The following is a list of upcoming updates, derived from official Jagex sources:
Official Jagex Sources for Old School RuneScape |
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Confirmed updates[]
Updates in this section have either passed a poll or have been otherwise officially confirmed.
Old School RuneScape Mobile[]
Old School RuneScape Mobile is a mobile app version of Old School RuneScape. It was first announced on the July 17, 2017 and there was a demo for it at RuneFest 2017. It is essentially the same game but with a mobile-optimised interface, allowing you to log out on your PC and log back in on your phone using your existing accounts and the same existing servers, with all progress intact across both platforms.
There were several closed and open betas through early and mid 2018, as well as a soft launch for Canada and Nordic countries. In September, Jagex announced that the full release of the mobile app is 30th of October. The main difference between the open betas and the full-release is that F2P players could not have access to the betas, whereas the full release will allow anybody to play, although they might prevent some countries from accessing F2P at first.
Furthermore, Jagex Moderators have stated that they will also look into introducing mobile-only features to the desktop version, by offering a poll in this regard.
Collection Log[]
An in-game collection log for unique and otherwise notable items was polled in Content Poll #59 and passed with 95.9% of the votes in favour. Due to the extensive work required, as well as requiring community feedback on what items it should log, it is expected to launch later than the other changes in the same poll this update was in. It will not log any tradeable drops retroactively (received before its release), but some untradeable drops such as pets and fire capes will be logged. Initially, it was possible that ironmen could have drops logged retroactively, but as they can have their ironman status removed without impacting the log, Jagex decided against it.
Hitsplat update[]
The Hitsplat update will add a toggle to make damage from other players tinted a different colour than yours. It was polled in Content Poll #46 (Question 7) and passed on August 17th 2016. It has been delayed due to other engine changes, like Mobile, taking priority.
Planned updates[]
Updates in this section have been revealed by the Old School Team and are likely to be polled or added in the future.
Farming Guild[]
The Farming Guild was revealed at RuneFest 2017 as a 2018 update. It is located on Zeah, north of Mount Quidamortem and west of Shayzien. The guild will be split into 3 tiers; 60, 70, and 80; each unlocking different patches within the guild. There are also plans to expand the Farming skill with more crops such as snape grass for allotment, bamboo used to make battlestaves for hops, dragonfruit trees used in potions for fruit trees, chaotic herb seeds with random herb yields for herbs, and evil spirit trees that offer a one-way teleport into the Wilderness as well as livestock, allowing you to raise creatures for resources.
The Fremennik Exiles[]
The Fremennik Exiles is a new Fremennik quest planned for release during 2018. It was first revealed by Mod Wolf as one of his personal projects. It was later confirmed for a 2018 release at RuneFest 2017. Not much is known about it, apart from the fact that it will be a Master Quest.
Sandstorm and packs of buckets[]
Due to buckets of sand being popular for Crafting, the team has shown interest in adding a Lunar spell similar to Humidify to automatically fill empty buckets with sand. In addition, packs of empty buckets have been requested to reduce the prevalence of competing with other players on buying the currently limited amount in shops.
Black Graceful and Graceful set effect scaling[]
A proposal of a Graceful set variant painted in black has been popular with the community. It is said to be in the works and consideration. It is undergoing creation by Mod Ry.
Mod Kieren has proposed an idea of making the effect of the Graceful set scale per piece, e.g. wearing one piece will only provide a sixth of the full effect. During the initial Q&A interest gauge, it was well received by the viewers.
Theatre of Blood: Entry Mode[]
The Theatre of Blood release was well received, however, some of the more neutral or negative feedback included that it was not very enjoyable for mid or lower-leveled players since they would find every single challenge of the Theatre to be too difficult to endure and overcome, and finding teams as an inexperienced player was difficult. Jagex proposed an Entry Mode, designed for players around combat level 110, with the bosses' health scaled down and the death fee lowered from 100,000 to 50,000. To balance this, the rewards would be limited to Avernic defender hilt and Justiciar armour which would be ten times rarer, and the completions would not count towards Sinhaza shroud.
