Engine Team Q&As

[Emmentail]

People often complain that some Jagex Q&A sessions offer nothing in the way of answers, however I feel that these rather unpublicised Q&A's offer a great deal of insight into how RS works and for the future plans of the game (graphics and engine wise), for example looking at movement by keypad and taking players off the "game grid", how very Tron-like.

 

Part 1: "Questions about the engine"

RSOF QC: 25-26-254-62169716

 

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Questions about the Engine!

 

Q. About how many lines of code is the critical part of the system? I remember a long time ago that Andrew said there were over a million lines of code altogether, but I'm curious to see how many lines exist to run the core of the game.

 

A. The engine and libraries are in the hundreds of thousands of lines of code. The game content that sits on top of this is millions of lines (which is what Andrew has previously talked about).

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. What operating systems take precedence for support, and which do you elect not to support?

 

A. We support as much as possible though in the case of Linux we use Ubuntu and only really work with the latest version of it due to Linux updating so often. The lowest Windows and Mac versions we currently support are 2000 and 10.4 (respectively) as anything lower than these are practically impossible to support now.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. A lot of flak gets thrown your way when the game overall suffers from critical bugs. It's happened in the past, but what steps/tests do you do to ensure that the game's engine is rock solid?

 

A. We take as much care as possible that any of the changes to the engine will not disrupt the players gaming experience. Once a change has been made it gets put into the testing environment. Depending on the change we then test along with game content and, if needed, run it through compatibility testing (this consists of 15 different hardware setups with up to 20 software setups on each). This is a mixture of the most popular and most problematic hardware / software so we get a good mix. Even with the above it can take 3 to 4 days to test a single change. Once checked the engine changes then get moved to our RC (Release Candidate) environment and retested including another round of (reduced) compatibility testing. This is to make sure that there wasn’t something in the WIP (work in progress) environment that could have been impacting the changes. Only when we are happy with the changes do we then let it go live.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. What is your IDE of choice? If you can't reveal that, what colour scheme do you prefer - dark background/light text, light background/dark text, or something in between?

 

A. We use Eclipse for Java, Visual Studio for C++ and our own editor for the script language.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Why do you put a limit on the amount of bank space we can have?

 

A. There are technical limitations when it comes to saving the data on the server – remember that we have close to 200 million accounts with data saved, therefore some limitations are needed. Managing your bank has since become part of the everyday experience in RuneScape and we won’t take that away but we are always open for additional ideas as to store items.

Mod_fetzky

 

Q. Well I've got a fairly simple question...why Java?

 

A. Java has been a great language for RuneScape to grow up with. We are now starting to mix in other languages though and in the long term we may move away from Java entirely.

Mod_nick

 

Q. I’ve always wondered, what are the technical advantages to using Java?

 

A. Java does provide certain securities and useful features that most other languages do not, so in some ways it is an asset to use it but we don’t use Java exclusively.

Mod_michael

 

Q. How many elements of the engine are written in Java, and how many are

written in a faster language (say C or C++)? How many would be scripted?

 

A. In the engine, the Java/C++ split is probably around 95/5, although it depends on the graphics mode you are using. The scripting dwarves the engine code in length!

mod_chris_e

 

Q. I've heard that there's a combination of Java and C++ to form the 'backbone' of the game, what exactly is coded in java and what parts of the game use C++?

 

A. The game itself is coded using RuneScript which is our own scripting language. The game engine uses Java for almost everything except for rendering (drawing the scene to the screen)

Mod_nick

 

Q. Why not write the engine in C, and use Java as a wrapper to convey it via webpage’s?

 

A. Because it is already written in Java. This might sound a little backwards, but when you have a huge legacy engine to maintain, porting it all to C is a rather serious job to undertake. If we were to develop a new engine from scratch, we might take a different approach to the one taken 10 years ago.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Are there any plans to upgrade the game to 64-Bit Java seeing as this would allow for many more improvements to the game?

 

A. Our game servers already run under 64bit Java. You can already run the client under 64 bit Java too, if you like, but it’s both slower and less stable as Sun/Oracle still have some work to do on the client compiler.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Is Java a efficient platform for games?? Is running on Java platform makes the programming more complex and inefficient to make a decent game?

 

A. Java is a nice language to code in, and means we can run on different computers without much trouble. The problem with it is that it’s harder to take full advantage of the hardware available on Java, which is why the game engine incorporates native (C++) code to talk straight to the hardware.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Why RS is a browser applet, instead of using Java Web Start?

 

A. Web start didn’t exist when RuneScape was created. I can’t really see any benefits to switching to it now that we’re established as an applet.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. (More related to web systems) What programming language are the forums coded in, and what is the .ws extension on all the pages of the site, I've never seen it before!

