M9AXDqaC

1Has the Community-Run Polling System Suceeded in
2
3OldSchool Runescape?
4Reviewing Almost Five Years’ Worth of Updates
5@Gingbino_hi - Massive Loser
6December 12, 2017
7
81
9
10Contents
111 Overview 3
121.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
131.2 About Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
141.3 What’s in an Update? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
152 The Updates 6
162.1 2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
172.2 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
182.3 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
192.4 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
202.5 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
213 Closing Words 53
22
232
24
251 Overview
261.1 Introduction
27This is a review of the updates that have come into Oldschool Runescape coloured by my personal
28biases and views on the game.
29So, I’d been feeling a bit less negative than normal about the game lately and wanted to take the
30chance to talk about some of the content and updates that had been added to OSRS that I actually do
31like. The updates that I think did a good job of both advancing gameplay and keeping a consistent tone
32in place. And what surprised me was just how much of this content there was. I wanted to explain why
33I thought this content was good by comparing and contrasting it with the stuff that wasn’t so good.
34What didn’t surprise me, however, was just how much content has been brought into the game that not
35only doesn’t meet this criteria, but actively goes against it. Reductive content that aims to make the
36game less engaging and less consistent. I found myself focusing so much more on the negative
37aspects of the updates that I wanted to compare them to. And that’s because that’s where the humour
38is, that’s where the passion is. It is an order of magnitude more difficult to praise something with some
39degree of eloquence compared to finding issue with it.
40From that, and a failed experiment to do a video review of each and every update to the game, this
41document was born. Quite simply, I have far too much time on my hands that I do not want to spend
42doing anything productive and that I want to fill with passion projects. But they’ve all but expired.
43The slayer calculator works, and I consider it a success. The no-alts hiscores failed for the large part
44because I stopped caring about them and I do not possess the actual technical know-how to make
45them work very well at all. And then the love child of those two ideas, something like the slayer
46calculator but for all skills in the game, just never picked up any steam with people. No one wanted to
47use it, which is fair enough because it seems that a lot of people have their own versions of it.
48And that’s where this comes in. I want to make a decent review of the updates in the game, giving my
49opinion on the ones that stand out, and trying to provide justifications as to why I think a large amount
50of them are not up to standard. As I sit here typing up this overview I don’t quite think I realise just how
51long it will end up being, but I do know that it is something that I want to do.
52Making a video felt like the easy way out. I don’t have the ability to make a video that I would consider
53up to par, and so it would end up being a poor commentary weighed down by a mumble, an
54imcomprehensible accent, and a pretty awful microphone. People would watch the video, say oh that
55was a video, then go on. I feel like written works seem to carry more impact in the places that matter.
56The unfortunate thing is that I really hate those yellow text on black background images that people
57jack off to so much and so I doubt that this will see quite as much support as those. But I do want to
58have something that I can leave as a final work.
59I intend to go through each update chronologically, picking out the key individual updates that I believe
60carry the most weight. I’ll avoid commenting too much on content that I don’t have experience with
61(PvP, high-end PvM, minigames). There might be some satire sprinkled in, it is up to you to decide
62what does and what doesn’t fit in that category. I might even try to draw some conclusions at the end.
63
643
65
661.2 About Me
67To provide some context for those people who don’t know anything about me or my story in this game,
68hi. I go by the name Gingbino in most online communities that I’ve been a part of and that is probably
69my RSN right now (it tends to change a bit). I’ve been playing OSRS since around a month after its
70release, only taking a few breaks that have been largely influenced by real-life circumstances. My play
71time, as of writing this, is around 14,000 hours - a smidge over eight hours spent playing a day.
72In terms of Bartle player types, I would regard myself as a mixture of Achiever and Explorer, more the
73former than the latter. I’ve always been focused on finding a happy medium between efficiency and
74enjoyability in the skills that I train, again more the former than the latter.
75I could be pretty accurately classified as a member of the high-level community of experience-driven
76players, being one of the few players that reached a front page EHP rank in early 2014 and managed
77to hold it since then. In this high-level community, I’ve reliably been one of the more conservative
78players - I don’t use alternate accounts and frequently argue against anything and everything that
79comes into the game. I enjoy OSRS because it is supposed to be an oldschool-styled MMORPG that
80hasn’t been left to the dogs.
81I’ve have basically max total level since May of 2014 and so a lot of my thoughts are geared towards
82end-game play. I don’t really consider gaining levels to be a real obstacle to unlocking content due to
83how long I’ve had all of my skills at a high level.
84I appreciate a lot of the minor inconveniences that the game has. I don’t mean that to say that I enjoy
85them, but more that I like them being there. I feel that they add life and legitimacy to the game. My
86playstyle and approach to the game is all about looking at the resources and the systems in front of me
87and trying to find the best possible ways to use them.
88My major biases that will likely come through is that I don’t really see any level grind as a genuine
89obstacle and I believe that intrinsic motivations should take priority over extrinsic ones. I’ve been 99 in
90(basically) all skills since early 2014 and greatly enjoyed leveling those skills. Because of this, a lot of
91the times I look at new updates that come into the game I will focus a lot more on the rewards that
92come from it rather than what is required to unlock them.
93I think that the reward from leveling a skill should be the levels that are gained in that skill, nothing
94more. The only reason that you should have for gaining levels in a skill should be to unlock content
95that is directly related to that skill. The only reason that you should have for gaining experience past
96level 99 is because you like training that skill and want to keep going.
97Before getting into OSRS, I survived on a steady diet of games that either didn’t see frequent updates,
98or simply didn’t see any updates at all. For this reason, I will typically take the stance that the initial
99build of the game was how it was intended to be and that anything added to it after the fact is not
100needed.
101You probably don’t agree with these things and I can understand why.
102
1034
104
1051.3 What’s in an Update?
106Before I get to talking about the updates themselves I’d like to outline what I look for in an update. The
107things that I deem to be important. I am not particularly fussed by new updates coming into the game
108that make experience rates faster, that offer a great money making method, or that are easy to
109perform. As long as they are balanced accordingly there is nothing wrong there. Those three aspects
110of a piece of content (experience rates, associated cost/profit, effort) are what I see as the most
111important balancing mechanics. Nothing should be fast, cheap, and easy. That would be unbalanced.
112And by that same logic nothing should be slow, expensive, and hard. That would just suck.
113Mining is a great skill to use to illustrate what I mean here.
114
115Method XP Rate GP Rate Simplicity
116Amethyst Awful Low-Medium Heaps
117Motherlode Low Medium High
118Blast Medium High Medium
119Quarry High None Low
120
121Nothing on here is so much better than everything else that there is no reason to not do it. Motherlode
122Mine, Blast Mining, and the Quarry, in particular, have a great system going on where each would be
123completed by different players who want to play the game in different ways. They are all quite different
124methods of training the skill mechanically and offer a nice variety in the gameplay as well. This is the
125sort of standard that I will be using.
126And then on a more personal level, a list of things in updates that I hate:
127• Making existing content that sees heavy use even better. This could include making the experience
128rates from them higher, making them easier to get perform in some way, or making them easier
129to get to. Examples of this would be the continued buffing of the Motherlode Mine, the continued
130buffing of Fairy Rings, and every single teleport from an Achievement Diaries reward.
131• Content that only exists for the benefit of the player. An example of this is right-clicking on NPCs
132to teleport.
133• Content that quite simply does not make any sense. An example of this is being able to combine
134two pizza halves together without the need for an adhesive of some sort.
135• Making content easier so that players who do not want to do it do not have to spend as long on it.
136Two examples of this would be Zeah and ZMI Runecrafting.
137• Pets. Just not a fan.
138There will be a subsection for each update included in this document. P indicates that the update was
139polled. UP indicates that the update was unpolled. BF indicates that the update was classified as
140a bugfix. GM indicates that the content went through the Oldschool Graphics Machine and is just a
141reskinned update from the live game. OC indicates that the content is original content. The dates for
142each listed update will be provided. Some context for older updates will be provided.
143
1445
145
1462 The Updates
1472.1 2013
148Games of chance removed - 18 March 2013, UP
149This one is hard to disagree with. Defining the rules and removing the ability for players to abuse games
150of chance outside of Jagex’s control is a good thing. Nothing positive could have come from allowing
151this to remain in the game. Starting out here on a positive note. Also indicated an intent from the dev
152team to crack down on activities that they did not deem to be legitimate early on.
153Toy mice patch - 21 March 2013, UP, BF, GM
154Prior to this patch, players were able to stand in a small room and release toy mice for upwards of
15560k/h. This XP rate was higher than the alternative at that level, was very AFK, and was considered by
156the devs to be an overpowered training method. Another good update early on that showed intent to
157balance things. This was done by reducing the amount of experience gained from picking up the mice,
158not by removing the method. Doing so retained the mechanic but reduced the effectiveness of it as a
159training method.
160Quality of Life - 21 March 2013, P, GM
161The start of the term “Quality of Life” updates, a term which was later dragged through the mud. Tab to
162reply to private messages is a pure form of a quality of life update. It made the experience of
163interacting with the game a more seamless one without directly changing anything about the gameplay
164itself. This basic concept should be seen as a template for all future QoL updates to be based upon.
165Toggle run status being retained between logins rewarded players who were too lazy to remember to
166re-enable their run.
167Left-click on bank booths to open the bank created a nice alternative to the existing system. It was
168easier to click on the bank in this way, but the interface opened slower when compared to interacting
169with the banker while running into the bank. Also had a nice system where an interaction with a bank
170booth was to open the bank, while an interaction with the banker was to open dialogue with the banker.
171This makes a lot of sense.
172Cannon ownership - 4 April 2013, UP, BF, GM
173Placing a cannon down and then switching to another world enabled a player to steal the cannon of
174another player. This update fixed that. This is a good update because it reinforces basic integrity issues,
175does not influence gameplay in any negative way, and works to remedy an actual mechanical issue with
176the original build of the game.
177Single-player implings - 4 April 2013, UP, BF, GM
178Bug fix that works on both a gameplay and a logical level. Two players being able to catch the same
179impling removed a degree of resource scarcity, and a single impling only being able to be caught by a
180single player makes a lot of sense.
181Trade chat - 11 April 2013, P, GM
182Made it so that any chat lines sent by another player while you had a trade window open with them
183would appear in the trade tab of the chat box. Fantastic update. This served to make trading a more
184convenient process without diminishing the trading experience in any way. If anything, this encouraged
185players to interact and to barter while trading due to how much easier it became.
186
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188
189Alchemy Queueing - 11 April 2013, P, GM
190Bad update. Only served to make an existing and common training method even easier. Rewards lazy
191players for not paying attention and for not being able to keep up a consistent timing that was in no
192way actually difficult.
193The main benefit, from the dev side of things, is that this would have been seen as an update to
194counter the use of auto clicking tools. People would be a lot less likely to use such a tool when their
195timing did not need to be quite as precise. I am not saying that this removed auto clickers from use
196entirely, but it would have helped sway those considering using one.
197Prison Pete - 25 April 2013, UP, BF
198Increased the size of the balloons inside ScapeRune so that they were easier for players to click on.
199The beginning of the end for random events.
200Fake F2P worlds - 9 May 2013, P
201A fairly odd update with some very poorly worded devblogs and polls about it. Created because PKers
202couldn’t seem to trust each other to not suddenly pull out a whip in the middle of what was supposed to
203be an F2P-only style fight. Still, a good update, because it allowed for people to do something while
204having no negative effects on anyone else.
205Was also a bit of a PR misstep with quite a few people complaining that they could not log onto the
206F2P worlds because they still required membership.
207Fight Cave continuation - 9 May 2013, P, GM
208Mixed feelings towards this one. On one hand, it allowed players to not have their gameplay be
209interrupted by real-life situations that were out of their hands such as disconnections or their mother
210wanting them to empty the dishwasher right now. Also removed some of the unfair advantages gained
211by players with no real-life commitments.
212On the other hand, it removed some of the impact of a Fight Caves completion. This was no longer a
213single, gruelling affair that needed to be completed all in one go. Players could now go for bathroom
214breaks, cold showers, or even have a nap if they were feeling tired from the exertion of the combat.
215Check Slayer Gem - 9 May 2013, P, GM
216The first non-bugfix Slayer update. Did not set a good precedent for the updates to follow. The update
217allowed players to simply right-click on their Slayer Gem to find out how many they had left in their
218task. The main use for this was in simple resource allocation. It allowed players to not waste resources
219nearing the end of a task without actually being aware of what they were doing.
220This meant that the player no longer had to either manually keep track of the number of monsters
221remaining in their task or to waste time consulting the Gem. The old system created a distinct tradeoff,
222each having their own advantages and disadvantages. Combining them into one system meant that
223the other two options may as well not exist.
224Number input box changes - 9 May 2013, P, GM
225Decreased the time taken to complete a trade and encouraged numerical illiteracy. If you were to raise
226a child on this game they would not be able to tell you how many 0s there are in a million.
227
2287
229
230Fight Cave AFKing - 16 May 2013, UP
231The nerfing of proto-NMZ. Before this update, players were able to AFK the first few waves of the Fight
232Caves for some very easy but horrendously slow combat experience and simply re-enter after they died
233to continue on with it. The speed with which they fixed this astounds me considering how long it took
234them to patch the combat logout timer. Good update.
235Tool Leprechaun slavery - 23 May 2013, P, GM
236The first update to remove NPC agency and reshift their purpose towards the player. The Tool
237Leprechaun was no longer a helpful young man hanging out around farming patches, he was now a
238slave to the player. Forced to stand in a single tile for the rest of his life. Allowing him to note produce
239is something that I’m a bit more mixed on. From a gameplay perspective, it’s great and made farming
240sow much easier.
241I had not trained Farming at all before this update and so my view of it is skewed towards appreciating
242the current state it is in. But at the same time, this would have drastically increased the supply of
243allotment produce into the game. Players no longer had to take into account how much they would be
244harvesting, how quickly they could travel to a bank and back, or even how to path their route during a
245farm run to minimise the amount of time wasted by banking their herbs. Likely crashed Watermelon
246prices.
247Magic Carpet changes - 23 May 2013, GM
248Destroyed any sort of headcanon that players might have had regarding the magic carpet operators
249being seen as neutrals in the war-torn and radicalised desert areas. Being able to brandish a weapon
250at these previously peaceful citizens and forcing them to take you to places without so much as a word
251of thanks removed some of their significance and reduced them to nothing more than transport mules.
252Ectophial refilling - 23 May 2013 P, GM
253The Ectophial was already an unlimited, free, and instant teleport to a place that was reasonably close to
254a bank, a farming patch, and a fairy ring. This heavy use meant that stupid players became increasingly
255frustrated when they forgot to perform the simple task of using an inventory item on a section of the
256environment as payment for the fantastic teleport provided to them. Did not serve to better the game in
257any way, only to make it easier. Bad update.
258TzHaar Rune Shop fix - 31 May 2013, UP, BF
259This one is down as a bug fix, but I would classify it more as a balancing change. The change was made
260to slow down the respawn rate of runes at the TzHaar rune shop. The rate being high was not exactly a
261bug. An instance of the dev team directly interfering when they saw something as potentially damaging
262to the player-run economy, due to how it would control rune prices at a much lower price point than what
263the players themselves were setting them at. Good update due to it not hurting any actual gameplay
264while making things better for people engaging in other content.
265Chatbox text wrapping - 31 May 2013, P, GM
266This was the first poll that I remember as being something that should have just been implemented. Did
267not change anything at all from a gameplay perspective, as in-game messages did not encounter the
268issue with text not wrapping. Great update that I liked personally, but I can see how some text minimalists
269could have been upset by their artform being ruined. Did not actually work fully until the following week.
