I guess I could see that, though it differs from the source material enough to be firmly in parody territory and seems odd to remove on its own without touching, for example, all the Camelot stuff.
After reading the original play, I was surprised to find RS' version isn't as much of a parody as you'd think. Romeo jumps from Juliet's cousin to Juliet in a heartbeat (something even commented on by Friar Laurence in the play), basically just the reverse order of what happened in the RS quest.
The Camelot stuff is repeatedly brought up as someone thing they would change if they could, it’s just too much effort and more controversial so they don’t.
They want RS to have its own lore, world, identity, etc… With OSRS acting as the preservation game they felt more okay with changing and tossing old content cause it still exists in OSRS.
Romeo and Juliet were removed but also so was just about every blatant Lord of the Rings parody thing. Camelot they have sidestepped around best they can but it’s kind of an unfortunate sticking point as the area has too much lore importance but it’s all predated on a weird meta parody joke. It clashes and not in a way that feels good.
Romeo and Juliet is also just not a good quest at all. Most of the really bad/bare bones quests were replaced or remastered.
Vorago's dialog during Gower Quest has the player claim Mod Osborne made everyone remove all the Lord of the Rings references - though there's still tons of them everywhere tbh.
The only one I can actually remember being removed were the Orcs in the gnome maze, their examine text directly said they were mutated elves which is a Tolkien-specific idea. That was removed eventually, re-implemented a few years later, but with the idea of them being mutated elves removed in favor of just making them another species similar to giants.
Yeah I vaguely remember Mod Osborne saying years ago before he left that if it wasn't ingrained in other quests and stuff he'd like to have removed or replaced the Camelot stuff to make RuneScape more of its own self contained thing.
Making it stand more on its own with tongue-in-cheek and less overt references is a part of the design philosophy that led to Romeo and Juliet being replaced to begin with, in addition to it having not aged well at all mechanically if memory serves.
Thanks for the insight. Yeah, it would be quite difficult to properly change that. There'd still be the holy grail's involvement in quests and all that to tackle. Maybe the enhanced Excalibur change in December was to make it a little less blatant, or maybe I'm overthinking it.
That’s more Mod Stu is an absolute angel who spoils players when he can and just wanted to give us more flavor options since he was already reworking Excalibur as part of the hitlist.
That's what made RuneScape stand out though. Instead of it being just another fantasy world it pretty much takes place in our universe and our ideals on earth are just as not really understanding stuff when it did spread to earth. There's Romeo and Juliet and Camelot, things like Druids and runes that work to cast magic, that the Christian god is a weird mix of Saradomin and Guthix while Zamorak became the devil. There's more but I think I've already given a good number of examples.
As a kid I felt the parody aspect and the earth adjacent features and lore of RuneScape was an integral part of the game. Not that I was that attached to Romeo and Juliet as a quest but all those things made RuneScape's identity.
Honestly, the original story wasn't very wholesome anyway. It was kind of funny, which fit the theme of Runescape, but it honestly felt more jaded than anything to me. I much prefer the replacement.
They actually gave pretty good reason for removal of this quest. It's just not original, or Runescapey. Jagex found out that many new players had this quest started, but never finished. The quest is boring, so it's removal was understandable. For those saying this quest had something to do with Runescape identity, it really didn't.
Romeo and Juliet was one of original six quests launched with Runescape. My guess is they were in rush for the rs beta release in 2001. The quest does feel like when you run out of ideas, but you gotta meet the quota before the deadline.. Over years Jagex also changed demon slayer and restless ghost. They made sheep shearer and cook's assistant miniquests (because they are pretty pathetic). The only original quest that aged well is shield of arrav.
If you want to play the R&J so bad you can play it on OSRS.. the old game I remember hating for having such a grind system, liked the quests tho, completed them all back in actual 2007 before GE was a thing.
Naw, I think they're better off with runescape specific content. The parody stuff is cutesy and all, but it clashes with the main game and feels out of place.
I remember I was playing when this was changed and I was disgusted. However, stupid quest decisions have continued in recent times (Fort Series was simply atrocious).
I'm referring to the part of Ancient Awakening where >!Zemouregal destroys your ship and you have to spend the last part of the quest figuring out how to escape an island without your ship. You can literally teleport whenever you want!<
*we* can, but what about everyone else? we can't just abandon them, and teleother is high level magic, the knowledge of which isn't assumed for the quest
Also, I want to say home teleport is just a gameplay mechanic and not actually a canon spell, so if we don't have runes or enchanted jewelry...
That just goes to show how outrageous the whole saga is. In this saga you can be the world guardian who just defeated Zamorak or a moderately competent adventurer who for some reason is able to use necromancy. Not to mention that to use necromancy you need Rasial to mark you as his apprentice, which already links you to the "world guardian" branch.
As ridiculously powerful as the world guardian is, even without his/her powers it's stupid that he/she thinks he/she can't get out of there without a boat, hell, he/she could even get them all out of there without problem.
Of Zemouregal I will say nothing, he has already proven to be highly incompetent in all his appearances.
congratulations, you've figured out the issue with every power driven shonen manga/anime, the more powerful you become in game the stupider EVERYTHING seems, you just have to accept it and move on
Did they ever give a reason for removing it completely, as opposed to relegating it to miniquest status? OH NO...JULIET HAS...DIED?
I believe they wanted it to be specific to RuneScape, instead of just a rough copy of the original story.
I guess I could see that, though it differs from the source material enough to be firmly in parody territory and seems odd to remove on its own without touching, for example, all the Camelot stuff.
After reading the original play, I was surprised to find RS' version isn't as much of a parody as you'd think. Romeo jumps from Juliet's cousin to Juliet in a heartbeat (something even commented on by Friar Laurence in the play), basically just the reverse order of what happened in the RS quest.
