Runescape – Page 18 – MMO Fallout

Jagex Grinds Out 120 Farming/Herblore This Week

Jagex this week gave its players a new reason to grind out those levels and farm those farms with the expansion of two skills and introduction of new content to RuneScape.

Foremost on the list of additions this week is the expansion of the Farming and Herblore skills, increasing the skill caps to 120 and enabling an array of new content to make that level grind a little bit more worth the time. On the farming side, players now have access to the Ranch Out Of Time (Blue Cheese Out Of Time for players in Buffalo) where players can farm and breed dinosaurs in a new set of farming paddocks located on Anachronia. In addition to dinosaurs, players will also be able to grow a set of new plants and access new farming plots.

On the herblore side, leveling past 99 will give access to potion bombs.

“As players work towards 120 Farming, they’ll unlock new content at every single level: new mushrooms, new cactus patches, and the elusive Money Tree await. They’ll be able to use all these new ingredients to make potent potions that provide short-but-powerful benefits on a whole range of attributes, and the new herblore skills will allow players to concoct something even more explosive: bombs! Sticky bombs, poison bombs, vulnerability bombs and more – the higher your Herblore level, the more efficient you will become at crafting bombs. Have fun on our rather ferocious farm!”

This week also marks the launch of the Yak Track, RuneScape’s answer to the titular battle pass. \

Source: RuneScape

RuneScape: Yak Tracks, Premier Club, Double Experience

RuneScape; it’s a game where you scape runes. There’s a bunch of stuff coming to RuneScape in the next week or so and MMO Fallout is here to detail them on another website.

First up is an update on activity pets. At the end of October Jagex launched a poll asking people for their opinions on which activity pets (pets obtained through activities) they would like to see added into the game. The verdict? People would rather not see them at all.

“While these opinions aren’t necessarily shared by everyone, we were still surprised about the number of negative posts.”

While not cancelled entirely, the number of activity pets has been reduced from six to three plus a Runescore (achievement score) pet.

Second up on the docket is the Yak Track. Yak Track is another rendition of the season pass formula and appears to be exclusive to the Premier Club membership. The Yak Track launched on November 25 and will task players with completing a variety of tasks in return for cosmetic rewards.

“We’re really confident that we’ve packed a huge amount of value into Yak Track. In fact, if you’re a Premier Club member and you make your way along the whole track, you’ll receive a whopping 33 cosmetics including four pets, three outfits, six animation overrides and 15 weapons!”

And speaking of Premier Club, it’s back! The top tier of the Premier Club runs for $89.99 this year and includes a year’s membership, 150,000 loyalty points, 1 additional key daily, 3 Premier Club tokens, 50% discount on Runemetrics, the premier artifact, and more. For more information, check out the official website.

And finally, another double experience weekend kicks off this week. Instead of cramming you into a two or three day window, Jagex is giving players 36 hours of double experience spread out to your leisure over the course of ten days.

“Double XP Weekend: Extended is designed to be a lot more relaxing than before. This time you’re all going to be able to maximise every one of the precious Double XP hours but without the worry of cramming it all into a single weekend. Instead, Double XP Weekend: Extended will offer 36 hours of Double XP goodness but spread over the course of 10 days! That’s seven extra days!”

Simply log in after November 22 and you can use your 36 hours at your convenience, as long as it’s within ten days.

Old School RuneScape Launches Twisted League

Get those peppercorns out, because it’s time to grind.

Jagex today has released the latest game mode for Old School RuneScape in the form of the Twisted League. Twisted League is a temporary game mode that throws players on an ironman character and locks them to the land of Kourend and Kebos (main world not accessible). Ironman of course means no trading, no picking up others drops, and no auction house. To assist players in this temporary league, base experience is increased by 5x and shops will carry more items and restock at an accelerated rate.

