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PDC - Brains over brawn

Your response to the Player Designed Content - Brains over brawn competition has been absolutely huge. We have received over 500 entries and creating a shortlist has been very difficult for us. However, we have had to make a decision and the 8 suggestions listed below are our favourite ones which we believe are achievable.

Have a good read through the ideas below and vote for your favourite here . We will close this poll on Sunday 2nd March and we will then create a detailed design document for you. In order for the winning idea to get added to the game, it will need to get 75% approval in the next content poll.

Some of the ideas below go into a lot of detail and it may be necessary for us to tweak some of the rewards so they remain balanced within the game. Once a winner has been chosen the design document that we'll release to you will contain all the tweaks we would like to make.

Campfires
Flaming Arrows
Construction shortcuts
The Motherlode Mine
Explosive Mining
The Quarry
Potion Enhancer
Charcoal Mound

Campfires

Campfires

Intro: Many players in the oldschool runescape community want the rest feature to be re-implemented. I would love to see rest back in the game, but I believe that we could do something much better with it on this go around. I would like to see rest put into the game, but I have an idea to make it both meaningful and revamped when introduced. Currently Firemaking is a dead skill. While many people achieve level 50 for the Desert Treasure requirement, it has little to no value past that point. My idea offers a unique way to making both rest and firemaking, an active part of oldshcool runescape.

My Idea: I propose we add to the firemaking skill, the ability to create "Campfires". These fires can be built most places around runescape and can only be used by the player who built them. "Campfires" would work like this:
As you achieve higher and higher levels of firemaking, you would be able to create better campfires, basic campfires being made of logs, and the highest tier magic campfires, obviously made from magic logs. Each fire would require, 4 of the specific type of log, and maybe a new type of item that could be used as fire kindling. Maybe this new fire kindling item could be dropped by the Ents? Or maybe just collected from chopping trees?

The idea is that the higher level campfire you have, the faster your run energy restores, making it more appealing for players to, for example: achieve 90 firemaking, to make a "magic campfire" which could offer some potential other stat boosts? (ie. gain a few magic levels for a short period of time.)

Building the campfires themselves would obviously have to be limited to areas of the world, to prevent them from being abused, but I think they could potentially add a lot of variety and depth to the current game, as well as making firemaking, a much for appealing skill to level up for players.

Pros of adding this feature:
- A solution to their being no rest in oldschool runescape
- Adds depth to the firemaking skill
- Gives people more reason to collect logs/sell logs
- Possibility for campfires to give stat boosts/heal hp overtime
- Makes rest, not just a boring "right-click" toggle

Cons:
- May be abused if not balanced
- Campfires may be clunky/underused

I would love to talk about the new feature more, however it is hard to capture my vision for this feature within a brief enough e-mail. I would love to have a further conversation concerning the addition of campfires to runescape, but I am sure you guys already have tons of other suggestions being emailed in.

If you stayed and read this far, thank you so much for considering my idea for oldschool runescape. I really love the direction both the game and the community are headed in, and I can't wait to see what awesome content you guys bring to the table next.

Flaming Arrows

Flaming Arrows Skill: A Combat-Related Extension of Firemaking

Currently, range is devoid of a method to freeze opponents. As the OSRS knows, in RS3 ebolas were released alongside Jadinkos to create an item that could be used with range to “freeze” opponents. As we also know, ebolas were a bit overpowered in terms of PVP use in Castle Wars and in the Wild. Theoretically, what could be introduced into the game as a range freezer idea is that of FLAMING ARROWS.

In the Underground Pass quest, we see the player making flaming arrows with various objects. A simple extension of this could be being able to make various tiered arrows such as bronze, iron, steel, mithril, adamant, rune and dragon have the capability to be turned into flaming arrows. The tiering of which arrows a user can turn into these arrows would be based on firemaking level.

In theory, the corresponding firemaking level needed to turn a regular arrow into a flaming arrow would look something like this:
Level 30 Firemaking----Bronze
Level 40 Firemaking---Iron
Level 50 Firemaking----Steel
Level 60 Firemaking----Mithril
Level 70 Firemaking----Adamant
Level 80 Firemaking---Rune
Level 90 Firemaking---Dragon

The hope is that this incentive would make firemaking have a useful and high-tiered component, while motivating players to want something that can benefit them in combat. Potentially, firemakers who purchase the arrows on the market and turn them into flaming arrows can make profit.

