Item Kept on Death Changes + Easter

[Jimmyw3000]

19-Apr-2011 Items Kept on Death Changes

 

We STRONGLY recommend that, before you go anywhere dangerous, you check the 'Items Kept on Death' interface to see what you'll lose should you die. Remember: Grand Exchange guide prices change daily, so whatever was your most valuable item yesterday may not still be your most valuable item today.

 

We have made some major changes to what happens when you die in RuneScape. Previously, you'd respawn with the three most valuable items you were carrying, chosen according to their shop prices. Those shop prices seldom corresponded to players' perceived value of their items, and most people were respawning by Lumbridge Castle, which isn't always a convenient place to respawn.

 

Death Interface

 

From now on, if you die outside of an area that has its own death mechanic e.g. the Wilderness or an activity you'll be taken to a safe place and presented with a menu, from which you'll be able to select what items you want to keep. As with the old rules, you'll be able to keep three items (or 0 if you were 'skulled' at time of death), with an additional one item if you had the Protect Item prayer/curse active. Your most valuable items will be selected by default, but youre welcome to choose differently.

 

The menu will then offer you a choice of respawn point. Lumbridge Castle will still be offered to all players, but members will have additional choices if they've completed certain quests i.e. Falador (Recruitment Drive), Camelot (King's Ransom 'Knight Waves') and Soul Wars (Nomad's Requiem). You will also be offered the chance to respawn in the last 'hub' you visited; hubs include Ardougne, Canifis, Edgeville, Etceteria, TzHaar and Varrock, with more possibly being added in future updates. The 'Items Kept on Death' interface will note the last of these hubs you passed through.

 

Once you've made your choices, you'll be respawned and any items you weren't able to keep will be placed under your gravestone wherever it was you died. The gravestone timer will be counting down while you're looking at the death interface, so don't dawdle. Weve not increased the durations of gravestones in this update to compensate for the time you spend in the menu; gravestone durations have already had a large increase this year.

 

This menu will not appear if you die in the Wilderness, since PKers won't want to wait for their loot to drop. If you die there, you will respawn immediately in Edgeville by the bank, and your protected items will be chosen automatically by the game. This is exactly how Wilderness death drops were handled before this update; the only difference is that an item's value is now determined by the Grand Exchange guide price, not shop prices.

 

Protecting Items

 

Some items are now always kept when you die, and do not count towards your three protected items. This applies mostly to basic tools, coins, costumes, quest-specific items (but not including reward weapons!) and low-level equipment. (Note that a borrowed item is always prioritised over any other items.) This automatic protection is completely ignored in the Wilderness, though, so you still shouldn't take anything in there that you aren't prepared to lose.

 

The game is now using Grand Exchange guide prices to determine your most valuable items in all cases. If an item is not enabled for trading on the Exchange, the game will look up some alternative price. For example, the values of degraded Barrows kit and Fist of Guthix rewards are calculated from the values of the tradeable versions of these items. Where no equivalent item exists, the game will use the shop price of the item, although we have overridden this for especially high-profile items such as Dungeoneering reward weapons.

 

We STRONGLY recommend that, before you go anywhere dangerous, you check the 'Items Kept on Death' interface to see what you'll lose when you die. Remember: Grand Exchange guide prices change daily, so whatever was your most valuable item yesterday may not still be your most valuable item today.

 

Good luck, and have a nice death.

 

Mod Ash

Senior RuneScape Content Developer

 

 

Spring has sprung the birds are singing and the sun is starting to shine but there's still an unseasonal chill in the air. This could well be related to the ceremonial handing over of the 'Year', in which the Queen of Snow officially passes on the season to the Queen of Sunrise. For this year's ceremony, the queens have agreed to 'do battle' with evil holly and hawthorn trees.

 

You will be able to choose your side in this traditional tussle spring or winter by chopping down the rival season's evil trees. All players will be able to chop down the wintry holly trees in order to help springtime emerge, while members will have the added option of felling hawthorn trees, to hold on to the bitter cold of winter. All of this tree chopping will be closely monitored by the Season Tree, the look of which will change between the seasons based on how many holly and hawthorn trees get chopped down.

 

Everyone who pitches in will earn this event's cosmetic holiday reward; however, members will get the added option of giving theirs a useful function, by charging it with the ability to locate and teleport to RuneScape's other evil trees. This works much like communing with a spirit tree, but can be done from anywhere. About a month after the Easter event is removed from the game, the items will lose their charge and become cosmetic.

 

During the Easter event, we'll be running a couple of competitions. From Friday 22 Monday 25 April, the player who chops down the most holly and hawthorn trees will receive a RuneScape goody bag. The second competition is to guess at the total number of trees that will be felled over the course of the event. If you want to take part in either of these competitions, or the daily prize draws, you'll need to post on the Easter Tree Competitions thread, so we know to keep an eye on your tree killing skills.

 

Finally, although this tree chopping 'battle' is only meant to be symbolic, some of the two queens' entourage are taking this year's event a little bit too seriously. Let's just hope that nothing goes wrong... If anything were to happen, there will at least be plenty of adventurers around to set things right.

 

Mod John A

Senior RuneScape Content Developer

 

 

Summary:

 

Where to start Holly and Hawthorn:

Head through the Easter portal south of Falador.

 

Requirements to start Holly and Hawthorn:

None.

 

 

In other news...

 

In honour of the alleged wedding of the King Black Dragon and the Kalphite Queen (and the very real wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton), Diango will be selling some celebratory items for a short time. Everyone is welcome to buy fireworks, firecrackers, bubble blowers, confetti and a souvenir mug. Members can also buy a bouquet of flowers.

 

We've reduced the produce cost of unlocking the spell rewards at Livid Farm by roughly 20%, based on our post-release analysis and player feedback. This now matches our intended aims with this content in terms of effort vs reward. Players who have already unlocked any spells will receive the appropriate refund of produce, which they can then put towards any other spells they have yet to unlock and/or the wishes.

 

Weve updated the sounds effects on the majority of NPCs in the free area of the game (as well as a handful in members' areas). The list is quite large, but includes skeletons, goblins, ghosts, dogs, dragons, and lesser, greater and black demons. We've also updated/added new environment sounds such as twittering birds and river sounds, as well as changed some other sounds such as for lighting fires and opening/closing doors.

 

The graphical update to mining rocks we first released with the Lumbridge Swamp improvement has now been applied across the rest of RuneScape.