Gaming
 

Development Diary: New Dwarf Quest

From the RuneScape Wiki, the wiki for all things RuneScape

New Dwarf Quest is a Development Diary detailing the development of a new dwarf quest in the Rise of the Red Axe quest series.

Contents

[edit] Part 1: Reviving an Old Quest Series

Welcome, O seekers of development truth! I'm Mod John A, RuneScape Content Developer, and in this diary I'll be taking you through the development of a new quest.

My last major quest project was the goblin quest series, which reached its conclusion recently with The Chosen Commander, leaving me free to work on another series. RuneScape has several storylines that have yet to be concluded, and I've been given one of them. I can now reveal that I will be working on - drum roll, please - the next dwarf quest!

I can't give you any details about the next dwarf quest yet, because right now there aren't any details. I’m at the very start of the development process, and nothing has been decided yet. It's a very exciting place to be, but it's also daunting. I'm confronted with a blank page, and there are so many different things that I could write there that I don't know which one to pick.

Luckily, it's not a completely blank page. There are already two quests in the Red Axe series (The Giant Dwarf and Forgettable Tale...), and various other pieces of content involving dwarves. The first thing I did was play through these quests again and make notes. I wanted to identify the core features of the dwarf quests that I should carry through to the next one. Here are some of the things I’ve come up with:

  • A comedic tone, but with a sinister subtext. On the surface, it's all about dwarves who are humorously drunk or have funny little personalities. Underneath that, though, there's clearly something serious and complicated going on with the Red Axe. As the series progresses, I can bring forward this sinister element, but without abandoning the funny dwarves doing funny things.
  • Physical puzzles, e.g. interacting with machines or finding the right items to combine, rather than interacting with characters. A good example of this is the train track puzzle in Forgettable Tale... I'll make sure to think of some nice puzzles for the next quest.
  • Memory wipes. These were introduced in Forgettable Tale... and are a great story element that I'd like to do more with.
  • An intriguing cast of characters. On one side, we have Commander Veldaban, who has the potential to be a great ally of the player. On the other side, Forgettable Tale... introduced a trio of very clearly defined villains (the head of the Red Axe, his axe-wielding right-hand man, and the ogre shaman). I can take these characters and develop them further in future quests.

That's pretty much all I have so far. My next task is to take these elements and forge them into a concept document that outlines the story of the next quest. Check back for the next development diary and I'll let you know how things are progressing.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

[edit] Part 2: A Concept is Approved

Last time, I announced that I was just starting work on a new dwarf quest. All I had back then was a blank page that I needed to fill with ideas. Since then I've spent a few days brainstorming, bouncing ideas off other developers, and covering the wall next to my desk with post-it notes saying things like "Commander Veldaban" and "Red Axe base".

I've found it harder to come up with a good idea for this quest than I have for any previous one, and I wrote down several ideas before rejecting them because they weren't right. Finally, it clicked and I had a story I was happy with.

My next step was to write this idea up in a 'concept document', which lays out the plot of the quest in broad strokes. I showed this document to Mod Mark, RuneScape's lead designer, for approval. There was no point in developing the idea until he reached a decision; if he didn't like it, it would be back to my blank page. It turned out that he did like it, so development could continue.

The next step was for Mod Mark to give me a 'core aims document'. This formalises the general aims that I'd been given earlier, telling me what things the quest has to include, roughly how big it should be, how much of the Graphics team's time I can ask for, and so on. Mod Mark also requested that I add a new skill training activity to Keldagrim to go along with the quest, so my next task is to work out what that should be.

No doubt you're dying to know what's in these documents. I don't want to spoil the plot for you, but I can tell you a few things:

  • The quest will centre on the character of Commander Veldaban.
  • This will not be the last dwarf quest. I am planning three more (including this one), so the Red Axe series will have five parts when it's complete. I have a general plan for how the series as a whole will end.
  • I'll probably be adding a new destination to the mine-cart transport system.
  • The level requirements haven't been decided yet, but they will be vaguely in the region of the first two quests – maybe a step up from them, but not a huge step.
  • There is no release date yet, but writing a quest takes time – we're talking months rather than weeks.

