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1

Update Notes / Updates July 14th - Death Rework, Equipment Changes and New Areas!

« on: July 14, 2022, 10:41:00 am »

Hello everybody!

Today's update contains various new things, reworks and fixes. The biggest change being the rework of death mechanics and attack ranges of various ranged weapons. It is also a preparation for our next huge content release: Rot Cave. You can explore West Ardougne already if you find its hidden entrance.

West Ardougne & Rot Cave
West Ardougne can now be accessed. You can't come in through the main gates (yet) though. The Rot Cave hasn't opened, because there is still a lot to be tested to make sure it works the way it should. I would like to test all the new code in the game first and see how it works before opening all new areas. It'll be released as soon as I've finished testing everything.


Death Rework
The death mechanic has been worked. By default all degradeable items are kept and their charges are reduced by 12.5% (10% for members) of their maximum charges. If an item breaks during the process you will receive its broken version. Items that have a degraded state, such as the rune bag, will no longer degrade when dropped. You can just walk to the spot where you've died and pick up the item without any additional repair costs. Inventories also won't be destroyed. Your runes will magically be kept safe should you lose your rune bag.

The Items Kept on Death interface has also been reworked. It shows exactly what items will be kept and dropped on death. That makes it a lot easier to determine which items you risk losing. Item lists in the interface are a 1:1 copy of the items that are dropped upon death.

The left part of the image shows a death outside of the wilderness. You see that you keep most of your items. The right part is a death inside the wilderness to another player. You see that all untradeable items are transformed to either their broken state, currency, contents or coins. You can toggle the view at any time by clicking the "PvP" button in the bottom right corner.

Construction System
I've rewritten major parts of the construction skill that loads your house. It will be faster and without the need to reload the entire map when you place or remove rooms. You will still see some objects loading in and out but without a dedicated loading screen going blue. There have also been fixes to the clipping system which would sometimes get you stuck in corners of rooms.

Weakness & Resistance System
I have expanded the weakness system to also support resistances. Weaknesses and resistances apply damage modifiers to certain types of damage. For example you cast a fire spell dealing 10 damage:

• 10% fire weakness: 11 damage
• 10% fire resistance: 9 damage

Weaknesses and immunities can be examined by casting the monster examine spell from the Lunar spell book. All rot monsters have 100% rot resistance meaning they cannot be damaged by any kind of rot.

Tank gear and PvP
There have been recent concerns that tank equipment is too strong for PvP - specifically chrysos items. Not that it kills other players but that it creates almost invincible targets. Since tank armour is healthy for the game by offering equipment variety I don't want to introduce special PvP bonuses or nerf the items into the ground. All tank armours can now ONLY be repaired with their respective bars. Meaning repairing a chrysos cuirass requires one chrysos bar to add back all charges. The total amount of charges have also been increased from 20,000 to 30,000 for armours and from 30,000 to 45,000 for weapons. Flat damage reduction was also slightly reduced. A full chrysos set now blocks 14 damage instead of 15. Moreover, chrysos equipment can now be colored using dyes from the EC store.

Vanstrom necklaces
All vanstrom necklaces have received more raw stats. These items are supposed to be bis and should not be out performed by other items. Accuracy bonus has been increased to 32 from 25 and strength bonus from 20 to 28. That gives them 2 additional max hits making it stronger than Vyrewatch necklace (b).

Emps Credits & Inflation
Due to global inflation I've adjusted the EC prices of following items:

• Member ticket: 500EC --> 700EC
• Scroll of double exp: 150EC --> 200EC

I understand that this is a very unpopular change but inflation happens world-wide and we haven't had any price adjustments in roughly 10 years. I haven't changed the price of any other EC item because I think only consumables such as membership or xp boosts should be adjusted to inflation. Newly released items purchasable with credits will just get a fixed price at their time of release. I also don't think changing the amount of EC you get by buying packages on the homepage is a fair change. I would like to keep these adjustments to a minimum to remain fair.

Ranged Weapons - Attack Range
The attack ranges for various ranged weapons have been adjusted. There were various issues with bosses or other monsters when attacking them from large ranges. Especially the hand cannon or longbows on ranged style were causing troubles. Below's a list of weapon types with their new attack range:

• Shortbows: 7
• Longbows: 9
• Crossbows: 8
• Hand cannon: 10
• Darts: 3
• Knives: 4
• Thrown axes: 5
• Javelins: 6
• Staves: 9
• Wands: 7

The longrange option can no longer exceed a maximum attack range of 10. Meaning that it doesn't give any additional attack range for the hand cannon and +1 for longbows. The attack range of weapons is now also shown in the attack interface next to attack speed.

