Democracy just got an upgrade!
As of today, the Poll System Improvements are officially live – giving us more flexible, informative, and fancier ways to hear from you in-game.
You can check out the full deep-dive here, but if you’d rather the short version: polls are still the same Old School polls you know and love: 70% pass rate, same charter, same principles, but the system behind them has levelled up. Big time.
Gradual Rollout & Live Testing
The launch of any new system can be tricky, especially one where every game world needs to talk to a separate server that manages poll data and webpages. To make sure everything runs smoothly, we’re rolling this one out gradually.
To start with, only staff will be able to access the new poll menus in-game while we carry out some final live checks. Once we’re happy everything’s stable, we’ll use hotfixes to open the poll booths for members.
Our first live poll will be a Road Test – a short run of questions that won’t affect any in-game updates. In fact, most of them won’t even be about the game itself. The goal is to make sure the system performs exactly as intended before we start using it for real decision-making.
We’re aiming to open the Road Test poll to all members by the end of Wednesday 22nd, though we’ll hold off if our testing uncovers any issues. Keep an eye out for the poll system’s usual in-game notifications that’ll tell you when it’s open. The new poll webpages will also become available once their rollout is complete.
New Question Types
We can now go far beyond the humble tick box. Say hello to new question formats, including:
- Multiple choice: Pick a few favourites from a list.
- Ranked lists: Drag and drop your order of preference – like which rewards you’d prioritise.
- Free-text responses: Type your thoughts directly in-game (be polite!)
- Matrix-style questions: Rate different aspects of an idea on a scale – i.e, do you strongly like, like, neutral, dislike, strongly dislike.
- Single choice: The classic Yes/No remains, because sometimes simplicity wins.
Better Poll Formatting
Polls can now include text blocks, images, and headers – even direct links to blogs for more context. No more flipping between the game and your browser just to understand what you’re voting on. Polls are now as readable and informative as a proper Old School news post – just with more voting.
New Poll Types
Not every poll in Old School is a simple “Should we add this?” anymore, and now, the game makes that clearer than ever.
We’ve updated the poll interface so you can easily see what kind of poll you’re voting in – whether it’s a Lock-in, a Greenlight, or a casual Opinion Poll. These poll types have been part of the community process for a while, but until now, it wasn’t always obvious which was which.
Here’s what each means:
- Lock-in Polls: These are the commitment-style votes. If a proposal passes the 70% threshold, we’ll go ahead and make it – unless we hit an unexpected development hurdle, in which case we’ll explain why.
- Greenlight Polls: These are early-stage feedback polls that ask whether we should explore an idea further. If they pass, we’ll take the concept back to the design stage and return later with a refined proposal for a proper Lock-in vote. This change doesn’t alter how polling works; it just makes the process clearer and more transparent in-game, so you always know exactly what kind of decision you’re helping shape.
Who Gets to Vote?
The default poll requirements still apply – you’ll still need 300 total level and 25 hours of playtime to take part in most votes.
What’s changing is how we use our existing targeting tools. We’ve actually been able to run polls for specific player groups for quite some time (for example, Ironman-only questions), but we haven’t always used that feature to its full potential. Sometimes thresholds weren’t quite right, and sometimes players felt unfairly excluded from votes about content they might try one day.
Going forward, we’re improving how we manage and communicate these targeted polls. That means ensuring players always know upfront who qualifies and why.
Some examples of what we may target include:
- Asking only players who’ve defeated a boss to rate its drop table
- Getting feedback from Skillers on new gathering methods
These refinements help us balance expert insight with community-wide sentiment, while keeping the polling process clear, fair, and representative of the players most affected by each question.
Scheduling, Automation & Multiple Polls
We can now run multiple polls at once, schedule polls to open and close automatically, and even tease upcoming polls in advance so you can see what’s coming. That means no more waiting weeks for one poll to finish before another can start!
A Fresh Look
The poll interface (both in-game and on the website) has had a well-earned glow-up. Poll results now display identically across game and web, including proper handling of skip votes (finally!).
Behind the scenes, the system is far more robust, drastically reducing the chance of poll data getting corrupted or lost.
The beating heart of Old School remains the same: if it’s coming into the game, it needs 70% of your votes. However, now, we can ask smarter questions, run polls with ease, and make it better than ever for your voice to shape the future of Gielinor.