The theory is that this would make arrows on par with bolts once more. The exact % of the time that a flaming arrow is capable of “paralyzing/freezing” an opponent can be adjusted to a level that isn’t overpowered.

Construction shortcuts

Construction shortcuts

Construction. It is a great skill, and there are plenty of both fun and useful things that come out of it. But the skill is seldom trained (a mere level 50 will get you around rank 20,000 in the skill, and most people stop there due to the glory and portal chamber being all they want unlocked). The skill is also confined to an individual player’s POH, and has no presence in Gielnior. My idea would give it some use on the mainland as well as some incentive to train it. My idea for the next Player Designed Content competition is construction shortcuts. Basically, when your character has a certain construction level, they can build something that would help them cross some gap or cliffside that would normally be inaccessible, similar to agility shortcuts. Only your character would be able to use these construction shortcuts, preventing anyone with a low construction level from mooching off your work. You would click on the shortcut and your character would automatically cross it. They would be made out of oak, teak, or mahogany planks (depending on the level required) and nails. For the first time you build one, it would take a decent amount of planks to make (perhaps 20 or so). However, you can poll whether or not they would deteriorate after being made. If they don’t deteriorate, then they would stay there indefinitely after being made. But if they do deteriorate, they would take one week to do so, and repairing them would require a small amount of planks and yield some experience. This would simoultaniously create a sort of weekly event for a player (similar to the Tears of Guthix minigame), going around repairing all of his or her construction shortcuts once a week for some amount of experience. A few places that come to mind where these would be useful are:
1. Bridge over the water east of the clothes shop in Mos le Harmless, creating a shortcut to the cave horrors.

2.Bridge connecting the Lumbridge swamp to the peninsula north of the Kalphite Lair, creating a shortcut to the KQ.

3. Bridge over the river just east of Shilo Village, creating a shortcut to the nature altar.

4. Bridge over the River Salve from the fairy ring island east of the mage training arena to Mort Myre swamp; creating a shortcut to the swamp (Priest In Peril would have to be completed for this one. You would also need to be able to use fairy rings).

5. Bridge over the lava in the southern end of red dragon isle, creating a quick escape from potential PKers if necessary as well as a shortcut into the isle. This bridge, since it is over lava, would have to be made of a metal instead of wood.

6. The same can be done with the lava encircling the chaos temple (see #5)

7. Bridge over the river and through the gap in the fence directly southwest of the gnomeball field, making a shortcut to the hunting area and piscatoris.

8. A series of ladders going over the mountain in between the desert house portal and the smoky well, creating a shortcut to the well.

9. A small, in-ground stepladder or stepstool can be built next to the fence east of Varrock, allowing your character to jump over the fence, creating a shortcut to the Digsite.

10. Similar to #9, a somewhat larger in-ground stepladder can be built next to the fence directly south of the mage arena (deep wilderness), creating a shortcut from the bank there to the KBD lair and the runite ore, and also as a potential escape/attack route for pkers.

11. Bridge connecting the southwestern mine in Lumbridge swamp to Tutorial Island, allowing players to visit there for nostalgic purposes (I forget whether or not Tutorial Island is still used when an account is first created. If so, then ignore this one).

12. Build a ladder directly north of the warrior’s guild, creating a shortcut to the trolls on death plateau (with appropriate quests completed).

Since construction is an expensive skill to train, most of these shortcuts are aimed towards slayer or bossing, since the players who do those things would tend to be a higher level and would therefore be better suited to afford to train construction. I'm sure there are multiple other areas where these shortcuts would come in handy for all players, and I am eager to see all the places you guys would implement this in if you decide to. Overall, it would give the construction skill a practical use on the mainland of Gielnior, players would have more incentive to train it, and it would make traveling from place to place easier (if a player is willing to train).

The Motherlode Mine

The Motherlode Mine
Think 1850s Gold Mine come to Runescape!