Game fixes / changes:

• The minimum render distance for Vanstrom Klause dungeon has been increased.
• Entity render distance has been increased by 5.
• An issue with pot share spell and heal / cure others has been fixed.
• Using the share potion spell or healing other players is working again.
• The rune essences in the Wizard tower store are no longer noted.
• Group ice plateau teleport can only be used in the wilderness now.
• An issue causing various problems to use the create item screen was fixed.
• Removing a daily task no longer costs any Event Points and is free now. Due to how daily tasks are generated it is difficult to always have tasks that are balanced or completable in a reasonable amount of time.
• Cooking tasks requiring you to create dishes from recipes require less dishes to be created.
• A bug was fixed that would disband groups upon login when the database connection failed.
• Ghasts in the swap have been made aggressive. Being attacked while holding a shadow sword will make them attackable once again.
• Emps-Wars flags can be dropped on top castle floors again. There was a bug that identified them as unspawnable objects. With this update you can also no longer target your team's npcs in fights - their attack options are hidden. The minimum amount of players needed to start the minigame has also been reduced to 2.
• Lunar spells can be used once again on other players accepting aid.
• Magic notepaper now notes all identical items in your entire inventory. If you have 10 manta rays in your inventory they will all be noted when using a single magic notepaper.
• Telegrab spell has been added.
• Dagannoth kings boss instance no longer has all 3 boss spawns synchronized. The kings now have individual respawn timers.
• GWD boss doors can no longer get you stuck when being used by two or more players at the same time. They no longer function as global doors but as local doors that only show state changes to the player operating them. Meaning multiple players can use the doors at the same time without interfering with eachother.
• Ardougne teleport can be right-clicked to select the western city as destination.
• Burnt pie dishes can now be emptied.
• Glory (t) amulets are now charge- and usable.
• The dragon claws special attack has been fixed. It was ignoring protection prayers due to how it was being calculated.
• A bug has been fixed where noted statuettes from Revenants would not prevent you from teleporting.
• Supportive lunar spells can no longer be used on two other players fighting in the wilderness in single combat zone.
• New idle animations have been added to human npcs.
• Npcs now face you during and after dialogue until you move away a few tiles.
• More life has been brought into Ardougne. Various npcs have been added to the city and doors, stairs, stiles, gates, etc. have been made usable.
• Npc dialogue code has been updated. It's no longer possible to talk through walls and npcs will face you until you move at least 2 tiles away.
• All GE booths now have clerks.
• Varrock west-bank cellar has received static gold drops for you to test the telegrab spell on.
• Clicking npcs when they are using a static movement animation was changed. You will now walk to the interpolated coordinates instead of the start coordinates. This fixes a problem where clicking Kal'Ger during his flight animation would let you walk to his start and not current position.
• The item you smith is now displayed on the anvil for a few game ticks. This item cannot be picked up and is only seen by the player smithing it.

Engine fixes / changes:

• The dynamic roof removal code has been optimized. It's now linked to your camera zoom and clears more appropriate roof area for you to view.
• Clipping configurations for closing and opening doors are now properly removed again. There was a bug that would leave one direction not walkable when opening and closing doors.
• The floor blending code has been worked. I've also changed a few textures to have smoother transitions between tiles.
• Water shaders have received wave movements that affect the water's transparency slightly.
• A bug in the water terrain generator has been fixed. There was a problem where the western parts of water areas would not properly calculate their underwater depth. Especially rivers or narrow water areas were suffering from this issue. You can see the change when taking a look at the river in Barbarian Village.
• The minimap marker code has been overhauled. A flashing marker arrow now rotates properly to a target that it outside of visible minimap area.
• Animations no longer pause completely when the worldmap viewer is open. They will, however, render in lowest quality possible to save resources for rendering the map.
• Dyed items no longer affect your eye color.
• Terrain rotations for entities have been fixed. Dragons no longer "fly" on steep terrain but are properly aligned towards it.

Let me know what you think of the changes! Is the death rework a good idea? I was thinking of giving you the option to protect all items on death in exchange for paying a fee to return them? I hope to finish the Rot Cave in the coming weeks, it's become quite a large project with lots of different enemies.

All the best,
Thomy



July 15th changes:

• Player health bars have been fixed. There was a bug where damage onto players wouldn't display correct health values. This issue was only within the display code, damage calculations were and are correct.
• Magic is hitting properly again. There was a bug that enabled magic protection prayer for almost every npc.
• Chrysos can now be dyed with barrow, blood, third-age and shadow colors.
• Mud patches no longer appear invisible.
• Loading issues with assets (models, textures, etc.) have been fixed. Our update server went down without me noticing.
• A bug was fixed where following npcs that were very far away would not work.
• Pickpocketing farmers now yields seeds again instead of coins.
• Max cape (fire) color has been fixed.
• Karamja agility course saws can now be clipped again.
• Respawn timer for dagannoth kings have been adjusted. They are now 15 seconds just like in any other instance. The spawn locations have also been moved together towards the center. The dagannoth areas also no longer render terrain that doesn't belong to the cave itself.