 

A. .ws is our own webscript format, it is a mixture of HTML with server-side active elements which compile to Java code using our own webscript compiler. All of our web modules (including the main web sites, game worlds and all the supporting modules) use this format for their web pages.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Do you guys interact with the content developers a lot to update the game engine and to make their projects possible, or do you have your own 'to do list' of things to add to the engine that the content guys can then take advantage of in their projects as you create them?

 

A. We do a mixture of improvements to the game engine according to our own plans for its future, and changes to help the content team with what they want to do. There is much cross-over between these two work streams.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. What does it take to create all the code to maintain and run a game the size of Runescape?

 

A. A lot of hard work, a lot of time and a lot of fun!

Mod_nick

 

Q. I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but could you possibly go into a little detail as to what we can do with the drop down developer’s console?

 

A. The developer console currently only has a limited number of commands available to players, which you can see a list of by typing ‘commands’ into the console. These are aimed at giving you access to information which can help us to solve issues with RuneScape. Internally, there are many more commands which are accessible only to J-mods – for instance, we can give ourselves objects and teleport to anywhere in the game from the dev console.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. What happened to the skyboxes?

 

A. I am going to be working on an improvement to their code in the next week or so. They are available for use in RuneScape, as and when the content guys find a use for them in their fiendish schemes!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Why not use less polygons and more textures for the scenery for a higher game speed? (IE the Lumbridge castle walls, the bridge to the Wizards tower)

 

A. Because the software renderers (both Java and SSE) are faster at rendering lots of small untextured triangles than large textured ones (because of the memory access that texturing requires). Again, newer games or engines may not have this restriction.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Have you guys ever checked out some of the NeHe openGL tutorials for some new cool special effects you could use?

 

A. The NeHe OpenGL tutorials are a great place to look if you are learning graphical techniques but for us it is not a matter of learning the techniques, it is a matter of restructuring parts of the game engine to allow us to use them (without slowing down your frame rate). This is the work that we are currently undertaking.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Any plans of incorporating other rendering engines, such as the 3Impact engine?

 

A. Our whole engine is very carefully crafted to give us advantages like low bandwidth and small download for instance. It would not be possible to incorporate third party render engines without losing those advantages.

Mod_nick

 

Q. What's the status update on hs_err log problems?

 

A. This issue has been looked into and from the information we have managed to get appears to be a bug with the Java applet although we continue to look into a work around for it.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. Is there any chance Runescript (I think that is what it's called... not 100% positive though) will be released to the public so they can learn how to use it?

 

A. We do not plan to release it in the near future but we are thinking around whether this could be possible one day.

Mod_nick

 

Q. When are the rest of RT5's capabilities being released?

 

A. This is down to the content team, who use technical capabilities as and when they need them.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. I’m not being silly but does the engine team have anything to do with the forums? If not, what team is it?

 

A. Web systems maintain the forums, along with all our other web site code.

Mod_jackh

 

*Cough* let’s not forgot the Community Management team who spend a vast majority of our time on the forums interacting with the community!

Mod Dowd

 

Q. How long does an average update take you guys to do? Example: Design and Audio team gives you an item to update to the engine, do you have meetings with the rest of the engine team or you all talk to each other?

 

A. We all sit in the same area and tend to just roll our chairs into a circle and have a chat if there’s something non-trivial that needs deciding on. Formal meetings do happen now and again if there’s lots to talk about or if it’s something that two people have conflicting viewpoints on, to avoid annoying our office-mates too much!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. How do particles work in software mode?

 

A. Particles are handled by a system that sits above the graphics modes and calls into them to render the particles, so they work in software mode the same as in all other modes. Essentially we have emitters which squirt out particles, and effectors which either suck them in or repel them. Emitters and effectors can be attached to models. This allows a wide range of effects to be created.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Does PID exist? If so, what benefits does a low PID bring to a player?

 

A. When the server processes players, it goes through them each in turn. If you are first in the list, you get processed first. In early versions of Classic, you always got put at the end of the list (if I remember rightly), so if you stayed logged in you would end up at the beginning of the list eventually. Being processed first meant you could catch up with people more easily when following them, which gave an advantage particularly in the wilderness with PVP. A low PID means you were at the beginning of the list, high PIDs were at the end.

This is no longer true, as you are now placed in a random place in the list and everyone else is shuffled up, so you don’t retain the same PID throughout your session. This makes things much fairer.

mod_jackh

 

Q. Apparently people are using modified RS clients to be able to view their PID, and so they can log in and out until they get what they desire. Are you planning to do anything about this or how PIDs are assigned?

 

A. Whilst it may be possible to extract this with a modified client right now, we are working on updates which will make your slot in the server more or less irrelevant when it comes to action timing.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Is there any restriction in the hardware resource utilisation in RS, such as for the memory usage, you can manually adjust the maximum usage, so is the restriction just because of its low default setting, or there is a real restriction?

