Tombs of Amascut & Nex Rewards Beta - Weekly Game Update (October 20th)
This week we’re launching the Tombs of Amascut and Nex Rewards Beta, where you’ll get to try out some of the newest items coming to the game. In other exciting news, this year’s Halloween event is in full swing over in Varrock Square, and we’ve got some new client features to talk about!
Tombs of Amascut & Nex Rewards Beta
2022 will see you battling through the Tombs of Amascut and facing off against Nex in the God Wars Dungeon, but before then, we’d like to give you the chance to try the items you’ll be chasing when these two pieces of content drop!
Enter one of the following Beta worlds to get to grips with the upcoming gear:
World 401 - US East
World 405 - EU
World 408 - UK
World 409 - US West
World 412 - Australia
There are loads of unique items available, so don’t miss this opportunity to give them a try!
One more thing – since the item designs are still being worked on, we’ve given them a rather fetching magenta paintjob. They probably won’t look like that on release. Probably.
Now, let’s take a look at these shiny new items and see where they could be used!
Nex Rewards
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Ancient Godsword
An iconic Melee weapon requiring 75 Attack to wield. As with the other Godswords, the actual drop is the hilt, and you’ll need to attach it in the usual way.
The Ancient Godsword has a special attack, Blood Sacrifice, that costs 50% energy. It targets a single individual with double the usual accuracy! If it hits, it deals a normal hit with 10% extra damage. In addition, an eight-cycle timer starts. If the target does not move more than five tiles away before the timer ends, they'll be hit for 20 damage and the attacker will be healed for the same amount.
With what’s effectively a 20 minimum hit and heal, this weapon is super-reliable, with some nice PvP combo potential, too.
Zaryte Bow
Requiring 80 Ranged, this tradeable, non-degrading bow can fire all arrows up to Dragon.
It also has a special effect that uses charges. In multiway areas, an additional target stood within two tiles of the main target will also take damage. This doesn't use an additional arrow, and only uses a single charge.
To recharge the Bow you’ll need to collect Nihil Shards from foes in the prison (including Nex herself!). Please note that only full Shards can be used – crushed shards (Nihil Dust) won’t work.
This bow effectively replaces Black Chinchompas when attacking 2-3 targets. Chinchompas can only hit targets in a 3x3 area, but this bow can reach targets an additional tile away in each direction – and it has better DPS, too.
The Zaryte Bow will make certain activities, such as gathering Ecumenical Keys, completing Slayer tasks, and defeating certain Raid Rooms, significantly faster.
Zaryte Vambraces
A piece of Ranged Armour requiring 80 Ranged and 50 Defence. The Zaryte Vambraces are tradeable and do not degrade.
As you know, the Vambraces will bolster the impact of your Zaryte Bow, and they have some powerful stats of their own, surpassing barrows gloves as the best in slot for ranged.
Virtus Armour
Virtus Armour is a Magic armour set consisting of a Mask, Top and Legs – all requiring 75 Defence and 80 Magic. All three pieces are tradeable and do not degrade.
Each item gives a 3% damage increase to all Ancient spells, for a maximum of 9% if all three are worn. Plus, if you’re wearing the whole set, smoke spells reduce healing by 30% while the target is poisoned, and shadow spells also drain Strength, Ranged, Magic and Defence as well as Attack.
Wear all three and Blood spells can heal up to 20% over the player's max HP, while Ice spells have 10% additional accuracy against frozen targets. It’s the armour set of choice if you’re an Ancient Spellbook fan!
We expect this armour set to usurp Ancestral Robes when a player is mainly focused on Ancient spells. The set bonus’ effect on shadow spells is particularly powerful, with the potential to significantly nerf the defence and offence stats of a monster with a single cast.
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Tombs of Amascut Rewards
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Masori Equipment
The Masori equipment consists of a Helm, Chest, Legs, and Amulet, all of which require 80 Ranged, 30 Defence and 70 Hitpoints to equip.
This armour set will be the very first pieces of equipment in the game to utilise Low Life, a new condition which applies when players are below 40% of their maximum health. When the player enters a state of Low Life and has the Masori Helm, Chest and Legs equipped, the equipment set will gain additional accuracy and ranged strength for as long as you remain in Low Life.
In addition to the stat bonus offered when in a state of Low Life, the set bonus also provides players with bonus dodge chance. Dodge is a stat that lets the player have a chance to completely avoid all damage from most sources. Some attacks, such as TzKal-Zuk’s ball attack or dragonfire cannot be dodged, but normal Magic, Ranged and Melee attacks can be.
The Masori Amulet has an additional passive effect. When you have it equipped, and you’re not affected by Low Life, you'll take damage equivalent to 15% of your current health at a rate of every three game cycles.
For any content where being 39 HP isn’t putting you at risk of dying in one hit, this is the new best in slot Ranged armour, yielding significant additional range attack and strength over Armadyl Armour, with lower defence.
We’ve addressed your feedback that the trade-off didn’t seem worth it by increasing the base defence of the armour set and adding the new dodge stat while on Low Life. This is a thematic way of reducing the overall damage players take, without lowering the KO potential of the content the set is best suited to.
Most endgame bosses don’t deal high amounts of unavoidable damage – these situations are where the Masori Armour really shines. For example, Vespula’s room in Chambers of Xeric is a great example of a safe place to reap the benefits of this set!
Heka of Tumeken and the Ward of Elidinis
The Heka of Tumeken is a wand-like magical weapon. Equipping the Heka will require 85 Magic. It has a built-in spell with charges which will need to be replenished, using one Soul Rune and three Chaos Runes per charge.
The Heka has an attack rate of two ticks. Every fourth hit the Heka will fire a stronger attack which deals significantly more damage, albeit with a longer delay after the attack. We know that weapons with fast attack speeds scale harder with additional bonuses, like the Toxic Blowpipe. To offset this and to help make the Heka scale more similarly to other magic weapons, the standard faster attacks will only benefit from 50% of your Magic strength.
The slower fourth hit will be much stronger, benefitting from 150% of your Magic strength bonus. Its attack range will be shorter than other staves too, with it being six rather than seven. Casting with the ‘long range’ setting will boost it to eight.
The Heka's raw dps greatly surpasses that of the Sanguinesti Staff, with the additional utility a fast attacking weapon has over slower counterparts, with the only downside is that it has no self-healing capabilities.
For the min-max savvy players out there who like calculations, the following formulas should help with any theory crafting you'd like to put together:
Standard fast attacks scale based on '(Magic Level / 6) + 2' for the base max hit.
The slower fourth attack scales based on '(Magic Level - 25) / 2' for the base max hit.
After this is calculated, any Magic strength from other sources is then applied.
The Ward of Elidinis will be the new best-in-slot magical shield. Players will get the Broken Ward as a rare drop from the Tombs of Amascut. With 90 Prayer and 90 Smithing you'll be able to combine the Broken Ward with an Arcane Sigil and 10,000 Soul Runes to repair it. Players without those stats will be able to pay Abbot Langley of the Edgeville Monastery 20,000,000 GP to create it for them.
Equipping the Ward will require 80 Magic, 80 Defence, and 80 Prayer. The broken Ward will be tradeable, but once fixed it will become untradeable. Players can dismantle the Ward to recover the Sigil and the Ward, but the runes will be lost. Dying in PvP will result in the Sigil and the Broken Ward being dropped.
Both the broken and fully repaired Wards can be equipped.
Lightbearer
The Lightbearer is a ring with no Attack, Defence, or other bonuses. It does, however, have a very unique effect. When equipped, your special attack energy will regenerate 100% faster - approximately 15 seconds per 10%, or 150 seconds per 100%. Unequipping the ring will cause the timer to reset.
This unique ring may not compete with the Berserker Ring when it comes to keeping up a barrage of attacks, but in content with downtime, or heavy use of other combat styles, we expect Lightbearer to get a lot of use.
Osmumten's Fang
Osmumten's Fang is primarily a stab melee weapon that boasts accuracy comparable to the Elder Maul, and an Attack Speed of 5. Equipping the Fang will require 82 Attack. We expect its damage-per-second output to be comparable with Rapier-tier weapons on opponents with low Defence, with much greater damage-per-second output on opponents with higher Defence.
We'd like to introduce a new unique mechanic for the Fang. Other weapons will roll '0 - max hit'. the Fang will roll '(max hit * 0.15) - (max hit - (max hit * 0.15))'. For example, if the max hit is 60, the Fang would roll between 9-51. This makes it a very consistent weapon which excels against high Defence targets.
The Fang also has a special attack which increases its max hit to its true max hit for one attack, as well as boosting its accuracy by an additional 50%. This means that if its max hit was 60, it would roll 9-60. This special attack will cost 50% special attack energy to use.
Keris Partisan
In addition to its Stab attack styles, the Partisan will have a Crush attack style, which should prove useful during the Tombs of Amascut and against beetle-like enemies such as the Kalphite Queen.
Although the Keris Partisan is a spear-like weapon, it acts differently from normal spears. The main difference is its Aggressive attack style that allows players to focus their combat experience on Strength. Equipping the Partisan will require 70 Attack.
You are also able to insert special jewels into the Partisan. These jewels are obtained as rare rewards from the Tombs of Amascut inserting them will bestow different effects upon the weapon. Only one jewel can be equipped at a time, and they will not be tradeable.
Here’s a look at a few jewel buffs we're considering. Note that the effects apply only during the Tombs of Amascut raid:
The Eye of the Corrupter adds a damage-over-time effect to attacked enemies. You won't be able to stack this effect multiple times onto a single NPC but you will be able to apply it to multiple NPCs at any one time.
The Jewel of the Sun applies a debuff to attacked NPCs which causes them to take higher damage for a sustained period of time.
The Breach of the Scarab adds a 33% accuracy buff against Kalphites, Scarabs and Beetles.
Your feedback is key to this content, so jump in game, give it a go, and let us know what you think about the current versions of the rewards.
New Client Features: Milestone Three
We're back with our third round of new features for the Steam Client! This week’s batch focuses on skilling helpers and introduces the Side Panel.
As a reminder, these features can currently only be used on the C++ client through Steam – and the team is still hard at work on bringing these features to Mobile, which you can see a preview of in the most recent Gielinor Gazette. Keep your eyes on our socials for updates as the project develops.
XP Tracker
The Side Panel is here! This will be the foundation of multiple upcoming additions to the Steam Client, including a range of different helpers and extra features that will greatly improve your Old School experience.
For now, we’re introducing just one: the XP Tracker.
This feature automatically tracks your XP gains. When you gain XP, the relevant skill will be displayed in the Side Panel with the following information:
Skill XP Gained
Skill XP Per Hour
Total XP Gained
Total XP Per Hour
Total Remaining XP to Next Level
Actions Remaining to Next Level
Progress Bar
Each individual skill can be paused and reset if you want to track specific actions. You can also reset the whole thing if you want a clean slate.
If the XP Tracker is turned on the Side Panel menu will appear at the edge of the game window, regardless of whether the Side Panel is fully open. Pressing one of the icons will expand the panel and provide extra details.
To remove the Side Panel altogether, you’ll need to turn the XP Tracker off. When we introduce more Side Panel features, you’ll need to turn all of those off, too.
Woodcutting Helper
Respawn timers will now appear on chopped trees in the game world. The timer can be set to always on, always off, or on when carrying a usable axe. The last option is the default.
Respawn timers will only appear if you were in interaction range of the tree when it was fully depleted.
In other news, you’ll now get desktop notifications when Bird Nests are dropped.
Ore Respawn Timer
Respawn timers will also show up on depleted ore veins. Again, the timer can be set to always on, always off, or on while carrying a usable pickaxe – which is the default option. These respawn timers will only show up if you were within the interaction range of the vein when it was depleted.
Slayer Helper
This new infobox contains everything you need to know about your current Slayer Task! It’ll display the name of your current task, the amount of creatures you have to slay, the designated area (if applicable) and your current Slayer streak.
Logout Notifier
Tired of being kicked out while you’re trying to catch some Monkfish at work? Worry no more! You’ll now receive a desktop notification whenever you’re about to be logged out for inactivity. This feature is toggleable and is turned on by default.
Other Changes
Entities will now be highlighted so you know what you’re about to click on. This feature is toggleable and is turned off by default.
Tooltips have been added to the timers on the Modified Stats overlay, giving extra insight into what they represent.
When you are inflicted by poison or venom, the Buff Bar will now display the current damage value.