July 22th changes:Game fixes / changes:

• Thieving aura now works the same way as other auras. When it triggers the loot is doubled and one charge is consumed.
• Descriptions of skilling auras have been updated. They now better reflect how auras internally trigger and work. You have a chance to get twice the resource and xp when a skilling aura is active.
• Runecrafting aura no longer consumes 1 charge per rune essence in your inventory. It now consumes a charge for every rune essence that was doubled in the calculation. Runecrafting III aura increases runes gained by 25%. Meaning that 4 rune essences would be transformed into 5 rune essences for determining the amount of runes gained. This will now cost you 1 charge instead of 4.
• Faulty items can no longer be received as rewards from clue scrolls. Feel free to hand them in for their working versions. The faulty items will be deleted in the coming week(s).
• Herblore aura has been changed. It now has a chance to create two finished potions instead of one. This also works on overloads.
• Various other issues were fixed that got mentioned on Discord. Thanks everyone for the hard work to report bugs!

2

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Skilling zone

« on: September 14, 2019, 06:28:03 pm »

No thanks,

I find having such things makes the server look ' Cheap ' compared to another servers.
That would kill the use of other places, mostly pking servers do that which is something we are far from.

Btw, I suggest checking falador out its the main place we all trained our mining in.


#LeaveBarbariantonewplayers ;P

3

Events / Re: Emps-Competitive: Season 1

« on: August 03, 2019, 10:52:01 am »

It was a tough 3 months but it has come to an end. On behalf of the staff team we want to thank all the participants, we hope you guys enjoyed this season! We'll be improving this competition in the coming seasons to make it much more competitive and enjoyable for everyone to participate in. We appreciate any feedback on what we can do to make this event much more enjoyable, so please let us know! With that being said, we would like to congratulate the following winners of this season.

Highest Exp - Ec1 Darkness
Highest Elo - Ec1ipse
Max Account - Ec1 Darkness and Ec1 N420
Highest Bank value - Ec1 N420

Note: Please pm me on discord or forums and let me know which account you would like your reward sent to.

4

Videos / ECS1 progress series / Episode 1

« on: May 20, 2019, 09:37:51 pm »

Yo. Sorry for bad quality and loud music. First time editing video, so I'm really bad at this now, hopefully I'll get better and videos will be better. And I really wanted to do videos from the start, I already had like 4episodes ready to release but I'm idiot and somehow managed to delete all clips I had. So I'll start from this one and in the close future planing to start streaming my progress. That's all folks. Try to enjoy and be ready for upcomming videos/streams.

Btw, pls ignore my bad english too. (But I'll accept all comments about it and try to fix it)

5

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: brawling gloves

« on: May 15, 2019, 05:48:20 pm »

Imo 51 tickets is more than fine for 750 charges. You can duo farm Emps-wars with alts ~300 tickets/hour with dbxp, which is 5-6 brawlings gloves and on most skills one brawling glove will last for about an hour, and that's 5-6 hours of boosted xp for one hour job.

6

Suggestions & Ideas / Clue Scrolls - add-ons

« on: April 23, 2019, 09:39:41 am »

Here's some of them I wish to see:

- Hot'n'Cold spots added to elite/hard clues with opponent that has typeless attacks and hits via protect prayers even if damage is 10-15s instead of only 25-55 level wilderness cause that area is literally huge compared to other areas where you have to search for spot to dig. This also could prove useful as item used here could be used for Dharok users who want to lower their hitpoints level without drinking overload or getting damaged by opponent.

- Teleport scrolls, like the ones in RS3 where you can teleport to perhaps desert areas easier with normal spell book in tact. For example: https://runescape.fandom.com/wiki/Phoenix_Lair_Teleport

- Firelighters as rewards from all tier clues which could make any light fire in colors of those of firelighter.

- Make heraldic item as requirement for clue scrolls as well. Would make Ironman grind for them worthy.

- Pet from clue scrolls, something like https://runescape.fandom.com/wiki/Lava_hawk

Some of ideas sure takes time to be implement but you get the hang of it. Opinions?

7

Suggestions & Ideas / wilderness skilling area.

« on: April 22, 2019, 03:59:45 pm »

wilderness skilling area

I thought that we can give the pkers and the skillers the opportunity to face to face each other in the wilderness. I believe that there are many players who know this area, it will be a good idea to put this area in the game. More illustration through the images and information that I will put it below.

The location of the area will be at 59 level in wilderness:

    You should to pay 5,000 Gp before you enter to this area.


What is gonna be in this area and why this area good for the skillers?

• Fury shark: new tier 90 level fishing.
• Brawling gloves: we all know that the brawling gloves give +50%XP and +100%XP in the wilderness, so you can gain more XP in that area.
• In that area you can Note or Unnote the skilling resources by speaking to NPC there, you should pay 250 Gp each one skill item.

The amount of experience expected to be:

Fishing:        = 1,250XP     DXP + Member + Brawling gloves = +260% = 3,250XP 
Cooking:      = 1,830XP       DXP + Member + Brawling gloves = +260% = 4,758XP 
Woodcutting:       = 687XP     DXP + Member + Brawling gloves = +260% = 1,786XP 
Mining:      =  892XP     DXP + Member + Brawling gloves = +260% = 2,319XP 
Smithing:    = 560XP     DXP + Member + Brawling gloves = +260% = 2,319XP 


This is also a chance for the pkers because they will find many players traning there so you should to watch out when you go there, you must prepare yourself from all the dangers that will face you there.
I suggest you bring these things in your bag as you see in the picture:





How to go to there:
Go to Ardounge and follow the pictures:
1)  
2)

8

Videos / 10 hours of growing herbs.

