Behind the Scenes - February

Those who joined us at RuneFest may remember designing a boss to be fought in the Dominion Tower, and we promised to release it this year. We also promised a TzHaar rework, and a single-player creature more threatening than TzTok-Jad. Well, this month we fulfil all of those promises, and give you much more besides!

Dominion Tower – New Boss and Improvements

We will be breathing some life into the designs you voted for at Runefest, giving the ’Sunfreet‘ some vicious battle tactics. It will be able to take off out–of-sight, raining fiery death on even the most battle-hardened warriors, and it will have a claw-full of devious manoeuvres to keep you on your toes. To make sure that all members get a blast of Sunfreet, we will create two versions: one designed for players of combat level 110 and above, and another available to all, at a reduced combat level but with the same impressive attacks.

We will also be making a tower-load of other improvements to the general experience. To name a few:

The Dominion Tower Item Exchange – Getting more power-ups than you can use? Exchange the items you amass for XP books!
Goliath, swift and spellcaster gloves improvement – You will be able to own multiple pairs of gloves and we’ll also make them last longer. You shouldn’t find yourself running to and from the Tower when you want to be fighting or finishing off a Slayer task.
Increased XP rates - We will also take another look at the XP rates. Although the main reason for fighting in the Tower isn’t XP, we felt that the rate wasn’t quite competitive enough.

Potion Flasks

It is a sad sight for anyone to see an empty potion vial or 12 sitting in their inventory, whether you’re deep in a dungeon, or halfway round an agility course. We’ve all wondered if it’d be simpler to pour them all in a bucket and wade into the next encounter like a milkmaid.

While we don’t really plan to add potion buckets to the game, we’re added something far more suitable: potion flasks.

You will be able to mine (at level 81) a brand new resource called red sandstone. This is a non-tradable resource that is used to create ’robust glass‘ (another non-tradable, player-crafted resource).

To gain access to a robust glassmaking machine, found in the town of Oo’glog, you will need to have completed the As a First Resort quest. Potion flasks can be created from robust glass at a Crafting level of 89.

These completed flasks will be tradable and will hold up to 6 decanted doses of a potion of your choice, meaning you can take far more doses of potion for those long training trips and boss fights. The flask will shatter once emptied of its contents.

Each player will be able to mine a maximum of 50 red sandstone per day. We hope that the limited supply and high demand for these flasks will mean those who have the Crafting and Mining levels to make the new potion flasks will make a healthy profit (if you choose to sell them rather than keeping them for yourself, that is).

Carnival Time! – Free and Members

Throughout many parts of the real world it’s cold, wet and windy right now, with gloves and scarves aplenty. However, in other parts of the world...it’s carnival season! What better way to warm up than by donning the new carnival headdress, soon to be available at an in-game toy store near you. Diango’s giving them away to free players and members, so there’s every reason to get down and party like its Runeday 1999. Viva El Carnivale!

Graphical Rework of the TzHaar

Races like the TzHaar are unique to RuneScape and deserve the best of treatments when it comes to graphical reworks. So, this time round, we’re graphically reworking EVERYTHING that there is to rework in the TzHaar City. Equipment (aside from the fire cape), environments, characters, monsters, minigames and quests will all get a lick of molten lava paint...and with some really rather amazing new animations.

And what better excuse to visit these magmatic enigmas than a brand new quest and minigame!

The Elder Kiln Quest

The lava is cooling in the TzHaar City, and the Birthing Pools are full of TzHaar that are born without memories. The ancestral wisdom of the TzHaar is being lost, instead of passed from TzHaar to child, causing upheaval that threatens the race most opposed to change. Only an ancient power, The Elder Kiln, can offer an answer but it has not been visited by the TzHaar since the world was formed. Reveal the secrets behind TokKul, and engage with a storyline that satisfies both the lore and combat-craving players among us.

This new master level quest will have requirements of 75 Magic, 60 Agility and 41 Mining, and will require some refined combat abilities to reach a conclusion where you’ll face multiple creatures of around combat level 300. There are no other quest prerequisites, so anyone with the relevant stats can join the fight.

Rewards for completing the quest will include XP, a new ring that increases combat damage when engaging in sport (combat) with the creatures of the TzHaar City, and a brand new title. Last, but by no means least...you will gain access to the Fight Kiln minigame.

