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Dev blog: Slayer & Christmas

Contents
Introduction
Slayer Upgrades
Christmas Event
High Risk PvP and Wilderness Worlds
Other Updates
Summary


Introduction

It's been a busy few weeks what with the PvP Worlds launch, Halloween update and RuneFest! But we're back on track and ready to deliver even more of the updates that matter to you.

With poll 13 looming, we're going to focus our time on the next big update the community have frequently asked us for; upgraded & updated Slayer. We're also going to look into relaunching the Christmas event from 2006, with an added twist and follow up on some feedback regarding high risk wilderness and PvP worlds.


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Slayer Upgrades
We might as well start with the big one! After all, we've been asked this enough so to put it at the bottom of this dev blog would only stall what you wanted to hear even longer... and we're not that mean!

Since the launch of Old School RuneScape, one of the most requested updates suggested to us was the Smoking Kills quest. If anyone doesn't know what that is, Smoking Kills was a quest launched in 2008 that introduced a new slayer master, Sumona, a new slayer monster cave (or well..), the ability to skip or permanently block tasks with points rewarded from completing slayer tasks and most notably, the Slayer Helmet.



We've been talking with you about slayer and in particular Smoking Kills for quite a long time and we believe that what you really want is the rewards from the quest rather than the quest itself. This is great news for us as making a quest is a long, difficult and time consuming task in Old School. So, giving you the rewards is exactly what we are going to offer to do.

Question: Shall we include the point system from the Smoking Kills quest?

Aside from the rewards from Smoking Kills, we've looked into the possibility of cooperative slayer, an update launched in June 2012. This would allow for two players to participate together on the same slayer assignment. To initiate a cooperative slayer task, you would invite a player who has the same task as you via the slayer gem or simply ask your chosen slayer master to give your cooperative group the same task. For each kill you or your cooperative partner do, the number of monsters left to kill decreases. XP is rewarded per kill per player, so if your cooperative partner killed a monster, they would get the experience and not you. Rewards points are split depending on who killed the most monsters. We've also looked into new items such as the leafbladed sword, broad tip bolts, slayer ring, broad arrow heads and the famous Slayer Helm. The Slayer Helm would function in exactly the same way as it did when it first came out, acting as a black mask, facemask, earmuffs, nose peg and spiny helmet all-in-1. We will also allow for it to be imbued through Nightmare Zone in the same way you can imbue a Black Mask. Unfortunately, we're unable to import the old model for the Slayer helm. Instead, we have been experimenting with the possibility of alternatives and creating the existing one from scratch. As none of us are graphics modelers, we're somewhat restricted in ability but we're calling on favours from other members of the development team and it might just be possible for us to build the old slayer helm ready for launch!

Question: Shall we introduce a co-operative slayer system so you can slay with friends?

Question: Should we introduce the leaf bladed sword as drop from slayer creatures?

Question: Should we introduce broad tip bolts to be bought from a slayer master?

Question: Should we introduce a slayer ring to be bought using slayer points?

Question: Should we introduce broad arrow heads to be bought from a slayer master?

Question: Should we introduce the option to buy the ability to construct a slayer helmet using slayer points?

Question: If the slayer helmet is introduced, should we allow it to be imbued like the black mask via Nightmare Zone?

New areas are something we'd look to introduce as well. We're big fans of the Chaos Tunnels as well as Kuradel's slayer cave. What we'd hope to do is create a new environment specifically for slayers. We like that both the Chaos Tunnels and Kuradel's cave segregated monster's by species meaning you could kill Greater demons without pesky wild dogs interrupting combat. We also realise that there is some tension between those killing their assigned task amongst those camping that monster for their drops so we're going to run with the effects Kuradel's slayer cave had and only allow monsters to be attacked if they're your assigned target.

Question: Should we introduce a new slayer dungeon with segregated slayer monsters which you can only attack if you have them as an assignment?

What would new areas be without new monsters and bosses and a new slayer master to assign them? Yes, we want to offer new slayer monsters and bosses to represent them, something that was also introduced with the original Smoking Kills quest. We envisioned these new additions would be the next high level slayer monsters requiring between 80-99 slayer to kill. We're unsure yet of what these monsters would be but some of the most common requests have been Strykewyrms and we're keen to deliver something similar of the sort.

Question: Should we introduce two new slayer monsters which can be attacked if you have a slayer level of 80+?

Queston: If we introduce two new slayer monsters, should we introduce two new boss variants of the slayer monsters?

