yeah, it would be sweeter if they didn't keep plowing loads of development time into once off features

Yeah because the only way the community would love seeing christmas projects in the blue block stage is if it was an ice sculpture competition. Its obvious to most of the well learned community that a good portion of game code is recycled or modified.

I got a loot beam I can't use and a bunch of tiny xp lamps. Hmph!

On the other hand, I'll forgive it just because the snowboarding was pretty sweet.

I would agree with you if the present clicking wasn't a grind and if we can store our snowboards at diango :P I am not to fond of these holiday events anymore, they could have made the snowboarding so more awesome, without spending extra time in it.

ngl snowboarding felt like playing a neopets game

ngl snowboarding felt like playing a neopets game

On the other hand, saying that it's grindy makes for a delightful pun.

 

yeah, it would be sweeter if they didn't keep plowing loads of development time into once off features

Yeah because the only way the community would love seeing christmas projects in the blue block stage is if it was an ice sculpture competition. Its obvious to most of the well learned community that a good portion of game code is recycled or modified.

 

 

incidentally, the only thing left from that event where we had to free santa from jack frost's grip was the items and the ice sculpture on top of the mountain

 

the old event assets are still somewhere on the map but they're just going to rot there forever

I am not exactly a fan of the magical placing of these assets. I really enjoy the thought of a map thats realistic.

Anything that is not instanced is realistic. The entrance to the varrock sewers and taverly dungeons are the same distance apart, both in the overworld and dungeon level.

 

It is everything that is new and instanced that is placed far away from everything.

 

Also take an example from the Morytanis underground map

http://i.imgur.com/tsrOT61.png

 

With the exception of polypore because it is 3 floors, everything is where it should be, relative to the overworld. Right of the shade tombs is the barrows catacombs, but that is hidden

i'm curious whats up with the next two updates this month. I mean with all the festive stuff going on they should be able to get away with a no update week. I think we are due boss pets soon though...

I'd be surprised if we get any type of large update in the next two weeks. Maybe a few fixes this Monday for pressing stuff

Boss pets come on Jan 5th. There will be an update tomorrow next week but that's most likely just bugfixes/mtx stuff.

Yeah there hasn't been a TH promotion recently besides the enchanted snow. I miss it not.

We have december 22nd and december 29th. I would like to think they would start january early.

 

Zamorak Heist and Dominion Tower Reddit overview:

 

Dominion Tower:

 

- Next week's update

- 5-man survival mode with a high scores table

- Better dreadnips, Dom marker & Medallion

- Added the newer quest bosses

- No completionist requirements

- Updated audio

- Some bosses have their specials/environment use removed but have higher LP/Damage (Chaos Dwarves, Zenevivia, minion summons)

- Boss-specific items not required (eg Silverlight) but are still useful (I.E. Vanstrom takes extra damage from Blisterwood and antifire vs Elvarg)

- Orbs can spawn that give buffs or debuffs. Volatile orbs are wild card orbs that can be buff or debuff. One such buff is unlimited Adrenaline.

- New boss spawns every 30 seconds capped based on # of players (doesn't decrease as players die)

- Cannot have multiple of the same boss spawned at once

- Windstorms randomly spawn (Same as HM Armadyl)

- Sunfreet can spawn

- Older quest bosses will be reworked by Ninja team in the future

- Updated Desert Treasure bosses (2 on release, 2 a little after)

- Before and after of Desert Treasure bosses:

Fareed: 

Kamil:

Damis:

 

Rewards for Dominion Tower:

- More XP from Reward Book

- Higher tier Medallion (Kill 1800 bosses)with more teleports, boosts stats within Arena. Universal accuracy buff to all attacks both in and outside the Tower

- Survivor title (Survive for 45min in a 4+ man Rumble)

- Dominon Marker 5

- 3 types of Dreadnips (Magic/Range/Melee) with higher damage and uses the new familiar AI

 

Bosses added:

- Vanstrom

- Char

- Apep and Heru

- Khazard and Lucien

- Dawn

- Zemouregal and Enakhra

- Yelps

- Dragon Hunters

- Echo of Jas

- Chaos Grimsson and Hreidmar

- Lol

- Nial Swiftfling

 

 

Zamorak Heist:

- Intermediate Quest

- Missing Presumed Death Sequel

- Zamorak wants Stone of Jas after Missing Presumed Death

- Intermediate

- Where: Daemonheim/Floor 61

- When: Q1 2015

- Jerrod the Werewolf plays a big part of the quest/heist team (character from book)

- Features Nomad (from Poll), Bilrach and Moia

- Not voice acted

 

 

Team's next project is Easter

 

 

 

Who would have thought that Runescape would ever end up having graphics like these

Also they seemed to have confirmed an update for next month in the Q&A, an update to the rare drop table...

