Tag: Runescape

Beta Perspective: RuneScape’s Mining/Smithing Beta


Mining & Smithing are widely regarded as extremely antiquated skills in RuneScape, as Jagex essentially filled out the skill without much future proofing. Both skills were released in 2001 and have received sporadic updates throughout the years to boost their usefulness, but it can hardly be argued that either skill has been left behind as the game has progressed. Requiring 85 mining (of the 99 skill cap) to mine Rune and 85-99 smithing to create its equipment made a lot more sense in 2001 when rune was the best armor in the game (which it still is for non-members) and rune was incredibly rare with two very slowly spawning nodes deep in the player-vs-player wilderness.

One thing that’s obvious about this planned update is that both skills are see a slowdown in production,

Mining appears to be going for predictability and ease of access. In current RuneScape, mining is essentially handled by dice roll, with every strike giving the chance to collect an ore based on your mining level, the level of the rock, and your quality of pickaxe. For most ores in the game, the rock depletes after one strike and you have to wait for it to refresh before it can be struck again.

Under the new system, instead of offering a chance with each strike, Jagex is going for predictability by introducing a timed slider which grants an ore once it fills up, its speed decided by your level, quality of pickaxe, and quality of ore. In addition, it looks like all of the ore will be moved over to a community, non-competitive style with ore nodes that do not deplete. While this does mean that it’ll be more possible to mine while not paying full attention, you’ll still want to check in every so often and click the ore to restore your stamina bar, which will slow down gathering as it depletes.

Smithing on the other hand appears to be going for slower production but more returns per creation, so you won’t be pumping out hundreds of swords per hour but the experience you receive per sword will be better than the system that currently exists. Right now smithing is a simple operation of clicking on an anvil with the ore in your inventory, selecting what you want to create, and pressing a button. The new system appears to be promoting creating less items by putting more emphasis on re-smithing what you’ve already created. Items can be upgraded six times up to “decorated,” at which the item can no longer be equipped but can be traded in for a lump sum of experience. According to Jagex staff’s in-game comments, upgrading is intended to be the fast, expensive method of training with leveling by creating items from scratch being the slow, cheap method.

Smithing anvils will be situated next to forges, and now you have to keep your metal heated in order to work it into shape (for realism). This translates into a heat meter that depletes as your creation meter progresses, meaning you’ll occasionally need to stop and reheat the metal before continuing. Right now this process is incredibly slow, but there are planned changes to make your heat last longer as you level up. Coal has also been replaced with a new luminite ore as an ingredient to smith adamant and rune armor, and the existing equipment has been condensed down to level 50 with new ores/armor filling in the remaining levels.

Finally, there is an idea of convenience that has been sorely missing from mining and smithing since its inception. Since both skills are built around the idea of mass production, a lot of the time is currently spent running with limited inventory (28 spaces plus some limited options for holding coal) running to and from the bank. With this rework, players will be given an ore bag which can drastically increase the amount of time you spend mining before having to go bank. The numbers will most likely change before launch, however during the beta I could fit about 200 tin ore (level 1) and 100 living ore (top level) into the bag. On the smithing side, you’ll be able to fill a universal hopper with ore and bars that can be accessed from any anvil, removing the need to go to and from the bank with a sack full of ore.

Looking at some of Jagex’s available design documents, the company is taking into account all of the potential issues that this rework will create, including possible threats toward the value of existing, non-craftable equipment.

I’m looking forward to how this new system will shake up a system that has more or less stayed the same for the last seventeen years.

MMOments: RuneScape and Aura Quality of Life


My first reaction to this week’s RuneScape update was “this may be the thing that gets me playing regularly again.”

If you asked me what my biggest gripe with RuneScape has been over the past four years, it’s the aura system. Auras are RuneScape’s temporary boons, they give bonuses to various parts of gameplay, and by golly are they a pain in the rear to keep track of. There are several dozen of them, and when they’re all given crazy names like “jack of all trades” or “Supremic Runic Accuracy,” managing a bank full of them, figuring out which you need to upgrade using loyalty points, and the best points to take them out is a nightmare.

Cue this week’s update, removing all of the auras from the bank and placing them in an easy to use, simple to manage interface. This system is about as close to perfect as you’re going to get, especially considering it can be accessed during combat and the interface allows you to easily extend and renew auras with vis wax. Functionally it lets people like me remember which auras we have, and keeps us engaged via a daily regimen of in-game tasks.

