Jagex_Stu

Spoilsport. :p

Seriously, though, it means a lot to see you state this publicly, Raven.

Jagex does a lot to support and protect our physical and mental wellbeing. I deeply appreciate it, and it's a key contributor to my 14 year presence!

<3

Jagex_Stu

Thank you very much for your support!

I pitched a similar idea when I volunteered to do streams. Would love to do dev commentaries of quests I've developed, for example, like the Imp Catcher rework.

The tutorial stream went better than I expected, and I'd like to go where you're thinking if there's desire for it!

I'm looking forward to catching up on feedback and seeing where preferences lies.

As your line manager looking out for your sanity and wellbeing, please don't do any more 16 hour long streams. Please take breaks and look after yourself. ;)

5-x

Mod Raven /u/darkhearted_raven was doing it but there haven't been any news about it since January.

To clarify, Mod Raven was looking into it. I had some downtime and was looking into what sort of things people would want there. The general consensus (from the community) was that small fixes were insufficient and that there was little point doing anything unless we had the time and resources for large scale changes. As such it grew into a bigger project and I am now working on something else.

So, some of this is potentially spoilers for future quests, so take that in mind, however I shall do my best to answer.

> Were Zaros and Seren created by the elder gods?

Zaros and Seren were dreamed into existence by the malformed Mah, the elder god of Freneskae who was stillborn and incomplete. He dreams created life and her earliest dream was of Zaros, as a companion, child, or toy. He wanted to leave her, so she dreamed Seren into existence, who would keep Zaros close.

> Were Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak also created by the elder gods?

Technically...

So the elder gods created everything. They formed the universe out of sacred clay and funnelled the flow of anima through the universe to their "perfect world" Gielinor. This flow of anima allowed life to spring up and some of that life became sapient and some of that sapient life ascended. Saradomin and Guthix are from this organic springing up of life.

Zamorak though, is a mahjarrat, aka another being dreamed into exis...

Great_Minds

Any word on this Raven?

Any word on me asking a question? No. This was just me being curious and asking a question, it's not a guarantee of content or a future plan. It might happen, it might not. Response here was positive but comparatively muted so there's no mad rush right now.

Can confirm, you can play it on your lonesome. Am currently playing through a test build myself and managing quite comfortably, even with my chaotic style. ;)

It is great fun with friends though. Rather than building a house, you can build a little village. Which is tremendously fun imo.

I am excellent, thank you :)
Great stuff on the horizon! :D

Don't forget the excellent voice acting. I hear Taraket's voice actor is particularly good. :P

Windsofthepast

If you don't mind asking, how much of your free time did it take for Curse of the Black Stone, roughly?

I gave up several weekends and stayed late most nights for at least a month. I don't remember exactly, I wasn't testing how long it took to make so I wasn't really recording that.

darkhearted_raven

While I appreciate the sentiment behind this post, it isn't needed. For one the community has been totally fine with me for a good while now and the death threats are largely gone.

Secondly, you'll note that I have made quests since Endgame and I am still an active member of the lore council and constantly suggest quests be added to the release schedule.

So you don't need to worry about me, I'm good. ;)

The problem is that quests can seem like a poor investment. They're, by design, limited pieces of content (you can only do them once) and often have requirements that can make the engagement with them seem lower. They also take a lot of time to develop, often as much as a new boss or piece of skilling content. This is doubly problematic when you consider that quests often need new graphical assets and graphical assets take a lot of time to develop and those resources need to be prioritised between things like new skills.

This is why I experimented with the format of the last few quests. Curse of the Black Stone being a good example. The experiment was to try and use absolutely no new graphical assets and to rely on existing gameplay and assets. In this case it was the Elite Dungeons. It was done either in my free time, or using the work of our newest developers, so it was arguably the best "bang for buck" of a quest we've done in a long while.

The results were pretty positive. Sure there were bits we should have changed (in hindsight I would have cut the whole black knight section and improved the dragonrider section as well as had a cinematic), but on the whole it proved that we don't need completely new assets to make something that is enjoyable. Also I won't be using solely my free time to make quests anymore as it was rightly pointed out that the oversight is needed to confirm quality.