The Motherlode Mine:
The Motherlode Mine is a tunnel of ore veins recently discovered under Falador by the dwarven miners of the Mining Guild. The entrance is just right to the stairs heading up to the house next to the Party Room, in the Dwarven Mine. It is a large circular cavern 3-5 spaces wide and about the same circular size as the steel/iron dragon portion of the Brimhaven dungeon. It is dimly lit by torches along the walls and held up by wooden beams. There are piles of dirt and rocks all over the ground. Dwarven Prospector NPCs work alongside players for effect. Inside the tunnel are veins of ore from Coal up to Runite, but what ore you receive is random. The ore will be in veins along the walls of this cavern similar to the way it is in the Haunted Mine, but when you mine it, it will enter your inventory as clumps of pay-dirt. The veins will last a random amount of time and take10 or 15 minutes to respawn, with 5 to 10 veins in the cavern, Sometimes the ceiling can cave in blocking the passageway back to the entrance of the mine. Players will have to mine through the blockages for a bit of mining xp. At random, the veins can also cave in above them, meaning the veins will have to be cleared of dirt before the veins can be mined again. These veins aren't immune to the gassing random or the golem randoms of course, and your pickaxe head can still fly off too. There can be fightable NPCs added as is deemed necessary.

Pay-dirt:
Pay-dirt will then have to washed in a washing station near the entracne of the mine to determine what ore you get. Pay-dirt will be mined faster with increased mining level and will be affected by what type of pickaxe is used, same as regular rocks. Coal will be the most common ore in pay-dirt, followed by Gold, then Mithril, Adamant and the rarest will be Runite. There is also a chance of receiving Gold Nuggets, to be used in buying Prospector's Clothing, explained further on. Pay-dirt can use the same inventory icon as clay.

Washing Station:
Pay-dirt has to be washed here before players can find out what ore they get. There's a hopper that players add their inventory full of pay-dirt into, and then it goes through a series of washing stations on conveyer belts run by a furnace-like contraption, which can break down periodically and can be fixed for smithing experience. At the end of line, players receive their ore and nuggets. Here there will be a bank deposit box to deposit the ore, but paydirt can't be deposited or leave the cavern.

Prospector Pete and Prospector's Clothing:
As a perk for working The Motherlode, an NPC named Prospector Pete will trade gold nuggets randomly found in the pay-dirt for Prospector's clothes, which will give a bonus to mining in the same way lumberjack clothes give a bonus to woodcutting. Prospector Pete is a human NPC near the entrance of the Motherlode mine, he is dressed in scraggly overalls and a tattered shirt and a felt hat, and he holds a pickaxe. Gold Nuggets would be stackable, and as rare as Grace tokens are for Agility, becoming more common with increased mining level. The Prospector's Helmet would be 0.8% mining bonus, and would be similar to the Dorgeshuun helmet, without the bones. It can be lit with a tinderbox. The Prospector's shirt would be 1.6% mining bonus, and would be a plaid shirt with white and the light blue color from the Mining cape. Prospector's Trousers would be 1.2% mining bonus and would be the gray color from the mining cape. Prospector's Boots would be 0.4% mining bonus and would be a shade darker gray than the trousers. Subtotal for the set would be 4.0% mining bonus, with the complete set bonus being 5.0% mining bonus. The helmet would cost 40 nuggets, the shirt 60 Nuggets, The trousers 50 nuggets, and the boots 30 nuggets. The Builder Uniform from the Tower of Life quest can be used as the basis for the Prospector's Clothing.

Reasons for adding this content:
Mining is one of the oldest skills and received very little improvement through the Oldschool years of Runescape. This update coupled with the pending release of the Dragon Pickaxe would help give the mining skill some much needed rejuvenation, much as the Living Rock Cavern did in what is now RS3. Mining has always been my favorite skill (as you can tell from my RSN), and recently I've been in a rut training it in Oldschool. This is a piece of content I could see myself using all the way to 99 Mining, which remains a goal of mine in this game.

Explosive Mining

Explosive Mining

I have always hated mining because it’s so repetitive and tedious. I think that if there was another way to get ore without a pick axe then the skill wouldn’t be so tedious and boring. The solution is Explosive Mining.

