28th April 2009 - Summoning Upgrade and Hairstyles

This week's update concerns Summoning and hairstyles: better usability, more pets and the return of the fringe.

You have provided us with so many ideas to improve the Summoning skill that we were spoilt for choice, and our wish list of improvements is getting longer and longer, but for now we have decided on the following improvements.

Firstly, we have raised the pet limit so that you can have twice as many pets as before. This seemingly simple change led to a major background change, which will improve the stability of the code so you will experience fewer bugs in future. Secondly, you don’t need to wait until a familiar has disappeared to use the next pouch; now you click a handy button in the Summoning interface to replenish your familiar’s timer to 100% when it has dropped below two and a half minutes. So, if you use beasts of burden to help carry things around, you can now use this button to keep them going, as long as you have another pouch of the same type in your inventory. Additionally, we have made it much more straightforward to trade in your pouches and scrolls with Bogrog, the ogre in Gu’Tanoth.

We often receive comments about and suggestions for new hairstyles from players on the forums. In particular, we read players' complaints that there was once a female hairstyle with a fringe that got removed. We searched and searched, but could not find any indication that this was ever the case, so we scratched our heads for a while...and then created one! Enjoy your fringes, and perhaps you might like to pay a visit to Party Pete to try out a special new hairstyle designed for partying.

Lilies of the valley have also blossomed around RuneScape. These fragrant spring flowers will stay until the next game update to celebrate the start of May.

Last but not least, we would like to point you towards a new link in the quest journals. The QuestHelp system is now accessible directly from your quest journal, and you don’t even need to log into the website to access either a hint or a spoiler for a quest.

As you’ll notice, this set of updates isn’t as large as you might have hoped, for which we apologise. A project we were hoping to release this week was found to have bugs, and so has been delayed until next week. While we’re aware that these are relatively small fixes, we hope that you’ll appreciate them nonetheless.

Mod Fetzki
RuneScape Content Team Leader

30th April 2009 - New Dwarf Quest: Diary 3

Today we've released the third entry in the development diary for the new dwarf quest. This one deals with the move from the planning phase into implementation. To read the diary, go to Community > Development Diaries on the website, or click here.

23rd April 2009 - Development Diary: Run Energy

Today, we’ve released a development diary about the upcoming ‘rest’ feature. Given that we’ve already released an...accidental teaser, we thought we’d give you some more insight into the design process for this small but useful feature, which I hope you’ll all end up using.

To read this diary, click here.

Mod Chihiro
Senior Technical Developer, RuneScape Content

21st April 2009 - Tale of the Muspah

Experienced adventurers will be familiar with Fremennik rites of passage, and the difficulties they present. It’s little wonder, then, that Fremennik children are always on the lookout for an easier path to adulthood, and Erjolf is no exception. Full of enthusiasm but short on skills, Erjolf will need your assistance if he is going to impress his kinsfolk.

Join him in his quest for a trophy, unravel the puzzling story behind a curious corpse, and discover the dark secrets of one of the most fearsome races to ever walk in Gielinor. You may find one or two useful allies along the way, who are willing to lend a helping hand.

It’s been great to work on a quest that involves one of RuneScape’s most mysterious races, and develop a plotline that’s been around since the early days of RuneScape. This is the first part of a new quest series, and paves the way for following quests.

Mod Roderick
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start Tale of the Muspah:
Talk to Erjolf, north-east of Rellekka, at a cave halfway up a snow-covered mountain path.

Requirements to begin Tale of the Muspah:
10 Magic
10 Woodcutting
8 Mining
6 Firemaking
20 Crafting would be an advantage

In Other News…

Picking from a tree or bush has been sped up.

Several items that previously damaged you when used can no longer kill you. Don't worry, though - you can still use them to reduce your Hitpoints if you want to.

The Easter 2009 update has now been removed, and the associated music unlocked for all.

20th April 2009 - PayBySMS now available in Canada.

We’re pleased to announce that our Canadian players can now pay for membership of RuneScape or FunOrb by SMS. This means that you can purchase or renew membership using your mobile telephone. We know this is something that many Canadian players have been waiting for, so we're happy to be able to offer this service to all of them. If you’re a Canadian free player and want to know more about the benefits of membership, click here.

The following networks in Canada support PayBySMS:

* Bell
* (Fido) Microcell
* MTS
* Rogers
* Sasktel
* Telus
* Virgin

We’re continuing to look into ways of making alternative payment methods available in other countries, and as soon as we’re able to offer these services, we’ll let you know.