We haven't stopped there though. We thought about something new that would bring a competitive and fresh challenging element to slayer; Time trial Slayer. This of course would be an optional challenge and not required of every task unless you selected to take part. Like most time trials, the sooner you finish the better you are rewarded so we're keen to explore the idea of awarding either additional XP or points to those who finish their tasks in good time. These rewards would scale with the existing XP rewarded by slayer monsters so the lowest XP you could possibly be awarded is the base XP the specific monster rewards you meaning you do not receive less if you finished slower than had you of not taken part in the time trial. We're not sure whether this option would be included on every slayer task or specific assignments as some slayer assignments obviously take a lot longer than others depending on what you were assigned to kill and how many.

Question: Should we introduce a time trial slayer mode which will reward players with additional XP if they complete their task within an allotted time period?

Another new idea we've been playing around with is allowing you to see how many of each slayer monster you have killed, ever. This would highlight how dedicated some players are to slayer by showing off their enormous kill counts.

Question: Would you like to see how many of each slayer monster you have ever killed?

Some smaller changes would include auto-killing specific NPCs, such as Gargoyles, with their required slayer tool. When a Gargoyle is red-barred, your hammer would automatically smash it relieving you of the pain of trying to right click it. In addition to this, we'll also look at increasing the amount of monsters you are assigned in specific tasks, such as Dark Beasts. We understand that not everyone likes to sit through a potential 2 hour task of 199 Dark Beasts so this feature you can buy with slayer points if you wanted a larger number leaving those who don't, free to kill the original number they were assigned. A few other suggestions have been to turn head drops into small slayer pets, a feature Soul Wars utilised when it was released. Whilst we won't poll this now, we're keen to get your feedback on any additional pets!

Question: Should your character automatically kill gargoyles, rock slugs, desert lizards and zygomites when they reach 0 health and you have the correct item in your inventory?

Question: Should you be able to buy an increased amount of monsters of a task you have received using slayer points?


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Christmas Event
Adjustment on page 40.

With all the spookiness of Halloween over now, it's time to look forward into the festive season and think about what we want to do for Christmas. We've explored the archive and found the Christmas event from 2006 which we can launch nearer the time. Unfortunately, we cannot offer the Christmas 2007 event as that came after the build of our current archive.



The Christmas 2006 event revolved around the Karamja Volcano inheriting some snow which angered creatures known as 'Gublinches' who live within the wall of the volcano. They don't like the cold weather and in order to restore the Volcano to warmth they 'Childernapped' nearby children from Musa Point and forced them to stoke furnaces in order to warm up the cave of the Volcano. If things weren't already weird enough, in order to defeat the Gublinches, you needed to talk to 'Shanty Claws' (who was a festive werewolf) who told you that you had to pelt the Gublinches with snow which made them freeze solid in order to defeat them. If you collected their remains, you could trade them in for rewards, such as the reindeer hat and Wintumber tree, with Shanty Claws. With this event, we will not only offer the original rewards but two of each tradable Christmas holiday items, and assuming you do not have any of the untradeable Christmas holiday rewards, one of each of those too. These include the Yo-yo, Santa Hat, Hats, scarves and Marionettes and Christmas Crackers. As a twist, we will not be giving out two of each party hat but instead, be launching the 'rainbow' party hat. To obtain this party hat, you will need to collect one of each partyhat, cut it up with shears (GASP!) and then re-assemble each piece with each colour to create six rainbow party hats. The rainbow party hat will be tradeable.

As an bonus twist, we will be introducing the Anti-Santa. Anti-Santa is against Christmas, hates snowballs and wants to ruin everything. In order to defeat the Anti-Santa successfully you must bombard and overwhelm him with snowballs. After defeating him, you will receive a Black Santa hat. The Black Santa hat, like the Black Halloween mask, will be untradeable. The Anti-Santa event will be run by us so keep an eye out for scheduling later.

Question: Should we introduce the Christmas 2006 event?

Question: Would you like to be able to turn existing party hats into tradeable rainbow party hats?

Question: Should the anti-Santa visit Old School and dispense black Santa hats?


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High Risk PvP and Wilderness Worlds.
As part of pre-launch feedback to PvP worlds, we've taken on board that there is a specific demand for high risk PvP and Wilderness worlds. These are worlds where essentially, it's no holds barred. The protect from item prayer is turned off and you are perma-skulled so anything you are carrying is something you would lose if you were killed. This should hopefully add more risk and more reward to those daring enough to engage in high risk combat whilst at the same time, hampering those who get away with 1-item griefing.

We're not sure whether we want one world of each, two of each world or just one PvP world which is high risk all over the world, including the Wilderness. Feedback on this would be much appreciated!