I am going to organize my presentation of Explosive mining in 5 basic sections. What, How, locations, Rewards, and a conclusion.

What

Explosive mining is where a player travels deep into a new section of already existing mines, and/or entirely new mines just for explosive mining. In explosive mines there is ore stuck deep in the walls of the cavern, and the player must use explosives to blow the ore out of the wall.



Explosive mining will require the same mining levels for each ore, but it will also require a firemaking level to light the explosive. Also, different explosives have different levels of impact that can get different kinds of ore.

How

Explosive mining is done by traveling to an explosive mining site. There will be one in the Dwarvern Mines, one in the Dorgeshuun Mines, one in the Karamja Volcano, one in Arandar (off the winding path just north of Lletya), and one just north of the death plateau.

Explosive mining will be done with explosives. Crafted from players using the crafting skill, bought from other players, or bought from shops at explosive mine sites.

To make explosives players must get black powder and fuses from the same shops that sell explosives.





After obtaining some explosives, players will take them to a mine with a tinderbox to get ore out of the walls. The player will use the explosive on the wall that has the ore that he wants. The player must have the firemaking level to light the explosive, and the minging level to insert the explosive into the wall. (see chart below)

Different explosives will get different kinds of ore, and some explosives won’t work in some walls because the ore is too deep for that explosive.

This chart shows what explosives get what ore, and the mining levels and firemaking levels needed to use the explosive and get the ore.



(NOTE: All explosives can get lower lvl ore. For example, advanced explosives can still get copper and tin)

So with all this in mind it’s simple. The player will use the explosive on ore found in wall, and use tinderbox on explosive. At this point the player’s character will step back 3 squares and the explosion will go off. There is a 15% chance that the explosion will cause the player to be dealt damage equal to 10% of his or her current HP, unless the player has at least 10 firemaking levels higher than is needed for the task that he or she is performing.

After the explosion the ore will appear on the ground and only be visible to the player that exploded it out of the wall. At this point the player can collect his or her ore, wait for the ore to come back in the wall, and do it again.

Explosives are stackable, so players can bring a lot of explosives and fill their inventory with ore so they can run to the bank.

Locations

Dwarvern Mines – This mine will have low level ore. It will have Copper, Tin, Iron, and clay. It will be located in the Dwarvern Mines, on the south side where hammerspike is.

Dorgeshuun Mines – This will be in the dorgeshuun mines on the north side, and it will have Iron, Coal, Silver, Gold, and mithril ore.

Karamja Volcano – This will be next to the entrance to the Tzharr city, and it will have a lot of goald and silver, and one or two adamant ores. Arandar (off the winding path just north of Lletya)- This will be located in a cave that is north of Lletya. The entrance of the cave will be found just off the winding path in Arandar. There will be Runite, Adamantite, Mithril, and a lot of coal.

Rewards

The rewards section of this presentation will be divided up as follows. Cost, Experience, Ore,
Cost

Shops in each of the explosive mines will charge for supplies that are required to perform explosive mining. The costs will be as follows.

Basic explosive – 95 gp ea
Dorgeshuun Explosive – 238 gp ea
Compound Explosive – 1,320 gp ea
Dwarvern Explosive – 3,810 gp ea
Advanced Explosive – 7,690 gp ea
Black Powder – 39 gp ea
Vials – 5 gp ea
Fuse – 29 gp ea
Advanced fuse – 5,100 gp ea.

Experience

MINING -Standard mining experience will be given per ore. Like 17.5 xp per copper and tin, 35 xp per iron ore mined, etc..

FIREMAKING – Lighting the explosives will give the following firemaking experience



ORE

Each explosive will give the player a different amount of ore rewards, and the ore rewards are somewhat random. The following table shows what explosive can get what ore, and how much of it.

The left hand column shows what explosive is using, and everything to its right is the ore and how much ore is obtained from one explosive.



Conclusion

I hope you like this idea of explosive mining. The prices, xp rates, costs, and amount of ore is just what I think would be good, but I could very well be wrong and we can play around with the numbers.

I think players will pick explosive mining because the players can get ore faster and they get experience faster, but traditional mining will still be popular because explosive mining is so expensive.