So what is the point of the League? As you complete tasks you gain points that can be used to unlock powerful buffs from a relic such as infinite run energy. Cosmetic items can be unlocked in the main game based on your performance in the league, and future leagues will have exclusive worlds that can be visited based on your performance in prior leagues. Otherwise, it’s all about the prestige.

For more information on Twisted League, check out the official website.

Jagex Will Discuss RuneScape Monetization On November 5 Stream

RuneScape. Financially the game is in a fantastic position; back in May we discussed how Jagex had posted a 9.3% increase in overall revenue with subscription numbers at their highest ever in the game’s history thanks to the launch of Old School mobile.

But all has not been great on the western front. MMO Fallout has reported for several years on how RuneScape’s monetization efforts have been very successful, but also very polarizing in the community. Every couple of years, Jagex reaches out to try to pull on the brakes of the game’s heavy microtransactions and it looks like it’s time for another heart to heart. Community animosity has been high ever since a UK parliamentary report from September specifically called out the developer when discussing egregious microtransactions, pointing to one player who had spent more than $62,000 USD.

On November 5, several Jagex staff will host a stream discussing the future of microtransactions in RuneScape. Those of you placing bets should keep in mind that Jagex receives one third of its revenue from these microtransactions.

“Tune in at 5PM GMT on November 5th for a very important livestream. Mods Osborne, Warden and MIC will be on the couch discussing plans for the future of MTX in RuneScape.

Ask your questions in the Discord room, on the forums, or in the dedicated Reddit thread – or email Mod Warden directly at AskModWarden@jagex.com. Your opinion is important to us, especially when it comes to controversial topics like this one – so let us hear your thoughts!”

Source: RuneScape

RuneScape In Your Pants: Mobile Early Access Is Live

RuneScape mobile has entered early access on Android phones, allowing gamers their dream of finally carrying the MMO around in their pants. Users who take advantage of the early access will be gifted a mobile founder’s pack which contains a steel panther combat pet, a unique rest animation, and radiant dawn armor. Product director Jason Millena stated;

“Given RuneScape’s 18-year long heritage, in addition to being recognised by Guinness World Records for ‘The Most Prolifically Updated MMORPG Videogame’, to have the whole of RuneScape running on mobile is a massive achievement. We couldn’t be more excited to launch in Early Access and welcome those who know RuneScape the best – our members.”

You can get mobile early access here.

RuneScape and Old School Announce Updates At Runefest

This past weekend was Runefest and that means big updates coming for both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape.

First up the big news is that RuneScape is getting a new skill. Archaeology will see players digging up fossils and all sorts of relics and powerful objects that have been lost to time. Archaeology is set to hit in January 2020. Second up on the list is an update to player owned farms, bringing animal husbandry to the land out of time where players will be able to raise, trade, and breed dinosaurs. The ranch will be available by the end of the year. Third up is a series of questlines and lore set to hit RuneScape sometime in 2020.

RuneScape Mobile will go live for all members in early access for all members this year along with an overhauled interface to really put that phone to use.

Over on the Old School side, the Morytania expansion will see more of the vampire world being opened up to players including new quests and the ultimate showdown against the big baddie Lord Drakan himself. The Morytania expansion hits in early 2020. Before then, players will be able to take part in seasonal leagues starting in November 14. These temporary leagues will see players tackling ironman content on the continent of Zeah in return for rewards in the main game.

Phil Mansell, Jagex CEO, was quoted:

“Revealing and sharing our plans for future content is always exciting and this year’s keynotes brought blockbuster news, including our headline new Archaeology skill in RuneScape, Early Access coming to RuneScape Mobile, and Old School’s new Morytania Expansion. The announcements showcase our ongoing commitment to creating significant and meaningful content for RuneScape and Old School, and it was truly rewarding to see the reaction from our players in person and on the live stream.”

Source: Jagex press release

Runefest 2019: Jagex To Discuss New Skill (Archaeology) Today (10/5)

This weekend kicked off Runefest, Jagex’s festival to all things RuneScape. If you want to see some cosplay, buy some merch, and play RuneScape with other people who also enjoy RuneScape enough to fly to England and buy a ticket to a weekend convention, you’ve come to the right place.