270
2718
272
273Dedicated worlds - 6 June 2013, UP, GM
274A fantastic update that made certain content much more alive. Improved the lives of people trying to
275play minigames that had distinct goals in mind, such as Shade of Mort’ton or Trouble Brewing. Also a
276huge boon for the Roleplaying community.
277Nardah Herbalist - 13 June 2013, P, GM
278This would not be the last time that Zahur felt the wrath of the player character’s supremacy. In the
279past, she had been able to clean herbs for the player and charge a fee for doing so. This update meant
280that she would now decant potions for the player with no attached cost. One could argue that travelling
281to Nardah itself is the cost; helping her out through the revenue that the tourism would generate. The
282problem is, she would not directly see any of these benefits.
283This update created a massive divide on the Zybez trading section for people looking to buy and sell
284potions, with half of the listings being under 3-dose and the other half being under 4-dose.
285Item repairing - 13 June 2013, P, GM
286This was also an update that had an NPC providing an additional service to the player for no additional
287cost. Being able to repair more than one item at a time could have been implemented with an increased
288repair cost to compensate Bob for the extra effort.
289Ana - 13 June 2013 UP, BF
290In direct opposition to the previous two updated mentions from this same batch. No longer being able
291to bank Ana in a barrel gave her more, rather than less, freedom. Possibly annoyed some rare item
292collectors out there.
293Elven Teleport Crystal recharge - 20 June 2013, P, GM
294With this update, the player no longer needed to enter new dialogue for each crystal that they wanted
295to be recharged by Eluned. This one did at least have the trade-off of still taking time to charge each
296individual crystal. I would say that this was a good balancing mechanic on the part of the dev team, but
297the unfortunate truth is that they were forced into this solution by engine limitations.
298Dwarf Cannon construction - 11 July 2013, P, GM
299The cannon could now be placed down with a single click on the barrel rather than needing to use
300each part sequentially and could be reloaded with a single click. The cannon is one of those items that
301people just can’t seem to stand how it operates. Despite it being an extremely overpowered item, one
302that both aggros an area and does damage in the process, it is still just not quite good enough. Despite
303the fact that it lasts for 25 minutes once set up, the act of using three items on another item once you
304have set it down in a process that lasts no longer than five seconds is far too taxing. And despite the
305fact that you only have to reload it once every 20 seconds or so, having to use the cannonballs on the
306cannon is still just that little bit too hard for some.
307People love to spout the argument that it’s slower to refill the cannon by single clicking on it. And this is
308true. But in practicality, this does not matter because the people single clicking on the cannon to refill it
309do not care about the tick wasted. Give the cannon infinite ammo.
310Waterskin refilling - 26 July 2013, P
311Great update. Not being able to refill waterskins at some water sources arbitrarily makes no sense.
312Again, this fixes an actual issue with the original build of the game.
313
3149
315
316Untradeable alch value changes - 2 August 2013, P
317This is another one that will pop up every so often but I’ll only mention it this one time. Players
318requesting that items that do not have any inherent value be protected over items that do does not, in
319my opinion, make sense. The update here made it so that the Fire Cape, the Rune Defender, and the
320Penance items had their alchemy values increased so that they would protect specifically over Rune
321Armour and the Dragon Battleaxe.
322The fact that they were updated to specifically protect over certain items, but not others, is what
323bothers me here. Why rune armour? Why the DBaxe? Why not the DFS or other high-value items?
324Why only those untradeables? This is an update made to specifically cater towards a player-created
325playstyle and metagame. The most bizarre part of the update is that while increasing the high alch
326value they also prevented players from being able to cast alchemy spells on the items. Surely, if you’re
327increasing the value of the items you would still want players to be able to alch them.
328It is a stopgap solution to a bigger problem. What could have been fixed was how the game
329determined which items dropped on death. What should have been fixed was the players being a
330bunch of babies.
331Gnome Slavery - 2 August 2013, P, GM
332The start of the NPCs-as-transport-buttons updates. Elkoy, Daero, Waydar, and Lumdo may as well
333not even exist as characters. Giving a right-click option on them to teleport does not fix the perceived
334issue that players have, the absolute need to travel to a place right now. A better update here, and in
335all instances of this sort of update, would be to replace the NPCs entirely with the pipes from Super
336Mario games that would simple teleport the player directly to where they needed to go.
337I’ll stop bringing this idea up because of how repetitive it will get, but rest assured there are a lot more
338cases of NPCs being reduced to nothing but instant teleports.
339Make-plank confirmation removal - 2 August 2013, P, GM
340Similar in concept to the high alch queueing update on the surface, but I think that this is a far better
341update. It made a method that was previously pretty poor into a viable one while also revitalising aspects
342of the economy. Alching items was already the meta and the preferred way to train for a lot of users.
343I see this as addressing an oversight in the initial creation of the spell, where the devs did not expect
344players to want to create a lot of planks using the spell and use this as a training method.
345Goblin Invasion - 2 August 2013, UP
346The first unpolled update that was not counted as a bugfix. Absolute rubbish. Was pushed into the
347game under the idea that it was a “community event”, despite the fact that no one from the community
348voted on it coming into the game. It introduced some new locations to train combat skills, such as a
349chinning location that you could stand on without taking any damage from the NPCs you were killing.
350This one set a very bad precedent and the lack of community backlash only occurred because it was
351overpowered and people wanted to abuse it. The most egregious part of it all is that they had the gall
352to create a poll where the community decided just which monster would be invading the game. There
353was no threshold required for the winner, the one with the most votes got in. The first major example of
354the players being given the illusion of choice. Expect to see this idea come up a lot more later on.
355
35610
357
358AFK Prayer - 15 August 2013, P, GM
359This was the first update that really riled up the high-level skilling community. People spoke of it as the
360beginning of a slippery slope towards future updates and were dismissed. Well, look at where we are
361now. Again my issue here is that it did not actually solve the problem. Players wanted an AFK way to
362train their prayer skill. And so rather than waiting until they had the proper dev tools, which they had
363been working on at this stage, an existing training method was repurposed to be that AFK one.
364Before this, players who wanted to train prayer by using bones one by one on an altar in a
365player-owned house only had to compete with other players who wanted to train prayer by using bones
366one by one on an altar in a player-owned house for their resources. Now, the prices of bones were
367directly tied to what was effectively two separate training methods. This update did irreparable damage
368due to short-term thinking.
369Port Sarim deposit box - 15 August 2013, P, GM
370Dumb idiots who forgot to deposit stuff were no longer punished. Bad update.
371Multiple Spirit Trees - 22 August 2013, P, GM
372This removed basic resource allocation and helped players who struggle with the idea of opportunity
373cost. I do like how it gave purpose to higher levels of farming. In this update, they also added the ability
374to protect the Calquat tree using poison ivy berries as payment, which makes sense from a consistency
375perspective and gave purpose to an item that might not have had much.
376PID no longer relying on IP - 29 August 2013, UP, BF
377Great update. Removing the Duel Arena would be the better way to counter scamming and RWT.
378Nightmare Zone - 5 September 2013, P, OC
379No real comment here. Extraordinarily poor execution. Just reduce the experience gained from killing
380the monsters in there. Or remove Overloads. Or literally anything.
381The only positive was addressing the issue of low-level players not being around as much, and so the
382supply of items such as Pure Essence and Flax was able to increase. Maybe it shouldn’t have
383increased quite as much as it did, though.
384Bank changes - 12 September 2013, P, GM
385I continue to disagree with almost all changes made to the bank interface over the years. It was a place
386where you stored items. Adding a search button, a deposit inventory button, and a deposit worn-item
387button does not add anything to the experience, it only takes away from it.
388Login screen mute - 17 September 2013, UP, BF, GM
389Top tier update.
390Drinking and running - 19 September 2013, UP, BF
391This is the sort of update I probably should be disagreeing with. But man it pissed me off when they
392somehow made it so that players would stand still while drinking potions. I’d done almost all of RC
393being able to drink and run, and so to have that privilege taken away from me was devastating.
394I think this one also fixed cannons not rotating while drinking a potion, which was a genuine bug and
395there is no decent reason for that to occur.
39611
397
398NMZ Balancing changes - 19 September 2013, UP, BF
399”Some balancing changes have been made in Nightmare Zone to favour players who’ve
400completed a wider variety of quests, not just the Lunar series.”
401Not the fix I’m looking for.
402Ring imbues - 26 September 2013, P, GM
403You can now make an already best in slot item more powerful by engaging in the best combat training
404in the game. There is no actual cost to the player for imbuing these rings. They are doing something
405that they would be doing anyway and gaining an increased reward. Bad update.
406Black Mask imbues - 26 September, P, GM
407Another update that is not addressing the actual issue. The problem that this update tries to fix is that
408the Black Mask is a stupidly overpowered item and easily one of the most broken things in the game.
409But it only works on melee. Being able to use the accuracy and damage boosts for the other combat
410styles would be fine if it was implemented in a half decent way, such as the Focus Sight and the
411Hexcrest on the live game.
412There is an actual cost to those items. Being able to imbue the Black Mask with NMZ points makes
413two things that are already broken content more worthwhile to do.
414Scrolls of Redirection - 26 September, P, GM
415Gain teleports to locations with no opportunity cost by engaging in the best combat activity in the game.
416There is, once again, no trade-off here. Deciding where you put your house no longer means anything.
417This idea could have at least been implemented in a better way. Make the scrolls the drops from a
418monster that is otherwise not great to kill or something.
419NMZ Balancing changes - 10 October 2013, UP
420”We have also made the overload potion in Nightmare Zone hit you for 50 hitpoints of damage
421when you drink it, in a similar way to how it worked before EoC.”
422Still not right.
423Removal of the profanity filter - 17 October 2013, P, GM
424Still not a fan of this one. Creativity died out.
425Anti-fire expiration warning - 17 October 2013, P, GM
426Idiot tax.
427Godwars Dungeon - 17 October 2013, P, GM
428The first actual big update. Very much a net positive overall. Yes, Bandos and Armadyl armour are
429better than what was in the game, but Bandos armour still lost out in defensive capabilities to Barrows
430gear and in Prayer bonus to Proselyte gear. Dragon Boots are better than Rune Boots. The Armadyl
431Crossbow is better than the Runite Crossbow. The Staff of the Dead is better than the Master Wand for
432pure damage output, but could not autocast Ancient spells. The Zamorakian Spear is better than the
433Dragon Spear. The Saradomin Sword is a better Strength training weapon than the Dragon Scimitar.
434The Godswords all have great special attacks.
435
43612
437
438These items are rare, and they cost a lot more than their mentioned counterparts while often also
439introducing new mechanics and having weaknesses in their own right. But having proper endgame
440gear to work towards is important. The biggest thing here, in my opinion, is that the gear and the
441weapons introduced here did not trivialise older content to the same degree that later additions have.
442I’m not saying that they were all hunky-dory and that this was a perfect update, but it was a damn good
443one. PKers probably still seethe about the AGS. The community decided that having Dragon Boots
444take the form of an item that was attached to Rune Boots, thus allowing Rune Boots to hold some
445value, was an awful idea. This set a bad precedent going forward.
446The community focus for the game shifted away from progression and towards attainment. Having
447bosses like this in the game provided a distinct end goal with very real benefits (gold pieces and
448entertainment) locked behind progression based requirements.
449GWD pets failed their first poll sometime around here, too. Mod Nexus quit the OSRS team because
450he was a big baby. Reach started to get too powerful.
451First addition of gravestones - 24 October 2013, UP
452This one was massively required as a short-term solution. Players were DDoSing entire worlds that
453that someone in a boss room would die and would leave all of their items on the ground for the DDoSer
454to try and pick up. This was not good. It had major run on effects to the rest of the game’s playability.
455So I respect the decision to implement the update. But looking at what we have now it’s hard to agree
456with them not going through and eventually making a proper solution to the problem.
457PvP Worlds - 31 October 2013, P, GM
458This is where I’m going to come off as sounding extremely ignorant, but I just don’t understand these
459PvP updates. The problem that all of them set out to solve is that there are not enough people logging
460in to the game who want to go and kill other people. That’s obvious. That isn’t difficult to understand.
461And so, from a top-level point of view, the solution to this issue is to get more people who want to log in
462to the game and go kill people.
463And not one of these splinter updates addresses that. They create short-term hype spikes, where
464people who had quit come back and then just quit again. They don’t bring in new players or convert old
465players to a new way of playing. They don’t add proper new ways to engage in PvP activities. The PvP
466worlds, in particular, do not make sense to me. It’s the exact same thing that players were doing in the
467wilderness, but not in the wilderness.
468There is no reason why someone who was previously not interested in engaging in PvP would now
469want to engage in PvP. So much dev time and company money has been spent on a community that
470so clearly does not want to help itself.
471OSRS PKers are the users most blinded by delusional nostalgia in the community. And I’ll try not to
472talk too much about that aspect of the game because I have no experience in it.
473Godsword stab - 7 November 2013, P
474”The Accurate combat mode of godswords has been changed from ’Stab’ to ’Crush’, since
475godswords have no stab-attack bonus.”
476Great update that addresses a clear oversight made while designing the items.
477
47813
479
480Godwars kill count changes - 7 November 2013, UP, GM
481A rare balancing update on a boss. Making it so that kill count reset upon leaving the dungeon made kill
482count have significance again, while also allowing for future content such as the Ecumenical Keys.
483Fairy Ring list - 28 November 2013, P, GM
484The first in a series of updates that aimed to reduce Fairy Rings from a quirky and fairly useful method
485of getting around that had some drawbacks to just another teleport. Each ring having its own code that
486the player needed to remember was a really cool idea and was executed well with the limited number
487of options. Players who could not utilise basic memory or even just mnemonics no longer had anything
488to fear.
489This converted Fairy Rings to something like Lodestones are in the live game, once you use them
490once you no longer even have to think about it. Bad update that did not add anything to the game.
491Rooftop Agility - 5 December 2013, P, OC
492Really cool idea, atrocious execution. This update replaced all other methods of training agility that
493didn’t involve the Baxtorian Falls. People like to point at Marks of Grace being the issue with the
494courses, seeing as how they now give money, but they’re not even the biggest offender of the update.
495Amylase wasn’t added until later on and Rooftops had already eclipsed other methods by that point.
496The real issue is that, for some completely unexplained reason, completing an obstacle on the rooftop
497courses restores a portion of the player’s run energy. This is not only completely illogical but pushes
498the courses into a heavily unbalanced territory. You don’t even need a primary school education to
499know that completing a physical activity results in a loss of energy for the person doing it. This is how
500things work.
501You can go ahead and blather on about eating a Shark in a single bite, but that doesn’t change the
502idea that this not only doesn’t align with realism but entirely contradicts it for no reason. This made it so
503players could no longer choose to increase their experience rates by using energy potions to restore
504their run energy.
505I did around 175 million Agility experience (2800 hours or so) on the Ardougne rooftop course. This
506was a bad update.
507Nieve - 12 December 2013, P, GM
508I mentioned earlier that Reach was getting too powerful and here is a great example of it. He literally
509put a girl he liked in real-life into the game. I still don’t think that Nieve fits any useful level bracket,
510either. The transition from Chaeldar to Duradel at 100 combat was a pronounced one that had a big
511change in terms of the level and length of the tasks being assigned. The transition from Nieve to
512Duradel was almost non-existent.
513Duradel as a slayer master basically died out until yours truly finally managed to convince people that
514he had been the best master the whole time. I do not like Nieve at all. Her design is atrocious. I still
515don’t know why she’s in the Gnome Stronghold. Her task list and weighting did not add any particularly
516new mechanics. Bad update.
