JagexJack

A lot of the feedback we get on this topic seems predicated on an assumption that there are two options, and we're basically free to choose between the two, and we chose wrong for some reason. Sometimes that definitely is the case, and sometimes it's reasonable to actually go back and choose differently.

3D vs 2D cutscenes are nothing like this. I feel like sometimes this topic gets unfairly generalised to "2D cutscenes are bad". A lot of the 2D cutscenes were either neutrally or well received. The animated Necromancy intro is pretty universally loved, as far as I can tell.

Really the focus of the ire seems to be on the Extinction scenes which depict epic events. I totally get that it's a bit disappointing to not see them in engine, but I think using words like "shortcut" is a bit of a misunderstanding of the options available.

There is no practical world in which the remaining elder gods, or a scene like Kerapac having an anime battle with an elder god and ...

Coal isn't hot enough to smelt adamant ore.

Makes sense to me in theory but I think it would be perceived as a nerf. With Smithing (and hopefully Fletching) we can reduce level requirements in a way that makes sense, but I'm not sure the majority of players would want us to raise them.

In the original version of the question, I also included two additional options:

Modern technology, such as dwarves with assault rifles boarding a goblin aircraft carrier.

Scifi technology, such as dwarves with powered armour shooting lasers at goblin UFOs.

We removed them because they were a bit too far in terms of implying we might actually do this.

It's not something I'm personally pushing for, just I have spent time in the past thinking through the details of a possible implementation.

From my POV it would have to allow you to keep access to high level content yeah. I can't see it working otherwise.

It's mostly a problem with how confusing the presentation is - what I conceptually envisage is a sort of "virtual" prestige level. Say your mining is 99, but you prestige. You're still 99 mining, but your virtual prestige level is now 1. If you mine some copper, which you can mine with your virtual prestige level, you get XP and virtual XP which raises your virtual prestige level. If you mine some iron, which you can mine normally (because you're 99) but not virtually (because you're 1) then you get regular XP, but not virtual XP, so your virtual prestige level can't rise.

That all makes sense mechanically, but I think it would be really confusing to display and interact with in practice. An alternative version which is a bit clunkier but easier to understand is that you can freely switch in and out of "prestige mode". So when you prestige your mining ...

The daemonheim ores was kind of a fun idea which everyone mostly liked. I'm not sure the same thing will work with trees. We could do it, but the weird dungeoneering trees don't work as well as models, and the idea of creating an "alloy" of woods, while conceivable, doesn't really make as much sense.

We haven't started properly designing this update yet (although I might make a post with my thoughts thus far after the blog next week) so we're open for options. Could be an opportunity to revisit an old type of wood and make it "core" like we did with bane metal (maybe blisterwood or bloodwood?) or create something completely new.

When I wrote up the initial balancing which went into Woodcutter's Grove, my assumption / intention was to standardise across both woodcutting and fletching. This would mean that Elder weapons would be T90 (with the same balancing as smithing, so they'd require 90 to wield, but actually only have the stats of an 80 weapon).

The interesting question is whether existing elder bows should automatically get upgraded, or replaced with the equivalent T60 item (mahogany in this case). It's probably not that big a deal either way.

FWIW I agree with this complaint. The level changes that were made with the Woodcutter's Grove update were a step towards this. Rejigging the level of the weapons is something I still want to make happen.

The main objection I've seen from players on this topic is that having all the levels be consistent doesn't feel "Runescapey". I take it you don't agree with this?

Hatchet of Mud and Wind

Looks amazing. How experienced a painter are you?

I assumed the exact same thing, and I was in the stats meeting where this originated so I have no excuse.

I'll note it down.

I agree with this. It's on my list to include as soon as I can find a relevant project.

I think there might be a bit of disagreement here about what we mean by "mod" or "developer". While it's true that "2 jmods" worked full time on the combat fixes, that's only counting specifically content developers. Not everyone who works on Runescape is a content developer. Sometimes when we say "mod" or "dev" we mean specifically content devs, sometimes we mean anyone who works in development (which includes artists but not say managers) and sometimes we mean anyone working on RS in any capacity.

"2 out of 100" is comparing different things - 2 content developers, but more than 100 staff including non-developers. If we're talking about all staff, it's more accurate to say that 10 even 20 people "worked on it", but because of the nature of their jobs most of them weren't full time just on that project. If we're talking specifically about content developers, there are not, and have never been, 100 content developers working on Runescape.

Let me know when you get to Gower Quest.

At the time of Endgame, there was no intentional "redemption arc" being written. We only started planning for that afterwards.

https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/1b5jhga/hot_take_saradomin_has_grown_a_lot_as_a_character/ktazcxr/

Great summary.

I wonder if the disconnect here might be that the game content is very much showing, but what it's showing is that he's different, but not why he's different.

We didn't really have any intention to show that some specific event had prompted him to behave differently. It's more about illustrating the person that he is, that he is wise and good intentioned, but angry and arrogant. Some of this borders a little on retcon, but at the same time I think it's a little dangerous to try to pretend that we can redeem a character who seems to be genocidal by having them spank their inner moppet or whatever.

I see what you mean by this but technically speaking this is inaccurate.

We planned out a long term character development for Saradomin (this was before Desperate Times where we were planning out the EGW storyline).

You are of course welcome to criticise that development as it exists in game, but neither the plan nor the execution assumed the existence of DOC2. While we were writing Azzanadra's Quest, the inclusion of Owen meant that we had to make a call on whether DOC2 had yet to happen, and we let Stu make that call himself and write the dialogue himself.

You can certainly argue that his personality change is a bit abrupt. Actually part of the reason that I took the crown away was so that we had the option of using that as a cruder, more explicit explanation for why he seemed to undergo such a personality shift if we felt it was necessary, but largely it seemed to go down well.

In part it's clunky because it was a sort of course correction to Sli...