Runescape Blog

The next round of Q&A responses come from Mod Fetzki, the Head of RuneScape, and other members of the RuneScape Content Team, including Paul Gower.

The questions answered in this batch deal with the RuneScape game, what updates we have planned, and the choices that we have made about RuneScape's future. We’ve posted the questions and answers on this forum thread, so you can discuss the answers.

Mod Fetzki and Paul's live Q&A session will be held on the forums today, starting at 5pm (GMT). Players will be able to post questions in this thread; answers will be posted in this thread.

The RuneScape Content Team received a lot of questions, as you could probably imagine, so to make sure we get to answer as many as possible, we are also planning to publish a second batch of answers next week.

Mod Kelvin
Head of Community Management

The humungous and deathly strykewyrms are happy to harmlessly tunnel about RuneScape, but they have trained senses that can smell a slayer from a mile off. Those who are assigned a strykewyrm task will find that they lure strykewyrms from the ground, but they may wish they hadn’t; once roused, a strykewyrm will do their very best to take them down!

Three breeds of strykewyrm are known to the Slayer masters of Runescape: jungle strykewyrms (level 73 Slayer) can be found near the coast north-west of Oo’glog; desert strykewyrms (level 77 Slayer) stir the sand east of Al Kharid (over the stile by the palace); and ice strykewyrms (level 93 Slayer) churn up the ice in a cave near to where you find the Muspah (but only after you’ve completed the Tale of the Muspah). Ice strykewyrm assignments are unique to Kuradal. You will need to own a TzHaar fire cape to be assigned them, and you will need to wear a fire cape to inflict any damage.

As with other Slayer creatures, each strykewyrm has a rare drop, which should prove to be very useful for slayers, mages and rangers. The jungle and desert strykewyrms, respectively, drop the hexcrest and the focus sight, which give combat and Slayer bonuses for Magic and Ranged (much like the black mask already does for melee). Indeed, anyone with a slayer helmet, focus sight and hexcrest can combine them all into a full slayer helmet, which incorporates all of these items’ bonuses into one slayertastic piece of headgear.

The ice strykewyrms’ unique drop, the staff of light, can be used as a slayer staff, has stats roughly equivalent to a dragon weapon, causes +15% Magic damage, has a special attack that reduces any melee damage that is received by 50% for one minute AND has a 1/8 chance of not using up runes each time a damage-dealing spell is cast with it!

The rune-saving effect can be combined with a full set of combat robes (improving the chance to 1/5) or battle robes (for an impressive 1/2 chance of saving runes). Also, any time the staff does not save your runes, the robes themselves will still have their usual chance of saving you any mind, chaos, death or blood runes used by the combat spell you are casting. These robe sets can both be earned as rewards from the Fist of Guthix minigame.

From beneath it devours… Happy slaying everyone!

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news...

After listening to your feedback, the F2 key will now toggle the chat window when you're holding the orb of oculus, otherwise known as the machinima camera. This should help you direct your actors on camera!

Today we have launched an update to the Standard Detail graphics mode for players with the Windows operating system (Windows 2000 onwards) and with Sun Java 1.4.2 or higher. The new Standard Detail mode is faster than the previous version. It also has options to turn on textures, shadows and lighting, which can make it look very close to the quality of High Detail mode.

For players who do not have Windows, or who wish to carry on using the old Standard Detail mode, there is a new ‘Safe Mode’ graphics detail option.

Mod Nick
Head of Core Technologies

For those who like to listen to RuneScape’s music while playing the game, you can now set up a custom playlist of up to twelve of your favourite tracks. When the playlist option is turned on, the game will play the tracks from your playlist; turned off, music will randomise as before, but your playlist between will be saved between sessions.

Adding to and removing songs from your playlist requires just one click, and you can reorder them by dragging them up and down the list. We’ve also taken the time to make ‘shuffle’ and ‘clear playlist’ buttons. As with randomised music, the only time your playlist is interrupted is when a new song is unlocked or a jingle (such as for gaining a level) is played.

We hope you enjoy this new feature and we welcome your feedback.

Mod Bond and the Audio Team

Apprentice Clerval at the Mage Training Arena is utterly useless at magic...and pretty much everything else. He needs your help in getting his head around Rune Mechanics, our latest novice quest. In particular, he’s trying to build a rune guardian from scratch, something that hasn’t been done for generations.

Rune Mechanics carries on for the Rune Mysteries quest, teaching those who have just learnt the basics of Runecrafting a bit more about the skill (namely, how to craft combination runes). Those adventurers who help Clerval may well find themselves with a brand-spanking new rune guardian pet on their hands.

Certainly, the rune guardians that already roam the halls of the Mage Training Arena would be happy to introduce those unfamiliar with the place to the various Magic training challengers on offer. With enough training, any mage will one day be able to wield a master wand, sport some fancy infinity robes and turn bones into juicy peaches (should they want to). Well, any mage but Clerval...

Mod Nancy
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:

In other news...

Based on your feedback, we've changed the stats on the Penance armours from Barbarian Assault. Check out this Knowledge Base page for more details on these items.

We’ve added a second trident to Barbarian Assault's rewards. The original trident remains unchanged, but can now be upgraded to a master trident for free. The master trident has an Attack level requirement of 70 due to its increased melee combat stats (in addition to the Magic level requirement of 70 it shares with the original trident).

We’ve updated the Adventurer’s log to contain a larger selection of NPCs including, but not limited to, the KBD, the Penance and Kalphite Queens, and the Corporeal Beast. A log will be created any time you defeat these creatures. Additionally, instead of spamming your log with “I’ve killed a creature” for every one that you defeat, it will now attempt to group these together in one message.

We've added a feature to allow you to more easily reply to the last private message you received: just hit the ‘TAB’ key on your keyboard!

We've changed the gnome restaurant and associated shops in a few ways. Firstly, if you complete a delivery task, the food and cocktail ingredients shops will be restocked. Secondly, we've adjusted the rewards for the deliveries, so you're more likely to get better items such as mint cakes or seed pods.

All types of spirit shield have now been properly textured and should match the recently updated inventory icons.

You may have noticed that cannons were not always hitting the enemy they were aiming at. The targeting code has been improved and should have more consistent behaviour in all directions.

A more detailed explanation of how the ring of wealth works has been added to the this page in the Game Guide.

Based on player feedback to last November’s Runecrafting update, we’ve extended the ability of double-crafting runes to include law, death and blood runes. As the Runecrafting level to guarantee double-crafting of these runes would lie much higher than level 99 (following the pattern established in the rest of the skill), you will only have a chance of doing so, with that chance increasing the closer your Runecrafting level gets to 99.

The ability to double-craft law, death and blood runes now means that it is possible to receive more than one of each type of rune from a single essence. The greater chance, at higher Runecrafting levels, of crafting two law, death or blood runes per essence should provide more incentive to train the skill through the last few levels.

Mod Nancy
RuneScape Content Developer

How much wealth you are able to trade with your friends has been made more generous. Exactly how much depends on how long you’ve been friends (i.e. how long you've been on each other's Friends Lists).

If you’ve been friends for at least one month, your trade limit will be doubled; for two months your limit is tripled; and for three months your limit is quadrupled!

As before, when trading, you will continue to be limited by whomsoever has the lower trade limit, but remember that you are able to increase your trade limit by earning Quest Points.

Mod Hope

RuneScape Content Developer