March

March
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March 31, 2004:

Now that we have finished our big game engine update we can finally get back to producing regular updates to the game.

I'm sure you're all wondering what's coming next now the update is finally out, so read on for a summary of some of the things we have planned.

The new game engine allows for us to do a much greater variety of updates. We will be able to produce many exciting new features which we simply couldn't do previously. We have also expanded our development team over the last few months so expect the updates to start coming thick and fast.

These are just some of the many features for RuneScape members to look forward to over the coming months.

New areas:

A Viking style area, including a new quest and town.
A large 'frozen lands' area including penguins, mammoths, polar bears and more.
A pyramid quest in the desert full of traps, treasure and mummies.
A barrows of the undead area to explore and find new equipment.
Some good training areas designed for rangers.

New quests:

There will of course be lots of new quests. We will be adding these on a regular basis again, including Part 4 of the ongoing plague city storyline.

New items:

Enchantable rings.
More rare weapons and armour - including weapons with impressive special moves.
Armoured boots.
More clothing to help give your characters a unique look.
Special prayer book items which can be wielded in the shield spot for prayer bonuses.

New features & skills

Treasure hunt mini-game with a variety of rewards, including some new rare items.
Summoning spells - summon skeletons, demons, etc...!
A quest journal for you to read and recap what point you are up to in each quest. No more coming back to a quest after a break, and wondering what you are supposed to do next.
More random events, to give more variety, and lots of chances to win unexpected rewards.
More pets and followers with different properties and abilities.
Special organized game events on holidays.
Many new monsters such as Orcs, Lizardmen and more.
In game versions of our board games such as chess and draughts.

And we will be adding even bigger features later in the year, that really take advantage of our new engines abilities, such as:

Player owned houses - Each player will be able to have their own unique house. Use the new carpentry skill to make new/rare things for your house. Using the farming skill to grow herbs and plants in the grounds of your house. Build your own private party areas and shop areas, and more!
A multiplayer dueling arena - possibly integrating with clan support, so players can form teams, and then have massive multiway wars!
Wilderness castle areas for special team playing killing wars.
Randomly generated scenarios, where a new adventure is generated for you and your friends each time you go on it. Form an adventuring party and go on your own personal quest.

So there's lots to look forward to! We think the next year will be very exciting.

March 30, 2004:

As promised we have added a page to the website which lets you move your items from the main game back to RS-Classic.

If you wish to do this then press the 'account management' button on our front web-page, then login, and finally choose 'RuneScape Item Transfers' at the bottom right, to move your items.

Please read the instructions on the page carefully before using this feature!

March 29, 2004:

It's finally here, the RS2 beta has ended. And you can start playing it for real! We have reset everyone's RS2 saves for the last time, so from now on all that you do and everything you gain in the new game will permanently affect your real character.

Here's how the launch works. We've changed the original plan slightly, so please read this carefully:

We have decided to copy your stats to both games. So you will have all your stats and abilities in both RS1 and RS2. You can play each game whenever you wish, using the same username/password. Skills you gain in one game will not affect the other game in any way. So if you're going to put some effort into leveling up we recommend you do so on the game you most want to stick with.

We have moved your items to RS2. So you will find all your armour/money etc. is all on your RS2 character, and you (currently) have no items on RS1. We can't just copy the items because it causes big problems with the economy if we do. However we will shortly be introducing a temporary webpage that lets you move items between the two games, so if you want to keep playing RS1 you will be able to move some or all of your items back. There will be a further news post explaining this in detail when it is ready. The only thing you need to bear in mind right now is that your items have NOT been duplicated. You only have one of each, so don't go throwing away items in RS2 that you might later want in RS1.

RS2 has been renamed to 'RuneScape'. This is to reflect that it is now the main RuneScape game. It is this main game which affects your hiscore, and this is where further updates and improvements will be focused. To play just press 'Play game' at the top of the main webpage.

RS1 has been renamed to RS-Classic and moved to it's own separate section. This will be brought back online later today if everything goes to plan. This is being kept as a bit of history so people can see what the game used to look like, and for players who prefer a simpler non-changing game. Take a look at the RS-Classic pages for more details.

