Hello everyone!

It's time for our annual Halloween Event! This year, you can get your hands on Halloween pumpkins that may reward you with rare items when eaten. We've also modernized our website, enhanced the rendering engine with sun rays and reflective surfaces, expanded bank space, and completely overhauled the game launcher.


Halloween Event
The Grim Reaper is once again seeking assistance with his yearly Skull Collection business. You'll find Halloween skulls dropped by monsters throughout the game that you can exchange for special Halloween rewards. The Draynor Manor quest must be completed before joining the event.

This year you'll be able to purchase Halloween pumpkins from the Grim Reaper. These have access to the rare item drop table. With a little bit (more like a lot) of luck you can find the new rare item, Glooms. A new pet to show off your insane luck during the Halloween event. Glooms is a permanent addition to the rare items drop table and will also be obtainable in future holiday events.

A quick reminder what boosts the drop rates of Halloween skulls:

• Member: +10%
• Double exp: +100%
• Slayer task: +25%
• Wilderness: +25%

These bonuses stack! We also have a wiki page for Halloween skulls that contains a drop rate calculator.


Bank Upgrades
Members can now use 6 more bank tabs increasing your total bank size from 2,800 to 4,000 items. I've also added amount buttons that you can toggle to withdraw specific amounts with left-click. The same feature was added to the shop interface. This makes it easier to navigate bank/shop interfaces for mobile users.



Archdemon Weapon Models
Archdemon weapons have received a model overhaul to better separate them from their original demon counterparts. The release of three new demon weapons is also planned. It didn't quite make it into this patch but here's the details:

• Demon crossbow off-hand: you'll be able to wield and shoot with two crossbows!
• Demon warblade: a new two-handed demon blade introducing a high level crush weapon
• Demon staff: an alternative to the wand/orb combination.

These new weapons will drop with our next patch introducing Archdemon Har'Lakk. Find me in-game to see what the items look like or visit our Discord for some examples in the show-off section.

Reflections & Sun Rays
The game's internal rendering engine has been overhauled. It can now process graphical effects quicker and in one go instead of having to re-render the scene multiple times per effect. You can enable Reflections and Sun Rays to improve the game's look and feel. These effects use raytracing to reflect the scene on metallic objects and cast sun rays when directly looking into the sun. The effects are optional but everyone profits from the render engine modernization with increased performance.



Web Services Modernization
Our homepage has always consisted of three sub projects: main page, forum and wiki. And these have always had different layouts and the unification would have been a gigantic project spanning over months. I've decided that this project is the perfect use-case for AI. Claude (thanks buddy!) has been used to rewrite and modernize our different web services. The main page, forum and wiki now have a unified layout looking similar rather than being totally different. I have overviewed the whole process and was very happy with the result. The following are the biggest changes:

• Grand Exchange page shows more details about item transactions: https://emps-world.net/ge?plot,Overload_(4),15332,180
• Hiscores layout improved and Boss scores now show groups: https://emps-world.net/hiscores?skill,archdemonkalger,0
• Drop table explorer: https://emps-world.net/drops
• Main page account section now shows a lot more useful information about your account including other accounts, veteran progress, donator ranks and account warnings. Check it out yourself: https://emps-world.net/account
• Social sharing preview images. When sharing Grand Exchange items, player hiscores, forum news or wiki pages you'll now get a preview image of the page content.
• Unified navigation for main page, forum and wiki. You can easily switch between the three without getting the feeling to visit a new website.
• Wiki templates request information internally before rendering their page. That speeds up page load times for you. It also means that all npc drops, item stats, npc stats, etc. are now synchronized with the game. The data you find on the wiki is now always from the current game version.
• Forum has had its style overhauled completely. That includes new icons, a much better look and feel for the helpdesk and all configuration panels. The profile picture you set on the forum is now also used on the main page!

I hope you like these changes. It sure has been fun seeing an AI creating modern layouts and overviewing the changes. I've also started an advertisement campaign on reddit which definitely benefits from a modern web page.


Launcher Modernization
With a new layout for our homepage I've decided that the game launcher should follow a similar style guide. You've probably already found the game launcher to look modernized but that's not everything:

• Improved news section including patch notes.
• Overhauled launcher settings interface and game logs explorer.
• More customization for launching the game: java selector, gpu selector, multiple clients support toggle, etc.

You don't need to change any of the default settings but you now have the possibility to do so! It will also make it easier to investigate instances where the game won't launch for future players.



Changelog:

• Archdemon Kal'Ger's maximum Melee damage has been reduced from 120 to 100.
• Archdemon Yk'Lagor's maximum Magic damage has been increased from 90 to 100.
• An issue for fixed-screen mode was fixed where active buffs would render duplicates.
• Various fixed-rotation NPCs no longer face you when walking to them, e.g. Sir Tiffy Cashien in Falador park.
• Animations no longer flicker when overlapping, e.g. lever teleports in the wilderness.
• You can now shear sheep without needing shears in your inventory.
• Various pets have had their sizes fixed. This also includes the wake animation for Archdemon bosses.
• The long range option for ranged weapons is now correctly working again.
• You can now use an item on a BoB familiar to give it to them.
• The PoH boxing and combat ring have closed. They feature is unused and we've found multiple issues where people could be killed by kicking people from their house. There's plenty of other PvP options.
• Blast fusion hammer received a hover description.
• Items from minigames can no longer be smuggled outside with BoB familiars.
• Two-handed swords can now deal crush damage when switching to the smash attack style.
• The game can now remember up to 10 accounts on the login screen.
• The enchanted bolt descriptions have been updated. Additional damage from bolt effects is now shown as separate hit splat. The bolt effects can no longer apply on monsters you cannot damage.

With all the recent changes and Halloween event preparation I didn't find the time to continue Archdemon Har'Lakk. Finalizing our third Archdemon boss fight is now #1 on my agenda and I hope for him to be finalized around the end of October!

All the best,
Thomy