The Ammo Bar will now tell you how many shots you have remaining in your Blowpipe, rather than how many Scales and Darts you have.
Timestamps will now match the rest of the text after changing the colour of Private Chat.
Let us know what you think of the new features, and the Steam Client in general, via the in-game prompt or on our social channels!
Halloween Event 2021
What is that? A disturbance near Edgeville? A protest in Varrock? The monks are out in force, Oziach is flexing his cash, an old lady in a rocking chair wants an adventure, Death thinks he is the spookiest (is he?), trees need climbing, Brother Jered needs to drink less wine – what does it all mean?!
To make sense of this Halloween mystery, you’ll need to head to Varrock Square and talk to the protesters. Be sure to bring your scariest faces and spookiest noises – and it wouldn’t hurt to be good at climbing trees.
This year’s Halloween event is the first project brought to you by Mod Havik based on a concept by Mod Peppers. Here's some words from Mod Havik:
Hi guys!
I joined the team a few months ago, and this is my first project going out into the wild - scary! But it is Halloween, so I suppose that's par for the course. It's been great fun making it. I've learned a lot and met a lot of great people on the team. Working on RuneScape (now Old School!) is a little dream I've always had in the back of my mind, but it was always just that... a little ‘wouldn't that be cool’ thought. Yet here I am! It still hasn't quite sunk in, but I think it will do once the event goes live.
I hope you guys enjoy it, there are some fun rewards! But I won't give anything away about them, you'll have to go and find out for yourself.
I'm incredibly honoured to be creating content for a game (and community!) that has played such a big part in my life, and I'm looking forward to making lots more cool stuff for you all in the future. Happy Halloween!
Mod Havik
Other Changes
The Asp and Snake Bar in Pollnivneach will now offer different stock options for different account types.
The pop-up to confirm closing the Group Storage interface for Group Iron Players will now display at the correct size when an item is withdrawn at the same time.
Group Storage will no longer reject banknotes when all its slots are full, provided the banknotes in question are for items already in storage.
Clues, Mutagens, and first Infernal Capes are now broadcast to Clan Chat.
Players will now be able to kill NPCs in their first spawn cycle.
The Jungle Demon in the final battle of Monkey Madness now drops the correct ashes.
Iron players can now pick up the bird snare and fishing net spawns on the Isle of Souls.
‘The Forests of Shayzien’ will now play instead of ‘Rugged Terrain’ while wandering around Shayzien.
All Player and NPC healing has been centralised, as an added bonus of this, various NPCs with healing mechanics will now have healing hitsplats to indicate it.
PvP World Rota
The PvP rota has moved to Period A:
539 - (US) - PvP World
548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive
390 - (AUS) - LMS Competitive - world becomes active with this rota.
RuneScape: The First 20 Years
A new sneak peek!
The anniversary book, RuneScape: The First 20 Years, is waiting to be shipped all over the world - but if you can't wait, ScreenRant have released these preview pages for you to get a good look at.
Drumroll please...
For more information about where to get your hands on a copy, check out this newspost.
That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, the Steam forums or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.
We’re taking things to the Nex level – well, an old level, technically – with the return of Nex! This fearsome boss was originally released in January 2011, and 10 years later we’re bringing you a new encounter with this ancient adversary of the Second Age.
Dwelling in the Ancient Prison beneath the God Wars Dungeon, Nex can only be accessed once you complete the Desert Treasure quest (and a small miniquest) to open the Frozen Door. Once inside the Prison, players must crush through a formidable army before reaching Nex herself.
You can take on the boss in groups of up to 80 players, and defeating her gives you all a chance to obtain some highly valuable rewards – including an iconic armour set!
This is a work in progress image, and not final.
So, what’s this Nex business all about then? Let’s refresh our collective memory...
Lore
In the Second Age, Nex was one of the closest followers of an ancient god. Following the defeat of this ancient god and the dawn of the God Wars, Nex was among many imprisoned by the forces of Saradomin.
Years later, a mysterious individual fooled a group of Saradominists into freeing Nex and her allies. Thankfully, the armies of Saradomin, Zamorak, Aramdyl and Bandos joined forces to successfully drive them back into their prison, but the magical protections that contained them were damaged in the process.
As such, Nex’s prison is somewhat… vulnerable. And while officially the followers of her old master are all but gone from Gielinor, there are still a few nefarious types out there who would be happy to see Nex freed once more.
Behind The Frozen Door
To reach Nex, players must first gain access to the Ancient Prison by unlocking the Frozen Door in the God Wars Dungeon. This iced-up access point has actually existed since the Dungeon was launched, but has remained sealed – until now!
To open the door, players will need to complete a miniquest which begins after completing the Desert Treasure quest. A messenger will approach with a letter from a mysterious individual...
Note: the messenger will spawn shortly after Desert Treasure is completed. If you’ve already finished that quest, they’ll appear shortly after you log-in.
The Ancient Prison
Once inside the Prison, you’ll be met by Ashuelot Reis, a follower of Guthix who has dedicated herself to the unenviable task of keeping Nex contained. She'll give your group a brief overview of the Prison complex before asking you all to join her outside Nex's chamber.
Within the Prison, you’ll can take on four new foes from Nex’s army: Spiritual Warriors, Spiritual Rangers, Spiritual Mages and Blood Reavers. As with the rest of the God Wars Dungeon, defeating these nasties adds to your Ancient Essence count (with some yielding more Essence than others). Players need an Essence count of 40 to finally enter the boss's chamber.
However, this being God Wars Dungeon, you can bypass this requirement with an Ecumenical Key. Plus, the required Essence count is lowered by completing Combat Achievement tiers.
Your Essence count is shown on the Kill Count interface, but it’s hidden until the player has unlocked the Frozen Door. Once you’ve reached (or bypassed) the required Essence, the door opens, and you’re into the outer room of Nex's chamber. We don’t want to reveal too much about the encounter, but let’s just say it’s going to test you!
For those of you already familiar with the encounter in RuneScape, Nex in Old School is largely based on the 2011 boss fight with some modifications and balancing tweaks to fit Old School.
Players who have completed the Hard tier of Combat Achievements can purchase a private instance, but it’s unlikely you’ll want to take on Nex solo – she’s quite the formidable foe. The cost of this instance starts at 150,000 coins, and goes down as you complete higher Combat Achievement tiers.
Rewards
Defeating Nex equals juicy rewards! These are shared across all players who contribute enough, with higher performing players bagging more loot. The MVP of the kill will also rake in a little extra swag.
All contributing players have a chance of obtaining a unique item. This chance scales based on individual contribution, with a bonus chance for the MVP.
A player’s individual contribution is wiped when they leave the area, but this doesn't impact the contribution of other players. For example, if two players have both made 50% contribution and one of them leaves, the other player remains on 50%.
Nex’s uniques are all new rewards, and they will all be added to the Collection Log. In addition, the usual pet drop will also be added.
So, what are you getting for your blood, sweat and tears? Let’s take a look…
The following rewards will be available to test in an upcoming in-game beta on October 20th! Full details on how to access the beta server will be included in next week's game update newspost when the Beta is live.
Ancient Godsword
A Melee weapon requiring 75 Attack to wield. The drop is the hilt, and it must be attached in the usual way. The hilt and sword are both tradeable.
The Ancient Godsword has a special attack, Blood Sacrifice, that costs 50% energy. It targets a single individual with double the usual accuracy! If it hits, it deals a normal hit with 10% extra damage. In addition, a six-cycle timer starts. If the target does not move more than five tiles away before the timer ends, they'll be hit for 20 damage and the attacker will be healed for the same amount.
Zaryte Bow
Requiring 80 Ranged, this tradeable, non-degrading bow can fire all arrows up to Dragon. It also has a special effect that uses charges. In multiway areas, an additional target stood within two tiles of the main target is also hit. This doesn't use an additional arrow, and only uses a single charge. The Zaryte Bow can be recharged using Nihil Shards which are dropped by all foes in the prison (including Nex).
Oh, one more thing: if the Zaryte Vambraces (see below) are worn, up to two addition targets are hit. This still only uses a single charge!
We'd also like to share some further images to help illustrate how the Zaryte Bow might affect the current ranged meta. Check out the images below: the first shows the Zaryte Bow's DPS on single targets in comparison to other popular Ranged Weapons. The second image shows DPS calculations when we take into account the DPS on multiple targets, relating to the Zaryte Bow's special effect.
Graph showing DPS calculations from the Zaryte Bow on single targets
Graph showing DPS calculations from the Zaryte Bow on multiple targets
The Zaryte bow would be the best-in-slot ranged weapon for hitting 2-3 targets. It surpasses Chinchompas for this specific amount, however, Chinchompas will still remain the best-in-slot weapon for 4-11 targets. It has a considerable attack range and quick attack speed, so it should feel quite different than other ranged weapons.
Zaryte Vambraces
A piece of Ranged Armour requiring 80 Ranged and 50 Defence, the Vambraces are tradeable and do not degrade. See above for the details on how they bolster the impact of your Zaryte Bow.
Virtus Armour
Many of you will remember that back in 2011, Nex came with two additional armour sets as well as the Virtus set. We're not opposed to re-introducing these (we feel that Torva could be a particularly good addition to the game), and people have suggested maintaining the price of existing God Wars Dungeon items by combining them with loot from Nex. However, we don't want too many armour sets arriving in a single piece of content, and the Virtus set doesn't exactly have God Wars Dungeon items that would be relevant for combining. Instead, we'd like to offer more armour rewards later in 2022 alongside content themed around a certain ancient god... We hope to update you on some item sink ideas we're exploring in a blog later this year.
Virtus is a Magic Armour set consisting of the Mask, Top and Legs – all requiring 75 Defence and 80 Magic. All three pieces are tradeable and do not degrade.
Each item gives a 3% damage increase to all ancient spells (so 9% if all three are worn). Plus, if you’re wearing the whole set, Smoke spells reduce healing by 30% while the target is poisoned, and Shadow spells also drain Strength, Ranged, Magic and Defence as well as Attack.
Additionally, wear all three and Blood spells can heal up to 20% over the player's max HP, while Ice spells have 10% additional accuracy against frozen targets!
Nihil Shards
These consumables are dropped by all foes in the Ancient Prison – including Nex. They can be used to charge the Zaryte Bow, or they can be crushed to make Nihil dust, which is a secondary ingredient in new Ancient Brew potions.
An Ancient Brew is a combination of Nihil dust and a Dwarf Weed potion, and requires 85 Herblore to make, giving 190 Herblore XP. When drunk, this primordial concoction boosts Magic by 5% +2 and restores Prayer by 10% +2 with the ability to boost up to 5% over the player’s base Prayer level. However, it also drains Attack, Strength and Defence by 10% +2, so think before you drink.
Blood Essence
If a player creates a Blood Rune with an activated Blood Essence in their inventory, they have a chance to create additional Blood Runes, at a rate of 1,000 additional Blood Runes/charges per Essence. This will result in slightly fewer XP per hour, as the Blood Essence will take up inventory slots that you'd otherwise be using for more Dark Essence, but it will greatly increase your Runes per hour if you consistently have a Blood Essence active.
Ecumenical Key Shards
Gather 50 of these for one Ecumenical Key. Please note that you can't convert the Shards to a Key if you already have the cap on Keys.
And There's More...
That’s not all – every foe in the prison apart from Nex herself has a chance of dropping a piece of the iconic Ancient Ceremonial Robes set! This set consists of a mask, top, legs, gloves and boots. They have the same stats as Monk Robes and will be added to the Collection Log. If you're familiar with Nex from old, note that wearing them no longer allows players to bypass the Essence Count required to take on Nex herself.
Tombs of Amascut: Raid Rewards - Updated (October 14th)
Whilst the bulk of the detail in this blog is the same as it was with the original, we have made various changes to the proposed rewards based on your feedback. Check out the handy summary below and read on to find out more!
We're delighted to announce that you'll have the opportunity to test all of the new rewards in an upcoming Beta which goes live on October 20th!
Click here to see the main changes from the previous blog.
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Masori Chestplate Changes
Ranged attack increased from 30 to 33
Stab defence increased from 12 to 37
Slash defence increased from 8 to 35
Crush defence increased from 15 to 38
Magic defence increased from 6 to 25
Ranged defence increased from 13 to 33
Prayer bonus increased from 0 to 1
Additional effect added of 3% dodge chance when affected by low life.
