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| Latest RuneScape News - 17th June 2002 We've updated RuneScape and added another two members quests. In the first quest a mysterious stranger called Lucien asks you to retrieve an artifact known as the Staff of Armadyl. Speak to him in the 'flying horse' in Ardougne. In the second quest you must restore the clock tower south of Ardougne to working order by finding and assembling the missing parts. Talk to Brother Kojo in the clock tower. We've also added a fishing guild west of Hemenster which requires fishing level 68 or higher to enter. World map updated - The map has been extended to the left to show the city of Ardougne and other new members areas we have added recently. Latest RuneScape News - 12th June 2002 As promised here is a preview of some of the new 3d models which will be used when we update the RuneScape graphics. This is just a small sample of the total set of models we have, and as you can see as well as converting all the old graphics we are also introducing lots of new monsters at the same time. We've developed some very good 3d model compression technology, which means that even with all the extra monsters RuneScape should load *faster* than it does at the moment once we do the update. There's still a lot of work to be done to get an update of this size online, so it's probably at least two months away, but we'll keep you informed on how it is progressing. Latest RuneScape News - 11th June 2002 Update on RuneScape development progress A lot of the originally planned aspects of RuneScape are now complete, so you might well be wondering what we are now working on, and how we intend to keep improving the game, other than just adding more quests. The really good news is that we have lots more planned, and due to the success of RuneScape members we have been able to put together a larger development/support team, (we now have 11 full-time staff), which means we are finally able to do some of the really big RuneScape updates that we've also wanted to do, but previously weren't possible when just Paul and myself were working on the game. Over the past 3 months I've been doing a lot of absolutely essential work behind the scenes, and laying the groundwork we will need over the coming year, so it's not necessarily been apparent where all the effort is going. I've been working on things such as: - Reprogramming the system to allow us to setup interlinked RuneScape worlds at different locations. This allowed us to setup the uk and new-york servers, and is essential to allow RuneScape to keep expanding. - Interviewing and employing new staff. In the short term this takes up a suprisingly large amount of my time, and actually slowed development whilst things were sorted out. However obviously in the long term this will allow us to do so much more. - Designing the billing and support software that we need to efficiently keep track of who our members are, what payments are due, customer queries, ideas, spot problems quickly, etc.. - A much faster 3d engine, which will be used for one of the massive updates we have planned, (see below). Things like this sure take a lot of time, and that's in addition to the usual bug-fixes, updates, and new features we've been adding at the same time. The good news is that most of this 'behind the scenes groundwork' is now complete, and now I'm looking forwards to working on the exciting bits that build on this. Next we will be working on: - Finishing the new new database driven customer support system. I estimate this will enable our support staff to deal with queries at least 2 or 3 times as fast at the moment, and should really improve the quality of our service. It will also allow us to really effectively stamp down on trouble-makers and cheats. - Vastly vastly improved graphics. We've had two 3d-modellers working on redrawing all the 2d sprites as glorious 3d models for some time now. These really do make the game look a lot better. To work properly this also needs a faster 3d-engine (which is luckily nearly complete). I still need to do quite a lot of work to integrate the new 3d-engine into the game. I hope to get some preview screenshots of some of the new models on the site soon. - Interactive music, which changes depending on what you are doing and where you are. To stop the music getting annoying and repetative too quickly our musician is going to have to write an awful lot of it! Wish him luck :-) - Player owned houses. This is a very complicated feature to add because we don't just want the houses to be empty buildings which do nothing. We are trying to implement all the best ideas we've had from players regarding these, so they aren't just a big disappointment. Making them interesting involves making the maps a lot more interactive than they currently are which is a lot of work, but worth the effort. - The new interactive map system I am developing for the player owned houses is also going to be used for an all new 'scenario' system. This is going to be a really fun feature wherby the game can randomly generate entirely new areas of map on-the-fly. These areas will be tailored to match the abilities of the players entering. This will allow players to form small adventuring teams, and then get away from the crowded training areas and go on their own private adventure. As a result will allow us to add a lot of clever content in these areas which isn't possible at the moment. - The usual new