Binary Mage

Just an exciting observation: The mask shown in the Promotional Art for the Masks update is actually the Mask of Devilry, which represents Dustdevils, which it looks nothing like. Very interesting. Seems like Dustdevils will be getting a much-needed makeover update relatively soon. :D The helm for the Banshee also shows a similar graphical upgrade. Wonder if there's another slayer update coming, or it's potentially just gonna be lumped in with another Desert-related thing.

I think that the kind of technology they are talking about isn't really mechanical-electrical like a lot of folks seem to think--from the concept art, hints, and leaks, I'd say that it's more of items imbued with godly power. Think of the Sixth Age Circuit we've been given as an example of this--using god energy to power complex circuitry and psuedo-electronics. (Perhaps this is the teaser in TWW that they meant?) The idea is basically that they are deposits of godly energy all around the world, we extract them from nodes using Divination, then use the energy to power the sci-fantasy devices we'd make using the second skill, as a sort of Artificing. Using the power of the gods against them, or against other gods in a way--elevating humans' abilities to be able to fight them without their faces melting off. This sort of idea of Artificing being used as a sci-fi fantasy hybrid has become very popular lately, a notable instance being Hextech devices/robotics from League of Legends. The entire idea that magic can be used to create things that we would otherwise consider futuristic and beyond our point in history. At least, that's my theory--created from all of the teasers, hints, and in-game references we've seen so far.

Kind of random, but the new God Descriptions from Jagex's social media God-a-Thon seems to be revealing some new tidbits of information about the gods and their past/future intentions that are interesting. Notably, the idea that Bandos is potentially much less barbaric than we thought he is, and simply puts on that as a disguise to help further his cause. Also, apparently Zamorak actually locked himself in the portal at the bottom of Daemonheim, and wasn't simply forced out of the plane and found a new way in. I'm guessing only a God's power can attune the Rift to Frenskae in such a direct way. (Or did Zamorak himself create fhe Rift?) I guess this makes the Well of Voyage efforts and similar past plans by his followers a sort of wild goose chase caused by how quickly he had to leave our plane. :P

I think Jagex's servers are certainly stable enough for something like this--we certainly have enough of them, and I imagine they will be adding many more to handle RS3 launch day. The only possible issue would be the login server and the other smaller bottlenecks, but I'm sure they have a solution prepared for scaling and/or adding more. Anyone who has any sort of training in server architecture would be able to foresee the potential issues there, I would highly doubt that Jagex's staff wouldn't. The Vorago downtime was a completely different one-off issue if what we were hearing is correct--an exploit that allowed Instance Shard worlds to be the target of a DDOS attack. It's entirely possible something like that could happen on launch day, but even if it can, there's no feasible way to prevent it before it happens. I would definitely expect issues on launch day--there hasn't been a single MMO launch or relaunch in the past decade that hasn't had its issues--but I think that they have been preparing quite well for whatever gets thrown at them come July 22nd.

Apparently the new monster in the Dwarf Quest will be dropping Dragon Thrownaxes. Neat. There is also a Chaos Druid Leader coming into play :-k

I think Runescape players have made it pretty obvious so far that even if a boss is designed/balanced to be fought by ten people at once, someone will solo it in Bronze by the end of the release day. :P I'm not sure if there's a way to cause players to group without specifically forcing it in this game. If there is, it hasn't been discovered yet.

I stand corrected--thanks. Thankfully the point about PoP armor still stands :P I don't know, I just find Offense armor to be the easy way out to make something popular and sought-after. It'd be nice to have another tier of armor with interesting set effects, but with the way things are going I guess we'll have to wait for t99 for those.

I think the intention is that in order to fight Vorago you will almost definitely need PoP armor (Perhaps this is a part of the entrance "50k hitsplat" requirement), and thus the need for the Tier 90 Armor will also bring a need for PoP armor, allowing both to be highly sought-after at once. I wonder what kind of armor it would be--it certainly won't be Tank armor considering PoP is t85, but releasing another tier of Offense armor would be rather boring (and devalue Virtus, although that isn't the worst thing in the world considering how overpriced it is). I guess we'll have to see.

