Behold! All the big news from this year’s Summer Summit in one handy blog.
Client Updates: Plugin API
Varlamore: The Rising Darkness
Varlamore: The Final Dawn
Leagues V
Game Jam V
Wrathmaw: Wilderness World Boss
The Curse of Arrav
Branda and Eldric – The Royal Titans
Summer Summit 2024 – Survey
In last year’s annual survey, we included a question about custom servers for Old School RuneScape. After a very promising reception, and over a year of work behind the scenes, we’re ready to announce Project Zanaris – otherwise known as Old School RuneScape Community Servers (or Worlds, as we call them).
Community Servers will take the Old School RuneScape you know and love and let you tweak different elements to create a brand-new gameplay experience. Do you want NPCs to deal 5x the damage? Do you want to make everyone an Ultimate Ironman, or turn PvP on everywhere? All of this, and more, will soon be possible.
These are servers where you make the rules, and you can also choose who can access your creation – whether that be a small group of close friends, your Clan, or the whole community!
Players will be able to search and filter through lists of available servers and jump in whenever they like. Ultimately, Project Zanaris is a place where anyone can create and share a new Old School experience – or play in someone else’s!
We’ve got a dedicated blog for Project Zanaris that you can find here. There you’ll find a little more info, a fantastic sketch from J1mmy and co, and a handy FAQ. Be sure to give it a read!
In July, we published an Official Client Update that gave you a look at our progress to improve the core Old School experience. As promised, we’re back to give you some more information on the Plugin API, HD and Mobile.
We’re still working on all the features we mentioned in our previous update – but we’ve got some exciting things to showcase this summit. Roll the clip!
Here’s a quick summary on all of our updates, but make sure to check out the dedicated blog for a more detailed breakdown!
Official HD Mode
- We’re continuing to optimise performance for both HD and SD modes so that everything runs smoothly at launch.
- We’re in the final phase of lighting tools, which will give each area of Gielinor its own unique personality!
- We’ve begun research and development on extended draw distance which will allow you to see more of the world at once. This promises to do wonders for the Sailing skill and should also eliminate those pesky loading lines!
- On the topic of Sailing, we’re also refining our water system. Refreshing!
- Our next update on HD Mode will be in early 2025, so keep an eye out!
Plugin API
- Selected community members, including well-known plugin creators, are getting their hands on our new API. This will give them a headstart on building all your favourite plugins, ready for launch!
- Just like with HD mode, we’ve been seeing promising results regarding PC and mobile usage of the plugin API! Ongoing work involves making sure performance is seamless and the API is easy to use.
Mobile Updates
- On October 9th, we’ll be releasing the new Mobile UI following positive feedback from our beta players – thanks for participating!
- We’ll be making mobile even better with the addition of highly-requested features like Tile Markers, NPC Highlights, easy HiScores, and Menu Entry Swapper. With existing features like Agility highlights, Ground items, Clue Scroll helpers and more already in-use, these extra additions will bring your mobile gameplay even closer to the convenience of desktop clients!
This brief rundown is only scratching the surface of what the team’s been working on! Again, we recommend you check out the dedicated blog for the full picture.
Our second foray into the Shining Kingdom kicks off in a matter of weeks with Varlamore: The Rising Darkness.
Ominous subtitle aside this promises to be a bumper update, with everything from new bosses to new quests, and a host of fun activities in between. Take a look:
You can find a complete summary of absolutely everything that’s included in this dedicated newspost, but we’ll run through the highlights as a quick refresher.
- New Areas: Explore the hostile northern coast of Varlamore, steeped in secrecy and history… Or on a cheerier note, check out sunny Aldarin and enjoy some theatre, some wine, and a bit of mixology.
- New Quests: Dive deeper into the mysteries surrounding the Twilight Emissaries in a continuation of Varlamore’s main story. Or go full gumshoe and solve a classic whodunnit? murder mystery that’s set all of Aldarin atwitter. We’ve got a couple of other quests to breathe extra life into these new areas, so you’ll have plenty of new stories to enjoy!
