Hey guys,

With this update I'd like to change a few things in Emps-World. Some of you may like the change, some of you won't. Though a common fact that we can agree on, is that the population has become smaller over the past few months. I'd like to make the game more appealing to new players and offer them ways of competing with old veteran players. I don't want to destroy the game for old players, but definitely want to give people an easier start.

Barbarian Village
I would like to move activities closer together, so that our smaller player base meets each other more often in the game. I've therefore moved some activities to Barbarian village. I've added, removed and replaced some trees and ores. I've also found HD versions of maple trees. They look really good.

• High level trees and ores added.
• Rune essence mine added south of barbarian.
• Prismatic altar (enter runecrafting altars) added west and east of the village.
• Chicken spawns have been added to the north-western part of the village.
• 4 whiteberry bushes have been added to north-western area. The bushes are now also depletable.
• Farming patch was added south of the village.
• Extended tutorial npc (thomy ) was added to Barbarian village, showing off some areas and aspects of the game.

Runecrafting
This has been planned a long time ago already, but never fully finished. Prismatic altars have been added around the world. I'm sparing you guys the difficulty to find specific altars, so every altar can be used (with the appropriate talisman) to enter the appropriate rune altar. Don't worry, the abyss system still exists. This is just an additional way of crafting runes without having to run through the wilderness and without having access to the abyss teleport. Talismans will be added in the coming updates as monster drops, or can be found at special locations on the floor.

Emps Credits and Membership
I'm completely fine with the credits system and also think that having credits to buy in-game items is okay. Membership doesn't really have many benefits, which is something I'd like to change. An active membership from now on gives you a 10% xp boost on everything. Moreover, double experience scrolls can now also be purchased for 200 Emps Credits. This change is experimental and definitely not final. I will see if the overall game benefits from having the possibility to buy experience boosts. This is mainly an option for new players, who don't want to waste too much time leveling. The aim of changes to the EC store is also to raise a larger budget for advertisements. I'm currently reaching the limits of what can be spent on advertisements and would like to expand that. Afterall, I would like to see Emps-World growing again.

Event Points Shop
I'm redesigning the EP shop a little bit. I've removed the double experience scrolls as well as Edgeville teleports. To compensate for the removal, I'm releasing auras. The initial update contains 6 different auras:

• Vampyrism: Heal by 5% of damage dealt.
• Penance: Increase defence by 10%.
• Sharpshooter: Increase range accuracy and strength by 5%.
• Runic accuracy: Increase magic accuracy and strength by 5%.
• Brawler: Increase melee accuracy and strength by 5%.
• Poison purge: Poison damage is changed into healing.

Auras work like any other degradeable item (e.g. ancient equipment). They come with 1,000 charges and crumble to dust. Auras are not tradeable.

Duel Arena and Staking
The (in)famous duel arena might have become a problem for the game's economy. The entire GE system isn't properly working anymore, because high level gear is rarely being sold on it. Not only I could identify that hoarding has become a big problem. There's accounts with hundreds of armours and weapons in their banks; effectively locking them away from new players. I'm therefore no longer allowing stakes to contain items. The only items people are allowed to stake are perfect gold bars, member tickets or cash. This may sound like a radical change, but overall the game will profit from it. Nothing will change for stakers, they can still bet their money on fights and the economy won't suffer from item starvation anymore. At least that's the current idea and plan of the update. As previous changes have shown, this could go towards the wrong direction too. If I don't see this working out within a week or two, the change will definitely be reverted.

Quest and Equipment Tab
The equipment tab has received 2 new slots (auras and wings) and the quest tab has completely been redesigned. I've removed the Falador teleport, because it's no longer needed. We've added buttons with new icons for e-mail registration, membership and maxhit checks. The top line contains information about the current world and player count. What do you think about it? Like or dislike it? What could I do to make it better? It's already planned to add 'custom' teleports there. You'll be able to choose from several locations. But this is something for the next update.