517
51814
519
520Slayer Points and rewards - 12 December 2013, P, GM
521This is where the tone of Slayer really started to change. At this point, the points could only be used for
522finishing blows and Dark Beast extensions. I don’t fully agree with the finishing blows, seeing as how it
523basically removes the single mechanic that made tasks such as Gargoyles or Desert Lizards unique,
524but at least they still required you to have the item with you. I do not like task extensions for a reason
525that will be discussed once I reach the point where skipping tasks comes out.
526I’d also like to mention that in the poll for this update there was a question that asked if players would
527like two new Slayer monsters to come into the game. While they did go on to actually poll the monsters
528themselves, this is another early example of the players not being fully informed of the dev’s intentions
529with updates. It typified that way that things were polled around this period. Ideas would be polled and
530then content would be made that could fit into the basic outline of that idea.
531Party Hats - 17 December 2013, P, GM
532They were implemented earlier but I want to take the chance to thank Jagex for introducing the best idiot
533tax in the game. They quite literally said that rares would not be rare and that they intended to make
534them have no value. And still, people were paying stupid amounts for items that had no actual value
535and would not appreciate at all in the future. Great stuff.
536Reindeer Hat - 17 December 2013, P, GM
537The beginning of the end. People didn’t know how it worked at this stage, but this small hat would have
538a major part to play in the future of the high-level metagame.
539Pathfinding fix - 17 December 2013, UP, BF, GM
540I loved this fix at the time but a fairly large part of me still wishes that they had just left it alone.
541Removing this and calling it a simple bug fix just leaves so much behind. I’ve always been a huge
542supporter of bugs-as-mechanics in games. Of small, messed up, little ways that some things work that
543require the player to take them into consideration to succeed. Things like combo chains or movement
544quirks in fighting games or rocket jumping in arena shooters. They weren’t supposed to be there, but
545the player base ran with them and built around them.
546This was an update that had some major run on effects to all three major aspects of the game (PvP,
547PvM, and skilling) and only made all three of them easier. Clever movement in PKing based around
548knowing where you could and couldn’t move within the limited amount of time between clicks left PvP
549entirely. Proper positioning and timing in deciding how to approach monsters so that you didn’t end up
550doing the waltz were gone. Putting the effort into pathing routes and timing clicks during various
551skilling methods so that you didn’t waste time running back a tile no longer needed to be considered.
552Basically, it removed the consequences that came from ignorance or apathy towards how the game
553worked at a basic level. I understand why the change would and should be made, developers don’t like
554bugs in their game. Hell, I even campaigned for the update. But looking back this is one of the updates
555that I really regret.
556
55715
558
5592.2 2014
560Vial packs - 6 January 2014, P
561People training Herblore these days probably don’t even realise that securing a supply of water-filled
562vials was a legitimate concept to worry about. You had the choice of buying water-filled vials from
563merchants to exorbitant prices in bulk or instead deciding to try and get unfilled vials much cheaper
564and then filling them yourself with Humidify.
565I appreciate that these updates are mostly done because the only players profiting from the material
566are bots and goldfarmers, but I do miss this mechanic of sorts.
567Slayer Helm - 6 January 2014, P, GM
568Another great example of a successful idiot tax. The Slayer Helm is only actually useful for about two
569and a half tasks and yet people rush it as their first unlock because that’s what they did years ago on
570the main game. It’s also one of the ugliest items in the game. Just an absolute mess of overdesigned
571pointy bits that was made for OSRS by one of the RS3 mods.
572I do not like how it changed how tasks were completed (dusts, banshees, spectres) but I do like how it
573rewards players for spending a resource that has more practical applications.
574Slayer blocking and skipping - 6 January 2014, P, GM
575One of the most loved updates to the most loved skill in the game and I don’t like it. From a simple
576gameplay perspective, it’s great. Why should you do content that you don’t want to? And the simple
577answer to that question, that it seems like not many people realised even during the whole Artisan
578polling saga, is to just not do it. The whole idea is that you, the player, are told by a master what they
579think you should kill in order to level up your skills.
580From a purely canonical and non-meta point of view, they know more than you. Duradel already had
58199 Slayer when he was introduced to the game. The ability for a player to very easily block or skip a
582task changed this whole dynamic. Now the player was a petulant child, storing up Good Boy Points
583with the slayer master and yelling that they don’t want to do a task, they want to do a different one.
584There had always been a way to skip tasks in the past, using Turael to overwrite the task given to you
585by a higher level slayer master, but this came with a distinct drawback. He gave you some seriously
586awful tasks.
587But with this new system, there is only the illusion of a drawback. Blocking a task gave the player
588direct and permanent control over a game mechanic. And then skipping a task does not actually
589inconvenience the player in any appreciable way. The only drawback here is that a player with back
590luck or poor planning might be forced to revert to the old way of slaying; doing what you are told.
591Task extensions further fed into this idea. With the notable exception of Dark Beasts and Black
592Dragons, the extensions did not work to make tasks that players previously were avoiding into ones
593that they wanted to do. The extensions to those two tasks worked because a task of 10 monsters
594wasn’t considered worth the time. Making them longer made them worth doing as an actual task. But
595extending a task from 185 to 225 average when it’s a task that the player already wants to do only
596serves to make things faster.
597That said, I do love the amount of planning that can be put into the skill due to this update for purely
598selfish reasons.
599
60016
601
602Spades added to room near Barrows - 9 January 2014, P
603Idiots.
604Lletya Fruit Tree patch - 9 January 2014, P, GM
605Why does this need to be here?
606Minimap Orbs - 16 January 2014, P, GM
607Another one of the most loved updates in the game that I seriously do not agree with. Information
608
609management took a huge blow from this update. The worst part is that it was caused mostly by third-
610party clients.
611
612Stronghold Slayer Cave - 23 January 2014, P, GM (kinda)
613Really, really bad. Serves no purpose in the game world and is nothing but gratification for the player.
614Enough people have said enough about this one already.
615I’ll give a special shoutout to Baby Black Dragons, though. Some seriously awful content. They were
616put into the cave so that people who didn’t want to do Black Dragon tasks could, instead of blocking or
617skipping their Black Dragon tasks, use them to quickly and easily boost their points.
618Cave Kraken - 30 January 2014, P
619I like the Cave Krakens as a Slayer task. It has a distinct limitation on how you’re able to kill it and adds
620something new to the skill without being overpowered. The Trident was and still is a bit too good and I
621don’t like how it doesn’t follow normal spellcasting rules.
622Mithril Dragon and Aviansie Slayer tasks - 30 January 2014, P, GM
623Why do you need a Slayer task for these? Why not just go and kill them anyway if you want to? Oh
624wait, the Black Mask is broken. That makes sense.
625Rejoining Clan Chats - 30 January 2014, P, GM
626Another exemplary QoL update. Does not actually influence gameplay and saved me from trying to type
627the word Randlaicious without making a typo.
628Clickable Minimap Orbs - 6 February 2014, P, GM
629Further reducing the need to have multiple interface tabs to do simple activities like toggling run. Quick
630prayers are probably quite overpowered. If you can’t do something on your own then just remember that
631you should beg and complain until a feature is made to automate it for you.
632Removal of the world hop timer - 20 February 2014, P
633This one was messed up. I had always viewed the 30-second world hop timer as a great balancing
634mechanic, But once again, players want to do things right now.
635
63617
637
638Defensive attacks when switching weapons - 20 February 2014, P
639Idiot tax removed.
640Essence pouches not vanishing - 27 February 2014, P
641Another idiot tax removed. It was not difficult to drop your pouches while someone was trying to kill you.
642The Essence pouches were already amazing items and there was no reason not to use them, why go
643and make them even better?
644Graceful Gloves protecting from Belladonna - 27 February 2014, UP, BF
645This one doesn’t make sense. The whole idea of the Graceful outfit is that it is extremely lightweight.
646The gloves are probably too thin to adequately protect you from spikes and thorns on plants.
647Teleport to Dark Beasts on Slayer Gem, 6 March 2014, P, GM
648We wouldn’t want players to have to go out of their way to get to a Slayer task, now would we?
649Wilderness Rejuvenation - 13 March 2014, P, OC
650This one is doing what I complained about PvP Worlds not doing, getting people who were not already
651interested in PvP activities to engage in them. In concept, that is. Too bad the balancing of almost all
652of the content was miles off.
653• All of the bosses were generally good from a mechanical standpoint, each introducing a new
654mechanic. Some of the safespotting stuff went a bit far and I think that they handled the eventual
655balancing of them extremely poorly.
656• The higher level NPCs (Rogues, Dark Warriors, and Bandits) were utterly pointless.
657• Mammoths may as well not have even been added.
658• Lava Dragons created a nice alternative method for early magic training along with some profit
659that was well offset by the risk.
660• Ents may as well not have even been added.
661• The extra box trap for catching wilderness Red Chinchompas was a good idea but didn’t provide
662quite enough incentive for players to bother.
663• Dark Crabs were poorly implemented. The chests that you could thieve from behind Rogues’
664Castle messed up Dragonstones forever.
665• The Resource area looks like it was designed by an 11-year-old making his first private server.
666• The Fountain of Rune was an interesting idea but there is no point in using it, at all.
667• The Godwars Dungeon only exists so that people can get Ecumenical Keys, so much wasted
668space in there. Prayer restoral around the Demonic Ruins could have been a bit more powerful to
669encourage players to go there more.
670• The Wilderness Looting Bag is a great idea and was well executed.
671But I’ll reiterate here: the ideas are all good. Getting people to put themselves in PvP situations who
672otherwise would not want to works.
673
67418
675
676Extended Antifire - 27 March 2014, P, GM
677Good content that created an additional drop for a monster that could have done with one, and added
678in another well-balanced method for training Herblore. Having antifires that last longer but cost more is
679well-balanced.
680I am in huge support of these not having been untradable potions, due to the types of people that
681would be using them. Dragons, as a general rule, are not a good Slayer task or generally a good
682monster to kill for higher level players (the sort that would have the 84 Herblore required to make the
683potions) and so making them untradable would have just sealed them off and made them fairly dead
684content.
685Recharge Dragonstone at Fountain of Rune - 27 March 2014, P, OC
6866-charge Glory Amulets coming from a higher risk method of recharging them is good and creates a
687potential PKing spot seeing as the Fountain of Rune of absolutely useless before this. I go on about
688hating new teleports, but at least the Ring of Wealth teleports to Miscellania, Falador Park, and Dondakan
689all make sense in how they are related to wealth.
690Piles - 27 March 2014, P, OC
691Well-meaning update that ended up being just a little bit too useful when taking into account other game
692systems. I like the idea of being able to note the items gathered in the Resource Area due to how it makes
693training there more viable and PKing there more lucrative. At this point in time, it was not overpowered.
694Chaos Elemental Pet - 3 April 2014, P, OC
695I do not like pets. They moved bosses from something that you did because you wanted to into something
696that you did because of the carrot hanging in front of you. The idea of a mini version of a boss following
697thousands of players around is just not right.
698Smoke Devils and Boss - 10 April 2014, P, OC
699I recall being quite worried while this was being polled. A high-level Slayer monster in a large,
700multi-combat room that the player was allowed to put a cannon down in? What could possibly go
701wrong?
702But with melee only, these weren’t even too bad. Their high defence, especially ranged, and lack of
703melee attack meant that they didn’t take much damage from the cannon and stayed generally spread
704out, making it difficult to either manoeuvre them into a good position or simply get around them
705yourself. Before the proper barraging discovery they were a borderline not worth it task at the high-end
706due to low melee XP.
707But then, all of a sudden, players were able to get 160k/h Slayer XP here. I appreciate that it’s a bit of
708effort to do well and it’s probably my personal favourite task to do, but it’s just a bit much. When this
709task is four times as good as the average task there’s something wrong. Was not helped by the
710inclusion of the Occult Necklace at the same time. I also think that they might have been more
711well-balanced if the Slayer Helmet hadn’t come into the game.
712The Thermonuclear Smoke Devil just sucks. Little to no mechanics. Constant issues with safespotting.
713It’s well-balanced enough from an experience and money perspective but is just extremely unengaging
714to kill.
715
71619
717
718Kraken Boss - 10 April 2014, P, OC
719And then we come to the worst boss in the game. This is literally just a damage sponge. It does less
720damage than the regular Krakens. Awful.
721Motherlode Mine - 24 April 2014, P, OC
722I know I said in the introductory section that the Motherlode was well-balanced but that doesn’t change
723the fact that I do not like it at all. If you do not want to train Mining, then do not train Mining. The
724highest quest requirement at this stage was only 60. There were no diaries to incentivise further
725training. The Motherlode turned Mining from a skill you did because you wanted to into a skill that you
726did because you could, and because it was easy.
727Players going for max total level, in particular, were hit hard by this one, Them and Runite Ore bots
728were pretty much the only people in the game who trained Mining beyond 60. It stopped being a
729genuine obstacle and became a simple time gate. It also subjected decent players to the
730mind-numbing bore you have to go through in order to get a set of Prospector.
731And that doesn’t even touch on the fact that it is nothing like what we voted for in the PDC poll. Bad
732content, bad precedent.
733Spirit Tree changes - 1 May 2014, P, OC?
734This one annoyed me because I always liked the idea that the Tree Gnome Village and Gnome
735Stronghold Spirit Trees were the superior trees, and so it made a lot of sense that you would need to
736travel back to them in order to go out to the other ones. Removing lore to save the player a couple of
737seconds.
738Open Door Policies - 1 May 2014, P
739Now here’s the kind of stuff I seriously cannot stand. Spare a thought for the Falador Farmer, the
740owner of the Port Phasmaty’s forge, Keldagrim’s rulers, a random citizen in Catherby that happens to
741own a stove, the defensive overseer for the Troll Stronghold, Lanthus, and the security team at the
742Duel Arena. Because they’ve just been screwed over.
743Their doors and their gates no longer exist. They can no longer feel safe in their own homes. Their
744material possessions are now open for the whole world to take. All because it’s too hard to open a
745damn door every now and then.
746Rock Cake Guzzlord - 1 May 2014, P, GM
747The Rock Cake came into the game as a bit of a joke item. The players found a use for that joke item
748that made it useful. But it was just a little bit too time consuming for some people.
749Skip the bull and just add a button to the game that drops the player’s Hitpoints to 1, that’s what people
750actually want.
751Bank tabs - 8 May 2014, P, GM
752Well made and very functional. It says in the patch notes here that they left some wiggle room to be
753able to make category-based tabs, such as “Questing” or “Clue Scroll Items”, but we still haven’t seen
754anything on that front.
755
75620
757
758Prospector changes - 15 May 2014, P, OC
759Why does a big, heavy set of mining gear provide protection from the desert heat? Very, very bad.
760Should do extra damage to the player when in the desert. There was a tradeoff that existed but for some
761reason it’s not there anymore.
762Left-click attack on everything - 15 May 2014, P, GM
763Destroyed my headcanon that the player was a bit nervous to be attacking monsters that were a higher
764level than them. I do concede that there is no real reason that this couldn’t have been there in the first
765place, though.
766Autotyper - 22 May 2014, P, OC
767Love this one. I’ve talked about how this was a great solution in a video about the AHK changes before
768but I’ll say my points again. The problem here was that players were using third-party tools in order to
769accomplish the task of easily trading. These third-party tools are disliked by Jagex because of how
770often they also carry autoclickers and malicious software.
771So they solved that problem head-on by making their own autotyper. They even made it better than
772existing systems by adding in a filter to either not see any of it or only see messaging containing a
773string you’re interested in.
774Right-click teleports on jewellery - 22 May 2014, P, GM
775I don’t like it because I always thought that the idea of rubbing the jewellery before being able to teleport
776using it was cool. But again, I do concede that there is no real reason that this couldn’t have been there
777in the first place.