- New Group Boss – Hueycoatl: Squad up with friends, join a mass of strangers or go it alone against the legendary Hueycoatl, a terrible serpent who resides on the foreboding Darkfrost mountain. Take Huey down and you’ll have a chance at earning the new Dragon Hunter Wand, Hueycoatl Hide Armour and even seeds for a Prayer Regeneration ingredient!
- New Herblore Activity – Mastering Mixology: Help Aldarin’s Alchemical Society fulfil frantic potion orders! Break your herbs down into their base components and brew brand new beverages in a fast-paced Varlamorian spin on Herblore. Rewards include Potion Storage, the pre-pot device, Goading potions, a Herblore pouch and a snazzy outfit.
- Colossal Wyrm Agility Course: Last-up, a laid-back Agility course that sees you hopping about the skeletal remains of the Colossal Wyrm. Here you can earn a new Graceful recolour, or a Bone transmog for your Squirrel pet. Don’t worry, we’re sure they’ll be fine.
Varlamore: The Rising Darkness is almost ready to go, so there’s absolutely loads of information for you to digest in the dedicated blog.
But wait… there’s Varla-more!
With Varlamore: The Rising Darkness on the horizon, it’s time to take a peek at the final installment of our Varlamore trilogy.
Varlamore: The Final Dawn will wrap up the Varlamore storyline and allow you to explore almost all of this vast kingdom. Just like with the rest of the game world, Varlamore will continue to grow for years to come. We can’t tell you what secrets you might unearth in future, but we can certainly tell you what to look forward to in this update:
- New Areas:Reconnect with nature in the autumnal Auburn Valley, slay your way through the inhospitable Custodia Pass, or immerse yourself in the lush Tlati Rainforest.
- New Quests: The finale of Varlamore’s main storyline shares a title with this expansion and will have you delving deeper than ever before into the history of Varlamore and the fate of the Old Ones. As always, there’ll be a handful of other quests to flesh out the world, packed full of the Old School charm you know and love.
- New Bosses: The Doom of Mokhaiotl brings the first-ever Enrage mechanic to Old School! Go for glory or play it safe – it’s all up to you! Meanwhile, a more sedate experience waits in the claws of a low-intensity Gemstone Crab boss. Group up with your pals, and never worry about finding a world at Sand Crabs again!
- New Slayer Dungeon: The dangerous Custodia Pass is home to three variants of a brand-new Slayer monster. Don’t worry though – there are plenty of familiar foes for you to fight too.
- New Fletching Activity: The people of Auburnvale are some of the best woodworkers around, but they could still use a hand recycling old bows into new Ranged equipment.
- And more, probably! It’s still early days for Varlamore: The Final Dawn, which means there’s every chance we come up with even more cool stuff. We’ll be sharing absolutely everything with you as we move forward, so keep an eye out for future blogs.
You can see all our current plans for Varlamore: The Final Dawn in this dedicated blog.
Do we even need to write anything else?
It’s official: a new iteration of Leagues is on the horizon, bringing with it new mechanics, a twist on some familiar enemies and of course, shiny new rewards.
Like you, we couldn’t get enough of Leagues last year, and the need to get back on task has been strong. With our next installment, those of you who have experienced a League before will be met with new challenges, while retaining some comfort of the familiar.
Not only did we announce that Leagues V: Raging Echoes is on the way at the Summer Summit, but we also revealed that you can expect it in late November!
That’s right, we’re mere months away! If that sounds soon and you’re worrying about feeling overwhelmed then don’t worry, we’ve got a blog dedicated to getting you in the loop and caught up, so give it a read over here.
If you’re in a rush and don’t want to read a complete blog, here’s a quick summary of what’s new in Leagues V.
- We’re keeping the area-locked mechanic as a core part of Leagues going forward.
- This time, you can access everything Varlamore has to offer so far, including the new features from Varlamore: The Rising Darkness!
- Combat Masteries are the new core of your combat power. They complement Relics to give you greater control of your combat buffs with new synergies, effects and boosts.