Among the upcoming content to be discussed, Jagex threw down the gauntlet in the wee hours of the morning by announcing RuneScape’s next skill: Archaeology. The skill will be discussed more at 17:00 BST (16:00 game time, noon EST) at the RuneScape Twitch account. Tune in 10/5, that’s October 5 for those of you living in the states and May 10 for those living in Europe.

Check it out.

RuneScape: One Third Of Revenue Comes From Microtransactions

There is a lot to unpack from this week’s DCMS report, but gamers might be interested in a tidbit of information that came out about RuneScape’s revenue model. The DCMS inquiry had a major focus on immersion, addiction, and particularly people spending a lot of money on microtransactions. With Jagex being a UK-based developer, it was only a matter of time before RuneScape entered into the picture. And RuneScape gets its own section of the DCMS inquiry to show “even companies with good policies to support some aspects of player wellbeing can fall short in other areas.”

The notice was in response to concerned reports from the public about how easily large amounts of money can not only be spent, but are encouraged to be spent through in-game events and how RuneScape allows players to spend vast amounts of real world cash to skip over parts of the game’s content. In its response, Jagex’s Kevin Plomer stated that the game does technically have a cap on spending, and where exactly microtransactions line up in terms of overall revenue:

“Jagex told us that it generates about one-third of its revenue from microtransactions, with two-thirds coming from an alternative subscription model. The company’s director of player experience Kelvin Plomer told us that players “can potentially spend up to £1,000 a week or £5,000 a month” in RuneScape, but that only one player had hit that limit in the previous 12 months. The company’s reasoning for setting this limit seemed to stem from fraud prevention, rather than out of a duty of care to prevent people spending more than they are able.”

By contrast the inquiry notes that Epic has no cap at all on Fortnite however purchases are limited to store stock meaning a player can effectively spend $200 per day. Candy Crush maker King noted to the inquiry that they used to email players about their spending but halted the practice due to the negative response.

“we would send an e-mail out when a player’s spend was $250 in a week for the first time. It was an e-mail that said, “We notice you are enjoying the game a lot at the moment. Are you sure you are happy with this?” […] We got back, “I wouldn’t spend the money if I didn’t have it” and things like, “I’m fine, please leave me alone”. We felt it was too intrusive so we stopped doing that.”

The whole long read can be found at the UK Parliament website here.

Jagex Cancels Weapon Diversity Update, At Least For Now

Jagex today announced that they are cancelling the weapon diversity update, a project that had been in beta for the last month. The weapon diversity program was meant to differentiate weapons from one another on a more solid grounding, but the major impression was that the update just wasn’t transformative enough. Most changes were being made to weapon DPS which left players simply choosing the weapon with the most optimized damage.

In the end, we were unanimous as a team. The QA resource could be used on projects that we are currently working on (and planning to announce at Runefest), tightening them up and increasing our confidence in them. That came with a caveat: we still believed in the aims of Weapon Diversity, so we agreed that we would get our design team to design completely new utility benefits for weapons, which could be introduced over time rather than in one big clutch. For example, a quest might have a reward of a javelin; we would then take the opportunity to release a javelin effect to be rolled out for all javelins at the same time.

With their options being plough ahead, restart the project from scratch, or cancel it and focus on other major projects, Jagex chose to cancel. The good news is that while this project is dead, the spirit remains alive and is still being planned for the future.

Regardless of all of this, the aims of Weapon Diversity have not gone away: we still want to bring strategy back into weapon choice, and we believe that will make the gaining of weapon rewards so much more joyful.

Incidentally the weapon diversity beta ran alongside the bank rework update which was also temporarily cancelled only to be brought back, so those who had been looking forward to this update may not be completely disappointed.

Source: RuneScape