Masori Chainskirt Changes
Ranged attack increased from 18 to 20
Stab defence increased from 6 to 26
Slash defence increased from 4 to 24
Crush defence increased from 9 to 29
Magic defence increased from 4 to 19
Ranged defence increased from 8 to 22
Prayer bonus increased from 0 to 1
Additional effect added of 3% dodge chance when affected by low life
Masori Amulet Changes
Removed all melee and Magic accuracy
Prayer bonus increased from 0 to 1
Ranged strength increased from 0 to 3
low life Ranged strength decreased from 7 to 4
Removed all non-Ranged lowlife effects.
Additional Changes
Updated the requirements for masori gear to be 80 Ranged, 30 defence, 70 hitpoints, to match its new bonuses.
Osumemtens Khopesh re-themed to Osumumtens Fang and changed category to a Stab weapon.
Created a new weapon category for the Keris Parisan that has a Strength training method via the Aggressive option.
Lowered the equip requirement of the base Keris Parisan to 70 Attack.
The broken version of the Ward of Elidinis is now equippable, with appropriately weaker stats.
Heka of Tumeken Magic requirement increased from 84 to 85.
Heka of Tumeken Magic base max hit of the fast attack increased by 1.
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The Tombs of Amascut
Long ago, the citizens of the Kharidian Desert lived prosperous and luxurious lives thanks to the benevolence of the Gods of the Menaphite Pantheon. However, that all changed when Amascut, the Goddess of Rebirth, was corrupted. Warped into the Devourer, she became intent on devouring every soul in existence.
Her brother, Icthlarin, along with her former High Priestesses have since been fighting tirelessly against Amascut, in a bid to negate her destructive efforts.
After years of plotting, Amascut has finally find a way to overcome the efforts of Icthalarin and his allies.
Deep within the desert, an ancient pharaoh called Osmumten lies buried. His tomb has long hidden a great power. It is this great power that Amascut seeks, and if she can lay her hands on it she will become unstoppable.
You must take the fight to Amascut before it's too late.
Sketches and references for the Tombs of Amascut. Click to see it in more detail. This is concept art and may not be representative of the final appearance of the Tombs!
The Raid
Let's dig in to what you need to know about the Tombs of Amascut:
Groups of up to eight participants.
Four initial challenges, followed by two final bosses to be fought in a twin boss encounter.
Invocations will allow for customisable difficulty, which will also impact your loot potential!
Invocations will replace standard difficulty systems, like the ones used in other raids.
Each Invocation will affect the raid or your group in different ways.
Some Invocations can affect the health, defence, or damage modifiers for the enemies within the Raid.
Other Invocations might impose group restrictions, like reducing the amount you can heal or prohibiting certain spells.
We intend to be quite creative with these modifiers. The above examples are fairly simple and safe, with the intention to provide early insight into their impact for this blog, but we'd like to experiment with different ideas that might drastically change things.
On entering the Tombs of Amascut you will encounter four paths:
The upper level of the Tombs will consist of four paths, each ending in a boss.
Each path is comprised of its own series of challenges to be overcome.
These challenges are more akin to puzzles rather than killing a single entity, like a boss.
These can range from things like traps with Sepulchre-like dodging, or defeating new foes in unconventional ways.
Once you reach the end of a path, you'll then fight the boss of that path in a more conventional combat encounter.
The raid will be altered in some way with the death of each boss, changing the remaining boss encounters.
This means that the path order you choose will matter!
Defeat the four bosses to descend to the lower levels:
Once you defeat the first four bosses you'll unlock the lower level.
You'll enter a chamber containing the two ancient guardians of the Tombs.
These guardians need to be fought at the same time.
Defeat the guardians to drive Amascut from the tomb and claim your rewards!
We'll discuss the rewards a bit later, but first let's talk about how you might access the Tombs of Amascut.
Beneath Cursed Sands
The Tombs of Amascut will be our most narratively-driven Raid yet, and no narrative is complete without a quest!
When Sophanem was beset by a series of plagues, the gates to the golden city of Menaphos quickly closed. The city has been locked down ever since, with no one allowed to leave or enter. However, rumours have escaped of strange happenings inside Menaphos and there are stories of citizens mysteriously disappearing.
These odd happenings need to be investigated, but few are willing to do so. Maisa, a spy from Al Kharid, has grown tired of inaction. She is determined to solve this mystery herself, but she won't be able to do it alone...
Beneath Cursed Sands is a Master-level quest which will advance the desert storyline.
In this sequel to Contact! You'll find yourself investigating mysterious disappearances from Menaphos, the city of gold. Note: Menaphos will not be opening its gates just yet, and will instead be coming at a later date.
Solving this mystery will grant you access to the Raid itself.
We're aiming to release the quest before the Raid to give you ample time to ready yourself!
Requirements & Rewards (SPOILER WARNING!)
[expand type="details"] Being a Master-level quest, there are naturally some mid-level requirements to meet:
Completion of Contact!
62 Agility
55 Firemaking
55 Smithing
Upon completion you'll be rewarded with:
1 Quest Point
Access to the Tombs of Amascut
The ability to upgrade the Keris to the Keris Partisan
15,000 Agility XP
[/expand]
Tombs of Amascut: Rewards
Here's where we'd love to get your feedback. As with any rewards proposals, it should go without saying that nothing here is set in stone. Your feedback is going to be key in shaping what we're offering, and we really want to see what suggestions you have too! To make sure we see what you have to say, we'd invite you to do one of the following:
The Masori were a clan of powerful ranged users active during an ancient war which embroiled much of the Kharidian forces. They focused primarily on defending ordinary people from the violent thieves and murderers who sought to take advantage of the chaos caused by the war. The group has been long since disbanded, but their equipment can still be found amongst the palaces of wealthy Menaphites or among the treasures of long dead Pharaohs.
Before we discuss the Masori equipment, we'd like to introduce a new status effect, Low Life. A player is considered to be Low Life when below 40% of their maximum health.
The Masori equipment consists of a helmet, chestpiece, legs, and amulet. Equipping the Masori items requires 80 Ranged, 30 Defence and 70 Hitpoints. The armour set will be the very first pieces of equipment in the game to utilise Low Life. When the player is in a state of Low Life and has the helmet, chestpiece and legs equipped, the equipment set will gain additional stats. This set effect provides additional accuracy and ranged strength for as long as you remain in Low Life (whenever you remain below 40% of your maximum health).
In addition to the stat bonus offered when in a state of Low Life, the Masori helmet, chestplate and chainskirt also provide players with bonus dodge chance. Dodge is a stat that lets the player have a chance to completely avoid all damage from most sources. Various attacks like dragonfire or TzKal-Zuks ball attack cannot be dodged, but generally normal mage/Ranged/melee attacks can be.
The Masori amulet has an additional passive effect. When equipped, and not influenced by Low Life, you'll take damage equivalent to 15% of your current health at a rate of every three game cycles.
Let's take a look at the stats:
The Masori equipment. A potential reward from the Tombs of Amascut, introducing 'Low Life' to Old School. We think this new equipment could lead to the emergence of innovative and interesting playstyles. The set effect offers a way to balance the introduction of new, powerful equipment without devaluing existing equipment which boasts defensive bonuses. Its Low Life effect will mean that it is extremely useful in some cases, but will fall short in other areas because of the need to maintain specific Hitpoints. Let's use Vorkath as an example. If you're 99 Hitpoints, you'd need to stay below 40 Hitpoints to keep its effect active. Whilst Vorkath's unavoidable damage doesn't hit as high as 40, you'll need to eat fairly often to keep above the highest possible hit to ensure you stay alive, making it both extremely difficult to maintain the Low Life effect.
The addition of dodge chance also provides a new and unique effect by sacrificing static defensive bonuses for a small chance to entirely null most sources of damage. Where do you think this will be the most impactful? Let us know!
Heka of Tumeken and the Ward of Elidinis
Tumeken was the God of Sun and Elidinis was the Goddess of Fertility. As husband and wife, they led the Menaphite Pantheon. Whilst Tumeken and Elidinis steered the people of the Kharidian Desert spiritually, it was the responsibility of the human Pharoah to rule the Desert. Osmumten was the last Pharoah to rule before the end of the ancient war. Osmumten fought alongside Tumeken against enemy forces. Tumeken sacrificed himself to end the war, and before Elidinis disappeared to mourn the loss of her family she gifted Osmumten with Tumeken's Heka and her own broken Ward.
The Heka of Tumeken is a wand-like magical weapon. Equipping the Heka will require 85 Magic. It has a built-in spell with charges which will need to be replenished, using one Soul Rune and three Chaos Runes per charge. The Heka has an attack rate of two ticks. Every fourth hit the Heka will fire a stronger attack which deals significantly more damage, albeit with a longer delay after the attack. We know that weapons with fast attack speeds scale harder with additional bonuses, like the Toxic Blowpipe. To offset this and to help make the Heka scale more similarly to other magic weapons, the standard faster attacks will only benefit from 50% of your Magic strength. The slower fourth hit will be much stronger, benefitting from 150% of your Magic strength bonus. Its attack range will be shorter than other staves too, with it being six rather than seven (casting with the long range setting will boost it to eight).
For the min-max savvy players out there who like calculations, the following formulas should help with any theorycrafting you'd like to put together:
Standard fast attacks scale based on '(Magic Level / 6) + 2' for the base max hit.
The slower fourth attack scales based on '(Magic Level - 25) / 2' for the base max hit.
After this is calculated, any Magic strength from other sources is then applied.
Let's take a look at the stats:
The Heka of Tumeken, a wand-like magical weapon.
The Ward of Elidinis will be the new best-in-slot magical shield. Players will get the broken Ward as a rare reward from the Tombs of Amascut. With 90 Prayer and 90 Smithing you'll be able to combine the broken ward with an Arcane Sigil and 10,000 Soul Runes to repair the Ward. Players without those stats will be able to pay Abbot Langley 20,000,000 GP to create it for them.
Equipping the Ward will require 80 Magic, 80 Defence, and 80 Prayer. The broken Ward will be tradeable, whilst the fixed Ward will be untradeable. Players can dismantle the Ward to recover the Sigil and the Ward, but the runes will be lost. Dying in PvP will result in the Sigil and the broken Ward being dropped.
Both the broken and fully repaired Wards can be equipped. Let's take a look at their respective stats:
The Ward of Elidinis, a new best-in-slot magical shield.
Lightbearer
Ahmek was a powerful warrior who sought to capitalise on the chaos caused by the end of the ancient war. Ahmek crafted a powerful ring which he imbued with the unstable energy left behind from Tumekin's sacrifice. He hoped to use this ring to emerge as a new power in the region. By forcibly uniting thieves and mercenaries under his command, he planned to overthrow Osmumten. His plans proved fruitless, however, when the ring was stolen and he was murdered in his sleep. The Menaphite Guards claimed the ring from the body of the murderous thief, and dutifully presented it to the Pharoah.
The Lightbearer is a ring with no Attack, Defence, or Other bonuses. It does, however, have a very unique effect. When equipped, your special attack energy will regenerate 100% faster (approximately 15 seconds per 10%/150 seconds per 100%). Unequipping the ring will cause the timer to reset.
We think that for the most part, you'll want to continue using rings like the Berserker ring. But there'll be some situations where the additional special attack rate will warrants its use. We think this ring will shine in places where kill times are longer, or where you'll want to use a special attack per kill (like Graardor, K'ril, Abyssal Sire etc) - or maybe even use it whilst Woodcutting or Fishing!
Osmumten's Khopesh
Known to his people as Osmumten the Hunter, he was renowned for bringing down many of the land's deadliest beasts. During his hunts he wore armour and weapons crafted by the region's finest artisans. One such weapon was his Fang. Fang would eventually be buried with Osmumten.
Osmumten's Fang is primarily a Stab melee weapon which boasts accuracy comparable to the Elder Maul, and an Attack Speed of five. Equipping the Fang will require 82 Attack. We expect its damage-per-second output to be comparable to Rapier-tier weapons on opponents with low Defence, with much greater damage-per-second output on opponents with higher Defence.
We'd like to introduce a new unique mechanic for the Fang. Other weapons will roll '0 - max hit'. The Fang will roll '(max hit * 0.15) - (max hit - (max hit * 0.15))'. This means that if the max hit is 60, its attack would roll between 9-51. This makes it a very consistent weapon which excels against high Defence targets.