quests, new maps and new monsters, etc... Both Paul and Thomas will be working on this, and I believe they have another two quests nearly ready to go online. There's even more planned after this, but these aren't small updates, :-) and so will certainly keep me busy for the next few months. Andrew Latest RuneScape News - 29th May 2002 Massive crackdown on cheating players. As part of our promised commitment to stamping down and stopping cheats in RuneScape we have developed a new system to automatically detect people using macro/bot software to gain stats unfairly. It clearly says in our rules that using software to automatically play the game for you and raise your stats for you is cheating!. This will not be tolerated. It is just not fair on the players who play the game honestly and get their levels fairly. Our new system is extremely efficient and accurate, and in the last 24 hours we have already identified nearly 2000 players who have been cheating in this way. We also believe that we will be able to identify all future offenders and will continue modifing and improving our detection software to do so. From this point on if you use a macro or use a modified version of the RuneScape client, it is almost 100% certain that you WILL be banned or erased. Since these people gained their stats/items unfairly we have unfortunately had no choice but to completely wipe the stats and inventory of the aprox 2000 people who we have caught using macro/bot software. It seems obvious that these players should not be allowed to keep what they did not gain honestly in the first place. If you are one of the people who we stat-wiped then whining and making excuses to us won't help. Our new system is designed to have a 0% rate of false positives, and we KNOW you were cheating. The stat-wipe is irreversable, so if you want to get your stats back then the only way to do it is to start playing the game fairly, and EARN your way to greatness like everyone else has to. Click here For a complete list of all the people who have already been stat-wiped. We expect to catch more people at it over the next few days. I hope this proves we are deadly serious about stopping this cheating in runescape. Latest RuneScape News - 28th May 2002 Two new members quests are now online. In the first quest you must help the dwarves win a fishing competition. To start the quest look for the passage way at east kandarin. In the second quest you must carry out a number of tasks for the monks south of Ardougne. Latest RuneScape News - 8th May 2002 Both members and free-edition runescape have been updated with new content. First up the members wilderness has been expanded to include: a new level-56 wilderness area, scorpion ravine, pirate hall, rogues to pickpocket, doors to lockpick, high level wilderness dungeon, shadow-spider monster, fire-giant monster. Members also can now trade wood certificates for those valuable logs, and purchase/steal spice from the spice stall which when added to stew before cooking can be used to make curry (heals 19hp) With all these new wilderness areas for members we've decided to make some of the older wilderness areas available to free-edition users. Explore the bandit camp, dark warrior castle, and overgrown village. Free users also now have access to the crafting guild Both members and free versions have been updated with a new 'make-over mage' character, who can change your character appearance... for a price! Latest RuneScape News - 30th April 2002 New members update online! Many RPGs have a thieving/rogue skill and this is something which until now has been missing from RuneScape. We've now added this popular skill to the members version and it includes abilities such as pick-pocketing, picking locks, disarming traps, and stealing from market stalls. For more information about the new thieiving skill please refer to the online manual. In addition we have added a quest which uses the new skill. Can you help the rightful owner steal back the lost tribal totem? The quest starts in Brimhaven, and after that is set entirely in the brand new city of Ardougne. You will need a thieving level of at least 21 to complete this quest, so practice your thieving before you start. Latest RuneScape News - 22nd April 2002 New-York worlds are online. We're pleased to say that we've just brought more new worlds online at a third hosting facility. This means you now have even more choice about where to play which should reduce crowding and lag even further. We are aware that some people are worried about how these extra servers will affect spawn rates. Don't worry we are going to change the algorithms used to calculate spawn rates, to compensate for this. Latest RuneScape News - 12th April 2002 Jagex customer support is back online. Sorry for the recent downtime. Membership signups are also now functioning again I am also pleased to announce that we now have 3 full time members of staff to answer your questions, and a 4th person is joining us on Tuesday! This increased number of staff will enable us to give you more rapid support, and will also mean we are better able to find and punish the players who are breaking our rules. Latest RuneScape News - 10th April 2002 We've made a few fixes to RuneScape today. The demon in the family crest quest was too deep into the wilderness, which was causing a major pking problem and wasn't too popular, so we've now moved it the wilderness dungeon at a much lower wilderness. We've fixed a