Question: Should we introduce a high risk PvP world and a high risk wilderness world where the protect item prayer is disabled?


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Other Updates
As always, we've included some small quality of life updates that makes some activities less frustrating and more tolerable. These include:

Question: Should POH Incense burners be re-lit before they run out, resetting their timer?

This would save bones being unnecessarily wasted when a burner times out. A request we got through a while ago we feel would compliment the recent change to the green smoke.

Question: Should we add a colour highlight to the charge spell's start/stop messages?

Another small request we got that would make the text easier to see amongst everything else going on in your chat box.

Question: Should we include digit grouping and commas for your XP popups?

On the pop-up displaying your XP and XP to level in that skill we could add some commas to separate the numbers into their appropriate units. IE: 13034431 would become 13,034,431. A small change that exists within our archive that we can pull out and offer you.

Question: Should a log of every fairy ring be added and allow the dials to be turned in both directions?

Mod Ash was responsible for this update happening originally and it's been a frequent request for a while now. This is something we would be keen to do again.

Question: Should God Wars pets be added as ultra-rare drops to the God Wars bosses?



If you read my news post and watched the live stream where I demonstrated these. These are small miniature versions of the four God Wars bosses in baby form. They will act as a follower similar to the pet cat and will shout little battle cries behind you. If your baby pet comes into contact with the same baby pet (Bandos pet meets another Bandos pet) they will dance and shout (or gurgle) nice things to each other. If your baby pet comes into contact with a rival pet (Saradomin pet meets an Armadyl pet) they will bicker with each other like children. They will be dropped from each of their respective bosses as an ultra-rare untradeable drop (1-x000).

Question: Should we add a bank chest to the respawn locations on PvP worlds to stop players teleblocking you on the way to the bank?

We toyed with a few options here and we feel the best option we can offer would be to include a bank chest at each of the respawn locations. This will allow you to collect supplies on death or in passing in complete safety, as if you were in a real bank. The size of the safe area will not change, the only addition would be a lone bank chest.

As always, feedback on any option is always welcome.


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Summary
We'll be opening Poll 13 next week, featuring the following questions:

Slayer

• Question: Shall we include the point system from the Smoking Kills quest?
  
• Question: Shall we introduce a co-operative slayer system so you can slay with friends?
  
• Question: Should we introduce the leaf bladed sword as drop from slayer creatures?
  
• Question: Should we introduce broad tip bolts to be bought from a slayer master?
  
• Question: Should we introduce a slayer ring to be bought using slayer points?
  
• Question: Should we introduce broad arrow heads to be bought from a slayer master?
  
• Question: Should we introduce the option to buy the ability to construct a slayer helmet using slayer points?
  
• Question: If the slayer helmet is introduced, should we allow it to be imbued like the black mask via Nightmare Zone?
  
• Question: Should we introduce a new slayer dungeon with segregated slayer monsters which you can only attack if you have them as an assignment?
  
• Question: Should we introduce two new slayer monsters which can be attacked if you have a slayer level of 80+?
  
• Queston: If we introduce two new slayer monsters, should we introduce two new boss variants of the slayer monsters?
  
• Question: Should we introduce a time trial slayer mode which will reward players with additional XP if they complete their task within an allotted time period?
  
• Question: Would you like to see how many of each slayer monster you have ever killed?
  
• Question: Should your character automatically kill gargoyles, rock slugs, desert lizards and zygomites when they reach 0 health and you have the correct item in your inventory?
  
• Question: Should you be able to buy an increased amount of monsters of a task you have received using slayer points?

Christmas

• Question: Should we introduce the Christmas 2006 event?
  
• Question: Would you like to be able to turn existing party hats into tradeable rainbow party hats?
  
• Question: Should the anti-Santa visit Old School and dispense black Santa hats?

High Risk PvP worlds

• Question: Should we introduce a high risk PvP world and a high risk wilderness world where the protect item prayer is disabled?

Other Updates

• Question: Should POH Incense burners be re-lit before they run out, resetting their timer?
  
• Question: Should we add a colour highlight to the charge spell's start/stop messages?
  
• Question: Should we include digit grouping and commas for your XP popups?
  
• Question: Should a log of every fairy ring be added and allow the dials to be turned in both directions?
  
• Question: Should God Wars pets be added as ultra-rare drops to the God Wars bosses?
  
• Question: Should we add a bank chest to the respawn locations on PvP worlds to stop players teleblocking you on the way to the bank?

Mods Ash & Reach
Content Developers