The Fang would also have a special attack which increases its max hit to its true max hit for one attack, as well as boosting its accuracy by an additional 50%. This means that if its max hit was 60, it would roll 9-60. This special attack will cost 50% special attack energy to use.
Let's take a look at the stats:
Osmumten's Khopesh, a Stab melee weapon which boasts accuracy comparable to the Elder Maul.
Keris Partisan
Upon helping to [redacted] during the Beneath Cursed Sands quest, [redacted] will reluctantly reward you with an enhanced version of Keris, the spear-like Keris Partisan.
In addition to its Stab attack styles, the Partisan will have a Crush attack style, which should prove useful during the Tombs of Amascut and against other beetle-like enemies, like the Kalphite Queen. As the Keris Partisan is a spear-like weapon, it acts differently from normal spears. The main difference of the Keris is its Aggressive attack style that allows players to focus their combat experience on Strength. Equipping the Partisan will require 70 Attack.
We'd like to try something slightly different with this weapon. The Partisan has a socket in which players can insert special jewels. These jewels are obtained as rare rewards from the Tombs of Amascut, and inserting these jewels into the Partisan will bestow different effects onto the weapon. You'll only be able to use one jewel at a time. These jewels will not be tradeable.
We're still considering how we'd like to reward players with these jewels. They could be unlocked as a random drop, or given upon a certain number of Raid completions, or as a reward for killing bosses using specific methods. We're also considering whether they should be permanent one-time unlocks, or whether they should have charges. Naturally this would effect the rarity of the drop. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how they should be implemented!
Let's take a look at the stats:
Keris Partisan, a spear-like enhanced version of Keris. And here's a look at a few jewel buffs we're considering. Note that the effects apply only during the Tombs of Amascut.
The Eye of the Corrupter adds a damage-over-time effect to attacked enemies. You won't be able to stack this effect multiple times onto a single NPC but you will be able to apply it to multiple NPCs at any one time.
The Jewel of the Sun applies a debuff to attacked NPCs which causes them to take higher damage for a sustained period of time.
In addition to effects that only apply within the Tombs, we're also considering how jewels can provide benefits throughout the whole of Gielinor. For example:
The Breach of the Scarab adds a 33% accuracy buff against Kalphites, Scarabs and Beetles.
We think that the Partisan's upgrade system will allow for a strong sense of progression within the Raid itself, making it very useful in that encounter without encroaching on other gear elsewhere.
Concept Art
During the Summer Summit announcement (scroll to the top of this blog to watch it!) our artists discussed their approach to designing this content, and also teased you with sketches and concept art. Here are some of those sketches, helpfully unlabelled to keep you all guessing. And again, please note that this is concept art and may not be representative of the final appearance of the Tombs, anything within, or its rewards!
Click here to see the sketches.
[expand type="details"] Concept art for Tombs of Amascut. These images may not be representative of the final appearance of the Tombs, anything within, or its rewards! [/expand]
That's everything for this blog. We'd love to hear your feedback so please do...
Work to improve the integrity of our beloved game never stops. We want you to have fun and play competitively in an environment that's fair, and governed by mutual respect among players. As part of these efforts, additional measures to counter real world trading (RWT) will be introduced in the coming months.
Gold RWT
Gold purchased through RWT is a problem in any online game featuring a tradeable currency. For the last 20 years, our Anti-Cheating Team has done much to tackle RWT sellers both in and out of the game. However, it's not just the sellers that have an impact on game integrity. Buyers fuel demand - and higher demand means more sellers, more bots to remove and more nefarious activity.
Thanks to a growing team and improved tools, we're now in a position where as well as tackling sellers, we can also begin to clamp down on buyers. In the next few hours we'll be sending out messages to players we've identified as engaging in RWT.
For anyone who has been involved, we want to be clear – this is your one and only warning.
Should any further RWT activity be detected, accounts face possible bans and wealth removal.
Duel Arena RWT
The Duel Arena has been a flashpoint for this toxic behaviour. In fact, 38% of all RWT bans – accounting for thousands of bans per month – stem from there. We’ve heard your feedback and want to make definitive changes that keep the game fun for everyone.
We’re looking in the long-term to phase the Duel Arena out of RuneScape entirely. But before that, we'll be introducing some short-term measures to tide us over until our development teams can deliver a major update that fully replaces the Duel Arena next year.
The first step will be the implementation of a staking cap this November. This will limit stake values to no more than 10m GP per duel. Additionally, we'll be adding two new presets based on settings that players commonly use for their 'whip duels' and 'boxing duels', making it easier to see whether you've got your expected options. This will make scamming more difficult.
Our long-term solution will arrive in 2022, when we’ll be replacing the Duel Arena with something more engaging and enjoyable (such as a system that generates 1v1 tournaments for player groups and perhaps even expanding to 2v2 or 5v5 if possible). We'll share more information on this when we can!
To the vast majority of you who are playing the game as intended, put simply - thank you for being you. We won't stop looking for more ways to maintain the integrity of the game you love.
The Old School Team
Group Ironman Changes - Weekly Game Update (October 13th)
This week we’re answering your burning questions about Group Ironman – find out what we’re planning below! Plus, we’ve made a few extra changes to the rest of the game, including new music tracks, login improvements and more. Let’s dive in.
Group Ironman
We’ve been seeing a few of your excellent questions crop up multiple times, so here’s a quick FAQ:
What activities remove Group Prestige?
The following activities will remove Group Prestige if tackled them with players outside your group:
Chambers of Xeric
Theatre of Blood
The Nightmare of Ashihama
The Tombs of Amascut (when it’s released)
We are still considering whether Nex is part of this list - you'll know once we’ve decided!
Can I rename my group?
Yes, you can! Leaders can rename their group by visiting the Group Iron Tutor at The Node.
I have a group of three, but another friend wants to join later. Can I add my friend at a later date?
Yes, you can add your friend into the group later. Groups can have a maximum of five members in total; if you decide to welcome a new member, you will lose Group Prestige - but there won’t be any gameplay consequences. All that will happen is that you’ll lose the gold star next to your group's name.
All original members will keep their individual Prestige, which means they are free of any wealth or item restrictions. However, to prevent boosting the new member WILL have those wealth and item restrictions. Check out the Group Ironman Blog for more details on this.
Hotfixes
We've already put out a number of hotfixes to address some of the launch bugs. Fixes for the following bugs are live:
Players who attempted and failed to join an existing group were sometimes added to the HiScores incorrectly.
Groups that hadn’t yet been successfully created were appearing on the HiScores.
The player-to-player trade restrictions for new players were not applying once you are part of a group.
The Prestige status for individuals was not automatically refreshing when changes take place.
Alternate Shop stocks were not updating at the Blast Furnace.
Switching between Regular and Hardcore groups using the crates on The Node was displaying incorrect chat icons.
Switching between Hardcore and Regular on the Node was displaying incorrect icons.
Groups sometimes contained a mix of Hardcore and Regular players (because HCGIM players who were on different worlds or logged out were not correctly losing their HC status when all lives were lost).
Players were losing their Prestige status and Storage access after joining groups when they shouldn't have been.
Wealth transfer limits were incorrectly applying to non-Prestige Group Ironman's own drops.
Some groups were failing to form during the launch of Group Ironman (upon further investigation (we believe this was to our system being under heavy strain - please do let us know if it continues to occur with your group and we will re-open our investigation).
Also:
Some groups were experiencing mismatching size and Prestige settings. We've corrected this for many players, but we're aware that some group sizes are still being recognised incorrectly on the HiScores. More information on how we're fixing that can be found below.
We changed some of the mapping on Tutorial Island to make room for all the new features, but a few unlucky players got caught in certain areas!
Some additional messaging now appears when trying to downgrade your Group Ironman through the Iron Tutor in Lumbridge.
Players that lost items while creating their group during launch will receive some tools, food and combat supplies the next time they log-in to The Node.
We know that some of you are still in the wrong HiScores bracket. You might be a four-player group but showing up in the five-player HiScores, or similar. This is unintended and of course we don't want you stuck competing in an incorrect category!
We believe we have fixed the underlying cause of this issue so that it is not affecting new groups, but we will be resolving it for those still struggling by using some handy tools from our lovely web team (as this problem is related to our website, we can’t resolve it on the client). Once the web tool is ready (hopefully in a matter of weeks), we will be working hastily to correct each group. We'd like to thank you for your patience as we fix this.
This week we're also releasing more fixes and improvements:
There is a graphical bug with Individual Prestige preventing it from properly showing on the side panel unless refreshed. It will now display correctly at all times.
When closing the Group Storage and re-opening it, the resized pop-up was not legible. This has been corrected.
No more 2-for-1 cocktails! We've split the Wine Shop's stock for Iron modes to prevent the transfer of wine to Iron accounts.
Now, on to the most important bit: your feedback! We've received heaps of helpful insights, and while our immediate priorities will be on fixing any errors, we are keen to improve on the features that you enjoy! Here's what we're looking at right now:
Group Storage Space and Save Function
As you are probably aware, we temporarily disabled access to the Group Shared Storage over the weekend to investigate an issue. This feature has now been restored and we thank you for your patience.
There has also been a lot of demand to increase the amount of space for Group Storage as the current space feels insufficient.
Our answer? Absolutely! We would like to increase the storage capacity for you, but we haven't yet decided how this will take shape. What do you think is the best approach? For example, should increasing Storage be something that players can earn and unlock on their account? If so, what does that progression system look like? Or should it be something locked behind Achievement Diaries, or something else? Perhaps it should it just be a flat-out payment in Gold?
We're going to experiment with designs in the coming weeks and we'll update you when we have some proposals to share. In the meantime, please send us your ideas!
We also know that some players find the Save function for the Group Storage rather clunky to use. This is because it’s different from the usual Banking process - Group Storage isn't part of your own saved game profile, so it must be saved to the appropriate server before another group member is able access it.
However, we think we can make some improvements here. We intend to change the ‘cross' icon so that it will have a Save and Leave function, meaning that the hotkey you use to close interfaces (usually ESC) also doubles as a save hotkey when you close the Bank.
Group Chat and Group Broadcasts
Many of you have also asked us to make a private chat channel specifically for your group, and we're working on adding this in the coming weeks. It will work similarly to Clan Chat, but only for you and your group. We'd love to know what shortcuts you think would be useful for this new channel?
We're also going to implement the broadcast system that we currently use for Clans. This will mean that you can opt-in to receiving notifications when a member of the group receives significant loot or achieves a major milestone. Finally, you'll have the equivalent of the Clan Interface for your group or other groups, with lots of important info. This feature will also allow you to report any inappropriate group names that you may come across.
Shared Group Hall
We're aware there’s huge demand for a shared Player Owned House for groups, or failing that, a customisable instance which can be shared, upgraded, and only accessible to the group. We'd like to explore the possibility of a Shared Group Hall, and we're investigating how we can achieve this alongside our other projects. Please keep in mind that this is no small task, and if we were to focus on this project, most of our development time would be spent on this area.
Nothing can fully replace the functionality, utility and enjoyment of sharing a customisable instance with your group. In the short term, we are considering whether we can allow players to visit Player Owned Housing without the owner needing to be at home. We hope to have a response to this popular community suggestion once we have fully scoped out the work involved.
Killerfishy's Group Ironman Comic
We're also delighted to share another Killerfishy Comic with you today! If you have not seen the first one, check it out here! This fun little project is guided by you, our players. Last week, you told us that you wanted our Heroes to focus on Questing, so this week we bring you: Dragon Slayer!
This Comic was made by Killerfishy. For the full resolution image, please click here.
We'd like you to vote on where you think they should head to next! Head over to any of our social platforms to decide whether our adventurers should go...
West to Kourend
South to Karamja
East to Morytania
North to the Wilderness
And feel free to tell us your ideas about what they could get up to when they get there!
Other Changes
Five evocative new music tracks have been added to Kourend thanks to the talented individuals within the Audio Department. The tracks are:
Beyond the Meadow (Hosidius) - Mod Arismel
The Forests of Shayzien (Shayzien) - Mod Rainbow
Out at the Mines (Lovakengj) - Mod Jodgers
Not a Moment of Relief (Arceuus) - Mod Jodgers
What Happens Below... (Piscarilius) - Mod Arismel
The Dark Energy Core is no longer targeted by Thralls, as some players found this unhelpful.
You can now design your character to have lavender clothes and hair once again. Fetching!
Players no longer get stuck behind Oziach's open door.
It’s now easier to earn Contribution from bailing when the Fishing Trawler is very crowded.
