devtrackers.gg
This seems to be the real reason sailing failed. They seemed to have picked a folder from 2006 with the overall idea of sailing and just show that. Didnt seem like they fine tuned it as much as warding. Shame, because sailing wouldve been really really cool. Tons of potential for great quests and other fun shit.
I would’ve put just as much effort into Sailing as I have done for Warding if I was there at the time. I would’ve even worked on a second sailing pitch, but players seem a bit annoyed when we try forcing things through the polls, which re-polling often feels like. Hell, we’re being accused of forcing Warding and we’ve yet to poll it :/
Once Warding is done (pass or fail) I’ll reconsider the re-pitching of sailing, but I’m very against the concept of it being a skill and would much rather it be added as a minigame. Also, worth mentioning, but as an artist I’m genuinely scared of Sailing... have you seen the water texture? The games render distance is also incredibly small and until our own client can improve that, I can’t see sailing looking as good as people would expect it to.
Also, as a minigame, it could lean quite heavily on existing production skills (Crafting, construction & smithing) making them a little more useful and worth training up.
I always thought of sailing as a skill but I think it would be more fun as a minigame. Maybe it could be like legend of zelda: the windwaker where you can freely sail to different islands and find items, treasures, ect. Maybe have a big focus on the exploration itself. I'd be all over that shit
That’s the crux of the problem though :( when Sailing is mentioned, thoughts of windwaker and black flag come to mind, but OSRS will never replicate the fluidity and control those games do. Although I do agree the focus of it should be exploration which is why making the ship should be done with existing skills.
Then there’s making it work with the other parts of the game and explaining why charter ships exist... or when getting hold of a ship for dragon slayer may seem a little confusing if you’re already a renowned swashbuckling Corsair of the Gielinorian seas.
add sailing as a minigame
What is this suddenly feeling of 1 year time gated content to which you have to do to get the best in slot cape...?
It wouldn’t be like player owned ports, but I did quite enjoy that. But then OSRS came out so I never truly got that far into it.
Having it as a minigame would be great aswel ofcourse, but does adding it as a minigame not run the risk of sailing having very little progression? If it only requires already existing skills doesn't it make lower level content pointless?
Progression could be based on your ship and upgrading it would require blueprints found about the various islands that could be navigated to. Personally, I think making it a skill limits it more as it’s very vague on what would exactly give XP. Would it be like agility where you do laps of the sea or would it be from making the boats? Big chunks from discovering islands, like dungeoneering? That always felt a little strange to me.
“It could lean quite heavily on existing production skills (Crafting, Runecrafting, Fletching) making them a little more useful and worth training up.”
Sounds like you just solved warding - add the Mage gear the community (NOT the company) wants in a way that fills the gap, meshes with existing skills, and futhers the purpose of underused skills.
Or, continue with the “shot in the dark” method of pouring loads of mod&dev time into creating a skill and surrounding content that... may never see the light of day. What a waste of time and effort if it is polled against!
Warding isn’t a minigame. But you’re correct, skills could be condensed somewhat. Smithing is basically crafting, as is fletching. Runecraft is basically magic with extra steps. Attack and strength? That could be a single skill, much like ranged and magic are etc.
Claiming that you are the community and that it’s not filled with a wide range of opinions just harms your argument. Let the (super-majority) democratic process play out and then feel smug if you were right or annoyed if you were wrong, as is the way.
Also, you’ve no idea how much time has gone into Warding and claiming you do is kinda strange, especially to the guy who knows exactly what has gone into it.
Hint, West is the pea-brained mod that haphazardly designed Warding knowing that there is already magic equipment made with Runecrafting and Magic and doesn't work with other parts of the game (his words about Sailing).
I doubt he even looked back on Aristan and Sailing to see what was wrong with Jagex's unraveling as skills to the community. Jagex have made a lot of errors with their Skill pitches in the past and continue to make the same mistakes with Warding. And it looks like West will blame those naughty, ignorant players for not voting in his perfect skill, instead of actually looking at their approach in design and implementation.