778Black Salamander buffs - 29 May 2014, P, OC
779Any update that attempts to fight the Chinchompa Monopoly is a good update in my books. Hunter is
780such a poorly balanced skill.
781Karambwan eating delay - 5 June 2014, UP, BF
782From memory, this was the update that also reclassified Roe and Caviar to make cut-and-eat 3-tick
783Fishing possible.
784Fixed multiple Uris spawning - 5 June 2014, UP, BF
785Super idiot tax removed.
786Treasure Trail Expansion - 12 June 2014, P, GM/OC
787Overall, a pretty great update. Having the highest price wearable items in the game be useful
788cosmetics is something that I’ve always supported, allowing the actually useful items to only cost as
789much as their use is worth.
790I don’t much like all of the teleport scrolls that this added to the game, simply because I don’t like
791everything being easy to access. I like the idea of the skill challenges, but don’t like how they ‘force’
792players into training skills that they otherwise don’t want to.
793
79421
795
796Clan Wars - 19 June 2014, P, GM
797More splitting up PvP into sections. The portal restoring stats and special attack energy without the
798player doing anything in Clan Wars should have been patched on the first day because that’s just
799overpowered and created an expectation for players. I seriously do not think that I can overstate this
800point enough.
801After every boss kill the player could just teleport to Clan Wars and instantly restore all of their stats
802without taking any resources out of the game. The cost for this was basically non-existent. And then as
803time went on, there were only better versions of this added with the Nardah teleport and the POH
804pools. This was a major screw-up.
805Boss droptable buffs - 26 June 2014, P, OC
806The Treasonous Ring, Tyrannical Ring, and Ring of the Gods all nicely filled gaps in the game and
807rewarded players for killing otherwise pretty godawful bosses profitwise. Here we also see the first
808Kalphite Queen buff.
809Click-zone increases - 26 June 2014, P, OC
810The main issue that I have with this one is the same as normal, it does not address the problem and
811instead puts a sticking plaster on it. The problem was that players were having trouble clicking on
812items because they suck.
813The correct solution would have been to tell them to get over it and stop being useless. Another
814possible solution would have been to change how interacting with the environment worked as a whole.
815But instead, the click boxes for a few very specific items were increased.
816Stamina Potions - 3 July 2014, P, OC
817Stamina Potions were mostly good. Amylase had poor execution. Rooftops were already almost all the
818best and easiest courses for players to do at each level, but this just threw the balance into overdrive.
819This still has not been fixed. I did like how the Amylase was accidentally made untradable on release,
820and feel like that would have worked well. This was changed the following week.
821Boss Pets - 17 July 2014, P, OC
822This wouldn’t have been so bad if they were actual pets rather than just smaller versions of the bosses.
823Caused a fair few unique boss drops to plummet in price.
824Standardised spawn rates - 17 July 2014, P, OC
825The idea that in a multiplayer game resources would spawn quicker when there were more people were
826around was so damn cool. It all but forced player interaction and competition. Here’s what it says in the
827actual update:
828“The more players that were online, the faster the resources or monsters would respawn.
829This wasn’t ideal and you agreed, so resources and monsters now spawn at a standardised
830rate throughout all worlds regardless of how many people are currently online.”
831In other words, things were balanced around competition and scarcity in a unique way. But you didn’t
832like that. So we changed it.
833
83422
835
836Super Combat Potions - 14 August 2014, P, OC
837So, so much better than Overloads. Good content.
838BigRedJapan shuts up - 14 August
839Amazing update.
840In-game Polls - 21 August 2014, P, OC
841Some serious generalising is about to go down here. A major turning point. The average voter was
842now less likely to know what they were voting on. Previously, the players who were voting on polls were
843those who kept up to date with developer blogs and were more aware of what things were and what they
844meant. More things started to pass from this point on.
845Pet insurance - 21 August 2014, P, OC
846Pathetic. If you die, you should lose your pet.
847No movement Duel Arena - 21 August 2014
848“The duel arena is somewhere that people often go to risk their banks. Day in, day out, there
849are people staking tremendous amounts trying to get the best of their opponent and grab
850themselves the winnings.
851In order to ensure that the only challenge in a duel is your opponent we have converted one
852arena to be used only for no movement duels. This should make it much easier to focus on
853what everyone wants to focus on; beating their opponent.”
854What an absolute farce. Remove the Duel Arena.
855Minigame Teleport changes - 21 August 2014, UP
856Players using the minigame chat teleports to do things that had nothing to do with the minigames could
857now do so much easier. Remove the teleports.
858Clan Cup Statues - 28 August 2014
859Great update. No bias here.
860Optional Random Events - 11 Septemeber 2014, P
861Way to remove the Oldschool Runescape from Oldschool Runescape guys.
862Skeletal Wyvern buff - 18 September 2014, P
863Extremely bad update. Just how John C thought that this was balanced has confused the greatest
864minds in the community for years now. The worst part about it was the expectation from newer players
865of “how come a monster with a slayer requirement of 72 has better drops than [insert everything with a
866higher slayer level requirement]?”
867Another update that can’t have its impact stated enough. Not due to how good it was, but due to the
868attitude of the team towards how good it was.
869
87023
871
872Bounty Hunter cosmetics - 9 October 2014, P, OC
873Upgrade kits for the Dragon Pickaxe, Steam Battlestaff, Odium Ward, and Malediction Ward that all look
874very out of place and for some reason come from the Bounty Hunter reward shop. Bad update.
875Lumbridge back door - 9 October 2014, P, GM
876I’ll rewrite the patch notes for this one in order to express my displeasure.
877”The Lumbridge castle grounds are now open to invaders courtesy of a door in the back that
878remains open at all times so that some random guy can run through it twice a day.”
879Bad. They even added a backdoor to the kitchen a month later because it was still just too hard.
880Corporeal Beast - 16 October 2014, P, GM
881I mentioned that Reach was getting too powerful a while ago and this was the zenith of that. Corp
882came into the game because Reach liked killing it years ago. Adding in old bosses made sense with
883GWD. They didn’t have the tools to make new content and all of the content was already there in a
884backup.
885This was just a complete vanity project and took up time that could have been spent on original
886content. And then for some reason there is a teleport on the Games Necklace to get to a boss room
887because that’s the item that people used to get there in the past even though FoG isn’t in OSRS.
888Halloween - 23 October 2014, P
889They should have created an in-game trigger that automatically deleted the account of anyone who
890changed their skin colour to green. Absolutely disgusting. And they just keep adding more.
891Amulet of Magic fix - 30 October 2014, UP, BF
892”Removed an incorrect use of capitalization on the examine info of the amulet of magic.”
893This one was all me. Probably the best update in the game. Archie must have written the patch notes
894for this one judging by the American English, shocking stuff.
895Gargoyles in Nieve’s Cave - 6 November 2014, P, OC
896I don’t understand why this one was done. Gargoyles weren’t a hugely popular task at this point in time.
897May as well stick them in the cave, though.
898Hans displaying time played - 13 November 2014, P
899I wish this update had never come into the game and I could have lived on in blissful ignorance.
900Skeletal Wyvern click zone increased - 13 November 2014, UP
901Extremely overpowered content is made easier.
902Ironman Icon - 13 November 2014, P
903This will be the only thing I say about Ironman updates hopefully. I like the mode in general, but this is
904annoying.
905
90624
907
908Instanced Corp - 20 November 2014, P
909*X-Files theme plays*
910Trading Post - 10 December 2014, P, OC
911One of the best updates that the game saw, and I’m using the past tense here because the community
912ruined it. It solved the problem while still keeping player interaction.
913The players had created a community run solution to their trading problem, Zybez’s buy and sell
914section. All that this did was consolidate the solution in-game and even work to streamline the process.
915One of the most unfortunate parts of this coming into the game and then leaving is that the polls for
916instantaneous and for offline trading failed to pass, and yet the Grand Exchange passed. Aa few small
917tweaks (offers showing as inactive when the player is offline or appearing offline, a streamlined way to
918add and message the player, and a notes section for offers) could have had this be an amazing update
919and the single most defining addition to the game.
920
92125
922
9232.3 2015
924Zulrah - 8 January 2015, P, OC
925I’ll once again wonder just how John C thought that this was in any way balanced. The typical and
926historically superior way to balance drop tables for boss monsters was to give them a few signature
927drops that would make up the bulk of the profit, while the rest of the drops would be small quantities of
928resources or alchables that related to the lore of the boss and possibly covered supply cost.
929Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. Huge amounts of raw resources came into the game and
930crashed markets. Bots passed 50,000 KC on a boss. The signature drops fell to alch price. And then
931future content would be balanced around this for a short period with unrealistic expectations made.
932Add on to this that there is no consequence for dying and the boss pooped out instant teleports straight
933back to it and you end up with perhaps the least well-balanced update in the game so far.
934The Blowpipe was a cool idea. Making darts useful provided viable Smithing and Fletching training
935methods. All other methods of DPS dropped off. It was implemented with the incorrect attack timing on
936release and only fixed in PvP situations. The animation sucks and makes it look like you’re blowing on
937a pipe.
938The Serpentine Helm was a cool idea. Inflicting a damage-over-time effect on things that attacked you.
939Far outclassing all other melee helmets in all ways and not giving any debuffs to the other combat
940stats.
941The only good thing about the update was the town of Zul-Andra and the surrounding lore. I also liked
942how the Snakeling pet was literally just this little snake that followed you around.
943Zulrah drop table nerf - 22 January 2015, UP
944Quite a few people don’t even realise that Zulrah was even better at the start.
945Fight Cave Timer - 22 January 2015, P
946A cool update that created player-driven incentive to do something well.
947Maple log icon changed - 22 January 2015, P
948Idiot tax removed.
949Right-click Slayer Masters for assignment - 29 January 2015, P
950Saves a couple of seconds for those players in a real hurry.
951Dragon Defender - 5 February 2015, P, GM
952I like the idea of the Dragon Defender, it’s a natural progression, but goddamn they implemented it in
953the most boring way possible. Like, really? Kill more Cyclopes? If you’re going to give all players a
954damage bonus and introduce a new Dragon item at least have them do something slightly interesting.
955Huge missed opportunity here.
956Permanent Free-to-play - 19 February 2015, P
957Easily the most disgusting thing done by the team. Polling F2P on the condition that microtransactions
958(bonds) also came into the game was such a slimy move to make and I do not like how they received
959little to no backlash for it. I understand that it would have been a directive from the top, but that doesn’t
960make it any better. Shame on the community for voting this in.
96126
962
963Grand Exchange - 26 February 2015, P, GM
964I’m going to copy, paste, and edit my script from a video so I apologise if this section is rather long, but
965it’s an aspect that I am particularly passionate about.
966Oldschool Runescape is a multiplayer game, not a single player game. Interacting with other players
967should play a major part in it. But sadly Jagex, fueled by the community, decided to basically remove
968the single largest aspect of player interaction in the by bringing in the GE. I maintain to this day the
969introducing the GE was the best decision for the game commercially that they had made, but the worst
970decision for the game in terms of spirit that they had made.
971To put it quite bluntly, the GE killed trading. It is without a doubt my least favourite update to ever come
972to the game, and I personally separate the game and its players into pre-GE and post-GE. I’ve always
973felt that it was a fantastic stroke of luck that the archived version of oldschool just so happened to be
974the one just before the Grand Exchange. What this meant was that something that was so intrinsically
975oldschool, player to player trading, was kept alive. It meant that the devs had a chance to keep
976interactiveness and the effects of non-instantaneous trading alive.
977Simply leaving trading as it was would have been, in my opinion, the best possible path. The players
978themselves came up with a solution to the issue. Zybez, for all the hate it gets, was a fantastic system.
979It was so gloriously flawed. The introduction of verified accounts was probably something that was
980needed to keep it alive, but again, that was a player-driven initiative. The players themselves created
981this emergent system that allowed them to easily contact each other and trade. and this is the
982oldschool way. Resourcefulness rather than begging for modernisation.
983Starting out the game was rough. World 1 trading existed as a glorious mess that would swallow any
984new player alive. They might eventually learn about Zybez, but even then there was a barrier in terms
985of quantities and speed of transactions.
986The fact that a trade took significant investment meant that the trade in and of itself had to be more
987valuable to both players. Contact needed to be initiated. Agreement needed to be reached about
988prices and quantities. Agreement needed to be reached about the location that the trade would take
989place. And these things became bartering chips in their own rights.
990Not needing to initiate contact with someone meant that you had to expend less effort. Offering to go to
991someone else’s world and location could earn you their favour and get you a more desirable trade.
992Refusing these things could lose you a trade. Repeat trades with the same person would create a
993rapport that could lead to being supplied more or being given better prices.
994Herblore and Crafting were two amazing examples of this. Every single player, when getting their
995levels and XP in those two skills, faced a serious trial. First, they needed to source the resources. This
996meant finding someone who was willing to sell you a significant enough quantity at an acceptable
997price. If you couldn’t find the right items, you would have to compromise. Niche items required the user
998to put more effort into finding a supplier and often gave more benefits.
999Then, after creating the product, they needed to find someone who wanted to buy them and wanted to
1000buy them either in a great enough quantity or at a reliable enough pace that you could keep enough
1001capital to continue buying more resources.
1002I remember when I was doing those two skills finding a ”guy” for things. after I finished crafting, the guy
1003who had been tanning hides for me was still messaging me a month later asking if I wanted to buy any
1004leathers. I had a couple of guys who would exclusively sell me their herbs that they farmed. I had a
1005guy who spent his time doing nothing but gathering Mort Myre Fungus that he could sell to me. and
1006when I didn’t need anymore, he got upset with me because he’d gone out and gathered too much.
1007Now HE needed to create new contacts.
1008
100927
1010
1011And then when I finished I had to either sell the potions at a slow pace, one-by-one basically, or take
1012up the offer of POT_SHOP2 and give him all of my potions at a hugely discounted price.
1013This made the game and the economy feel so damn alive. There were inconveniences, but you dealt
1014with it. Now, you walk up to the GE and press the buy button. and if they buy limit stops you from
1015buying it you either beg Jagex to increase that limit or log onto another account and buy it on there.
1016Now, I’ve always been a huge supporter of the trading post. I thought that it was a fantastic update that
1017could have worked very well as a trading solution with just a couple of small tweaks. But since so
1018much of the community already knew about the GE and how easy it would be, they stifled it, shat on it,
1019and demanded something else. And this was a huge missed opportunity. They had the chance to
1020really branch oldschool from the path of the main game.
1021And this is also where I think Mod Ash has his failing. He makes good content. Who cares what that
1022content means for the game though, as long as it works. Good on him for making a functional Grand
1023Exchange. Bad on him for making the Grand Exchange at all.
1024My problem with the GE isn’t even the loss of player interaction, but the loss of trades having any
1025value. In the past, quantity was king. If you had enough of something or if you were willing to buy
1026enough of something, you dictated the terms. Magic seeds in bulk were a great example of this.
1027Merchants would buy them in small numbers from woodcutters and then sell them at exorbitant rates
1028to people wanting to plant them. Players who were willing to buy a lot of potions could easily demand
1029lower prices. Everyone who crafted Nature Runes to 99 back in the day could tell a staggering number
1030of stories about people trying to buy twenty at a time and being refused. or offering to buy a couple
1031hundred thousand at a reduced price, and getting grudging acceptance.
1032Now, you can sell any number of things with no consequence. Suddenly, every item had value without
1033quantity. Bank sales of players trying to sell their worthless junk died out. Now, people just press the
1034GE button and instantly sell their four uncut jades that they can’t remember how they got and their 15
1035thousand maple logs from kingdom. Maple logs crashed massively when the GE came out, as every
1036just figured, hey I don’t need these anymore may as well sell them. Players could go and mine a single
1037inventory of iron ore and sell it for instant gratification.