« on: April 19, 2019, 08:10:23 pm »

Not a valid %s URL

9

Suggestions & Ideas / Full slayer helmet - New tier upgrades & Perks

« on: April 02, 2019, 07:02:27 pm »

Heya lads!
Recently I have been thinking and thinking until I realized why not get some inspiration and suggest something that could be unique for us.
With this idea I'd like to highlight the full slayer helmet. It's been a long time since it got any touches and I think it's about time for this beautiful thing to get some attention. Hopefully, when the new upcoming skill "Invention" make its way to the game there will be a lot of positive changes. With this idea I thought we could utilize this new skill by giving the full slayer helmet different upgradeable tiers with some unique perks and perhaps new looks (if possible).

Players would be able to upgrade their full slayer helmets through this skill and different tiers would require a cetrain "Invention" and a crafting level in order to make the upgrades. In addition, we could add item requirements for these upgrades such as the hydrix/zenyte gem that was suggested by JP a couple of days ago. This new gem could be used as one of the requirements to upgrade the helmet from tier 4 to tier 5 which is the last available tier in this suggestion. There will be a description with more details about each tier below.
Currently existing slayer helmets that we have in-game

- Basic slayer helmet
The basic slayer helmet you get when purchasing from the slayer shop for 7,500 SP. Grants the wearer 10% bonus damage and accuracy during slayer tasks as well as 10% more slayer xp.
- Full slayer helmet
The full slayer helmet you make with 55 crafting - black mask, hexcrest & focus sight. Grants the wearer 15% bonus damage and accuracy during slayer tasks as well as 15% more slayer xp.
Suggested upgrades / tiers

• - Tier 3

Tier 3: The first tier upgrade. Giving very slightly improved accuracy and damage and a higher requirement to wear.
            You need to have a full slayer helmet before upgrading.
            To upgrade you need level 70 crafting and level "x" Invention. Could also require a specific amount of slayer points to upgrade.
            This helmet requires 65 Attack, 65 Strength, 65 Defence to equip.
 

• - Tier 4

Tier 4: The second best tier upgrade. Giving slightly improved accuracy and damage and a higher requirement to wear.
            To upgrade you need level 80 crafting and level "x" Invention. You need to have tier 3 before upgrading.
            Could also require a specific amount of slayer points to upgrade.
            This helmet requires 75 Attack, 75 Strength, 75 Defence to equip.
            With this upgrade you can learn how to fuse rings into the helmet that way you don't need to carry a ferocious ring in your invetnory if you
            want to teleport to various slayer locations.
            Another perk could be the ability to extend tasks even more?
            Additional features/perks can be added as well. Feel free to discuss.

• - Tier 5

Tier 5: The last and the best available tier upgrade. Requires a hydrix gem, level 90 crafting and level "x" Invention to upgrade. You need to have tier 4 before upgrading.
            Could also require a specific amount of slayer points to upgrade.
            This helmet requires 85 Attack, 85 Strength, 85 Defence to equip.
            One of the useful perks this tier could grant are improved damage bonuses and accuracy while doing wilderness slayer tasks.
            Secondly, it could make obtaining wilderness emblems more common while using during a slayer task. (if emblems are considered)
            This could be really handy if new wilderness bosses ever get released with a wilderness slayer master.
            Should it Include tier 4 perks?

Would love to hear what you say

10

Suggestions & Ideas / Wilderness Slayer Master & New Bosses

« on: March 27, 2019, 06:20:19 pm »

Hello everyone!
As the title suggests, I would like to share with you this idea of introducing a new slayer master that assigns wilderness tasks only together with a bunch of new bosses.
You might think that we don't have that many monsters/bosses in the wilderness aside from revenants, spectrals, gulegas, wildywyrm, chaos elemental and some other monsters such as dragons, zombies and skeletons.
However, with this new slayer master there will be newly added wilderness bosses and monsters to cope up with the slayer tasks the player will get. I feel like the wilderness map is so huge and almost feels empty that we could take advantage of that by adding new bosses and monsters in different locations around the wilderness.

Back to the main core of the topic. Why would the player choose to take tasks from this slayer master called The Reaper
Well, completing tasks in the wilderness should be rewarding and for that the player will gain extra slayer points. Secondly, we could add new slayer items to the shop that could benefit the player while slaying in the wilderness.
*Feel free to discuss what items* Maybe even introduce a new slayer tab with unlockables such as extending a task more than the limit. For example, some tasks can only be extended to 8 kills as maximum. With this new unlockable method you could learn to extend your tasks even more. Many more unlockables could be added of course, this is just an example.

- The Reaper (Wilderness slayer master)

Assigns wilderness tasks only

As for wilderness bosses and monsters. There are plenty of ideas and suggestions. Here are some that were suggested by the community in-game 

Zulrah

Can be harmed with Range and magic attacks. It is also reachable with a halberd/spear. Has 3 different phases/mechanics and inflicts poison damage that can stack up to 10+.
Drops could be scales (similar to vyrewatch blood) that can be used to recharge the new blowpipe/bow/staff/dagger or a new helmet. Drops can be further discussed/altered.
This is just a layout for this idea.
Could be introduced through a new quest or by having a specific required slayer level in order to be killed.

