Behind the Scenes – September - 01-Sep-2010

[john wick]

Source: http://services.runescape.com/m=news/behind-the-scenes--september

01-Sep-2010 - Behind the Scenes – September   
Romance blossoms during September in a brand new free-to-play quest, coupled with some rather elite achievements for our most experienced of members. If you’re not busy planning for the Bonus XP Weekend, why not swat up on your legal drama, as we prepare for the latest batch of court cases?

Court Cases: Back in Session

It’s been busy recently at the Seers’ Village courthouse, with cases closed and wrongs righted by those of you skilled enough to argue, examine and accuse, all while wearing a stylish wig. The court case update will consist of 11 new cases (as mentioned in the Back in Session blog), each far more fiendish than those released earlier in the year. Interrogate witnesses in the field, use viewing orb magics to investigate crime scenes and discover incriminating fingerprints for yourself as you uncover the truth behind some of our most popular personalities.

Cases once again navigate through a wide range of issues and characters from Barbarians vs. Mages (looking at RuneScape history from two conflicting perspectives), round Evil Dave, past Professor Oddenstein vs. Ernest, and taking a sharp left turn at the Sandwich Lady. Rewards still focus around Attack and Defence XP, but also include a barrister’s top, and a judge’s gavel that comes with an appropriately themed emote to let you conduct your own brand of justice.

Bonus XP Weekend

As you know from the newspost last week, we’re planning a second Bonus XP Weekend to take place from 3-6th September. We’re taking a slightly different approach this time, though, so do read the newspost or the Second Helping FAQ blog to learn more about this update. It’s a great time to train up those skills you’ve been neglecting, as well as work on your main attributes, with plenty of time to mix and match between all sorts of content.

Elite Achievement Diaries

The Elite Achievement Diaries update is one we have been discussing in our blogs as early as November last year and, finally, we can talk about the release. We are adding some epically high-level diary tasks to all of the Achievement Diaries, and some new hard tasks to the Lumbridge diary. Requirements include stats as high as 95 Prayer, 96 Fishing, 93 Slayer and 92 Firemaking with an inferno adze.

With new challenges come new rewards, of course, and the elite clothing comes with some useful perks. The highlights are access to a new mining area where there’s an NPC who exchanges ores for certs, more Slayer points from Lapalok, High Alch spells for the explorer’s ring and log chests for the beacon network. Not only that, but there are also improvements to the existing diary rewards AND some huge XP lamps? FTW!

Z-buffering

Improvements to our engine will bring a major graphical improvement to the game in the form of z-buffering. This means you will experience less 'clipping' issues (objects/scenery cutting other objects in half or sticking through each other) and find that scenery 'layers' on top of each other in a more predictable way. This will see improvements to high-paced game content like PKing and allow players to better see the threats around them.

Upon release, the end result will be fewer graphical glitches in software mode and we get faster OpenGL! This also bodes well for the future, as we can now design even more impressive areas and characters, particularly for OpenGL. It also allows us to improve the interaction between players in the future, such as multi-player emotes.

Gunnar’s Ground
Love is in the air in this month’s planned quest: Gunnar’s Ground. What can happen when a dwarf poet is rendered speechless by his love for a Fremennik chieftain’s daughter? You’ll face RuneScape’s first poetry composition puzzle and learn about the history of how the Barbarian Village came to be.

This is a brand new quest for the free-to-play game and will be replacing the old Romeo and Juliet quest. As we have often said in the past, we’re always trying to improve our existing content, but some elements just don’t age well and are often best removed entirely from the game; we feel that’s the case with Romeo and Juliet. Don’t worry, though: nobody will lose out on Quest Points or rewards.

In other news...

We also plan to speed up the Shantay Pass, give compost bins the ability to tell you how full they are, increase the clickable area of rope swings and allow you to define the colour of your Clan Chat.

Have fun!

Mod Mark
RuneScape Lead Designer

[Kate]

So wait... They're gonna remove the Romeo and Juliet quest?? I thought that was funny! To me, they shouldn't get rid of it. I know we won't lose any points, but once a quest is there it should never be removed. =/

Time to convict more people!

[Roanlo Zolo]

Two F2P quests in one year O_o I can't handle that kind of change!

Court Cases = Yay, a finished D&D!