1038There was no working for things. the whole landscape around what Runescape players call merching
1039also died overnight. no longer was it about spending a significant amount of time building up contacts
1040to gather supplies in bulk to sell on for a higher price. something that took time and effort. that
1041provided a valuable service to both suppliers and consumers. now it’s just about skimming your little
1042bit off the top and providing no benefit to the game other than a bit of market solvency.
1043But in the end, the GE came into the game because players wanted a modern experience. No one
1044wants to play some crummy old game where you can’t sell things easily. All of the new games on the
1045market have simple trading systems. Oldschool should have it too. And it’s this attitude of wanting to
1046modernise the game that pisses me off more than anything else. Why would you play a game called
1047Oldschool Runescape and want it to be a modern game? If you want to play a modern MMO, go play
1048one.
1049Achievement Diaries - 5 March 2015, P, GM
1050And finishing off the one-two punch of my personally despised updates is this monster.
1051At a conceptual level, they’re brilliant. A log of small achievements that show a player’s progress
1052through equipable items with some minor benefits. In reality, Achievement Diaries became
1053benchmarks that players put huge emphasis on obtaining. Updates were brought out to make skills
1054easier to train, while at the same time the rewards gained from the diaries were made better.
1055The idea of making something less difficult for more benefit absolutely baffles me. It makes no sense.
1056
105728
1058
1059No achievement diary has had a significant update made to it to include new requirements. Every
1060achievement diary has been made easier through gameplay updates. Probably every achievement
1061diary has been made to give better rewards, I can’t be bothered checking.
1062How does that work? It’s the opposite of game balance. It becomes this benchmark where players and
1063devs say ”oh, well this player is at this point, therefore they deserve to have this” discounting the
1064inherent benefits that exist in progress itself. I also don’t like the trend of rewards remaining active
1065without the player wearing the corresponding item.
1066Good rewards provide minor benefits and potentially promote the use of underused content. Bad
1067rewards provide major benefits and make existing methods better. Even worse rewards are the ones
1068that everyone knows are very good and were only included because they were in the main game and
1069people wouldn’t shut up about them.
1070• Ardougne. The standout here was the bug that allowed players to train Thieving at over 400k
1071XP/h with minimal interaction but at least they fixed it and banned a couple of players who abused
1072and promoted it. Noted drops at the Tower of Life made an effort to pull players there. The Cape’s
1073teleports to the farming patch were fine at launch, however have been constantly increased due
1074to player demand. The Cape only had the stab stat because people remembered it having that in
1075the main game. The Ardougne Rooftops were already the best Agility course in the game, and so
1076adding more Marks of Grace to it only made the situation worse.
1077• Falador. Bonus XP from the farming patch was a nice, small buff, seeing as farming Herbs and
1078Allotments is done primarily for money and not for XP. The bonus sections in the Motherlode Mine
1079only made the content better. Noted skin and claws from the Giant Mole brought some life to
1080probably the least killed boss in the game. The Falador tree patch being immune to disease
1081provided an option for players to use their higher-level seeds more sparingly.
1082• Fremennik. The shortcut to My Arm’s herb patch helped to move it away from being a herb patch
1083that you might use to one that you always should. The Tan-leather spell is good and offers an
1084alternative training method, I only wish it didn’t make you stop doing anthing and everything if you
1085click on it without meaning to. Recharge Dragonstone felt unneeded with the Fountain of Rune.
1086• Kandarin. Coal trucks holding more coal did nothing to revive this place, more could have been
1087done rather than just copying over the reward from the main game. Especially when the reward
1088did nothing to revive the trucks on the main game. Extra Marks of Grace from the Seers rooftop
1089course just isn’t needed. The teleport directly to Seers Village bank somehow managed to mess
1090up the balance in Agility courses even more and I don’t understand why the team has done nothing
1091to fix it.
1092• Kharadian Desert. Why does Desert Goat Horn need to drop in noted form? I personally don’t
1093like the Nardah Herbalist making (unf) potions for the player, this just serves to simplify the process
1094of Herblore even more than the GE already did. Unlimited teleports to Nardah were well meaning,
1095but the statue there was and still is very unbalanced and the team not doing anything about it led
1096to the likes of the Pool of Rejunvenation. Instant heal resources should not be readily available to
1097players like this.
1098• Lumbridge. Implementing the alchs on the ring requiring the player to be on the normal spellbook
1099made no sense. 6 Slayer blocks is a lot.
1100• Morytania. Robin exchanging bonemeal made the Ectofunctus more desireable. Extra Mort Myre
1101Fungus helped improve a low requirement money maker that was balanced by not giving any XP.
1102The Bonecrusher was well implemented with the system of using charges. Extra XP in the Slayer
1103Tower made an attempt to move people out of Nieve’s Cave. The Herb patch on Harmony Island
1104was, at the time, nicely out of the way and gave rewards to players willing to travel out there.
1105• Varrock. The worst instance of rewards being carried over from the main game. Double ores
1106while wearing the armour is extremely powerful in terms of pure XP rate increases. And then
1107there are the daily Battlestaffs, which I hope no one reading this considers to be balanced content.
1108
110929
1110
1111Battlestaffs already came into the game enough from Skeletal Wyverns at this point, there was no
1112need for this. People only wanted these two rewards because they knew that they were too good.
1113• Western Provinces. The banner is disgusting. Polling the Red Chincompa area as private and
1114not actually having it as private is poor form. I do think that it is a better solution to Hunter bots
1115than just making higher XP rate methods like Black Chinchompas, though. Increased Slayer points
1116from Nieve was just more of Reach jacking off. And then polling “Undisclosed snake boss benefits”
1117is just wrong. That’s not how a polling system works.
1118• Wilderness. Honestly, this was the most useless diary to complete on launch. Always slashing
1119the web above the lever, choosing Obelisk destinations, and improved Dark Crab catch rates are
1120the only ones that make a difference.
1121And that’s not even taking into account the abysmal state that they came out in. This update was rushed
1122out to the extreme to be out before the summer and that is evident in the pretty shicking number of bug
1123fixes that were made in the following years. Here’s a list of some of the ‘better’ ones that were polled to
1124be added but didn’t quite make it (all are unpolled bugfixes):
1125• The Crystal Halberd now actually functions as a Halberd. (12-3-2015)
1126• Karamja Gloves 4 now offer all the benefits of Karamja Gloves 3. (12-3-2015)
1127• Explorer’s Ring 2 now only provides 3 daily cabbage teleports. (19-3-2015)
1128• Spinning materials on the Seers’ spinning wheel is now faster if you’ve completed the Kandarin
1129medium tasks. (19-3-2015)
1130• The new Crystal Halberd (i) now functions as a Halberd. (26-3-2015)
1131• The Kandarin medium task ’Kill a fire giant in Baxtorian waterfall’ now only completes within the
1132waterfall.(9-4-2015)
1133• Varrock armour 4 now correctly functions as a prospector top. (9-4-2015)
1134• Completing the hard Kandarin diary now increases the chance of enchanted bolt special effects
1135activating by 10%. (16-4-2015)
1136• Players that have completed the medium Falador achievement diary now have an increased
1137chance of receiving clue scrolls from Falador guards. (23-4-2015)
1138• Attempting to recharge your prayer with a Falador shield when you’re already full prayer points no
1139longer consumes one of your daily charges. (30-4-2015)
1140• The additional chance of finding marks of grace on the Seers’ village agility course is now working
1141correctly. (30-4-2015)
1142• You must now kill each of the demi-bosses, wilderness bosses and Dagannoth kings to complete
1143each of the respective tasks. (30-4-2015)
1144• Collecting the nightshade in the southern skavid cave now completes the Ardougne medium task.
1145(7-5-2015)
1146• Climbing the medium spiked chain at the slayer tower no longer completes the Morytania task for
1147climbing the advanced spike chain. (7-5-2015)
1148• Performing the same SOS emote 4 times no longer completes the diary task asking you to perform
1149each of the 4 emotes. (14-5-2015)
1150• The increased herb yields from Catherby herb patch and better chances at higher ores when
1151cleaning pay-dirt diary rewards are now correctly being applied. (18-6-2015)
1152• The Ardougne elite diary rewards now give increased Marks of Grace on the Ardougne rooftop
1153course. (25-6-2015)
1154• The 10% increase in XP at the Falador farming patch will now only apply after completing the
1155medium diary, rather than easy, as intended. (23-7-2015)
1156• Morytania legs 1 and 2 now teleport to the correct location.(13-8-2015)
1157• The Kandarin diary task to buy a candle from the Catherby store now cannot be completed by
1158buying a candle from the Tai Bwo Wannai store. (6-8-2015)
1159• Additional ores gathered by Varrock armours now provide the bonus experience from the
1160Prospector’s outfit. (24-9-2015)
1161
116230
1163
1164• The easy desert achievement diary task to mine 5 clay in the north eastern desert now includes
1165all of the clay rocks in the vicinity. (12-11-2015)
1166• The achievement diary task to equip a full void set now only completes when actually wearing a
1167full set of void, meaning: One of the 3 helms, Void Knight top, Void Knight robe and Void Knight
1168gloves. (10-2-2016)
1169• Multistage achievement diary tasks now track progress over logout. (10-2-2016)
1170• The Fremennik diary task to steal from the Baker’s stall will now complete if you steal a chocolate
1171cake or a loaf of bread as well as for stealing a regular cake.(16-3-2016)
1172
1173Spacebar to skip chat dialogue - 19 March 2015, P, GM
1174You’ve really got to feel for the developers of the original quests when there are updates coming into
1175the game making it easier to skip their content. Screwed over Construction training, too.
1176This made a lot of exsiting content feel more like an obstacle that only exists to prevent the player from
1177engaging in the content that they want to get to, rather than content in its own right.
1178Bonds - 30 March 2015, P (not really though), GM
1179Microtransactions.
1180Motherlode Expansion - 9 April 2015, P, OC
1181This devblog starts with the phrase “After the success of the Motherlode Mine...” In other words, this
1182content is already extremely good so we’ve decided to make it even better for you.
1183Fairy Rings without a staff - 23 April 2015, P, GM
1184Added as a reward for the Lumbridge Elite tasks. Because high-level players have better things to do
1185with their time than think.
1186Varrock Teleport to Grand Exchange - 30 April 2015, P, GM
1187Added as a reward for the Varrock Medium tasks. This was only added because the same reward
1188existed in the live game. Missed an opportunity to add the teleport in a more interesting way because
1189the players wanted it right now.
1190Big Mo - 30 April 2015, UP, OC
1191Another unpolled stitch up. Gave every player in the game a clue scroll a day for a whole monst instantly
1192for the staggeringly high price of 50 GP. There is no way that this event would have passed a poll.
1193Slayer Partners - 7 May 2015, P, GM
1194Why did they even bother doing this? The implementation that they ended up with after community
1195reaction and polling was so gimped that it was and still is useless.
1196The only useful thing to come from this update was allowing players without the levels to get a task
1197from Duradel in order to complete the Karamja Elite task to do so.
1198
119931
1200
1201World Switcher - 21 May 2015, P, GM
1202Only added due to pressure from third-party clients. Very overpowered.
1203Teleporting to Sherlock - 21 May 2015, P
1204Kandarin Headgear 4 now gave unlimited teleports to Sherlock for completing Elite Clue Scrolls. What’s
1205the point in him being an NPC at that point?
1206Temporary Death Mechanic Changes - 22 May 2015, UP
1207“Temporary” my ass.
1208Falador Tool Leprechaun moved - 28 May 2015, P
1209Moved to be in a location that is more convenient for the player.
1210KDB Head warning - 28 May 2015, P
1211This was an idiot tax that should have stayed in the game. If you want to be a pure you should at least
1212research how not to ruin your own account.
1213Resizable mode - 4 June 2015, P, GM
1214The final bomb dropped in the 2015 summer blitz. The only reason that I can really give for not liking it
1215is not fitting the Oldschool Feel. Although I will mention that I don’t like how a lot of people wanted this
1216because it would make things easier, and not because it would enhance their gaming experience. A
1217well-made update.
1218The word “fella” is used in these patch notes.
1219Clear Private chat - 11 June 2015, P, GM
1220Great update. They should have implemented it for all chat channels at the same time and still haven’t.
1221Platinum Tokens - 25 June 2015, P, OC
1222Remove the Duel Arena.
1223Ape Atoll fairy ring - 2 July 2015, P, GM
1224Only added to the game because it also exists in the live game.
1225Call Servant button - 30 July 2015, P
1226So it even acknowledges in the patch notes for this that the player needs a bell to summon their
1227servant. Why does this need to be there, then? When can we just add buttons to instantly heal and
1228teleport us in the POH as long as we have the correct furniture built?
1229I’d also like to note this in the patch notes: “Players will no longer sea the trident of the see during the
1230charge animation for the trident of the swamp.”
1231
123232
1233
1234Herb Sack - 13 August 2015, P, GM
1235A good update. 750 Slayer points is a pretty massive cost considering the benefits.
1236Bullroarer shop - 13 August 2015
1237Being able to purchase additional Bullroarers was a real gamechanger.
1238Boss Slayer - 20 August 2015, P, GM
1239This one didn’t quite come out how people wanted it, but I still think that it was well implemented. The
1240number of tasks that can already be completed by killing boss versions of monsters probably coloured
1241their decision to not just make a new Slayer Master for boss slaying and to keep the variety.
1242My only issue with this is that people only wanted it so that they could use the extremely overpowered
1243Slayer Helmet where they couldn’t already. If players wanted to go out and kill 15 of a boss and then
1244try 15 of another boss they already could.
1245Dark Beast droptable improvements - 20 August 2015, P
1246This right here is the template that should have been used going forward for rebalancing drop tables,
1247not Skeletal Wyverns. After this update, you would comfortably profit from a Dark Beast task while
1248cannoning them. Only around one in four drops are worth picking up, and a large amount of the profit
1249still comes from their unique drop. It doesn’t drop so much that it requires the player to either alch items
1250or leave things on the ground. Very well done.
1251Cerberus - 27 August 2015, P, OC
1252Then only a week later we got another great example of balancing and you could forgive everyone for
1253thinking that the team had learned something from Wyverns and Zulrah. It even had people
1254complaining about the standard drop from Cerb not being good enough as a testament to that.
1255The boss had some interesting and unique mechanics that rewarded players for paying attention.
1256There were some instant teleports, but they were untradable and so rare that using them consistently
1257simply was not possible. It had defensive weaknesses and offensive habits that made previously
1258less-used equipment be viable.
1259The boots are well-balanced and I am still amazed to this day that the poll to have them be
1260attachments to existing items managed to pass, although I feel like that had more to do with them
1261being original content and wouldn’t deny them the same sort of experience as ejaculating when they
1262saw Dragon Boots on the ground.
1263The Smouldering Stone and Infernal Axe were the only real letdowns in this update for me. The
1264balancing is atrocious. A lot of the push for an Infernal Adze clone in OSRS was on the condition that
1265the cost to use it would be so high that it would only just be considered viable. The team agreed with
1266this when proposing it. But, unfortunately, there is no reason not to use the Infernal Axe now due in
1267large part to the Dagannoth King pets flooding the market with Dragon Axes. Really missed an
1268opportunity with this one.
1269The pickaxe does not suffer from this issue.
1270TzHaar Slayer task - 6 August 2015, P, GM
1271Same issue here as with boss slayer. The only reason people wanted it was so that they could kill Jad
1272easier and faster using the Slayer Helmet.