The fake XP drops in Last Man Standing now show normal XP quantities for Group Iron players, even though Group Iron players usually get reduced XP for PvP.
We have done some work behind the scenes to make logging-in a more efficient process.
PvP World Rota
The PvP rota has moved to Period B:
560 - (UK) - PvP World
579 - (US) - High-Risk PvP World
561 - (UK) - Free-to-Play PvP World
580 - (US) - LMS Competitive
World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been de-activated with this rota.
That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, the Steam forums or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.
[expand type="details"] [table] [tr][th]Issue Raised[/th][th]Current Progress[/th][/tr] [tr] [td]Individual Prestige Stars can disappear from the side panel at times.[/td] [td]Refreshing the side panel should make your prestige star appear.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]11:25 BST - Areas of Tutorial Island are causing players to become stuck.[/td] [td]11:35 BST - We've released a hotfix to resolve this issue.
Players still experiencing being stuck or unable to move on Tutorial Island should relog.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]11:38 BST - Groups are being booted/disbanded/logged and the consequential loss of Group/HC status.[/td] [td]12:00 BST - We've released a hotfix to address the above issue.
Re-logging should allow you to create a new group.
Once this is done, going to the Hardcore Armour Crate (found on The Node, east of the statue) should allow you to re-select Hardcore.[/td] [/tr] [/table] [/expand]
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for – Group Ironman is here! As of this week you’ll be able to take on Old School RuneScape’s toughest challenge in a group of up to five friends. So, without further ado, let’s dive in…
Group Ironman
[previewyoutube="ofP-cew6NHo;full"]
Group Ironman is finally here! Are you ready to band together and become the stuff of legend? This is your chance to build and grow a team of Ironmen that is greater than the sum of its parts and battle for top spot on the leaderboard. It's a whole new way to play Old School RuneScape.
Whether you’re an Iron novice or an experienced Ultimate, we’ve got everything you need to know about the newest addition to the Iron family!
Overview
Group Ironman is a new way for the toughest ‘scapers to explore Gielinor. Do you enjoy Ironman? Hardcore Ironman? Ultimate Ironman? Well, now it’s time to bring together up to five of your most trusted companions to take on the challenge together.
If you’ve never played Ironman before: imagine Old School RuneScape with no trade, where you have to earn every item yourself. It’s about forging your way through the game with nothing but blood, sweat and tears - gathering, crafting, and fighting to get the stuff you need to succeed. Needless to say, it’s a real challenge... and one you would normally have to face alone.
Group Ironman is a little different. Groups of two to five players can join together and take on Gielinor’s nastiest beasts. They can also trade their resources among one another, delve into new Group Storage, and visit each other’s Player Owned Houses. Groups will even be able to compete for leaderboard positions and prove that their gang is the greatest supergroup of Old School RuneScape. It’s Ironman with a little help from your friends – pushing you to your limits while allowing you to share the glory with your mates!
Group Ironman players have a unique icon next to their name to distinguish them from other Iron players and regular ‘scapers. They’ll also receive a unique armour set with Roman numerals on the chestplate to indicate the size of their group, from II to V.
Recruitment
To start, you'll need a new account that will start you off on the classic Tutorial Island. From here, proceed as normal by completing all the tutorials found on the island until you reach the Magic Tutor and complete his request to cast the magic spell on the chicken. Once you have cast the magic spell you will need to stop here and immediately head to the Ironman Tutor. DO NOT CONTINUE WITH THE MAGE OR YOU WILL LEAVE THE ISLAND.
From here, you’ll need to assemble your team at The Node, a recruitment hub off the coast of Tutorial Island. Your group must be between two and five players, and one of you will have to take on the mantle of leader.
You’ll also get the opportunity to pick a group name, but bear in mind that you’ll be unable to pick the same name as an existing Clan, as they share the same name space.
Once your gang is formed, you’re free to recruit new players as you progress, so there’s no need to hang around waiting – just join the game and start climbing those HiScores!
The Node
The Node is a new island off the coast of Tutorial Island. It’s where you’ll form teams and learn the core elements of Group Ironman!
Tutorial Island with The Node
To get to The Node, speak to the Iron Tutor on Tutorial Island to select the Group Ironman game mode, then run south to jump on the boat after completing the tutorial. Once you get to The Node, another tutor will be on hand to explain the game mode in more detail and explain Group Storage.
The new Iron Man Setup menu!
Once you’ve figured that out, you’ll be able to talk to other players! Communication will be key to success in this game mode, so use this time to find teammates you really click with. To join a group you like the look of, just use the ‘apply’ option on other players.
Once your group is formed, you’ll be able to return to The Node to recruit more players – although the same won’t be true for Tutorial Island, so make sure you’ve absorbed the tutors’ advice before you get started.
Make sure to grab some Group Ironman Armour from the crates!
Remember, Group Ironman isn’t like Clans – you won’t be able to recruit new group members anywhere but The Node, and you’ll have to come back here to add more players. To return there from the mainland either speak to the Iron Tutors in Lumbridge or teleport using the Group Iron Helm – of course, the latter method can only be used if you’re a GIM player.
Before you head out to the mainland, you might want to try out fighting as a group. There are a few low-level NPCs on the island and you can have a go at bashing their fragile skulls in together before you leave – it’ll be a bonding experience!
The first time you leave The Node, your player inventory will be wiped and you’ll receive the standard items you’d normally get from Tutorial Island.
If you can’t find the right group, or you change your mind about this whole Ironman thing, you can just leave The Node without a group. You’ll need to choose between the other game modes before being teleported to the mainland.
Forming a Group
If you want to start your own group, this is what the process looks like:
Click ‘Create Group’.
Choose whether your group is Prestige or not.
Right-click on players then press the ‘Invite’ option.
Choose a group name (this will only be saved once your team has successfully formed).
Select ‘Confirm’ once you have enough players in your group and a chosen name. You'll then be presented with the following confirmation boxes:
Are there enough people in the group?
Are you sure you want to create this group?
Congratulations, you've created a Group Ironman team!
Creating a Group.
There's a double confirmation prompt for creating your group so make sure it's correct!
Recruiting Into Existing Groups
If you are the leader of your group, you will see an ‘Invite’ option next to the players you meet around The Node. Clicking this option will check if they are already part of a group. If they are not, they’ll receive your invitation.
All new group members must have a fresh GIM account. The second they leave The Node, or a group has been successfully created, players can no longer join a group. This is to ensure that no groups or accounts get an unfair advantage by bringing in high-levelled players.
If a player chooses to leave their group or is kicked out, this will leave a gap. For example: what used to be a group of four will still be considered a four-player group in the HiScores, but in reality will only have the three remaining members and an open gap. This group can go to The Node to pick up a new group member.
Group Mechanics
Prestige Status
Groups that remain the same after formation have ‘Prestige’ status. This means they are distinguished from other groups that have changed over time. This will encourage teams to stick together and is our way of recognising a group’s loyalty to one another, and the progress they’ve made. Prestige status is presented as a message box upon group creation, and is lost upon inviting anyone new into your group after it has been formed.
The Prestige prompt when creating a group.
A group with Group Prestige and both players with Individual Prestige.
Group Prestige will be visually represented on the HiScores in the near future, and is represented in-game via a star icon next to the group's name. Individual Prestige Stars can disappear from the side panel at times but they can be seen again when refreshing the side panel.
In order for your group to keep its Prestige, every member will need to be online at The Node at the time of its creation. There is no way around this. If someone’s late to the party, you can still invite them to your group, but you’ll lose Prestige status. This isn't the end of the world - you'll still be displayed on the HiScores, but not as a Prestige Group.
Group Prestige is lost when:
Inviting a player into your group once the group has already been formed.
A player in the group does Chambers of Xeric/Theatre of Blood/Nightmare of Ashihama with players outside of their group.
Players will always be warned if an action will lead to the loss of Group Prestige.
Now, let’s talk about Individual Prestige!
Individual Prestige determines whether or not wealth and item transfer restrictions are applied to individual members of the group. If you join a group other than the one you started with, you’ll lose your Individual Prestige.
Individual Prestige is enabled by default, and will remain enabled unless you join a group other than the one you started with. Likewise, players added to groups after they’ve been formed will not receive Individual Prestige.
To summarise: any one is able to leave their group and join another, but doing so will result in the loss of both groups’ Group Prestige, and the loss of the leaving player’s Individual Prestige. Neither kind of Prestige has an impact on gameplay, but both will be marked on the HiScores.
HiScores
HiScores are your chance to prove that your group is the best of the best!
Ranks are determined first by the combined total skill level of your team, then by combined total experience. To be clear, only XP gained while in your current group will count towards their total level – so players leaving a group to join another won’t be able to transfer their XP to the new group’s HiScore.
HiScores are listed under the group’s name, not the names of the individual players.
Lastly, each group size category has their own HiScore list, to keep things fair – it would be unfair to compare a two-person group to one with all five slots filled, after all!
Player Owned Houses
House party, anyone?
Currently, regular Iron accounts can have their own Player Owned House, but can’t invite anyone in or travel to other houses. In Group Ironman, players will be able to access other players’ houses!
Currently, your regular Iron accounts can have a Player Owned House of their own, but can’t enter other Player Owned Houses or invite anyone into theirs. GIM is a little different – players can access the houses of other players in their group, as long as the owner is home to welcome them.
Additionally, regular Ironmen will now also be able to let other players into their house – although they still can’t enter other players’ houses. Now you too can enjoy sitting on chairs with friends!
Players partying hard in a Player Owned House
Group Storage
Group Storage is a Bank-like space where all members of a group can store and withdraw important items. It’s accessible via a new button on the regular Bank interface, which is only visible to Group Ironmen and Hardcore Group Ironmen.
Only one player will be able to use Group Storage at a time.
We’ve gone with this design because we recognise that group members will still require their own personal Bank facility to store untradeables and items they don’t intend to share within the group.
Try to be courteous with your Group Storage, everyone – teamwork makes the dream work!
What Group Storage Looks Like
The items in Group Storage are listed in an array, with a side-panel showing the player's inventory contents. It has all the Bank features you’re accustomed to, including depositing, withdrawing, and rearranging items.
The top left of the screen shows the number of occupied slots and the total number of slots, just like the Bank. The top right of the screen may contain the following:
View Only (if the player is blocked from depositing or withdrawing)
Deposit Only (if the player is blocked from withdrawing)
The Wealth Cap remaining for the player's withdrawal limits (please note that this doesn’t update in real-time)
A blank space (if the player has no restrictions)
You can search, deposit all your items and even shuffle your items up, which takes all the items in the Group Storage and shuffles them to the top left of the grid.
When you’re done, you’ll need to click the ‘Save’ button to ensure the changes you’ve made are recorded. If you don’t, you’ll lose your changes upon closing the interface.
Trading and The Gradual Wealth Transfer System
It goes without saying that GIM can't trade with people outside their group. They can only trade regularly within the group, and some trade restrictions do still apply to new members joining the group.
When a member joins a new group, there are hard caps on how much wealth that player can receive from the existing members and from Group Storage. This prevents existing groups transferring all their wealth to new members before leaving. Prolonging the transfer should deter boosters without being too inconvenient for legitimate players. The caps start off very restrictive but quickly become more lenient:
Week 1: Wealth caps at 1million GP
Week 2: Wealth caps at 20million GP
Week 3: Wealth caps at 50million GP
Week 4: Wealth caps at 100million GP
Week 5: Cap is lifted
Note that this only applies to players without Individual Prestige. If the entire group started on The Node as fresh accounts, you will not have the wealth transfer cap or the killcount requirement discussed below.
Content Restricted Items
To ensure that players using certain items have really earned them, we’re restricting their use until the player has completed the relevant content at least once. For example, if a player wishes to use the Ghrazi Rapier, they must first complete Theatre of Blood. They’ll also be able to use any other item from that raid. Any boss uniques require killing that boss at least once. Similarly, players must complete at least one Chambers of Xeric to use any of the items from there. All boss uniques would require at least one boss kill of the relevant boss.
The killcount requirement applies if you’ve left your original group and either made a new one or joined an existing one. If the entire group started on The Node as fresh accounts, they will not have the killcount requirement or the wealth transfer cap.
Please note: the kill requirement applies to you if you've left your group and joined a new one, or if you join an existing group (i.e. you are not Prestiged anymore). If the entire group started on The Node as fresh accounts, you will not have the kill requirement or wealth transfer cap.