The Fight Kiln Minigame

In our most challenging minigame yet, you’ll be asked to sacrifice your fire cape once before even stepping through the door! But who needs a fire cape when there’s a new +8 strength cape waiting on the other side? In this very, very high-level sequel to the Fight Caves, you’ll be fighting waves of increasingly difficult monsters intent on showing you how tough the new ‘TokHaar’ really are. How would you feel about fighting two Jads...at the same time? This double team against some of the toughest bosses in the game will be nothing compared to what awaits in the final wave. You’ll just have to wait and see what resides beneath that bubbling, molten rock...

Players with any combat stats lower than 90 will find progress almost impossible, and you’ll need all the overloads, curses, potion flasks, mega food and top-end combat gear you can muster.

Early Bird Bonus

To encourage you to give our new updates a go, we will be offering a pretty handy skill boost to those of you who master the content within two weeks of launch. Get double XP rewards for completing the quest, and another 70,000 XP if you reach wave 30 of the Fight Kiln within this two week Early Bird period.

We really want people to engage with our best and most up-to-date content as soon as it’s launched, so now there’s an incentive to do so. Look out for more Early Bird bonuses in the future!

Have fun!

Mod Mark
RuneScape’s Lead Designer

What is a 'Behind the Scenes' article?

Behind the scenes is a sneak peek at the planned game updates which we hope to launch in the coming month.

This is, however, only a plan, not a promise that a particular update will be released in a particular way or at a particular time. To get you the highest quality updates as quickly as possible, we usually keep on tweaking and testing right up until the moment before release, so, sometimes, things change or take a bit longer than expected. We aren’t afraid to change our plan if necessary, as we will never launch an update before it is ready.

Looking forward to mining me some red sandstone . Mostly everything else is combat oriented which doesn't interest me that much.

Thanks for the update Shay .

This months updates look pretty fun, a lot of end game content and I'm not sure how I'll go with the fight kiln minigame, but it sounds like it should be fun ^^
The video that showed the quest and the updated city looked neat, I think it showed the boss to the quest but it might be to the end of the minigame, not sure but anyway it looks nice

The flask thing sounds good for pvm, I don't think I'd go out of my way every to use them for slayer since my 4 doses are enough as it is, I'll still get me a few though, probably via collecting them myself.

And new boss and improvements to dominion tower can only be a good thing It gets a little repetitive and I'm still to do my 500 games there zzz lol..

I usually check out the content as soon as it comes out anyway, so I guess I'm looking forward to getting more xp's from ze early bird thingomajig.

Looks like yet another month of quality updates, I'm very much looking forward to seeing how these updates turn out after seeing the quality of January.

Still never been to DOM tower, dont plan on going now either.
Ill probably make some of the flasks when they come out for some money, but most likely wont use them too often.
The fight kiln sounds interesting, but I probably wont attempt it till I get my max cape. Dont want to lose my fc just yet.

Decent stuff

Wow this sounds like an awesome month!

The red sandstone things sounds cool, I do not think it will actually be that much money, but if its I will surely participate in it.
Dominion tower looks like it is going to get a lot better, never been though, but rewards especially look much better.
Tzhaar graphics look amazing, excited for that and for this new quest!
Finally the new mini-game sounds extremely epic! This high level content is awesome, it is something that is supposed to be a challenge and not something that everyone is supposed to be able to do. Things like that do not often come around in Runescape, because people generally whine a bunch if they cannot do something, but this looks like it should be great.

I probably will not be doing any of this (besides the quest!), but that is pretty common for me. I do not like to judge updates based on it they are for me or not, because those would precious few. Instead I like to judge the actual quality and awesomeness of the update, and this month looks sweet.

Think I may cry lol... seems like for those who want to keep their completionist cape we're going to have to kill this new "Jad," and hell 2 Jads's at that before actually fighting this new boss ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I really don't like doing Jad.... FML

Looks like February is combat month. I never spent much time in the Dominion Tower, so I'll be sure to go back and check it out again when they update it. The potion flasks don't sound like my kind of thing, but I'm hoping there will be enough demand to make it a good cash source. I'll stay away from the fight kiln and let someone else figure it out for me. I doubt I could do it without better equipment anyway.

Lots of combat stuff it seems, only looking forward to the new graphical design of ThZaar and the quest.
Hopefully the order armour sets are also going to be renewed but not hoping for it this month.

Some very cool updates this month! It will be interesting to see the prices for the new vials, seems like it could be a viable option to make some money for those with the levels to complete it. And I definitely cannot wait for the tzhaar update, looks great from what I have seen so far!