[2020] TL;DW 495 - J-Mod Q&A

Twitch Vod | Large Gats' Stream Summary

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Steam

• Bringing Runescape to Steam won't really have any impact to the development schedule.
• There should be no difference on gameplay based on what platform you play the game on.
• 15 trading cards, 20 achievements, 6 badges, 6 emotes you can get within steam.
  • Achievements should already unlocked if they are already completed.
  • There's also a Membership package option allowing you to get membership through Steam.
• It is not possible to transfer player's game time over to Steam.
• There are no plans to allow for players to sell/trade RS currencies on the steam marketplace.
• New Player Experience: There are areas we want to improve but we need to do more research and utilize focus groups.

Archaeology

• There are no plans to exchange Tomes for anything other than XP.
• Haven't made a full decision yet regarding how Archaeology works with DXP Live.
• Archaeology Amnesty:
  • September 30th: Yak Track Bonus & Achievement Grace Periods
  • October 19th: Bonus XP, XP Lamps, Auras, and all other XP-boosting buffs and items.

Orthen

There will be a stream next week covering more details including the release date.

• Requirements: Level 90 Archaeology | Associate Qualification | Desperate Measures
  • Excavations range from level 90-120.

• Location: Entrance is located at the Anachronia Base Camp

• The initial Orthen designed pitched at Runefest is not the one we went with.

• Similar to Infernal Source, where you discover excavation sites as you progress.

• There won't be a high level weapon obtained from Orthen but there will be relics and other high level end game rewards.

• The colour of the soil is black.

• Orthen glass will be used, and there will be 5 new unique materials.

Core Experience

• There is a lot being done behind the scenes to address issues with the servers.
• Tick rate improvement - Is difficult due to all the challenges around it.
  • It needs to be reevaluated where we work on 1 part at a time rather than everything all at once.
  • It falls under the umbrella of better technical experience.
• UI Scaling - It will be released quite soon once refinements to the beta are made.
  • Scaling down requires more work so this update would be released without it and then worked on after we finish mobile.

Live Ops

• Yak Track is iterative where we keep trying to improve it each iterations.
  • We need to balance it between the time/money spent and the level of Yak Track.
  • If you look at the first one compared to this one you can see the differences.
• Winter/Summer Weekends will probably not be coming back this year.
  • We are looking at ways to make it more exciting so it isn't as stale.

Other - Q&A

Theme	Question	Answer
Achievements	Can we take another look at the initial comp rework design (3 tiers of capes)?	There are no active plans to go for those extra capes. We didn't do it due to the complexity of identifying what those achievements mean. We will see achievements with every update we can. There's also behind the scenes work to improve how achievements work.
Areas	When the PvM Hub was released there were plans to make improvements to the Maxed Guild. What happened to these improvements?	The initial worry was that removing core functionality from the Maxed guild would make players not want to use it anymore, but that's not entirely the case. It's not as a high priority so we probably won't do an overall rework but we may do Ninja level things.
D&Ds	Any possibility of doing small skill revamps more often to D&Ds? Updating reward would already be enough.	Improving D&Ds can make an increase with player engagement. Works inline with remastery where you add new content as you update it.
Event	Will there be a Halloween event this year?	Yes. We want to make an annualized seasonal event and make it a place in the world that stacks up with content every year. Add stories and the social event stuff.
Jewelry	Are there any plans to make Brooch of the Gods more attractive for Ironmen?	No plans to make it more appealing for them, it already is appealing. On a side note, there are more Brooch of the Gods than Essence of Finalities in-game.
Jewelry	Any news on HSR working with chests?	Hopefully, no one is actively working on it (someone was). It's technical thing that needs to be implemented. We could look into moving it over to the Ninja team.
Quest	Does Rite of Passage actually have a chance of being made, or do we just let the dream die?	If there's a story around it we will likely share it in various ways such as with Stormguard. However if you are looking for a grandmaster quest, it probably won't happen or not any time soon. It feels to stand alone with the story we are currently telling.
Quest	In Stolen Hearts Khnum confesses his love for coffee. Since there's no coffee in the game, is he delusional...?	Coffee exists but players haven't found it yet. "Khnum is pronounced 'numb' with the joke 'numb skulls'".
Remaster	Managing Miscellania status?	We never started it beyond the initial concepts. Of those announced at Runefest this is in the most danger of not happening because the amount of work needed is huge and it feels separate from what we are planning within a year.
Remaster	Any chance of a Player Model rework?	It's a monumental task. Not only the models, but the items the player wears, the animations you would perform. It's clearly a problem, don't expect it any time soon, but we are looking into it.
Runefest	Since Runefest isn't happening this year are there any plans to do a digital livestream with talks/key notes?	We are pulling our focus towards the Golden Gnomes. Other keynotes/discussions won't happen however we do plan to cover our plans for 2021.
Skills	Any plans to add content to skills that don't have any meaningful unlocks in later levels.	We always have plans but nothing to share now. Depending on the skill we need to look beyond just unlocks such as with Agility/Construction.
Skills	Any plans to look at Dungeoneering and how experience is gained in the skill? (Group and Solo)	No plans currently. We know there are certain issues with Dungeoneering that we are aware of, but our current focus is more needed in other areas of the game.
Skills	Are there any "high effort / high reward" activities like BGH in planning/development?	There will be higher intensity and shorter form updates happening very soon and more frequently. For updates on the same scale as BGH we have to choose the right skills and it can't happen as frequently.

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