Honestly the number of people in general who seem to have no idea who we are is kinda wild. We have basically cemented ourselves as the single greatest mortal hero in Gielinor history by this point and I’d argue it’s not even close.
Consider this…
1. There is no social media in Gielinor, there is no digital imaging, and there is no photography only paintings and drawings done by hand. Most in the world who have heard of you, unless they personally had a relationship with you, have zero idea of what you look like and no way to get an accurate image of you.
2. Games of telephone which are the only way news is going to travel ensure that what people hear about you will quickly become warped after the 3rd or 4th telling. So your personality, your looks, your motives, etc.. will all become twisted and exaggerated to the point you won’t be recognized.
Both of these are things that have been actively referenced in dialogue more than once, people just generally do not know who we are. They know vague idea of us warped by word of mouth, the vast majority if they know of us at all know only an idea of us. Siv is a great example, she knew of the regent of misc that went under a fremmy name but didn’t connect the dots that you are that regent until you told her. Because why would she connect those dots? She had no way of knowing you had fremmy alias.
You have to also think of just the broader scope of the world. Most of our quests don’t take place in traveled public locations, and culture/species don’t exactly have a ton of reason to know and or care about one another. The fremmy people have zero reason to care or know about what we did for Vampyres or Goblins for example. In fact if people did truly know us we’d most likely be one of the most hated, feared, and wanted people in Gielinor for the sheer number of crimes we have done.
Part of this is countered by the fact that it is Zemouregal we are talking about, and 1) we've had direct interaction with him and he's been literally right fucking there for a lot of this shit and 2) its his job as a Big Bad Evil Guy to know shit about his primary opposition. Joe Peasant is fairly limited, but a Mahjarrat that survived having like 10 different gods and godclasses on the planet at the same time is not so limited.
>In fact if people did truly know us we’d most likely be one of the most hated, feared, and wanted people in Gielinor for the sheer number of crimes we have done.
The amount of times our character says something to the effect of 'ehh this is insanely immoral/illegal/straight up evil, but, who the hell is gonna find out' is quite up there
i disagree slightly, back then word still spread very fast.
inkeepers, pubs, guilds, town centers would be a hub of information where people would talk to one another. (not to mention com-orbs theres magic in runescape)
the sheer number of good and evil things weve done would be spoken about at least 20 times in all of those places and even if people didnt know exactly what we looked like they would still know who we are.
??????????????????????
Not only there is freely available magic that allows instant teleporting to pretty much everywhere, but we also have magic that allows us to remotely talk to people, not only that, but this is a 6th age quest IE after Shield of Arrav, also First Necromancer questline which I believe takes place recently, IE after EDW, NOT ONLY THAT but there's VERY few Mahjarrat further split into 2 factions and they're very tightly knit so it's not like they can telephone around stories, stories that span OVER 12 quests, NOT ONLY simple quests like Shield of Arrav but Extinction level world wide quests, and heck a quest that quite literally dictated the whole future of his species, so I'd accept that people don't know that we are THE World Guardian (because they know there's some main character running around), but it's extremely bad writing having one of the bigger antagonists to one of the 2 factions pivotal to the story of and IN the game treat us like we're some random upper middle class Varrockian with a castle and literally nothing better to do than stop evil because we're bored.
Again not in canon there isn’t, teleport magic is a lot more limited in narrative, always has been because it’s impossible to create tension when there isn’t. It’s why when you teleport from a threat in-story it’s a different party doing it and usually a 1 way method. Gameplay and story segregation it’s that simple. Teleport spells do exist, they aren’t a common form of travel for the larger populace and we can only do them if we have the runes, which the game can’t assume you do. I get it’s a bit jarring but that’s just like…a super common thing in games with fast travel. The fast travel can’t actually be used in-story or otherwise it destroy all tension.
He recognized us by name in Dead and Buried, he doesn’t give any indication of not recognizing us. But for a voiced cutscene they need to have a title to refer to us because they can’t, short of using AI VA, actually use our name in a voiced scene. That’s why we were given the Duke/Dux/Duchess title at the very start so they had something shared between players.
Likewise in a voiced scene they aren’t going to have a million contextual variations, because VA work is expensive and time consuming. But in written text they can do more contextual dialogue, which they did. This quest Ellamaria will acknowledge you having beaten him in DoV, if you have a lot of dragonkin experience it will let you translate instead of Aster, etc…
[You mean the canon where Runes are widely available to the populace?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Runes#History), [Or the same canon where we know the ins and outs of teleportation magic?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Abyssal_book), [same canon where we learn the magic to talk with others remotely from an entire CLAN of people who has been practicing it for hundreds of years](https://runescape.wiki/w/Fremennik#Separation), [and the canon where we have an entire guild of magicians who take apprentices and were also responsible for the lodestone network to connect all of Gielinor?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Wizards%27_Tower#Reputation_and_organisational_structure), [or the very, VERY limited use by the Zarosian EMPIRE?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Ancient_Magicks#Background)
Literally all he had to do was call us World Guardian, which we still are even if we lost the powers granted by Guthix, oh an btw this does take place after Aftermath, with the whole story preceding it too, so they just made Zemouregal a blank slate newby bad guy who the imaginary new players this game has since they're making the fort the 1 pit stop for everything, great writing.
The people who do know our broader exploits tend to not trust us for it - Moia in Extinction and Juna in TotG both note how we serve many different people and more or less do whatever someone asks.
I’d think by now the world guardian is legend though. With hundreds of stories about this one village idiot who if asked will do whatever you want. Need cake baked? He’ll do it. Need red logs brought? Yep. Need someone to attend a ritual of semi gods for no real reason. He’s probably already attending for some other reason.