Old School RuneScape Launches Dragon Slayer II


Old School RuneScape is celebrating its fifth year with the revival of a classic in the form of Dragon Slayer II. The long awaited sequel to one of the first quests released for RuneScape, Dragon Slayer II is only for high level players that have completed a long list of requirements and are ready to go up against some challenging enemies. The quest also sees the launch of the Myths Guild, a questing guild only accessible to players with 200 quest points who complete the new Dragon Slayer quest.

While Dragon Quest II is for members only, free to play content related to the release is also out today in the form of a novice quest, the Corsair Curse, and the settlement Corsair Cove.

“More than 16 years after the original Dragon Slayer quest launched and gave players their toughest challenge, we’re giving them an even grander challenge to overcome with Dragon Slayer II, one of our most memorable adventures yet!” said Mathew Kemp, Senior Product Manager, Old School RuneScape. “2018 is a real milestone year for Old School RuneScape; in addition to celebrating our fifth anniversary next month, we’re of course looking forward to the launch of Old School on mobile platforms soon!”

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Santa’s Gone Missing In This Week’s RuneScape Update


This week’s RuneScape update introduces a new mini-quest, ‘The G-Nome Project,’ and sees players searching for none other than Santa himself who has none other than gone missing. The G-Nome Project continues a storyline first started in November where players assisted in the building of a clockwork boy. Now Santa has gone on a journey to turn him into a real boy.

In addition to this festive mini-quest, the holiday aura is now active in RuneScape, offering a 50% experience bonus as well as a cosmetic effect.

(Source: RuneScape Press Release)

Jagex Will Evaluate Employee/Clan Relationships


Jagex late last week responded via Reddit to recent allegations against a member of the staff. According to posts on the Old School RuneScape Reddit forum, players have accused one of Jagex’s employees of leaking insider information and giving unfair assistance to members of a clan that they just happened to be a part of. The clan itself has also been accused of using underhanded tactics in Old School’s Deadman Mode tournaments.

The announcement states that Jagex going forward will evaluate whether or not employees will be allowed to have direct involvement in competitive clans.

What is clear is that there’s more we can do to convince you of the integrity of the team, and to ease any fears of dishonesty. Firstly, we will be assessing whether or not direct involvement in any competitive clan is the right thing for an employee of Jagex. You all want a development team who play and enjoy Old School as much as you do, and whilst clans are integral to RuneScape, our participation within them is something we’ll have to review. We are committed to ensuring that no one player (or clan) is given any treatment that could be seen as preferential in any way.

(Source: Reddit)

Halloween Spooks Up RuneScape and Old School RuneScape This Week


Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is actually pretty far away. If you thought Halloween was over in RuneScape, you were severely mistaken. This week marks the release of two updates for RuneScape and its Old School counterpart, to conclude the Halloween festivities. Over on the RuneScape side of things, players will assist a ghost named Closure by hunting down helping ghosts into the afterlife.

Track down nine ghosts and help them cross to the other side, then collect their last moments in The Ghastly Grimoire in exchange for a ghost treat(containing a small XP lamp or star, a toffee apple or sugar skull and various bones and ashes), this year’s Hallowe’en emote (Ghost Story) and a Headless Rider cosmetic override.

The quest includes five ghost stories from members of the community.

Over at Old School RuneScape, players are already taking part in their event. Adventurers will be enlisted to assist the Grim Reaper and head down to Sapphire Lagoon to stop the hockey mask wearing villain Jonas. Players will get their hands on a spooky mask and new skin shade as well as previous years’ Halloween items.

(RuneScape, Old School)

RuneScape Launches Dimensions of the Damned: Competitive Survival


Today’s RuneScape update marks the introduction of Dimensions of the Damned, a 10 day competitive mode where players race to survive in a world overrun by zombies. As a purely player vs monster mode, Dimensions kits players out with capped stats and throws them into a post apocalyptic Gielinor, complete with the walking dead.