- Echo Boss Variants are the source of this Leagues’ exciting subtitle, and will put a fresh mechanical spin on some familiar faces. Every area will have its own Echo Bosses with unique rewards, shaking up the unlock meta for this League!
- As always, we’ll have new and revamped relics, a whole host of changes to the familiar Tasks list and new main game cosmetics to earn.
Leagues V is everything you’ve come to love about Leagues dialled up to 11, keep an eye out for more info in the near future because you really won’t want to miss this one!
Our fifth Game Jam brought a huge selection of passion projects from our talented J-Mods, and now we’d like to put some of them in the game!
You can read about the four pitches we’ve selected (and see some stunning concept art) in this dedicated blog!. For now though, here’s a summary:
- Collection Log Improvements
- A reworked interface to make your ‘Clogging’ easier to track, prettier to flex, and remind you of your most recent log slots.
- Collection Ranks to let you fully visualise your Collection Log journey, unlock some fancy new cosmetics, and perhaps even give you new meta-progression goals to chase.
- Collection Log HiScores to see how you stack up against your friends. Loads of players are already doing this with third-party tools, so let’s make it official!
- Mini Menus
- Gone are the days of trying to use your Ring of Duelling and being constantly interrupted by combat. Mini menu improvements will allow you to simply over over an option like ‘Rub’ and select your desired destination without needing to open a dialogue box. Max Capers rejoice!
- Bank Deposit Improvements
- A visual overhaul for Deposit Boxes makes them more intuitive and mobile-friendly.
- We’re adding the ability to lock specific Inventory slots to prevent them from being deposited prematurely, making it way easier to resupply between combat encounters.
- More POH Customisation
- Highly-requested POH themes (Varlamore, Prifddinas, Canifis and Wilderness) alongside brand new furniture options to kit out your Altar, Portal and Combat rooms! Create an abode to rival even the famous Gary Gilbert’s!
Naturally, all of these Game Jam projects are subject to further improvements should they pass the poll – so be sure to send us your feedback!
Since Deadman: Armageddon added Breaches, we’ve seen loads of requests to bring them to the main game. While General Graardor is a bit too busy to jet-set around Gielinor 12 months a year, we’ve found a way to bring the chaotic PvP fun of Breaches to the main game.
Introducing: Wrathmaw!
This very hungry caterpillar is our first-ever World Boss, and he’ll be chomping his way to a Wilderness near you. He’s exceptionally tanky with simple mechanics, which means you can enjoy epic battles while keeping an eye out for those pesky PKers.
The 60 players who deal the most damage to Wrathmaw will be rewarded for their efforts, with higher contribution yielding greater rewards – but no alchables!
You can find a full breakdown of Wrathmaw and its rewards in our dedicated blog here, there’s a lot to digest so we’d really recommend giving it a look! For the adventurer in a rush though, here’s an extremely top-level look at what’s on offer for taking down Wrathmaw.
- Wrathmaw’s Teeth are awarded to the 60 players who contributed the most damage, alongside the brand new Blighted Saradomin Brew.
- You’ll use the Teeth to access the other rewards on offer, and there are a fixed limit on how many enter the game each day.
- You can trade the Teeth to an NPC in the Revenant Caves for 2,000 Revenant Ether – or grind down an Ancient Statuette. This should make Revenant weapon upkeep more reasonable!
- Teeth can also be traded for the Amulet of Wrath, which when activated for 5,000 Revenant Ether will have stats equal to an Amulet of Glory, with bonus 15% damage against Wrathmaw.
- Also on offer is a new Wilderness Teleport which can be used anywhere in the Wilderness – provided you haven’t been in combat in the last 20 seconds and don’t get interrupted during its long animation.
- Amplifiers can be purchased from a shady new NPC. We’ve got three amplifiers, purchased using Wrathmaw’s Teeth, which combine various pieces of equipment to create powerful new ‘Amplified’ versions.
- Amplified weaponry: Finally, purchase Amplifiers and combine them with Wrathmaw’s Teeth to create powerful Amplified versions of iconic gear:
- Both the Amplified Armadyl Godsword and Amplified Volatile Nightmare Staff have Special Attacks with further increased accuracy and a reduced attack delay.