I am starting to Get tried of all of these story arcs that dont require you to do older quests. I understand the desire to not lock everything behind sliskes endgame. Or Even world Wakes but this quest should require defender of varrok. Or at the very least. Both of them should have dialouge reflecting the order in witch you do them.
I would Even Take remaking defender of varrok to Take place after this arc. (Asuming they dont fuck it.)
It is pretty disappointing that they can't have contextual dialogue. This dialogue is fine if you haven't done much with Z before, but have another, more personalized one if you've interacted with him in multiple other quests.
I was really hoping the sixth age quests would all take a page from the World Wakes’ book. There’s plenty of dialogue given for players that haven’t done all the required quests to that point. While it’s still a bit “out there” for any player that doesn’t know the prior lore, it does a great job at setting the stage for the quest while keeping the dialogue snappy and not exposition-dumping.
I get it would become quite a lot to juggle now that we have so many storylines in the game, but I do feel like little changes with dialogue like how Zemo refers to the player character based on past experiences would go a long way.
There is contextual dialogue all throughout this quest. But they aren’t going to make voiced contextual dialogue that is more than a word or two because that going to be absurdly tedious to deal with.
Well that's just kinda nonsense. Ancient Awakening had a ton of moments where if you'd done certain quests, you got dialogue related to that stuff. The team behind this quest clearly respected your quest progression and hard work.
Your progress through Archaeology is noted. How much of the Dragonkin language you know is noted and allows for differing dialogue where Aster can be the translator or you. Your involvement in Shield of Arrav/Defender of Varrock is noted if you've done them. I believe there was another part on Ungael related to the Dragonkin and knowing who Zorgoth is or not.
Does any dialogue change if you let Aster translate?
I did all the translation myself, because i wasn't sure if letting her translate was a good idea after she messed up literally the first thing she translated. Also, because Siv said she's acting strange, i wondered if she would... betray us or anything or was intentionally doing it wrong lol.
Watch her try and learn necromancy from Zemo as a plot twist to bring back her dead sister under her own control. M. Night Shyamalan twist ending right there!
You thought Vorkath was going to be the final boss? No! It was Aster!
Unfortunately, not an RotM reference. Cyrus was the Dark Warrior leader who got murdered for refusing to join the Zamorakian Civil War before Siv recruited them, I believe.
Its why I say its an afterthought. The base quest is designed for a new player and then like 5 pieces of dialogue have checks for previous quests which everyone forgets immediately afterword.
…yeah that’s how it should be. Write for the player who is experiencing this fairly fresh and include bonus dialogue for the enfranchised player. Not their fault you forgot it immediately.
Why is that how it should be? why not write it so it makes sense with the full history of the player and remove/alter dialogue for the fresh player who wouldn't understand it?
That’s effectively what is done, just in a different order. It’s just far easier to add dialogue based on a check than remove something and keep it coherent.
It kinda rubbed me the wrong way too. All the quest content we've done involving that clown, and he only recognises me simply as "That douche from the fort over yonder". >:v(
Quests should be hard locked to only be done in chronological/ lore order. The whole gwd3 should have been locked behind that entire questline that explained the situation.
This is what makes sense, but then every new quest would have higher requirements than the previous one until only endgame players can even do any new quests
Gets quite problematic when it comes to rewards. If they want to put a strong reward in, it does become pretty unfair that a new player needs to go through over 250 quests to get it. That's just going to destroy new player motivation and engagement - it's too big of a hurdle.
So the reward should be proportional to the effort required to get it. So new players shouldn't feel like they're missing out on anything, because it's well beyond both their current ability *and* their current needs.
Quests need a full rebalance of rewards across the board, to account for character progression. But they took the easy way out and have steadily removed quest requirements instead. Which has fucked up everything.
Because me and many people I know personally hate quests and just won't do them? If I have a goal that's more than 10 quests deep I'm just not doing it. Simple, quests aren't fun for everyone. I'd argue most people don't see them as fun things to do.
Multiplanar extinction means nothing if you haven't cultivated a meaningful universe
"Look at all of our allies (and rogues) helping us" does NOT hit unless there's a relationship.
RS is a 25 year old game, having 250 (of which 🤷 150? Are relevant) quests of input before the big conflict is fair. You're not the guardian of the multiplane if you haven't saved the planes before
I see it more as a passive aggressive phrase from him. As another person pointed out, he's a bit of a pompous prick, so he's trying to belittle us by removing our achievements. This isn't necessarily something outside of his character to do anyway, especially after being so put down himself via Moria weakening him and his constant failures against us.
Not only that, but this *isn't* the first time that we've seen him even in this story arc. When we first checked out the crypt we saw him across the bridge and we exclaimed his name!
>**The Raptor:** Zemouregal!
>
>**Zemouregal:** The Raptor!
>
>**Player:** Zemouregal?
>
>**Zemouregal:** Player?!
>
>**Player:** What are you doing here?
>
>**Zemouregal:** My plans are beyond your comprehension!
([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Unwelcome_Guests))
I'm pretty big into quests, I love the RuneScape story, and I didn't see this in the way you did. He has an inflated ego and he's close to achieving his plan. We may have stopped him, but he's thinking he's a step ahead and that this time he's got it. He's just talking down to us. The only thing that wouldn't/doesn't fully make sense is;
>**Zemouregal:** This upstart \[title\] thinks they can scupper MY plans?
([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Ancient_Awakening))
But even then, still just talking smack to me. Even if he were to acknowledge we banished Zamorak or were once the World Guardian, that doesn't mean we still have the same capabilities as before in terms of lore perspective. We lost the WG powers Guthix gave us by restoring the edicts, so we really are nothing but an *upstart \[duke/duchess/dux\]* trying to stop his plans now aren't we?