Apart from that we hope you enjoy the new improved game! It's taken an incredible effort from everyone here to get it to this point, and we hope you enjoy playing it as much as we've enjoyed creating it

The Jagex Team

March 27, 2004:

The duel arena bank has now been moved to next to the hospital.

We have also fixed the following bugs:

Fixed: Sometimes killing certain quest NPCs didn't advance you in a quest like it should.
Fixed: Crossbows changed color to match your hair.
Fixed: There was an area at the edge of one of the dueling arenas which you could stand in and could be killed and lose your items as if you weren't in the arena when you died. In this spot you could also do strange things such as lean on the barrier above you to escape the arena. This place is now blocked off like it should be.
Fixed: You could get stuck in the dueling arena if you selected no forfeit and no melee together and then neither of your bought any runes or arrows to kill each other with.
Fixed: You could select a duel with the no movement option and then plant flowers or light a fire so you weren't standing next to your opponent.

March 26, 2004:

Many thanks to everyone who has been helping us load test RS2 over the last few days. This testing has helped me discover that it was in fact lagging more than it should do, particularly when large numbers of players were on a world at once.

I am pleased to announce I have just fixed that problem, which should make RS2 significantly less laggy. It should now be able to handle far far more players before it starts slowing down.

Also the code which sends the new game files to you when the game is updated has been improved. So updates should now download much more quickly too.

March 25, 2004:

Dueling

We have added dueling for members to Runescape 2!

Dueling takes place in the new Duel Arena northeast of Al Kharid. There are six duel arenas which are surrounded by walkways, from which you can challenge other players and watch the duels.

When you challenge someone to a duel, you will be given a dueling options screen so you can determine between yourselves the stake for the duel and the type of duel that you wish to have.

There are lots of new options for you to try out, most should be self-evident:

No Forfeit means that you can't chicken out and have to fight to the death; you can normally forfeit (and automatically lose) a duel by leaving through a trap door in an arena.
No Movement turns off any movement; by default you can move anywhere within your arena while dueling.
Obstacles gives you a choice between the types of arena you would like - either a plain arena or an arena with obstacles in it that may help Rangers and Mages.
The other options are: No Weapons, No Armour, No Ranged, No Melee, No Magic, No Potions, No Food, No Prayer.

Once you have chosen your options you will be taken to an appropriate arena. Your opponent will be indicated by a yellow arrow over their head.

When you are watching a match you can lean on a wall by clicking on it. Your camera will move to a nice angle so you can watch the action. As soon as you walk somewhere it will turn off again.
Fadli, who is at the entrance to the Duel Arena, can look after your stuff whilst you are dueling. After a duel has finished both the winner and the loser will respawn at the hospital at the side of the arenas where the nice nurses will make sure you are at full health for your next duel.

Please be aware: We have opened a specific section of our forum purely for issues relating to the dueling arena, please do not contact Customer Support regarding it as they will be unable to help.

Changes to pickpocketing

Following feedback from beta testers we have now made some adjustments to pickpocketing.
Now when you are caught thieving the NPC gives a small set amount of damage and then stops fighting you. You are left stunned for a few seconds during which time you can't move or do more pickpocketing. After that you can continue to pickpocket the NPC as before.

We have also fixed the following bugs:

Fixed: If you entered the rune essence from a p2p area then tried to leave on f2p server you got stuck.
Fixed: You could smith studs on free servers.
Fixed: Crafting xp for some dragonhide items which required multiple pieces of leather was too low.
Fixed: You could lose ownership of your kitten by logging out while fishing.
Fixed: One of the characters in the observatory quest would give you a half full jug of wine.
Fixed: The Shilo village bridge didn't show up on low detail mode.

March 24, 2004:

Today we have drastically reduced the number of servers available for the RS2 beta.

The reason for this is that before the full launch we really need to test how the game worlds behave under high load (i.e. when they are very full!).

Obviously we really don't want the game to start lagging horribly when there are lots of people on one world, which is why we need to do this test.

With only a few servers the beta should be much more crowded and we can see if it still works ok. So please all pile in!, and we'll hopefully get it all optimized ready for the launch.