 

A. Some versions of Java severely restrict the memory we have access to. This is a good reason to upgrade your Java to the latest version. However, if your Java version allows access to more memory, the game will take advantage of that.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Many games with better graphics quality than RS can play more smoothly and thus better gaming experience, but will be more laggy when playing RS on the same system spec

 

A. I suspect many of these do not have game engines dating back 6-10 years! The computer and internet world was very different back in 2003 when RS2 was coded, so many of the things that we do now in the engine we would do differently if starting again. That said, a large portion of our time in the engine team is spent in taking parts of the engine, stripping them right back and then re-implementing them with a more modern approach, often with the benefit of hindsight. In this way we are always catching up with newer engines, but I am sure that you can understand that this is a big task!

Mod_chris_e

 

A. Can you disclose more technical details about the game engine? Such as what parts of DirectX and OpenGL is being utilised and what version is being used?

 

A. We target DirectX 9 and OpenGL 1.4 at the moment.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. How far can Runescape be developed to like the other mainstream games? I mean what features that are commonly seen in other games and are seen as essential can be introduced into RuneScape?

 

A. In a world with plentiful development time (and no live game to support!) we could match or exceed any other commercial game out there – we are not limited by anything other than time. Supporting millions of players take a surprising amount of maintenance time from everyone in the company!

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Is the computer specs of most players that low that Jagex have to develop RuneScape into simpler and less demanding game intentionally? Can't you develop some breathtaking scene such as complex trees and geographical features? Like keeping the client small in file size, I'm sure most players have broadband and I am sure there are many ways to increase the client download bandwith, so I would suggest not keeping the texture of RS that simple.

 

A. Keeping the client download size small means people get into game quicker, which we’ve found is very important to most players. It also reduces our bandwidth costs, which means we can offer subscription at a much lower rate than most online games, even the ones which have a CD/DVD you have to install on your computer first.

Mod_jackh

 

And yes, the average specification for our players are very low indeed (for example, around 28% of our players have CPUs under 2Ghz, and around 23% have under 1GB of RAM).

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. In the GE and other crowded places the FPS rate is like 10. CPU usage is 25% (quadcore AMD Phenom 2.4Ghz) and GPU (HD4650) usage is about 20%.

 

Are you using the CPU for some graphical renderings even in the HD mode, where the GPU is available? If yes, why, and do you have plans to move everything graphical to the GPU?

 

A. In short, yes and yes. Mostly the animation system, and for, again, legacy reasons.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Is there going to be an in-game option for anisotropic filtering?

 

A. Maybe, it just requires some time to implement it. With our given market’s PC specifications, it would be a very niche upgrade.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. I've noticed water in the game isn't exactly great, is there any reason the water is rendered like this? Or is it actually how you wanted it?

 

A. Well, it’s certainly a lot better than we used to have! But we would definitely like to improve it further.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. As we know and stated by Andrew the game runs at 600ms intervals (one tick). Is there a reason for this exact number? Could the game benefit from lower interval, for example 300ms?

 

A. Some upcoming features in the server tick at a 50ms rate. The overall 600ms tick remains, as the content relies on having this time interval available as a base, but we’re not limited by it.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. What is the single biggest non-hardware based challenge you face? (i.e. not computer diversity) Memory limits?

 

A. Memory is certainly an important limit. The need to support old versions of Java is also quite a challenge. So if you haven’t already, please, upgrade your Java to the latest version – it’s free and will make our lives much easier!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. What's been the most challenging update that you have faced regarding the Game Engine?

 

A. The most challenging ones for me have been changes to the graphics system – every change we make there has to be done in safe mode, software mode, OpenGL and DirectX so it’s a lot of work.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Does the game use TCP or UDP for packets?

 

A. Both – our internal communications between worlds and modules are all UDP, while the game talks to your PC using TCP.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Are the DirectX and OpenGL modes visually same? There have been some rumours that DirectX is less detailed than OpenGL.

 

A. In theory, they should be identical, except where GL and DirectX differ in an implementation of something. There is nothing we do to limit detail in one versus the other.

Mod_Chris_e

 

- Mod Dowd -

 

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Part 2: "Future Changes"

RSOF QFC: 25-26-529-62199803

 

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Future Changes!

 

Q. Are you thinking about releasing the full screen option to F2P any time soon?

 

A. We tried to integrate adverts into the full screen game frame when we first launched it, but it was beset with technical problems. Instead we developed the resizable mode which we think is almost as good, so it is unlikely we will be spending time updating full screen to support adverts in the near future.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Have you run any tests against OpenJDK 7/Java 7?

Do you plan to do this when it is officially released, or do you want to be sure it's supported from day 0?

 

A. Java 7 is actually on our checklist for compatibility testing an engine release so whenever there is an update to the engine it gets tested.

Mod_noldor

 

We have about 7% of our users already running it!

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Could the game engine handle some advanced game graphics, like the ones you would see on a console game?

 

A. We are constantly updating the game engine and adding more advanced capabilities. This year we have a very ambitious programme of improvements, probably one of the most ambitious graphical engine updates that we have ever done. Mostly the initial work is behind the scenes so you might not notice the changes but it will open the door to new rich content and advanced graphics methods.

