Behind The Scenes - August

[Urza285]

Behind the Scenes – August 2015

 

Epic Seren quest The Light Within heads up this month, with a bunch of improvement to player-owned housing, Prifddinas, and a Ninja refresh of Fist of Guthix.

 

The Light Within

 

Our main update this month is The Light Within: a brand new Grandmaster quest with rewards to suit the greatest of players.

 

You'll be working with the elf clans to rebuild Seren to her former glory, piecing together shards, revisiting Freneskae and wrestling with some pretty difficult choices that will affect how she looks, acts and thinks - if you successfully bring her back. What will your role be in the ancient song of creation?

 

Rewards are suitably massive as we give you brand new spells and prayers, designed to suit skillers and those who like to play a support role in group combat.

 

First up: spells, which are part of the Ancient spellbook.

 

Combat spells include auroras, which are direct damage spells with effects that augment your support capabilities, and prisms, which create placeable, totem-like crystals that support your comrades and save them from harm. There's also the potent Shield Dome, which can be conjured to shelter your friends from damage.

 

Skilling spells include Crystallise, which lets you lock a skilling node, boosting its XP gain and stopping its resource yield for the duration. There's the Prism of Dowsing, which can enrich divine memories, and Rapid Growth, which lets you skip a growth stage for a plant, tree or herb.

 

Prayers are, likewise, bundled in with the Ancient curses.

 

Combat prayers include Light and Dark Forms, which boost the power of your Seren or Zaros-aligned spells and prayers. Fortitude is a tanking-oriented prayer, offering big defence buffs at the expense of damage. Soul Link lets you share damage and healing received with another player.

 

Skilling prayers include a Superheat Form, which can automatically smelt ore or burn logs, or Chronicle Absorption, which instantly converts chronicles to XP.

 

To be ready to go as soon as the quest arrives, you'll need the following:

 

Plague's End

Fate of the Gods

The Temple at Senntisten

Meeting History

The World Wakes

80 Agility

80 Crafting

80 Divination

80 Herblore

80 Prayer

80 Woodcutting

This fantastic update was inspired by Gaga Lady, winner of the RuneLabs quest poll earlier in the year. Well done!

 

POH, Vampyre and Prifddinas Improvements

 

This month's improvement updates are, once again, packed full of your suggestions, gathered from the forums.

 

In the player-owned house, we've added more theme flexibility, allowing you to mix up ground, house and dungeon types. We've added a few new ground textures, too.

 

You'll also be able to change between day and night modes, and you'll notice that we've made some gameplay changes to make training the Construction skill more convenient.

 

Inside Prifddinas, we've added new functionality to the Max Guild by adding useful stuff like decanters, enchanters and new portal locations. Plus, we've improved Movran's challenge rewards by adding a bunch of new stuff - not least the permanent dark crystals.

 

There are lots of other smaller improvements too, like added crystal weapon drops for edimmu, and new golden rocks for Sinkholes, so do make sure you have a nose around. Elves love company!

 

We've also graphically improved a bunch of the Myreque in Morytania, ready for next month's quest. Flap on over to the east if you can't wait to see them. If you haven't already, this is an ideal time to play through the Myreque quests - up to Branches of Darkmeyer - in preparation!

 

Fist of Guthix Rework

 

With the added attention to minigames since the Spotlight System was introduced a few months ago, the Ninjas have taken it upon themselves to fix up some of our more venerable examples.

 

This month they've fixed up Fist of Guthix, a great game all about being hunted down by a fellow player while trying to earn some tasty rewards. Its release will match up with its time in the Minigame Spotlight, too!

 

First up, we've improved the game so it's easier to start and find opponents.

 

We've changed the gauntlets so they can be dropped by monsters, and made some of the equipment available as high-end free-to-play gear.

 

We've also removed the coif rewards – making them player-craftable like other leather armour – and we've replaced them with a bunch of new gloves for Runecrafting, Fishing and Herblore.

 

Over 5000 of you - per day - are playing minigames, and we want to see that number increasing even further. Keep giving us feedback on them, and expect more improvements and reworks in the future.

 

Fixes and Quality of Life Updates

 

It's not all about the epic quests. Here are some of the awesome smaller updates that'll make a big difference this month:

 

Additional open action bars – The Ninjas have brought you four fully-customisable action bars out in full view in your HUD. See the Q&A live stream on Tuesday for a closer look at how they work.

Ironman players will be able to fight group bosses, in groups of other Ironman players – as per the recent poll.

Completionist and trimmed completionist requirements previously unavailable to Ironman players will become possible.

