Well that’s January done – everyone is back from their holiday break, and hopefully well rested, recharged and sticking to those resolutions for 2022! In RuneScape, the year has already kicked off with a bang in the form of Nex and more recently the launch of Leagues III: Shattered Relics. But this is just the beginning. We’ve got a lot more to come in the months ahead – so let’s have a sneak peek!
Released Content
Leagues III: Shattered Relics
For just over a week now you’ve been busy unlocking, spending and working your way through the list of tasks for Leagues III, all under the watchful eye of The Sage. To keep you on track, this week’s game update included a bunch of fixes, tweaks and changes, including reducing the prices of the skills and bosses you can buy with Sage’s Renown! Keep up to date with all the new adjustments by checking out yesterday’s newspost.
Honestly, we’ve been a bit blown away by how many of you are willing to take on The Fifth General in all her monstrous might! Now, with Leagues III up and running there’s no better time to give her a go, so why not head down to the God Wars Dungeon and show her what you’re made of? And of course, we’ll be keeping an eye on how our terrifying Nihil is doing – your feedback has been invaluable so far and we’d love to hear any further ideas you have for her.
Group Ironman
We recently polled plans for the future of Group Ironman, and we’re happy to announce that all our suggestions passed! You can now look forward to shared storage improvements, using Player-Owned Houses when the owner isn’t home (and even redirecting the House Teleport to group members’ houses) and an expanded list of tradeable items. Plus, for you Hardcores, the Emergency Teleport Shards will provide an exit out of areas that are newly dangerous for you lot, but which don’t already possess a teleportation method. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, eh?
Stay tuned for more information soon!
New Client Features
First off, huge thanks to everyone who participated in the Android Beta at the end of last year. We’ve been addressing your feedback and bashing those bugs, all in preparation for an Open Beta in the near future.
Once that happens, the different versions of the client will become something we see as ‘always on’, and any new features we release will be made available across all platforms.
Right now we’re wrapping up the Mobile changes and gearing up for the next batch of features – this time shifting our focus to Clue Scrolls!
Upcoming Content
Land of the Goblins
Land of the Goblins, the penultimate quest in the Dorgeshuun questline, is almost ready to go! You’ll be able to experience Zanik’s latest adventure from February 9th. More details can be found here.
As an extra teaser take a look at one of the new tracks featured with our newest quest: Catacombs and Tombs.
Formerly known as Guardians of Gielinor, this past ideation pitch is finally coming to fruition – a brand new minigame to train Runecraft, scheduled for March! It’s a fresh method for building up that infamously slow skill, which should offer better rewards for players who like making loads of quick decisions.
It also features a new involving wizard, portals, fearsome Abyssal Creatures and of course, Runes, glorious Runes!
Find out all the details here.
Looking ahead to spring, Beneath Cursed Sands is the next quest in the Desert storyline, and it’s due to arrive this April. Completion of this quest will be a requirement to access the Tombs of Amascut Raid coming later in the year, so this is one to keep an eye on.
Development on the quest is well underway, and today we’re excited to share our first in-game images
Beneath Cursed Sands – Concept Art #1
We’d love to hear your feedback on the above images. In particular, we’re keen to get your thoughts on the new model and chathead for Maisa as we know we haven’t always got these kinds of changes right. On that note, you might be wondering why we’re even updating Maisa at all. We’ve chosen to do this as Maisa’s current model from the Contact! quest is not very fitting in multiple ways. It’s inconsistent with the tone of the storyline, Maisa’s backstory and the thematics of the areas she’s found in.
Tombs of Amascut
Old School’s third raid is coming later this year, and the team are hard at work on deadly but exciting new challenges for you to face! But don’t worry, there’ll be lots of lovely rewards for your troubles. We’re rustling up a revised rewards blog, and we’ll be sharing that with you very soon, so keep ‘em peeled.
Wilderness Changes
We know some of you have been waiting patiently for the next changes to the Wilderness and – hooray! – we’ve got a couple of things just around the corner for you.
The Revenant Demi-Boss will make its debut in next week’s update, giving you something extra to get on with inside the Caves. This scary creature will appear in a random location and can be attacked by multiple players at once.
Not only will you score some sweet loot, but the players who deal the most damage will bag themselves a buff that will help them with the other inhabitants of the Revenant Caves – a 15% increase to damage and accuracy against Revenants for 30 minutes! Hopping worlds will decrease the timer by one minute. In addition, only players wearing the Amulet of Avarice can receive the buff, and if you kill a player with the it, it will be transferred to you, unless you already have it activated. To be 100% clear, you also need an Amulet of Avarice equipped to receive the buff via PKing.
We’ll also be adding Abyssal Demons, Dust Devils, Jellies and Nechryaels for Wilderness Slayer Tasks, reductions in the number of kills required for said tasks, and the chance to hit a new loot table when tackling creatures in the cave. Happy slaying!
Deadman Re-Run
Last time we updated you on the Deadman: Reborn re-run, we were aiming for a January Beta, with the full re-run to follow shortly after.
