Bolvaoir – The Twisted Lands

Currently, Bolvaoir is here:

Vau.
Vau was a Guthixian warrior in the late 3rd age. Legend has it he established the Slayers as an organisation which specialised in destroying the strange monsters of the other armies. He ventured into Bolvaoir searching for a legendary artifact known simply as The End. Writings from the ancient ruins in Bolvaoir suggested it had the power to end the God Wars. However, despite his various adventures through Bolvaoir, he never found it, and simply disappeared one day. Rumors suggest he wasn't human.

Galveron.
Galveron is a sort of guide figure in Bolvaoir. He'll appear randomly and give you trivia and advice about Bolvaoir, as a means of expanding on Bolvaoir's backstory. Being a non-native, he won't refuse to talk about the ancient race of Bolvaoir.

Different whether will make different things happen in Bolvaoir, for example whispids won't appear on sunny days, but the question is, do I want a lot of different weather types that have overlapping features, or just a few which are totally unique from one another?

Anyway, here's a list of weathers so far
-Sunny
-Blizzard
-Gale
-Foggy
-Thunderstorm

Also, I want night and day in Bolvaoir.

-Dragonflies. I saw one while out jogging the other day and it occurred to be just how cool they are. I want some to be in Bolvaoir
-Ents. A fantasy creature that for some reason Runescape doesn't seem to have expanded upon much, I'm toying with the idea of putting ents into Bolvaoir
-Rogue Elves. Considering Bolvaoir's proximity to the Elven Lands, this is a possibility
-Whispids. Trying to create mystery and wanderlust, it's vital that I introduce some never-before-seen monsters. Whispids are evil manifestations of fog and mist that only appear in certain weathers and feast upon souls
-Nequam. Nocturnal creatures from my scrapped Agility Caves idea find a new home in the caves of Bolvaoir

In the Deeplands:
-The Temple of Thunder
-Soulchiller Cave
-Inferno Crater

Elsewhere:
The Dead Saltmarshes
Aegis Tree Groves
Guardian Ruins

Areas of Bolvaoir fall into one of 5 categories:
Static: Static areas never change and can always be accessed. Any large enough static area could serve as a safe area, eg Guardian Ruins
Unmoving but Changable (unbchas): These areas never move but are subject to change, eg The Dead Saltmarshes
Randomly Accessible (raccessibles): These areas never change in appearance or move, but at times they may be unreachable, eg Soulchiller Cave
Randomly Appearing (rappearings): These are features that randomly appear and disappear. They constantly move around the map and aren't guaranteed to exist at any given time, eg Aegis Tree Groves
Random Appearing Zones (razones): These are areas where a rappearing appears. They are designed to graphically integrate with them (ie, the shape of a razone is the same as that of a rappearing)

Some static areas are safety zones. Because the landscape is likely to have changed if you log out for any period of time, unchanging points where the player avatar can be placed are needed.

-Better XP yield than the rest of Gielinor. This can be justified because it’s impossible to grind a particular skill. What you’re training on could disappear in an instant and so other more reliable methods of training will retain their niche – this sort of XP gain is more opportunistic.

-Hmm... How should I kill this

Picture the situation. You're casually strolling through the salt marshes of Tideswallow in Bolvaoir when you're confronted with a giant dragonfly. It's big, it's hungry and it wants to kill you. You ready your sword, prepared to battle it to the death - but wait! Is this the best way to kill your foe? You see a nearby tree which you could use to set up a trap. You've heard rumors that a dragonfly's exoskeleton is valuable, but if you kill it using a sword, you may damage it...

So this introduces another feature I want in Bolvaoir - choice when killing your monsters. As demonstrated in the example above, you could use either combat or hunter to kill a dragonfly. The two techniques, however, yield different results. Hunting a dragonfly will reward you with its exoskeleton, whereas battling it will allow you to access a drop table of herbs and other items.

The idea is to promote thinking on your feet, experimentation and variety. Not only may you be unsure about which method is more rewarding to you, you might not have the levels for one method, or your personal situation might make one choice better than the other (example - if you're low on health, it might be better to hunt the dragonfly than take more damage in battle).


-One entrance, and better rewards deeper into Bolvaoir. Exploring all the way to the far side of Bolvaoir will be tough and should be rewarded

-Teleports and transport. You can teleport out – this is important to avoid becoming trapped or spending hours trying to find your way out. I also want a system where you can teleport to people on your friends list, because otherwise it’ll be difficult to find buddies and do any sort of group activity (which would be a shame). To avoid abuse, the friend tele only works if both players are in Bolvaoir and has a cooldown of two hours. However, I feel teleports to fixed locations would detract from the explorative feel, so I don’t want any other teleports into Bolvaoir

-No quests set in Bolvaoir. Due to the shifting nature of the land, trying to complete a linear storyline would end up being either highly frustrating for the player, or technically difficult for the developer. If you go into Bolvaoir with one specific goal in mind, you’re likely to emerge disappointed, and this needs to be considered when making content for it

-Bolvaoir is not dungeoneering

-Moans that appear in the air, scream made in a forgotten language, walls with texts that you can read, or ancient books or diaries you can read, you can sometimes fall inside a ruin.
-We could see a ghost from time to time, or a group of them
-May also have some war in Bolvaoir. The native races could be fighting for territory or artifacts. They may employ you as a mercenary and give you spoils of war, or you might unwittingly get caught in the middle of one of their battles. Just some additional variation/backstory.
-The ancient civilisation on Bolvaoir was not wiped out by Dragonkin, nor the God Wars and had nothing to do with Zaros.