Just wanted to express my appreciation for Fossil Island. It's such a quality update, there's an awesome variety of content, it all fits together really nicely in a small footprint. There's something for everyone, at all levels of the game and every game mode.
I want more updates like Fossil Island, that is all!
External link →Zeah is like a case study on vast empty video game maps - they could have fitted all of Zeah content onto an island no larger than the Isle Of Souls. On that note, I don't like the trend they have of islanding all of the new content. It just makes everything feel disconnected and DLCish. One of the things I like about the original map is being able to walk from the Al Kharid desert, through Camelot and Ardougne all the way to Feldip Hills, uninterrupted. It gave this grounded sense of adventure, of journey. On that note, grounded medieval realism; yes there is fantasy, but the really fantastical stuff was always hidden away from the overworld; you had to go looking for it, as seen with Zanaris and Lunar Isle. With Zeah you do one quest and suddenly you're flying a dragon into a giant purple butthole in the sky and murdering god. It's too much and feel out of place.
“suddenly you're flying a dragon into a giant purple butthole in the sky and murdering god. It's too much and feel out of place.”
???
Yeah from what I've heard there's no jmod with any plans to pick it up.
I see jagex just making them have a lame "use" in the future and that'll be the end of it :/
I believe somebody was looking into it recently but unsure if it has gone anywhere yet. There’s definitely a desire to make use of the rare fossils.
The issue I suppose was that on release fossil island was very much seen as unsuccessful. Looking back I think it’s how skilling contents use cases aren’t instantly apparent when compared to PvM content which has flashy BiS items alongside a real challenge. Glad it’s getting the recognition it deserves though as it was a fun project to work on.
So I’m the OP and made this small post on a whim, totally didn’t expect it to blow up like it has lol. I wasn’t playing much around the time Fossil Island first came out so I wasn’t aware it was seen as unsuccessful on launch. That’s a shame but I think you’re right, it doesn’t have the instant gratification that PvM content has, and the quality of the update is I guess more nuanced?
All I know is that now, Fossil island is always buzzing with players doing different things. If you walk around the island, you’ll see noobs training on ammonite crabs and literally two steps away, maxed accounts hunting herbivore. Birdhouse runs, sulliuscep woodcutting, ultra compost and giant kelp farming, hardwood seeds, there’s just so much diversity to the area that brings players close together. I think kourend is awesome too but something about the close quarters of Fossil Island makes it feel buzzing with activity.
I’d loooove to see more usages for the fossils, if this post proves that the community loves Fossil Island enough to get that prioritized I’ll be thrilled. But even without it, Fossil Island rules!
A lot of credit for the diversity goes to ex-Jmods Maz and Wolf. They spent a lot of time making sure content like seaweed, sulliusceps and birdhouses had their niches well after the initial release.
As for the layout, I’ll take the credit :P it was something we wanted to make sure we’d learnt from the initial Zeah release and all the feedback we got. We probably spent more time working on Fossil island than Zeah and it has a fraction of the land. Also still quite pleased with my suggestion of a hunter creature that gave herbs. Initially the idea was that it would roam around randomly and slowly grow herbs but in the end it got fused with tracking instead, which was a great call.
Thanks and I’m glad you like it :D
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