Its squareness seemed to stem from looking too intensely at the map & extrapolating runs off out so that essentially everything in Zeah was square. Most of it happened out of necessity while, sure there are places around the game world which seem like this. I believe the mapping tools could load 1 map square at one time, so that naturally led to a design style emerging. Both throughout the Classic era when the Gowers would attempt to squeeze as much material into a single map square as possible then even more so during the early RS2 era they'd often have multiple projects on the move simultaneously, with different map squares delegated to different devs/projects. Each project apparently tried to increase the space they got in their various map squares and a lot of jobs ended up looking square since they filled up directly to the borders.
Zeah was a large blank canvas with one cohesive design eyesight (or at least it should have been) so should not have needed to feel limited in terms on how content was implemented by carefully off boxing things. And yet, that's what happened. In addition to the worldbuilding was non-existent and no effort was made to ensure the game world worked from an MMO standpoint.There was also this early impression given from the OSRS group of them wanting Zeah to be this huge visually striking place that supplied them with a major figure to boast about;"a huge 50 percent landmass increase!!! Wow!!!", but fundamentally neglected to fill it with articles. That was especially true at its launching in Jan 2016 - Zeah was as wide as a sea with about as much depth as a puddle. And considering there wasn't a degree in the entire continent.
And as for the content that was there that did elicit enthusiasm or pleasure. With this much content focussing on the parts of the game. Another misguided look at what was traditionally RuneScapey by incorporating pointlessly grindy things via the favour system (believing that the grind itself was players appreciated about grinding), subsequently giving the player no feeling of satisfaction for actually"finishing" a grind, since you'd only automatically lose the 20% of what you had gained access to in case you wanted to try out any of the other 80 percent of content there. Even with all the favour system improvements, I still wouldn't call the favour gameplay that riveting, from pushing ploughs, discovering books, digging salt. Sure they're all somewhat easy, traditional RuneScapey activities, but tradition for tradition's sake does not always produce the best outcomes or in this case gameplay.
At one time I'd have bemoaned Zeah as the worst addition in the game's history - these days I think that it's been a net positive. It proved to be a learning experience for what worked & what didn't. It revealed the teams willingness to listen & change things where necessary (albeit a slow & drawn out process). And that I think everything else which followed it improved. Every new place, landmass, growth, etc, managed to find out from Zeah's mistakes. If people like Mod West can continue his excellent work already done using the Hosidius rework & apply it to the last few homes - then using a little bit of extra content sprinkled in here & there (flavour quests, points of interest, etc), then Zeah's lasting legacy inside the match could genuinely become a really good one.
More RuneScape gold information on https://www.rsgoldfast.com/
Its squareness seemed to stem from looking too intensely at the map & extrapolating runs off out so that essentially everything in Zeah was square. Most of it happened out of necessity while, sure there are places around the game world which seem like this. I believe the mapping tools could load 1 map square at one time, so that naturally led to a design style emerging. Both throughout the Classic era when the Gowers would attempt to squeeze as much material into a single map square as possible then even more so during the early RS2 era they'd often have multiple projects on the move simultaneously, with different map squares delegated to different devs/projects. Each project apparently tried to increase the space they got in their various map squares and a lot of jobs ended up looking square since they filled up directly to the borders.
Zeah was a large blank canvas with one cohesive design eyesight (or at least it should have been) so should not have needed to feel limited in terms on how content was implemented by carefully off boxing things. And yet, that's what happened. In addition to the worldbuilding was non-existent and no effort was made to ensure the game world worked from an MMO standpoint.There was also this early impression given from the OSRS group of them wanting Zeah to be this huge visually striking place that supplied them with a major figure to boast about;"a huge 50 percent landmass increase!!! Wow!!!", but fundamentally neglected to fill it with articles. That was especially true at its launching in Jan 2016 - Zeah was as wide as a sea with about as much depth as a puddle. And considering there wasn't a degree in the entire continent.
And as for the content that was there that did elicit enthusiasm or pleasure. With this much content focussing on the parts of the game. Another misguided look at what was traditionally RuneScapey by incorporating pointlessly grindy things via the favour system (believing that the grind itself was players appreciated about grinding), subsequently giving the player no feeling of satisfaction for actually"finishing" a grind, since you'd only automatically lose the 20% of what you had gained access to in case you wanted to try out any of the other 80 percent of content there. Even with all the favour system improvements, I still wouldn't call the favour gameplay that riveting, from pushing ploughs, discovering books, digging salt. Sure they're all somewhat easy, traditional RuneScapey activities, but tradition for tradition's sake does not always produce the best outcomes or in this case gameplay.
At one time I'd have bemoaned Zeah as the worst addition in the game's history - these days I think that it's been a net positive. It proved to be a learning experience for what worked & what didn't. It revealed the teams willingness to listen & change things where necessary (albeit a slow & drawn out process). And that I think everything else which followed it improved. Every new place, landmass, growth, etc, managed to find out from Zeah's mistakes. If people like Mod West can continue his excellent work already done using the Hosidius rework & apply it to the last few homes - then using a little bit of extra content sprinkled in here & there (flavour quests, points of interest, etc), then Zeah's lasting legacy inside the match could genuinely become a really good one.
More RuneScape gold information on https://www.rsgoldfast.com/