Combat
For those outside the group, Group Ironman will function the same way as regular Iron players in combat. If someone outside the group hits an NPC, the drop will either go to the outsider or disappear. If only group members have attacked the NPC, the drop will go to the group member who dealt the most damage.
We’ve added an indicator for all types of Iron players which warns them if they’re attacking a creature that won’t give them loot due to these restrictions. This is only visible to the Iron player receiving the warning and will appear along with the following Chatbox message: “As an Iron [noun], you might not receive kill-credit for this monster.”
You can toggle this warning in the ‘Activities’ section of the Settings menu.
A look at the new indicator for Iron players.
Group Content
GIM players can tackle all the group content that regular Iron players can. For example, they can kill the Nightmare with other players and team up with other account types outside their group when playing Theatre of Blood and The Chambers of Xeric. However – doing this will cause you to lose your Group Prestige, so make sure everyone is comfortable with that before you group up with players from outside your group.
In Chambers of Xeric specifically, GIM will be just like playing a regular Iron account. Items will drop to the floor like a main account, but you can drop potions for your group members to take. If they leave the drop, it’ll eventually show up for other kinds of players too.
Changing The Party
Leaving a Group
You may think you’re in your group for the long run, but you never know what might happen! Sometimes life just gets in the way, or priorities change. But it’s not a problem – you can always leave a group by speaking to the Iron Tutor on The Node.
Leaders can also remove members of the group – but before we talk about that, let’s go over the grace period.
The Grace Period
If you choose to leave your group, you have seven days to reconsider and cancel the request. This serves two purposes: firstly, it simply gives you time to change your mind, but also keeps your Prestige status safe from misclicks or account hijackers.
A player who is kicked from a group also gets a grace period of seven days. This is so that they have the opportunity to settle things with the other members. A player getting kicked cannot withdraw items from the Group Storage, although they can still deposit.
Account Status
If you decide to leave a group, you must pick one of two options.
If you keep your GIM status, you’ll be placed in a new group where you are the leader. The group size remains the same. You’ll keep your levels, stats, quests, variables and untradable items – but tradable items will be deleted.
If you become a regular account, you’lllose your GIM status and be removed from both the GIM group and the HiScores. You will keep all your levels, stats, quests, variables, untradable items and tradable items.
Abdication of the Leader
Every group must have a leader. By default, this is the player who created the group. However, this person might want to quit, play another account, or focus on other activities for a bit. An absent leader can be really bad for morale! So, we’ve made it possible for the leader to abdicate.
Stepping down works just like it does in Clans.
The leader can choose to step down at any time, but there is a seven-day grace period before their decision takes effect. This is to prevent hijackers from taking over accounts and maliciously forcing leaders to abdicate.
When a leader steps down, another player must take their place. The outgoing leader chooses the new one, and they will not be able to abdicate until this choice is made.
If the leader has been inactive for 30 days, leadership will be automatically assigned to the group member who has been in the group the longest. If more than one member joined on the same day, leadership will go to whichever member joined the group first. In these instances, the leader is not removed from the group – they’re just demoted.
If there’s nobody else in the group, the leader can’t step down. Instead, the group will be disbanded when they leave, after the grace period of 7 days.
Hardcore Group Ironman
Looking for an even greater challenge? Hardcore Group Ironman might be up your street.
A Hardcore Group Ironman group begins with a number of lives equal to the number of players in the group at the time of formation. Any dangerous* death, for any member, will result in one life being subtracted from the total. This will be broadcast to any group members online at the time. Offline players will be notified upon next log-in.
If a group’s total lives hit zero, the whole gang has their Hardcore status revoked. The group will remain together and keep all their items and stats, but will be considered regular Group Irons.
If anyone leaves or is kicked, the group will keep its Hardcore status but will lose one of their lives – so if the group is on their last life, a player leaving could get the whole group demoted. Take care!
Hardcore groups cannot accept anyone else into their group. By default, a Hardcore Group is Prestige. If they wish to invite anyone else, they must first lose their Hardcore status.
Normally, Hardcore Iron Players are able to die in certain areas of the game without losing their Hardcore status. We call these ‘safe deaths’. In PvM, there are safe deaths in places like the Chambers of Xeric, the Fight Caves, the Inferno and Pest Control. In PvP, safe deaths can take place in Last Man Standing, Soul Wars, and Castle Wars.
But we reckon that’s too easy for Hardcore Group Ironman! For Hardcore Groups, there are no safe PvM deaths. Any PvM deaths, whether they be to TzKal-Zuk or the wizards outside Varrock, will lose you a group life. This includes Pest Control and other PvM minigames.
Fremennik Trials is an exception as you are supposed to die to it as part of the Quest (after defeating Koschei's third form). It's not avoidable so it doesn't actually count for your character dying. A good rule of thumb is that if you die as a result of not taking the necessary precautions or healing up, you will lose a life in PvM.
The good news is that deaths in PvP minigames will remain safe for Group Iron players – so you can all go and enjoy a game of Castle Wars together.
These changes do not affect solo Hardcore Iron Players. Our aim is to distinguish between solo and group Hardcore Iron players – and provide some of the most challenging content in the whole game.
Right – now you know the details, you can grab your most trusted companions and head out on your very own Group Ironman adventure! Best of luck out there!
Ironman Bonds
Speaking of Iron players, they’re now permitted to buy Bonds via the Grand Exchange. They’re still unable to sell Bonds or buy any other items.
We hope this will make life a little bit more convenient for those who’ve got the coins to buy Bonds directly and save Iron players the extra expense of trading Bonds via alt accounts.
Other Changes
Corrected some grammar in the Woodcutting Guild.
Corrected the description of a particular S.T.A.S.H. Unit’s position.
The ‘Items Lost on Death’ screen on w45 now correctly shows full Bank stacks as lost, rather than just 80% of them.
The RuneFest 2014 Home Teleport animation, which features a dancing cow, is no longer offered in PvP areas due to widespread disruption. The default Home Teleport animation will be played in these zones.
As previously stated, Ironmen will now be able to let other players into their own houses, although they will still be unable to visit the houses of others. Sounds like an excuse for a party!
Also as above, all kinds of Iron players will now be warned if they won't receive kill credit or loot drops from the creature they're currently attacking.
The Soul Wars Imbued Black Mask has been changed to match its requirements.
The Store button will now appear for all new accounts and will also appear on desktop for free-to-play accounts who have it enabled on mobile. The Store button can be toggled on or off in the Settings menu under ‘Interfaces’.
In her time here, Mod Grimoire worked on a Login Screen Volume Slider for the Steam Client – and that’s out now for you to try. Great work, Mod Grimoire!
Official Merch Store Update
Ironman btw? Celebrate the release of Group Ironman with these new lines from Angels Scapes:
Group Ironman BTW Keyring
Group Ironman and Hardcore Group Ironman Pins
Ironman, Hardcore Ironman, and Ultimate Ironman Limited Edition Pins
We've also got a quick update regarding RuneScape: The First 20 Years.
The global publication date of the main (red cover) retail edition is being moved from mid-October to November 2nd in the US and November 4th in the UK. Our publisher, Dark Horse, has hit major shipping delays - a knock on effect of the general global shipping issues we've all experienced over the last year.
A shipment destined for comic stores in the US, however, has already arrived - so US-based 'scapers can grab a copy from their local indie comic book hero [LINK] on the slightly earlier date of October 20th.
Deluxe and main edition copies purchased from the Official Merch Store have been unloaded from the boat in the UK and are waiting to land in the US. If all goes well with docking, getting through customs and finding HGV drivers, we expect pre-orders to start leaving UK and US warehouses on October 19th.
If you can't wait that long to see it, keep your eye on Dark Horse's socials, where they'll be sharing new pages this week!
If you live outside the US and have not yet ordered your copy, all good book stores should now be taking pre-orders of the main edition for the new November publication date.
PvP World Rota
The PvP rota has moved to Period A:
539 - (US) - PvP World
548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive
390 - (AUS) - LMS Competitive - world becomes active with this rota.
That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, the Steam forums or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.
Adventurers, Group Ironman is just one day away! The time has finally come to forge a team and become legends in this whole new way to play Old School RuneScape!
Haven’t found a group yet? Fear not! We’ve set up a handy LFG bot in the Official OSRS Discord to help.
The bot can set you up with similar players based on certain criteria: Timezone (NA, EU or Australia); Group Prestige (depending on if you want to raid exclusively with one group) and Group Type (Hardcore or Regular).
Look for a category named ‘GIM Bot' on the left side panel of the Discord - a channel called #group-finder-info can be found under this.
There will be a message in this channel from the Group Finder Bot - interact with it and you'll get a direct message. If this doesn't work, check your privacy settings to make sure they allows direct messages from server members (alternatively, it may be that the bot is handling too many requests, in which case you should try again after a couple of minutes).
Answer the three simple questions relating to your timezone, prestige preference and group type interests.
Based on your answers, you’ll be assigned a role by the Group Finder Bot, granting access to the corresponding channel.
Every member of the channel will be looking for the same type of group, so feel free to advertise yourself or your group there. Roles will correspond with different timezones to make it easier for you to group up. Do make sure to let everyone know what times you're willing to play!
If you would like to change the answers to your questions, simply head back to the #group-finder-info channel to start over. You should leave the LFG channel you're currently in before restarting the questions - this can be easily done via the Group Finder Bot.
It looks like a group of Adventurers. Are they about to embark on their Group Ironman journey too? Lets find out a little bit more about them!
The Muscle: Someone who just loves the thrill of battle! She has precisely zero interest in skilling, but give her a boss fight and she's happy for hours! She knows she’s good (far better than her team-mates) but she isn’t arrogant or rude about it. She’ll also wear Bronze Armour sometimes, just for the extra challenge.
The Strategist: Someone who aims to max every skill and is chasing a permanent spot on the HiScores. She’s also the group's main skiller, and is very efficiency focused. She can quickly identify the weak spots in any enemy... and perhaps of her own group!
The Lone Wolf: Who doesn’t love an edgy wizard? With a propensity to wander off by himself to do his own thing, he's renowned for having insane RNG and finding rare drops. How on earth does he manage it?
The Heart: A goofy, lovable giant. A lover of quests who wants to help every NPC they stumble across. The Heart has a monsterous gaming PC, but only uses it for playing Old School with his friends. He would absolutely click on a player dressed as a Wilderness lever if his friends didn’t warn him.
The Leader: At the front and centre of the group. Admittedly, he spacebars through quests and can’t stand achievement diaries (although he completes them for the rewards). He's great at recognising people’s strengths and getting the best out of everyone.
One of our very own community artists, Killerfishy, has brought these characters to life!
Check out this awesome piece, which is the first of a four-part comic series!
Even more excitingly, the group need YOUR HELP! You must help them decide what they’ll get up to next, so head over to our Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit and have your say! Got any awesome ideas? Let us know in the comments!
Can you believe we haven't had a Gielinor Gazette since last year... crazy right? For those that don't know, the Gazette is a monthly newspost featuring in-depth content design articles from our wonderful devs, production updates from the leads and a chance to welcome new members of the team.
For its return this year we wanted to give it a bit of a revamp, bringing back some classic Gazette sections - Postbag from the Hedge and the Player Showcase Gallery! These we classic staples of past Gazettes, which many of the team look back at fondly.
Within the first Gazette of 2021 we say hello to the whopping over 20 J-Mods that have joined us this year! Plus, Mod Elena offers a look into the design of Group Ironman and we update you on some of the future content coming to Old School, including a look at what the New Client features are like on Mobile!
It's great to be back. So make your favourite sarnie, a nice cuppa' tea, and sit back for a good read!
Project Status Update
Recent Leadership Livestream
Last week's live stream was a big one, and a leadership presence on the streams was well overdue. Mods Ayiza, Kieren, and Sween were joined by Mod Markos - Old School's new Executive Producer. We sought to give you some insight into concerns such as account security, the Duel Arena and more. Let's break down some of the key announcements:
Duel Arena: In the long-term, we plan to replace the Duel Arena with more engaging content. In the meantime we'd like to explore some other changes, like the introduction of a staking cap. More information will follow later this month.
Account Security: In the livestream Mod Markos, the new Executive Producer, stated that Account Security will be a priority of his, acknowledging that it has been far too long since we promised changes.
