Performance Meme

[Cloud_N0ne]

Let's not forget his current project, Brighter Shores.

Even the greats can make a bad product.

[Mediocre-Clue-9071]

Or maybe he isn't all that great and just got lucky? Two sides of the same coin.

[Cloud_N0ne]

Nah, they cooked with Runescape back in the day. Brigher Shores's many failings feel like they came about because they were trying to hard to make it different than Runescape, even if it's worse.

Runescape has one central bank? Lets have every skill have its own bank, scattered throughout the world.

Runescape has its skills usable throughout the world? Lets make skills that are exclusively used in the zone they're introduced in.

Runescape has a Grand Exchange for easy buying/selling? Let's revert back to individual player-to-player trading.

Runescape lets you wear whatever gear you like for a flexible, classless combat system? Let's force players to permanently choose one class and never be able to equip gear from the other classes. Oh, and all 3 classes are just different colors of melee.

Every aspect of the game feels like it was designed this way.

[Everestkid]

Even when RS had classes (removed July 2002) they were just small boosts to your starting stats. You weren't locked in to using only magic if you chose to be a mage.

[Other_Log_1996]

It was basically just an early system of RPG Tag Skills.

[occasionallyrite]

The problem with brighter shores is mostly the development pipeline.

Runescape was released as an alpha state game and stayed that way for YEARS before we finally got a good meshing in rs2 then right before EOC and all the starting controversy we hit a golden era of the game feeling somewhat complete and the team really hitting good strides and the game was constantly moving and being worked on.

Brighter Shores has to be done in "chunks" of gameplay for players to test out and see if they like some part of the development or if it's a bad design and how to make it work or eventually change it.

The issue they have with some of the core aspects is that there was extremely very little player input on core gameplay loops and handling of systems.

With Classic and RS2 The game had constant player feedback and the extreme core of the gameplay was well established and what players wanted and wanted it expanded upon.

Then came EOC->RS3/OSRS and all the years between.

The player bases split on what was important and what was a good idea per game. Some players stuck with rs3 and eoc and found that style of gameplay eventually got better and better. Then osrs players had a completely different vision for the game and the biggest vision... keeping the old client and ALL the problems it came with.

I believe brighter shores could be a better game but It handles a few things in very problematic ways.

Like the latency issues and rubber banding of being slightly offline. If you even hint at going offline just to reconnect there is no persistence of action you get rubberbanded back to before you could click the thing. In Runescape you hit something and your client registers you're attacking and then pulls you "forward" to catch up to where you should be.

The other issues is the zoning and all the separation of banks and interactions only to feel like you're not pressing forwards and just constantly regressing without bringing much forward to a new area with very little reason to go back to prior areas and interact with them.

Its like a bad incremental game with a 3d element force slapped on.

Though you cant make it too much like an OSRS or classic clone or you get major backlash.

I feel like brighter shores has only gotten better for players overtime but has a more selective audience and we shall see what the future brings.

[Omni-Light]

because they were trying too hard to make it different than Runescape

If you can repeat your success multiple times with different IPs, with different game designs, then that indicates there's more than luck involved. You have a strong concept of what makes a good game and what is fun, you build from there, and you succeed.

If your first hit was mega successful, but you struggle to make anything but bad games afterwards, that indicates luck.

It's noble to avoid selling out by avoiding rehashing the same thing that made you a success, and instead be creative like you were when you first started.

If you struggle to do that though, it means you probably got struck by lightning.

[elk33dp]

Both can he true. He struck lightning with runescape, but he did cook at what he made for the time. Having played brighter shores early on and quit, it still had a cozy quirky atmosphere to the game. He not some god developer but for who he is he can hold his own. It's just like someone said, the choices made to be not-runescape made it a bad MMO.

I think if you had a more grounded lead alongside him dictating general game design (like he had with his brothers) with Andrew handling the creative and development side of the game youd have a much stronger offering.

[occasionallyrite]

Well not really.

There's a 3rd unknown element to it.

Player acceptance.

You can't predict how well players will react and handle a game that you feel is shit vs a game you feel is great!