bug with magic spells which people were abusing to rapidly fire multiple bolts and kill other players unfairly. Now you can drink a potion even if your stats are already boosted. Your stats will still not go higher than the maxmium the potion allows, but this means emptying vials you don't want is easier, and you don't have to wait for the potions effects to fully wear off before boosting your stats to max again. Latest RuneScape News - 9th April 2002 New members quest online! The Fitzharmon family crest has gone missing, and the family honour has been lost. Can you find the crest and return it to Dimintheis in Varrock? There are 3 different rewards available, but you can only choose one, so choose carefully! This is another difficult quest to complete. Next we will be working on some low level quests, to ensure there is a good balance of quests for all levels of player. Latest RuneScape News - 26th March 2002 We (correctly) anticipated that nearly everyone would want to try the new flethcing skill at once and that this would cause a rare-tree shortage! Therefore for just one day we decided to make these trees not turn into stumps like normal. Now everyone has had a chance to try the new skill this has been put back to normal. To compensate the amount of xp you get from woodcutting has been increased. We've also changed fletching slightly because we saw a lot of people weren't bothering to put the string on their bows. This obviously wasn't intended! Therefore the proportion of xp you get from stringing the bow has been increased. In actually fact you now get more xp from making a completed bow, but you have to finish it off to get the full amount. Latest RuneScape News - 25th March 2002 New members map area showing west of Kandarin. You can see this new area and other recent additions on our updated: World Map. New fletching skill is online! The long anticipated fletching skill is now available to members. For more information about fletching take a look in the new-section in our online manual. New members quest! Thormac the sorcerer will improve your battle staffs if you can find his lost lesser kharid scorpions. Starts in the Sorcerer's tower, southwest of Camelot. Woodcutting has been changed to a 1-click system. To cut down a tree you now just need to left click on it. Latest RuneScape News - 21st March 2002 Two new severs are now online now. They hosted in a different location to the previous 6 worlds. This will increase your chances of being able to find a server to which you get a good connection to the game. One new server is members and the other is free-edition server. This means Runescape now has 8 worlds, a total capacity of 10,000 simultaneous users and a massive 35mbps of dedicated bandwidth! Latest RuneScape News - 18th March 2002 We've just put some new members features online. Including: A wilderness dungeon branching off the north end of the Edgeville dungeon Glass making ability. As part of crafting you can now make vials, glasses and orbs. To make glass you need to burn seaweed on a fire to get soda, and mix it with sand in a furnace. Finally use a glass blowing pipe to turn the molten glass into an object. (Hint: these items can be found on Entrana island) Battle staffs. Craft an orb and then charge it at the correct obelix using a cosmic-rune. Finally use your crafting ability to attach the orb to a battle staff from Zaff's staffs. New high level magic attacks are now available. Using the new blood-rune! New teleport spell to Camelot New monster - black unicorn I'm also pleased to say that our new server finally arrived today, so we hope to get it installed this week to add another two freeplay worlds. I'd like to welcome our two new employees: Steve and Ian. They joined us last thursday, and are working in our Cambridge office to handle your customer support queries. We've got a bit of a backlog of questions to work through at the moment, but we're finally able to start tackling it! The RuneScape usernames of all our official staff are now: Andrew, Paul, Ian, Mod_ian and Sirmodsteve. Latest RuneScape News - 3rd March 2002 I sincerely apologise for the brief downtime experienced by players today. After 2 months of uptime our fileserver inexplicably crashed. I hope we can get additional servers setup very soon to reduce the strain on our current servers. Latest RuneScape News - 2nd March 2002 Bug fix update. Todays small update fixes about 8 minor bugs with the game. In particular strange problems seen shortly after a 'connection lost' message should now be fixed, and a few minor glitches with the new quests have been fixed. Latest RuneScape News - 1st March 2002 Firstly a very big thank-you to all our members. Your support is very very much appreciated! We said that the profit from the members would be put back into improving RuneScape, and we're now working hard to do this. During this coming week we aim to get more servers online (to ensure there is enough space for both free users and members). We're also looking for a full-time member of staff to come and work with us in Cambridge(uk) to help us provide a better level of support for our users. We're looking for an energetic person, with good communication skills. Your job will involve answering emails, checking the game-logs and incident reports to ban troublesome users, and coordinating our volunteer moderators. You will be working in our Cambridge office with myself (Andrew), and Paul, If you're interested please send