Callisto

A fierce bear found in the wilderness able to knock players out for 3 seconds and can deal high amount of damage. Barrows armour such as veracs and torags can be effective against him. Together with a group of friends or strangers you can take him down and get the chance to receive new rings/scrolls, maybe an amulet that boosts the barrow armour set effect? or a new pet. *Drops can be discussed*

Xallisto

(Emps version of Callisto)

I found a model that currently exists in-game which could be replaced instead of that old version.

Feel free to share your own opinions and thoughts.
Keep the discussion friendly 

11

General Discussion / Re: All or nothing @Thomy

« on: March 24, 2019, 02:41:16 pm »

We learn from the past but we don't go back. Instead, we develop, improve and move forward into the future.

12

Update Notes / Updates March 22nd 2019 - Double Experience Weekend: April 5th through 8th!

« on: March 22, 2019, 08:37:55 am »

Hey guys,

Ready for the next Double Experience Weekend? From April 5th through 8th all experience gains as well as minigame rewards and blood coin drops will be doubled. The update also contains a few bug fixes and addresses drops of random event npcs. Many thanks for the detailed reports!


Game fixes / changes:

• Crossbow stocks and their unfinished versions now have shop values.
• Magic and Range version of the dragonfire shield now require level 75 Magic and 75 Range to be worn.
• Eating will no longer block instant shield effects.
• The rune requirements for Fire surge have been fixed.
• The code for removing objects in POHs has been improved. The map is now less likely to reload when removing objects. There are still some objects that require the map to reload, but you will find them less often. Building rugs is now also easier and no longer gives you 10+ right-click options.
• Random event npcs now have proper noted drops. Their combat levels and powers have also been adjusted for higher levels. Evil chicken no longer drops resources but feathers and has a rare chance to drop an untradeable piece of the chicken outfit.

Engine fixes / changes:

• An issue with looping animations has been fixed. This bug was most present in the Falador party room.

I'll now be starting the next larger project which will probably be a new skill. It'll be similar to RS3's Invention that deconstructs existing items for materials allowing you to create new items. I could imagine the creation of double experience potions and similar boosts through the skill. I've also started basic code to support a name change feature which will allow you to set a display name for your player in the future.

All the best,
Thomy

13

Suggestions & Ideas / Nomad - solo boss concept/idea - Version 2 with new tier of jewellery

« on: March 20, 2019, 11:33:35 am »

Previous version with zaros prayer book idea: https://emps-world.net/forum/suggestions-ideas/nomad-solo-boss-conceptidea/?~20973

This part stays the same: (Click to reveal)

[close]

I still do think if zaros prayer book is ever released related to some other content the best (turmoil, anguish, torment) prayers and soul split should be dropped as a book which you then read to unlock the prayer. Book would be tradeable so it can be sold or used.
But that's not part of this suggestion.
What's changing in this concept are the drops. Nomad would drop hydrix or zenyte which are basically the same thing.
In addition to a new uncut gem Nomad would drop an attachment to rod of ivandis. This attachment would upgrade rod to tier 85 which is same as demon weapons.

Attachment can be pretty much anything. Re-colored air orb or something. For staff itself we could use "celestial catalytic staff" which can then be renamed to whatever.
Both are tradeable and the new t85 is fixed with coins. Rod of ivandis is only required to make it.


New uncut gem would be yellow similar to hydrix and zenyte. Just a re-colored onyx or any other uncut/cut gem as a model.
No models for the jewellery though so they would probably have to be custom unless we can use the item models from OSRS.
You would be able to make 4 new jewellerys from the new gem. This includes bracelet, amulet, necklace and ring. They all would have a different effect as well.

• Bracelet: Ring of recoil effect.
• Ring: 10% Chance of healing 5% of the damage dealt to a target.
• Amulet: Increases protection prayers from 40% to 60%.
• Necklace: Increases your accuracy by 1% every attack up to X%.

Both the gem and fully charged jewellery would be tradeable. They are fixed with cut onyxes, 1 onyx equals to 50% charges. Might need to take a look at onyxes and possibly add them to more drop tables.

14

Suggestions & Ideas / Re: Primal armour and weapons

« on: March 13, 2019, 10:27:33 pm »

Overall sounds like a cool idea with a new tier of armour equipment and weapons but how would the player obtain them? Source of obtaining the items?
Through a new boss? If so which one? new minigame shop?

I think this could be a great opportunity to consider releasing raids? a new aspect of pvming/bossing. It's a game mode series that introduces different waves with unique bosses in each wave and a group of 4 players can participate at the same time. The key is to work together as a team where every member has a role. If someone dies during the raid he/she don't have the right to continue but can spectate others who are in the same lobby. This new tier armour could be added as a reward to this raid system perhaps? Aiming towards new high-end game content? If this happens to get introduced and shows up to be a success we could potentially add more new tiers of weaponary and equipment in the future as part of raid rewards. Thoughts?

