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Blog written by Mod Scorpion on 5th July 2011 |
| Mod Scorpion answers questions about his lore: Daemonheim Asunder. |
Moe Is 4210:
- Will you continue to release more lore like this in the future? :)
- Will this piece of lore tie (significantly?) into the Dungeoneering finale?
Mod Scorpion:
- Lores are in RuneScape's future plans :)
- Who knows when/if Dungeoneering will end! It's impossible to say
Rane Sedai: What floor did this take place on? Since the Hobgoblin Geomancer is usually found on Abandoned, was it there or lower near the Occult floors?
Mod Scorpion: This story takes place in the very early days of Daemonheim when the main goal is to dig and get to the bottom. I see it as taking place not on a specific floor, perhaps in an exploratory tunnel/cavern.
Robo Hobo: If the Hobgoblin went through the portal to the realm of Kal'Ger's throne room, and the portal collapsed afterwards, how did he get back? Also, if there was such a power in Kal'Ger's throne room that the voices seemed to suggest the Hobgoblin to take - why did the Demons leave that behind?
Mod Scorpion: That is my favourite part of the story! I personally am enjoying coming up with ideas of what the Goblin did to get back, and what Kal'ger will do to him! Perhaps it will be explored in the future? Who knows :)
Vandite: How much of an emphasis to you think should be placed on Lore in RuneScape? Do you, as I do personally, believe Lore is something that adds a tremendous layer of interest to a game?
Mod Scorpion: I believe it adds tremendous value, that's why I approached the RuneScape editors with an idea for a lore story ;) I'm not exactly sure when the last lore was, but it's been quite a while so I thought I'd give you guys a treat. RuneScape is such a massive game and I see lore as an important and enjoyable part of the bigger picture.
Worldwide Cm: Can a conversation type of story be considered lore. In other words, can lore also be presented in first-person point of view, and not the omniscient third person narrator?
Cheers!
Mod Scorpion: This was something I considered for Asunder, but the hovering narrative does suit a lore better I feel. But perhaps a first person rogue will come along in the future and shake things up lore wise!
Bashunia: Is the wizard/cloaked figure Bilrach or some other powerful being? Just verifying...
Mod Scorpion: This is something we wanted to leave open to speculation. It adds more mystery to the story as you're seeing so many familiar faces in there because the lore is exploring existing characters in more detail, so we felt you would have more fun if you didn't quite know for sure who everyone there was.
Sir JD: Have you been planning this for a while, or was it a spring-of-the-moment thought which you ended up persuing?
Will there be more? :P
Mod Scorpion: It actually took quite a while to develop this as I work on social networks and competitions (CM represent yo!:)) so I had to find spare bits of time to work on it. The editors were really helpful though!
Within: Of all the monsters in Daemonheim, why was the Hobgoblin Geomancer chosen to play a major role?
Mod Scorpion: He's just a bit weird isn't he?! I wanted a slave's perspective, but slaves are weak right? Not going to be very epic in terms of fighting etc, but I loved the idea of this resentful, absurd hobgoblin who was kind of simple but had deeper motives at the same time. Is he crazy? Is he stupid? Is he a cleverer than he seems? It was so much fun to write, he's a real enigma and you don't know what he's going to do next or why until afterwards.
Worldwide Cm: Who are the Jmods that work on lore, quest, or history writing? Who are the most notorious of them, like authorities in the subject?
Mod Scorpion: Dave O is the lore Ninja, he's the one who helped me fine tune the story.
Cosmic Afro: -In the story i can't help but feel that i may have misunderstood something. When the hobgoblin jumps through the portal he lands near the throne with weapons all along the walls, similar to how the boss room is layed out in dungeoneering. But i thought Kal'ger came from another dimension first? why would he already have a throne in daemonheim?
Mod Scorpion: That is Kal'ger's throne room in his own dimension. The portal leads there.
Snowbuster: Hey!
- Can we expect more expansion on the character of the hobgoblin slave in the sequel to this? I'm sure there's more to him than meets the eye.
- Were you as excited writing this as I was reading this? I'm a massive fan of stories and lores, but this one especially kept me captivated. :)
Thanks!
