a-demons-guide-to-games

[a-demons-guide-to-games]

World Design, Runescape, and Fast Travel

Fuck. You got work tomorrow, and you've already scraped the last bit of coffee out the container this morning. And there's no way in hell or the abyss, that you can get through work without some more. So you stop by a Walmart to grab some. But as you drive through the shopping plaza, you notice there's a cheap pastry shop, a pet store with some cool fish to look at, and a nice fountain to sit by. None of these stores are worth taking the time out of our day to visit, but you're already here right? Why not enjoy the little detour you’ve been forced to take?

Or better yet, imagine your travelling down a mountain road, but alas, you in all your brilliance forgot to get gas for the car. The only station you know of is thirty minutes back the way you came. You start cursing at the steering wheel when your friend pulls out the map and reveals that up ahead is a fork in the road, taking the left path takes you to a quiet little mountain village that just happens to have the only gas station in your current direction. So because of the distance between you, your current location, and your own poor decision making, your forced to pull in to a tiny little villa that you've now fallen head over heels in love with. From the locals, to some of the best restaurants you've ever been to. It even has a cute Knick Knack store! If it wasn't for your circumstances while travelling you would've missed such a beautiful hole in the wall locale.

But what would have happened if you could have just gone to the dollar store next door to where you work? Or what if there was a convenient gas station on the main path on that mountain? 

If you're looking for your answer, then Runescape loadstones are what you're looking for. Let me give you a specific example. White Wolf mountain. The western part of the map is blocked by a treacherous mountain with tough enemies for a new player, or you have to go south and pay for a ship. If you elect to skip paying the ship fare and the walk south then now you've got to take the winding path. Every time. Once across there's a small fishing town, it's got one of the best fishing grounds. It has various fishing spots to catch different leveled fish, a store to buy them, or a bank to store them. Catherby becomes the respite from White Wolf Mountain, and White Wolf Mountain itself becomes a character as you associate it with winding paths, the dead bodies littering the ascent, and the wolves that prowl on the under leveled. It represents both a challenge, as well as the gateway to the other half of Runescape's massive map. There is a shortcut though. However it requires a quest to access and to complete the quest you have to level your fishing skill. So now Catherby becomes the training ground to level up to go unlock the path to "beat" White Wolf Mountain. The mountain provides a threat and encourages the player to either level their combat, or skip the whole walk up by leveling their non-combat skills. It provides a fun nuisance to players the first time they come ill-prepared, and offers a means for extrinsic motivation to level their skills. Its perfect world design, blending elements of player driven storytelling and pushing good quest exploration. And then the load stones came.

Loadstones are really simple. It’s just Runescapes method of fast travelling When you go to one for the first time, you can then teleport to it for free. Forever. Crossed White Wolf Mountain once? Never go to it again. Need to go to Ardougne? Teleport to that bitch. there's a quest to skip White Wolf Mountain? Don't need to do that shit until I'm forced as a quest requirement for some more meaty feeling quests. The ease of loadstones and how forgiving they are to new players, cheapens the early sense of difficulty White Wolf Mountain ultimately posed, and chips off the character of the area. For RPGs sometimes the best stories aren't the ones programmed by developers, but driven by a player's sense of exploration and testing the boundaries of what they're capable of. Loadstones negate this feeling. And take the edge off these locations, making the journey no longer something to be tackled or planned around. It causes players to now entirely think about what they're teleporting to instead of how to get there, it emphasizes the destination and deemphasizes the journey, cutting a huge avenue of early player experience.

Towns like Port Sarim become less useful as a trip to catch a boat when I could easily loadstone to places. Towns that acted as byways stations and encouraged you to skill there as you passed through have been almost forgotten by me until I need to go there for a quest. Routes that I used to walk no longer are used. And shortcuts like canoeing feel like leftovers from an earlier design philosophy no longer in practice since I can just loadstone everywhere. The characterization given to the world through interaction has faded, and so has my understanding of these small towns in the game Now I understand why they did this. Some quests start on one side the map and have you going to random places that functionally have no reason to need you to go to these places aside from padding. And loadstones cut quest length down in half. It makes linking up with friends easier, and some towns are actually worth visiting now that the walk is a quarter of the time. Some loadstones even require quests to activate. like the one in the desert. Soren Johnson, a designer of Civilization IV can be quoted as saying “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game,” And I just feel that a lot of the joy that came from planning my routes, or finding shortcuts, or stopping by small towns has been completely forgotten. That the dollar store has come to roost, and that a gas station has been given to me. Yes I’m less annoyed, but am I more fulfilled?