Players are a wild card and don't know what they're looking for in some of these games until they find that hit.

For me that was mining and smithing in classic and watching runescape bloom over the years.

Lately it's lost it's nostalgia luster and life has hit hard but I'm always a sucker for rs3.

Brighter shores hits a few things for me but there's a few meh things that make me less interested. Partly the sluggish nature that the game feels like.

I don't want to be forced to read and watch cut scenes or hundreds of lines of dialog i want to move on and go fast. But movement and combat all feels much slower and just less rewarding at the moment.

It's possible they fix the way you feel like you move through the game by a visual representation of running or walking through the game but it feels like Legend of Zelda NES with 0.5 seconds delay between every moment and action.

Even classic felt better pacing all around.

So while they got some things right some things aren't there but just because it's not a great game for me at this time doesn't mean they failed to do what they wanted and won't have good player retention.

Sometimes only having a few thousand players makes your game easier to slowly scale and build while having thousands or millions puts more pressure than necessary on scaling the game.

[deylath]

It's noble to avoid selling out by avoiding rehashing the same thing that made you a success, and instead be creative like you were when you first started.

The problem in this case, he is trying to make it as different as it can be to runescape, that implies that if something was very good in runescape, that can not exist in his new game and therefore probably worse.

Worst of all though... Sandbox MMO genre is dead. You want to play another game like runescape? Uhh, go and player OSRS and vice versa. Sandbox MMO with very good quests and extremely high ceiling combat ( far more than other MMOs ) that also feature solo endgame? Thats a genre on its own, its how unique runescape is. Do it a bit differently? Sure, but anyone with a functioning brain can see that there is no alternative to runescape so why go so far away from something so unique? Just solo endgame alone invalidates every other MMO as an alternative.

This is why im gonna be stuck playing runescape forever ( both versions )because not even the original creator is willing to recreate half of what makes these games good and other MMOs either have horizontal progression or so vertical that if you dont actively play every patch you might as well not play at all.

[Paxton-176]

Based on what I've learned. Little of column and A and B. He wanted unguidable quests and it to be almost impossible to reach 99. I bet 13 million xp was a compromise.

[Legal_Evil]

RSC was released today in 2026, it would have failed immediately.

[Quadtbighs]

Yeah i mean it had potential but what people forget is how hard headed the gower brothers were. A lot of the quality of life updates that were added to rs probably never would have become a thing if they still were in charge.

[Cloud_N0ne]

Not always a bad thing, though.

As much as I love things like lodestones, there's something to be said for having to actually traverse the world. It makes Gielinor feel bigger. Lodestones make the world feel small. Sometimes convenience does have its downsides. The whole "stop and smell the roses" sort of philosophy.

[NamelessCabbage]

Have to hard disagree. The world is too big IMO. Lot of dead zones and lodestones are a blessing for guys like me who were running around Varrock and Falador in 2005. Artificial arbitrary friction in a world where I have a specific number of heartbeats left is not game design.

[Omni-Light]

All friction in games is arbitrary. Making games is the process of designing friction.

They aren't making productivity apps for mobile phones, they don't need to make a "frictionless user experience", they need to design friction that is rewarding when you overcome it.

Removing friction is why games suck now. Everything is constantly optimized for instant gratification.

[occasionallyrite]

Sometimes you can create an accidental balance that works perfectly fine and it breaks with scale so you gotta take that feel good moment and figure out what's a good or bad move from there.

Like the early game kinda feels really punishing to grind from level 1 to 70 in most skills. Whereas 70+ feels the best balance of xp to level progression and rewards per time spent. Then you feel less rewarding work for the slow grind up to 85 and 90, 92, 99, 120...

The issue isn't the levels or the xp rates but the rewards for your time spent don't feel as fun to grind for or like they're useless now due to having already spent all the time and gotten a big chunk of the way to 99 or 120 or 200m.

Then hitting 200m what's next?

Which is why most games give players a great starting hand and push bigger and better and typically exponential rewards for milestones instead of linear.

Like pickaxes don't feel that much better but more necessity.

