Jagex Highlights Runefest Revelations


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Runefest has come and gone with attendees getting the chance to meet the developers, participate in activities, and test out upcoming updates. Jagex has sent us over a list of some big reveals from Runefest, including the name of the next skill, the 200th quest, world events, and more. Check out the list below:

  • The Invention Skill, which is a partner to the recently launched Divination skill and represents a technological leap forward within the game.  This skill will allow players create their own gear and “soul weapons” which can be leveled up to increase their power as players progress through the game.
  • The RuneScape Community App, which will allow players to chat and access the Grand Exchange, RuneScape’s trading system, through their mobile devices.
  • A preview of the 2nd World Event which has been confirmed to involve the two gods Armadyl and Bandos, who will be travelling across the world map trying to gain followers and influence.  Players will also be able to opt into innovative open world PVP.
  • Upgraded matchmaking which will allow players to easily find other player who are interested in playing specific social content, allowing them put together teams easily without interrupting their gameplay.
  • Players were shown a glimpse of two new quests – The 200th quest which will focus on the Elves and a new Master quest featuring the return of Zaros.
  •  “The Church of YOU” – Over the past decade players have been central to all RuneScape content and are the world guardians, now they can start to amass their own followers to worship their in-game achievements.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

[Community] RuneScape Prestige Mode Rejected


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How violently can a person say no? RuneScape is a grinder’s game, there are over twenty five skills all of which require more than thirteen million experience in order to hit level 99, and one which goes further up to level 120. As far as even MMOs go, RuneScape takes a long time to hit high levels, and involves a lot of very tedious grinding. So I can’t imagine why someone at Jagex thought that prestige would be an appropriate suggestion to spitball to the community. The idea is simple, if you’ve played games like Modern Warfare 2. You prestige by resetting your level to one and starting all over again, but you do so with a cosmetic effect. For RuneScape, each prestige would increase the experience required to hit end-game by 100%, so 26 million experience to reach 99 a second time, etc.

The idea was put up to a vote and was summarily rejected, with 61% of 28,594 voting no. Since the requirement for implementation was 75% of the vote, prestige has been canned for now with the possibility of being reworked and sent back up for a vote in the future.

MMOrning Shots: Claymation


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Whenever I look at Jagex’s screenshots and video for RuneScape, it always feels like I’m looking at a clay diorama. Today’s MMOrning Shot is a snapshot from RuneScape’s latest Behind The Scenes video, showing off one of the game’s distractions and diversions, the fishing contest.

 

MMOments: Slow And Steady Rebuilds Lumbridge


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The Battle for Lumbridge was the first world event in RuneScape, taking place from July to the end of September, and pitting Saradomin Vs Zamorak in a massive battle of heavy resource grinding. In addition to helping out their chosen god, players aided the Duke of Lumbridge in deciding how to rebuild the village. The battle is over now and the combatants have left the field, leaving Lumbridge to build itself up from the ground.

Considering that the Lumbridge Rebuildathon is a daily event that you can finish in less than ten minutes, I didn’t think I would find it as engaging as I have. Not for the game itself, which involves picking up inventories of debris and putting them in a stack, but watching the area slowly transform as players complete tasks. Buildings are slowly being rebuilt and the battlefield cleaned of barricades, tents, and buildings. There is a feeling that your work is actually contributing, an improvement over the Battle of Lumbridge’s divine tear gathering.

And there are experience rewards.

Turn Your RuneScape Wealth Into Charity Donations


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Here at MMO Fallout, we love charities so much that we’ve tried to turn it into a competition. In the case of RuneScape, what better way could there be to encourage donations than to not require any real money at all? With today’s update to RuneScape, Jagex has introduced the Well of Goodwill, where players can take their surplus gold and items and donate them to charity. What would a sick kid do with an iron sword? I have no idea, but that isn’t how the charity works. For every ten million in gold and valued items donated, one real dollar will be donated to charity.

Over the years we’ve privately supported a number of good causes and we thought this time round not only should we try include the community but also focus our efforts towards supporting a number of charities who efficiently and directly support disadvantaged, terminally ill or at-risk young people. While no doubt our list of charities will grow over time, we would like start with a few close to our own heart:

The list of charities include Willow, SpecialEffect, Action For Kids, GamesAid, and Internet Watch Foundation, with more to be added in the future.

(Source: RuneScape)

RuneScape Bonds Eradicate Gold Farming


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In September, Jagex introduced bonds, an item that players could buy with real money and either trade to other players for gold or redeem for membership, spins, and runecoins. In a press release sent out today, Jagex has revealed that since bonds have been introduced, the amount of illegal gold being injected into the economy has dropped 81% by their own metrics.

