TL;DW 273 - Year in Review: 2016

[Brimes]

Mods Conor, Kelpie (Ninja), Osborne (Obo), Ollie (The Watch) & Liam (The Dukes) each representing a content team were on the couch to talk about the top 10 results from the in-game poll we'd recently released which focused on your top three updates of 2016.

Stream - https://www.twitch.tv/runescape/v/107210290

Bonus - Mod Liam with a perfect Professor Snape voice.

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No. 10 - Telos (The Watch)

• Retrospectively, everyone was happy with how Telos was received, it was the first Endgame boss since Mod Chris L left so it was nice for the Watch to live up to the pressure with the boss.

• The streams which related to players seeing how far they could go with the boss were great to watch on release.

• The Watch did not see 2000% enrage being reached this quickly, let alone this year, but "they just impress us so much each time."

• Telos' original concept was being a Mushroom, this was revealed in the stream.

• First week after the release, a couple of changes were made to Telos, and those changes helped us learn how to best approach bosses in the future.

• The loot system and making it more "gamified" was an experiment which in retrospect didn't turn out well, we probably won't do something like this in the future but if we do, we'd do in a completely different way.

  • With Telos we wanted to make a more streamable experience with Enrage, and the Twitch numbers were way higher as a result of this, the loot system is considered to be one of the more "boring" parts of the boss so the loot system was added to try and add a new variety to it.

• Happy with the number 10 poll placement, as Telos appeals to a specific group of players.

• Early version of Telos had portals, that had stuff hopping through as you battled him, this later became the beams that came out of the portals in the battle.

• Original ideas included if you died to Telos, a cutscene would play showing Telos eradicating the World.

• The "true fight" (unlocking Phase 5 at 100% enrage) went down extremely well due to it's shock factor as players were streaming it.

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No. 9 - River of Blood (The Guardians)

• With the quest series ending, there are still stories to tell in the sixth age or even spinoffs.
• On launch a few players were feeling like it was a step down from Lord of Vampyrium, but overall the Guardians did a great job, the core story threads were tied up and it was a good quest.

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No. 8 - Beach (MTX team)

• The Beach is successful and we'll most likely see it coming back in 2017.
• A nice way to create a social spot for the Summer.
• The main issue this year we learned is that we released this too late into the summer.

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No. 7 - Children of Mah (The Watch)

• Creating a sequel to Fate of the Gods, was difficult, we wanted to do something big in the time we had, towards the end we had Mods come over to mention how much they enjoyed the quest, and the player reaction didn't let us down either.

• There were a few easter eggs hidden through the quest

  • One in the Mural, a specific Forum post unveiled the secret.
  • A couple of lore revelations that weren't in your face

• A placeholder text cutscene was made, we were testing out the subtitles in the cutscene with Mod StuO going to town on this, watch this here.

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No. 6 - Arc (The Guardians)

• Learned the following from the Arc's original launch
  • Release everything at once
  • You can't expect to work as much as you do at the Arc for a potential "reward", the effort vs reward with Batch 1 helped learn a lot of lessons.
  • Everyone who's been playing it since Batch 2 has been having a good time with it, a lot of the stuff in Batch 2 was present in Batch 1 but the way it was engaged with didn't go the way we expected too.
  • What we took from Batch 1 was to go through an experience that was fun, emphasis on more discovery and exploration, the chance of people doing that without an obvious reward made it difficult which was rectified in Batch 2.
• Could do plans to expand in the Eastern Lands, there will be a time in the future for it. If we did another region it wouldn't be uncharted isles focused but more so on the Islands being introduced.

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No. 5 - 15 Year Anniversary Event (MTX)

• Loved that we launched it on the day of the 15th anniversary, a really joyful way to celebrate it, and encouraging people to go out and find the portals to create the garden.
• We loved decorating the trees with the lanterns but with the introduction of NXT's draw distance we went uh oh!

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Small section: Delays & Holiday Events

• Mining & Smithing would have been a good update to celebrate 15 years of RuneScape.