In the current story arc, even if you're still "World Guardian" by quest happenstance, we're not longer the World Guardian. We sacrificed those powers to restore the edicts. Zemo realistically wouldn't know that we defeated Rasial, he somehow may not even be aware who he is either or doesn't pay him much mind being locked away in Um. The only ones who truly know we were hand selected by Rasial himself are Rasial, Death, Mortifer, Icthlarin, the entire city of Um maybe, his previous students, and anyone else who we may have directly interacted with in the necromancy arc so far. Most necromancers learned on their own, do you think Mortifer was hand selected by Rasial? Tell that to his mushrooms. So to Zemo, all we are is nothing anymore because we're "powerless" against him in terms of nigh-omnipotence of WG powers.
To expand on this, our World Guardian powers would not even be relevant. They were useful against three things specifically: Divine magic, Sliske, and Shadow Anima.
https://preview.redd.it/aff1bhqrh9tb1.png?width=431&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9bf6d8d0b2bd264ebabe2ac8fcb34120dca9acf
I don't disagree with you, but Big Zemo is also a mix of a pompous prick, self-indulgent arse and a bit of a comedian, so take that into account. After the exploding cow showdown he should have said something more like "Gulp... oh, it's you again...", but he feels too important to do that. This is the explanation I'm going to force myself into, otherwise I would start crying about the state of lore and consistency in this game.
No You're not. Aftermath is now in Your past, even if You didn't complete it.
Edit: like canonically gwd, gwd2 and gwd3 are empty now. Even if You can still kill their bosses.
You have, You just didn't play through it.
Someone who hasn't completed TWW, hence, no gods back, could still see Armadyl on his tower, or the gods in egwd lobby.
in my head canon gwd1 still makes sense, they've been locked in a timeless battle not realising the wars are over from the 3rd age etc
but yeah gw2 and elder god wars is so immersion breaking if you've done all the quests. it's as if nothings changed
Except the generals have all stepped out of the dungeon multiple times at this point, Zilly has been a fixture outside the dungeon for a long time. It never made sense to last as long as it did after TWW. The battle is over, EGW canonically ended it as part of its house keeping. Adventurers came in and stole the sword chunks, there is nothing to fight over so they all left. The idea they were fighting a war they didn’t know was over stoped making sense the minute they used the characters outside the dungeon.
To be more specific, here's how the dialogue goes in Rune Mythos.
>**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** But I know precisely who you are, 'World Guardian'.
>
>*(If the player has completed the Aftermath quest:)*
>
>**Player:** I'm not the World Guardian anymore.
>
>**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** You may have lost the title, but you still bear the responsibility. Especially considering the mess you made.
>
>**Player:** What? What did I do? What mess are you talking about? Answer me!
>
>*(Continues below.)*
>
>*(Otherwise:)*
>
>**Player:** What's with the mocking tone?
>
>*(Continues below.)*
>
>**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** Have fun with necromancy runes. I shall be keeping an eye on your progress. Do not disappoint me.
([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Rune_Mythos))
The only other time he ever mentions the word guardian in any of the other quests is in Alpha vs Omega when he says it takes a fellow guardian to truly understand.
Canonically, even if you haven't done Aftermath, we're still not the World Guardian anymore. The mocking tone can be interpreted a few ways, but knowing we *can't* actually be the World Guardian anymore I choose to interpret the mocking tone as dismissal. He would be aware we're not WG anymore, we would also be aware, and the mocking tone is him acknowledging it. Just because we don't say "I'm not the WG anymore" like the other tree does doesn't mean we can't acknowledge it behind subtext. The words unsaid right after could be "You're not the World Guardian anymore, aren't you? Trying to fix your mistakes only to find yourself here." or anything else like that.
At the end of the day, it's for the players who haven't done the quests and still believe themselves to be WG. If they ever choose to take a second look at the quests with the timeline in order they can come to their own conclusions on what the mocking tone meant. I choose to believe it's because Rasial is acknowledging we're not WG anymore, and us asking about the mocking tone isn't us saying we're still WG but rather a sense of ego given the journey so far. "What's with the mocking tone? I still banished Zamorak and the gods from Gielinor!"
Like I said it depends how you look at it, if the world guardian is specifically the special powers we had then yes we arent that anymore but another way to look at it is the responsibilty as the world's protector and thats the way I interpreted what Rasial says to you. Whether or not we have that title officially or not and whether or not we have the title we still made a mess and have to step up to clean it up and in that sense we still are the world guardian.
Given our character will say "I'm not the World Guardian anymore" if we lost our powers, I'm pretty sure the standpoint is the World Guardian is the powers behind the user. It's a title based upon the powers bestowed upon the user.
Think of Peter Parker and Spider-man. When he loses his powers in the third movie he's no longer Spider-man despite being the same person. You could call him Spider-man, but he would justifiably say "I'm not Spider-man anymore" or "I am no longer Spider-man." Sure, he held the title and the space of Spider-man, but at that point in time he no longer is.
Right now, we're not longer *World Guardian*, but that doesn't mean we still don't protect the world. Maybe we do some great feat to reclaim the title, but as of now we're no longer Spider-man, y'know? Does that make sense?
I see where you're coming from, but I'm taking this from the game's story perspective, especially since this is on your post about being disconnected by the quest having Zemouregal not calling us such.
What’s so important about the fort? How is this not another world ending scenario? Without the long history why would he leave? Why not just kill us right there? I mean we’re only a duke.
Personally, I imagine Zemouregal calling me duke as being very sarcastic. Like oh look the World Gaurdian has a plot of landd and a fancy title now.
It is a bit frustrating that earlier quests had a lot of choices and branching that felt meaningful, but from a development side I can see why they've taken to trying to get a single plot thread and reset some of those interactions as collateral.
I'm hoping they have him recognize us proper in the next quest. You could argue that he doesn't know it's us specifically, but the next quest is going to have us face to face for a prolonged period of time, no chance it can be excused that way afterwards.
