Developer Blog: Bounty Hunter Target System

The Bounty Hunter target system is a feature that many players have asked for since the release of Old School. The purpose of the system is to ease the process of finding someone to kill and to condense the active PKers, creating a more dangerous and exciting PvP experience for you.

You will also find information about how an EP system would impact on the game and how many worlds the Bounty Hunter targeting system should be on later in this blog.


Being assigned a target

When you step into a PvP area you would be immediately assigned a target within several combat levels of your own. An arrow will appear on your minimap that will point directly to them and it is your job to hunt them down and take them out. The target you receive would have no idea that they are your target.

This will allow you to find a suitable match up quickly and easily. You will be pointed directly towards someone that is a good fit for you.

It is entirely optional whether or not you take on the challenge of killing your target. This allows anyone to PK just as they usually would even if they are in an environment that uses the Bounty Hunter target system.

How the Bounty Hunter target system would impact PvP

The Bounty Hunter target system would be implemented into existing PvP areas that PKers regularly use and would be entirely optional; you would not have to hunt down your target that you are assigned if you don’t want to.

By implementing the system into areas that PKers already use, and by making participation a choice, it means that PKers could still PK exactly how they do in any other PvP circumstance. The target system is simply there as an optional way of finding a fight in a matter of seconds.

All worlds or less?

We need to know where you would rather see the target system. Would it be on all worlds or just one or two?

One thing to keep in mind is that the target system points people directly towards their target. This means that, if the system were to be implemented onto every world, it would be nearly impossible to be safe in the wilderness. But, hey, isn’t that the point of the wilderness?

Implementing the Bounty Hunter target system into one or two worlds in the wilderness is also a possibility. This would group up PKers and condense the PKing population to one or two worlds, increasing the activity of the wilderness drastically on those worlds and making it much easier to find fights even if you decide you don’t wish to use the Bounty Hunter target system.

Cosmetic rewards

In order to allow players to show off their success in hunting down their targets we could offer cosmetic armour sets that are unlocked after reaching a certain number of target kills. This would allow players to let everyone know just how many noobs they have slain and to grab themselves a unique and impressive looking outfit if they can take out enough targets.

There would be no bonus loots or increased profit

The Bounty Hunter target system would be exactly that, a target system. The goal is to give people a way to find someone suitable for them to take on quickly and easily.

Added incentives are not being offered with the Bounty Hunter target system. The idea of giving PKers bonus loot is one that many players are against and it is one that, somewhere along the line, will negatively impact another part of the game.

If we were to offer an EP-like system, where players infrequently get statuettes worth large sums of gold, it provides nothing new for the game in terms of content and devalues every other money making method that currently exists.

If we offer points that can be exchanged for resources such as sharks, herbs or potions etc. we devalue those items for the people that gather or create them and, in turn, devalue the stats they may have spent months training in order to do so.

What exactly does the Bounty Hunter target system offer?

We are proposing a target system to offer players a challenge, ease the process of finding someone to kill and to condense the active PKers, creating a more dangerous and exciting PvP experience for you.

Mods Alfred, Ash, John C, Mat K, Reach, Ronan & Weath
The Old School Team