  • We didn't get it right the first time, we felt like we didn't have enough time to get the opinions on board to make decent changes to it.
  • It hurt internally having to delay the update, but it was the right decision.
  • Dev Diaries on-going for the Mining & Smithing rework.

• Shattered Worlds

  • We wanted more time to do this justice
  • We did an update which players arguably wanted more
  • If we did Shattered Worlds, Children of Mah would have had less time to be worked on which could have hurt the experience.

• Invention Batch 2

  • Was swapped out for Arc Batch 2, but ultimately it was the right decision to delay it (this is covered later when we get to the Invention section).

• Holiday Events

  • We need to have defined sizes for these events
  • "I feel like I could go in and be done, without needing to grind/rinse."
  • We've been a bit fearful this year, and we should be more generous.
  • Sliske's chocolate factory was good, but the rewards weren't as great as they could be.
  • Christmas is working well so far, Part 2 releases on the 19th.
  • We'll be talking about our plans for Holiday Events in our end of year video.
  • Halloween was a hurting point, it didn't help that it was a hurting point last year also.

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No. 4 - God Wars Dungeon 2 (The Watch)

• Twin Furies was a TAPP project.
• Consensus is that Gregorovic is our favourite boss.
• Ollie: Little bit disappointed that GWD2 wasn't higher, one of my favourite updates to work on, RuneFest solidified just how much players liked it when players dressed up as some of the bosses.
• Creating a sequel to God Wars Dungeon, the four bosses were all made from scratch and the fact we were able to capture players' imagination was a big win for us.
• The release month (March), we wouldn't have changed anything about it, as the Tales led into the opening of the event which then led to the main content.
• Mod Conor's passion project - Quest Book (no name yet)
  • Single book that holds all of the stores of RuneScape, as there are so many stories, miniquests, etc.
  • Currently isn't a nice way to see where you are in the storyline, and this ideally would replace that.
• The Tales project was a nice blueprint which allowed for something like Tales of Nomad to happen.
• Special shoutout for Mod Yann as he created the concepts for all of the GWD2 bosses, creator of Zaros & Goebies.

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No 3. - Invention

• Two days after the release, we changed the fundamentals of Invention.
• Little bit surprised it was high up the list, but there's the requests for Batch 2 might may explain why it's up there.
• It has come a very long way from the first month, it has made a difference, the intention for Invention is to continuously improve it, it gave us a new reward space that allowed us to expand upon and avenues for players to take.
• What you see now is far different to what we've released, it's going to be a core part of the game for a long time.
• As 2017 goes on Invention will have continuous improvements to it.
• Conor: Invention is now part of how you play, you're bringing your gear to level it up, to use your perks and it's cemented itself as a core part of your training.
• We're in a position where we really want to do something about 99 - 120.
• Obo: I'm finding that our Devs weren't sure about Invention and didn't understand, now people are clamouring to do stuff in TAPP time on it.

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No. 2 - Skilling Pets (The Watch)

At the time of this stream Skilling Pets was only ahead of Invention by 40+ votes.

• The main cost on the project was character and animation time (19 pets), we knew we had to create a set of identifiable characters, we were very limited in what we could create (limited to skill).
• Most fun was putting on the little touches to some of the pets.
• Morse Code easter egg for Malcom was fun to send to translation.
• Ollie: Extremely proud of the 2016 that we've had as the Watch.
• We are looking to do the rest of the skilling pets (adding them to the combat skills next year).

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No. 1 - NXT

• We had to move away from Java
• HTML5 happened and it didn't work for us.
• Had a long look at what we could do, and there were benefits from the HTML5 Client, if we want to push forward and do more impressive things in the future, Java was becoming a problem for that.
• Building an engine from scratch is tough, building it while not meaning the game would go down as well as making sure the animation/interactions all work.
• Nearly 70% of the players use the NXT client in-game, we're trying to find out why people are holding back.
• New features coming out in the future, as we continuously polish the Client.
• Menaphos teaser shows off the 'Volumetric Lighting' coming to the game in the future.
• The betas we ran were useful in identifying major problems and compatibility issues, it's a sanity check to give us a bit of confidence before we go live.
• Main feedback of NXT Beta was release it now.
• On launch the entire data of the game had to be downloaded, when we launched NXT it set off alarms, as the bandwidth was being exceeded.