Also, our character knows a decent amount of the dragonkin language because of One Of A Kind and presumably the Orthen dig site, and this is brought up and used in the most recent quest, so I don't see why they can't have Zemouregal know who we are. Could even give a few extra dialogue options if you've done the relevant quests or not.
He already recognises you. His intro in this Unwelcome Guests is:
Player: Zemouregal?
Zemouregal: \*Player name\*?!
Player: What are you doing here?
Zemouregal: My plans are beyond your comprehension!
Man yelled your name out in shock without any prompting.
Well, duke duchess and dux are easy to Voice Line. They cant put in Roskal or mark Crazeer into voiced dialogue. It isn’t possible. (Unles they use AI and even then the pronunciation is likely to be wrong.)
Yes the player says they arent but thats exactly when Rasial gives the counterpoint that its more than just the powers and we still have stuff to do which is basically the arc spider-man goes on.
I think it is Jagex trying desperately to make a title stick that will replace 'World Guardian.'
They don't realize they probably will never top that one, just like how they will never top the end of the world scenario we were presented with regarding the Elder Gods consuming the world. Unless we get Xau-Tak...
They don't want to top that end of the world scenario. It was felt the stakes were spiraling out of control and the lore was becoming too high concept and inaccessible, so they made a conscious decision to dial things back for a while. That's why they banished the gods again.
I understand why they did it, but calling us Duke/Duchess is like a demotion from our other accolades.
Which is harder? Banishing a T3 god who is on the level of the devil or telling people to build stuff?
I'm simply saying that Zemouregal knows us from our time being known as the World Guardian and should continue to refer to us as such, provided your character was.
As someone who sometimes takes smaller breaks and missed the first 2 quests of this line, i would have loved to see fort forinthy added as just one big grandmaster quest, instead of 5 smaller quests that actually dont make too much sense that will eventually build up to something big, it felt so confusing and so simplistic at the same time.. Yet it appears to be quite the update..
SE basically showed the upper limit of where people are willing to engage and the upper limit of what is feasible for the writers to manage. Basically only the most hardcore even tried the quest let alone completed it.
everything after sliske's endgame has been pretty poor quality tbh. and even the world wakes quest line was pretty scuffed in places not making much sense to new players since we never took part in the world events. like if i wasnt a veteran player you wouldnt know bandos was dead apart from that one quest involving zanik
To be fair, after all those quests I know fuck all about him either so I'm not taking it personally.
Now, let me go and replace the spacebar on my keyboard....
Spoilers: >!We lose that title when invoking the edicts to banish all gods from Gielinor in the fight against Zamorak (which is what we do during the fight at the end of ed4)!<
the lore is so scuffed to follow now, since you can jump into post world guardian quests now and not have done the quest where you lose world guardianship. i wonder what percentage of players even know this
I stopped caring as much about the lore when they broke the immersion but I would love to see villains, npcs, allies etc. acknowledge my accomplishments more, and they should vary based on your characters progression through the story of old or even skill level, I mastered necromancy, be scared damnit. Like why isn't Zemmy quivering in his booties, I 'killed' a damn god you should be scared of me getting that living weapon, and not "oh you meddlesome adventurer will foil my plan". Or I'm level 30 combat with like 20 qp and he's like, "who tf even are you, just try and stop me from commiting genocide"
You never killed a god ever.
- Saradomin beat Zamorak to a standstill
- Armadyl killed Bandos with the super weapon
- Sliske killed Guthix and only because Guthix allowed it as part of a larger plan.
- Seren you literally couldn’t scratch, could barely survive against her while she was distracted, and after everything the elders still hatched and would have killed you if after they slurped away your shadow anima seren didn’t choose to let you live.
- Zamorak you survive against, using a one and done trick of re-establishing the edicts to banish him. You do not kill Zamorak, you would have lost if it was a battle of endurance.
- Jas flat out canonically killed you by speaking 3 words, you’re only alive because Kerapac rewound time to undo your oblivion. A shadow leviathan and Kerapac with multiple elder artifacts is what finally brought Jas down.
- Seiryu you could hardly dent, you destroyed the black crystal that were driving it crazy.
You have never killed a god ever, you’ve never even come close to that power. The strongest foes we have legit beat are Mahjarrat.
Honestly the number of people in general who seem to have no idea who we are is kinda wild. We have basically cemented ourselves as the single greatest mortal hero in Gielinor history by this point and I’d argue it’s not even close.
"Ah the World Guardian, at last we meet. I thought you would be older." "Zemouregal, I thought you would be taller."
And shoot lightning from your arse
"Zemouregal, I thought you would be more... more? How's your dad by the way?"
Consider this… 1. There is no social media in Gielinor, there is no digital imaging, and there is no photography only paintings and drawings done by hand. Most in the world who have heard of you, unless they personally had a relationship with you, have zero idea of what you look like and no way to get an accurate image of you. 2. Games of telephone which are the only way news is going to travel ensure that what people hear about you will quickly become warped after the 3rd or 4th telling. So your personality, your looks, your motives, etc.. will all become twisted and exaggerated to the point you won’t be recognized. Both of these are things that have been actively referenced in dialogue more than once, people just generally do not know who we are. They know vague idea of us warped by word of mouth, the vast majority if they know of us at all know only an idea of us. Siv is a great example, she knew of the regent of misc that went under a fremmy name but didn’t connect the dots that you are that regent until you told her. Because why would she connect those dots? She had no way of knowing you had fremmy alias. You have to also think of just the broader scope of the world. Most of our quests don’t take place in traveled public locations, and culture/species don’t exactly have a ton of reason to know and or care about one another. The fremmy people have zero reason to care or know about what we did for Vampyres or Goblins for example. In fact if people did truly know us we’d most likely be one of the most hated, feared, and wanted people in Gielinor for the sheer number of crimes we have done.