- The Amplified Dark Bow has an attack rate of 6 ticks (5 on Rapid) and uncapped Special Attack damage.
- The Mage’s Tome of Fire/Water combine the bonuses of the Mage’s Book and elemental Tomes to create powerful new off-hands.
- The Trinity Ward combines the Odium Ward, Malediction Ward and Toktz-Ket-Xil to create a new, offensive tribrid shield.
Make sure to have a look at the dedicated Wrathmaw blog, there’s far more detail in there and we’d really love to hear what you think of us trying something new and exciting for Wilderness rewards while trying to steer clear of some of the pitfalls of the past.
We’re really excited about Wrathmaw and the prospect of large-scale, reliable PvP events that introduce rewards to alleviate problems or even improve the profitability of some PvM via item sinks, just promise you’ll go easy on us if you see us out there!
For many, RuneScape’s most iconic questline is the story of the Mahjarrat. We’ve been advancing this story recently with the likes of While Guthix Sleeps and Desert Treasure 2, and you’ll soon be able to play a new instalment in this epic tale.
The Curse of Arrav is another important step in the grand Mahjarrat storyline, and will see you exploring Zemouregal’s fortress stronghold, learning more about this mysterious Mahjarrat and uncovering his legendary beef with the hero Arrav.
Quest Requirements
The Curse of Arrav is a Master tier quest and sports the following requirements:
- Completion of Defender of Varrock
- Completion of Troll Romance
- Level 64 Mining
- Level 62 Ranged
- Level 62 Thieving
- Level 61 Agility
- Level 58 Strength
- Level 37 Slayer
- We’d recommend a Combat level of at least 80
Rewards
Naturally, no good quest is complete without some nice rewards to look forward to! Here’s what you’ll get for completing the Curse of Arrav:
- 2 Quest Points
- 40,000 Mining XP
- 40,000 Thieving XP
- 40,000 Agility XP
- Access to Zemouregal’s Fortress. The basement houses higher-level variants of the Armoured Zombies you’ve encountered during Defender of Varrock with an increased chance to drop the Zombie Axe. They also drop the new Zombie Helmet (presumably because of all the Zombie Axe incidents).
- The Zombie Helmet requires 50 Strength and Defence to equip. It sits between the Dwarven Helmet and Inquisitor’s Great Helmet as a Crush-focused Head slot option. You’ll need to repair it with Level 70 Smithing at an anvil, but both the broken and fixed versions are tradeable. See the stats below!
We’ll be sticking to the key story beats from the RuneScape version of this quest, but will be putting our own Old School spin on things. If you’d like to see The Curse of Arrav ressurrected in Old School, then don’t forget to cast your vote!
Before we go, we’re squeezing in a sneak peek at an update in the very early stages of development.
Hill giants have Obor, moss giants have Bryophyta, and Ice and Fire giants have Branda, the Fire Queen, and Eldric, the Ice King. You’ll face both of them in an elementally chaotic battle and receive some appropriately cool rewards. Or hot ones, as the case may be.
We plan for this encounter to be more challenging than Bryophyta or Obor, but it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for seasoned players in powerful gear. We want it to feel like a natural progression in complexity from the other giant bosses, introducing new mechanics and preparing players to face bigger and badder foes. Given the increase in complexity, this will be Members-only content.
Some of you will be dreading another grind for keys – which is why we’ve already decided that this boss will require no keys to fight. Hooray!
This decision does open up questions about Obor and Bryophyta’s key system, which is a topic we’ll tacking in future discussions about this boss.
Rewards are another thing we’re simply too early in development to share just yet. Don’t worry – we’ll be holding a poll and further Community Consultation, just as we do with all our boss rewards.
For now, though, you can express your excitement to fight two gigantic creatures made of living ice and fire in the Summer Summit poll!
That’s a wrap on this year’s Summer Summit! And we’re not stopping there as we want to hear directly from you about your thought on all of the reveals and the presentation as a whole! So, what are you waiting for – check out the survey below and let us know your thoughts!
You can also discuss the Summit on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
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