Old School Runescape Dev Tracker

Will be working on the Summer Sweep-Up so have made a note of this one!

Spring 2025!

We'll share a release date when we've got one that we know we'll hit!

Incredibly thoughtful write up, thank you for the post! I hope it gets traction because you make a lot of interesting points.

Expanding on the following, because I think it's an interesting point to discuss:

> Seeds are the answer to preventing drops from eliminating gathering skills entirely. Instead of adding herbs directly to boss drop tables, you can instead add the seeds.

I think herbs were actually originally just that. Rather than drop skilling supplies (Ores, wood) you could drop herbs, which were a combat exclusive reward that didn't devalue skilling. I like to think what Farming actually achieved was adding gameplay variety. You now had to spend time both PvMing and Skilling to maximise the value of the drops. Of course, you could always hand off the seeds to the GE to sacrifice some of that value for time, but that still creates variety in the game on a macro level (If nobody farmed, the value of seeds would plummet and the value of herbs would sk...

This was a fantastic read, thank you for writing this.

I appreciate you x

Don't make me go back. PLEAE.

Appreciate there's some negativity about Surge potions in here, and I just wanted to write a bit of something around it.

I think Surge potions as currently proposed should be quite low impact, a 5 minute cooldown is quite hefty for most content, and most specs aren't so so powerful that getting an extra one or two specs in a trip/raid will be worth the slot.

But maybe you just don't need that extra bit of food or prayer, so this might be a nice option to bring instead.

However if we DO find the potion ends up being overly dominant, to the point where they feel like an auto include in every setup, and people aren't enjoying it. In true OSRS fashion, we can change it!

I've seen a couple of worries in this thread specifically around the cooldown being unfun to wait out between ToB rooms or Colosseum Waves, and will be making a change so the cooldown doesn't decrement in these situations. This should avoid people feeling like they need to wait it out to ...

For tie-in products like the books, there won't always be a completely 1:1 match between the world as presented in that work and the world as presented in game.

This is mostly due to the scale issues in the game - the obvious example I often use is that in game, Misthalin is a kingdom with one tiny "city" and two tiny hamlets. This is clearly an approximation of the "real" kingdom of Misthalin which is presumably much larger and has a much larger population. There must be stuff "between" the major places we know in game, and things like books (or ingame lore books) might mention these places.

In the case of the essence mine, the geography in game doesn't really match up with the way this was originally described in lore (also in game). We know that the essence mine was reached by a long and difficult overland route, which is why the teleport was so important. In planning the book we discussed many different ways to resolve this, but ultimately there isn't really an...

This is so cool! You even toned down the crazy long neck the player version had, which is just about the only thing I disliked about it in DS1.

Out of curiosity, what was the thought behind the spear redesign? It's always been one of my favourite fantasy weapons, loved how its fantastical elements felt actually grounded in purpose, could always imagine the handle crossguard being useful when slaying large creatures.

Man with that handwriting you should be writing leather-bound books on alchemy or something

I was really an advocate for exactly this when we were in the concepting stage. Wind direction, wind speed, tacking, gybing and avoiding the boom - there's something about it that feels like it could have the same cosy feel as learning that copper + tin = bronze, while also providing interesting gameplay. Wind is an extremely fundamental part of IRL sailing, so that should be reflected in-game.

The problem is that OSRS needs to have a simple baseline. For an action to feel "old school" it needs to be dead simple, and these kinds of mechanics put a barrier up that makes the baseline gameplay just a bit too complicated. Moving my boat from point A to point B should be as intuitive and simple as we can make it, and then we can layer more simple mechanics (like the gust of wind) to add to the fun and thematics. Realistic wind and sail mechanics sadly require a bit too much thought from the player to exist as foundational mechanics in OSRS.

I'm unable to provide any insight into statistics, although player reports are extremely effective if the reports themselves are accurate :)

The creator of this Reddit post didn't report them either :( Adds up

I loved puzzle pirates. I can still hear that low definition whistle when I see images from it. Got kicked from my favourite guild I've ever been in for running a scam raffle and I regret it every day. Crimson Eagles if you're out there I'm sorry :(

Awesome write up of your thoughts! Appreciate it :)

Hi! I agree with this, and point taken - apologies as I should’ve added it into yesterday’s newspost too. It was particularly difficult to release information as the date of the Alpha wasn’t set in stone until Monday. We wanted to make sure it was thoroughly tested first.