Due to negative feedback by players suggesting that endgame content should stay as such without catering to lower levels, the Entry Mode has been put on hold.
Possible updates[]
Updates in this section have been discussed in Q&As or on Social Media but there is no promise they will be offered, however, they are still likely to be polled or added in the near future.
Massive pouch[]
Some players suggested the ability to combine the four Runecrafting pouches into one "massive pouch", holding 30 essence while only taking one inventory slot whilst requiring 90 Runecrafting to use. In the Q&A interest gauge, it was well received by the viewers, and thus it will likely be polled in-game.
GPU rasteriser[]
Some of the engine development team have worked on a GPU-accelerated rasteriser in order to optimise the game for better performance, as it currently can only use one CPU core. However, due to the development focus shifting primarily towards RuneScape Mobile, it has been on hold.
Zeah improvements and expansions[]
Brimstone was meant to be a city located on the northwest of Zeah, originally offered to host the Inferno, but after feedback the Inferno was moved to Mor Ul Rek. Since then, there hasn't been much talk of Brimstone but during RuneFest it was featured in a concept map alongside the Farming Guild. Some form of Brimstone will likely be offered in the future.
With Mount Quidamortem's release, there is a bridge leading south. This area will likely be offered in a future Zeah batch and it is suspected to be the Kingdom of Varlamore, a community suggested region, based on the Knight of Varlamore found in the Castle in Kourend. In addition, there are plans for a Zeah Achievement Diary once the continent is completed.
Mod West has also posted some sneak peaks of some supposed Hosidius House and Arceuus Spellbook reworks.
Interface scaling[]
Interface rescaling is a feature that has been discussed since the release of Resizeable Mode. It was originally being worked on by Ian Gower but after he left Jagex, the engine team picked up from where he left off. No release estimate has ever been given, but it was mentioned as part of Old School RuneScape Mobile and it is expected the desktop version of the game will see it soon after.
Achievement Diary improvements and rebalances[]
The team has also considered rebalancing some higher end rewards that come from elite tiers, by downgrading the ones that seem unnecessarily upped to lower tiers, and perhaps adding a few new rewards to fill some gaps.
Construction updates[]
A few members of the Old School Team have expressed interest in another Construction update. One of the most popular requests has been a Teleport Nexus, a high-level teleport chamber that could teleport to all possible destinations. There have also been some talks about potential mounted silver jewellery and introduction of redwood planks. In another hand, some extra decorative furniture might be added to some hotspots in the Gardens, such as Fossil Island's mushrooms.
Utility ring slot[]
Due to combat focused rings (such as Berserker ring) being much more useful than utility rings (such as Ring of wealth), some players have proposed a secondary ring slot for utility rings, giving the ability to wear one for combat and one for utility.
Jagex Moderators have shown support for the concept, but expressed that there are some ring combinations that might need to be restricted in order to prevent them from being too powerful.
Bruma Torch as an off-hand item[]
Jagex Moderators have shown interest in looking at ways of turning the Bruma torch into an off-hand item, as well as making it function as a tinderbox to light the braziers around the Wintertodt, effectively saving players an inventory space that would previously be used to place the regular tinderbox.
Yetis of Arbjor (a new trio of bosses)[]
Due to the low amount of winter themed bosses in Old School RuneScape, a community-driven suggestion proposed three Yetis bosses in one single icy lair, located in some northern Fremennik area.
The mechanics for the boss would encourage gear switching and/or role-switching within a team (like Dagannoth Kings), since the Yetis would be able to turn on protection-prayers and they would also use prayer rotations, like Demonic Gorillas, but the Yetis would always keep two prayers turned on at once, thus making it only possible to attack them with one single combat style at once. The catch to make players constantly switch their gear is the fact that Yetis that are alive and are not being hit often, will heal the rest of the Yetis until they are successfully hit.
The proposed unique drops were the Yetis' horns that could be then attached to the Fremennik Helms, adding more combat bonuses to the helms, and possibly something attachable to the Fremennik shield as well, boosting its stats and adding a damage-recoil effect to it and possibly poisoning your opponent.
