[2021] Below Ice Mountain - Game Update (14/04/21)

The game worlds will remain offline for a short while, it shouldn't be any longer than 15-20 minutes.

You'll be back in-game and playing the latest content update in no time, thanks for your patience!

The game worlds are now back online. We hope you enjoy the latest content update.

Thanks for your patience!

They do!

Every time we make something purple, players complain. At this point I've just stopped caring because purple is part of the colour spectrum and we're going to use it. We have enough restrictions working in OSRS as is, I don't think limiting our available colours is really helpful feedback. We do try to keep it to a minimum, but there's only so far we can go.

The key is using specific colours for content that makes sense. It might not be apparent now but the purple colour palette is tied to the lore of the area. It'll be a while until we use it this heavily again in the future, so there's that :D

No, only at their respective altars

I'd love for you to convince me OSRS is low fantasy :P There are certainly parts of the game that are much more grounded than typical fantasy games but ultimately this game has a lot of magic and the world should really reflect that.

It's coming soon, blog should be out hopefully by next week.

No one said the dwarves were there first...

Thanks for the response :)

The primary reward, the new mace is your typical "didn't want to upset the meta so it's a good crush weapon for its tier" that has that weird high fantasy "cool" design that really just looks like a fancy gem on a stick.

Maces look like maces. Not entirely sure what else we could've done in this regard.

Questionable on why it's introduced since FTP is kind of the more puritan form of OSRS with hardly any change to the core identity on that more muted fantasy setting, well known gear, and very simple PVP.

While we don't usually make content for the free version of the game it's not that wild of a concept. The free game has some very out dated content which doesn't lend well to converting free players into paying players. As a business we need to think about that a lot as we're strictly against adding MTX, which I think is for the best.

The setting is run of the mill underground ancient ruins/ old mystery technology with that purple + cyan crystal motiff being used once again.

Aside from Arceuus, where else have we used this motif? To say it's overused seems like a stretch to me.

that specific motiff has been associated with rushed feeling "nuscape" content so often that it's hard not to wonder why you didn't understand why we didn't like it the first few times.

Not entirely sure how to interpret this. If a content update is unsuccessful - due to being rushed - we should avoid using the colour palette associated with that content forever after? To me, the rushed element is the issue, not the colour.

A big allure of old runescape's general style is that the high fantasy element is a bit more muted

In general, you are correct. There are however small pockets of high fantasy hidden away from the overworld. Places like Zanaris, The Enchanted Valley and Port Phasmatys would never appear in a low fantasy world. As the new dungeon is fairly hidden away I think it fits in quite nicely. If it helps, I'm quite keen to address the colours of Arceuus in the future. The incredibly vibrant terrain was clearly a mistake and when it comes to reworking Arceuus I plan to bring this more in-line with other overworld areas.

We're still trying to figure out the specifics of what makes art "old school" as the game has a fairly broad range of styles - from even before the current art team starting adding assets. This is to be expected from a game that was developed over many years by many different artists with varying amount of creative control :P We have a concept artist now and we've already started looking at our next project. Can't say much about that now but I think you'll be very pleased with the direction of that as it'll be a lot more grounded (although it will have fantasy elements...)

I agree :D When the specific hue of an update is the issue you know you've done something right!

There certainly is more to the puzzle :D After all, the Zarosian symbol is very recognizable to us as players, but to those in the world it is just an old ancient symbol from a time long ago.

Let's not forget about our friendly Chaos Dwarves, who I'd assume are more into Zamorak? Humans are free to follow whatever religion they like, I imagine the same applies to Dwarves even if they do tend to lean more towards Guthix.

Potentially, that might be the case for some. That doesn't mean the criticism is baseless, so I reckon it's still worth engaging with. It opens up the conversation and gives me an opportunity to further understand where the problem might be.

Thanks for your feedback :D Glad you like it!

Hey everyone, we do really appreciate all the feedback you've given us. We'll be taking all of your suggestions into consideration and they will be discussed as a team when we can all regroup.

After reviewing the effects of yesterday's hotfix and reading your feedback, some of the changed XP rates are going to be re-adjusted.

Check the original newspost for the list of changes that will arrive via hotfix today, at approximately 14:15 BST.