NPC Factions

One of the main things I want to specify about NPC factions is that they need not (and should not) necessarily reflect what they are in-game. First of all, we'll be working with our own custom backstory in GW5. Second of all, for fairness, it would be better if no NPC faction is a superpower at the start, and if they must work to conquer territory and expand just as the players do.

Since we'll be expanding the number of regions in the map, we'll have more flexibility in deciding which territories an NPC faction might own at the start. Since the player will be starting with only one settlement, I'd ideally want NPC factions holding no more than 5 regions at the start.

We can come up with some of the lore for why the NPC factions have lost their former glories here.

One specific example I was imagining was Misthalin. Let's say they only own Varrock itself (their capital), Varrock North, Varrock West, Varrock Fields, and Varrock Lumberyard. We can say that the former glory of Misthalin was ruined by the horrible reign of King Carolus, who squandered so much of the realm's prosperity and military might on pointless wars with Asgarnia that many regions, including important towns like Draynor Village and Lumbridge, have seceded and are independent sovereignties.

King Carolus? Hehee... My conversion is working! Mwahahahaahaaa!!

...

Did I just type that? Hmm... I better not press this send button, then...

It was a quick example I whipped up before I had to go to work! But, yeah, in this case I think I picked a good name.

While the idea of NPC factions being non-in-game-canonical is great, I feel that it kind of takes us away from the immersion that the world we're in is Gielinor. I rather liked how there were areas in the world run by people that were actually in the game.

On the other hand, it would be interesting and impressive if we (That is, William so that we don't have an unfair advantage on how to deal with the various monarchs) came up with the many different factions in terms of our coostoom loor.

Perhaps, before the World Guardian left, it appointed its most trusted allies to guard over the various, crumbled nations. Some of the allies were benevolent, understanding leaders, others let their dark sides come out/were assholes, and presto-chango-click-your-heels now we have many custom NPC factions?

Actually, when the World Guardian disappeared, the world was still very much united. He'd done a great job and all obeyed the king of the Great Human Kingdom of Gielinor, Philippe Carnillean. It wasn't until around 300 years later till the Great Kingdom showed signs of crumbling, and even then it took them 200 years to actually fall.

After much explanation, this new backstory doesn't sit too well with me, especially the ending. Mostly because it makes Sliske the Gamemaster rather than a new faction (which he is going to be), and the fact that when the World Guardian disappeared, the Kingdom Persevered until some odd thing happened rather than crumbling immediately without adequate leadership, and the fact that its all based off William's perception of how things will go in the sixth age when we don't even know how emissaries will turn out. Also, I thought we agreed on no more Magic Gems!

I'll write one later.

When did we agree on anything about no magic gems?

Besides, I don't give a flying fuck about you being a Sliske fanboy. Sliske faction would be too out of place in the world, what with Sliske not even having any followers, only fans. Fans are not followers, and do not belong in this game.

And the Great Human Kingdom of Gielinor started decaying immediately after the World Guardian left. The decay was simply so slow it took 500 years to destroy the strong, united land the World Guardian had forged.

Hmm... Alright. I'll give you one more chance. One more chance to convince me to add a Sliske fanclub somewhere in the game. To convince me, you must give reasonable arguments that will answer these points. Only through reasonable arguments can I be convinced.

1. Explain how a god who has been dead for 500 years, never had an ideology or a philosophy to gain followers, never did anything significant that would gain the support of anyone beyond the major gods (that is, killing Guthix surely got the followers of the non-Guthixian gods to like Sliske, I guess, but how would that get him fans that didn't follow other gods?), never had any sort of empire, whose all fans had long since died and who never ever even cared to have any followers and/or fans.

2. Explain in depth what adding a Sliske fanclub -npc-faction will add to the game.

You're thinking of Sliske in the wrong way.

1. Sliske clearly does have an ideology: Personal Gain, Stealth, Opportunity, Change, possibly even Progress, the stuff accompanied with his act of Killing Guthix. This is descended from his roots, his following of Zaros.