[a-demons-guide-to-games]

Rune-Draw, MicroGames, and Runescape

Having a game in constant development for around 20 years, is bound to leave the equivalent of a hanging chad of mechanics strewn across your game, and no better description could fit a game like Runescape. Now Runescape being a point and click adventure game (I will die on this definition. Fight me!) has a bunch of mini games and quirky systems that only an old MMO could have, and are only used for certain quests and then never touched again. Games like matching up layers of a blueprint to make a whole schematic, or playing Tetris to make a catapult. But the most interesting little mini game I came across was Rune-Draw from the quest ghost ahoy. It was essentially just black jack, with cards replaced with runes. There's only 10 runes, one of each type, and the death rune instantly fails you. You pull runes until you both decide you wish to hold, or someone draws a death rune. Whoever has the most points wins. It’s simple, takes less than a minute to play, in-universe friendly, and it's just plain cute. The idea of non mages carrying bags of runes to gamble or how runes replaced cards seemed like such an in universe thing that I was shocked more NPCs didn't mention the game or play. And that's when I got thinking, why not expand this idea? And so without further adieu, here's my ideas of expanding the rune-draw game for no reason.

Like I said, I was super surprised that other NPCs had not referenced such an in-universe friendly conversion of blackjack. I imagine implementing more interactions would function sort of like how caravan did in Fallout:New Vegas. Having random NPCs scattered around the world to challenge for random games. First of all, this would populate the numerous bars with something to do and make them more lively, and give them purpose. I'd love to see people throwing runes on that table to make the various taverns scattered across Runescape feel purposeful, as if the natives of the world meet up to drink and to play. You can also tie each NPC into the already existing achievement  system and encourage players to explore and find every rune-draw compatible NPC to fight for achievement points. I think going back to challenge my favorite NPCS to a few rounds of a game would be a good incentive to revisit them. Having certain NPCs give exclusively painted runes, or bags ( bags would determine the background GUI of the rune-draw game) would also be a fun reason to compete. This is the same principle that makes finding new cards in New Vegas so addicting. Even if I sucked at caravan. Certain NPC’s could have exclusive dialogue depending on how you beat them, and some may gamble various amounts of money to que players more in their personality. Imagine baking these ideas into amazing hidden mechanic if when payers first stumble their way into Ardougne, and into a small bar tucked away in the north west they find a drunk and boisterous NPC with a pack of runes on a table, The players can go challenge him to a duel and after a few wins the NPC could bet 1000 coins. If the player wins the NPC would grumble about not having enough money and instead give you a unique set of runes to play with., and you can keep them lore friendly by saying its just painted essence. Or have the NPC be an ex hunter teach you a new hunting technique which grants hunter xp. Mayber have a sailor allow you to catch a unique fish or get access to special bait. The limits are endless! 

Sadly, the Runescape player base just isn't as big as it used to be. Finding other players in popular grinding spots can sometimes prove difficult at certain hours, and the minigame spots like stealing creation are never being played since there's never enough players to fill the player queue. And while it may be my rose tinted, nostalgia minted glasses talking here, the community back in the day felt so much more lively compared to where it is now. So why not introduce Rune-Draw! When you right click someone, let “Rune-Draw” show up in the drop down menu. And of course don't forget to let players to toggle off Rune-Draw duels, Let players gamble amongst themselves. It allows players to kill time waiting for friends when meeting in large groups and encourage player interactivity. Imagine players betting millions of black jack or even super rare armor pieces just as a joke or for some high stakes fun. The devs could also put a cap on how much you could gamble in one day so players don't lose millions and then go on the forums and rage. Aslo it might be cruel to allow literal virtual gambling and have the Rune-Draw be taught to you from an NPC with a gambling addiction. It would also be a fun little distraction for when they cut burned out after gathering the 500th log or burn out half way through monkey madness because that quest was straight GARBAGE. Also for the love of god Jagex do not make minigames like cards or Rune-Draw a skill. I don’t want to play 345981 games in a row just to get to level 56 skill level so I can do a single quest.

I just wanted to write out a more detailed way to expand something thought was fun and gush about Runescape for a bit. But a lot of what I wrote could easily apply to any small mini-games that could be added to Runescape. I always welcome more immersions and more roguish taverns. As well as offer an extra way to add fun microgames to facilitate a better player driven community.

[a-demons-guide-to-games]

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