Mod_nick

 

Q. What is the limitation of the current engine Runetek5?

 

Is it possible for the current engine to utilize true multithreaded application?

 

Can the engine support more realistic models? E.g. characters hands have individual fingers which are visible.

 

A. It is possible to have that level of detail already but to have so much detail would be very costly and your frame rate would be terrible. This year we are working hard to streamline the engine so that we can add a lot more detail though.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Is it possible to control the characters movement by using the arrow keys and camera controls by holding right click on the mouse and dragging in the desired direction?

 

A. This is on our list of jobs. It is a relatively big task involving a significant change to some structural elements of the engine though.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Does the current engine allow for high quality keyboard movement? Runescape is currently very restricted in its movement. For example, no jumping, no collision system, movement is confined to large squares on a grid. Are there any plans to change this or would it require too substantial of a rewrite for the game and the engine?

 

A. We plan to change all of this in time and work has already started on some of those elements.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Any plans on incorporating minimapping?

 

A. Assuming you mean mipmapping, then yes.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Any plans on incorporating bumpmapping?

 

A. Again, yes.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. This might be more of a question for content but I was wondering what kind of engine update would need to happen in order for non-tradable objects to be noted? As it is now I have a lot bank spaces cluttered by non-tradable items I used to train with.

 

A. We have been discussing this for a while now and we think we should be able to do this but sadly it is – as always – not as easy as it sounds that’s why it didn’t get done immediately. As soon as it doesn’t impact on any game updates, we will tackle this.

Mod_fetzky

 

Q. The 'loading please wait' screens in RuneScape can get incredibly annoying, especially when doing activities such as clan PKing (many times my clan has been jumped on one of the map boundaries!). I know the 'loading please wait' screens are probably a limitation of the procedural rendering that RuneScape uses, but is there any workarounds planned to remove these 'loading' screens in the future? (perhaps via an optional downloadable client containing pre-rendered textures etc?)

 

A. Unfortunately this isn’t just textures – with our current game engine architecture we build the map in sections, which includes constructing all the models, setting up the structure of the world in memory, and generally getting everything ready to render. When you cross a map boundary all this has to be done for the next map zone, and that’s what causes the delay. The solution to this would be to load the stuff coming up in the distance at a low level of detail, then continually increase the level of detail as you move towards things, so we would be doing a constant process of building rather than in sections. This is something we would really love to do, but is a major change and will take some time. We’re on it though!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. What are your plans to update the game engine to help reduce lag?

 

A. Yes, we are doing a lot of work on that aspect this year. Unfortunately we cannot provide details as of yet.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Will it be possible not you use the square grid for walking any time soon?

 

A. We are working on this at the moment but it is a big task that will take a while to complete.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Is there a realistic future for rewriting the game in C or C++ and turning it into an install-able game that runs off of our computers?

 

A. RuneScape is of course fundamentally an online game, so we can’t really ‘unplug’ it in that sense. We have been looking at other languages, but obviously moving to another one is a decision we can’t take lightly as it sets our whole future. But it’s definitely something we are considering carefully.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Aside from multithreading, will we see any massive game engine or graphical updates soon?

 

A. Yes, we are working on some very exciting stuff that’s never been seen before in RuneScape. It’s mostly at the R&D stage right now though, so be patient – awesome things take time!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. How come the Runescape engine is limited to 50fps, even over here where 60fps is standard?

Sure, I can understand why it was implemented, back when most systems couldn't produce more than 20, but now that even a mid-to-low range system can produce 50, it doesn't seem to be as good an idea.

It would seem to me that using Vsync instead of a set limit would be a better idea - All frames would be synchronized properly, and there wouldn't be any no-vsync-lines due to the screen refreshing halfway through a frame update.

 

Can you guys explain why it hasn't been changed, or if it would be possible to change in the future?

 

A. This is part of our plans. As you say, there is no longer a need to limit the game to 50Hz

Mod_nick

 

Q. Can RS be developed into playable on Smartphone because it's on Java?

 

A. One of my projects over the past few months has been to answer this very question. The answer is that it’s not straightforward, due both to technical limitations and the limitations placed on smartphone platforms by vendors. However, we don’t think it’s impossible.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Is it possible to preload map enough that there is no loading session when you travel across areas of the world?

 

A. We’d like to implement a level of detail system to eliminate the loading gaps, but this is a huge change to the engine so will take a little time. We’re on it though!

Mod_jackh

 

Q. Do we still have to wait long for water reflections?

 

A. We don’t have an ETA for this feature at the moment, the prototype we had running last year turned out not to be suitable for release, but we’re still working on it.

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. Have you considered getting rid of the stupid annoying limitations? e.g.

