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PDC - The Motherlode Mine

First of all, congratulations to Runite Minor whose idea has won the 'Player Designed Content: Brains over brawn' competition.

The Motherlode Mine is a new mining mechanic which gives introduces seams of ore for players to mine. Players will collect 'pay-dirt' from the mine which can be cleaned to get ore. While mining in the Motherlode Mine you may come across gold nuggets which can be exchanged for a new mining outfit.

Below you will find a detailed description of the Motherlode Mine with more information than the original idea. A lot of the text comes from the original idea which is a testament to how good the concept was. Our basic principles when introducing this content is that it will provide an alternative method to level mining and gathering ore, however it is not intended to replace it. Therefore, the XP rates will not be any better than you can currently get. You will be able to vote on this content from Thursday 6th March.

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 based on your mining level - the higher your mining level the better the chance for good ore. You can only collect ore if you have the mining level to mine it. 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 take 10 or 15 minutes to respawn, with 5 to 10 veins in the cavern.

In the mine the ceiling can cave in blocking the passageway back to the central cavern which has the cleaning machine, Prospector Pete and a bank. 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.



Pay-dirt:
Once you have some Pay-dirt it will have to be washed in a washing station in the central cavern 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 conveyor 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 to deposit the ore, but pay-dirt can't be deposited or traded.

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 similar to Marks of Grace. We expect you to have to play the Motherlode Mine for around 25 hours to collect enough nuggets for the Prospector's outfit and they would be more common with a higher mining level.

The Prospector's outfit has the same bonuses as the Lumberjack Outfit. The Builder Uniform from the Tower of Life quest can be used as the basis for the Prospector's Clothing.



XP rates and limitations

In order to access the Motherlode Mine you would need a mining level of 30. This is because the minimum ore you can mine is coal.

For each piece of pay-dirt you receive you will get 50 XP. When you clean the pay-dirt you will get additional XP based on the ore that is uncovered when it is cleaned.

Content Poll 17
Along with the vote on adding the Motherlode Mine there is another selection of questions you can vote on:

The Easter event in 2006 asked you to help the hypnotised bunnies deliver eggs to the children of Gielinor. Would you like us to add this for this Easter's event?

Yes, Easter is fast approaching so we need to think of it now. To refresh your memory of this event, click here . By completing the event you will also unlock all the previous non-tradeable Easter holiday items and receive two each of the tradeable Easter holiday items.

During the Easter event in 2005 you could use a basket full of Easter eggs which made you skip rather than walk, you could not keep this item when the event finished. Should an additional reward for the Easter event this year be the Easter egg basket from the 2005 Easter event?

The basket full of eggs is something that was not available to be kept after the 2005 Easter event and we would like to introduce as a non-tradeable holiday item for completing the Easter event this year in addition to the holiday items mentioned above.

Should we add more options for hairstyles and hair colour to the barber in Falador?

In August of 2007 we made an update that increased the amount of hairstyles and hair colours that were available for you to use on your base character. Some of these options exist in the archive of Old School that we use and we would like to offer them to you. All hairstyles and colours which are offered on Tutorial Island will be available from the barber too.

Should we add more clothing styles and colours to Thessalia in Varrock?

At the same time as the update to hairstyles there was an update to the clothing available on your base character. Again, some of these are available in our archive and we would like to offer these too.

If a player picks up an item that spawns in Nightmare Zone, should it be destroyed if it is dropped again? This will affect runes, pickaxes, anti-dragon breath shields, etc.

We recently polled some questions designed to change some behaviour in Nightmare Zone. None of those passed, however we think this solution may be a better option for you. You can currently collect many runes in Nightmare Zone by picking up all the runes you can, dropping them and picking up more. By deleting the runes when you drop them players will be able to pick up a smaller amount of runes.