Elite = Woo, too bad i'll never be able to finish them XD. 93 Prayer, i wish! I just hope there's a farming one for me!
Wonder how much the current level 3 achievement outfits will change. Varrock/Falador/Seers already have the highest level of armour (Varrock=full plate, Falador=Large Long shield, Seers=Gold...guess Elite could be platinum?

With them changing the current ones as well, i hope i won't lose any of my current ones. Wonder if i'll get random bonus exp for it?

Z buffering. I hope to lord Armadyl that this will fix those flashing glitches and how there's a black hole in every single bush patch.

Sure this quest will be interesting; but if we don't lose our quest points, and Romeo/Juliet is completely removed... 1, what'll happen to Juliet's house. 2, will we actually be able to do this new quest, 3; what'll happen to poor ROMEO!!!!

give compost bins the ability to tell you how full they are,

YAY!!!!

[Ben]

New F2P Quest: Looks alright, better not be another tutorial quest...

Wasn't Romeo and Juliet the first quest they made or introduced?


Elite Diaries: About time...


Colouring Clan Chat: Yay, pretty colours.

[Ady]

Why do they keep removing quests?  Why not just keep them all? Makes more quests for Free to Play.

Most of this looks confusing to my brain to process

[Roanlo Zolo]

New F2P Quest: Looks alright, better not be another tutorial quest...

Wasn't Romeo and Juliet the first quest they made or introduced?

The first quests released (In 4 January 2001 -RS Classic Beta release) were: Cook's Assistant, Romeo and Juliet(To be replaced), Demon Slayer, Shield of Arrav, sheep shearer (replaced), The Restless Ghost.
Source: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_recent_quests

[Kate]

IT'S STUPID! I don't see the point of removing old content, especially old quests. Jagex is making really stupid decisions this month.

[john wick]

well the quest was kind of useless you didn't get anything from it but quest points, anyway the new quest is going to be about Barbarian Village =)

[High]

well the quest was kind of useless you didn't get anything from it but quest points, anyway the new quest is going to be about Barbarian Village =)

^
Romeo and Juliet definitely needs to be replaced. The reward is pretty bad as well. Also, as it was released early, it probably wasn't done too well. You can probably tell that Jagex is getting better with updates over time, replacing old content is necessary. Sure, they COULD change the coding but Romeo and Juliet had a fail, stupid storyline that everyone already knows. Change is please .

[Kate]

They've could of updated it, just like Sheep Shearer. But, no. Jagex just thinks everyone is gonna be happy with removing an old quest and replacing it with something THAT'S GONNA BE EXACTLY THE SAME THING JUST UPDATED. It's another love quest... I guess people who are in it just for the reward would never understand, sadly.

Now, off that... Z-BUFFERING FINALLY!

[Ben]

The first quests released (In 4 January 2001 -RS Classic Beta release) were: Cook's Assistant, Romeo and Juliet(To be replaced), Demon Slayer, Shield of Arrav, sheep shearer (replaced), The Restless Ghost.
Source: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_recent_quests

Cook's Assistant and the Restless Ghost all received updates earlier this year. So you can basically remove them. That means Demon Slayer and Shield of Arrav are the only remaining original quests to remain unchanged.

And, 5 Quest Points is a rather big reward for a basic quest, considering off the top of my head the only other one to give more than 4 is Recipe for Disaster. This means that the new quest MUST have at least 6 as no one is losing quest points.

[john wick]

So has Vampire Slayer, they have added some cutscenes to it

[Ben]

So has Vampire Slayer, they have added some cutscenes to it

As you can clearly see in my post, I never once used the word "Vampire Slayer".

In future, please read my post carefully.

Thanks,
~~Ben

[john wick]

  what is it with you, im adding something to the post i wasn't quoteing you

[Roanlo Zolo]

He was simply adding to your discussion Ben. Vampire Slayer was the 7th quest released, only 24 days after the first five. This makes it still equally a 'early' quest. Also take note, that 'witches potion', which was also a removed quest (albeit mini-quest now) was the 12th quest released.  Taking on these notes, i would reasonably call all 'original quests' before members was released in early 2002. No need to add to an argument.

And, 5 Quest Points is a rather big reward for a basic quest, considering off the top of my head the only other one to give more than 4 is Recipe for Disaster. This means that the new quest MUST have at least 6 as no one is losing quest points.

I believe it will simply replace it. Giving 5 quest points. Considering what the given plot is, it sounds like a remake of Romeo and Juliet just for another area of Runescape.