-not being able to note untradable items or give them to familiars

-not being able to have chat dialogs and settings windows open during combat

-not being able to have more than one game tab (e.g. skills, magic, prayer, inventory, combat style) open

-not being able to move these tabs: unfair disadvantage for people with high resolution / wide displays -> longer mouse movements e.g. when runecrafting (ess pouches->altar)

 

A. In short: yes, we think about improvements all the time, and some of them are even possible. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items.

Everything you talk about here is a huge project in itself. They are very high on the to-do list but there are other great things that we want to do as well such as clan support or the Smithing update. Both are being worked on, and after that we are planning to investigate the interface functionality that you are talking about 

mod_fetzky

 

Q. Are you ever going to introduce advanced effects into Runescape such as HDR, Bloom, Tessellation etc or is this all limited by Java?

 

A. Nope, HDR and bloom are already in the engine, but not yet used as the implementation doesn’t work on enough of our players’ machines. This is something we hope to sort out, but there is a lot to do at the moment so it could be a while.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. As you increase the use of hard-disk space for game cache, can you see optional download packs being available in the future?

 

A. This would be down to content; if that’s the way they want to take the game. Technically it would be perfectly possible, but I don’t know of any plans to do this currently.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. You now use the JNI to "cheat" and escape Java? Is this trend likely to increase long term with most of the game being non-Java, just using a wrapper to launch from browser?

 

A. This is certainly something we’re considering, but we’ve not decided finally yet which route to take.

Mod_jackh

 

Q. With the new game engine updates and the new way we wield the scimitars and 2h weapons, will you guys also be updating the way other weapons are held. Like each of the barrow weapons having a unique holding position?

 

We are glad that the holding positions went down so well, thanks for that. To decide which weapons to do next is really hard because everyone wants his favourite weapon done first but barrow weapons are definitely amongst them.

Mod_fetzky

 

Will we ever get rid of "Loading - please wait"?

 

A. This is a very good question because we want to do exactly that but it is tricky and we need to do a lot of engine changes first to support it. You may want to read some of the other questions for further info.

Mod_nick

 

Q. Is it possible that Jagex will re-code Dungeoneering to work in a similar fashion like the way Barrows work?

 

The entire Barrows minigame is more or less pre-loaded once the player enters the dungeon. Every time a player exits a room, the previous room gets covered by a "Black Ceiling". I thought this black ceiling would be useful if Jagex introduced it to Dungeoneering, it may help players reduce lag, even those with high end computers.

 

In addition if it isn't possible to make it a few second loading just like ordinary ones, is it possible for Jagex to use a buffer; like the one that appears when "Player Owned Houses" load?

 

Also, will Jagex be considering adding Asian servers to the game? In hope that it will improve pings for Asian players.

 

A. Dungeon’s are created dynamically from an enormous potential number of configurations to ensure they are unique. However we are always looking at ways to improve the experience for players. We did introduce servers in India but they were unreliable so we have had to remove them for now.

Mod_nick

 

- Mod Dowd -

[/hide]

 

Part 3: "Current Issues"

RSOF QFC: 25-26-308-62236465

 

[hide]

Current Issues

 

Q. Why have you deleted Safe Mode? It's not a problem for me, but other players want to know!

 

A. We haven’t deleted safe mode, but removed the option to enter it unless it would be impossible for you to use other display modes. Safe mode is slower than every other display mode (perhaps with the exception of map loading times – this is something we’re trying to improve with the other modes).

Mod_chris_e

 

Q. I was wondering why some worlds have pauses where nothing happens for like 5 seconds? Some worlds don't. I know that it's not just me because when it happens everybody says "lagg" and the monster I’m fighting still has same amount of hp.

 

A. We've actually been addressing this problem very recently. Over the years, the amount of content we've added to the game has, as I'm sure you can understand, increased the amount of memory our servers need. While our servers are running, they must occasionally perform an operation known as "Garbage Collection" which cleans everything up in memory that is no longer needed. This is normally meant to take a fraction of a second but we were seeing situations where this was taking over 10 seconds. Needless to say we immediately directed our attention to fixing this. Hopefully you should now already be seeing an improvement in the game as a result of this.

Mod_michael

 

Q. A lot of players have confirmed that there is a conflict going on between RS and ESET Nod32 antivirus since the Nov 24th update (despite a perfectly tuned, strong computer that didn't show any signs of problems the last minutes before the update). It creates a delay in the game, and makes it impossible to engage in any heavier game challenges and combat. However, if ESET is completely uninstalled, the delays disappears instantly, which confirms the conflict. Is this a problem that you are aware of and have looked- or will look into?

 

A. When we get issues like this we try to get a hold of the software and check it on the compatibility test machines. In the above case I believe it was an unfortunate side effect of switching to Port 443 and making sure that Port is not blocked should resolve the issue.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. As I walk around Runescape, I often see these black lines moving on a surface.

Is this because I have a bad graphics card? Or is it something else?

 

A. This could be anything from drivers / hardware to even the choice of display settings. Best thing to do in this case would be to submit a bug report with as much information as possible.