Games Rules and RWT: Beginning later this month we'll be adapting our approach to RWT. Currently, we focus on tackling those who sell wealth or services, but we're going to renew our attention on finding the players who are buying wealth or services. We're also exploring new reporting options for different types of rule-breaking.
The Game Economy: You've asked us to pay close attention to the game's economic health, and we plan to do just that. We've even hired some economists to help advise us! We'll talk about our plans in more detail later this month.
Nex In Old School: Following the Summer Summit we saw that, despite a lot of excitement for the content we announced, you wanted something more permanent and playable. We've been investigating backporting Nex with an Old School flavour, but before we poll it there'll be a blog (in a few weeks time) and an in-game beta to test proposed rewards.
WIP images of the Boss Room & Nex.
Group Ironman
Can you believe we're just two days away from Group Ironman's release? What a journey it has been since its initial announcement back at RuneFest 2019. It is the result of a huge collective team effort. So, get ready to travel to The Node with your friends from 11am BST on October 6th!
As usual, there'll be a newspost alongside the release to give you all of the information you need. This has been a highly requested gamemode, even prior to the actual announcement. Just as Ironman was led by Boaty and Faux, we've really enjoyed watching the likes of EVScape, Purpp, RonPlaysGames, and Skiddler pursue their unofficial Group.
We really appreciate your patience over the last two years, and we can't wait to see what you get up to!
Leagues III
Our third League is making amazing progress. It's called Shattered Relics and launches on November 3rd! Following the announcement at our Summer Summit, much of the design has been finalised and we have released the Rewards Poll Blog, so check it out and make sure to have your say!
Tombs of Amascut
We've shared a lot more information on the third Raid since August. We released a newspost and ran a Beta for the potential rewards and there was an amazing reception at our Summer Summit. We're delighted to share with you all that a new Rewards Blog and Beta will be arriving this month, so look out for them when they drop soon! Art pre-production has also made great progress.
Concept art from Tombs of Amascut.
Wilderness Changes
The Wilderness changes blogged back in July are now in development. The first batch has been released, consisting of the final Equipment Rebalance changes and an altered Revenant Cave entrance.
Regrettably, it's taken us much, much longer to get round to these changes than we'd hoped. A huge but critical technical rework was recently urgently required, taking out a developer of the project for multiple months. In addition to this, we've also had to reallocate resource in support of upcoming content. This left us in a position where our only option was to wait for this work to be signed off before resuming anything Wilderness-related. Delaying content is something we'd rather avoid, and while we are committed to delivering the changes as promised, the long-term health of the game always remains our top priority.
Now for the good news! The technical rework is now in QA, and the remaining jobs from Poll 75 are done. We are finally seeing progress, but in the interest of transparency, we'd say that we are not out of the woods just yet. With the delays pushing us into what is now a jam-packed schedule of upcoming content, our dev capacity is not where we need it to be in order to bring these updates together. We are committed to those changes and will do them with no compromise on quality, no matter how long it takes us.
Thank you for your patience so far, and rest assured that we wish to see these changes in the game as much as you do.
Wilderness Boss Rework
Work on this will kick off once the above has been completed. In the interim, the art team has progressed with sketches and concept art for environments and rewards.
Vet'tions Chamber Concept
Venenatis's Lair Concept #1
Venenatis's Lair Concept #2
Steam Client Features
Last month, our Steam Client was updated with a second batch of features including Agility helpers, increased draw distances, a zoomable minimap and more! The team continues on its quest to deliver a client that really enhances your Old School experience. Additions thus far include:
Opponent Information HUD
Buff Bar and Ammo Display
Stat Boost Timers
Fishing Spot Indicators
Tile Markers
Chambers of Xeric Helper
Mouse-Over Tooltips
Chat History Improvements
Orb Visual Timers
FPS Settings
Anti-Drag Settings
Settings Menu Re-organisation
Draw Distance Settings
Tile Indicators
Improved UI Scaling
Agility Helpers
Minimap Improvements
And this is just the beginning! We've got tons of exciting features on the way in the near future that will improve your experiences with Clue Scrolls, loot and more.
In the meantime, our third drop of new features is just around the corner, arriving on October 20th! This release will focus on Skilling Helpers such as respawn timers, XP trackers and the introduction of our Client-Side Panel.
Here's a full list of what's coming with Drop 3:
New Side Panel
XP Tracker Sub-Panel
Slayer Helper and Task Streak Tracking
Respawn Timers (Ore and Woodcutting)
Improved Poison/Venom Info
Logout Notifier
Now, we know that a lot of you have been asking about the progress of new mobile features. We are delighted to say that it's going very well, and you can get a cheeky sneak peek in a few screenshots below. Please note: these screenshots are still a work in progress.
Opponent Information HUD & Attack Style Visual.
Slayer Helper & Tracker.
Here's the NEW Side Panel!
If you don't want it, that's fine too!
Combat with the Side Panel.
Cutting Logs with the XP Tracker Side Panel.
Agility Helpers.
Group Ironman - Development Process
by Mod Elena
Hi all! I’m Mod Elena, lead developer on the Group Ironman project. I’d like to share some of the project's history, as well as some insights into the design decisions that were made and the development process that we've been using.
Group Ironman is rapidly approaching its launch, after having been on the horizon for so long. The first design document for it was created in January 2018 – so there was talk of it more than three years ago! Back then we knew we definitely wanted to do it at some point, but we didn’t yet have the technology to do so. Clans had to come first, but now that's out the system for Group Ironman is nearly all in place.
I was left alone to start working on the design for the game mode immediately after Clans launched back in May. The very first thing I did was look at what others had done before me. There was various documentation about meetings and talks, and just general ideas of what the game mode should be. I kept most of it – scrapped some – and then went back to the drawing board. In my head I was trying to picture what the game mode means to me, and what I wanted it to be. I tried to imagine the core game loop of making a character, becoming part of a group and then competing within that group. Thinking about these things as a general high-level concept made the next steps very easy because I was left with a million questions, such as “how do I find players to group with?” and “how would groups make decisions fairly?”. I jotted down all the questions, and then proceeded to try to answer them all in a rough first draft of the design.
I quickly realised that I didn’t have all the answers myself. At a high-level concept, sure, I knew that Group Ironmen should have typical Iron-restrictions when interacting with players outside of their group, while at the same time acting as main-accounts when interacting with players within the group. But what I didn’t know were things such as “What happens when a player leaves a group?” or “How do we make sure no groups get an unfair advantage?”. I started conversations with groups of players and colleagues to really get to the bottom of it all. The discussions were incredibly valuable and shed light on aspects I hadn’t even considered – all helping me make more informed decisions.
Once I was satisfied with the design, I sent it around to the Juggernauts (my development team) for them to review. Their feedback was extremely valuable and I adapted the design further, before sending it around to the wider Old School team. The initial reaction was “Group Ironman is finally happening!”, followed by more constructive criticism for me to address. These feedback loops are common with projects like this. Usually we start development shortly after the design is finalised and all the internal feedback has happened. However, we were scheduled to do Deadman Mode before Group Ironman, so the Juggernauts put Group Ironman on hold and rallied around Combat Achievements and Deadman Mode first.
In the next few months while we developed other content, there was a lot of talk about the scheduling for Group Ironman. To help with scheduling, we always break down the project into different jobs that we then assign point values to in order to determine how big of a job it is. For Group Ironman, we had jobs such as 'Forming a Group' and 'Selecting the GIM mode'. We then estimated how much time each would take, and checked if we could fit it all in the time that we had left. Sadly, we could not. This meant we had to thoroughly assess each job and evaluate its importance. Do we really need it for launch? What value does the feature have? Where is our time best spent? These are all questions we had to ask ourselves as we tried to make the project as good as it could be in the available time.
In August 2021, the development finally started. The art team got a head start by beginning one sprint before the rest of us while we finished off the final touches on Deadman. That meant that when we began on development, there was already a bunch of assets such as new armour and a brand-new island waiting for us - The Node.
I’ve been in lots of talks with the engine team about how the HiScores should work, as well as exploring what we can do with Shared Storage. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to see in Old School ever since I started working on Clans in January, and I believe it will make a huge difference to Group Ironman gameplay. This is new territory and requires a lot of work, which is why it took us a while to figure it out. Luckily, the engine team figured out how to provide it, and I'm so excited to see us have Shared Storage for the launch of Group Ironman.
We currently have six content developers on the project (Mods Arcane, Ash, Husky, Mac, Tide, and myself). Having this many developers on the same project can be tricky, especially when we work on the same files. It’s kind of like trying to cram six people into a kitchen and telling them to prepare a meal together. It takes a lot of communication to make sure we don’t trip over each other.
A typical workday for me on Group Ironman starts with a morning meeting, where everyone on the project gets together to catch up. It’s very brief, and everyone says what they’ve been up to since they last spoke, and what they plan on doing next. It’s a good way of flagging any unexpected things that may come up so that we can identify and deal with issues early. I typically spend most of the rest of the day talking to different people to make sure things are running smoothly. Whenever there’s a question about the Group Ironman design, I am the go-to person. This could be from the marketing team making sure that their videos are suitable, artists wondering exactly how an asset will be used, developers checking if they’ve interpreted the design document correctly, and so on. When I’m not overseeing development or taking deep dives into engine code with Mod Boko to explore how we can make things work from a technical standpoint, I may finally get some time to code.
I hope you enjoyed the little peek behind the curtains on how development has gone down for Group Ironman! I've been writing most of this from my point of view, but know that with me is a large team of very talented and passionate people who are working very hard to make this project the best it can be. I can certainly say that everyone working on this project is extremely excited to see it launch, and we hope you are too. Group Ironman will arrive soon – and I will be playing it myself in my spare time. I hope to see you on The Node!
Old School's Ins and Outs
We've welcomed over 20 J-Mods since our last Gazette. How incredible is that? Several different areas of the team have grown and expanded - we are excited for the future of Old School and how the team is shaping up! A few of the new starters tell us a little bit about themselves below, but please make sure to give a warm welcome to the other members of the team: Mods Dibber, Dnz, Dylan, Grub, Ivee, Kirby, KT, Kurotou, Light, Matheus, Nylu, Sigma & Sova.
Mod Markos has joined as Executive Producer
Hi there, I'm Mod Markos! I've been at Jagex for some time including many years on RuneScape and a spell on Old School back in 2019.
I've played a fair amount of RuneScape over the years (although I'm still some way off being high level) and tend to gravitate towards questing for the storytelling and skilling because I love watching the numbers go up! Outside of RuneScape I tend to play a lot of open world RPGs and have been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember.
In my role I'm responsible for the general running of the game and am looking forward to working with the team and community on delivering lots of great, new updates over the coming years!
Mod Meat is our new Game Engine Developer
Hi players! My name is Mod Meat and I have just joined Jagex as a game engine developer on Old School RuneScape. I’ve been programming since I was a teenager and playing RuneScape for even longer, so the idea of working for Jagex is a dream job for me. I always played RuneScape free-to-play as a kid and only recently got back into the game during lockdown, so I’ve been loving exploring all the old and new content that I missed out on. My favourite thing about the game has to be the hilarious and quirky humour. I recently did the Cold War quest and I think it’s the most I have ever laughed while playing a video game (who knew 'The Thing' from Sheep Shearer was just two penguins in a sheep suit?). I’m looking forward to developing our engine to support all the great new content coming up, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
Mod Regent is our new Producer
My name is Mod Regent, I am the new producer working on the Old School team. I have in games for nine years now, having previously worked in indie (Freejam) then in triple-A (2K) and now I have the opportunity to work with the incredible team here at Jagex. Having played RuneScape since 2004, it was always a childhood dream to work here, and not one I thought would ever happen.. but 17 years later here I am! I have never really been able to quit RuneScape and when they announced Old School in 2013, I couldn’t wait to jump back into the game and have been playing ever since.
It is an incredible privilege to work with the team here and I look forwards to helping them develop all of the incredible content we have planned - made doubly exciting as I get to play it all after!
Mod Con is our new Junior QA Analyst
Hiya, I am Mod Con. I am happy to say I am joining Jagex as a Junior QA Analyst on the Old School team! This is my first proper experience with the games industry, having been a student from 2020. The games experience I do have comes from my studies and making my own projects in my free time. Oh and playing them, of course (stuff like MMOs, platformers, adventure games, RPGs etc). I haven’t had much time with Old School but I'm having a lot of fun with it (loving the humour of the quests and the chill nature of just playing the game). But I've heard lots about the game throughout the years, which makes me glad that I get to help test such an iconic MMO.
