RuneScape:Wiki Post/Editorials/Quest Review - Buyers and Cellars

Thieving is one of RuneScape's more interesting skills. Quests are one of RuneScape's best features as a whole. So a combination of the two should be good, right? That is what went through my mind when I logged on to play the newest quest released to the game (as of 28 April 2010), Buyers and Cellars. However this line of thinking, I soon discovered, was simply not the case.

I'm a quest nut. Some people might know that already. I think Quests are the best part of the game of RuneScape which, you would all do well to remember, I very much think is one of the best games I've ever played. There are, however, some bad quests, as can be expected with any kind of media. Rat Catchers, for example. Scorpion Catcher. Monk's Friend. Buyers and Cellars can give itself a great big pat on the back, then, for being the newest addition to this category.

For those who don't know (and I don't blame you for not knowing), Buyers and Cellars revolves around a certain Darren Lightfinger, a previously-unheard of thief who is attempting to start up a Thieves' Guild. This is fair enough; it's a pretty decent story for a quest, but there are two things wrong with this. a) we basically have a thieves' guild already: the Rogue's Den, and b), during the opening for the quest, Lightfinger makes no mention of what he is trying to do. He just assumes that your character knows what he's doing down in a dingy cellar in Lumbridge and, for some odd apparent reason, your character does know what's going on. I was very shocked when Asparagoose said to Lightfinger "So this is your illustrious guild?" or something of the like. "Hold on there, Aspy," I found myself saying, "When did he say he was opening a guild? He's just standing in a cellar!" Now I'm all well and good for knowing things about RuneScape my character doesn't, but me not knowing something my character does? That's just not on. Asparagoose shouldn't have some prior knowledge of a quest before he starts it, in the same way I wouldn't expect to go to a place in the real world and know all about it despite not having been informed about it at all.

There is another problem with the quest, too. It's a novice quest. Now that's fine, I've got no beef with novices - in fact, I complained earlier in the year with the release of Nomad's Requiem that Jagex had been releasing nothing but Master level quests (Blood Runs Deep, The Temple at Senntisten, Within The Light), but now they're releasing thousands of low-level quests (see last month's The Blood Pact), I wonder if Jagex will ever release a quest which I find challenging yet doable. Now I know Jagex don't release quests for me, they release them for other people, but to be honest, I'm feeling that if there's a quest which opens a guild to you, you kind of need to have some skill before you go into the guild? I would have killed for the Mining Guild or Runecrafting Guild to be this easy to get in, but I had to train like everyone else! Why do thieves get off so easily? There's no justice!

Speaking of things that there is none of, I should probably mention content. Content is what quests are made up of. If Desert Treasure was just four bossfights one after another, it would be a terrible quest! ...Actually, it is basically just four bossfights one after another, so that might be a bad example. Okay, uh... Darkness of Hallowvale! If all I had to do in that was go to Meiyerditch, it would be awful. Quests are only good when they have meat on them. Buyers and Cellars has the bones of a good quest worked out, but there's no meat on them - there's barely even skin. All you do in the quest is procure a small golden challice from Father Urhney - who, by the way, has had his house moved around again. Every update that's made to Lumbridge Swamp or Lumbridge in general sees Urhney's house moved from one corner of the swamp to the other, and I'm sick of it! But that's basically irrelevant. So, you have to distract Urhney by lighting a fire under his window and pickpocketing him. This isn't a wholly bad idea, but quests where you have to rely on NPC AI to notice you've lit a fire or dropped a certain item have never been good in my books. At this point I became so bored with the quest, which asks the player to go back and forth from Lumbridge Castle to the swamp, that I logged out of RuneScape and continued the quest tomorrow. I've never before logged out out of boredom in the middle of a quest, so Buyers and Cellars can pat itself on the back once more for that.

When I logged back in, I finally delivered the stolen chalice from Father Urhney to Chief Thief Robin (Oh! A pun!), expecting to be given another ridiculously simple task when I went back to Darren. No such thing. The quest was complete. Wow, said I. Wow. So I thank Buyers and Cellars for itself, in that it's introduced me to a new experience in RuneScape. Regretting doing a quest.


 * If you did like this review, remember to check | Asparagoose Reviews on YouTube. Warning - strong language.

Did you enjoy this textual review? Funny and informative Harsh yet logical Ridiculous and unneeded