The part that makes me the most excited is that they have previously said that the next quest will be "shortly after RS3". Does this mean RS3 is coming next week? :o Or does it simply mean that they were talking about the next Sixth Age quest, not quests in general?

Now THAT is a boss. Holy crap. And our prediction of the outcropping being his head was correct! :D T90 Wand, Orb, magic armor, and a pet.

Hasn't the equip screen always been disabled while banking before the NIS update? (Since the inventory took up the whole side interface and prevented tab changing) I imagine there's a reason why it is that way, and they made it lock the equip screen to stop any potential issues. They are updating the interfaces to all look consistent, any new features/organization methods/convenience updates will come at a later date in the beta if they can fit. They have already said that they would very much like to add things like those in the RS3 full release.

Yeah, I forgot exactly where the expanded info came from. :P Thanks for reminding me. As far as the finale, they have previously promised that we will get the Daemonheim "finale" for Floor 61. There is no indication whether or not that has actually entered/finished development yet or not. I think that it's likely that those with 120 Dungeoneering will be the ones to actually see it, while the rest of the world will only be told it has happened and feel its consequences, potentially. (Much like people who don't have the stats to do TWW)

That's not leaked info at all. Moia's Fremmenik Saga and the lore surrounding it fills in a lot of lore as far as what's at the bottom of Daemonheim and how it has twisted Daemonheim into the crazy mess it is now. Zamorak isn't technically at the bottom, but the means to bring him back (and the Mahjarrat that will do so/has done so) is--Osborne isn't telling us anything new. Daemonheim will be the site of Zamorak's return once he decides to do so for the Sixth Age. (Or, potentially, he has already)

I think this is a bit different, especially since there is both the plant growth on the same location as the concept art and the shine from Vorago's eye showing at the crack between the Vorago-head-shaped cropping and the area around it. It's a bit more believable than simple pareidolia.

Someone pointed the following out on /r/runescape--apparently the poster isn't the original image creator but I'll still say thanks to Jikkicraft. [spoiler=Vorago Image - Large] Apparently he is closer thank we think?..

They've already explained that they have put almost all of their quest resources onto the task of creating the first few (four, possibly now five) 6th Age quests, other than the upcoming Pig Quest and Dwarf Quest. All of the quests that have been worked on in the past 8 months (sans TWW) can only be released Post-RS3. They aren't going to ruin it by releasing them beforehand. The lack of quests is only signalling that a ridiculous amount will be coming in a short time span. The quests are so numerous that they are refusing to talk about Divination at all until they are released, as to let the hype center on them. For now, we have lots of non-quest content to have fun with. With the exception of this month's RS3 lull, we certainly haven't been getting less for our money. (Less for your money possibly, if you like quests the most, but not for the average player who also appreciates other content)

I think the crucial point is to minimize transport time. Transport time is a huge no-no in game design in almost all cases--there's a reason why GW2 has so many waypoints, why Elder Scrolls has fast travel, and why almost every modern MMO and RPG now has some sort of overarching taxi or transport network. Once you've been to somewhere once, it's lost its magic. There is no more wonder and exploration in getting to that place--it's now a chore that only makes you less and less inclined to go to those places. This is especially true in Runescape, even if the distances overall are very short. The smallness of the entire map only means that smaller and smaller distances (even a few seconds) mean more and more in someone's considerations of how and when to go places. A lot of transport methods in Runescape require you to go somewhere in a slightly easier location to be able to go someplace completely different. (Hero's Guild for glory recharge, Zanaris for fairy rings, random ports for charter ships, etc) While this is fine and dandy, the real way to get people to do more stuff in your game is to have transport methods that are so easily accessible from so many places (or from anywhere at all) that there is virtually no barrier to accessing content. While some folks would call that laziness, it's really not--it's just how the average person works when they're playing something meant as entertainment. Consider this--if I want to get to the Charm Sprites, my easiest route of transport is currently either to use my once-a-day Char Teleport (not inclined to do so at all), or to use a Varrock(or house) teletab, run to the spirit tree, take a spirit tree to the Grand Tree, and run all the way down to the gate and around to the west. Compare this to Jadinko Lair, where I have a reusable, unlimited teleport that I can use whenever and from whereever I want. Runescape has traditionally been a game with a lot of transport required to actually get to content. The Lodestones network has been a crucial step in decreasing that transport time, which is likely why so many areas seem much more populated and frequently used since then. It's really something that the game needs, especially once RS3 is released and the game particularly needs to hold its own against the MMO market as a whole.