your CV and an indication of what sort of wage you would expect to cv@jagex.com. Please nobody else use this email address, use the support area linked to below, so we can deal with your query properly. Support emails incorrectly send to the cv address will be deleted. Latest RuneScape News - 27th Febuary 2002 RuneScape members is online!!! For lots more information click here For payment options and to sign-up click here Note:The problem we had with the worldpay servers earlier today has now been fixed. Everyone who has paid has now been upgraded to a member. If for some reason you still can't access the members server and you should be able to then please contact the address given in the worldpay receipt which has been emailed to you. February 21, 2002 Why should you upgrade to members version? No-risk! Upgrading your chracter to member status costs just $5/month or $45 for an entire year. If after trying members RuneScape you decide it's not for you, you can simply switch back to freeplay RuneScape. Of course if you do this any members-only items or skills will be disabled, but they will NOT be removed. This means if you subsequently decide to resume your membership the members items and skills you gained before will start working again. Heres a few details of what you can expect in Members version. New Features Herblaw: The herblaw skill allows you to mix a variety of potions, poisons and antidotes. Everything from super-attack potions to poison to put on the tips of your arrows. Duelling: Duelling allows two players to agree to a fight outside the wilderness. Either for an agreed prize, or just for fun. In addition to agreeing on the stake you can optionally select other options such as: no-retreating, no-prayers, no-magic or even no-weapons! Sound effects: Optional sound effects are finally available. There are currently 37 different sound effects on actions such as combat, cooking, magic, doors, mining, smithing, etc. Even more sound effects are planned in future updates. More fishing: Higher level fish to catch. Do you think you've got what it takes to catch a shark? Or perhaps you'll get lucky and net yourself a suprise treasure chest. Double size bank: Twice as much bank space to store your items in, and what with all the new members items and features your going to need it! As well as all the new herbs and potions you can make we've introduce a new range of weapons. Including the dragonstone amulet, the dragon-sword and the dragon-axe. New Quests Druidic Ritual: Before you can start using the herblaw skills you must help the druids complete their ritual. Lost city: Rumour has it that there is a hidden city under the swamp, can you find out how to get in? The fairy market inside apparently has some (literally) out-of-this-world deals! Witches house: A boy asks you to fetch his ball from behind a small house... This apparently simple task turns out to be much more difficult than expected when you realise the house in question is owned by a particularly crazy witch... Hero's quest: Prove yourself as a hero by completing this difficult quest! Only once you have completed the multiple challenges given to you, can you enter the hero's guild to buy the new Dragon-axe. Merlin's crystal: Merlin has been imprisoned inside a giant crystal. Free him and become one of the knight's of the round table. New Locations Wilderness locations: We've filled the wilderness with new exciting places to fight and collect treasure, including the overgown village, bandit camp, dark-warrior castle and red-dragon lava island! Quest locations: We've added a variety of new locations and scenes which as well as providing settings for the new quests are also exciting places to explore and train. These include: Zanaris underground city, Entrana island, Arthur's castle, Fort Grymwold. New towns and villages: Lots of new towns including the pirate town of Brimhaven, Catherby village, and the town of Taverley HUGE members dungeon: By far the biggest dungeon in RuneScape, this collosal labyrinth of passageways and caverns becomes more and more dangerous the futher down you go making it the ultimate place to try your combat skills. Includes lots of new powerful monsters and scenary. New guilds: The crafting guild is a great place to practice your crafting skills, and is available to players with 40 crafting or higher. The hero's guild is similar to the champions guild except even harder to enter, and so only available to the most elite RuneScape players. New Monsters! If the poison scorpions don't get you, then perhaps the level-200 black dragon will! We've added 19 new monsters, and there's something for everyone. As well as new super-strong monsters, there's lots of new opponents for lower level players too. New monsters are: red-dragon, druid, ice-queen, giant-bat, black-dragon, bandit, chaos-druid, white-wolf, baby-dragon, poison-scorpion, ice-spider, black-demon, guard-dog, shape-shifter, blue-dragon, dark-warrior, grey-wolf, poison-spider, thug. Plus In addition to loads of great new features in the game, members also benefit from No adverts! Priority customer support Moderated members-only servers Scammers and cheats will be kicked out As a member you will be helping fund further RuneScape developments and features. In return we intend to add even more features and upgrades to the members-area as fast as we can! Planned member improvements in the near future include a fletching skill (make a variety of bows and