Behind The Scenes – January

The random gift boxes are opened, the decorations are going back in the dungeon and way too much chompy bird has been eaten. After dreaming that our Christmas crackers and party hats were digital rather than paper, we’re ready for another year of quality updates from RuneScape!

Once again, were committed to bring you a mix of brand new content as well as reworks and total redesigns of some of the older parts of the game... starting with the Barrows!

Barrows Graphical Rework

Sliske and his merry cursed band of wights might be old and mouldy, but they don’t need to look old and mouldy... well, maybe a bit. Coming very soon is a graphical revamp of the ever-popular Barrows. First off, you’ll notice improvements to the burial mounds and murky mist swirling about you. Break into the earth and you’ll no longer be greeted with a grey, dusty tomb, but an ominous catacomb complete with gloomy lighting; macabre masonry; creepily detailed sarcophagi and glowing magical inscriptions. Finally, the brothers themselves are no longer just purple shades, but look like the burly, brutal bad-boys they were in life! The worn versions of the Barrows armour and weapons have also been updated, making them some of the best-looking gear in game!

To celebrate, there’ll be a chance to find loot not previously available in the Barrows, such as a draconic visage, as well as a chance for double drops, for a whole week after launch!

The Firemaker’s Curse

In this quest, aimed at high-level firemakers, you’ll join a rag-tag group of fire fans as they delve deeply in search of secrets of firemaking. Lead the way through a new dungeon, using your skill and dexterity to protect them from a fiery foe who’s anything but warm and fuzzy! This entity is bitter, angry, and able to possess intruders in her underground lair, driving them to acts of murder, so you’ll have to decide who you think is possessed in order to protect the rest of the group.

While you’ll need to be tough to survive, this isn’t an enemy that you can face with swords, spells or arrows. This is a quest about using your ingenuity and judgement to find a way out of a bad situation. Make it through, and you’ll unlock a new Firemaking training method, two Firemaking events in the circus, and one (at a time) of four toasty new pets.

Finally, this quest features Sera – the winning character from our recent Guaranteed Content Poll!

Requirements:

Available to members only.
Level 74 Firemaking
Level 76 Constitution
Level 64 Agility

Hati and Skoll

This month will see the return of Hati Wolf, as well as her sun-munching brother Skoll. The Fremennik are whispering fearfully of the return of Hati and the arrival of Skoll, and need all the help they can get. There’ll more chances to fight Hati for the Combat XP boosting gloves, if you didn’t get them last year, as well as a recharge if you did. You’ll also face Hati’s brother, Skoll, earning you a set of boots that boost Agility or Woodcutting XP gain for a set time. You can also get the cosmetic headgear from Hati if you missed it last time, and there’s a new cosmetic cloak from Skoll to keep you warm.

Troll Warzone

Finally, we’re closing the month with an overhaul of Burthorpe. This is designed to take newly-minted members through the their new skills, but it’s worth taking a tour even if you’re a veteran. There are massive graphical improvements; an awesomely cute baby troll pet who really is what he eats; improved versions of Death Plateau, Wolf Whistle and Druidic Ritual, which can be replayed even if you’ve completed the originals; and a new quest called Let Them Eat Pie where a particularly unpleasant war profiteer gets his just deserts...so to speak.

Along with improvements to the Skill Guide and other interface improvements, 2012 is already looking good.

Happy New Year!

Mod Mark
RuneScape Lead Designer

My birthday month is looking to shape up well! Barrows I'm very excited for, it's hard to stay too long because it's so bland. Also the new quest looks promising, with a new way to train firemaking after all these years. Hati and Skoll are a nice little addition, and the same goes for the Troll Warzone.

All in all I'm very much looking forward to 2012!

2 graphical updates and 2 quests (though 1 noob one)..my favourite updates.
Hati & Skoll look sweet too, exciting month from Jagex.

Nothing stands out as being "WOAH" for me but general game improvements are always welcome, as is giving firemaking a little bit more use

Hopefully visages will crash a little bit so I can stop stressing at my brother for getting one every frost dragon trip he goes on!

04-Jan-2012 16:19:22
Hi

Today we have taken the decision to reduce the requirement for this month’s Firemaker’s Curse quest. We are reducing the Firemaking level required to complete the quest to level 74 (from level 90).

We are also increasing the Firemaking requirement to access the associated pets and one of the unique skill rewards from level 90 to level 91.

The behind the scenes article has been changed accordingly.

Simply put, I want to make this excellent piece of content more accessible to a greater number of players, and I do not think it’s appropriate to ask a player interested in story content to have to get level 90 in Firemaking.

It’s always difficult to make changes to content at the last minute (especially for the developers and testers involved) and I should have identified this at a much earlier stage in the development of the quest. The high-level firemakers will still have access to unique content, so I hope those that already have achieved level 91 will feel that the unique rewards are a return for doing so.

Please remember that statements made in the BTS are often subject to change, although we do everything in our power to avoid it where possible.

Feel free to post your feedback here.

Cheers for reading



Whiners got it lowered to 74. -sigh-

Ugh..I do not like that. There are going to be high level requirements, people should deal with it. When I was lower leveled I loved quests with requirements that I could shoot for..it would motivate me to train. Well not much that can be done now. :/

Thanks for the update, Evaluate. I'll change the first post to match what has been said. I feel the same way that Micah does, but sadly there's not much that can be done.

The change to the fming req pisses me off a lot. Here I and many others were thinking we finally get a quest with a high skill req and low and behold Jagex cave to whiners that are too lazy to spend the few hours needed to get the level and lower it to a laughably low and easy level to get. If the skill had been something other than fming I might have thought 90 was too high but considering how fast and how cheap(free once 83 fming and wcing) it is to train 90 seems like a perfect level for it.

Is it really such a big deal that they lowered the quest requirement? I mean, sure it's disappointing that they are devaluing the quest cape after telling us the requirement was going to be way up there. But it's not like I was going to wear the quest cape anyway. They haven't come out with a quest I have had to train for in a good 3-4 years, and I think the quest cape is to blame. They're terrified to cut out too many of the players who already have one, so they have to gradually climb up a little higher with their quest requirements instead of putting them where they think they ought to be.