2. Zamorak was gone for a long while after he killed Zaros, but he still had followers. I would imagine that some of the Zarosians who believed that they shouldn't bother with reasoning with Guthix and also Zamorakians who wanted to kill Guthix in general, but watched as their incompetent leaders couldn't make it past a single person, would join Sliske's "Fan club."

3. In the new backstory I'm adding, Sliske is not dead, nor will he be likened to being dead. Your Backstory started out great, but then it let out as soon as you got to Killing Sliske. In the backstory I'm going to write, Sliske will be trapped, along with all of the other Gods, as well as the World Guardian, on another plane. He'll be trapped in a plane that has barriers around it that cannot be broken from the inside. The Gods will require their warlords to conquer the lands, and break the barriers from there. Sliske would still have a following back on Gielinor.

4. Sliske has a following already on Gielinor, we can tell that because they're adding an Emissary for him. He doesn't even care for that Following. However, Sliske does things just for Sliske, and he is most certainly going to keep that following around for when it becomes useful, until it gets in his way. That's just how Sliske works. He may not care, but he has it, and Killing it won't do him any immediate good, so he'll let it float around. In the game, he needs this faction in order to continue carrying out his plans, as he's trapped on a barren plane, fighting a battle with all the other Gods and the World Guardian.

5. I imagined that the Zaros Faction would pretty much keep around where it starts now: Paddewwa, Lassar, Senntisten Outskirts, maybe Southern Wilderness. I imagined that Sliske's faction would start out deep in the Wilderness, Pirate's Hideout, Annakarl, maybe the Volcano, Ghorrock, possibly. The Idea was that Sliske and Zaros would have their borders be in the Wilderness. However, if we go with the idea that allows the Derest Pantheon to start up in Trollweiss (LOL), then I suppose the Sliske Faction will be just relegated to the choice of the player. The More I think about the different Gods, the more I feel that Sliske is a good choice for a god. Everyone loves playing the Villain.

I still vote to move away from game lore, but nooooo, let's argue about dead Gods of Balance, World Guardians, Sliskes, and everything else.

You all also forgot to account for the death/banishment of the Mahjarrat, unless we want to have OP characters.

Sliske killed them all for More Power.

Alternatively...

Someone figured out a way to stop the Rejuvination Ritual from working, and they all killed eachother in the ensuing hysteria of the Sacrifice not working, until there was only one left.

Who was then killed by the World Guardian.

"Maybe this next one will work..."

I didn't forget to account for that. The World Guardian killed them all.

1. Why would a person who only wants to do stuff for and by himself follow Sliske? He has nothing to gain from it. Sliske isn't interested in ruling the world and someone who only cares for himself has nothing to gain from acting in the name of Sliske.

2. Zamorak had allies, yes. He gave a lot of promises to some powerful people. Do you seriously expect that anyone would ever trust Sliske's promises? Nevermind that he didn't give any.

3. In your backstory. In mine, he is known to be dead by all, further clarifying the point where nobody would follow him. Even if they had had something to gain from acting in his name, which they didn't, they wouldn't have anything anymore, as their beloved god is dead.

4. No, Sliske doesn't have followers. He has fans.

5. Yippee, we found an area for Sliskenites! That is an inconclusive and absolutely supreme argument for why said faction must absolutely be added to the game! How can I defend against this sort of argumentation?

You still haven't explained what Sliske-faction will add to the game? Why should we have it? Just because Runescape has it doesn't mean we should. That's like saying "Oh, in Runescape, gods are able to walk on Gielinor. Hence we must have gods be able to walk on Gielinor."

Lord William wrote:

You still haven't explained what Sliske-faction will add to the game? Why should we have it? Just because Runescape has it doesn't mean we should. That's like saying "Oh, in Runescape, gods are able to walk on Gielinor. Hence we must have gods be able to walk on Gielinor."

In Turn, we shouldn't blindly go against RuneScape canon. We can't just say, "Well, the Oracle lives on the top of Ice Mountain, but just because we need something to block expansion, let's put her in the Edgeville Monastery." No, at this point in the RuneScape game, Sliske is for all intensive purposes a God. Since Gods are now an Integral part of the game, we can't just say "Hmm... no." at this point. It's just too close to the core of the game.

Not adding a Sliske faction isn't against the Runescape canon.