Also, I saw that you said that you can’t make new graphics. I don’t know the first thing about development, but I do know that a this game already has explosion animations and items that look like the explosives, but they don’t have to look like my picture above.

The Quarry

The Quarry

The dwarves beneath Ice Mountain have uncovered a new cavern! Within this cavern is an abundance of wealth. So much, in fact, that the dwarves just don't have the manpower to extract and process it! That is why they are requesting the services of passing adventurers. Help the dwarves, and you may end up walking away with a new outfit or two, plus some nice experience to boot!

The rough idea for this is that within the dwarven mines under Ice Mountain, there is a cave entrance, which brings players into a large, open cavern. (I am not trying to copy LRC, I chose Ice Mountain because, well, where else are dwarves mining? ) There are multiple off-shoots from the main cavern.

Near the center of this vast cavern is a dwarven foreman, talk to him to receive a quota to fufill. For example, 100 copper ore, 50 iron ore. Each of the off-shoots contain ore, ranging from copper to rune. Ore mined is not tradable, and it cannot be taken out of the cavern. You deposit the ore in a minecart in your off-shoot, which takes the ore to a large processing machine located in the center of the cavern. You receive twice the experience you usually would when mining, however, the experience is only given once you fulfill a quota, to prevent power-mining. You cannot mine ore unless your quota requires it. Players could *perhaps* get slightly more experience if they finish their quota within a certain amount of time.

Once you fulfill your quota, go to the Foreman to receive your reward. This could either be a small amount of coins/gems/experience. You also receive points(or equivalent). These points can spent on a new miner's outfit, which, similar to the lumberjack's outfit, boosting your mining experience when mining. Points could also be spent on additional experience.

The dwarves themselves are far from idle. They are far above using mere pickaxes, however! Throughout the cavern are large automatic mining machines.(drills) Once and a while these machines will break down, repairing them with your Smithing and/or Crafting level will grant you a nice chunk of Smithing/Crafting experience.

As with mining the ore, the dwarves are also lacking manpower in the refining and smithing process. Providing miners have filled the stores with an abundance of ore players can choose to help the dwarves fulfill weapon and armor quotas. Again, simply speak the foreman to receive a product quota. Example: 15 mithril longswords, 20 steel full helms. To do this, grab some ore from the bins at the ends of the conveyer belts(located in the center of the cavern), refine it at the furnace also located in the center of the cavern, and smith it on the anvils located there as well. As with mining ore, you receive twice the amount of experience you would usually receive from smithing items. You cannot use the anvils, nor the furnace unless you have a quota to fulfill.

Players who complete a smithing quota will receive an experience and/or cash/gems reward. Players would also receive smithing points(or equivalent) that could be used to buy a smithing outfit, which, when wielded, gives players more smithing experience when smithing. Additional points can be used to buy smithing experience.

The reward shop could also offer a variety of items, requiring both smithing and mining points. These items would be useful for smithers and miners.

Possible rewards: Ring of Coal - When wielded, you can smith a bar using 1 less coal than usual. For example, runite bar can be smithed with 1 rune ore 7 coal, instead of 1 rune ore 8 coal.

Imbuing a ring of forging - Imbued rings of forging last twice as long as non-imbued rings.

Potion Enhancer

My idea is a.... Potion Enhancer!
(The Potion Enhancer will be used for the Herblore skill)

What is it?
This would be a machine that a player can build in their POH. It would either be made in a new slot within the workshop room or in a completely new room just for the machine itself.

What will it do?
By using a potion along with the base herb of that potion with the machine it would enhance the potion. The resulting potion would give an extra 20-50% boost on top of its original boost and WOULD BE UNTRADEABLE and NOT USABLE IN PVP.
E.G: Use an Attack potion along with a Guam herb to create an Attack potion (E).