 

Q. Are you aware that with recent updates since the 23/24th of November, that people have been lagging and disconnecting when they weren’t previously?

What are you doing about this?

 

A. All issues are investigated and, where possible, fixed as soon as we can. In the case of issues since the 24th one was an antivirus issue which unblocking Port 443 should fix and the other seems to be a bug with Java that we are still looking into.

 

Q. Why has the 'black screen crash' that supposedly is an issue with Software Mode yet to be resolved since its debut on 11/24/10's update?

 

A. This issue has been looked into and from the information we have managed to get appears to be a bug with the Java applet although we continue to look into a work around for it.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. Why is it that when a game world goes down that the login server still thinks you're logged in? Could it be possible to tell the login server to disconnect players when it loses contact with a game world?

 

A. If the world was still running, but had just lost contact, you could then log in twice which could cause quite a few problems if the world ever regained contact. There are other ways we could solve this issue, but we would have to think through all of the corner-cases rather carefully. Since worlds going down are fairly rare (we hope , the current situation was the simplest solution to go for.

Mod_philip

 

Q. For the past 2 weeks or so now, when logging into the lobby and afterwards trying to log into the game, a message will come up telling me that my account has not logged out from its last session. It is saying that while I am already in the lobby, whether I had been logged out for anywhere from 5 minutes to any number of hours.

 

Lately, it is beginning to kick me out of the lobby when it happens now, and when I do finally log in, I get a click delay of about 5 seconds. I have to restart my browser or even computer sometimes before it finally works. This is very damn obnoxious having to restart my browser or computer 3-4 times in order to simply play a game.

 

It would be nice if Jagex would at least address whether they are aware of the issue and are working on it, because this is really beginning to turn me from playing the game.

 

I have a thread on this forum section and others have experienced this, including my brother (he is on a different connection than me back at home, so don't try saying that it is our connection).

 

So here is my series of questions:

 

-Are you aware of this issue?

-Are you aware of the cause of this issue?

-Are you attempting to fix this issue?

-When can we expect it to be fixed?

 

A. I believe these are a couple of issues. At least one of which is the port 443 change conflicting with the firewalls / antivirus security suites. Best thing to do would be to submit a tech ticket with anything you have tried to fix this and someone will get back to you.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. I know this disconnection issue must have been tough to deal with. Have you had to deal with each one independently? Each instance seems to vary slightly with the disconnections problem. Also, the disconnections investigation thread has been removed. Can you give us an update on them and why they were removed?

 

A. The disconnection thread was removed as we had enough information from that thread already so it had served its purpose. They did vary slightly and this was because there were several reasons for the issues. The bulk of the original issues are pretty much sorted now although there are other issues that we continue to look into. When we can give more information on this we will.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. I submitted my disconnections and it seemed different from most people that were experiencing the problem. I have not been disconnecting randomly but I have trouble logging into certain worlds, which is the main problem for me. The ping on it shows up n/a and I can't log into these worlds. It says it has "timed out" and tells me to choose a different world. Is there a way I can fix this? If so, how?

 

A. Clearing your cache, making sure all your Ports (443, etc) are not being blocked by a firewall / antivirus are all things that can help. If it doesn’t then submit a tech ticket and someone will get back to you.

Mod_noldor

 

Q. You may or may have not seen me around on the technical forums, and yeah I would like to know how did you guys feel about the issues we have been having?

Example: Randomly disconnecting from the servers and the graphical update issue.

When the issue came up with the lagging out. How did you guys feel about the issue? Did you know what you were up against? How exactly to combat the issue? Did you believe the feedback from the players really helped to source the issues? If the players were not here would "Jagex" have not found the source of the issue any sooner?

Also I do remember an update where you added a patch so in case we lagged out/crash out, Jagex would be able to look at the crash but, you guys were not receiving any info about the issue? Were you shocked or not expecting it?

 

A. Quite a few of the issues that crop up once a change goes live are irreproducible in our test environments. This makes the information from players invaluable and continues to do so. Even though some of the code we put in didn’t help tell us the issue straightaway it did narrow the search down and we continue to look into the issues players are getting.

mod_noldor

 

Q. Is there a reason the game occasionally seems to "lose layers"? (At least it does to me.) I mean like the minimap flickering in and out of existence, and in Barbarian Assault the interface telling you what to do etc. and the healer’s health bar flickering in and out of existence. The "lower layers" are fine, so are they both programmed separately or something?

 

A. Sorry to hear you’re having trouble – please do report this as a bug so we can take a look. The game does indeed draw itself in layers composited on top of each other, but they are all drawn into the same buffer which is then copied to the screen – this normally eliminates any flickering. My guess would be that this is something specific to do with your particular computer, video card or drivers.

Mod_jackh

 

- Mod Dowd -

[/hide]

 

 

 

 

Quite heavy reading, apologies, things i've noticed (i'm not very technical so a lot of stuff in part 1 whizzed straight past my head!);

 

Part 1:

- Skyboxes are pretty much ready for use in RS, they just need content to actually use them!