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Other things

• Falador Massacre

  • Happy with how it went, due to the surprise factor of it.
  • Collaborated with OSRS and their event for this also.

• Silver Jewellery

  • Gone down really well, players appreciate the secret updates, need to think about how we do these kind of secret updates as it may affect BTS'.
  • Filled low level gaps, was a passion project from Mod Wolf, Harrison & Dolan.
  • Plenty of discussions on passion projects, Kelpie wants to give TAPP projects a chance to get the resources they need to help them go out.

• Gower Quest

  • What it tried to do did very very well, and a cracking piece of entertainment.
  • Obo: Think it went very well and showed we can have fun at our own expense.

• GameBlast & RuneFest

  • The total was staggering (GameBlast).
  • Give people more time to book/go early on the announcements (RuneFest), the area was awesome.

• CS Week '16

  • The Customer Support team were very happy about how that update in particular went, the clue scroll stuff went down well.
  • Kelpie: Hidey-holes not done as the Clue Scroll Rework is coming.
  • Also very good as it was Mod Tomb's first project and he was very happy with how it went.

• When are we getting more Elite Skilling Outfits?

  • We're having conversations on how do we bring rewards like that into the game through reward methods, will be staggered but more information next year.

• Did Sliske's Endgame questline hold the framework for 2016's lore content?

  • Could have done better here, the focus on just one character probably didn't allow us to expand as much as we'd like.
  • Expansions allow us to have a natural progression and momentum.

• Can we know what some of the other Jmods TAPP projects are?

  • Up to the developer themselves if they want to show the project, if we show/talk about something it leads it on to finding ways to release them, TAPP allows people to try new things and some of these never come to fruition.

• Favourite Ninja update of the year?

  • Shauny: Interface creeping & interface not closing when opening doors in Dungeoneering.
  • Kelpie: People still have some issues in Interface creeps, if you still have them bug report them, but we've gotten the major ones.
  • Osborne: Cache improvements.
  • Ollie: There's one coming up (Christmas Bosses).

• Dailies, where are we?

  • Osborne: A end of year video with what we're going to do about dailies, we're extremely aware of how you go into game and may not have as much time as you used too, and most of that can be taken by dailies.

• Favourite moment of the year?

  • Kelpie: GameBlast "dream team" of beating the players, in particular the Mario Kart ending section.
  • Ollie: RuneFest in general.
  • Conor: Having the Invention debacle come to an end in January, we can turn things around that would cause massive problems for everybody for long periods of times, and knowing that connection exists and seeing it solve a problem is pretty good.
  • Liam: RuneFest it's nice communicating with players face to face and see the passion.
  • Osborne: The pride of the total raised at GameBlast, seeing the Old School streamers collaborating, the bot-busting was always a joy to watch.
  • Shauny: Joining the RuneScape team on the day of the 15th Anniversary and being on the wild ride.

[Pizzas]

9 hours ago, BRIMZY said:

Beach (MTX team)

....this exists?

[Drake M]

Surprised Telos scored so high given that it's very high-level niche

Edited December 15, 2016 by Drake

[Rafi]

Surprised NXT is number 1 given that (last I checked) it's still got some roughness to it.  

[Beric]

Just now, Rafi said:

Surprised NXT is number 1 given that (last I checked) it's still got some roughness to it.  

When is the last time you checked? Most of the issues have been ironed out by now. 

[Rafi]

1 minute ago, Beric said:

When is the last time you checked? Most of the issues have been ironed out by now. 

Maybe a month or two ago? It would randomly freeze up and need to be restarted 1-2 times a day.  Also had a problem where prif graphics were fuzzy/vibrating weirdly.    

[Beric]

You should definitely give it another go. Uninstall and redownload it, though.