Work on our anti-DDoS protection has been impacted due to the recent vulnerabilities with Java and exploits with Log4j. The team had to be moved to prioritise this work and ensure our players remained safe.
Working on the solution for anti-DDoS protection will be resumed as a priority and we hope to share more info with you soon.
We’re committed to re-running the event, but as we mentioned previously whilst we’re confident in our solution, there is still a chance that unexpected problems will crop up – and of course, they’ll need fixing before we can officially re-run the finals.
We appreciate that you’ve all been waiting patiently for some time already, but we feel it’s vital for you to have confidence in our ability to deliver a smooth event, free from issues before we fully commit to a re-run.
Poll 76
We know it’s been a while since our last big poll, but we’re nearly ready to share the next one with you! This time will be talking about Clues, Pets, Combat Achievements, Clans and lots more. We’ll be sharing more details in an upcoming newspost.
Mobile Client Beta
We touched on this earlier, but you can expect an Open Beta for the new features on mobile very soon. Again, we’d like to thank everyone who participated in the Android Beta – your feedback has been invaluable as we work to bring these features to everyone!
We’ll be able to share more about the Open Beta next month.
Don’t worry iOS users, we haven’t forgotten about you! Although we’ve had some delays, we hope to have a similar process to the Android Beta up and running for you shortly.
Speaking of Apple products, Mac users will be excited to hear that we’ve been working on bringing Old School RuneScape to you, too. Expect more news about that soon!
As revealed in our last Gazette , our ideation process is taking on an exciting new form this year. However, we still have plenty of ideas from last year to talk about, so here’s Mods Nin and Tide with some updates on a few of their ideas:
Marsh Island
Ahoy, Me Hearties! I have some interesting booty to share with you – an ideation pitch that would branch off the pirate storyline to explore the dark past of one of the brothers!
Why the pirate storyline? It’s unfinished business! Also, I wanted to do something a bit different and expand the world, with the addition of Marsh Island. It’s home to the followers of Saradomin, but an ancient evil has started to rear its head – the Necromancers, followers of an Ancient god.
Your task on the island would be to help the remaining followers of Saradomin remove the Necromancers and restore the town. Along the way, you’ll uncover a few secrets, and at the end of the quest you’ll get a new weapon with a twist of its own.
The weapon has three slots for Charms. You would gain one from completing the quest and the rest by exploring and completing tasks on the island. These charms would have a range of benefits, from helping out with your island activities to combat buffs versus the undead!
Canoe Expansion
Because are other rivers, not just the fancy-schmancy River Lum! The River Dougne would be the next river to get canoes, Gielinor’s coolest mode of transport. The stations would be as follows:
- Castle Wars
- Tree Gnome Village
- Ardougne
- Just south of Baxtorian Falls, south of the house
This quality of life change would allow you take a scenic route through the west side of the continent, making travelling that little bit easier.
The Corrupted Rat
Our story begins on a normal day in Varrock Castle. A guard was making his rounds when he spotted a suspicious masked figure – he ran towards them, only for them to teleport away, leaving nothing but a green stone. Thinking nothing of it, he threw the stone in a nearby drain and went about his duties.
Years later, the stone’s power has leaked into the waters of Varrock Sewers and the rats there have started to mutate. One in particular is proving troublesome! King Roald has ordered his guards to put a stop to this weirdness, but it’s a bit much for them to handle. Can you help defeat the beast?
The Corrupted Rat would be a free-to-play boss which can be killed for a new poison weapon.
Musical Instruments
The wandering bard Amadea is down on her luck, out of inspiration, and unable to fix her broken lyre. In exchange for your help, she might just give you a lesson or two – featuring a fun 100 bpm rhythm-based minigame!
Once sufficiently inspired, Amadea will decide to settle down and open up a music shop. Should you find any musical instruments on your journey – a drum like object in the depths of Mor Ul Rek, perhaps, or panpipes crafted by the fairies of Zanaris – she’ll help you add them to your collection!
Equipping an instrument lets you play music that can be heard by those around you – and it’s not limited to the usual 100-bpm rate! You’ll be able to play, and be heard, in real time using your computer’s keyboard. Yes, we can do that! Imagine busking at the Grand Exchange, playing for a dance in your Clan Hall, or performing a dirge in the Lumbridge Castle Grounds to really rub it in when someone dies.
This was originally ideated as a fun new social activity that both members and free-to-play players could enjoy. You might have seen the Bard skill pitch from GentleTractor, Caveman Only, and ScreteMonge, which takes the idea of playing music to the next level. What do you think?
That’s everything for the latest edition of the Gielinor Gazette. We’d love to hear your feedback on anything featured and as with everything else, if you’ve got any ideas about the sorts of things you’d like to see in upcoming editions of the Gielinor Gazette, then please do let us know via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, the Steam forums or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.
Mods Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Brow, Bruno, Con, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Grub, Halo, Havik, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kamon, Kieren, Kirby, KT, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Matheus, Maylea, Markos, Meat, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Nylu, Oasis, Peppers, Regent, Redfield, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Sigma, Skylark, Sova, Squid, Steve W, Tide, Torrance, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko
The Old School Team