I am excited to start testing the game with all the upcoming content, helping the devs out and helping ensure bugs are tackled so you the players can continue to enjoy the game and have fun. :)
Leadership Livestream Summary Blog: 23rd September
Yesterday's live stream was a big one. A leadership presence on the streams was well overdue. Mods Ayiza, Kieren, and Sween were joined by Mod Markos - Old School's new Executive Producer. In this stream we sought to give you some insight into concerns you've had for a while now, like resolving the Deadman issue and our next steps, what we're doing with the Duel Arena, the release schedule of game content and permanent content versus game modes and seasonals, Account Security upgrades, botting, and other rule-breaking. There were also some new announcements! In addition to the content announced at the Summer Summit, we're also working on a port of Nex from RuneScape to Old School, and we're going to be paying close attention to the health of the game economy. Check out the video to watch it or skip below to read the summary!
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00:01 - 1:58 Livestream introduction
Introduction and chit-chat. Kieren found a kitten!
1:59 - 6:43 Mod Markos introduction
Mod Markos is Old School's new Executive Producer. His main responsibility will be to ensure that the Old School team have everything they need to deliver great game content. He has been at Jagex for many years, and served on Old School RuneScape as interim Executive Producer in 2019 (as well as supporting Old School's original release way back in 2013!).
6:44 - 8:51 Announcements
The Group Ironman poll passed and there's a summary blog for you to go and read! This week's update brought the first Wilderness changes. And Leagues is returning! Shattered Relics, the third League, is arriving in early November. Check out the Rewards blog, which brings us to...
8:58 - 16:16 Leagues III Rewards
An overview of the proposed Shattered Relics rewards and accompanying discussion around the thematic and the League.
16:17 - 18:26 Mod Markos' First Priorities
He wants to really dig into solving outstanding promises and long-time concerns for players as his first priority. This is explored further later in the stream!
18:27 - 25:56 The Group Ironman Poll and Polling generally
The team discuss the outcome of the poll, motives for voting, why the development was so far underway before polling began, and then polling generally. Sween rambles a lot, but viewers seemed to enjoy what was said.
25:57 - 31:15 The Deadman Finals and Next Steps, and the future of Deadman
The team explain that they're working toward the prospect of a re-run of the Finals event, but there's a need to investigate content, engine, and network changes before we can announce anything. The future of Deadman is tied into the re-run.
31:16 - 37:00 Wilderness changes and its delay
Ayiza and Kieren discuss why the Wilderness changes, proposed many months ago, were delayed.
37:01 - 39:20 The HD Decision and Reversal
The team discuss the decision (and how bad it was), and what they're going to do to rectify this in future. Working closely with third-party developers and players is key to ensuring this doesn't occur again.
39:21 - 42:07 The Duel Arena
Sween announces that, in the long-term, the Duel Arena will be replaced by more engaging content, pending design and development, but in the interim there'll be changes coming to mitigate its issues, like the introduction of a cap on stake amounts. There is more information on the way in October.
42:08 - 43:20 Botting and Cheating
The team discusses the improvements being made to the Anti-Cheating Team, as well as offering players more report options for different types of rule-breaking. There's more focus on preserving the integrity of things like boss HiScores.
43:21 - 45:29 Real World Trading
Sween announces that in addition to maintaining the current approach of prioritising action against gold/service sellers, there will also be action taken against gold/service buyers. More news will come in October.
45:30 - 46:46 Account Security
Markos will be chasing the status of the Account Security changes as a matter of priority. He acknowledges that it has been too long since the blog which promised changes.
46:47 - 47:50 Permanent Content versus Game Modes or Seasonals
The team discuss the importance of different modes and seasonals, but acknowledge that the release order isn't ideal. Group Ironman was originally meant to come before Deadman. In an perfect world there would be a big gap between Deadman and Leagues.
47:51 - 52:33 The Return of Nex!
The team announce that they have been exploring the prospect of bringing back Nex to Old School, with changes made to make it fit the game. More information will come in October, ahead of a Rewards Beta test.
52:34 - 56:38 The Game Economy
The team will be paying very close attention to the game economy in the coming months. Ahead of a blog in October, the team discuss that they have hired game economists to advise them, and that one avenue they'd like to explore is the prospect of a Grand Exchange tax which will see taxed gold used to then remove some items from the Grand Exchange to ensure that prices remain the same. There are other gold sinks coming too.
56:39 - 59:37 The Current Release Schedule (Deadman into Group Ironman into Leagues)
This was touched upon a bit earlier. Again the team acknowledges that it isn't ideal, and explain why it is how it is.
59:38 - End The Growth Of The Old School Team And Amount Of Content
The team discusses the belief that despite its growth, there is less content making its way into game. The team acknowledges that this perception is valid, but that there's a lot of under the hood rewrites and updates being undertaken this year. The new J-Mods need to be trained, which is a resource drain in the short-term but is one that will benefit the game in the long-term. The team want to ensure that the release schedule going forward in 2022 and beyond offers players value for their membership.
That's it! Going forward we'd like to offer these types of summaries for all Leadership Livestreams. You'll be able to join the team again in October for another of these, and in the meantime don't miss out on the normal weekly J-Mod Q&As!
The Old School Team
Leagues III - Shattered Relics Reward Poll Blog
Leagues III - Shattered Relics Reward Poll Blog
You’ll notice that this year, we’re not giving away too much information around the Shattered Relics League. This is intentional! This League is set to be our most open and versatile one to date, and we feel that sharing too much information ahead of the release could take out a lot of the excitement of the unknown.
You’ll have to master the new Relics system in which the Relics themselves have been shattered across Gielinor by a mysterious and powerful Magic user. Throughout your journey you’ll earn Fragments of these Relics, which when combined unlock different powers and benefits that tailor to your playstyle. Experiment with this highly versatile system and unlock great powers like no other!
Much like previous Leagues, you’ll complete tasks that reward you with points. A big twist of Shattered Relics is that rather than progressively unlocking areas as you did in Trailblazer, you’ll instead have to unlock individual pieces of content such as skills, bosses and auto-completing quests. Complete tasks and unlock the content of your choice!
The points you earn will be transferred over to the main game once the League ends to unlock exclusive rewards! At this point you’re probably wondering what prizes you can look forward to as reward for your rapid RuneScaping? Well, today we’d like to share a few of our ideas.
We'd like for this poll to run from September 29th to October 5th, and your feedback will ensure that the rewards fit the achievements in our most open and versatile League yet! Please read this post carefully and let us know what you think.
Leagues III - Shattered Relics is due to launch on November 3rd!
Returning Rewards
Before we get going, here’s a reminder of the classic rewards we’ve offered in all previous Leagues. These goodies will continue to feature as rewards in Leagues III.
Shattered Relic Hunter Outfit
As long-time League-ers will know, each League has its own themed outfits, offered in three tiers. The more points you accumulate, the higher tier of outfit you’ll access. Naturally, you get more flair in your fashion at the higher tiers! Each outfit also has an emote related to the theme of that particular League. We’ll once again be offering some great new themed outfits for Leagues III!
The Shattered Relic Hunter Outfit, as seen in-game.
Poll Question #1 Should the Shattered Relics Outfit, a cosmetic armour described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Shop? This will consist of three tiers of cosmetic outfits that represent the League.
Shattered Relics Home Teleport Animation
Once you’re done jet-setting all over Gielinor, won’t it be nice to click that friendly blue circle and head back home? And wouldn’t it be even nicer if you had a funky home teleport animation to do it with?
Well you’re in luck, ‘cause that’s what this little scroll will teach you to do! Once you’ve learned the trick, your home teleports will look a little different. Instead of drawing a chalk circle, you’ll place down some Relics, and before you know it you’ll be clawed back home.
The Shattered Relics Home Teleport Animation, as seen in-game.
Poll Question #2 Should the Shattered Relics League Home Teleport Animation, as described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Store?
Player Owned House
You may remember that with the first League, we added the League Hall to Player Owned Houses. This became a hub for players to reminisce over past Leagues, keep an eye on their rankings and gloat over all the rewards they had unlocked during their adventures. We’re going to carry on this tradition with Leagues III, with the addition of these classics.
Leagues Banner
Show your support for your favourite League (so far) with this themed banner! The banner is wearable, though if you don't fancy using up a main-hand slot, it can be proudly displayed in your Player Owned House via the Leagues Hall.
The Shattered Relics Banner, as seen in-game.
Poll Question #3 Should the Shattered Relics League Themed Banner, as described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Shop? This item will be like the Trailblazer League banner and held in the main-hand slot.
Leagues Trophy
Show off your skill and dedication to the League with untradeable trophies ranging from Bronze to Dragon! The trophies can be held in the off-hand slot (aside from Dragon, Rune and Adamant, which are two-handed) and will have a unique emote that you can access by right clicking them. Don't want to make them a part of your fashionscape? Save your hands from the heavy lifting and store them in your Player Owned House via the Trophy Case.
The Shattered Relics Trophies, as seen in-game.
New Rewards
So, what’s new? In Leagues III we want players across all playstyles, tiers and ages to access some ace bounty. We also want these goodies to be the kind of kit you can keep using for years to come, like the classic Twisted Slayer Helmet and Graceful Outfit recolour of Leagues past. With these goals in mind, we’ve come up with some new ideas, and we’d love to hear your feedback. Let us know what you think:
Weapon Variety Pack
The Weapon Variety pack is our way of providing a selection of cosmetic items suited to different players. The Abyssal/Tentacle Whip, Rune Crossbow, God books and Mystic Robes have a range of level requirements to appeal to a wide range of different players. The Rune Crossbow is a staple for beginner accounts before receiving the Blowpipe, and continues to have a great variety of uses from then onwards – in contrast, the Abyssal/Tentacle Whip is a mid-to-late game weapon that we see players using from the moment they unlock it, right until the very latest stages of the game. God books offer a great variety of stats and bonuses, finding use far beyond the ability to bless silver symbols or perform wedding rites. The Mystic Robes, meanwhile, are a stand-alone magic item that appeals to most players, without having too much lore attached to it that could cause problems in the future. We wouldn’t want to break the lore!
Each kit would be applicable to one item, so you would need to score four kits to transform all four items. What do you think?
The Shattered Relics Abyssal Whip (left) and Tentacle Whip (right), as seen in-game.
The Shattered Relics Rune Crossbow, as seen in-game.
The Shattered Relics God books, as seen in-game.
The Shattered Relics Mystic robes, as seen in-game.
Poll Question #4 Should the Shattered Relics League Weapon Variety Pack, as described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Shop? This item can be used on the Abyssal/Tentacle Whip, Rune Crossbow, God books and Mystic Robes to create cosmetic Shattered Relics themed versions of the item. One kit is needed for each item converted.
Dwarven Multicannon Ornament Kit
The Dwarven Multicannon is an interesting item. It’s expensive to operate, but packs a hefty punch, and can greatly speed up those Slayer tasks! The advantages are obvious: it can be used at the very start of the game as the quests required to unlock it are pretty low level. It then remains viable right up to 99 Slayer.
We reckon that an ornament kit for the cannon would give it a fresh look. One design we might consider is the original eight-barrel cannon from classic RuneScape (which we’ve seen you requesting a few times on Reddit and Twitter). Thoughts?
The Shattered Relics Dwarf Multicannon concept art.
The Shattered Relics Dwarf Multicannon, as seen in-game.
Poll Question #5 Should the Dwarven Cannon Ornament Kit, as described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Shop? This kit can be used on the Dwarven Multicannon to create a cosmetic themed Shattered Relics version instead.
Void & Elite Void Ornament Kit
Void is a perfect reward for Leagues III because it already fits with Melee, Range and Magic combat thanks to the different Helmet types. Plus, the Void and Elite Void variants are both great for mid- and late-game players, with excellent usage in PvM throughout. A snazzy Leagues-themed recolour to these outfits could be the perfect reward for speedy ‘Scapers. Let us know what you think!
The Shattered Relics Void Knight Armour (top) and Elite Void Knight Armour (bottom), as seen in-game.
Poll Question #6 Should the Void & Elite Void Ornament Kit, as described in the blog, be added to the Leagues Reward Shop? This kit can be used on the Void & Elite Void Knight Armor to create cosmetic themed Shattered Relics versions instead.
As always, we welcome your thoughts on this poll blog, and we’ll be making adjustments as feedback rolls in. Check the changelist at the top of this blog for the latest updates!