1273
127433
1275
12762.4 2016
1277Zeah: Great Kourend - 7 January 2016, P, OC
1278Another big, hot mess to start out the year.
1279There were things I did and still do like, though. The favour system is great. You actually had to think
1280about which house you wanted to get the benefit from. I think that if they wanted to stick with the
1281system where you can only have favour in one house at a time they should have made getting favour
1282just a little bit quicker, but the concept is still super cool. The favour taking too long alongside people
1283not being fully aware of which house offered the best benefits was just a bit too much, though, and a
1284unique mechanic was cancelled.
1285The roaming gang stuff for Shayzien House was cool content. Blast Mining is great. A perfect mix of
1286player optimisation and good rewards. If you go in there not knowing what to do you won’t get anything
1287out of it. Teleports were (emphasis on this were) quite sparse and required the player to move more
1288than ten tiles to get to their destination. Necromancy finally provided the alternate Prayer method that
1289didn’t just use bones I was talking about a few pages back. Making sets of armour for the Lovakengj
1290favour is a cool idea.
1291But that’s a very short list for such a big update. First, I’d like to call Reach a dickhead for giving
1292everything such stupid names. Second, the art direction and world map were disgraceful. They’re a
1293little bit better now, but the environments and geography in the region are an insult to the rest of the
1294game. And then there’s the content.
1295A lot of it just sucks. There’s the busy-work stuff like digging up worms, fixing ropes, healing soldiers,
1296mining Sulphur (although I do think that just how much damage you take here is hilarious), finding
1297books (not even counting that this was the best Runecrafting method in the game for a while), and
1298pushing plows that is not engaging, not good experience, and not good money.
1299The Tithe Farm completely went against the idea of Farming and ruined the hiscores for it. Then there
1300was the on-release version of Blood and Soul Runecrafting, which was just Runecrafting for people
1301who didn’t want to train Runecrafting but wanted the levels. Poor balancing to the extreme. I still can’t
1302believe that Ash justified the two minutes of AFK time spent mining the essence as perfectly fine
1303because you had to spend a couple of seconds crushing it later on. What a great mod.
1304And don’t worry, we’re not done here yet. Zeah still has a lot more stuff to come.
1305Great Kourend Tweaks - 8 January 2016, UP
1306The problem with Arceuus Runecrafting was how easy it was. They ‘fixed’ this by reducing the XP rate
1307to what was originally polled.
1308Dragon Warhammer - 21 January 2016, P, GM
1309Extremely overpowered and trivialised a lot of bosses. Bad update.
1310Task-only Wyvern area - 21 January 2016, P, OC
1311Makes an already broken piece of content even better. This one did start the trend of Nieve having
1312relatives with rhyming names that I find genuinely funny so I’ll give it that.
1313
131437
1315
1316Dark Essence Mining changes - 21 January 2016, UP
1317People were furious with this one because they knew that what they had was too good to be true. Still
1318did not fix the main problem and remained an out of place and overpowered training method.
1319Graceful Recolours - 4 February 2016, P, OC
1320These things are just an eyesore. They should have negative stats on them to stop people from wearing
1321them. And what does the Graceful Outfit have to do with Kourend? There are no rooftop courses there.
1322No ways to gather Marks of Grace. It doesn’t make sense.
1323Karamja store nerf - 4 February 2016, UP
1324Moving the reward to the Hard tasks did not fix the problem. It made the problem worse.
1325Zulrah Unique dismantling - 18 February 2016, P
1326A great idea to make the uniques more valuable. But why not just nerf the average drop already?
1327Wilderness resource nerfs - 3 March 2016, UP
1328“Setting up box traps and wilderness fishing are now interrupted by combat.”
1329Great updates that prevented losers with alternate accounts from being able to bypass balancing
1330mechanics.
1331Custom Nightmare Zone Rumbles - 10 March 2016, P
1332The problem was that players wanted to abuse the mechanics of a boss rush minigame in order to gain
1333the best and easiest combat experience in the game. The easiest way to do this was to interact with
1334lower level accounts that only had a limited number of quests complete. Many of these accounts were
1335not being controlled by a human and would frequently scam.
1336The fix? Make it easier for players to abuse the mechanics of a boss rush minigame in order to gain
1337the best and easiest combat experience in the game and cut out the middleman. Great work.
1338Chronicle book - 17 March 2016, UP
1339Shameless, unpolled cross-promotion. You can’t blame the team for implementing it, but you can blame
1340them for balancing it so poorly for F2P.
1341In-place cannon repairing - 24 March 2016, P
1342They made the cannon easier to set up. They made the cannon easier to reload. They put a bright red
1343alert in the chatbox when it was going to expire soon. Why not just make it permanent? What purpose
1344does having the cannon break down after a predefined time if it can be so easily repaired pose from a
1345gameplay or a logical perspective?
1346Binding Necklace change - 24 March 2016, P
1347”The binding necklace now has 16 charges rather than 15, for better inventory management
1348with duelling rings.”
1349I’ve got an idea. How about players learn to manage their own inventories better? Learn to adapt to the
1350situations in the game?
1351
135238
1353
1354Clue Scroll from Implings - 21 April 2016, P
1355This would have been alright if you got the clue scroll while catching the impling. Having tradable clue
1356scrolls defeats the purpose.
1357Increased Slayer monster spawns - 28 April 2016, P
1358The problem was that there were too many people trying to train Slayer in Nieve’s Cave. The solution
1359used here was to increase the number of spawns in other areas of the game. No one left Nieve’s Cave
1360and now there were more spawns in other areas of the game.
1361Hell-Rat Behemoth - 7 April 2016, P
1362If the alternative to this is to force more updates that make skills easier to train then this is a great update.
1363The problem was, as mentioned earlier, that there were too many pieces of content (clues/diaries) locked
1364behind skill requirements for players that didn’t want to train those skills. This alleviates the issue to a
1365degree while continuing to dig a deeper hole.
1366Skillcape Perk buffs - 7 April 2016, P
1367The Quest Cape being given unlimited teleports to the Legends’ Guild specifically mentions in the
1368patch notes that it puts you right next to a Fairy Ring. Why would it take you to a spot outside of the
1369Legends’ Guild? It would make more sense for it to put you in the middle like other guild teleports in
1370the game do.
1371And then the Achievement Diary cape giving five teleports to the task masters each day is just a joke.
1372Why would you need to teleport back to the masters if you’ve already completed all of their tasks? It’s
1373just more cutting down on travel time.
1374Monkey Madness II - 5 May 2016, P, OC
1375By all accounts, this is a good quest. They gave it a Hunter requirement so I can’t do it. Upgrades to the
1376Onyx items make sense but are a bit too strong for some older content. The Ballista is too strong. I’ll
1377say that the quest was a good update, but some of the rewards go too far. Six Slayer blocks are a lot.
1378Necromancy Teleport Tablets - 12 May 2016, P, OC
1379An instant teleport to Barrows with no requirements. Why?
1380Soul Bearer - 19 May 2016, P, OC
1381A cool item. The quest was a bit lame.
1382Sand Crabs - 19 May 2016, P, OC
1383The problem was that Rock Crabs were extremely popular to kill due to them being a good place to train
1384combat, and there were too many people there. The solution was to add something better than Rock
1385Crabs. Great logic.
1386Maniacal Monkey hunting - 26 May 2016, UP, OC
1387It would have been nice if these were polled, but anything that fights the Chinchompa Caliphate is a
1388good idea. Balanced content.
1389
139039
1391
1392Coloured Slayer Helmets - 26 May 2016, P, OC
1393Good god, these things are obnoxious. The normal Slayer Helmet was already bad enough. Great idiot
1394tax, costing 1000 points to even unlock.
1395Woodcutting Guild - 2 June 2016, P, OC
1396Specifically, Redwood trees. The rest of the Guild doesn’t really do anything. Redwood trees are
1397atrocious. The balancing trend in gathering skills is that the higher level the resource is slower to
1398gather and sells for more. Being slower to gather normally leads to it being easier to gather.
1399The high tier methods, such as Sharks, Magic Trees, and Runite are all slow, easy, low XP, and more
1400profit than other resources in their respective skills. Lower level resources are quicker to gather and
1401don’t sell for much.
1402The lower tier methods, such as Flyfishing, Teak Trees, and Iron are all quick, harder, and scale
1403naturally as you level up more. And it’s that last part that makes this all work. Around the time of
1404Redwood release, it wasn’t uncommon to see the justification for them “Teak trees are unlocked at
1405level 35 while Redwoods are unlocked at level 90, therefore, they should offer equal or more
1406experience per hour” being tossed around. But this goes against all existing balancing mechanics.
1407The lower level resources are unlocked early on, give low experience rates, and continue to get better
1408as you level up. The higher level resources are unlocked late and so do not get the opportunity to get
1409better. But they are still viable on account of the increased requirements for them making the
1410resources more valuable.
1411Redwoods don’t care about that. They’re easier than Magic Trees, more profitable than Magic Trees
1412(on release at least), and offer the same experience rate as Teaks when cut with no tick manipulation.
1413They are some of the most unengaging content in the game. There is no competition for resources.
1414The resource that you do gather is useless. You click the spot on the game and you get the
1415experience. Bad update.
1416Catacombs of Kourend - 9 June 2016, P, OC
1417The problem was that there were too many people trying to train Slayer in Nieve’s Cave. The solution
1418used here was to add a new cave into the game that would offer additional benefits for players trying to
1419kill monsters without a Dwarf Multicannon. And by gods, it worked!
1420But for some ungodly reason, the entire bloody place is multi-combat and now you can reliably get
1421upwards of 90k/h Slayer experience. The Arclight is a cool item and the way it is recharged using
1422Shards gathered in the Catacombs is a nice mechanic. Skotizo is a pretty piss-poor boss, but the
1423mechanic of gathering the totems in the Catacombs in a great way to offer additional gold to players
1424and get them to leave Nieve’s Cave. Higher level versions of existing Slayer monsters with better
1425drops is a good idea that had been in the pipeline for a while, and also works well to pull people out of
1426Nieve’s Cave.
1427But why, oh why, is it multi-combat? I’ll give them credit for spreading out people training Slayer. The
1428Catacombs are now facing the same issue that Nieve’s Cave had, however. I’m hoping that by the time
1429I get around to publishing this document this issue has been fixed.
1430The drop table for Greater Nechryaels is terrible. You get can frequently get upwards of one million
1431gold pieces in alchables each task, and that’s not including the value of the Runes that they drop. And
1432then there are the Brutal Black Dragons, which are even worse.
1433
143440
1435
1436Woodcutting Guild Buff - 9 June 2016, P
1437Why does the Woodcutting Guild need to provide a +7 boost to the player’s Woodcutting level? It’s
1438already the best place in the game to cut a lot of these trees due to the proximity of the bank. Stupid.
1439Crack the Clue - 16 June 2016, UP, OC
1440Great update. Wish they’d do more like it.
1441Master Clues - 6 July 2016, P, OC
1442Clue Scroll expansions are normally good and this one was no exception. The dog is stupid and the
1443drop-rate for the dog is even more stupid.
1444STASH Units - 14 July 2016, P, GM
1445I don’t like this one because it just rewards players who can’t manage their resources and all of the units
1446look out of place in the world. They only exist for the players to use and serve no actual purpose to the
1447rest of the world.
1448Brine Sabre buff - 28 July 2016, P, OC
1449The Brine Sabre allowing you to kill Rockslugs without bags of sand makes too much sense. Great
1450update that adds to the world.
1451Metal Dragon buff - 28 July 2016, P
1452No one with Karamja Elite tasks completed is going to be killing Metal Dragons in the Brimhaven
1453Dungeon as a method of making money and so giving noted bars to those players is completely
1454pointless. What a joke.
1455Last Man Standing - 4 August 2016, P, OC
1456There was a gold duplication bug in the game for this one. A real shocker of an update that has been
1457left completely for dead. And for good reason.
1458Flax to Bowstrings spell - 4 August 2016, P
1459Great update. No one wants to spin flax and people do want to train Magic. Suits the Lunar spellbook
1460very well.
1461Ring of Wealth buff - 18 August 2016, P
1462The Ring of Wealth being able to automatically pick up coins is another great example of a sidegrade
1463to existing items and makes a lot of sense given the item. I just hope that people don’t take this idea of
1464automatically picking up items and run with it in the future.
1465
146641
1467
1468Construction Expansion - 25 August 2016, P, OC
1469Another great example of Ash making some technically great but unbalanced content. I have no issues
1470with how this was implemented. Construction was due an update and a lot of the things that this added
1471are great. But things like the Pool of Rejuvenation are a little bit ridiculous. The POH should be about
1472showing off, not assisting in content.
1473The most efficient ways to kill bosses should not be teleporting back to your POH while you wait for it
1474to respawn and healing all of your stats instantly without taking any resources out of the game. Take
1475that out and this goes from good to great in my book.
1476More Skilling Pets - 1 September 2016, P, OC
1477They said they wouldn’t add in pets to buyable skills. Tangleroot did a real number on Farming prices.
1478Rogues’ Set buff - 1 September 2016, P, OC
1479The set giving double loot isn’t an issue but I’ll take this opportunity to say that the existing Thieving
1480mechanics and methods need to be fixed. Not just because pickpocketing Ardougne Knights is
1481unbalanced but also because it promotes autoclicking.
1482Nothing positive comes from this.
1483The Wintertodt - 8 September 2016, P, OC
1484Unforgivable. And the devs seem content to just leave it in this state. The problems were that no one
1485wanted to train Firemaking and that it did not have any purpose at higher levels. And I’ll give them
1486credit, people suddenly wanted to train Firemaking. This is another one that enough people have said
1487enough about.
1488Mod Ed’s comments on the state of it are particularly embarassing. He seems to be content with it
1489running train on a skill, leaving it in its current state, and trying a bit harder next time.
1490Superior Slayer encounters - 15 September 2016, P, GM
1491A cool idea with some very unfortunate end results. Bigger versions of Slayer monsters that spawn,
1492pose an additional challenge to kill, and give additional drops when they die is great. The way that the
1493rare drops work is cool, with the Imbued Heart being so rare compared to the Battlestaffs makes the
1494eventual drop very satisfying.
1495The designs, while pretty goofy at times, looked nice. I especially liked the superior Infernal Mage and
1496Aberrant Spectre that were literally just huge versions of the existing creatures and I mean that in a
1497genuine way. Some of the superior mechanics could use some cleaning up, like how the Chaotic
1498Death Spawns from the Nechryarch can and do deal 50+ damage every couple of ticks.
1499But for the most part, they feel worth it to kill. And the update would have been great left at this point.
1500Unfortunately, it’s as if this was balanced entirely around low-level content and no thought was spared
1501for the fact that the Night Beast gives a 6462 Slayer XP drop when killed. Slayer rates were increased
1502by upwards of 5k/h for the one-off cost of 150 Slayer Points. Just remove or nerf the XP drop and this
1503is a great update.
1504
150542
1506
1507Slayer drop table buffs - 15 September 2016, P
1508Buffing the drop tables for Gargoyles, Nechryaels, Waterfiends, Scabarites, Dust Devils, and Kurasks
1509was a great idea. These were all monsters that didn’t see as much activity as some others, and
1510encouraging players to kill them would help to spread people out through the game and reduce
1511crowding in common areas.
1512Sadly, they balanced these drop tables on the Skeletal Wyvern template rather than the Dark Beast
1513template. Every drop now had to be considered valuable. Anything dropped by these monsters that
1514wasn’t tied to an alch price dropped. It felt like 700k/h GP was the benchmark that they were aiming
1515for, even if they had to give the monsters a one-in-ten chance of just dropping 10k gold on the ground
1516at a time.