Instead of maturely communicating with his playerbase, he will assign positions to the other side and attack those instead of valid concerns brought up. Just because I think Warding doesn't fit as it own unique skill mean that Melee skills should be retconned into one skill. Or that criticizing his interactions with players mean that I must be speaking for community. He is being absolutely disingenuous here.
They need to get this guy off future skill pitches. If they are going to act in an unprofessional manner and be completely biased because you don't agree with their current design, they should not interact with their players on social media.
You speak of acting maturely yet you started your post with an insult. I welcome all criticism and read through it all - I want this to have the best chance it can and that’s only possible by listening to the community.
You may say that a lot of players don’t want the skill, yourself I presume are within that group (sorry if I’m misjudging you), and that if we were to have truly listened, we would have dropped it already and moved on without polling. When have we ever done that? How is that fair to those who do want it?
I’m not saying the skill is flawless, otherwise it would have unanimous support and that I don’t believe is possible. Hell, people even voted no to the world map update - what possible reason could someone say no to that? I’m genuinely curious!
Regardless, you’ve already come to the assumption that it will fail the poll, which is fair enough. I personally can’t predict the future but I certainly won’t blame anyone if it fails, like you’re accusing me of. I also wasn’t saying that you think attack and strength should be combined, I’m saying the criticism of “Warding doesn’t fit as its own unique skill” isn’t a defined requirement as most skills are not unique as many are quite similar. Like attack and strength or crafting and fletching. Sorry that I wasn’t clearer before.
Anyway, I’m sorry you feel like I’m the wrong person for the job. I’ve played runescape since 2004 - I stopped for a while during the dark ages - and my most memorable moments were skill releases as they truly brought the world alive with activity. If my goals are misguided and my work not good enough for you, I can only apologise and promise I’ll keep loving the job and hoping people like my work as I grow and learn from the mistakes.
Could you imagine instead of just f**king floating on down to Zeah on a mysterious old mans boat we discover that mother f**ker on our own boats like some god damn hardcore adventurers? We crash on the island, only meet the lizard savages, fight our way to civilization through ancient ruins of a dead civilization.
What do we get instead?
"I can craft better now! but it's for magic robes!"
People wonder why there's such a strong disconnect with warding.
That would’ve been great! But sailing failed its poll.
I intentionally didn't include the beginning of the final sentence in my clipped quote (or the word minigame at all in my post), because, yes, Warding is not a minigame.
I was pointing out how using the three proposed skills for sailing integration - Crafting, Construction, and Smithing - COULD point to three proposed skills - Crafting, Runecrafting, Fletching (or some combination of these or other skills) - working for Warding integration.I didn't specify how long has gone into the skill - simply pointed out that when you said, "I would’ve put just as much effort into Sailing as I have done for Warding" insinuates that you have spent a fair amount of time on the warding skill already. To accuse me of saying I knew the exacts is rather rude considering my actual words were, "loads of mod&dev time"... that's pretty vague, not a claim. Please illuminate me as to how much time has gone into it!
Re-read my rhetoric: where did I claim to be the community? I simply do not see that, and as such find your comments to read rather haughty. Specifically, I didn't advocate for any one thing in particular outside of suggesting that maybe an entirely new skill isn't needed, and I reiterated a common thought that whatever ends up happening (ideally in a fair and democratic way), it should be to appease the community (customers).
We can both read and watch the feed here on Reddit as warding is both torn to shreds and eagerly greeted. However, it has for a long time seemed that the common ground between these two camps is that there are missing bits of mage content they'd like to see added, the issue tending to be whether or not to create an entirely new skill around it.
I’ve seen the arguments that Warding could easily be shared among other skills and that it doesn’t stand alone well enough. Personally I disagree with the idea, which you’ve pointed out is odd as I also believe something similar could be done with Sailing. That’s because I believe sailing functions more like a minigame and not a skill, while Warding I feel shares more similarities with other skills than a minigame. That’s what I was trying to get at, I’m sorry for not being clearer.
