source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... =runescapeIt's old enough and trivial enough that I can probably skirt NDAs as an anecdote.
The company had an internship-style placement scheme with various universisties it had used to some success in customer support, so someone high up decided they could do the same for content developers too.
We got three placements in for a summer position, and they basically had free choice on what they wanted to work on (within certain degrees of scope agreed on before they started work) and had basically the whole art department backing them so as to provide a good impression.
One of those placement projects was Monkey Madness, which players love (see this thread) and internally the content devs absolutely hated, because it was a huge mess of spaghetti code that linked into multiple systems, and over the years has thrown up so many bugs as a result its not even funny.
One of those placements did Throne of Miscellania, which I don't think was ever that popular externally, but internally we all absolutely loved the concept of (running your own kingdom and getting resources from your subjects). I think it was over-balanced to the point of being useless in the end. Dude who made thats at Frontier now I think.
The final placement wanted to do a multi-part quest, and was pretty much left to it.
When QA came to look at it, and realised he had done things like:
- make the quest giver the boss NPC you had to kill at the end of one part of the quest (so good luck starting that quest if anyone was at the end)
- do a login check so that anyone who hadn't started the quest was immediately teleported next to the quest giver (anyone being the entire playerbase, not just members, not just people who had the requisite skill levels. Anyone)
- questionable dialogue choices (like Monks of Zamorak shouting "allah allah akbar zamorak" when they attacked) and generally poor quality written english they went to senior management and raised their concerns.
His placement was abruptly terminated, but they had basically got a huge stack of unused art assets that nobody was going to be particularly happy with throwing away, so I was basically asked to cook something up from existing ingredients.
I'd just finished Horror From The Deep and was in planning stages for "A Viking quest" (which became Fremnnik Trials), and at the time Mages were in a pretty bad spot in the combat triangle, so I merged an in-between combat project I wanted to do (multi-target spells and spells with on hit effects) as the quest reward for Desert Treasure.
So because this was a hodge-podge of recycling premade mapsquares and assets explains all sorts of weirdness about it;
- the fact that a quest called Desert Treasure pretty much happens everywhere in the world except the desert
- the fact there are loads of "one and done" NPC appearances (like some dude living in a sewer under draynor, or a ghost near the waterfall)
- the fact a mahjarrat suddenly looks like anubis (when the previously existing ones in game clearly aren't)
- the whole "collect 4 diamonds each with their own boss" thing as a non-linear get them in any order aspect.
I also took the time to do a little lore tidying up about zaros, but a bulk of that wasn't ready in time so we snuck it in as a secret patch update with invisible ghosts later on.
Over Desert Treasure
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- Berichten: 18446
- Lid geworden op: zondag 28 mei 2006, 21:24
Over Desert Treasure
Een ex-RS dev deed een interessant verhaal uit de doeken over enkele RS quests:
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Een student die probeert om zijn diploma te halen gaat zoiets toch nooit doen? Lijkt me een grote kans dat dit bs is.allah allah akbar zamorak
Leukere quest dan sommige brol die we nu krijgen.- the whole "collect 4 diamonds each with their own boss" thing as a non-linear get them in any order aspect.
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Die persoon heeft in de thread nog meer zaken gepost over andere quests en dergelijke, echt interessante zaken. ^^
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- Berichten: 3511
- Lid geworden op: zondag 31 mei 2009, 17:53
- RS: Roy Boy106 (p2p)
- Clan: Overloaded XP
- Oude naam: Roytjhu106
- Extra rang: RoS #1 Divination
Re: Over Desert Treasure
the fact that a quest called Desert Treasure pretty much happens everywhere in the world except the desert
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Damn waren er nu nog maar meer van dat soort jmods, hij klinkt echt geweldig
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Het lijkt me dat de quest zo heet omdat de 'schat' (Ancient magicks?) nu eenmaal in de desert ligt..Roy Boy106 schreef:the fact that a quest called Desert Treasure pretty much happens everywhere in the world except the desert
Naar mijn mening maakt het daarbij niks uit dat de rest van de quest zich niet in de desert afspeelt
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Thx for sharing, interessant inderdaad!
Someone who hacked Zarfot's channel: "I tell the truth, and if you don't like it: too damn bad."
"There was a fella once. Running for a train. And he's carrying a pair of gloves, this man.
He drops a glove on the platform, but he doesn't notice. And then later on, inside the train,
he's sitting by the window and he realises that he's just got this one glove left.
But the train's already started pulling out of the station. So what does he do?
He opens the window, and he drops the other glove onto the platform.
That way, whoever finds the first glove, can just have the pair."
"What are you telling me?"
"Goodbye, mister Nygaard."
"Goodbye, deputy."
Re: Over Desert Treasure
- questionable dialogue choices (like Monks of Zamorak shouting "allah allah akbar zamorak" when they attacked)
Maarja, inderdaad wel interessant.
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- Berichten: 1917
- Lid geworden op: zondag 3 juli 2011, 23:19
- RS: 30 (p2p)
- Extra rang: Road of Skillers #1 Thieving
Re: Over Desert Treasure
- questionable dialogue choices (like Monks of Zamorak shouting "allah allah akbar zamorak" when they attacked)
Re: Over Desert Treasure
Gelukkig betekent Allah Allah akbar Zamorack niets anders dan; god god is groot Zammy.
"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken"
Re: Over Desert Treasure
En toen boem Saradomin dood door een bom spell