March 23, 2004:

We have uploaded the following fixes to RS2:

Fixed: The mine near the mage arena was missing.
Fixed: Soldiers and watchmen had no feet.
Fixed: The silver stall shrank when you stole silver from it.
Fixed: Objects found in the legends guild barrel room appeared floating.
Fixed: The southeast corner of Varrock was members only.
Fixed: Steel arrows could not be used on the free servers.
Fixed: Players got an odd message when going through the Crandor island secret door.
Fixed: The Rangers' guild tanner wouldn't make the new dragon leather colors

March 22, 2004:

Todays Changes and Fixes:

Anti Fire breath Potion (level 69 Herblore to make)
Find the new herb Lantadyme (level 67 to identify). Put it in a vial of water and add a blue dragon scale and you will make our new anti fire breath potion. This potion prevents some of the damage from Dragonbreath.
If you use the new potion, the anti dragon breath shield and the protection from melee then you won't take damage from dragons except for the King black dragon.
We've also made some improvements to the chat filter.
On the low detail version we've made the mini map work much better so it moves a lot more smoothly now.
The banks now work the same for free users who used to have members as they did in rs1 - i.e. if your bank is too full you can still bank things if you already have other copies them in your bank.

Combat adjustments

As you know, a lot of the aim of the RS2 combat system is to try and get a "PKing triangle", Where mages tend to beat fighters, fighters tend to beat rangers, and rangers tend to beat mages.
Therefore all 3 classes are viable and no one can say one class is superior and the combat system is unbalanced.

However, beta testing has been leading to the reaction by many that "Mages are overpowered" Which certainly wasn't our intention.

The following changes have therefore been added to try and address the imbalances in the combat system which have been turned up by our users during beta testing;

Bigger magic penalties on armour.
       It seemed too easy to successfully cast magic while using rune armour, meaning a lot of the weaknesses the mages were supposed to have were negated.
       We envisaged the mages mostly player killing in robes. They still tended to beat warriors because they could cast bind/entangle/snare on the warrior and then step back and cast spells. They would take quite a bit of damage when their entangles wore off and the warriors ran in, but they still had the edge.
       Against rangers, entangle is obviously ineffective as the rangers can attack from a distance too, and because of the mages only wearing robes, rangers would hit a lot and therefore have the edge against mages.
       This all breaks down somewhat if mages are effective in rune armour and mages end up beating everyone, hence we are increasing the minuses to magic stats on armour, so they tend to PK in robes.
       In a future update we would like to add some sort of mages armour to the game, which wouldn't be as good as plate and would only be effective against warriors and not rangers, but would still be useful for giving mages some additional protection.
More ranging equipment for free servers
The 'player killing triangle' just didn't work on free servers because there was no ranging equipment. We have therefore increased the amount of ranging equipment on free servers. We are giving them arrows up to steel, bows up to the oak long bow and armour up to green dragonhide. (dragonhide is extremely useful for rangers against mages because of its magic defense)
This equipment will be available to free users in shops and from monster drops. (fletching will stay a members only skill).
The dragonhide body can be bought from Oziach.
More ranging equipment for member servers
       Obviously as we are giving some of this ranging equipment to free users its only fair to give some more ranging equipment to members.
       The current dragonhide armour has become green dragonhide and we have created blue dragonhide, red dragonhide and black dragonhide for members.
       Members can also find and kill green dragons for their hides in the wilderness.
More projectiles as monster drops
For rangers to be balanced in the 'triangle' they need to be using fairly good quality projectiles and I think a lot of people were not doing this as it was too expensive for them.
Expect monsters to now be dropping better javelins, arrows, throwing darts and knives.
The defense stat now helps against magic
       One reason that mages were seen to be "Overpowered" by certain fighters was because your defense skill against magic was your own magic skill. If you were an absolute pure then mages would barely ever miss you because you effectively had a defense of 1.
       While we would like to encourage people to level up their magic (and there's no reason for people not to in RS2) this was going a bit too far.
       Magic defense now uses some of your defense stat and some of your magic stat, so even the most absolute of pures will have some defense against magic. It's probably still advisable to level up your magic for defense purposes though.