We refined this approach a bit more in Desperate Times, where we used reusable puzzles as well as existing assets. The entire "temporal fractures" sequence was done using only existing assets that I plugged together and rearranged using code.

Still even then, making quests is "expensive".

Expensive means that it is expensive to the player. That time and those resources are removed from making other content. I.e the time taken to make that one quest could have made another elite dungeon (theoretically) or a boss, or a skilling update etc.

So what it boils down to is trying to work out where that expense is spent.

I , obviously, am always going to be on the side of quests. I want more of them and I want to be able to put juicy rewards behind them. But the question is whether that is right for the players.

So my advice, is tell them what you think. We have multiple avenues of communication, livestreams, reddit, you can get in contact with Mod Warden directly. Tell them why quests are important and what they mean to you. But also try and think what it is about quests that you like and whether we can expand the delivery of that.

Like the lore? Can we do more environmental and incidental storytelling? Do elite dungeons cover it, what about lore drops? What about incidental dialogue? Would you be happy for quests that consist literally of talking to people and then existing gameplay (skilling/combat).

Is it the puzzles? Can we better deliver that fix to you via repeatable content. Can we do more clue scroll like things to fulfill that?

Or is it something about the combination? Try and distill it down to exactly what matters to you. You never know we might be able to deliver more of the key part of it.

But anyway, I digress. Thank you for your concern, but I'm good and this hasn't been a concern of mine for a while. Also to those of you still grumbling about that maze, yes, we have learned and no we won't be doing that again (further feedback isn't needed anymore on that subject, seriously we get it ;) ).

Whoever gave this platinum, I appreciate you too! <3 Thank you!

Saiyan-solar

If then the community stops being toxic to mod raven because they didn't like the maze in a certain quest that had a pretty good narrative and conclusion.

It can be pretty demotivating to get send death threats over something you spend months of your life on writing and developing.

While I appreciate the sentiment behind this post, it isn't needed. For one the community has been totally fine with me for a good while now and the death threats are largely gone.

Secondly, you'll note that I have made quests since Endgame and I am still an active member of the lore council and constantly suggest quests be added to the release schedule.

So you don't need to worry about me, I'm good. ;)

The problem is that quests can seem like a poor investment. They're, by design, limited pieces of content (you can only do them once) and often have requirements that can make the engagement with them seem lower. They also take a lot of time to develop, often as much as a new boss or piece of skilling content. This is doubly problematic when you consider that quests often need new graphical assets and graphical assets take a lot of time to develop and those resources need to be prioritised between things like new skills.

This is why I experimented with the format of the last few...

holydamned

• Thanks Daddy Obo for all your wacky ideas, you're truly one of a kind, you embody what RuneScape is, you think out of the box and that isn't something most people are able to do. You keep things fresh and entertaining and your enthusiasm is infectious. Your writing is also a wonder to behold.

• Thanks Mod Jack for your detailed work and your ability to listen. You are able to come up with solutions that truly solve the heart of the issues that face the community and the game. You are detailed and measured, a quality that every successful team needs.

• Thanks Mod Ian for your passion in music and sound. Your role often gets overlooked or passed over in discussions on discord or reddit, etc, but this is due to the impeccable quality of your work. Thank you.

• Thank you Mod Pi, you're legendary. The impact you've had on the game is legendary, truly it is impossible to name all the contributions you've had on the game and community and it would be a disservice to you to start naming them, but we all know what they are! Your legend can only grow further, wow!

• Thanks Mod Timbo, you're of course another legend! Your contributions are numerous, but I also want to thank you for appearing on streams and giving your insight, your smile is infectious and it is obvious that you have an incredible passion for the game.

• Thanks Mod Erator for your work on You Are It and the clue scroll overhaul. Especially the later, I'm still enjoying it right now! Your impact is growing by the day and I look forward to your future content and updates!