- "Q. Apparently people are using modified RS clients to be able to view their PID, and so they can log in and out until they get what they desire. Are you planning to do anything about this or how PIDs are assigned?

 

A. Whilst it may be possible to extract this with a modified client right now, we are working on updates which will make your slot in the server more or less irrelevant when it comes to action timing. "

 

(Player ID) used to work in classic that you were assigned an ID on log-in at placed at the back of the queue for gaming actions for example, so people who logged in quickly after server resets or stayed online a long time eventually go to the front of the queue which made "catching" easier in the RSC wildy. With Rs2 the PID's became random and soon hopefully abolished.

 

- Server tick confirmed at 600ms, however an upcoming update will use a 50ms tick

 

 

Part 2:

-F2P won't be getting fullscreen because of problems with adverts.

 

-Non-tradable objects might be able to be noted in the future when there is time away from game updates.

 

-Map loading screens could become a thing of the past, but not in the near future.

 

-Water Reflection doesn't have an ETA, the prototype didn't fit right with RS.

 

- "Q. Have you considered getting rid of the stupid annoying limitations? e.g.

-not being able to note untradable items or give them to familiars

 

A. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items. "

 

Part 3:

-It was all pretty interesting tbh being on current issues. A lot of talk about server lag and people losing connection.

 

 

 

 

edit: as a note I stumbled across these on the "hot forum topic" part of the rs homepage, always good for a laugh. and they are much more informative than any "wilderness Q&A" Jagex have released, which basically go against anything that they have said in the past 3 years since the free trade changes..

[TheAncient]

Good to see jagex continually works on their engine. Also good to see Jagex releasing actual specifics about their development process.

 

Though I'm not really sure I can agree with the fact that they script their forums in their own format, i'd rather have them just use some kind of normal phpbb format.

 

Yeah things like

"

A. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items. "

"

really bug me. why would they code it this way... it seems so unnecessary/hardcoded

 

I wish they could give some examples for how things are coded, but I highly doubt Jagex would do something like that.

[SixFootOne]

A. In short: yes, we think about improvements all the time, and some of them are even possible. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items.

Everything you talk about here is a huge project in itself. They are very high on the to-do list but there are other great things that we want to do as well such as clan support or the Smithing update. Both are being worked on, and after that we are planning to investigate the interface functionality that you are talking about ?

mod_fetzky

 

So is this a borderline confirmation that we are still getting a smithing update and it wasn't all those dungeoneering armors?

[TheAncient]

A. In short: yes, we think about improvements all the time, and some of them are even possible. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items.

Everything you talk about here is a huge project in itself. They are very high on the to-do list but there are other great things that we want to do as well such as clan support or the Smithing update. Both are being worked on, and after that we are planning to investigate the interface functionality that you are talking about ?

mod_fetzky

 

So is this a borderline confirmation that we are still getting a smithing update and it wasn't all those dungeoneering armors?

 

Nice catch. Dang it if only I had an extra 100M to train smithing <_<

[1wngedangel]

A. In short: yes, we think about improvements all the time, and some of them are even possible. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items.

Everything you talk about here is a huge project in itself. They are very high on the to-do list but there are other great things that we want to do as well such as clan support or the Smithing update. Both are being worked on, and after that we are planning to investigate the interface functionality that you are talking about ?

mod_fetzky

 

So is this a borderline confirmation that we are still getting a smithing update and it wasn't all those dungeoneering armors?

I was about to comment on this, I really hope it is. Was wondering what had happened to the big smithing re-work they mentioned so long ago.

[Riemis]

Q. Any plans on incorporating bumpmapping?

 

A. Again, yes.

Mod_chris_e

:pray:

[Tact]

A. In short: yes, we think about improvements all the time, and some of them are even possible. One that is hard to do is to enable Summoning creatures to take untradeable items, because technically you are trading with them when you give them items.

Everything you talk about here is a huge project in itself. They are very high on the to-do list but there are other great things that we want to do as well such as clan support or the Smithing update. Both are being worked on, and after that we are planning to investigate the interface functionality that you are talking about ?

mod_fetzky

 

So is this a borderline confirmation that we are still getting a smithing update and it wasn't all those dungeoneering armors?

 

Nice catch. Dang it if only I had an extra 100M to train smithing <_<

I thought the smithing update had been confirmed for a while now. It's just that they've yet to to finish and/or release it.

 

Also, I've shot up from 84 to 97 smithing in the past week. :thumbup:

[TheAncient]

always thought the random LRC/dung/etc were the "smith" updates

[Tact]

always thought the random LRC/dung/etc were the "smith" updates

LRC was mining and fishing, dg applies to all skills. Smithing hasn't seen any major improvement for a long time.