~Snow
Mod Scorpion:
- There is more to him than meets the eye. 'Eye' hope to see some more of him in the future ;) see what I did there?
- Short answer: absolutely!
Hylian Heart Where did your ideas come from?
Mod Scorpion: They honestly come literally out of my head. I'm not one of those writers who goes looking for inspiration or tries to evolve an existing idea. It just comes out of my melting pot of a head which itself is influenced by years of creative culture.
Amascut: Any chance we could see some sort of official Writing comp again sometime soon?
Mod Scorpion: This has been a really popular suggestion and as competitions guy I'm going to look into it for you.
MilkN2Sugars: How would you describe your writing methods? Did you start out with a single idea and then build around it, or did you have the entire story planned out in your head before you started writing? Do you prefer to plan things out, or just dive straight in? :P
Mod Scorpion: I basically have to set aside a massive chunk of hours, and then just start typing. Then I read back over it and keep refining it (a few paragraphs at a time) and then write the next chunk.
Then I review it a few times before sending it to be dissected edited :)
Caronthir: What made you come up with the idea for Daemonheim Asunder?
Mod Scorpion: The funnel went like this:
- Daemonheim is cool and has no lore story
- What are the best bits of Daemonheim (in my opinion)
- = Kal'ger
- Explore Bilrach's chronicles to find out some back story
- Write epic battle
Worldwide Cm: If you were to write about yourself as a character in a story, how would it look like and what personality would it have?
Mod Scorpion: I would probably write myself far more badass, possibly as a rogue/thief type character.
Suffud: When your writing the lores, do you plan it out with a brainstorm first, or is it already in your head and just in a sence clicks into place?
Mod Scorpion: It always starts out as just an idea, normally in my head it's always fully planned out. But then over the course of writing, revising, editing, revamping and improving it changes LOADS. The overall plot remained the same for Asunder (slaves, digging, scary master, Kal'ger, big fight, portals etc but all the details changed. The slave started out a bit more faceless actually, one of the biggest changes was developing the Geomancer's character to make him all the more awesome
YoshiSummons: How hard was it to get yourself to write this knowing countless fans are dissecting every word in what you wrote?
Mod Scorpion: This was something that I tried to put to the back of my mind and just write in my own style. Although sometimes I would sit there and think
'%&$*! What if the players think this sucks? What if I contradict some ancient piece of lore written in 1999? What if they never do another firefly/serenity film or tv series?
Then I would think
'Snap out of it Scorps! You know Joss Whedon won't let you down, and neither will the RuneScape players!'
That's pretty much exactly how it happened.
Zoinkwiz: Can we expect another installement/in-game piece of content for this? I really enjoyed it, and can't wait to see what happens next!
Mod Scorpion: The dev team have loads of stuff already in the pipeline for you to play though(Clan citadels anyone? Want a little bit of Clan citadels? Yeah?) :P But who knows!
LittleLynn: Where was this voice coming from?
Mod Scorpion: Well, the slave doesn't know, Kal'ger doesn't know, the robed figure dude doesn't know - so I definitely don't know!
You'll have to wait and see ;)
Rogiee: Hey Scorpion ;)
Is it likely that the finale of Daemonheim (The Strange Power) will be discovered and investigated using another future Saga, this time investigating the Warped floors?
I was excited for the release of Floor 60 because we were told that it was the bottom of Daemonheim, and that the bottom of Daemonheim would uncover the Strange Power, but apparently not... I can't wait to see what it is!
~Rogie
Mod Scorpion: Hey Rogiee. Firstly, thanks for the guide - it was awesome.
Secondly I'm not sure what our awesome dev team has in store for the end of Daemonheim (will it end?!) but I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens as I'm sure you are too.
Elf Carantir: Who was the first person after you to read this lore and what was his or her reaction?
Mod Scorpion: It was Dave O and he said "Wow this is better than Rowling!"
Lol jks... He said it needed work, but that it was good ;)
Baby Tree: What's your favorite Dungeoneering boss?
Mod Scorpion: The first time I came across a Behemoth (and died due to not knowing it was a boss room and charging in :() was actually pretty intense. I thought it was a really good boss to start players off with. Sort of scary, a little bit difficult (remember not everyone knew about the meat at first!) but doable.
You can read the lore here.