15

Update Notes / Updates March 3rd 2019 - PvP Balancing, Surge Spells and Prayer Improvements!

« on: March 03, 2019, 08:48:23 am »

Hey guys,

In this update I am cleaning up some balancing issues with PvP, improved overall rendering performance and introduce you to new potions. I've reviewed eating speeds, prayer drain rates, enchanted bolt effects, the Revenants cave and our Music Manager. Some special attacks have also been reworked or buffed to be more useful and less frustrating.

Revenants Cave & PvP Protection Prayers

We've identified that the drop rates of statuettes combined with third-age are a little bit problematic. The Revenants Cave offers really good cash drops that make other monsters look bad in comparison. I don't want to nerf any value of statuettes, but would like to adjust the way of obtaining that gold a little bit. The following have been changed:

• Revenants no longer drop third-age pieces. These drops been moved to Gulegas and Wildywyrms.
• Wielding a statuette won't let you teleport anymore. You need to walk out of wilderness to secure the drop.

I've also changed the way PvP protection prayers work. Rather than applying the protection effect when the hit lands on you, it'll now be calculated when the enemy attack animation starts. This change isn't final, but we are trying out if this works better for PvP. This is also how protection prayers work in OSRS. Damage soaking effects are now also applied when the attack animation starts. This also counts for NPCs with protection prayers: KQ, Corporeal beast and Tormented demons. This change should ensure that your experience drops always reflect your damage. Let me know if you still find scenarios where this does not work.

Eating speeds
I've reviewed our current eating / healing code and compared it to OSRS. I don't think there is a problem with the amount you can heal in a certain amount of time. It enables reactionary gameplay without being out-damaged by some unlucky numbers that leave you no counter play. However I do think that consecutive healing should have a little punishment. That's what I could also find in how OSRS handles healing - they simply delay your attacks. This was already done in emps, but the punishing attack delay only applied when you were about to hit. So if you just hit your opponent and healed up your outgoing damage would not be affected at all. I am now always applying this punishing attack delay. Eating any kind of food puts a 3 tick (=1.5 seconds) delay on your next attack no matter what your current attack timer may be. This does NOT AFFECT the amount of food you can consume or the speed at which you do. This is a change to your dps while healing and not your healing power! The delay for brews is only 1 tick (=0.5 seconds). If you combine a brew with any other type of food it will still be 3 ticks though. Purple sweets have an eating delay of 1 tick.

Rendering Engine Overhaul
Large rendering distances required enormous CPU power, because every single tile (a position where your character can stand on) was marked to be drawn for the GPU. I'm now grouping 8x8 tiles together and decide if they all need to be rendered or not. The GPU buffers already had this mechanism, but the rendering loop was still checking tiles individually. With this update the stress on your CPU is much much lower, especially on higher rendering distances. I had no problems getting steady 50-60fps on my laptop on the integrated graphics chip with 80-100 RD. This gives the game also more time to focus on loading and keeping a more stable fps rate. You will no longer see it change that much by changing your camera's angle. Why am I doing this? I felt like the game wasn't running too well on weaker laptops and wanted to improve the situation. Please let me know if this change improves overall performance for you!

Surge Spells & Teleport to House

I've added 4 new magic spells and a teleport to your house to the normal spell book:

• Wind surge: 7 air, 2 death and 2 blood runes. Base damage: 30
• Water surge: 10 water, 7 air, 2 death and 2 blood runes. Base damage: 31
• Earth surge: 10 fearth, 7 air, 2 death and 2 blood runes. Base damage: 32
• Fire surge: 10 fire, 7 air, 2 death and 2 blood runes. Base damage: 33

For comparison: The base damage of the Ice barrage spell is 30. The damage of wave spells has also been nerfed to better fit their level requirement.

Potion Cleanup
This change focuses mainly on prayer points restoration and addresses prayer and restore potions:

• Prayer potions remain unchanged. They restore 7 prayer points plus your max prayer level multiplied by 0.25.
• Super restore potions no longer restore run energy and 8 prayer points plus your max prayer level multiplied by 0.25. Run energy restoration should be on energy potions.
• Energy potion remains untouched, but the super energy potion now restores 20% run energy instead of 15%.
• You can now make super prayer potions that restore 7 prayer points plus your max prayer level multiplied by 0.35. They are now the best source for restoring prayer points. Super prayer potions can be made by putting large demon bones into a prayer potion (3).
• Prayer renewal: Restores 12 + max prayer level multiplied by 0.43 over 5 minutes. It can be created by combining Morchella mushrooms and Fellstalk potions. The new ingredients have been added to Farming, Herblore and monster drop tables. The Fellstalk herb and its seeds is dropped by high level Slayer monsters that dropped torstol herbs or seeds. The Morchella mushroom seeds can be found as rewards from the Barrows minigame.