 

My thoughts on a possible smithing update revolve around how Jagex could get around the existing bronze to rune table. Since it takes 99 smithing to make a rune plate from scratch, it would be very awkward to explain the production of higher level armor at levels below that. So there's not much room for expansion at 99 short of expanding the level cap, which I don't think they'll do.

 

However, they've been able to get around this problem before by having our characters merely repair or reconstruct items. For example, you can combine a dragon sq, reassemble a dragon plate, and attach sigils and visages. In other words, our characters may be capped in their knowledge of primary smithing techniques, but could still be skilled enough in their secondary knowledge to perform many tasks. Perhaps we'll see the release of certain types of "shards" to be used in making new items.

[TheAncient]

just to clarify what i meant by lrc: high availability of gold and coal makes smithing easier to train

 

also, superheat

[Big_Stingman]

Ew they use Eclipse... NetBeans ftw! lol :P

[Krampell]

Haha, I remember using Eclipse when I studied basic Java in school.

Kinda amazes me that all I were suppose to to is different kinds of calculators and such, while they sit there and make an awesome game in it >_>

[green9090]

always thought the random LRC/dung/etc were the "smith" updates

LRC was mining and fishing, dg applies to all skills. Smithing hasn't seen any major improvement for a long time.

 

My thoughts on a possible smithing update revolve around how Jagex could get around the existing bronze to rune table. Since it takes 99 smithing to make a rune plate from scratch, it would be very awkward to explain the production of higher level armor at levels below that. So there's not much room for expansion at 99 short of expanding the level cap, which I don't think they'll do.

 

However, they've been able to get around this problem before by having our characters merely repair or reconstruct items. For example, you can combine a dragon sq, reassemble a dragon plate, and attach sigils and visages. In other words, our characters may be capped in their knowledge of primary smithing techniques, but could still be skilled enough in their secondary knowledge to perform many tasks. Perhaps we'll see the release of certain types of "shards" to be used in making new items.

God I hope they aren't stupid enough to do that AGAIN.

 

You guys remember what a boon godswords were to smithing, what with the blade assembly required?

 

OH, and who could forget all the people training smithing to make dragonfire shields!

 

And the dragon platebody! And spirit shields!

 

Oh wait, none of those helped people with smithing levels at all, because the focus is still 99% on getting the pieces as rare drops and there are way more smiths than there are pieces that need to be smithed.

 

What we need is something like that where the product is also untradable. For example, if Godsword blades and finished swords couldn't be traded once smithed, so anyone who wanted to use a Godsword needed to learn to put one together themself. THAT would have been a smithing update.

[Sy_Accursed]

Its interesting getting a graspe of how the engine team works.

 

Seems they have one of the must dual jobs going as they have their own list of goals to make the engine better but then also a list of request from developers needed for immediate content; so they have to balance adding little things to make upcoming things work while also working on bigger game changing (although behind the scenes) projects.

 

Found it very interesting hearing about the plans with distance detail rendering to swap from grid maps to constant map and also the plans to let us escape from the grid!

[Myu]

not too fond of the idea keyboard+right click to control us. I'd rather see WASD and arrowkeys to control camera as always.

[Dragonlordjl]

Good to see the acknowledged the glitch where when you try to log in from the Lobby, it says "Your account is already in use" and kicks you to the log-in screen. This is extremely frustrating when trying to make stewed potions.

[Riemis]

What we need is something like that where the product is also untradable. For example, if Godsword blades and finished swords couldn't be traded once smithed, so anyone who wanted to use a Godsword needed to learn to put one together themself. THAT would have been a smithing update.

 

Then some people would want Smithing to become a combat skill or want godswords banished from the wildy. >_>

[Crossed_Body]

I'm just glad they mentioned the smith update. It wasn't forgotten, yay!

[FIREWORKS]

Seems like i'll be buying a crapload of gold ore...

[Dire_Wolf]

I got 99 Smithing :grin:

[Pirkka]

One of the best QA's in a long time, in my humble opinion. Some interesting stuff there.

 

I think it's idiotic that you need level 99 smithing to make rune plate that requires level 40 defence to wear. It's like needing level 95 farming to grow some herbs that could be used in a level 35 herblore potion that boosts attack for five levels. These potions would also be sold for a very cheap price in G.E and in an NPC shop.

 

That's how useless smithing is at the moment in my opinion.

[@Dan3HitU]

I think it would have been nice for them to "recommend" PC specs, as they said, 28% and 23% of their users are using low-end computer hardware, it would have been nice to say something like;

We recommend 'x' ghz and 'x' mb of dedicated graphics, 'x' gb of ram, etc.

[Low C]

I just got 99 smithing in anticipation of the smithing update, I'm glad its still in the works. :thumbup:

[green9090]

I just got 99 smithing in anticipation of the smithing update, I'm glad its still in the works. :thumbup:

Same, I'm like 600k off 99 smith, getting it slowly with assists :D

[Golvellius]

What is the smithing update?

I doubt its totally revamping the smithing table.