[Update] Snowverload & Dominion Tower Rumble Mode

Snowverload & Dominion Tower Rumble Mode

Love a big boss battle? This is the week for you.

We've opened up Dominion Tower's new Rumble Mode, where you'll fight packs of bosses all at once - either solo or with friends - and seek glory on the scoreboards by surviving as long as possible. We've added a swathe of fiendish bosses to the tower as a whole, too, and beefed up many of the rewards.

We've also unleashed the ice-cold wrath of Snowverload - a frosty boss for the festive season.

Read on to find out more.

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Dominion Tower

Requirements:

RuneScape membership
Combat level 110+
Completed at least 20 selected combat quests

Rumble Mode

Rumble Mode is a new way to do battle in the Dominion Tower, accessible by clicking the stairs in the tower's lobby and selecting it from the interface. You can create a new Rumble Mode instance, or join an existing one - although note that it is possible to set entry requirements and a pass number when creating a game.

The aim is simply to survive - as long as you can - against a brutal, never-ending onslaught of bosses. You'll do this while contending with random events - swarms of evil chickens, tornadoes, wizards, and sheets of flame from the Sunfreet.

There are four special power-ups for the mode, too:

• Booster orb: doubles Dominion Factor gain for the user for 30 seconds.
  
• Vigorous orb: grants infinite adrenaline to the user for 30 seconds.
  
• Healing orb: heals all players' life points and prayer points by 50% of maximum.
  
• Volatile orb: imparts a random effect. More likely to be beneficial than not, but risky nonetheless.

Rumble Mode can be played solo or with up to five players. The cap on bosses increases the more players are involved in the battle - up to ten for a four or five-player instance.

When a player dies, they are removed and can only watch in spectator mode, but note that this does not decrease the cap on bosses for the instance. It's in your interest to keep your teammates alive!

New Bosses

12 new boss encounters have been added to the tower, which are accessible in Climber, Endurance and Rumble Modes, then in Freestyle once they're defeated in one of those.

Note that the quests they're related to now count towards the Dominion Tower's entry requirements:

• Apep and Heru (Diamond in the Rough)
  
• Vanstrom (The Branches of Darkmeyer)
  
• Char (The Firemakers’ Curse)
  
• Dawn (Death of Chivalry)
  
• Khazard and allies (Ritual of the Mahjarrat)
  
• Zemouregal and Enakhra (The World Wakes)
  
• Yelps (The Mighty Fall)
  
• Lol (The Mighty Fall)
  
• Chaos Grimmson and Hreidmar (Birthright of the Dwarves)
  
• Echo of Jas (One of a Kind)
  
• Dragon Hunters (One of a Kind)
  
• Nial Swiftfling (Glorious Memories)

Rewards

Dreadnips can now have their combat styles switched - just right-click them to make the change. They're better at finding their targets, too.

Dominion Markers now grant you increased combat stats and - from tier 2 up - a prayer bonus when planted.

There's also a new upgrade tier for the Dominion Medallion, meaning better stats, more teleports to the tower, and a style-universal accuracy buff. Rack up 1800 kills in Rumble Mode to unlock it. Please note that the double kill counts for unlocks bonus that's active this weekend will not work for unlocking this new item tier.

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Snowverload - Christmas Boss

Free players and members

A bulbous shape is forming in the winter gloom; wicked cackles drifting on the frigid breeze. Snowverload - the player-named seasonal boss - is here, and he's ready to put you on ice!

This frosty monstrosity will manifest at the same time as every second Wilderness Warband, and can appear just north of Falador, in the Varrock Grand Exchange, south of the Clan Camp, or near Draynor Village.

Snowverload is impervious to regular attacks. The only way to weaken him is to take snow from his body (right click on him to do this), and equip the snowballs you receive and pelt him with them.

Dodge his deadly attacks and keep up your snowy onslaught and he'll gradually reduce in size. Once he's been sufficiently weakened, he'll start to move from his original spot.

Once this happens, it's up to you to lure him to the Lumbridge Crater, where the most festive of heroes will step in to vanquish Snowverload…until he returns.

Everyone who contributes to taking down Snowverload will receive two festive paper, and will be able to deliver a second present that day.

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Have Fun!

Have a brilliant week of boss bashing and look out for more festive cheer to come. If you haven't already, read about Winter Weekends - particularly the Minigames Weekends that starts on the 12th, featuring Dominion Tower bonuses.

Enjoy, and join in the discussion on the forums.