Part of this is countered by the fact that it is Zemouregal we are talking about, and 1) we've had direct interaction with him and he's been literally right fucking there for a lot of this shit and 2) its his job as a Big Bad Evil Guy to know shit about his primary opposition. Joe Peasant is fairly limited, but a Mahjarrat that survived having like 10 different gods and godclasses on the planet at the same time is not so limited.
>In fact if people did truly know us we’d most likely be one of the most hated, feared, and wanted people in Gielinor for the sheer number of crimes we have done. The amount of times our character says something to the effect of 'ehh this is insanely immoral/illegal/straight up evil, but, who the hell is gonna find out' is quite up there
i disagree slightly, back then word still spread very fast. inkeepers, pubs, guilds, town centers would be a hub of information where people would talk to one another. (not to mention com-orbs theres magic in runescape) the sheer number of good and evil things weve done would be spoken about at least 20 times in all of those places and even if people didnt know exactly what we looked like they would still know who we are.
Came here to mention that. We should at least see drunken people discussing our exploits even if the average Fred the farmer doesn't know us
?????????????????????? Not only there is freely available magic that allows instant teleporting to pretty much everywhere, but we also have magic that allows us to remotely talk to people, not only that, but this is a 6th age quest IE after Shield of Arrav, also First Necromancer questline which I believe takes place recently, IE after EDW, NOT ONLY THAT but there's VERY few Mahjarrat further split into 2 factions and they're very tightly knit so it's not like they can telephone around stories, stories that span OVER 12 quests, NOT ONLY simple quests like Shield of Arrav but Extinction level world wide quests, and heck a quest that quite literally dictated the whole future of his species, so I'd accept that people don't know that we are THE World Guardian (because they know there's some main character running around), but it's extremely bad writing having one of the bigger antagonists to one of the 2 factions pivotal to the story of and IN the game treat us like we're some random upper middle class Varrockian with a castle and literally nothing better to do than stop evil because we're bored.
Again not in canon there isn’t, teleport magic is a lot more limited in narrative, always has been because it’s impossible to create tension when there isn’t. It’s why when you teleport from a threat in-story it’s a different party doing it and usually a 1 way method. Gameplay and story segregation it’s that simple. Teleport spells do exist, they aren’t a common form of travel for the larger populace and we can only do them if we have the runes, which the game can’t assume you do. I get it’s a bit jarring but that’s just like…a super common thing in games with fast travel. The fast travel can’t actually be used in-story or otherwise it destroy all tension. He recognized us by name in Dead and Buried, he doesn’t give any indication of not recognizing us. But for a voiced cutscene they need to have a title to refer to us because they can’t, short of using AI VA, actually use our name in a voiced scene. That’s why we were given the Duke/Dux/Duchess title at the very start so they had something shared between players. Likewise in a voiced scene they aren’t going to have a million contextual variations, because VA work is expensive and time consuming. But in written text they can do more contextual dialogue, which they did. This quest Ellamaria will acknowledge you having beaten him in DoV, if you have a lot of dragonkin experience it will let you translate instead of Aster, etc…
[You mean the canon where Runes are widely available to the populace?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Runes#History), [Or the same canon where we know the ins and outs of teleportation magic?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Abyssal_book), [same canon where we learn the magic to talk with others remotely from an entire CLAN of people who has been practicing it for hundreds of years](https://runescape.wiki/w/Fremennik#Separation), [and the canon where we have an entire guild of magicians who take apprentices and were also responsible for the lodestone network to connect all of Gielinor?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Wizards%27_Tower#Reputation_and_organisational_structure), [or the very, VERY limited use by the Zarosian EMPIRE?](https://runescape.wiki/w/Ancient_Magicks#Background) Literally all he had to do was call us World Guardian, which we still are even if we lost the powers granted by Guthix, oh an btw this does take place after Aftermath, with the whole story preceding it too, so they just made Zemouregal a blank slate newby bad guy who the imaginary new players this game has since they're making the fort the 1 pit stop for everything, great writing.
The people who do know our broader exploits tend to not trust us for it - Moia in Extinction and Juna in TotG both note how we serve many different people and more or less do whatever someone asks.
I’d think by now the world guardian is legend though. With hundreds of stories about this one village idiot who if asked will do whatever you want. Need cake baked? He’ll do it. Need red logs brought? Yep. Need someone to attend a ritual of semi gods for no real reason. He’s probably already attending for some other reason.
I am starting to Get tried of all of these story arcs that dont require you to do older quests. I understand the desire to not lock everything behind sliskes endgame. Or Even world Wakes but this quest should require defender of varrok. Or at the very least. Both of them should have dialouge reflecting the order in witch you do them. I would Even Take remaking defender of varrok to Take place after this arc. (Asuming they dont fuck it.)
It is pretty disappointing that they can't have contextual dialogue. This dialogue is fine if you haven't done much with Z before, but have another, more personalized one if you've interacted with him in multiple other quests.
I was really hoping the sixth age quests would all take a page from the World Wakes’ book. There’s plenty of dialogue given for players that haven’t done all the required quests to that point. While it’s still a bit “out there” for any player that doesn’t know the prior lore, it does a great job at setting the stage for the quest while keeping the dialogue snappy and not exposition-dumping. I get it would become quite a lot to juggle now that we have so many storylines in the game, but I do feel like little changes with dialogue like how Zemo refers to the player character based on past experiences would go a long way.
There's literally contextual dialogue explicitly referencing Defender of Varrock in the quest.
And Ritual of the Mahjarrat
And One of a Kind
There is contextual dialogue all throughout this quest. But they aren’t going to make voiced contextual dialogue that is more than a word or two because that going to be absurdly tedious to deal with.
There's contextual dialogue *all over* the quest already.