1517This once more brought up the arguments of a level 75 Slayer monster being a better money making
1518method that things with higher requirements due to poor balancing from the dev team.
1519Blast Furnace automation - 15 September 2015, P, OC
1520The Blast Furnace evolved as a player-run activity that offered some pretty damn good experience and
1521money making rates to players when they all worked together. What a great sounding concept. The
1522problem here was that some people got a little bit angry and tried to prevent other players from being
1523able to do the Blast Furnace well.
1524In direct opposition to their normal method of placing a small sticking plaster over the cut, it was
1525instead decided that the whole body should be tossed out and replaced with a robot to do the job.
1526Some amazing emergent gameplay based on cooperation thrown out of the window because people
1527wanted something that was already good to be even better.
1528Even more offensive is how they dared to call the 60k GP required per hour to use this service a
1529goldsink in some of the most shortsighted reasoning I’ve seen in my life. It is true that players will pay
153060,000 Gold Pieces to use the Blast Furnace, and that that gold will no longer be in the game. But
1531what really happens, it that there are more people using the Blast Furnace.
1532These people are increasing the supply of Mithril/Adamantite/Runite Bars into the game. These bars
1533are then smithed into items that would be alched or sold to the Karamja General Store. One player
1534making five Runite Bars per hour is already offsetting this apparent goldsink in the gold generated
1535down the line. One of the worst updates.
1536Fairy Ring improvements - 22 September 2016, P, OC
1537The final nail in the coffin for Fairy Rings. The player no longer needed to travel back to Zanaris in order
1538to go to another location. The player can now right-click on the Fairy Ring and go directly to their most
1539recent destination.
1540Increased pet chance at 200m - 29 September 2016, P
1541Pure, raw entitlement. The whole idea of pets is that you might get them.
1542Obor - 6 October 2016, P, OC
1543Cool update. Giving more taster content to F2P doesn’t hurt anyone.
1544
154543
1546
1547Ourania Altar - 13 October 2016, P, GM
1548No one would have wanted anything even close to this if it was not in the main game. Bad update that
1549did not fill any gaps in Runecrafting.
1550Picketpocket changes - 20 October 2016, UP, BF
1551Made it so that NPCs can no longer be attacked straight after they have been pickpocketed. It is now
1552easier than ever to autoclick in Ardougne.
1553Catacombs nerf - 3 November 2016, UP, BF
1554This right here was the fix. They prevented NPCs in the Catacombs from being able to easily walk
1555around into other rooms.
1556This was mainly an issue with things like Deviant Spectres heading everywhere, but it was also
1557allowing players to lure Greater Nechryaels from both rooms into the connecting hallway for very high
1558Slayer experience rates.
1559Catacombs buff - 10 November 2016, UP
1560And then they ruined it. Adding more Greater Nechryaels to each room allowed the player to still get the
1561same experience rates that they were before the nerf.
1562Zeah redesign - 17 November 2016, P, OC
1563A real push in the right direction. Zeah started looking more like a landmass and less like the doodling
1564of a three-year-old.
1565Seers Ring buff - 1 December 2016, P
1566Over 75% of the community woke up one morning and decided that the best-in-slot Magic ring needed
1567to have its Magic Attack bonus increased by two. Why? I do not know.
1568Construction Cape buff - 1 December 2016, P
1569I’ll reiterate something here. A buff should occur when a piece of content is underutilised and is not
1570worth it for most people. The Construction Cape perk, five free teleports to a POH portal per day, was
1571heavily utilised and saw enough use to the point where those who were able to use it would run out of
1572their daily teleports. Why, then, was the perk upgraded with no additional requirements to give
1573unlimited teleports?
1574That is not how balancing works. The players should have sat down and evaluated when and where
1575the teleports could be most efficiently used, and then used other transportation methods when they
1576either ran out or were engaging in content that did not benefit as much from the teleports. Very bad
1577update.
1578
157944
1580
15812.5 2017
1582Chambers of Xeric - 5 December 2017, P, OC
1583Another bit of content that I haven’t done much (any) of because I’m too bad at the game but I can still
1584appreciate how well done it was. Easily one of the best updates in the game if you just remove the
1585Twisted Bow. The rooms within the Raid are all distinct and offer a different challenge with new
1586mechanics. The amount of optimisation and player learning that can be put to use is awesome.
1587I like how you’re encouraged to make your supplies within the raid, and feel like it could have been a
1588bit better if you weren’t allowed to take any outside supplies in and had to rely on crafting resources,
1589but the existing system is functional. The rooms being randomised allows for much greater playability.
1590The content scaling according to the number of players allows for more people to enjoy it in the way
1591that they want to.
1592As for the drops themselves:
1593• The Ancestral Robes were something that was due to come into the game eventually and I’m glad
1594they have remained at a high price.
1595• The Twisted Buckler offered something for crossbows to try and (unsuccessfully) compete with the
1596Blowpipe.
1597• Dinh’s Bulwark is a cool idea that still needs to see some better content for it to be used at, I’ve
1598got hopes for the Meyerdich raids hitting that.
1599• The Dragon Hunter Crossbow offers a nice in-between for the Runite Crossbow and the ACB that
1600only has situational uses.
1601• I don’t understand why or how the Dragon Harpoon made it into the game.
1602• The Elder Maul tried to offer an alternative to the Abyssal Bludgeon in terms of high-end crush
1603weapons but didn’t quite make it.
1604• I honestly have no idea what the Dragon Thrownaxes do.
1605• And the Dragon Sword is a nice little, harmless drop that isn’t really good anywhere, but hey neither
1606are most Dragon weapons.
1607But the Twisted Bow is just too good, there’s no other way to put it. Even after it being ‘nerfed’ by fixing
1608some of the stats of major boss NPCs it is still the best item in the game, by far. And then there are the
1609Magic and Ranged prayer scrolls that threw the existing combat balancing right out of the window,
1610Rigour being the main culprit.
1611All of the existing best content that had been brought into the game in the last few years was balanced
1612around there being Piety for Melee and 15% prayers for Magic and Ranged. The Blowpipe, previously
1613the existing best DPS weapon against low defence monsters, became even better. The damage from
1614the Dark Bow needed to be capped to prevent one-shot kills. The Twisted Bow had a higher DPS
1615against Jad than the Abyssal Whip had against Abyssal Demons.
1616The Kodai Wand was a complete and utter upgrade from all existing Magic weapons. It had the 15%
1617damage bonus from the SoTD, the ability to autocast Ancient spells from the Master Wand, a higher
1618chance of saving runes that the SoTD, and even had the rune saving effect of a Water Staff. With all of
1619the Magic buffs over the years taken into account, the max hit of Ice Barrage went up by 10 on players
1620and 16 on Slayer task monsters.
1621The Dragon Claws are just straight up unneeded and only came into the game because everyone at
1622the office was sick of seeing Archie’s strikingly obvious boner everytime he asked about them on
1623stream.
1624
162545
1626
1627A generally good update with some particularly bad downsides to it. I won’t mention any of the actual
1628updates that came later to raids themselves because I don’t even know what they are. And I still find it
1629hilarious that Team Hexis got the first raid clear despite the questionable quality of some of the
1630members.
1631Mouse Key - Changes & Clarification - 25 January 2017, UP
1632Technically not an update, but I will put it here. I support the decision to ban the use of Auto Hotkey and
1633was eagerly awaiting to see if they could come up with a decent solution to solve the problem that led
1634to its heavy usage.
1635Silver Jewellery - 2 February 2017, P, OC
1636A great idea that aimed to revitalise some existing and underused resources in the game and provide
1637some cool little effects. And for the most part, it did that. The only problems are the Expeditious and
1638Slaughter Bracelets, which shortened and extended any given task by 25% and 33% respectively for
1639no real cost. This was and still is extremely unbalanced and should have been thought about a little bit
1640harder by the devs who designed them.
1641It would have been helpful if they’d told us before the update what the chances of the effect activating
1642was so that the community could have provided feedback on them. Rather than just saying “a chance”
1643like they did.
1644Redwood Tree overhaul - 16 February 2017
1645I remember getting a bit excited when I read this header in the patch notes, expecting them to do
1646something to make the unbalanced content a bit more balanced. The update instead made it even
1647better due to the popularity of the method.
1648Shift-click drop - 23 February 2017, P, OC
1649Maybe the worst example so far of an update not addressing the actual problem. The problem was
1650that players were unhappy with how they interacted with the game’s interface, finding it to be archaic
1651and difficult with the large amounts of small and accurate mouse movements that were required.
1652Many players, including myself, alleviated this through the use of tools such as Auto Hotkey to make it
1653much easier to consistently complete these actions. A few bad eggs took it a bit further and created
1654full-blown macro scripts using the same tools. One of the things that players liked to use them for was
1655to drop items. The solution only addressed these last two parts. The solution made it even easier than
1656it had been to drop items while using AHK but left all other aspects of the game out.
1657I appreciate the intent but find the result lacking.
1658Superior Slayer visual improvements - 23 February 2017, P, OC
1659Details, details, details. You could be forgiven for thinking that someone higher up had ordered too many
1660design details and forced the artists to spend them all right here. The Night Beast looks very out of place
1661and the Insatiable Bloodveld has a huge ass.
1662NPC Contact changes - 16 March 2017, P
1663I’ve cast NPC contact about as much as any other player in the game (40m Runecrafting at Astrals and
166480m Slayer through Duradel without Karamja Gloves) and not even I was asking for this one. Makes
1665the NPC Contact spell, which was already very useful, even better for no additional cost.
1666
166746
1668
1669Sortable names lists - 23 March 2017, P
1670Great update. Being able to sort Friends/Ignore lists and the Clan Chat list improved the quality of my
1671life.
1672Gout Tuber ops moved -23 March 2017, UP
1673One of the best idiot taxes in the game was ruined. Anyone who eats a Gout Tuber deserves to sit there
1674and think about what they’ve done and how they can work to improve their life.
1675Wilderness Slayer - 13 April 2017, P, OC
1676A well-meaning idea that never really picked up steam because it’s pointless to do.
1677Slayer Point bonus - 13 April 2017, P, GM
1678Introducing large Slayer point bonuses at 100, 250, and 1000 tasks completed was required for the
1679following reasons:
1680Diverse Dungeons - 27 April 2017, P, OC
1681A mostly great update. Nieve’s Cave had always been an eyesore and generally a poor piece of
1682content, and this fixed that in basically all ways.
1683The redone sections of Nieve’s Cave are a lot larger and feel less like squished up rooms. The Chasm
1684of Fire with demon spawns has a cool design and suits the monsters inside. The Taverly Dungeon
1685expansion is a bit boring. The Kraken Cove makes a lot of sense to be where it is. The Kalphite Hive
1686also makes a lot of sense to be where it is, but I think that adding in the extra spawns was unneeded.
1687The Brimhaven Dungeon expansion is a bit boring. The Slayer Tower Dungeon is well done, although
1688does feel a bit cramped. And the Smoke Devil Dungeon is completely functional.
1689This was overall well done and spread players out through the regions of the game.
1690Jiminua nerf - 27 April 2017
1691Apparently, the unbalanced part of players making obscene amounts of money using the perks from the
1692Karamja Task sets was that it prevented people from unnoting pure essence.
1693Skillcape perk buffs - 11 May 2017, P
1694The Construction Cape (and Max Cape) perk could now be activated without needing to go into a
1695sub-menu.
1696The Prayer Cape (and Max Cape) now acted as a Holy Wrench when in the inventory. This one gets
1697me going because the only people who wanted it were those with Max Capes already in their inventory.
1698There is no utility to having the Prayer Cape in your inventory instead of a Holy Wrench.
1699The Smithing Cape (and Max Cape) now functioned as both a set of Goldsmithing Gauntlets and a
1700Coal Bag extender. This meant that players using a Max Cape could now benefit from the weight
1701saving reduction while smelting gold at the Blast Furnace.
1702The Achievement Diary Cape had its daily teleport limit extended to 10 from 5 in order for players to
1703get to the new Kalphite Hive quicker, thus defeating the purpose of adding additional spawns. But this
1704was still not good enough for some.
1705
170647
1707
1708Double Death and Law Runes - 18 May 2017, P
1709It would have been nice if these followed the existing formula for duplicate runes, but it was a generally
1710harmless update. Abyss Runecrafting got even faster, but I don’t think anyone actually cares at this
1711point.
1712Rogues’ Outfit changes - 18 May 2017 P
1713The Rogues’ Outfit, which was extremely good due to how useful it was while autoclicking at Ardougne
1714Knights, was made even easier to get than before. Another great example of already good content being
1715made even better for no real reason.
1716World Map - 25 June 2017, P, GM
1717A good update but I’ve never actually had to open it. I think that it might have been a cool idea to not
1718show resource icons on areas or have some sort of fog over areas that you hadn’t visited in some sort
1719of way to fit with the Oldschool name that the game still uses.
1720Balancing Changes - 25 June 2017, UP
1721The second major instance of the team proving that they do, in fact, have some decency.
1722Zulrah’s drop table getting nerfed had been a no-brainer for years. The Serpentine Helmet nerf was
1723well-meaning but I feel that it went a bit too far. The Void Ranged set was extremely good given its
1724price and fed into the system that the game has where DPS takes precedence over everything else. I
1725have no idea what the PvP drop changes meant from this update.
1726And nerfing Karamja Store took far longer than it should have. No method should be able to bring that
1727much money into the game at such a speed. I do feel that the main reason they did it was to combat
1728RWT, but the outcome is still great all the same.
1729The Inferno - 1 June 2017, P, OC/GM
1730More content that I’ll never do because I suck at the game. It seems to have met a lot of positive reception
1731so I’ll say that it’s good. Having this sort of high-end content is always a plus. The Infernal Cape feels
1732balanced given the requirements.
1733Gay Pride - 8 June 2017, UP
1734Why did Oldschool Runescape need a Gay Pride event? It’s a nice enough sentiment and I think it’s
1735hilarious how couldn’t understand why the community reacted in the way it did.
1736Clickbox improvements - 15 June 2017, P
1737This is now the third time that the clickbox of the POH Mounted Glory has been increased. At this point,
1738I would support them adding in an Amulet of Glory Rug that requires 10 amulets to create and has the
1739whole floor as a clickbox so that these ”improvements” can bugger off.
1740
174148
1742
1743Mining Guild expansion - 22 June 2017, P, OC
1744People wanted an update to the Mining Guild but I don’t think that they wanted this one. The new
1745areas provided spots for ores to be banked quickly but I don’t know if anyone actually needed that.
1746Ores come into the game through MLM, Blast Mine, and Gargoyles now. Even Ironmen just buy them
1747from stores.
1748The Mining Gloves makes gathering down here better, but again, why would you mine ores down
1749here? Amethyst mining is alright though. It is what Redwoods should have been.
1750Australian Servers - 27 June 2017, finally
1751Only took four years of asking. Reduced latency for Aus/NZ users by around 80ms. Some issues with
1752DDoS protection meant that they still weren’t fully functional until late October of 2017. The Quality of
1753Life GOAT.
1754Auto-smash vials - 29 June 2017, P
1755A nice idea, but why was this implemented with no cost or content to unlock it? It offers a distinct perk
1756but it has no requirements. This is just slack.
1757Fishing Guild expansion - 6 July 2017, P, OC
1758A bit like the Mining Guild expansion, funnily enough. The most baffling part of this update, and
1759specifically Minnow fishing, is why it was implemented. For years, people had complained about
1760Zulrah’s drop table by using the example of how much faster it was to gather Raw Sharks killing the
1761boss rather than fishing them. Shark supply wasn’t the problem here, it was the symptom. Nerfing
1762Zulrah’s drop table was the correct solution to the actual problem. No one wanted a faster way to be
1763able to gather Raw Sharks. I just don’t get it.
