Jagex has spawned a great deal of controversy with its new strykewyrm monsters, the highest level of which requires a fire cape in order to kill. There are plenty of arguments going on about whether or not this is a reasonable requirement, if it should be removed, or if some alternative should be made available to those who either cannot or will not get a fire cape.
That’s not what this article is about, though. I want to step back from arguing over whether or not the fire cape prerequisite is fair, to why it was imposed in the first place.
I think some folks have lost sight of the fact that the fire cape isn’t just “an item” or “a piece of content”: it is the final reward of a difficult minigame. As such, it should be an item of high intrinsic value: it should be something that people want for its own sake.
There was a time when this was the case. Those who were able to get a fire cape wore it as a badge of honor, especially those with lower combat skills. From a practical standpoint, the cape itself also offered significant advantages within the game, because it was clearly better than any of the alternatives.
But times change, and the game evolves. Getting the cape is a lot easier than it used to be—at least for those who have a good Internet connection and the right mental makeup for this sort of content. Fire capes are no longer rare. Youtube videos showing players beating Jad while wielding flowers have removed much of the “respect” that once was afforded a fire cape bearer.
From a gameplay standpoint, the fire cape has also lost some of its luster. Several years ago, a cape with +11 to all defensive stats, +1 to attack stats, +4 to strength and +2 to prayer was a real gem, because the alternatives were so much worse. Then we got skillcapes, which offered a higher prayer bonus, even if they were worse in other areas. For lots of players, the final nail in having much interest in this item for its own sake was the Soul Wars cape: its +12 prayer bonus is, for me, much more appealing than +4 strength or a couple of extra defensive points—usually when I am fighting something where I care about stats, I am using prayer.
The minigame itself also very obviously holds little draw for most players. Some like the challenge, but a large percentage of ‘scapers simply don’t like that style of intense gameplay, assuming they have the ability to complete the task at hand at all. Even those who enjoy getting a fire cape once usually groan at the thought of having to do it again if they lose the cape.
Clearly, RuneScape players have lost much of their former taste for the fight caves and even the fire cape itself. The proper solution to this should have been to make the minigame more appealing. Unfortunately, Jagex has instead chosen to essentially force some players who don’t care about the minigame to do it because of something else they do care about: the Slayer skill. Instead of reformulating the fire cape and the fight caves as a whole so they “taste better” on their own, they have bombarded them with “artificial flavor”.
I think this is a short-sighted approach. Minigames should be both fun to play and have appealing rewards that stand on their own merits. If that’s not the case, the minigame should be reworked, not made more attractive artificially through arbitrary requirements for other areas of unrelated game content. And while it’s easy to come up with a rationale like “you need the heat of the cape to damage these ice wyrms”, make no mistake: this is an arbitrary attempt to link unrelated game content.
Sorry, but I don’t want to see a level 95 Slayer monster that requires a five-feather chompy hunting hat. I don’t think we need a new type of Farming tree that has to be treated with “the stuff” from Trouble Brewing. I cringe at the thought of a level 90 Woodcutting tree that you can only chop while wearing a full set of rogue’s clothing.
I don’t want to be forced to do these minigames. I’d like to see these minigames revitalized so that I want to do them for their own sake.