and have to grow and change to survive. They shouldn't be rare in the slightest.

 

@Hedgehog - You say that like these are mutually exclusive facts. Just because he is smart in how he wages war does not alter the fact war is all he desires.

[helring]

If the gray characters are rare in what you're touting as a gray conflict, you're doing something horribly wrong. Even then, that's not really what a gray character is... And I'm not sure how a mindlessly violent villain is anything other than the most cliched archetype in fiction.

 

I find Bandos interesting because he is so overwhelmingly evil. Jagex has been trying to give everyone either a flaw or a strength and they got to Bandos and were just like "Nope, He's Evil". Every other character has some form of grey in there. Armadyl led his followers to genocide, he's not really a great warleader and thats a weakness for him.  Bandos has deliberately genocided his own people when they had no one else to fight. Its interesting in how unambiguously bad for Gielinor he is. Thats why I think he's an interesting character for the game but also why I won't be wanting him to win.