We have december 22nd and december 29th. I would like to think they would start january early.

 

I doubt we'll get much if anything.

 

They almost never update on the xmas weeks because, like most non-retail or dining companies, they will be running on skeleton staffing.

 

22nd maybe get something easy like ninja fixes

29th I doubt we'll get an update at all between thurs/fri bank holidays the week before, skeleton staff and thurs bank holiday pending they just won't have something to give.

 

Not to mention the big give away that fridays BTS was all about polls, not a teaser for an upcoming update and they already said next fridays bts is about whats coming next year.

Who would have thought that Runescape would ever end up having graphics like these

 

 

Sadly most of the game still looks shitty.

^indeed, also I don't get why they say a graphical rework of construction would take a whole year of the graphics team without them being able to do other projects, I cannot imagine it being more work than something like the new elf city?

^indeed, also I don't get why they say a graphical rework of construction would take a whole year of the graphics team without them being able to do other projects, I cannot imagine it being more work than something like the new elf city?

 

It's because of how construction is fundamentally coded being really really bad.

 

It's not like there is 1 wall texture and 1 oak larder, for example and the system can't handle that.

 

Each tile of wall is its own object and the oak larder in each rotation within each theme is its own object.

Then its not even a copy and paste job because each of these items is shaded for basic lighting based on the theme and rotation as poh don't have dynamic lighting.

 

So the graphically rework con its not as simple as the relatively small number of things we see there is an insane number of variants so it would take insane amounts of time to re-graphic them all.

 

Time which would be better spent by devs rebuilding construction from the ground up whilst graphics do the smaller job of designing 1 copy of each thing that can be used as textures and deal with dynamic lighting.

 

^indeed, also I don't get why they say a graphical rework of construction would take a whole year of the graphics team without them being able to do other projects, I cannot imagine it being more work than something like the new elf city?

 

It's because of how construction is fundamentally coded being really really bad.

 

It's not like there is 1 wall texture and 1 oak larder, for example and the system can't handle that.

 

Each tile of wall is its own object and the oak larder in each rotation within each theme is its own object.

Then its not even a copy and paste job because each of these items is shaded for basic lighting based on the theme and rotation as poh don't have dynamic lighting.

 

So the graphically rework con its not as simple as the relatively small number of things we see there is an insane number of variants so it would take insane amounts of time to re-graphic them all.

 

Time which would be better spent by devs rebuilding construction from the ground up whilst graphics do the smaller job of designing 1 copy of each thing that can be used as textures and deal with dynamic lighting.

 

Ah, I can understand that, but they never said anything about recoding it (and so I doubt they will ever do that as well). 

They have been talking about construction rework quite publicly for 2 or 3 years now.

 

They did a whole segment on it, with concept art at runefest 2013.

 

Skill reworks are the hot topic atm with the debate of is it better to rework skills and bring into each awesome concepts they had for invention OR leave the skills as they are and invest all that time into strapping invention as a stand alone skill on to existing broken skills. The former option seemingly being the most popular choice for players which means with any luck at least 1 of the skill reworks will get underway for 2015.

I agree, but I am afraid they will just bring new stuff into skills that were supposed to go into inventor and not rework the skills at the same time. I am currently wondering if it wouldn't be better if they coded the whole game (maybe pieces at a time) from scrap just so they can update things more easily, but I think the time needed for that is just to much.

Worry not, they specified it was a choice between doing inventor or adding what would've been to each skill at the same time as fully reworking the skill.

 

No ambiguity, no we might just slap what would've been inventor onto broken skills. Pure simple black and white binary:

Do inventor and slap it onto other skills as they are.

Don't do inventor and instead rework skills and add what would've been inventor content to them at the same time.

 

Who would have thought that Runescape would ever end up having graphics like these

 

Sadly most of the game still looks shitty.

 

I would rather they pause development for other content and focus on bringing everything up to date, graphically-speaking, than have them continue releasing new stuff.

You have a mix mash of random graphics quality that don't blend together at all, and that affects my enjoyment of the game to an extent.

It's not that I need good graphics in order to be able to enjoy the game; objectively-speaking, OSRS has much lower quality graphics (I like them tbh, retro-feel), but everything is consistent.

In RS3, you have a mix of new 2013-2014 graphics, then you're also wearing a necklace that uses graphics from 2005, and said necklace's graphics have been re-used for another necklace released in 2014, but just recolored, then you have half of the map be fairly detailed graphically-speaking, while the area right next to it hasn't been touched in years (Yanille/Castle Wars...)

^ Valid point bar Cwars being graphically outdated. It was overhauled in June 2013 and is pretty up to date now.

Not that it looks nice now, they kinda overdid the "ancientness" of the building, by making the whole lobby a pile of rubble.