05-30-2025, 02:30 PM
Desperate Measures is a new component of RuneScape's Elder Gods questline, which has been under development since. The main storyline has been around for a while, but each piece must be approved by the relevant stakeholders prior to beginning the development process so that the information can be made available in "accessible and engaging" ways. RSgoldfast interviewed Jagex Director of Design David Osborne, Senior Games Designer Tim Fletcher, and Lead Content Developer with OSRS gold James Crowther about how RuneScape is driven by its fans and how the work for Desperate measures has been impacted by global events.
The Desperate Measures update, which has been officially released today was discussed during the development process of the counterpart Desperate Times. The place it is on the development timeline was "shuffled around" because of other projects such as the addition of the newest skill in RuneScape Archaeology in March according to Crowther. This means Jagex was undergoing the new quest's development after the epidemic was in full swing and the situation was "less than perfect."
"Creating content is an artform, and this kind of creativity benefits greatly from having people around to share ideas with," Crowther said. "Whilst Zoom is perfectly functional however, it doesn't have the same level of interaction with other people and this makes it more difficult to communicate ideas."
The strain of battling an epidemic that is global, and taking care of family responsibility in a challenging working environment can cause issues in development in the opinion of Crowther. There are "hiccups" because of information not being translated because of coworkers not being together similar to the way explained in the article written by Jason Canam for Finish Line Games' Skully as that team completed its polishing and bug-testing process on Discord. However the Jagex team is satisfied with the results they've managed achieve due to the "adaptable" team and plans to implement even more.
Osborne who has been in charge of the revival of RuneScape after it changed from Java-based Old School RuneScape (OSRS) to the HTML-focused RuneScape 3 in 2013. Osborne said that the idea of having players wait for more content over months was "the wrong strategy." Instead, the current release schedule is to release each month new content to ensure that players are able to play the game. It's not likely to be a major adventure, but it might be a handful of new goals with "kickass prizes." However, Osborne said even these minor events will create momentum into the overall story.
This focus on the fans of RuneScape even in the face of a world-wide pandemic can be seen in the way that new quests are created in a case-by case basis too. Fletcher is the person in charge of the teams that are working to complete The Elder Gods story, said that the developers are active in social media. The response of fans varies, Crowther said, and even though not everyone is a fan of every piece of content the team is hoping that their continuing quest line will appeal to the people who have had been "crying for help" to continue the story.
"I spend my evenings and talk to them about content and design for quests, and am able to get lots of opinions," Fletcher said. "I also share my thoughts and we'll go back and forth about compromises and how things are handled, how they could be done and must be executed."
RuneScape Mobile has been so effective in increasing participation on all platforms that creating content specifically for mobile is on the top of developers their minds. The introduction with RuneScape gold for sale of farm farms owned by players in the last year is a prime instance of this, since the game was "designed to play in the toilet," Osborne said. Similar to this can be seen in OSRS which is the Java Version of OSRS, which recently received a mobile version of its own. Content such as Old School RuneScape's eight-player Nightmare of Ashihama raid is still being made.
The Desperate Measures update, which has been officially released today was discussed during the development process of the counterpart Desperate Times. The place it is on the development timeline was "shuffled around" because of other projects such as the addition of the newest skill in RuneScape Archaeology in March according to Crowther. This means Jagex was undergoing the new quest's development after the epidemic was in full swing and the situation was "less than perfect."
"Creating content is an artform, and this kind of creativity benefits greatly from having people around to share ideas with," Crowther said. "Whilst Zoom is perfectly functional however, it doesn't have the same level of interaction with other people and this makes it more difficult to communicate ideas."
The strain of battling an epidemic that is global, and taking care of family responsibility in a challenging working environment can cause issues in development in the opinion of Crowther. There are "hiccups" because of information not being translated because of coworkers not being together similar to the way explained in the article written by Jason Canam for Finish Line Games' Skully as that team completed its polishing and bug-testing process on Discord. However the Jagex team is satisfied with the results they've managed achieve due to the "adaptable" team and plans to implement even more.
Osborne who has been in charge of the revival of RuneScape after it changed from Java-based Old School RuneScape (OSRS) to the HTML-focused RuneScape 3 in 2013. Osborne said that the idea of having players wait for more content over months was "the wrong strategy." Instead, the current release schedule is to release each month new content to ensure that players are able to play the game. It's not likely to be a major adventure, but it might be a handful of new goals with "kickass prizes." However, Osborne said even these minor events will create momentum into the overall story.
This focus on the fans of RuneScape even in the face of a world-wide pandemic can be seen in the way that new quests are created in a case-by case basis too. Fletcher is the person in charge of the teams that are working to complete The Elder Gods story, said that the developers are active in social media. The response of fans varies, Crowther said, and even though not everyone is a fan of every piece of content the team is hoping that their continuing quest line will appeal to the people who have had been "crying for help" to continue the story.
"I spend my evenings and talk to them about content and design for quests, and am able to get lots of opinions," Fletcher said. "I also share my thoughts and we'll go back and forth about compromises and how things are handled, how they could be done and must be executed."
RuneScape Mobile has been so effective in increasing participation on all platforms that creating content specifically for mobile is on the top of developers their minds. The introduction with RuneScape gold for sale of farm farms owned by players in the last year is a prime instance of this, since the game was "designed to play in the toilet," Osborne said. Similar to this can be seen in OSRS which is the Java Version of OSRS, which recently received a mobile version of its own. Content such as Old School RuneScape's eight-player Nightmare of Ashihama raid is still being made.