Other changes:

• Dialogues can now be continued by pressing the space button.
• Multi model buffering is now the default rendering mode. Don't worry too much about this, it's an internal technique of achieving better overall performance (fps boost).
• Mud patch models (farming) have been updated.
• The maximum experience per skill was increased from 200M to 250M. The reason for the change is, that hiscores now save who has reached maximum experience first. Allowing us to effectively create a rank 1 player, which previously wasn't possible.
• Wings now have their own equipment slot and can be worn with any other items. Their stat bonuses have been reduced, because they no longer count as amulets.
• Wizards around Barbarian village now drop Edgeville teleport tabs too.
• Healing effects are now shown with purple hit splats.

All the best,
Thomy



Changes of October 2nd:

• Auras are no longer usable in the wilderness and duel arena. They still work versus NPCs in the wilderness, in safe PK zones and in minigames. Moreover, newly started auras now contain 10,000 charges instead of 1,000. Yes, this change is big... but 1,000 charges just deplete way too fast.
• Wings and auras are now always disabled in the duel arena. You can still wear the items, but they'll have 0 stats and no effect.
• A bug was fixed where HP bar was wrongly shown when eating.
• More healing feedback were added to special attacks, guthans, magicks and bolts.

Changes of October 3rd:

• Double experience scrolls now give 1h of double xp instead of 20 minutes. They still cost the same amount. If you had a lot of scrolls banked, yay, you're a lucky one! They still remain untradeable though.
• Internal logging system for shops updated.
• A bug was fixed where wearing capes wouldn't update your character model.

Noice

One of your best updates so far, keep it up

Great job Thomy! Keep it up! <3

Auras seem extremely powerful at first glance, especially Vampyrism

This update is probably, almost undoubtedly, one of your very best

Worked so hard on my 200M strength and magic xp to get a high rank just to get it snatched away from me

Also degradeable items aren't fun

Duel arena change will result people to dump their items for low ass prices into the GE so I doubt that will favor the economy

Worked so hard on my 200M strength and magic xp to get a high rank just to get it snatched away from me

Also degradeable items aren't fun

Duel arena change will result people to dump their items for low ass prices into the GE so I doubt that will favor the economy

We now have a way to identify #1 players, which wasn't possible before. Degradeable items are needed for powerful effects; they also act as a sink.

The economy wasn't working at all, there were no items in the game and thus the GE couldn't measure any prices. If we get more items into the game, the market will stabilize and you'll be able to actually buy and sell items from and to the GE. The aim is to get more items into the economy to finally stabilize item prices. Some prices may drop, some may rise, but the aim is to have stability at some point. Items should be marketed and cash should be staked.

From a stakers perspective.

If you at my big peak ever locked down my account from being able to stake my items.
Then i would for sure just sell my 300 ags's for 30m ea to get fast cash and keep on staking. (example)

In a small run, the server might benefit from it. Cause it forces people who have won items to sell
them to keep staking. But if this is permanent. In the long run. This will be really really really bad for emps.

You might say its permanent now. But once things starts evening out. Dont keep it like this please.

Other than that, i like the concept of making everything more compact, forcing players to meet more often!

I'm excited to see how the outcome of this update turns out.
Keep up the good work. 

I really like the quality of life update, but I dislike the addition of 250 Million maximum experience over the original 200 Million. I personally don't care wether or not I get that #1 spot in a specific skill, all that I care about is getting closer and closer to that top spot in overall experience. I'm almost certain it's like that for "most" of the players that compete for the top spot as well, Since i'm confident that this happened due to a complaint.

Anyways I really wan't your guys thought on this subject so here is a Strawpoll, vote if you wish.
https://strawpoll.de/z7swfr2

Anyways I really wan't your guys thought on this subject so here is a Strawpoll, vote if you wish.
https://strawpoll.de/z7swfr2

I don't see "I don't care because I'll never max a skill" option. 

back to fishing, cya

dont think auras were the right move.

how about a weapon overhaul combined with monsters being weak to a certain combat style. Of course it only worked, if it got implemented the "right" way...

Wow extremely impressed with this update definitely one of the best keep it up thomy

1,000 charges

Dead content already

Great update,Thomy!