I didn’t say I’ve spent a lot of time, I said I’d put in as much effort. You said time and you assumed it was loads but to know that you’d need to know the amount of time - I’m sorry if I offended you. Honestly, a fair amount of the work I did at home in my spare time. I’m very lucky that I got to turn my hobby into my job, but it does mean I get to do a lot of work at home. The wider team have also put time into, of course, but we’re certainly not walking away from this with nothing if it fails - we’ve learnt a lot during the process. The reason your brought this up was because if it fails it’ll be a “waste of time and effort”, which is true, but it’s true for literally every update. Skills are at more risk as they are very divisive as everyone is very passionate about exactly what they want from it and to get 75% to agree on that is difficult. This one may have had more time to work on it than most due to that, but the players wanted to know as much about the skill before they cast their vote - this was us listening to the players, I’m sorry if you feel we went about this the wrong way.
“Add the mage gear the community (NOT the company) want” - this sounds like you know the exact will of the community even though the votes are yet to be cast. Perhaps if the skill fails but all the content passes, that would mean we could do it the way you’ve suggested. I was just saying we should let the voting system play out before preemptively jumping to conclusions - sorry if I offended you.
I agree with you completely with your last point, I’ve noticed the discussions regarding whether it’s enough to base an entire new skill around. As I've already said, I personally disagree with them, otherwise I wouldn’t be supporting the skill. Of course, if the players don’t want it and it fails a poll, we’ll try something else. That’s the way we’ve always done it.
Let me say firstly. I apologize for the insult. I care a lot about the state of the game as do many players, we simply disagree on what would be best for the game in quality and longevity. There is nothing wrong with your work specifically at Jagex. It's more that Jagex has been dropping the ball with these skill releases.
The issue I took with the previous post is you were assigning false positions to /u/99_herblore_crafting hastily, which I am also guilty of as I said you believe your skill is perfect.
I don't want to get into what reasons are and are not valid (if i am reading you correctly with your defined requirements for skills). It's not the point.
Rather than continue that, I will bring up the main point which is the approach for Skilling suggestions have been shots in the dark. I'm not against skilling updates as a whole or saying that the skill should have been dropped without polling (which again you assign to me). I don't believe Jagex is equipped to handle skilling updates unless they get serious.
It certainly feels like Warding has been a repeat of both Artisan and Sailing with them being complete shots in the dark, not garnering enough community support, and not enough community interaction for the developing skill. What would be the best possible way of getting support besides working with the community directly? I'm not talking about a 40 page doc or hand picking a couple designs from reddit. It might be the difference between 70% or 75% if players really do have a higher standard for skills.
Jagex might have to put a bit more effort than they have been with less divisive updates that are mostly auto-passing. Sure, there are a few people who vote no for anything but is that a reason for not putting more effort into revamping skill design and the approach for releases if you are trying your best? If the number for that demographic is large enough to have significant effects on these polls, then it means there needs to be more effort for a unanimous vote or dropping the idea all together for a couple years.
Of course, I'm taking the possibility of a skill suggestion failing the 3rd time (unless there is something you know that I don't about that). I'm not assuming anything. Nothing is decided until that poll closes. If it passes, Warding could bloom into a better skill over a few years, or it could remain as boring as Firemaking. The quality just isn't there for some players in the current state.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend like Jagex is the perfect company because it's not. There are some things that can be improved and there are a lot of things that they get right. Players can only hope that you will listen and make appropriate changes.
Apology accepted and sorry if I assumed your position incorrectly before. You must have little faith in us as a development team, otherwise you wouldn’t claim that our handling of this and previous skill pitches was “dropping the ball”. You’re right, we’re not perfect, but no one is.
This isn’t a complete shot in the dark though, as you claim. We’ve had a back and forth with the community over the past couple of months, changing elements as we get feedback. Claiming we haven’t done that is disingenuous.
You keep claiming to know the support numbers for Warding even though we’ve not polled it yet but refute that you are. I don’t know how to respond to that, as the argument “you’ve not done a good enough job pitching the skill” only works if the skill fails its poll. It might, but until then we won’t know whether or not we’ve done a bad job.
Ultimately, I’m sorry you’re not a fan of the proposed skill.