Additionally, we have also fixed the following bugs:

Fixed: The magic guild doors could become normal doors that anyone could get through.
Fixed: Sometimes NPCs would not be facing you when they were fighting you.
Fixed: The screen would jump when characters walked onto bridges.
Fixed: You could restart the restless ghost quest.
Fixed: The Al Kharid palace balcony was invisible in low detail mode.
Fixed: It was possible to restart the Shield of Arrav quest.
Fixed: Selling cats to civilians also sold all other cats and kittens in your inventory.
Fixed: Free users couldn't smith gold.
Fixed: Free users couldn't make holy symbols.
Fixed: You could walk on the lava under Crandor.
Fixed: Some quests gave slightly different quest points compared to Runescape 1.
Fixed: Bolt tips when examined said "I can make an arrow with these."
Fixed: You could catch Bass at too low a fishing level.
Fixed: Various objects had incorrect costs.
Fixed: You could hit very quickly when wielding a gnomeball.
Fixed: Some people were killing the dragon and not completing the dragon slayer quest.
Fixed: Shadow warriors equipment drops were wrong.

March 18, 2004:

Since its launch on November 11th 2003 the RuneScape forums have gone from strength to strength and we are very pleased to announce that the RuneScape forums have just exceeded the 1 million posts mark. On an average week we have over 8000 members log on to the RuneScape forums!

The RuneScape forums provide an excellent opportunity for our members to discuss RuneScape topics with each other. Its also an excellent place to ask a question about anything related to RuneScape or to just meet new friends and participate in RuneScape discussions. We would like to thank all of the members who have posted on the forums and helped to make it the success it is.

Of course with any community, good moderating is the key to its success and we would like to also personally thank all of the forum moderators who have given up their free time to ensure that the forum is kept orderly and is a positive environment for our players to post in. Well done on a great job!

March 17, 2004:

Today we have fixed the following bugs:

Fixed: There was an area in the deep wilderness which didn't count as the wilderness.
Fixed: Unlocked tunes on the music player were relocking themselves.
Fixed: You could walk out into mid air from the tree gnome stronghold.
Fixed: Some fishing spots got stuck where you couldn't fish them on Karamja.
Fixed: You got poisoned opening the sinister key chest whether you drank a poison antidote beforehand or not.
Fixed: Monk's of Zamorak wouldn't stop you getting the wine of Zamorak.
Fixed: It was possible to get stuck on the trawler.
Fixed: It was possible to repeatedly do the shield of Arrav quest.
Fixed: It was possible to repeatedly finish the waterfall quest.

RS2 is very nearly complete now. So as the final test before we go for the full launch we've opened it to free users as well as members for one big final test!

This means all the free users who have been waiting to try out RS2 finally can. Just two important thing to remember.

The beta is played with a test account, which is a copy of your RS1 account. Nothing you do on the beta will affect your main character in any way. Everything you do on the beta will be forgotten when the beta ends, so bear mind any items or levels you gain here are non-permanent.
If you are playing the beta with a brand new account you just created, you MUST log it into RS1 at least once, before it will let you use it in RS2. Of course there is no need to create a new account anyway, as you can use your normal character safely. Obviously once we go to the full real launch this requirement will go away

March 15, 2004:

Music player

Runescape 2 now has a music player in addition to the default music for each area. In the bottom right corner of the game screen select the musical note to use the music interface. As you go into new areas in Runescape you will unlock the pieces of music being played there. Click on them in the music interface and you can play each tune whenever you like, so long as you have unlocked it. Click the auto button to go back to playing the default music for each area you walk into.

Anti FireBreath potion

This is a new potion for use when fighting dragons. It requires level 69 herblaw, a blue dragon scale and a Cadantine herb. Using a combination of the anti dragon breath shield, the protection from melee prayer and this potion means you will not be taking any damage from dragons (except the king black dragon).

Other features added include:

When you gain a level there is now a visible animation so other players can see you just got a level.
Various of the inventory graphics have been improved, most notably the worn versions of the Halloween mask and the capes.
Mithril seeds can now be planted to grow flowers which you can pick, and give as presents. The flowers are random colors, some colors are rarer than others.