There has been general support to the current mechanics concept and rewards but the team seemed open to further hearing about some other possible drops. Additionally, this idea could be tied in with the upcoming "Fremennik Exiles" quest.
Revisiting poisoned weapons[]
With the high amount of poisoned weapons with different tiers, including poison, poison+ and poison++, many of which are not used and instead are popular tools for scamming, Jagex Moderators have shown interest in reworking some of the poisoned weapons, such as making poison+ reduce the opponent's combat stat instead of Hitpoints.
Revisiting enchanted bolts[]
Some enchanted versions of the bolts have been criticised as lacking. Jagex Moderators have said that they could rework the effects of some types of enchanted bolts. Additionally, they would like to allow enchanted bolts to work with the Dorgeshuun crossbow.
Torag's set effect/hammers rework[]
Every so often the team discusses the revision of the Torag armour set effect, as it is often considered the weakest of the Barrows sets. However, there is no clear decision as to what would the current effect be replaced with, if something in this regard goes to the polls.
Changing Torag's hammers has also been discussed to be more unique, such as increasing its attack speed or providing two hits to match with the animation hitting twice.
Maces' speed change[]
Some discussion and interest gauge have taken place regarding maces being too slow and needing a speed boost, due to their inferior stats to scimitars and swords. This would make maces a more used and viable one-handed crush weapon in combat scenarios where the crush attack style is the most convenient.
Superior Turoth[]
The team has shown interest in adding a superior version of Turoth.
Lucky implings revisit[]
The team has shown interest in revisiting the drop table of Lucky implings and did seem keen to improve it several times when brought up by the player-base.
Random events revisit[]
The mods have faced numerous petitions for them to look into "Random Events". One of them was to bring back the dangerous Random Events, but to also allow players to select which kinds of Randoms Events they want to possibly get, including the 'none' and 'all' options. Another concept was to replenish players' run energy to 100% once any Random Event is completed. Also, XP lamps that reward the player with slightly better XP than the Genie's were proposed to be added to the rest of the events, as an incentive of completing them. Finally, allowing players to earn the Bee Keeper's outfit pieces, one by one, was another option (just how the Mime, Zombie and other Random Events' sets are acquired) and this was deemed an okay to-do idea.
Hatius Cosaintus' displacement[]
There have been numerous suggestions to move Hatius Cosaintus from Lumbridge to somewhere else, or to replace him with another more fitting character. The team has been in accordance with these requests. One idea has been to place him in the Duel Arena, where he could give staking information to the players.
Metamorphosis phases for more pets[]
Suggestions have been made to recolour the Phoenix with Gnomish firelighters, recolouring the baby mole to a pink color (matching with NPC Baby Moles), and adding a seasonal variety to Tangleroot.
Completionist list[]
Some members of the team have opposed the idea of a completionist cape in Old School RuneScape but like the idea of a list that tracks completionist goals, possibly viewable in Varrock Museum or the Player-owned house. Mod Bruno has worked on the list, and posted a tweet asking for feedback.
Additional Desert carpet-riding travel options[]
There was a discussion that pointed out how players need to travel to Pollnivneach before being able to take a carpet ride to Sophanem from Nardah. The mods seemed keen on updating this to add new travel options.
Barbarian Assault updates[]
A frequent frustration in Barbarian Assault is when a member of the party suddenly leaves with no signs of returning. There have been talks about how to solve this issue. It was brought up that the reward shop interface could be reworked so that points can only be redeemed for rewards only after the final wave is completed, this could deter people from leaving their team before the last wave.
The team has also expressed that they are looking forward to allowing players to capes within the minigame. Mod Ash specifically has stated that he knows a way to allow capes, and that he would like to implement it.
In addition, some players have expressed frustration on the Healer role providing fewer points than the others, due to the points primarily being based on healing — something that does not occur much in the lower waves. The team has considered changing the formula to provide Healers fairer points.
LMS improvements[]
There was some talk of updating the Last Man Standing minigame, with changes such as allowing fewer players per game, new maps and a possible points-reward-shop.
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