“While we anticipated that the launch of Bonds would impact the flow of illegal wealth into the game, we are thrilled the initiative has resulted in such a strong and immediate impact. This action lays the foundations for RuneScape to continue going from strength to strength in its second successful decade!”

RuneScape has historically had a large problem with gold farming and bots, due to the ease of access to the client and grind-focused nature of the game. Bonds are just another step in an ongoing process to rid the game of gold farmers.

(Source: Jagex press release)

Jagex Introduces PLEX, RuneScape Bonds


Jagex has introduced the idea of PLEX to RuneScape in the form of bonds. Bonds, like PLEX, are tradeable items that are purchased from Jagex and can be traded to other players through the in-game auction house or face to face, to then be exchanged for in-game goodies. As a measure to stop gold farming, which Jagex believes involves 40-50% of the active player base each month, the bonds can then be redeemed by the buyer for membership (14 days), spins (8), or RuneCoins (160) for the cash shop. Not a great deal at face value, but the goal is that the buyer does not pay real money, and the person who did initially buy the bond is receiving gold from the buyer.

Bonds cost $5 USD.

RuneScape: Divination Skill Impressions


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Divination is the latest skill to be released in RuneScape, and it is certainly interesting. The premise of the skill is that after the god Guthix is assassinated, the resulting fallout caused immense damage to the world in which the game takes place. Guthix’s life energy dispersed in the form of wisps, a combination of divine energy and memories. The divine energy is the force that once protected the world of Gielinor, but was shattered and sent raining down from the heavens upon Guthix’s death. By harvesting wisps for their divine energy and memories and return them to various craters located around the world, in the hope that this will heal the damaged planet.

It’s important to remember that Divination is a gathering skill, not unlike Fishing, Woodcutting, Mining, etc. With that knowledge, training Divination is a slow trudge through a seemingly endless bog of grind. You start out at level one with the basic wisps, and every ten levels you leave your current spot and make your way to the next tier of wisps. An oversimplification? Yes, but if you play RuneScape then you already know that this is generally how gathering skills work, except Divination doesn’t give you the piles of items to sell off at the end of the day.

As a gathering skill, Divination is meant to complement other skills. Fishing gives resources to cooking, mining to smithing, farming to herblore, etc. Divine energy can be weaved into portents and signs, powerful items that are carried in the inventory and activated automatically. These items offer benefits including automatic healing once your health drops below half, the ability to save more items upon death, increased gravestone timers, resurrection on the spot, automatic banking of items collected, and more.

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Divine Locations are one of Divination’s odder creations. Locations are essentially skill hotspots that are weaved and placed down, allowing anyone around to harvest before it disappears (generally after 30 seconds). The lesson to take home is sharing is caring, and Divination rewards plopping down your divine location in a crowded area by just handing you resources as other players harvest them. The downside to divine locations is that only one can be put down per day, and you can only harvest a limited amount of those created by other players.

And finally, players have access as they level up to abilities that allow them to “upgrade” resources of lower level to those of higher level. While it sounds cool to convert three coal into a mithril ore, or two trout into a tuna, the RuneScape Wiki shows that you’d be better off just selling the resources and buying the higher material at a profit.

Ultimately, Divination is a means to an end. Divine energy can be traded to other players at the benefit/cost of experience gain. Many signs and portents can be traded, but odds are most of your divine energy is better spent boosting your experience gain towards the next tier of wisps.

RuneScape Launches Death of Chivalry


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With the launch of RuneScape 3, Jagex has thrown the world of Gielinor into turmoil. The Gods are returning and they all want a piece of the dead god Guthix’s power. Today’s update introduces the quest Death of Chivalry, the first quest to be fully set in the new evolving story. Players will team up with the White Knights under orders from the god Saradomin himself to infiltrate the Black Knight’s headquarters and uncover a mysterious artefact to aid in the ongoing battle between the multiple gods and their followers.

According to a press release sent out by Jagex, players will need to be careful in the decisions made during the quest as their impact will be felt “far and wide.” The quest will be available for everyone, including non-subscribers, and while it is designed for players of all levels, those with higher combat skills will be happy to know that the quest scales its difficulty to the player. Death of Chivalry goes live later today.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Jagex Ignoring Permanent Ban Appeals


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No system is perfect, which is why companies institute checks and balances to ensure that people are not unfairly punished. In the case of Jagex, the company is pretty confident that if you’ve been permanently banned, there’s nothing more to talk about. According to the company’s account FAQ, appeals for permanent bans are not being looked at.

If your account is currently permanently banned, we deem the offence serious enough to permanently remove the account from our game. At the moment, we are not reviewing these bans and if this changes, you will be notified.

If it is any consolation, the player who sent us this tip noted that it the rule isn’t exactly being enforced and there are some false positives being restored.

(Source: RuneScape Wiki)