I think there's a fine line between placing a Lodestone in a quite obscure location in Isafdar and puttng one right next to the Godwars Dungeon. It's an enormous, interesting area with towns that people have to get to a lot for a variety of different reasons that has no reason to be as obscure as it already is. There's no fairy rings, there's no teleport spell--there's only a pay-to-recharge teleport item and a charter boat. It's probably the only high-level area that makes sense with a Lodestone, considering as it is a large portion of the map. Remember--you need to get to a lodestone once to activate it. There won't be any level 4's running around in Isafdar because of this.

I think the purpose of these lodestones is partially for ease of access (Which I'm alone very much happy about), but--as Hedgehog said--also mostly for upcoming World Event stuffs. Considering how many people converted to Seren, I think having to use teleport crystals to potentially get to Isafdar many times a day for her events would cause quite a few to jump ship. Isafdar is Seren's dominion, Oo'glog lodestone is right in the middle of Bandos land, and the Piscatoris lodestone is pretty much right next to Eagle's Peak and the mountains, which I would imagine are related to Armadyl. Seems to match up quite well to fill in the gaps we have, except for perhaps Canifis.

Those are pretty much perfectly placed for quick access to Piscatoris, Charm Sprites, Order of Ascension, Oo'glog Hotsprings, and getting to Lleyta when you've accidentally used up the last Teleport Crystal. AKA: Everything I do on a daily basis :P I'm a happy 'scaper

The Paths System was a new locked tab in the Character Interface (Alongside quests, Achievement Diaries, and other tabs) shown in the NIS introduction video (But not actually included in our test version of the NIS) that we were specifically told in the video was "a big new feature that is under wraps for now" or something of that like. They didn't hint at all what it will actually be about. Considering how secretive they've been, I'd imagine its the "secret Sixth Age content" they are talking about. If they were going to mention World Events they would probably do so by name.

I'm interested to see what next week RS3 sneak preview is going to be. "Secret Sixth Age Content" makes me think that it's either A) Divination (Highly, HIGHLY unlikely considering the quests aren't out yet) B) World Events (Possible, but once again unlikely considering what they have said about when they will reveal info) or C) Paths System (Most likely, most mysterious. Next to nothing is known except that it is a major part of RS3) Excited to see the info, no matter what it ends up being.

That's not the major change they are making--they are making it so you can put better tools on the belt as your default tools. (IE: Replace your Bronze Hatchet with a Rune one, like how it works in Dungeoneering) Alongside that they are probably allowing you to use certain tools' right-click options (like shovels' dig options) from the toolbelt, as well as perhaps adding things like the Sextant to the belt if they can finally add usable options to them.

Does anyone have any actual pictures of the "cliff face" and cache that you get at the end of the Triskelion puzzle? I'm really interested to see it, considering how peculiar people make it sound.

They didn't really say that he's got a relationship to Zaros though. Honestly I thought that was just a cheeky comment about us looking to deep into things, though I guess it could be an implication. Ocellus - little eye or darling (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ocellus) (If that's not exactly right, don't bite my head, it was the best I could do from google.) I can't think of how that would relate to Zaros. It isn't the Ocellus definition part that is being referenced--it is that Zaros and his followers seem to use a lot of Latin language and are named as such. (See: Zaros GWD) The mod seems to be indirectly hinting that there is some sort of reason why there is so much linking him to Zaros and his followers. I personally think that he is a former Zarosian demon who had been converted by Guthix into sanity, but slowly reverted back to his old Zarosian ways (Using total control as the best solution to his problems) when he went insane from guilt/sadness at Guthix's death.