Hey guys,
Quite a long list of changes this time. I'd say Virtual levels and Membership are the biggest changes, but you'll also find the Decanter and Experience lamps as rewards for daily tasks useful!
Barbarian DungeonI've improved the drops of monsters inside the Barbarian dungeon. The area is supposed to be beginner friendly and give people a decent start into the game. Low and medium level monsters with appropriate drops can be found there:
- Skeletons: drop mithril items
- Ghosts: received a magic attack and drop ghostly robes
- Bats: bones give good prayer xp
- Unholy cursebearer: weak mini boss with drops for up to 4 players
- Chaos dwarfs replaced with fire giants
- Elite dark knights added: stronger black knights dropping medium level armour / equipment
- Baby blue dragons received a droptable.
Here's the unholy cursebearer:
Virtual LevelsYou can now level past 99 without gaining any additional benefits. It shows your progress up to level 128 (= 250M xp) the same way as you were leveling from 1 to 99. This option can be disabled in the game settings if you don't like it! There's now also a badge on your skill when reaching the following milestones:
- 110: Bronze star
- 120: Silver star
- 128: Gold star
The screenshot below shows how the skill tab interface with virtual levels enabled looks like. The green total level shows your virtual total level, which can go up to 2,944 when being completely maxed!
MembershipI've decided that the membership system is very outdated and I've removed the requirement from following things:
- Astral rune smelting.
- Entrance to Al-Kharid and the Desert.
- Using pets.
- Pollnivneach teletab.
- Crafting skill.
- Fletching bolts and bolt tips.
- Agility obstacles & dungeon entrances.
- Hunter.
- Shooting star information.
- Thieving.
- Slayer.
To keep track of what's still included for member, here's a list:
- More bank space.
- More GE slots.
- 10% experience boost.
- More space for your house.
- Additional daily task.
This sounds like a drastic change, but I really feel that it's a good step towards making the game feel more enjoyable. I will update the list of member benefits to make sure it's clear what you get with the package!
Daily Tasks & Experience LampsYou now get a Combat lamp by completing combat related daily tasks (no Slayer). You can choose in which combat skill you want to gain experience. The experience gain curves were taken from RSWiki and interpolated. It's not an exact copy, but very similar rates. The task system was also updated to use the same experience curve. That means that lower level tasks gain less experience and higher ones more experience. The turning point is at about level 60 if compared to the previous system. Moreover, I've also added these lamps as rewards to the EP shop. Lamps are not affected by any experience boosts but membership!
Potion Decanter BobYou can now decant potions in any possible variation you wish. The mechanism works with noted and unnoted items and always costs 1,000gp per inventory. You have predefined options to decant potions into 3 and 4 sips. However if you wish to decant them into 1 or 2 sips (maybe 5 or 6 in the future?) you can use the Decant-X option to do so.
Improved Graphic SettingsYou're now able to pick from a selection of predefined graphic settings called Automatic Setup:
Yk'LagorThe boss has been out for quite a while now but seems to be really unpopular. I've taken a look and have to admit that he's quite a powerhouse regarding his combat strength. The strength isn't determined by his raw combat power but by the npcs he spawns. I'm therefore reducing the combat level, combat strength and health of the minion spawns:
- Necrolord: 121 combat & 91 health
- Necro archer: 119 combat & 90 health
I have also increased all amounts of noted item drops to make sure this boss is worth killing.
Mail Server IssuesI was able to identify and fix an issue with our mail server postfix. The hostname that it was sending was incorrect, which resulted in some mail providers rejecting our mails completely. I've patched it and there should no longer be mails that aren't delivered. If you are still having problems with the mail system or aren't receiving e-mails, please make a helpdesk ticket and I'll have a look!
Game fixes / changes:- Granite shield alch value increased and noted version added.
- NPCs around Barbarian village now drop talismans.
- A clipping issue around the Kalphite Queen entrance was fixed.
- Thrower trolls now count towards the troll Slayer task.
- A bug was fixed where opening passable doors while the map was loading wouldn't show.
- The slayer experience gained for group bosses has been increased.
- The prayer experience of bat bones was increased from 90 to 150.
- Swapping two special attack weapons no longer resets special attack activation.
- Fancy and Fighting boots can now be found on the Grand Exchange.
- Bolt effects (only 1 word) are now shown in the equipment interface. The full effect can be viewed by hovering over the bolt item.
- The weapon animations for dharok's axe, anger battle axe and anger mace have been updated. The previous versions were a little buggy and I found a set of animations that fits their style better.
- Multi target spells no longer increase their range when attacking larger monsters. Also a bug has been fixed which allowed you to target enemies with multi target spells through walls.
- Pet dragons can now be found in the GE.
Engine fixes / changes:- The performance of rendering players on the minimap has been improved. The code that determined if players are in your clan chat or are on your friends list had horrible complexities and were costing some fps. All fixed and improved now though.
- A bug was fixed where the minimap wouldn't update properly when crossing Agility obstacles.
- Animations are now properly preloaded when equipping items. This fixes an issue where equipping a 2h sword and walking would shortly pause your walk animation because it wasn't previously loaded.
- Ground item system improved. You can see up to 5 different items now and all doubles are filtered. So if you drop coins and 10 mantas on top of it, you'll be able to see 1 manta ray model and 1 coins model. This will make it easier to see which items are on the floor.
Water EdgesI've given the water calculation an additional depth test that determines how transparent the edges are. It creates smooth coastlines giving water an even more realistic look. I've also updated swamps, because dirty water has very dithered reflections.
In other NewsI've started a discussion about future updates and how the game could be improved. You can read all the details here:
https://emps-world.net/forum/index.php?topic=20986.0 There has already been some discussion on-going and I am now working on following things:
- Voting system: already got the scripts working really well, now looking into the rewards. My plans are to create voting boxes, which contain random useful loot and a rare chance to receive unique pets. My aim is to not let these rewards affect the economy at all but it should be worth your time. Probably dyes for existing items that are tradeable and small experience lamps. Thoughts on that?
- Daily minigame task: I'd pick a different minigame every day that is featured, so teaming up becomes easier.
- Daily boss task: An additional challenge once having reached a certain milestone. I definitely want to include the 4-man group challenges too.
- Difficult game mode: This mode will have experience rates lowered by a lot and will get separate highscores. I also plan on receiving unique rare items when reaching certain milestones at this game mode.
I cannot say when all these changes find their way into the game, but I'll be working on them from now on. I've also delayed the new boss a little bit more, because I just haven't been able to get things done yet. Lots of smaller projects and idea compilation were taking up my time.
All the best,
Thomy
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