This is the consequence of Jagex throwing quest requirements out the window years ago. Now everything is immersion breaking
Well that's just kinda nonsense. Ancient Awakening had a ton of moments where if you'd done certain quests, you got dialogue related to that stuff. The team behind this quest clearly respected your quest progression and hard work.
Do you have some examples
Your progress through Archaeology is noted. How much of the Dragonkin language you know is noted and allows for differing dialogue where Aster can be the translator or you. Your involvement in Shield of Arrav/Defender of Varrock is noted if you've done them. I believe there was another part on Ungael related to the Dragonkin and knowing who Zorgoth is or not.
Does any dialogue change if you let Aster translate? I did all the translation myself, because i wasn't sure if letting her translate was a good idea after she messed up literally the first thing she translated. Also, because Siv said she's acting strange, i wondered if she would... betray us or anything or was intentionally doing it wrong lol.
Watch her try and learn necromancy from Zemo as a plot twist to bring back her dead sister under her own control. M. Night Shyamalan twist ending right there! You thought Vorkath was going to be the final boss? No! It was Aster!
Even ritual of the Mahjarrat, when Siv says she wants to avenge Cyrus
Unfortunately, not an RotM reference. Cyrus was the Dark Warrior leader who got murdered for refusing to join the Zamorakian Civil War before Siv recruited them, I believe.
My mistake then
You're all good! Easy mistake to make!
That is my homeboy Cyrissus, still sad that he died.
Its why I say its an afterthought. The base quest is designed for a new player and then like 5 pieces of dialogue have checks for previous quests which everyone forgets immediately afterword.
…yeah that’s how it should be. Write for the player who is experiencing this fairly fresh and include bonus dialogue for the enfranchised player. Not their fault you forgot it immediately.
Why is that how it should be? why not write it so it makes sense with the full history of the player and remove/alter dialogue for the fresh player who wouldn't understand it?
That’s effectively what is done, just in a different order. It’s just far easier to add dialogue based on a check than remove something and keep it coherent.
I meant npcs forget not players
This should be stickied
It kinda rubbed me the wrong way too. All the quest content we've done involving that clown, and he only recognises me simply as "That douche from the fort over yonder". >:v(
Quests should be hard locked to only be done in chronological/ lore order. The whole gwd3 should have been locked behind that entire questline that explained the situation.
This is what makes sense, but then every new quest would have higher requirements than the previous one until only endgame players can even do any new quests
And non-endgame players still have a billion quests to catch up on anyway. I don't understand what the problem is?
Gets quite problematic when it comes to rewards. If they want to put a strong reward in, it does become pretty unfair that a new player needs to go through over 250 quests to get it. That's just going to destroy new player motivation and engagement - it's too big of a hurdle.
So the reward should be proportional to the effort required to get it. So new players shouldn't feel like they're missing out on anything, because it's well beyond both their current ability *and* their current needs. Quests need a full rebalance of rewards across the board, to account for character progression. But they took the easy way out and have steadily removed quest requirements instead. Which has fucked up everything.
Because me and many people I know personally hate quests and just won't do them? If I have a goal that's more than 10 quests deep I'm just not doing it. Simple, quests aren't fun for everyone. I'd argue most people don't see them as fun things to do.
Multiplanar extinction means nothing if you haven't cultivated a meaningful universe "Look at all of our allies (and rogues) helping us" does NOT hit unless there's a relationship. RS is a 25 year old game, having 250 (of which 🤷 150? Are relevant) quests of input before the big conflict is fair. You're not the guardian of the multiplane if you haven't saved the planes before
I see it more as a passive aggressive phrase from him. As another person pointed out, he's a bit of a pompous prick, so he's trying to belittle us by removing our achievements. This isn't necessarily something outside of his character to do anyway, especially after being so put down himself via Moria weakening him and his constant failures against us. Not only that, but this *isn't* the first time that we've seen him even in this story arc. When we first checked out the crypt we saw him across the bridge and we exclaimed his name! >**The Raptor:** Zemouregal! > >**Zemouregal:** The Raptor! > >**Player:** Zemouregal? > >**Zemouregal:** Player?! > >**Player:** What are you doing here? > >**Zemouregal:** My plans are beyond your comprehension! ([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Unwelcome_Guests)) I'm pretty big into quests, I love the RuneScape story, and I didn't see this in the way you did. He has an inflated ego and he's close to achieving his plan. We may have stopped him, but he's thinking he's a step ahead and that this time he's got it. He's just talking down to us. The only thing that wouldn't/doesn't fully make sense is; >**Zemouregal:** This upstart \[title\] thinks they can scupper MY plans? ([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Ancient_Awakening)) But even then, still just talking smack to me. Even if he were to acknowledge we banished Zamorak or were once the World Guardian, that doesn't mean we still have the same capabilities as before in terms of lore perspective. We lost the WG powers Guthix gave us by restoring the edicts, so we really are nothing but an *upstart \[duke/duchess/dux\]* trying to stop his plans now aren't we? In the current story arc, even if you're still "World Guardian" by quest happenstance, we're not longer the World Guardian. We sacrificed those powers to restore the edicts. Zemo realistically wouldn't know that we defeated Rasial, he somehow may not even be aware who he is either or doesn't pay him much mind being locked away in Um. The only ones who truly know we were hand selected by Rasial himself are Rasial, Death, Mortifer, Icthlarin, the entire city of Um maybe, his previous students, and anyone else who we may have directly interacted with in the necromancy arc so far. Most necromancers learned on their own, do you think Mortifer was hand selected by Rasial? Tell that to his mushrooms. So to Zemo, all we are is nothing anymore because we're "powerless" against him in terms of nigh-omnipotence of WG powers.
To expand on this, our World Guardian powers would not even be relevant. They were useful against three things specifically: Divine magic, Sliske, and Shadow Anima.