The goal here is to complete sessions which gave an hour to rack up points by killing zombies. Cosmetic rewards can be won by completing tasks (killing more zombies) but the ultimate goal is placement on the leaderboards. At the end of the event, the top 1,000 players will gain access to the finale, a last man standing mode with real world prizes (lifetime membership, collectibles, etc)

“We’ve played with the idea of survival modes in RuneScape in the past, most notably with our DarkScape experiment a couple of years ago, and they’ve proved popular. However, as a purely PvE survival game mode, Dimension of the Damned is quite unlike anything we’ve released before,” said Matt Casey, Senior Product Manager, RuneScape. “We’re really looking forward to seeing how tactics develop over the coming days as players try to reach the finale and compete to win an incredible set of prizes, but with only 1,000 places available in the endgame expect the competition to be stiff and full of rigor (mortis).”

Check out more on Dimensions of the Damned at the link below.

(Source: RuneScape)

Jagex Disqualifies Deadman Winner Over Cheating


The Autumn Deadman tournament survivor has been disqualified after it was discovered that they were cheating. In a post on the official website, Jagex discussed criticism surrounding the latest Deadman final regarding certain disqualifications. What isn’t in question, however, is that the latest winner was cheating by using a bot farm to boost their account.

The last survivor of the final has been disqualified. A standard subsequent investigation into the winner of the tournament took place and the winner was responsible for the creation of a bot farm. Naturally all accounts linked to this botting activity have now been banned. This then raises the question of what to do with the prize money. At the moment we’re discussing what to do with it. A few ideas we have at the moment are another charitable donation, dispersing the money among the finalists, or carrying it over to the next season (or a combination of all of these).

In the same post, Jagex has promised to provide guides for players to avoid DDoS attacks which have become more common in Deadman mode, as well as tackling issues of cheating that naturally crop up in an event where $10,000+ of real money is on the line.

Deadman is a hardcore mode for Old School RuneScape that trades higher experience rates for open pvp and higher loot risk on death. Deadman Seasonal is a time-limited event where players race to level their accounts, with the 2,000 highest level players going on to a last man standing tournament, with the winner taking home $10,000 in prizes. The latest Deadman Seasonal tournament ended at Runefest 2017 this month.

(Source: RuneScape)

Jagex Lays Out the Future Of RuneScape/Old School


RuneFest 2017 at Battersea Evolution – David Portass/iEventMedia

Runefest has come and gone, and Jagex has laid out the plans for the next year of content in both variations of their popular MMORPG.

Attendees were able to get their hands on RuneScape mobile to test the game out this weekend. While compatibility information will be rolling out within the next couple of months, Old School RuneScape is expected to hit mobile devices this winter with RuneScape 3 coming in 2018. On a more current front, RuneScape 3 will be seeing a PvE update in October called Dimension of the Damned. Adventurers will travel to another dimension where all of RuneScape has died, and battle a zombie hoard in return for unique cosmetics, achievements, and other rewards.

The entire list of RuneScape updates coming is massive, and since the game updates weekly this just covers some of the major stuff.

“Every year it gets more and more difficult to top the previous RuneFest, but I think with 2017’s convention we’ve managed to do it. We were thrilled to see so many of our hardcore players try out both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape on mobile devices for the very first time, as well as experience the tension of a Deadman Invitational live at RuneFest,” said Mark Ogilvie, Design Director, RuneScape. “Exciting new content, together with new ways to play, will delight and entice players to the world of Gielinor like never before, and in addition to our millions of active players we’ll be here ready to welcome our old friends back from being ‘AFK’.”

Over on the Old School side, players can expect to see a new 5-man raid called Theatre of Blood coming in June 2018. For questers, January 2018 will see the launch of Dragon Slayer II, a brand new Grandmaster quest. The fall Deadman tournament came to a close with one player (5PLUS50K12) walking away with the grand total of twenty thousand dollars. An additional ten grand was donated to Make a Wish by the winners of the team Deadman tournament, #TeamLUL.

The livestream of upcoming Old School updates can be found below.

 

Fossil Island Comes To Old School RuneScape


Old School RuneScape this week saw the launch of Fossil Island, a new batch of content for the retro RuneScape. Fossil Island opens up a ton of new content, including the much awaited launch of skeletal wyverns. You can collect fossils, take part in one of several new skilling locations, and uncover new artifacts to fill the expanded Varrok museum.

“Fossil Island has been something of a myth in RuneScape and the community for a long time,” said Mathew Kemp, senior product manager, Old School RuneScape. “The first design documents were drafted more than a decade ago, so we were really pleased the Old School RuneScape community voted so overwhelmingly and backed its development and release into the game.”

More on the update can be found at the link below.

(Source: RuneScape)