• Thanks Mod Biscuits for all the great animations that have been coming to the game (especially lately) they do not go unnoticed!

• Thanks Mod Ramen for inspiring so many people with your story, starting in QA and moving up from there. You're real honest and in tune with the playerbase, especially iron accounts!

• Thanks Mod Poerkie for stepping into Shauny's shoes. It is a massive role to fill and I am sure it can be intimidating. I appreciate your bravery and boldness to take on that challenge.

• Thanks Mod Raven for your continued passion in the game and championing queer/LGBTQ characters in game. A lot of people react negatively to the inclusion of diversity in games, but many of us who are queer, transgender, etc, notice this and appreciate it greatly. "

• Thank you to all the QA team members who are truly the unsung heroes of the industry. Again, nothing is possible without you, it may not be glamorous, but I truly appreciate your ability to do what needs to be done to get updates tested and tried and as polished as they need to be. You are integral and I would love to see more of y'all on a stream some time so I can shower you with love and appreciation.

• Thank you to player support for helping us with all our, well, player support needs! The amount of people you help get back in the game, get their questions answered, their issues resolved, it's truly staggering.

• Thank you art & graphics team. So many beautiful things you create, I look forward to the environments, the items, the characters, etc, that come out of each update. So much charm and love is put into the things you create and that is something not easily to replicate.

• Thank you Localisation, you increase access to this game for all to enjoy!

• Thanks Web Team for all the improvements to the website over the last year.

• Thanks Live Events team for your creativity within the restrictions you have and for finding news ways to engage the community.

• Thanks to anyone else I didn't specifically name or mention, you too are integral to the game in more ways than you know. Drop in and say hi so we can love on you too.

• And lastly, I know he is no longer a Mod, but Shauny, your impact will be long lasting, perhaps forever, thank you for championing the players, clans, and more. Thank you for uplifting other Jmods, pointing out their humanity and sharing their stories. Thank you for helping us understand Jagex a little bit better and Jagex understanding the community in turn.

<3

Concordia_chaos

That note was 100% done by Mod Raven. I have a strange feeling about it.

Nope, not me. :D

joe32176

For those of us who don’t have discord, will this info be out in an “official” Jagex location?

At this stage, no, it's just me gathering some ideas and it is in no way a guaranteed content system. There is a thread for suggestions on the forums (and I did link it here) if you want to put ideas up outside of discord (though discord is where there's more feedback from players currently).

But at this stage it's still just a general musing/information gathering stage and not official plans.

pacquan

Raven ranked 4th, but #1 in my eyes.

<3

CutLonzosHair2017

Placating to imagined slights does more harm than good in my opinion. Either way though, not a big deal.

I disagree. There was the chance to make the game experience better for some at literally no cost to any other players (the joke has not been removed, just rejigged).

It cost me a cup of tea, I'm ok with that price.

NightfallRS

Thank you for using your time to fix REAL issues with the game

Took about 12 seconds to fix to be fair, hardly even classes as time spent. I was going to make a cup of tea but did this instead.

Ironically checking/replying to these posts took longer. ;)

So this isn't a trans joke. I can see where you're coming from with the wording being similar to the meme, but this wasn't the intention.

As I recall the writer of this joke was referencing a subclass of the furry fandom, with scaleys being furries who have avatars that are lizards or dragons or similar, rather than a gender/pronoun choice. So at this point Sliske was hitting on the guard by implying they're part of the furry community, nothing more.

I'll put a job in to tweak the wording, but this was absolutely not intended as a trans joke.

churs_rs

What if it was all raven themed?

• Teleport to ravens on southeastern PoF pen
• Teleport to ravens on Tuska's back near the Mazcab portal
• Teleport to Jagex HQ
• A giant statue of a raven for those who have all Ravensworn items and titles
• An orchestra of ravens making raven noises
• New decor to remind people of the glory of the raven and how smart they are even as birds

As tempting as this is, it's probably not the way this update should go. Though I may try and sneak a ravensworn easter egg in somewhere. ;)

[deleted]

[deleted]

Tempting....