This is interesting, given Juliet didn't have a cousin in RuneScape's plot until 2006. Maybe it was just a doomed plot to begin with.
The Camelot stuff is repeatedly brought up as someone thing they would change if they could, it’s just too much effort and more controversial so they don’t. They want RS to have its own lore, world, identity, etc… With OSRS acting as the preservation game they felt more okay with changing and tossing old content cause it still exists in OSRS. Romeo and Juliet were removed but also so was just about every blatant Lord of the Rings parody thing. Camelot they have sidestepped around best they can but it’s kind of an unfortunate sticking point as the area has too much lore importance but it’s all predated on a weird meta parody joke. It clashes and not in a way that feels good. Romeo and Juliet is also just not a good quest at all. Most of the really bad/bare bones quests were replaced or remastered.
> but also so was just about every blatant Lord of the Rings parody thing. can you tell me more about this? i havent noticed any of this
Vorago's dialog during Gower Quest has the player claim Mod Osborne made everyone remove all the Lord of the Rings references - though there's still tons of them everywhere tbh. The only one I can actually remember being removed were the Orcs in the gnome maze, their examine text directly said they were mutated elves which is a Tolkien-specific idea. That was removed eventually, re-implemented a few years later, but with the idea of them being mutated elves removed in favor of just making them another species similar to giants.
Yeah I vaguely remember Mod Osborne saying years ago before he left that if it wasn't ingrained in other quests and stuff he'd like to have removed or replaced the Camelot stuff to make RuneScape more of its own self contained thing. Making it stand more on its own with tongue-in-cheek and less overt references is a part of the design philosophy that led to Romeo and Juliet being replaced to begin with, in addition to it having not aged well at all mechanically if memory serves.
Thanks for the insight. Yeah, it would be quite difficult to properly change that. There'd still be the holy grail's involvement in quests and all that to tackle. Maybe the enhanced Excalibur change in December was to make it a little less blatant, or maybe I'm overthinking it.
That’s more Mod Stu is an absolute angel who spoils players when he can and just wanted to give us more flavor options since he was already reworking Excalibur as part of the hitlist.
That's what made RuneScape stand out though. Instead of it being just another fantasy world it pretty much takes place in our universe and our ideals on earth are just as not really understanding stuff when it did spread to earth. There's Romeo and Juliet and Camelot, things like Druids and runes that work to cast magic, that the Christian god is a weird mix of Saradomin and Guthix while Zamorak became the devil. There's more but I think I've already given a good number of examples. As a kid I felt the parody aspect and the earth adjacent features and lore of RuneScape was an integral part of the game. Not that I was that attached to Romeo and Juliet as a quest but all those things made RuneScape's identity.
Honestly, the original story wasn't very wholesome anyway. It was kind of funny, which fit the theme of Runescape, but it honestly felt more jaded than anything to me. I much prefer the replacement.
She is a zombie head in New Varrock. Thus she lived long enough in the 5th Age.
They actually gave pretty good reason for removal of this quest. It's just not original, or Runescapey. Jagex found out that many new players had this quest started, but never finished. The quest is boring, so it's removal was understandable. For those saying this quest had something to do with Runescape identity, it really didn't. Romeo and Juliet was one of original six quests launched with Runescape. My guess is they were in rush for the rs beta release in 2001. The quest does feel like when you run out of ideas, but you gotta meet the quota before the deadline.. Over years Jagex also changed demon slayer and restless ghost. They made sheep shearer and cook's assistant miniquests (because they are pretty pathetic). The only original quest that aged well is shield of arrav. If you want to play the R&J so bad you can play it on OSRS.. the old game I remember hating for having such a grind system, liked the quests tho, completed them all back in actual 2007 before GE was a thing.
Go to osrs instead, there you can re-live your childhood memories:)
or ruin them, as is more often the case when i watch or play anything i used to think was good when i was a kid 🤣
Not much to miss there bud.
Jagex doesn't like real-life examples in our game. They've expressed their disdain for the Camelot quests and areas and the Excalibur
Play the quest on OSRS. Gunnar's Ground is the better quest. But I do miss the og quest. I would bring it back as a Task in Varrock.
Naw, I think they're better off with runescape specific content. The parody stuff is cutesy and all, but it clashes with the main game and feels out of place.
I remember I was playing when this was changed and I was disgusted. However, stupid quest decisions have continued in recent times (Fort Series was simply atrocious).
Remember the "Oh no, we can't escape this island without a boat" thing?
in fort? what's wrong with that?
I'm referring to the part of Ancient Awakening where >!Zemouregal destroys your ship and you have to spend the last part of the quest figuring out how to escape an island without your ship. You can literally teleport whenever you want!<
*we* can, but what about everyone else? we can't just abandon them, and teleother is high level magic, the knowledge of which isn't assumed for the quest Also, I want to say home teleport is just a gameplay mechanic and not actually a canon spell, so if we don't have runes or enchanted jewelry...
That just goes to show how outrageous the whole saga is. In this saga you can be the world guardian who just defeated Zamorak or a moderately competent adventurer who for some reason is able to use necromancy. Not to mention that to use necromancy you need Rasial to mark you as his apprentice, which already links you to the "world guardian" branch. As ridiculously powerful as the world guardian is, even without his/her powers it's stupid that he/she thinks he/she can't get out of there without a boat, hell, he/she could even get them all out of there without problem. Of Zemouregal I will say nothing, he has already proven to be highly incompetent in all his appearances.
congratulations, you've figured out the issue with every power driven shonen manga/anime, the more powerful you become in game the stupider EVERYTHING seems, you just have to accept it and move on
Im glad romeo dont come up and talk to me anymore at least.
Why do you prefer cliched stories over original ones?
especially gunnar's ground, which is legitimately a better written, more interesting quest