How will this work in the POH?
There would be different tiers of the Potion Enhancer:

Tier 1 - Wooden Potion Enhancer (Construction level 30 - 40) Low level Herblore potions
Tier 2 - Oak Potion Enhancer (Construction level 50 - 60) Low - Mid level Herblore potions
Tier 3 - Teak Potion Enhancer (Construction level 70 -80) Mid - High level Herblore potions
Tier 4 - Mahogany Potion Enhancer (Construction level 90 - 99) High level Herblore potions

What Herblore levels would be required?
You would need to have the Herblore level of the potion you wish to enhance + 10-20 levels. XP gained would be much higher than making the normal potion.

How will this content benefit the OSRS game?
This content will add many benefits to the game. Here are some examples:

Community:
There will be many more people using the POH creating more of an atmosphere in places like Yanile.

High Level Content:
It would add much needed high level content to the Herblore and Construction skills.

Conclusion
This is only an idea and I would be happy that, if it was chosen, changes would be made where appropriate.

E.G: If JAGEX feel that a 50% increase to combat related potions would unbalance the combat triangle in any way the bonus to combat related potions could be a boost time increase of 100% OR this bonus for all of the potions rather than a percentage boost increase.

Either way there is a need in the game for high level Herblore content and more POH based skilling, and this would kill two birds with one stone.

Charcoal Mound

Charcoal Mound Firemaking XP and Smithing Furnace

I know you guys are busy so first TL R – Burn different kinds of logs in a special way to get a type of charcoal based on the burned log type, use that charcoal to gain bonus XP while smelting ores and have a rare chance of gaining an extra bar while refining ore.

I tried to come up with a way that could be implemented in oldschool of generating charcoal which was not too boring and was based on the actual way charcoal was created in medieval times (Although a lot faster).


Types of charcoal generated by using the charcoal mounds
Each type of logs which can already be burned would have a new item with the name of the logs simply followed by charcoal (e.g. Yew Charcoal). The exception to this would be the ordinary logs which could use the already existing charcoal item.


Creating charcoal and XP reward
Step 1: The player clears one of the charcoal pits located around the map of weeds

Step 2: The player then begins to add logs to the cleared pit similar to the way logs are added to bonfires in RS3. To max out the pit it would take 50 logs.

Step 3: Once the pit is maxed the player would have to dig the surrounding earth with a spade and an empty bucket to get buckets of soil. These would then be packed around the logs until it became a mound of earth with a hole in the top. To do this would take around 10 buckets of soil to be used on the pile of logs.

Step 4: The player would then click the mound to light it with a tinderbox. An alternative method of lighting could be clicking the mound with a bow and a flaming arrow from the underground pass quest equipped to fire and arrow up into the air and then have the arrow fall down into the centre of the pit to light it. This would give an instant reward equivalent to the genie random event in both ranged and firemaking. This would also further incentivise people to complete the quest.

Step 5: Once the mound has been lit it will start smoking and transform into a smouldering mound. It will remain smouldering for around 5 minutes before turning back into the first mound but this time with blackened earth around the hole in the top to demonstrate that the impurities in the logs have been burnt off.

Step 6: Once the mound has transitioned into the final state the player will click the mound with a spade in their inventory and activate the Retrieve Charcoal Option. This will award the player with double the XP they would have gotten for just burning the type of log used multiplied by the 50 logs burnt in the mound.

Amount of charcoal Generated Per Mound
Type of Logs Carbonised - Amount of charcoal rewarded (Min, Max)
Logs - 5, 15
Oak - 10, 20
Willow - 15, 20
Maple - 15, 25
Yew - 20, 25
Magic - 25, 35


Why bother generating charcoal accept for the bonus experience reward?
The charcoals main function is to be taken to a new furnace area within the game and burnt in the furnace. Each piece of charcoal used on the furnace will keep it burning hot for a certain period of time. While the player has charcoal burning in the furnace they will receive double the XP they would usually get for smelting ore in the furnace and have a 1 in 100 chance of an extra bar being refined.

Each type of charcoal would burn for the amount of time specified below:

Type of Charcoal -Burn time (per piece of charcoal)
Logs - 5 seconds
Oak - 7 seconds
Willow - 10 seconds
Maple - 15 seconds
Yew - 1 minute
Magic - 3 minutes



If this does seem like the sort of content you would like to develop Let me know and I can refine it some more and plan parts of a bit better. I was unsure when the deadline for submissions was and wanted to try and get something in.