We have also fixed the following bugs:

Fixed: The legends guild sold the wrong half of the dragon square shield.
Fixed: It was possible to walk on some areas of water near Karamja.
Fixed: Some players doing the Legends quest could not get Yommi tree seeds.
Fixed: It was not possible to get into the Kharazi jungle once you had completed the legends quest.
Fixed: The mulicannon quest was going back to yellow on peoples quests list when they purchased cannons.
Fixed: It was possible to restart the digsite quest after you had completed it.
Fixed: The training dummies in King Lathas's training area did nothing.
Fixed: It was possible to walk on the water at the fishing guild.
Fixed: Casting hold spells didn't work on characters who were moving by following another character.
Fixed: It was possible to skip the character appearance screen and as a result your character became a bearded lady.
Fixed: You could die by drinking the potion of Zamorak on low hitpoints.
Fixed: The potion of Zamorak didn't give any boost to prayer.
Fixed: The fishing spots south of Rimmington spent most the time out at sea where they then couldn't be fished.
Fixed: You could swap a cat for death runes, log out, log back in and you would get your cat back.
Fixed: When you were given a gnome ball by the referee it still told you that you had the weapon stats from the weapon you had been wielding beforehand.
Fixed: Unlike the other gems mining diamonds did not give a message to say you had just mined a diamond.

March 9, 2004:

Today we have uploaded the following features to the Runescape Beta:

The legends guild quest is online.
We have temporarily added a character for the duration of the beta called Erasmus who is northeast of Lumbridge castle. Speak to him and he will allow you to restart the Legends quest as well as the dragon slayer and Shilo village quests, so that you can test them.
We have made it so you can combine your half drunk potions into 1 vial.
We have greatly improved the timing of the sound effects.
We have greatly improved the following option, so your friend who is following doesn't get stuck behind fences and also doesn't tend to spend so much time walking sideways.
Route finding to NPCs has also been further improved.
Lighting different kinds of logs gives different amounts of firemaking xp.

We have also made the following bug fixes:

Fixed: Some connection lost issues people were suffering in the jungle.
Fixed: The weaken spell was telling players their foes already had weakened attack rather than strength.
Fixed: The curse spell was telling players their foes already had weakened strength rather than attack.
Fixed: Making opal bolt tips gave the wrong message.
Fixed: The combat icons for the pickaxe were wrong.
Fixed: Gaining a level restored your stats.
Fixed: A problem with players sometimes being drawn with the wrong appearance after a load/lost-connection.
Fixed: Fishing spots sometimes got stuck on each other out at sea.
Fixed: Players could get stuck in Melzar's maze if they had coloured keys in their banks.
Fixed: Talking to NPCs next to a diagonal wall didn't work.
Fixed: The strike spells weren't working properly against Salarin the Twisted.
Fixed: You could skip the part of the observatory quest where you received the quest reward.
Fixed: Players could ask to join the Monastery even though they had already joined.
Fixed: You could not get through the West Ardougne doors after completing Biohazard.

March 3, 2004:

In addition to the major changes made today, which are detailed in the "RS2 beta item test" news story, we have made the following changes:

We have improved the autocast mode on the staffs, so you if you are attacked while in the correct combat mode you will automatically retaliate with magic.
You can now fletch Opal Bolt tips and attach them to crossbow bolts.
You can now buy Barb Bolt tips from the ranging guild using tickets and attach them to crossbow bolts.
Many banks and shops now have a faster use right-click option, speeding up the process of buying and selling items considerably.

The following bugs have been fixed:

Fixed: You could be trapped in the rat area of the clock tower by other people pulling the levers.
Fixed: Catherby and Lumbridge general stores were sharing their stock.
Fixed: The gallows from the Shilo village had disappeared.
Fixed: All gloves were the same color when worn by female characters.
Fixed: The parts of the dragon slayer quest after the boat journey had stopped working.
Fixed: If you died before getting steel gauntlets turned into magic/ cooking / gold gauntlets you couldn't get a replacement.

Finally, as we are trying to get the game closer to its finished state, the Lumbridge teleport is no longer free to cast.

We have deleted all the RuneScape-2 beta accounts, and replaced them with a fresh copy of your RS1 account. This time the copy comes with all your items and quest status.

We would like to make it clear that this is just a test, this is NOT the full launch!

The new RS2 beta accounts that have been created are still temporary, using them still won't affect your real rs1 account in any way, and they will still be deleted at the end of the beta.

We have done this to test our full save game converter works properly, and give people a chance to play the beta with all their items and armour. If you notice any of your quests or items do not appear to have converted correctly then please report it on our rs2 bugs forum.

Remember: Even though you have all your latest items and stats, everything you do in the beta will still be forgotten when the beta ends.