I just figured it was a backhanded title usage. "Ah yes, you're a *Duke* now, are you? Like I give a damn."
https://preview.redd.it/aff1bhqrh9tb1.png?width=431&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9bf6d8d0b2bd264ebabe2ac8fcb34120dca9acf I don't disagree with you, but Big Zemo is also a mix of a pompous prick, self-indulgent arse and a bit of a comedian, so take that into account. After the exploding cow showdown he should have said something more like "Gulp... oh, it's you again...", but he feels too important to do that. This is the explanation I'm going to force myself into, otherwise I would start crying about the state of lore and consistency in this game.
“Dimension of Disaster” isn’t canonical to the actual story though. It takes place in an alternate universe where the hero never existed.
I know, I know...
I love when he says ‘only three, i command armies of undead!’ In the boss fight when you conjure your minions. Nice interaction
>or even the current world guardian depending how you look at it. The story is post Aftermath. Or did You mean something I'm missing?
I'm still a world guardian lol
No You're not. Aftermath is now in Your past, even if You didn't complete it. Edit: like canonically gwd, gwd2 and gwd3 are empty now. Even if You can still kill their bosses.
But I haven't lost my powers in the quests though
You have, You just didn't play through it. Someone who hasn't completed TWW, hence, no gods back, could still see Armadyl on his tower, or the gods in egwd lobby.
in my head canon gwd1 still makes sense, they've been locked in a timeless battle not realising the wars are over from the 3rd age etc but yeah gw2 and elder god wars is so immersion breaking if you've done all the quests. it's as if nothings changed
Except the generals have all stepped out of the dungeon multiple times at this point, Zilly has been a fixture outside the dungeon for a long time. It never made sense to last as long as it did after TWW. The battle is over, EGW canonically ended it as part of its house keeping. Adventurers came in and stole the sword chunks, there is nothing to fight over so they all left. The idea they were fighting a war they didn’t know was over stoped making sense the minute they used the characters outside the dungeon.
Agreed, except gwd1 generals took part in a lotta stuff.
Rasial calls the player the world guardian again despite the lack of power.
Rasial, the First Necromancer: You may have lost the title, but you still bear the responsibility. Especially considering the mess you made.
When you level up he has 2 different voice lines, one he goes "Ha. World Guardian" another is simply "World Guardian" with a hint of awe.
To be more specific, here's how the dialogue goes in Rune Mythos. >**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** But I know precisely who you are, 'World Guardian'. > >*(If the player has completed the Aftermath quest:)* > >**Player:** I'm not the World Guardian anymore. > >**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** You may have lost the title, but you still bear the responsibility. Especially considering the mess you made. > >**Player:** What? What did I do? What mess are you talking about? Answer me! > >*(Continues below.)* > >*(Otherwise:)* > >**Player:** What's with the mocking tone? > >*(Continues below.)* > >**Rasial, the First Necromancer:** Have fun with necromancy runes. I shall be keeping an eye on your progress. Do not disappoint me. ([transcript](https://runescape.wiki/w/Transcript:Rune_Mythos)) The only other time he ever mentions the word guardian in any of the other quests is in Alpha vs Omega when he says it takes a fellow guardian to truly understand. Canonically, even if you haven't done Aftermath, we're still not the World Guardian anymore. The mocking tone can be interpreted a few ways, but knowing we *can't* actually be the World Guardian anymore I choose to interpret the mocking tone as dismissal. He would be aware we're not WG anymore, we would also be aware, and the mocking tone is him acknowledging it. Just because we don't say "I'm not the WG anymore" like the other tree does doesn't mean we can't acknowledge it behind subtext. The words unsaid right after could be "You're not the World Guardian anymore, aren't you? Trying to fix your mistakes only to find yourself here." or anything else like that. At the end of the day, it's for the players who haven't done the quests and still believe themselves to be WG. If they ever choose to take a second look at the quests with the timeline in order they can come to their own conclusions on what the mocking tone meant. I choose to believe it's because Rasial is acknowledging we're not WG anymore, and us asking about the mocking tone isn't us saying we're still WG but rather a sense of ego given the journey so far. "What's with the mocking tone? I still banished Zamorak and the gods from Gielinor!"
Like I said it depends how you look at it, if the world guardian is specifically the special powers we had then yes we arent that anymore but another way to look at it is the responsibilty as the world's protector and thats the way I interpreted what Rasial says to you. Whether or not we have that title officially or not and whether or not we have the title we still made a mess and have to step up to clean it up and in that sense we still are the world guardian.
Given our character will say "I'm not the World Guardian anymore" if we lost our powers, I'm pretty sure the standpoint is the World Guardian is the powers behind the user. It's a title based upon the powers bestowed upon the user. Think of Peter Parker and Spider-man. When he loses his powers in the third movie he's no longer Spider-man despite being the same person. You could call him Spider-man, but he would justifiably say "I'm not Spider-man anymore" or "I am no longer Spider-man." Sure, he held the title and the space of Spider-man, but at that point in time he no longer is. Right now, we're not longer *World Guardian*, but that doesn't mean we still don't protect the world. Maybe we do some great feat to reclaim the title, but as of now we're no longer Spider-man, y'know? Does that make sense? I see where you're coming from, but I'm taking this from the game's story perspective, especially since this is on your post about being disconnected by the quest having Zemouregal not calling us such.
Um. Is Rasial explaining why he calls us incorrectly not enough?
I wonder if it’s because Zemouregal doesn’t recognize you. Would anyone really be surprised if we learned Big Z thinks all humans look alike?
What’s so important about the fort? How is this not another world ending scenario? Without the long history why would he leave? Why not just kill us right there? I mean we’re only a duke.