Prayer Adjustments
I've reviewed and reworked the way the prayer drain rate (prayer point you lose per second) is calculated. I've taken following page as inspiration and implemented identical drain rates: https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/Prayer
This change slightly increase the overall prayer drain rates, but also makes equipment with prayer bonuses more useful. With the addition of new prayer potions this won't affect PvMing too much but is rather targeted at PvP where running out of prayer is now a more likely possibility. I've also updated the level requirements for Magic & Ranged Chivalry & Piety prayers. Combining all offensive prayers is also no longer possible

Music Managing System
I've found and fixed a bug that would not highlight found songs correctly. I've also updated several areas with songs that were previously missing:

• Neitiznot islands
• God Wars Dungeon
• Barrows & Har'Lakk
• Glacors & Yk'Lagor
• Kal'Ger
• Ancient caves
• Pest Control
• Blood altar

I was also able to find a list of pretty much all missing song ids and was able to patch a few areas where the song id was missing. So in theory it should be possible to configure all 352 songs at some point. I now also have the ability to add custom song names to the music list - Blood altar being the first example.

Enchanted bolt effects
I've reviewed and reworked the effects of enchanted bolts a little bit to make sure they are useful in PvM and PvP scenarios. They will not out damage ancient bolts, but can be useful in various situations. I also identified and fixed a bug where bolt effects would not correctly show their application animation on players.

• Sapphire bolts (e): Reduces enemy prayer points by 10% of your current prayer points. You also steal half of the reduced enemy prayer points and add them to your prayer points. When fighting monsters this effect restores 2 prayer points.
• Emerald bolts (e): Inflicts 3 poison damage that can stack up to 15.
• Ruby bolts (e): Now deals 20% of enemy's current health instead of 10%. This is still capped at 30 though.
• Diamond bolts (e): Completely ignores the enemy's defence and guarantees a hit. The damage is also increased by 15%.
• Dragonstone bolts (e): Ranged strength bonus reduced from 116 to 108.
• Onyx bolts (e): Ranged strength bonus reduced from 116 to 110.

While Crossbows give you great damage they are over performing when compared to other weapons or combat styles. I don't think crossbows themselves are the problem, but enchanted bolt effects. I didn't want to nerf the attack speed of crossbows, but I am changing the proc chances of enchanted bolts. By default the proc chance is now 15% instead of 20%. Onyx & Dragonstone bolts (e) were reduced down to 10% and emerald bolts (e) increased to 30%. The reason behind this change is that onyx bolts (e) were even stronger than ancient bolts while also providing a free heal every few hits. Dragon bolts (e) have the potential to deal 24 additional damage (assuming active Overload potion) allowing you to hit 80+ quite frequently. They have a natural counter with antifire potions, but I don't think it should be necessary to require PvPers to have them with you all the time. A small reduction in their max hit and proc chance should solve the issue and bring more variety to Ranged PKing.

Game fixes / changes:

• Teleblock is now halved when mage protection is active. There's now also a chatbox message telling the duration of the teleblock.
• The animation timings have been updated for teleblock and all bind spells. This is only a visual improvement!
• Restoration pool now properly restores prayer points. It also acts as a chaos altar boosting your maximum prayer points by 10% for 5 minutes.
• Monsters can no longer die in the middle of a teleport or special action. That means you can no longer kill any of the Demon bosses while they perform a jump or are flying across the map. This fixes an issue where minions spawned by Har'lakk would never despawn.
• Har'lakk no longer spawns random minions during the fight. To cope with this change the HP of minion spawns have been increased from 75 to 90.
• Spirit shield protection special has been updated. It now blocks any kind of incoming damage, also deflections from vengeance.
• Bows firing 2 arrows now require at least 2 arrows in your ammo slot or quiver.
• Certain fully degraded items are no longer duplicated.
• Several clue scroll places for digging that could not be accessed have been fixed.
• The 2nd hit of a special attack now counts towards the Pest Control total hit counter.
• Morrigan's javelin special attack has been updated. The special attack damage multiplier was reduced to 125% from 135%. The initial hit now deals the full special attack damage and applies a bleed effect of equal damage. The bleed effect no longer ticks in 6 total hits. It has been changed to hit 5 onto your opponent until the total damage has been dealt. The bleed effect now ticks every 1.5 seconds instead of every second and is registered as magical blood damage. This means you can use the Protect from Magic prayer to reduce the bleed damage. It's also possible to stack bleeds now. The damage of stacked bleed effects will be combined and tick as higher damage. So if 2 players spec you the bleed will tick every 1.5 seconds for 10 damage instead of 5.
• Morrigan's throwing axe special attack max hit buffed by 10%.
• The stat restore effect of Overloads has been weakened for PvP zones. This excludes minigames but includes the safe wilderness in Al'Kharid. Overloads restore up to 6 missing levels of lowered stats every 2 seconds. In PvP zones they will now restore up to 2 missing levels of lowered stats every 2 seconds. The idea behind this change is to make stat lowering special attack weapons and effects not worthless while still being able to use the overload effect for brew healing.
• Combination runes now properly show their amounts for Magic interfaces.
• NPC aggression inside minigames has received a little adjustments. Monsters now always walk up to the player inside the Fight Caves minigame. Prior to the update they would just wait at their spot when not seen by the player. The Italian boot safespot has also been fixed.
• Unclippable cell doors inside Rogue's castle have been removed.
• A bug was fixed where fully degraded weapons that got unequipped were deleted when there was no space in inventory. They now correctly drop on the floor.
• A lot of actions can now be used when being 5 seconds out of combat instead of 10: Quest tab teleports, trading, banking, skillcapes, skilling, xp lamps, etc.
• Zaryte bow now has an accuracy bonus of 124 instead of 106. It should have never been weaker than God bows.
• Vesta spear special attack: The special attack delay has been removed and the damage is now applied in 2 immediate and 1 delayed hit.
• Vesta longsword special attack max hit increased by 5%.
• Statius warhammer special attack max hit increased by 15%.
• A lost vyrewatch necklace (b) upon death now drops remaining vampire blood on the ground.
• You can now smith range and magic variants of the dragonfire shield. They come with different colors and appropriate combat class bonuses.
• Butterfly nets can now be properly equipped again and used for catching butterflies.
• Daily tasks can now include Hunter and Construction skilling tasks. PvP kills have also been added to daily activity tasks.
• Construction skill interface now also contains all required building materials.
• Random events can no longer spawn inside objects.
• Spell effects no longer have double the accuracy to hit.
• Prayer bonuses for Templar set have been doubled.
• You no longer hear an armour block sound, but the player hurt sound when being hit by an enemy hitting non-zero on you.
• The Armadyl godsword special attack damage has been buffed by 5%.
• Teleporting now also cancels all incoming spell effects. That means that you can no longer be teleblocked, frozen, etc. during a teleport animation.
• Special attack cost for Zaryte bow and Seercull have been reduced from 75% to 60%.
• Holiday quests no longer count towards the completion requirement of the Completionist cape.
• A visual bug with dragon claws was fixed wher the 3rd and 4th hit sometimes would not be shown.