1764Requirement added to Brutal Blacks - 13 July 2017, P
1765The problem was that Brutal Black Dragons had a highly unbalanced drop table that allowed a lot of
1766players to make fast and easy money. The solution used here was to reduce overcrowding and make
1767it so that the people who did have the requirements were able to make even more money. Just fix the
1768drop tables of things already. Skeletals Wyverns still have a lot to answer for.
1769Magic Skillcape buff - 13 July 2017, P
1770The Magic Skillcape perk to switch spellbooks was seeing heavy use due to how good it was. Players
1771could now switch five times per day rather than only one, with no additional requirements or cost.
1772OSRS Mobile announcement - 17 July 2017
1773Not actually an update, but this was the one that broke me.
1774Elite Desert amulet buff - 20 July 2017, P
1775“Since the introduction of pools within Player-Owned-Houses we’ve noticed that Nardah
1776isn’t quite the attractive destination it once was. To ensure completion of the Elite Desert
1777achievement diary remains suitably rewarding, we’ve now added the option to teleport to
1778the task-only Kalphite cave. This is a new option in addition to the existing teleport to
1779Nardah.”
1780
178149
1782
1783Since the introduction of some extremely overpowered content that we failed to balance correctly,
1784people have been complaining that they wasted heaps of time killing the Kalphite Queen. To ensure
1785that they might shut up and leave us alone, we’ve now added the option to completely reverse the
1786work we did in the “Diverse Dungeons” update and allow players to teleport directly to the new cave.
1787This is a pure buff and comes with no additional requirements or costs.
1788Karambwan and Karambwanji changes - 10 August 2017, P, OC
1789Check this out. They buffed previously underutilised content, made gathering a resource more viable
1790compared to buying it from a store, and made efforts to balance the update before they even released
1791it. The team deserve a gold star for this one.
1792Deadman Mansions - 1 September 2017, ???
1793Gamers in the house forever.
1794Fossil Island - 7 September, P, OC
1795Generally, a good update. The individual environements themselves look fantastic but it doesn’t seem
1796like much thought or effort was put into making the transitions between them seem natural.
1797The Volcanic Mine wasn’t really something that was needed in the game, but it does seem to be a
1798well-designed piece of content. I am not a fan of how they buffed it in the following weeks when it was
1799clear that players hadn’t optimised the activity (and those that had kept it a secret).
1800The underwater Thieving/Agility content is a little bit unbalanced but I do like how it provides an
1801alternative to the Rooftop Empire.
1802All versions of the new Wyverns seem like pretty crap tasks and that’s a good thing.
1803The Herbiboar is good content that offers an alternative to Chimchompas.
1804The mushrooms that I’m not going to bother trying to spell give a nice alternative to traditional
1805Woodcutting training, but I do not think that the buffs that came a few weeks later were all needed.
1806Overall, the update did well to create alternatives rather than replacements to existing content, but I do
1807not like how there is a trend of continuing to buff all of the content until it is the best thing for players to
1808be doing. A lot of it is good for the players who either want something a bit different or are willing to put
1809in a bit more effort, it does not need to be better than existing content.
1810Make All - 19 October 2017, P, GM
1811Mod Ash once again puts a lot of effort into making technically good content that just doesn’t quite fit.
1812The graphics used in the Make-all interfaces look out of place in the rest of the game. Everything
1813having different ways of being made gave the game a janky sort of charm to it, nothing was perfect.
1814I don’t agree with this sort of standardisation across skills and across methods as it takes away some
1815of the aspects that make things unique. There is no actual need for this sort of thing to come into the
1816game and it feels like a serious vanity project.
1817
181850
1819
1820Grotesque Guardians - 26 October 2017, P, OC
1821From what I’ve heard, this is a good boss that is more focused on the mechanics and having an
1822enjoyable fight rather than being the most rewarding. This is good. It is a level 75 Slayer boss, the
1823rewards should not be great.
1824Even if it were to give less GP per hour than normal Gargoyles, the solution should be to nerf the
1825normal Gargoyles rather than to buff the boss. Even if it gives a higher XP drop that the
1826Thermonuclear Smoke Devil despite having a lower requirement, the solution should be to nerf the
1827Garyogle XP drop not buff the Smoke Devil one.
1828Having a higher requirement doesn’t even mean that something should automatically be better, and
1829especially not in Slayer. Kalphites and Dagannoths both have a Slayer level requirement of 1, and both
1830can give upwards of 80k/h XP.
1831The Granite Hammer is a nice enough weapon and fills in the slot for Crush that was taken away from
1832the Leaf-bladed Axe. The Guardian Boots offer an alternative that will hopefully see more use
1833alongside Dinh’s Bulwark in the future. Granite Cannoballs are something that I feel was unneeded,
1834but at least them and the material required to create them cannot be traded. A good update.
1835King of the Skill - 1 November 2017, UP, OC
1836I like this one a lot. It’s like DMM but without as much of the toxicity that comes around when you
1837combine PKers with a cash prize. The 24-hour limit is great. The intital implementation, the normal
1838game with forced Ironman and 10x experience is a good one. It rewards those players who know a lot
1839about the game and are willing to put in the time to optimise a path, rather than the paintsniffers that
1840have decent muscle memory and just want to repeat the same action that is the current high-level
1841meta for 24 hours straight.
1842I feel like some content could or should have been disabled due to how it discourages players putting
1843in actual planning, such as Wintertodt, Hosidius Cooking, Zeah RC (both the books and the making
1844runes sections), and Tithe Farm just to encourage more variety. There seems to be a trend in where
1845this content is located.
1846One thing I really like about it is how the competition can use completely different formats in the future
1847to allow for different play styles to come through. A version where everyone has max stats. A version
1848where all quests are completed. An Ultimate Ironman version. Maybe even one with the initial 2007
1849build of the game, without any of the OSRS updates since.
1850Even though it does not seem like this mode will be hugely successful due to how it doesn’t exactly
1851endear itself to streaming content, I hope that they continue to stick with it and run it two or three times
1852a year with different rulesets. There was even an Australian world for it.
1853Kourend Quests - 9 November 2017, P, OC
1854Adding a couple of novice quests in order to flesh our the region of Kourend is such a good idea it
1855leaves me wondering just why they didn’t do it from the start. Maybe if they weren’t on such a rushed
1856production schedule they might have been able to follow the traditional system where quests introduce
1857new areas rather than the other way around.
1858I like how the quests give small amounts of house favour to cut down on some of the pretty awful early
1859favour grinding that they implemented. I don’t like how they feel the need to keep introducing more and
1860more teleports to Kourend. The lack of teleports should have been seen as a positive to the region,
1861with how it made the teleports that did exist even more valuable. But that’s not how it works.
1862Accidentally adding in a 400k/h Thieving method wasn’t the best, but at least they fixed it.
1863
186451
1865
1866Mage Arena II - 23 November 2017, P, OC
1867The pure laziness of this update can be seen by taking a quick glance at the title. The only possible
1868decent reason that they might have had for calling it this is the same reason we got something called
1869”Monkey Madness II”, they have this idea that for any new content to succeed it needs to have a tie in
1870with some older content. The problem here is that the Mage Arena itself isn’t actually content that
1871people liked doing in the way that Monkey Madness was. The Mage Arena was the way for players to
1872get the god capes, the god spells, and the god staves. That was it.
1873In order to complete the miniquest with a reskinned name, the player character must run around the
1874Wilderness and kill three reskinned Greater Demons, collect three reskinned Imbued Hearts, and then
1875finally receive their newly reskinned God Cape. It was fairly ridiculous that the God Capes, which took
1876a matter of minutes to obtain, were previously the best-in-slot Magic Capes. But this is just pathetic.
1877So little effort was put into this. The quality might have been acceptable if this was released sometime
1878in the middle of 2013, when there was no full-time artist and no proper dev tools. But it’s 2017, there
1879are three artists on the team and a handful of developers. This was rushed out for an arbitrary
1880deadline, has a decent chance of being graphically updated in the future, for some reason includes a
1881Demon of Saradomin, and is just some very low quality content for a team of this size.
1882Revenant Caves - 23 November 2017, P, GM
1883I will continue to assert that this is the correct sort of update that PvP should be focusing on. Bringing
1884in players who were not previously interested in PvP content is the only way that the community can
1885grow. It might not be the most effective way to get PvP content to pass polls, it may not be popular with
1886a lot of players, but it is the right direction when compared to splinter updates.
1887That being said, there was absolutely no reason for this to come into the game. Giving throwbacks to
1888the good ol’ days while also massively reducing the time taken to design content seems to be the
1889modus operandi for modern content in Oldschool Runescape. But they couldn’t even get the PvP
1890armours to pass a poll, so we end up with this pretty gimped version of the content instead. Although,
1891to be honest, I don’t actually mind the 100x drops solution. It gives the required GP that they were
1892polled on and is rare enough that it has a tiny influence on the economy that only drops even further
1893when you realise that this is going to be dead content.
1894Ardougne Cape Buffs - 30 November 2017, P, OC
1895Because players were using the cape to teleport so much that they were running out an update was
1896made to the game to give them more teleports with no additional requirements or cost.
1897The Corsair Curse - 7 December 2017, P, OC
1898A new area being introduced to the game that requires the player to complete a quest before being
1899able to access it. This updates joins a very exclusive list that so far only includes Fossil Island.
1900The new areas added all feel natural. The resource area and the dungeon both provide some
1901”end-game” content for F2P and it is quite clear that this update was made for the release of mobile.
1902But I do like it, good content. Pretty boring update to end this on.
1903
190452
1905
19063 Closing Words
1907If you’ve read everything and made it this far, then congratulations and commiserations are in order.
1908I’ve you’ve skipped ahead, I don’t blame you.
1909One idea that I brought up again and again in the body of this document is that content that is already
1910used a lot should not be buffed without additional requirements or costs in place to attempt to balance
1911it. And it is here that the game has failed again and again. There seems to be this pervasive trend that
1912the parts of the game that players already use are the parts that need the most focus.
1913Just look at the Dwarven Multicannon and the Fairy Ring system. Both of these were already
1914amazingly useful pieces of content when OSRS was launched. Both of them basically necessitated
1915that players unlock them as quickly as possible by completing the relevant quests. The logical thing,
1916from a balancing perspective, would be to look at the two of them and see just what it is that makes
1917them so good. To consider if they need to be nerfed in any way. To plan new content that would
1918compete with them and offer other options that aim for the same purpose. To provide variety.
1919But not the Runescape community. The logical path for them is to beg and to cry out that small
1920sections of already great content is just a little bit inconvenient, or could be just that little bit faster. The
1921polling system means that, in order for something to be nerfed, it either needs to pass a poll or risk the
1922wrath of the community. The first of these two options would never happen. Why would someone want
1923to make content slower, weaker, less money, or harder? But the second one is where the dev team’s
1924reluctance to look past the data and instead consider the long-term health of the game has failed for
1925me.
1926With only a handful of notable exceptions, the dev team has been completely unwilling to take
1927balancing and integrity issues into their own hands. Any nerfs that occur will only take place within the
1928first week of something being released. If an overpowered method is found more than a week after the
1929release then it is fair to assume that it will remain in the game.
1930To this day, Nightmare Zone is the best way to train Melee stats all of the way to 200,000,000
1931experience. Players are allowed to gain advantages through the use of third-party clients. A new
1932teleport comes into the game every other week so that players can get to content that they are already
1933doing even faster. NPCs constantly have their basic human rights marginalised in favour of the player
1934controlled character needing to do everything quickly. 30-minute gravestones are in place with no
1935consequence due to issues with DDoSing. New bosses frequently come into the game with ways to
1936prevent the player from losing any items. The most efficient way to kill a lot of bosses revolves around
1937abusing the Pool of Rejuvenation rather than actual resources. The experience rates for Slayer have
1938been allowed to triple from what they were on launch. Rewards from Achievement Diaries keep getting
1939better without any new tasks. The Max Cape is nearing rotten potato status. The Grand Exchange was
1940the death of player-to-player trading. Random events were entirely removed. Microtranscations were
1941added in.
1942I understand why these things would pass. But what I don’t understand is why they keep getting
1943polled. I would like to say that I think a hard stance needed to be taken on any more updates like this
1944coming into the game, but I think that the damage has already been done. There is no way that the
1945game can get back to what I see as a decent state with the current framework. That’s not even taking
1946into account the fact that OSRS Mobile will be coming out soon, which will almost certainly see a flood
1947of players in the hundreds of thousands enter the game.
1948Do you, the reader, honestly think that the game will be able to maintain any of its integrity? The berths
1949between older MMOs, middling MMOs (which is where I would place the release build of OSRS), and
1950new MMOs are huge. But the berth between all of them and mobile games are on another scale
1951entirely.
1952As time has gone on, the attitude from the developers and the players changed from a ”why should we
1953
195453
1955
1956add this content to the game?” to a ”why not add this content to the game?” This attitude is in direct
1957opposition to how the polling system was set up at the beginning of OSRS. A 75% requirement for a
1958poll to pass is an overwhelming supermajority and supports the idea that content should need
1959overwhelming support to get into the game. If anything, this passing percentage discourages content
1960from making it into the game
1961Yet, week after week, we see more and more updates come into the game. The reason, I believe, for
1962this particular oddity is that the development team know this and have learned to game the system
1963very effectively. A combination of appealing to post-2007 nostalgia, repeated polling of the same
1964content until it passes, creating content before polling it, and focusing on buffing existing popular
1965content has allowed the them steadily pump out material.
1966If I could say one thing to sum up all of my thoughts, it would be this: the community-run game
1967experiment has succeeded in creating a viable business product that has become increasingly popular
1968over time due to its ability to stand on its own right. It has, however, failed to maintain the ethos of the
1969game. I don’t blame the polling system and I don’t entirely blame the voting public.
1970Again, it is understandable that people would vote yes to a lot of the content that moves the game
1971further from its roots. Because, after all, the idea of playing a game is supposed to be having fun. For
1972me, the blame rests on two things. It rests on the weekly update cycle and not in what passes the
1973polls, but what reaches the polls in the first place.
1974A weekly update cycle spelt the death warrant for the integrity of the game on day dot. There simply
1975weren’t enough small tweaks and minor balancing changes to occupy what is now more than 250
1976updates. New things had to come into the game.
1977And due the the combination of a small development team and an attitude of heavy community
1978involvement, it was going to be the players that both suggested and dictated what those updates would
1979be. The dev team appear to be content to take a hands-off approach towards holding back certain
1980areas of the game. The attitude seems to be that they trust the players to be the ones to decide what is
1981and what isn’t too far. And they have even directly referenced this attitude in public communications
1982before. These statements come from the AMA that the team took place in on the 15th of April, 2016.
1983Nicashi: How do you make sure the game doesn’t become unrecognisable and loses the
1984oldschool feel?
1985Maz: By living and breathing oldschool and by listening to our players.
1986Weath: Players that are very passionate about keeping this feeling being responsible for all
1987content that’s added to the game.
1988DdvdD: Considering the new items added to OSRS, the team and community obviously
1989don’t mind new content being added, as opposed to keeping it ”2007”scape. In the future,
1990will the staff draw the line to keep oldschool runescape, oldschool? Or will the staff cater to
1991popular demand as oldschool progresses?
1992Mat K: The players will draw the line, not us.
1993And that’s why I struggle to find the motivation to keep playing this game that I love. If you disagree
1994with me (highly likely) that’s great. Disagreement and opposition are what fuel proper discussions and
1995communities. I just hope that you’ve taken something on-board from what I’ve had to say.
1996
199754