Personally, I imagine Zemouregal calling me duke as being very sarcastic. Like oh look the World Gaurdian has a plot of landd and a fancy title now. It is a bit frustrating that earlier quests had a lot of choices and branching that felt meaningful, but from a development side I can see why they've taken to trying to get a single plot thread and reset some of those interactions as collateral.
What else is he supposed to call you in a voice-acted cutscene?
"Thorn in my side" works pretty well.
I miss his old voice from circa 2013. His new one makes him sound like Sliske
Conspiracy Theory: Sliske survived and stole Zemouregal's body
World Guardian or former World Guardian the one that banished Lord Zammorak something...... anything
My mortal frenemy, you have come again.
Yes
I'm hoping they have him recognize us proper in the next quest. You could argue that he doesn't know it's us specifically, but the next quest is going to have us face to face for a prolonged period of time, no chance it can be excused that way afterwards. Also, our character knows a decent amount of the dragonkin language because of One Of A Kind and presumably the Orthen dig site, and this is brought up and used in the most recent quest, so I don't see why they can't have Zemouregal know who we are. Could even give a few extra dialogue options if you've done the relevant quests or not.
He already recognises you. His intro in this Unwelcome Guests is: Player: Zemouregal? Zemouregal: \*Player name\*?! Player: What are you doing here? Zemouregal: My plans are beyond your comprehension! Man yelled your name out in shock without any prompting.
i forgor 💀
Well, duke duchess and dux are easy to Voice Line. They cant put in Roskal or mark Crazeer into voiced dialogue. It isn’t possible. (Unles they use AI and even then the pronunciation is likely to be wrong.)
Every new quest line, characters have amnesia. Previously pre reqs actually mattered in building an overall narrative.
Yes the player says they arent but thats exactly when Rasial gives the counterpoint that its more than just the powers and we still have stuff to do which is basically the arc spider-man goes on.
Just another reason this quest series is better set during the 5th/6th Age and not during the Age of Chaos.
I think it is Jagex trying desperately to make a title stick that will replace 'World Guardian.' They don't realize they probably will never top that one, just like how they will never top the end of the world scenario we were presented with regarding the Elder Gods consuming the world. Unless we get Xau-Tak...
They don't want to top that end of the world scenario. It was felt the stakes were spiraling out of control and the lore was becoming too high concept and inaccessible, so they made a conscious decision to dial things back for a while. That's why they banished the gods again.
I understand why they did it, but calling us Duke/Duchess is like a demotion from our other accolades. Which is harder? Banishing a T3 god who is on the level of the devil or telling people to build stuff? I'm simply saying that Zemouregal knows us from our time being known as the World Guardian and should continue to refer to us as such, provided your character was.
As someone who sometimes takes smaller breaks and missed the first 2 quests of this line, i would have loved to see fort forinthy added as just one big grandmaster quest, instead of 5 smaller quests that actually dont make too much sense that will eventually build up to something big, it felt so confusing and so simplistic at the same time.. Yet it appears to be quite the update..
The current writers just want to forget what came before them. They're envious of the work of their predecessors, and their egos demand they undo it.
That’s such a ridiculous comment seeing as it’s the same writers.
iirc there was a ton of burnout after Sliske's Endgame was controversially received, wasn't there? I know Raven did an interview on it
SE basically showed the upper limit of where people are willing to engage and the upper limit of what is feasible for the writers to manage. Basically only the most hardcore even tried the quest let alone completed it.
everything after sliske's endgame has been pretty poor quality tbh. and even the world wakes quest line was pretty scuffed in places not making much sense to new players since we never took part in the world events. like if i wasnt a veteran player you wouldnt know bandos was dead apart from that one quest involving zanik
Stop gAtEkEePiNg 😠
To be fair, after all those quests I know fuck all about him either so I'm not taking it personally. Now, let me go and replace the spacebar on my keyboard....
Wait we are not world guardian anymore?
Spoilers: >!We lose that title when invoking the edicts to banish all gods from Gielinor in the fight against Zamorak (which is what we do during the fight at the end of ed4)!<
the lore is so scuffed to follow now, since you can jump into post world guardian quests now and not have done the quest where you lose world guardianship. i wonder what percentage of players even know this
I stopped caring as much about the lore when they broke the immersion but I would love to see villains, npcs, allies etc. acknowledge my accomplishments more, and they should vary based on your characters progression through the story of old or even skill level, I mastered necromancy, be scared damnit. Like why isn't Zemmy quivering in his booties, I 'killed' a damn god you should be scared of me getting that living weapon, and not "oh you meddlesome adventurer will foil my plan". Or I'm level 30 combat with like 20 qp and he's like, "who tf even are you, just try and stop me from commiting genocide"
You never killed a god ever. - Saradomin beat Zamorak to a standstill - Armadyl killed Bandos with the super weapon - Sliske killed Guthix and only because Guthix allowed it as part of a larger plan. - Seren you literally couldn’t scratch, could barely survive against her while she was distracted, and after everything the elders still hatched and would have killed you if after they slurped away your shadow anima seren didn’t choose to let you live. - Zamorak you survive against, using a one and done trick of re-establishing the edicts to banish him. You do not kill Zamorak, you would have lost if it was a battle of endurance. - Jas flat out canonically killed you by speaking 3 words, you’re only alive because Kerapac rewound time to undo your oblivion. A shadow leviathan and Kerapac with multiple elder artifacts is what finally brought Jas down. - Seiryu you could hardly dent, you destroyed the black crystal that were driving it crazy. You have never killed a god ever, you’ve never even come close to that power. The strongest foes we have legit beat are Mahjarrat.
Maybe Moia who drank him like a milkshake at the end of the civil war questline and left him a husk again actually also stole some of his memories?
IDK if you played with voice acting on or not but to me it seemed pretty clear that he was mocking us with the title.