arrows), and the option to purchase, furnish, and improve your own house in the game! February 5, 2002 We are planning on a launching a new optional service called 'RuneScape members' fairly soon. This is in ADDITION to the existing 'RuneScape freeplay' service which we intend to keep running. Being a member gives lots of great new features and skills. We currently plan to make it $5/month or $45/year, and to accept both credit-cards and money-orders. The prices are in us-dollars, but we will also accept other currencies. The idea is that the revenue from 'RuneScape members' will enable us to add even more improvements to the game and allow us to keep it going for many more years. We're now in the final stages of preparing our members service, so over the next few days you might start seeing new areas and quests in the game which you can't reach. These will then be opened up for members when we are ready. The members service is NOT yet available, so there is no need to e-mail asking how you can get it. As soon as it's done you'll be able to subscribe from this website(www.Runescape.com). We don't have an exact launch date, but obviously it will be as soon as possible. 29th January, 2002 Dropped item change reversed. Whilst it wasn't intended that dropped items didn't become visible to other players for 1 minute, it seems a lot of people considered it more of a feature than a bug. So this 'feature' has been put back into the game. Note however that relying on this and dropping your valuable items on the ground still isn't a good idea. If you lose your internet connection for a minute whilst your item is on the ground then someone else is likely to take your item, and you will lose it. Also Password Options has changed You just press 'reset recovery questions' type in your new ones, and then in 2 weeks if nobody has opposed the change they switch over. For that 2 weeks each time you login it will tell you that someone is trying to change the recovery questions. If it wasn't you who requested the change you can cancel it, and then change your password quick! Also regarding Rune battle axes and 2h Rune swords, Andrew decided to put them back into the Free game. Members version will instead features 2 new weapons which are even better, the dragon-sword, and the dragon-axe 23rd January, 2002 We are planning on launching as soon as our new customer support system is ready, I'm *hoping* that will be early next week The following are all already fully programmed and ready to roll Some things like fletching aren't on this list, that does NOT mean we aren't doing them, it just means they aren't finished *yet* After the launch we will continue working on the members area, and will add many more improvements and updates Feature herblaw, duelling, sound efects, higher level fish to catch,twice as much bank space. Quest druid quest, zanaris quest, heros quest, ball quest. Wilderness overgrown village, bandir village, dark warrior castle, red dragon lava island. Location zanaris underground city, entrana island, huge members dungeon, town of traverley, crafting guild, heros guild, white wolf mountain, pirate town (brimhaven) and dark wizard tower. Monster red dragon, blue dragon, baby blue dragon, druid, choas druid, bandit, dark warrior, white wolf, grey wolf, giant-bat, thug, poison scorpion, ice spider, guard dog, ice queen, shape shifter. Object dragonstone gem, dragonstone amulet, 2-handed rune sword, rune battle axe, herbs and potions. Other Infor No Adverts, scammers and cheats will be kicked out. Priority customer support. 4th January, 2002 Our order of two new servers arrived from Dell yesterday, and after a few hours work they are now setup and running world 5 and world 6. This increases the total capacity to 7500 simultaneous players. 19th December, 2001 We have finally found the time to update the RuneScape online manual. The manual now contains instructions for all the main aspects of the game, as well as guides for individual skills such as smithing and crafting. I have also updated the world map to show the most recent additions to the world. The map is now in a seperate section to the rest of the manual, just use the link above to view it 28th November, 2001 I've just put a big RuneScape update online. This update includes: Draynor Market - Located in Draynor village is a market, where you can trade fish, ore and bars. The traders there will exchange these for reedemable certifcates which are easier to carry and trade with your friends. New Black Weapons - The black armour range has been extended to include the full range of weapons Level requirements - The armour/weapon level requirements which were voted in last week have now been added. You now need a certain minimum attack/defense to use the higher level weapons/armour respectively. Dyeable capes - New cape colours are in! Green, Purple, Yellow, and Orange. To get these capes you must mix up dyes to recolour the existing ones :-) Minor changes to varrock and falador - Some buildings have been increased in size, and there's a new bank in falador to reduce crowding at peak times. Server limit back to 5000 Unfortunately I've had to put the player limit back to the original 5000. Despite upgrading my kernal, drivers, and improving the efficieny of my network code, the linux operating system still crashes if I try for more connections per box! I hate linux! :-) However I am hoping to get some additional servers to increase the capacity fairly soon. |