That's where I am now. My next step is to write the project's 'design brief', which will be the core design document of the whole project. This will specify what happens in the quest in more detail, exactly how the puzzles will work, and what the level requirements and rewards are. I'll keep you informed of how the project is going.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

[edit] Part 3: Implementation Begins

[edit] Progress!

Good news, everyone! The design brief for the new dwarf quest is complete. This is the core design document of the project that defines all the important details of the new quest. The initial concept document said things like "there's a puzzle here involving such-and-such a thing"; the design brief defines exactly how the puzzles will work.

Creating the design brief involved a lot of back and forth between me, Mod Mark (RuneScape's lead designer) and our balancing expert. We agreed on the bulk of the document pretty quickly, but a few of the details took a bit of haggling to get worked out. This took a while, but it's important to get things right at the design brief stage, rather than trying to balance the project at the last minute.

With the design done, the project now moves into the implementation phase. This means I'll be writing the actual dialogue and code that'll make up the final quest. I'll also be working with the Graphics and Audio teams to begin work on the look and sound of the new quest.

The only major thing to still be decided is the quest's title, because I'm terrible at coming up with titles for things. Hopefully, something will come to me while I'm writing the quest dialogue. I'll keep on calling it 'new dwarf quest' for now.

[edit] Level requirements

Among the things decided at this stage of the project are the exact level requirements of the quest. In the last diary I said that they would probably be in the same range as those of Forgettable Tale..., but Mod Mark has decided that they should be higher than that. I can now exclusively reveal the new quest's level requirements:

What could you have to do in a dwarf quest that involves Hunter, Firemaking and Strength? You may begin your wild speculations now.

We're planning three new dwarf quests in total (this one plus two more), and their level requirements will get progressively harder so that the last one will be Grandmaster level, with requirements of around 70-75. I can't say anything specific about when we will release any of the quests, but we're not planning to leave as long a gap between installments as there was before this one.

Please note that these level requirements are the ones we're planning now, but it's just possible that we'll need to change them for some reason while the quest is being developed. If we do change them, I'll let you know. Basically, everything I write here should be taken as a prediction rather than a promise.

[edit] Dwarf graphical rework

Concept art of Commander Veldaban.

Some people on the forums have asked whether dwarves are going to get a graphical rework. We've discussed this and decided that we will be updating the dwarf NPCs with new graphics. However, this graphical update will be a separate project from the quest; I don't yet know whether it will be released along with the quest or at another time.

To the right is our first piece of concept art - a new look for Commander Veldaban - by Mod GG. Please bear in mind that this is only the initial concept and might change as we all discuss exactly how we want the dwarves to look.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer


[edit] Part 4: Coding and Writing

The implementation phase involves two main tasks. I've got to write the code to make everything work, and I've got to write all the in-game text. One of the exciting things about this job is that the same developer gets to do both of these tasks, whereas in other games companies they might be divided between different people.

[edit] Coding

You may know that RuneScape is written in Java - our company name, Jagex, stands for JAva Games EXperts. It may come as a surprise, then, that my job as a content developer involves no Java at all.

We write in a scripting language called RuneScript, which our Game Engine team has created specifically for making RuneScape content. The Java-based game engine then reads this RuneScript code and makes it all work. RuneScript is constantly being changed and expanded as we add new features to it to allow it to do new things.

[edit] Writing

Writing the in-game text (character dialogue, messages, item descriptions, etc) requires a different set of skills and techniques from writing the code. It is also difficult to know when it is good enough. A piece of code either works or doesn't work, but a piece of dialogue can be quite bad without being wrong in any definite way. It's a delicate balancing act conveying all the necessary information, while also being entertaining and dramatic, and doing all that in the smallest amount of text that I reasonably can.

Most of the time, I write dialogue straight into the code as I am coding it. For some of the more important passages, I plan them out first in a text file using a screenplay-like format. Whichever technique I use, it's important to then test the dialogue in the game to see how it looks.