Engine fixes / changes:

• Position of amulets has been finetuned. There was an issue with amulet of glory on female black dragonhide body.
• Scrollbar rendering has been improved. The up/down arrows now have a hover action and the chatbox scrollbar buttons have been fixed. Using the mousewheel to zoom or scroll an interface will now also work with uncapped fps rates.
• Moving interfaces has received a few tweaks. You can no longer move an interface over the chatbox, minimap or inventory.
• An issue with the running animation for staves and whips has been fixed.
• Clicking areas for ground aligned npcs have been improved. The rotations were only done in the GPU but left out in the CPU for hovering and clicking checks. The model on the CPU is now aware of its full rotation.
• The quality and smoothness for interpolated rotations in animations has been improved.
• Clicking areas for small objects and npcs now dynamically increase to make it easier to be able to click on small things.
• Interface scaling now uses interpolation and looks much smoother. Certain artifacts of text or images not blending in correctly have also been fixed. You should no longer feel like your UI looks very blurry when using that setting.
• Clicking areas for fixed-screen mode have been fixed.

There will probably be a few adjustments in the coming days to fix bugs or other balancing issues. I'll then start development on the next big update and got a few things in mind:

• Invention skill: deconstruction of items to obtain materials that allow you to craft powerful utilities. These could aid you in combat, improve skilling, improve xp rates, etc.
• Construcion batch #2: dungeons & menagerie
• 3D sound engine
• Quick prayers
• Fully accessible Karamja: A quest that introduces Karamja including the jungle and Marim (Ape atoll). The map would be configured with new skilling activities and a fully accessible Karamja area.
• OSRS players & nps: This would update the visuals of your player and npcs (where possible!!) to look similar to OSRS characters. Having the same map is an impossible task, because of all the differences in positions. I'd basically have to rewrite the entire game to achieve that and I doubt that'll ever be worth the effort and time. What could be done is to introduce OSRS maps as new and separate areas. We'd have 2 versions of the GE, barbarian village, etc. However I feel like this would be really confusing and also unnecessary. I've already started this project a while ago, but stopped due to the amount of issues and bugs that occurred graphically and logically. Would this still be a thing?
• Fight kiln - a new single player minigame with 3 new capes as reward.

I've listed a few things that I've thought of recently and have been planned in the past. What are your thoughts on this? What would you like to see in the game this year? Not all things mentioned above require an equal amount of development time. I'm just interested in the rough direction updates should be going.

All the best,
Thomy




Fixes March 7th:

• Runes from the Rune bag no longer display double for Surge spells.
• Teleport to House now grants Magic experience.
• Prayer renewal potions can now properly be noted and their effect is stored when logging out.
• Prayer restoration upon death is now properly working.
• Morchella mushroom spore plantations can now properly be interacted with. There was a bug that wouldn't let you rake them from special angles.
• Restoration pool and staircase Construction daily tasks have been removed.
• The tutorial NPC Thomy in Barbarian village was fixed. You can now either correctly abort or play through the tutorial.
• The login code has slightly been adjusted. Some people had issues when logging into the game. I've slowed down the login process by 2 seconds to ensure no data corruption or disconnect happens during that time. Do not worry about this - Unless you are fully logged in nobody is able to see you!!