If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch

So here is maybe only the start of a project. A Tarot card deck based on RuneScape canon, and so far, only the major arcana. The minor arcana I am imagining as three suites: magic, projectiles, and hand weapons (swords, daggers, clubs, hammers, axes, and polearms). Maybe slayer monsters could be a fourth minor suite?

No pictures yet, and I doubt any will come for a long while. If you want, feel free to take this idea and run with it. Major spoilers inbound! (but behind individually wrapped cuts!)

0. ( The Fool )


1. ( The World )


2. ( The Child )


3. ( The Youth )


4. ( The Corpse )


5. ( The Maiden )


6. ( The Matron )


7. ( The Dark Emperor )


8. ( The Light Empress )


9. ( The Caretaker )


10. ( The Shepherd )


11. ( The Liberator )


12. ( Responsibility )


13. ( The Hydra )


14. ( The Idealist )


15. ( The Warmonger )


16. ( The Beast )


17. ( The Hunter )


18. ( The Hedonist )


19. ( Food )


20. ( The Sun )


21. ( The River )


22. ( The Psychopomp )


23. ( The Devourer )


24. ( Health )


25. ( The Socialite )


26. ( Temperance )


27. ( The Hermit )


28. ( The Trickster )

Pretty sure these are going to be Zamorak and Saradomin themed only. Darn, no Amascut ponies, then.

Honk.

So, according to Word of God (Mod Osbourne in this case, senior narrative designer) Amascut is classed as a demigod in the new tiering system the Runescape devs are playing around in now that canon is going to be focused on the gods.

What this means exactly, I dunno, but it is making a headvoice very cranky. It doesn't diminish her power or make her less dangerous, it just means she is outclassed by most gods.

It might even mean she was mortal once. A portion of the gods that outclass her are turning out to have been mortals once as well.

( Quoth the Osborne: )

Amascut's info is due an update anyhow. Someday.

It has become a bit more apparent that it isn't a coincidence that Gielinor, the name of the world Runescape is set in, is an anagram for the word religion.

What brings this up? New canon, in the form of Runescape's new quest, The World Wakes.

The developers are about to do a curious thing which I could of sworn they wouldn't do, given that Runescape is an MMO, and a particularly massive one at that. Starting next week, all content that they add to the game is going to treat The World Wakes as if it happened in the past. Mini-games, mini-quests, full blown quests, holiday events, everything. All the old content will remain, save for the hokey old fetch quests and copy and paste stories that the devs now seem so urgently to want to change and align with the lore. Romeo and Juliet was a victim of this a while back, as it wasn't really a Runescape story, it was a Shakespeare story. The devs have already stated that they aren't going to touch the Arthurian Legend inspired stuff as it is too ingrained in the lore, but I am sure it is a sore spot. We'll see. But anyhow, the old content is staying, but, in regards to the lore, it is all stuff that happened before The World Wakes. Even if it wasn't in the list of requirements for the quest, they are all just memories.

Of course, with The World Wakes being in the past in regards to all new content from this point on, spoilers for The World Wakes are almost unavoidable. Except maybe not. The devs have promised that new content will still be playable to players who haven't played through The World Wakes just like old content will still be playable for players who have, but the new content will have a toggle so that players can avoid the spoilers.

I wonder how long the devs will keep that up.

Not that it matters to me. I don't avoid spoilers; I live on them. I wouldn't be able to play death_gone_mad, fowl_beast, or fairy_fixit otherwise. I have only seen Amascut in game once, and all I did was flip though all her dialog options and freak her out with a purple cat. Well, wait, no, I also dealt with her in game in her Lady Keli guise. (That was another quest that got rewritten to align it more with lore. Well, no, it was fine lore wise but kind of boring, almost a fetch quest).

This is interesting... I wouldn't have thought a linear story could fit into an MMO. The calendar year has been stuck at 169 Fifth Age since the game first came online way back in 2000 AD. With this, a new year has arrived. Have other MMO's done this? I wouldn't know, Runescape is the only MMO I have played around in.

So, the Runscape EOC beta character models I showed off earlier? They are in the main game now.

HAHAHAHA

The player base's reaction, predictably, has been negative. Well, not the majority of the player base, it is often that the squeaky wheels are tho only ones heard. So far I have seen cries of ANOREXIC! WEIGHTLIFTER! SLUT! MEAN BITCH! FATTY! SEXFAEC! BLOWUP DOLL! APE! leveled at the new female model. The male model, on the other hand, just gets called ugly. *sigh*

I feel that if the agape mouths on the models were closed, many complaints would vanish. I personally like the new character models, but then again I don't mind muscle (and come on, these are adventurers, not gaunt fashion models!), in fact, I prefer it. The anorexic cries come from players who have fooled around with certain midriff baring costumes, apparently. I also don't mind round faces. That may be the "AWWW WOOKIT DAH CUTE BABY!" circuits in my brain tripping on the female model's rounder face and big eyes (the magic of eye makeup! wait, eye makeup?) or it might be that I really don't mind.

Edit: Oof, now I see the skinny. The arms look good in profile but head on they look emaciated. Eep. The legs are a bit that way too.

Then again looking at it more closely, it isn't the whole thing, its a mishmash of the old and the new that got imported with the old animations. What the hell?

Ok, as the title (hopefully) suggests, This post is primarily about Runescape's EoC beta, which was open this weekend for free players. Of course, I, being a penny pincher, am a free player. I don't play the game often enough to justify a paid membership anyhow. 

This post will also test Dreamwidth's email posting capabilities and their new image hosting service. Check the latest post in dw_news for more information. I hope everything comes out as it should on the other end.

Anyhow, I got to check out the EoC beta this weekend and beside the changes in how player vs. player and player vs. monster combat works, there are changes to the player character model as well. Much of it was necescitated by the changes to combat animations. Part of the change to combat focused on fighting stances. Where before there was only one stance, basically standing with your right foot forward, there are now defensive stances, melee attack accuracy focused stances, strength focused stances, archery stancces, spell casting stances, etc. There is an idle stance as well, and it is almost as if the player character is standing at attention rather than in the middle of going somewhere. The idle animation also changes. Presently, player characters do kind of a slow shimmy and bob their heads as is they were energetic nervous wrecks. The EoC player model just stands there and breathes.

Also the EoC models have hands with some discernible fingers instead of mittens. This has to do with animations involving certain weapons, I believe.

Anyhow, pictures!
( Read more... )

Runescape is going to switch from Java to HTML5.

Also my computer architecture professor is talking about a haptic controller he built for Valve and how fun it was to play with that physics puzzle in Half-Life 2 involving the barrels in the water and the ramp using the controller.