One of the trickiest parts of writing is making sure that each character has their own voice. I have to be aware of that character's personality traits, how they are feeling, and their relationship to whoever they are talking to. This is especially tricky when dealing with existing characters such as Commander Veldaban, who already have some dialogue in the game.

[edit] Placeholder graphics

Blue placeholder graphics.

The new quest involves NPCs, objects and areas that the Graphics team haven't created yet. I need to be able to test the content I'm writing, so I'm using placeholder graphics to stand in for them. These placeholder graphics tend to be bright blue and blocky – they're designed to be clearly visible rather than to look good. They're a little like a 'blue screen' in movie-making.

Once I've got the quest working with these placeholders, the Graphics team will go through and replace them with the final graphics for the quest. In a later diary, I’ll be able to show screenshots that give a better idea of what the final quest will look like.

Right now, the 'bare bones' of the quest are just about playable using these placeholder graphics. It's ugly and obviously incomplete, but it basically works. My task now is to fill in all the gaps and add polish, which is a larger job than getting it working in the first place.

[edit] Graphical rework

Last time, I told you that we were planning to graphically rework all dwarf NPCs, but I didn't know whether or not this rework would go live with the new quest. Since then, it has been decided that the dwarf graphical rework will not be going live with the quest; the quest will go live with old-style dwarf graphics, and the dwarf NPC rework will happen later. This means that the Graphics team now have time to rework every dwarf in the game, without having to worry about getting them ready in time for this quest.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

[edit] Part 5: Feedback and Blue Blocks

Date of release: 23 June 2009

[edit] The Unforgettable Tale of a Lead Designer

'Mod Mark here, Lead Designer of RuneScape. I’m the Mark who has been here at Jagex for six years - not to be confused with Mod MMG: he is the Mark who is now our CEO. As lead designer, I am ultimately responsible for the new content we add to the game. This includes deciding what quests we develop, which new skills we work on, where we put new minigames, what levels they are, how difficult we want them to be, how much XP they give, which areas get new achievement diaries, and what new aspects of the game we should introduce, like the distractions and diversions, etc, etc. I don’t actually come up with the majority of new ideas, nor do I write the content, I just decide what direction we want to take the game and create objectives for the developers, helping them to decide which concepts we want to take into full development. Then, after they design how these things should work and create the code that makes their ideas real, I get to play it through and advise how we can improve it to make it the best it can be, before it is launched into the main game.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by talented, creative individuals who make my job very, very easy! Our relationship is similar to that of a sports coach and a team - the coach isn’t actually out on the field playing with the team but, ultimately, he is responsible for its performance. My job is just like that, except my team this time is Captain Mod John A and his Dwarven Raiders.

Playing through content for the first time is always one of the most exciting parts of my job. When you help someone to sculpt their ideas in the design brief stage of development, you always have a visual idea of what the final product will look like, or you imagine how difficult a puzzle should be. No matter how much you discuss things with the writer or an artist, people often have a slightly different opinion from you, which can have interesting effects on the final product.

Anyway, it had been a few years since the last dwarf quest, so I played through a few of the crucial elements of Giant Dwarf, Forgettable Tale... and Between a Rock and thought back on the first conversations I had with Mod Vincent, the original developer of the Red Axe storyline. Mod John A’s style is very different from his, but there were a few things we were keen to keep consistent, like the camera flyover of the city at the beginning (we have had those in all the dwarf quests - Mod Vincent was big on cut scenes but Mod John A less so) and the whole Red Axe/mining conglomerates/drunk dwarf-baiting plotline.

So, I found Captain Veldaban in the north-east of the city. I’d had the new concept art for Veldaban on my desktop for ages, so I’d been looking forward to his updated look...

But things were a little...blue. In fact, most of the new areas and quest-specific characters were just blue boxes, as the Graphics team were still working on the new graphics. Sometimes, with content we write, we ask the developer to create the majority of it using old graphics, and ask the Graphics team to work on the new assets after they have seen the puzzles, gameplay and level design. This is always quite an odd experience, dodging level 70 blue boxes or trying to find the blue box-shaped key amongst your inventory of blue woodblock objects.