Death Lotus Training

 

Fancy yourself as a ninja-like assassin? Confident in your deadly skills? Try your hand at Death Lotus Training, later this month.

 

First up, you'll open Treasure Hunter to get your Death Lotus Scroll. The scroll shows a 4x4 grid of lethal feats of stealth, cunning and skill, increasing in difficulty on each row – everything from killing 10 enemies with throwing knives, all the way up to assassinating Araxxi, Nex or the Kalphite King. Look out for task-completing stamps on Treasure Hunter over the week-long event to help fill out your scroll.

 

Complete lines and columns to win prizes such as a cosmetic Death Lotus Assassin outfit, cash bags, prismatic lamps and stars - and more.

 

In Other News

 

There's yet more interesting content coming up as we play around with Hearts of Ice. Solomon swaggers in, too, to introduce a bunch of new walk animations AND a huge summer sale!

 

Have fun, and Wooters out!

 

Mod Mark

 

Merchandise Store – Flash Sale

 

Visit our Merch Store over the next seven days for 25% discounts on some of our most popular items!

 

Check back daily at 11am UTC (game time) for new items on sale.

 

Bag that RuneScape swag you've had your eye on!

 

Can a mod please edit for headers.

[Tim]

Still waiting for another Rare Tokens TH event.

[essiw]

Great :) a grandmaster quest. Although I cannot play it now (not even close to the requirements) I love to see a new elven quest :)

[DeEliteOne]

Fist of Guthix Rework

With the added attention to minigames since the Spotlight System was introduced a few months ago, the Ninjas have taken it upon themselves to fix up some of our more venerable examples.

 

This month they've fixed up Fist of Guthix, a great game all about being hunted down by a fellow player while trying to earn some tasty rewards. Its release will match up with its time in the Minigame Spotlight, too!

 

First up, we've improved the game so it's easier to start and find opponents.

 

We've changed the gauntlets so they can be dropped by monsters, and made some of the equipment available as high-end free-to-play gear.

 

We've also removed the coif rewards – making them player-craftable like other leather armour – and we've replaced them with a bunch of new gloves for Runecrafting, Fishing and Herblore.

 

Over 5000 of you - per day - are playing minigames, and we want to see that number increasing even further. Keep giving us feedback on them, and expect more improvements and reworks in the future.

:D  :D  :D Excited to see what other minigames they have their eyes on (pls tb). Hopefully these rc gloves make abyss even better.

[Arceus]

Cheers for them improving Fist of Guthix - hopefully it can get some more people interested in the game by making its rewards a little more useful. Though if anyone had been stockpiling coifs, I guess they're about to take a big loss :P.

[Peever]

Anyone know what the construction update has been?  

[Arceus]

I don't know, postponed indefinitely as usual?  :rolleyes:

 

There's a little in the BTS video:

 

[strilmus]

makes coifs craftable

 

doesn't do anything for metal gauntlets

[Sy_Accursed]

Cheers for them improving Fist of Guthix - hopefully it can get some more people interested in the game by making its rewards a little more useful. Though if anyone had been stockpiling coifs, I guess they're about to take a big loss :P.

 

Somehow I don't think Ninjas would do TB - The ones ninjas would do are the ones that need some little touches to spruce them up, smooth out gameplay and make them eoc friendly and rewarding. TB is like a quagmire of wrong that needs to be redone from the ground up.

[Arceus]

 

Cheers for them improving Fist of Guthix - hopefully it can get some more people interested in the game by making its rewards a little more useful. Though if anyone had been stockpiling coifs, I guess they're about to take a big loss :P.

 

Somehow I don't think Ninjas would do TB - The ones ninjas would do are the ones that need some little touches to spruce them up, smooth out gameplay and make them eoc friendly and rewarding. TB is like a quagmire of wrong that needs to be redone from the ground up.

 

Sorry, by TB are you referring to Trouble Brewing or something else? I assume you meant to quote the post above me :P.

[Sy_Accursed]

Dat mis-click.

 

Yeah I meant to quote one above you XD

[Wkw]

makes coifs craftable

 

doesn't do anything for metal gauntlets

Because they are a quest reward for RFD.

 

They don't require anything super high to get to "oooo 70 cooking and quests", and they are the second best hybrid power gloves in the game, only bested by deathtouch bracelet.

[Saradomin_Mage]

metal gauntlets from FOG, not gloves from RFD

[Wkw]

metal gauntlets from FOG, not gloves from RFD

 

Forgot those existed. Yes, those aught to be made smithable.

[Miss_Kozlov]

Trouble Brewing needs a full redo, like Flash Powder Factory, only with the end product not being an abject failure.

[Sbrideau]

That new quest seems like it will be awesome.