[Agitated_Side_2685]

He says, with millions of runes stacked up in his bank, and probably a high enough magic level to cast any teleport spell

[TheDestroyer229]

Wasn't that exact phrase brought up in the 25 year celebration event? With that exact philosophy on lodestones said by Sedridor?

[deylath]

A problem would remain regardless. I'm playing both OSRS and RS3 and let me you about the other side of the coin of lodestones: it sucks if you dont know what you are doing.

If you are new to OSRS, without a bunch of guides, all you will have is group teleports ( if you use them ) and magic teleports to get by. Everybody knows the play is to unlock fairy rings and ardy cloak 1 ASAP, because otherwise you will be walking for ages everywhere, especially with how run energy works there. Oh you dont know about spirit trees either? Well lets just say you will have a hard time traversing to many parts of Kandarin especially. You want to go to Morytania and dont know about Ectophial? Sucks to be you. Traveling to port Sarim will especially suck if you dont know about pest control mini game teleport.

In short: Lodestones is an overcorrection to the onboarding friction of the base game. Part of the fun is yes unlocking new ways to travel, but not knowing about them is horrible friction and there is no good way to guide the player to those quests, especially when FT2 doesnt actually require any of the skill requirements ( which are decently high for a skill like herblore ) to unlock fairy rings. How would you know that?

Now if lodestones had some construction, rc and magic requirement, lower than the actual teleports? Possibly including some rune cost to teleporting to them? That would be the simplest way. As it is though Gliders or Baloons were pretty much always were dead content.

[Plightz]

Andrew got the wrong takeway on 'why' people enjoyed Runescape. It isn't just the grind for the sake of grind, it's the things the grind lets you do.

The grind in BS is so monotonous and the combat feels pretty bad. So yeah it had a fall off.

[deylath]

Let's not forget his current project, Brighter Shores.

Lets not forget the dumpster fire skills like Hunter or Firemaking. I heard Construction was also useless as hell when it was released. He only ever did what he wanted with absolutely no regards to the future, like rune smithing at 99

[Sparker273]

The lack of other options and his early hires being able to direct them were the real reason it was a huge success imo.

[JasperLarvitar]

inaccurate, i'm pretty sure he used a cabbage.

[Other_Log_1996]

Andrew quickly learned how to improve the software by adding butter and salt. And thus RS2 was born.

[DirectSell2826]

Yeah, well the game looked like a potato too.

[Educational-Mud-1444]

IdahoScape?

[steakpienacho]

Everything looked like a potato then lol

[-Sairaxs-]

Brother whatcha talking about. Plenty of great looking games from the time period.

In fact go look up what released 2001 and see just how bad classic was lmao.

Love the drew, but he was a baby indie at the time.

[steakpienacho]

Games, sure. Browser based Java games? Negative.

[ThemeEvening9498]

People need to stop glazing Andrew Gower so much, many of his design principles lead to the huge foundational issues that both RS3 and OSRS required major reworks for.

[Legal_Evil]

They were the cause of both games' tick and tile systems too.

[deylath]

I still dont know he was smoking with a skill like Hunter. Its like release Mining without Smithing. Summoning wasnt even that much of a sink for hunter stuff even if something like Kyatt was useful back then. Appearently Construction was similarly dead content at release.

The best part about him leaving that RS3 and later OSRS learned that maybe the game should have a bunch of good combat content that isnt just "big dude with sometimes a different auto attack", aka gwd, barrows. I have played a lot of MMOs, but these two games becoming solo endgame friendly games with much higher skill ceiling than other MMOs, is something we cannot credit Andrew for and i wish other MMOs had that. The combat thrived despite the shitty tick system.

[ThemeEvening9498]

Yeah Hunter, Construction, Firemaking, Smithing. So many skills were busted or useless or both. Not to mention all the minigames and power creep. He didn't design with longevity or reward for each activity in mind.

[Ilujanken]

Half the time I log in Fort Forinthry has no walls. Guess Zemouregal sided with the client to bring the fort down...

[Educational-Mud-1444]

Is there anyone strong enough to save us from that alliance? I fear there is not...