[edit] Offering Feedback

Mod Mark vs the blue, err, orange and black things.

Playing through a piece of content to give feedback to a developer is quite a challenge. Not only are you playing through it for your own fun and amusement (we never release content we don’t find fun ourselves), but you have to think about the core aims of the project - who the content is for, what sort of audience we want it to appeal to, the rewards, target levels, etc. We also had two reward areas planned for this quest and some brand new Ranged NPCs, which we have very few of in the game. These were of particular interest to me, since we had increased the skill requirements for the quest, taking the Strength requirement up to 69, and the NPC combat levels had to be increased to reflect this. However, with the area just using placeholder ’blue box‘ graphics and temporary stats, I decided to leave looking at the reward areas until they were properly finished.

Playthroughs last for about half a day, as I like to play through the content once, then specific sections again with a more critical eye. I look for all sorts of important factors like: Is it clear to the user what’s going on? Do the different sections of the quest flow into one another? Do they keep the player interested during the more tricky sections, like the mine cart-puzzles (which Mod John A has approached in an original way)? Is the dialogue too wordy? Is the quest self-contained? Are the main characters compelling and believable? Is it rewarding enough? All sorts of issues like this can and will come up in those initial playthroughs and trigger conversation between myself and the developer.

One of the most interesting parts of the quest was the point in which Mod John A chose to reveal the plot twist. I was surprised that he chose to reveal it in that way, and it was very different from how I had expected it from the original design briefs. We’re due to have a feedback meeting after he has come back from holiday, and I am really interested to hear why he did it that way. I’m keen to change it, but I always like to discuss these things with the developer and find out what they wanted to achieve. Sometimes it’s just a case of changing a few words, other times we rethink and try a totally different approach. It’s always a very creative time in the product’s life-cycle.

I’m looking forward to chatting to Mod John A about his content and how we can improve it. From what I have seen of the new models and animations coming from the Graphics team, it’s going to look great!

New requirements in full

We've decided to make the quest's skill requirements higher than the ones that we previously released. Here are the new requirements in full:

[edit] Part 6: Nearly Finished

Date of release: 30 July 2009

I’ve just been told I need to write a new dwarf dev blog. Actually, I’ve been meaning to write it for a while, but hadn’t found the time. I’ve had so many little jobs to do...

[edit] Nearly finished

The development of the dwarf quest is nearly finished. It’s been nearly finished for the last couple of weeks. ‘Nearly finished’ can be quite a drawn-out stage sometimes, and that’s definitely been the case with this project.

In the last blog, Mod Mark talked about how he’d played through the quest in its rough-and-ready state with placeholder graphics, and said he had some changes he wanted me to make. I’ve made those changes, and I agree with him that the plot revelation works better now. Apart from that, I’ve spent my time polishing every detail of the quest, to take it from the just-about-working version that Mod Mark played, to a piece of content we’d be happy releasing to you.

This polishing stage is a quite different kind of job from starting to write the quest. It’s as if the project disintegrates from one big job into lots of little jobs - this NPC doesn’t have chat written if you talk to her at one particular quest stage; that puzzle will get stuck if you teleport out at the wrong stage; the timings in a cutscene don’t quite line up - and so forth.

[edit] Blue blocks begone

Before and after.

One of my tasks has been to replace the placeholder graphics with the final graphics as the Graphics team create them. You remember the screenshot I showed you a while back of a new area made up of blue blocks? Well, here's what it looks like now...

Adding the graphics is sometimes a simple swap, but other times it involves major changes to the code. For example, the basic layout of the area in the screenshot is the same, but the exact proportions are slightly different from what I mapped down, which means the code for the action that takes place there had to be changed slightly. At other times, the graphics might not be quite what I’d wanted, or might not work properly with the code, so I’ve had to get them changed. There’s a lot of back-and-forth between Content and Graphics at this stage of a project.