Mod Chris L, Mod Wilson and the RuneScape Team

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In Other News

• The Community Christmas Advent-ure is in full flow, with a cuddly Snowverload on offer in today's competition!

Read the patch notes for other updates released today.

Patch Notes (Click to View)

8th December 2014


Graphical


The branches of the yew tree next to Lumbridge Church no longer clip through the walls

The gravedigger top now has arms when keepsaked

A house has been added to the minimap in Ashdale

Players no longer render invisibly if a player looks through certain parts of a willow tree

Fixed some flickering on a window in the Varrock sword shop

Added a transportation icon on the world and minimap for balloon transportation near Varrock's lumber yard

Fixed an issue with drawers clipping through a wall in Brimhaven

Several Varrock emblems have been updated

Suak the Dwarf in the Artisans' Workshop no longer floats above the ground

An out-of-place water source icon on the minimap at the northern Lumbridge chicken farm has been moved

The chain links on the anchor near the entrance to the Heist minigame are now fully visible

Removed an unneeded tree from the Meilyr area of Prifddinas

Removed some trees from the Cadarn area of Prifddinas

The buildings in Lumbridge no longer has green walls or pink roofs, and the wigwams at Cabbage Facepunch Bonanza are no longer blue in low detail

Dropping certain items around energy rifts will no longer cause them to float

Some minor clipping issues in Underground Pass have been corrected


Skills, D&Ds & Minigames


The camera is now fixed in cutscene mode until the end of the Hefin Agility Course

A typo on the D&D tracker entry for Cabbage Facepunch Bonanza has been fixed

The icons used on the Rune Goldberg Machine have been changed to be more identifiable for colour-blind players

A particularly skilled penguin spy who could hide in a blocked area of Isafdar now spawns in a more suitable location

Treasure Hunter item tooltips no longer display over the rewards screen


Quests, Challenges and Achievements


The Plague's End boss music no longer plays when music volume is muted

The combat level for the toughest opponent in the Witch's House quest journal has been corrected

Prevented players from being able to walk around certain swampy sections of Underground Pass

Players can now complete a certain god emissary task meant for Varrock square by planting their flag / lighting a bonfire south of the Christmas tree

Players will no longer receive daily challenges for combination potions they have not unlocked


Other


The camera no longer resets to face north when performing various actions across the game

When delivering tinsel snakes, players with a low Summoning level are now asked if they want to claim the Summoning XP

Players can now decant 5 & 6 dose flasks back to 4 dose potions via Teplin

A message now displays in the chatbox when receiving an expensive drop with the Christmas loot beam effect active

The click zone on the crystal resting animation has been reduced

Lady Ithell now has a bank PIN on the crystal seed storage

Extended the bank's healing effect in the Tower of Voices and Max Guild of Prifddinas

All 'of the (clan name)' titles will now appear in the correct clan colours

Soft clay mined in the Ithell area of Prifddinas will now respawn at the same rate as normal clay

Dyed noxious weapon special attacks will now work correctly in PvM and PvP

Panning trays no longer stall damage

It is no longer possible to cast certain abilities faster than normal with manual spell casting enabled

Crystal pickaxes and hatchets will now protect on death correctly

A swamp toad by the Tree Gnome Stronghold has been washed ashore

Implings are no longer able to find their way up the cliffsides at Shantay Pass

Players will no longer disconnect when trying to switch keepsaked boots in the Stronghold of Security

The price checker will now display the price of multiple items correctly in Ironman Mode

Fixed a few issues with songs playing in the wrong locations around RuneScape

Made various miscellaneous audio improvements, such as tweaking water sounds from some fountains and rivers, and updating the God Wars Dungeon music tracks

The gemstone golem and rune ethereal outfits can now be retrieved from Diango if they are keepsaked


Ninja fixes


Players can now find out how many anagogic orts they have collected today via a right-click option on them

The left-click option on the charming imp is now 'Wear' as opposed to 'Talk-to'

The Robin Hood hat has been tweaked for male characters to sit better on the head

The growth stages for oak and willow trees in Farming patches has been graphically updated

Presets can now be loaded while an aura is active

Starting horns and racing boots have been removed from the game to stop gambling

Players will no longer see achievement banner text from a player on their ignore list

Several abilities and spells will no longer cause the player to stand still when attempting to move at the same time, causing the player to appear like they're running faster to catch up


Engine


The snow effect in the console has been re-enabled

An issue with bloom in OpenGL being offset when using a resized game view has been fixed

An animation movement issue in HTML5 has been fixed