Holly and Hawthorn (Easter 2011)

Spring has sprung – the birds are singing and the sun is starting to shine – but there's still an unseasonal chill in the air. This could well be related to the ceremonial handing over of the 'Year', in which the Queen of Snow officially passes on the season to the Queen of Sunrise. For this year's ceremony, the queens have agreed to 'do battle' with evil holly and hawthorn trees.

You will be able to choose your side in this traditional tussle – spring or winter – by chopping down the rival season's evil trees. All players will be able to chop down the wintry holly trees in order to help springtime emerge, while members will have the added option of felling hawthorn trees, to hold on to the bitter cold of winter. All of this tree chopping will be closely monitored by the Season Tree, the look of which will change between the seasons based on how many holly and hawthorn trees get chopped down.

Everyone who pitches in will earn this event's cosmetic holiday reward; however, members will get the added option of giving theirs a useful function, by charging it with the ability to locate and teleport to RuneScape's other evil trees. This works much like communing with a spirit tree, but can be done from anywhere. About a month after the Easter event is removed from the game, the items will lose their charge and become cosmetic.

During the Easter event, we'll be running a couple of competitions. From Friday 22 – Monday 25 April, the player who chops down the most holly and hawthorn trees will receive a RuneScape goody bag. The second competition is to guess at the total number of trees that will be felled over the course of the event. If you want to take part in either of these competitions, or the daily prize draws, you'll need to post on the Easter Tree Competitions thread, so we know to keep an eye on your tree killing skills.

Finally, although this tree chopping 'battle' is only meant to be symbolic, some of the two queens' entourage are taking this year's event a little bit too seriously. Let's just hope that nothing goes wrong... If anything were to happen, there will at least be plenty of adventurers around to set things right.

Mod John A
Senior RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start Holly and Hawthorn:

Head through the Easter portal south of Falador.

Requirements to start Holly and Hawthorn:
None.


In other news...

In honour of the alleged wedding of the King Black Dragon and the Kalphite Queen (and the very real wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton), Diango will be selling some celebratory items in his shop. Everyone is welcome to buy fireworks, firecrackers, bubble blowers, confetti and a souvenir mug. Members can also buy a bouquet of flowers.

We've reduced the produce cost of unlocking the spell rewards at Livid Farm by roughly 20%, based on our post-release analysis and player feedback. This now matches our intended aims with this content in terms of effort vs reward. Players who have already unlocked any spells will receive the appropriate refund of produce, which they can then put towards any other spells they have yet to unlock and/or the wishes.

We’ve updated the sounds effects on the majority of NPCs in the free area of the game (as well as a handful in members' areas). The list is quite large, but includes skeletons, goblins, ghosts, dogs, dragons, and lesser, greater and black demons. We've also updated/added new environment sounds such as twittering birds and river sounds, as well as changed some other sounds such as for lighting fires and opening/closing doors.

We’ve slightly altered the way in which Rated Clan Wars kills are tallied, so as to avoid one clan repeatedly just killing the lowest-level players of an enemy clan to cheaply boost their kill count. Now, each time an enemy clanmate is killed, each subsequent kill of that clanmate will count as less than one kill. Therefore, if one clan repeatedly kills the same player over and over, they will be receiving diminishing returns. This should mean that clans are penalised less for the inclusion of more ‘vulnerable’ clanmates.

The graphical update to mining rocks we first released with the Lumbridge Swamp improvement has now been applied across the rest of RuneScape.

Patch Notes (Click to View)

Graphical


* Transportation icons now appear on the world map for canoes on free worlds.
* The Arrav POH banner now appears correctly in players’ hands.
* Some item clipping issues and occlusion issues on the Wizards’ Tower bridge have been fixed.
* Windmill sails no longer clip with the side of the tower north of Lumbridge.
* A flickering issue in a window at the Rogues’ Den has been fixed.
* The plague jacket inventory icon has been re-coloured to match the worn version.
* The Pollnivneach rug merchant's legs no longer clip through his rug.
* The door in Rimae Sirsalis's shop no longer clips through the floor on the first floor.
* Miazrqa no longer has dark hair on her chathead.
* The barn on Falador's farm no longer causes occlusion issues.
* A flickering issue on the farming patch in Trollheim has been fixed.
* A pool in Legends' Quest is no longer sinking into the floor.
* The church in Lumbridge no longer has gaps in the wall.
* Some lava in the Wilderness has been levelled out.
* Items no longer float in the HAM Base's stage area.
* A flickering issue in the Artisans Workshop track room has been fixed.



Quests and Tasks


* Using an astral tablet no longer requires a seal of passage if the player has completed the Elite Fremennik Task set.
* A grammar error has been fixed in the Grand Tree quest.
* The starting point for Big Chompy Bird Hunting has been updated to state east of the swamp pool, instead of north.
* Pushing a boulder in Legends' Quest now uses new animations.
* Some gnomes in As a First Resort once again have animations.


Activities and Distractions


* The Livid Farm rewards interface no longer loads with all buttons highlighted.
* The Shooting Star D&D no longer disappears when spawning too close to the Circus in Falador.



Miscellaneous


* The God Wars frozen key will no longer get destroyed when running out of charges. It will need recharging before it will unlock the frozen door again, however.
* The lava titan's teleport will now display a one-off message warning the player, even if the regular Wilderness warning has been turned off.
* Large clans can now use the clan settings interface correctly.
* Friends Quick Chat now appears in the correct colour.
* Soul Wars is now included on the list of activities on the clans noticeboard and keywords.
* The fifth person who accepts a founding invite is now given feedback if it was successful.
* The clan cloak’s destroy message now states the correct NPC to speak to in order to reclaim the cloak.
* Calling a pet no longer causes them to walk very slowly.
* It is no longer possible to spam-summon the Champions Challenge imp to prevent griefing pkers.
* The hexhunter bow is now affected by the Desperado Dungeoneering ring.
* It is no longer possible to sell a bound Dungeoneering blast box.
* The level-up messages referring to canoes no longer states that they're members-only.
* A POH servant will no longer drop tea on top of players that are seated, if they have a full inventory.

I actually enjoyed this event - usually i get so stuck and confused but this event was a breeze and easy and I was able to complete it with no help LOL *there is a first for everything!*

I'm glad this event finally came out.. I was finally able to get my Easter based emotes! For some odd reason, I seem to have a break from RuneScape at Easter every year and miss out. Not this time!

The event was good fun too. A different concept too, rather than the normal Easter Bunny tunnels.

Good event, kinda wish there was a "crown" instead of just two tiaras, just so I could wear it with a little more manly flair, but I suppose it could've been worse.

2 tiara's? wait i only got one??? O.O

I think the tiara with the prettiful floral emote is very manly :p

Real rewards? Unlock spells are reduced, woot?

I've given up charging up my crowns. I think one has about 8 and the other 22...

I liked the graphics of the event though. Groovy!

The Bug - Skipping holiday events since 2009 :0 :p

I thought it was pretty good, I like the emote

The emote lasts for like 30 seconds. I think it's even longer than the Cooking skillcape emote. :v