[edit] What happens next

When I say the project is nearly finished, that’s nearly finished as far as this project stage is concerned; that doesn’t mean it’s about to be released. Once I’ve got the whole quest working without any bugs I’m aware of, the project will go into the QA stage. That means the QA team will find the bugs I wasn’t aware of and send them to me to fix. I’m expecting to be able to send this quest to QA within the next couple of days.

Another thing happening now is that the quest’s text goes into editing (to catch any spelling and grammar errors and make sure all text is in the house style), and translation. That’s actually already started - so if I change any text now I have to send a note to the editor so he can look at it again.

Finally, it’s at this stage in a project that we start thinking about any extra website features that we’ll release along with it. We’ve decided that for this quest we’ll be doing a new Lores and Histories story to be released at around the same time. Writing that is my next task once the quest goes into QA.

[edit] We have a title

Back in one of my early blogs for this project I told you how the quest didn’t have a title yet, because I’m rubbish at coming up with titles. Well, at this stage of a project we really need the final title to be defined, so I’ve racked my brains and come up with the following: Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf.

A nice, intriguing title, I think. It tells you that at least one chaos dwarf is involved, but who is it forgiving and why? You will just have to wait and see.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

[edit] Part 7: Within The Next Few Weeks...

Date of release: 3 September 2009

Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf is scheduled for release within the next few weeks. Actually, it’s scheduled for a particular date, but if I were to tell you that date I’d probably jinx it, so "within the next few weeks" is all you’re going to get out of me.

[edit] QA

As I write this, the quest is coming to the end of the WIP QA stage. By the time you read this, that stage will probably be over and the quest may even be in RC.

There’s not much I can say about the QA stage that wasn’t in the QA dev blog. From my point of view, the QA stage consists of lots of little jobs appearing in my job list, which I have to fix.

[edit] Text edit

One of our editors, Mod Osborne, has edited the quest’s text for spelling, grammar and house style. House style means that where there’s more than one correct way of doing something in English, there will be one way that we prefer, just to keep things consistent. For example, "all right" and "alright" are both correct, but our house style prefers the latter.

When an issue is clear-cut, such as a mis-spelled word, Mod Osborne will simply correct it without informing me. For more difficult issues, such as a sentence that could be punctuated in more than one way, the two of us will quickly discuss it and reach an agreement.

[edit] Translation

While the text edit is happening, the quest also goes to the translation teams who create the German, French and Portuguese versions of the text. I’m not involved in this stage at all, since I don’t speak any of those languages.

[edit] Lores and Histories story

An image from 'The Coat Thief'

While the edit and QA stage were going on, I took some time to write a short story that could go live as a Lores and Histories page. I’m a keen writer, so writing this story has been the part of the project I’ve enjoyed the most. A Lores and Histories story gives me the chance to expand upon the narrative of the quest without the restrictions that come with putting the story in a quest--I don’t have to worry about puzzle difficulty or rewards, and I can describe a cool thing happening without worrying about how much time it would take to code! It also lets me expand on the story for people who are interested in it, without forcing people who aren’t so story-focused to read it.

The story is titled ‘The Coat Thief’, and it deals with something that happens to Commander Veldaban that sets the stage for the new quest. The plan is for it to go up at the same time as the quest.

[edit] Knowledge Base pages and news post

Mod Osborne has written the new Knowledge Base page for the quest, and made all the necessary changes to other Knowledge Base pages. I then checked these for accuracy.

Meanwhile, I wrote the news post, which is something I always find surprisingly hard. It’s like the whole project with its months of development has to be distilled down into a few sentences that will explain it and make the reader enthusiastic about it.

[edit] Launch day

The next big event for this quest, of course, is launch day. Which, like I said, is within the next few weeks. Making the launch happen is out of my hands; like a screenwriter at a film premiere, all I can do is watch. Even after years working at Jagex, a launch day can be nerve-wracking. I’ll spend a lot of the afternoon on the forums, looking at whether or not people like the quest--and, more importantly, what people like or dislike about it. For the most part, it’ll be too late to make this quest any better, but I can always learn for next time.

Retrieved from "http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Development_Diary:_New_Dwarf_Quest"