RuneScape News

Golden Joystick Awards – Thank You

Predator — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:12:05 -0600

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

03-Nov-2009 - Golden Joystick Awards – Thank You

Finally, the hangover from winning the UK Games Developer of the Year award at the Golden Joysticks on Friday is lifting, albeit slowly. :)

It wouldn’t be right to celebrate this incredible, humbling achievement without expressing our sincerest thanks and appreciation to the entire Jagex community for helping make this landmark achievement a reality. We have never seen so many people simultaneously spit their champagne at each other as when Jagex was announced as the winner! It was truly a vision that will make me smile forever. =D

This award was indeed special as not only was there some really tough competition, but this is one of the only awards voted for by the players themselves rather than an industry “old boys' club”. This year, over 1.2 million votes were cast, ensuring a World Record in itself for the Golden Joystick Awards as the biggest ever player-voted competition, and I would like to believe that most of those votes came from you, our epically sized community, not to mention the small fact that you managed to crash their website four times with all your votes!

The Jagex development team have worked tirelessly over the last eight years, their only concern creating great content for our players and games that we wanted to play ourselves – all totally under the radar of the traditional games industry and press. So while it is nice to be recognised so publicly by the industry (no doubt they will all be thinking about developing online games of their own), I would like to give everyone the assurance that our focus will remain on building great games for our community, and that we’ll continue to work hard and do all we can to try to live up to this prestigious award.

So, once again, many thanks to you all! The credit goes to our much-loved players and we hope that our entire Jagex community will share in the success along with the team at Jagex. A big cheers to all the players!

Mod MMG & Andrew

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Golden Joystick Awards Result

Predator — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:40:56 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

30-Oct-2009 - Golden Joystick Awards Result

here was some tough competition this year from the likes of Lionhead Studios and Rockstar North, but, in the end, Jagex was voted as the UK Games Developer of the Year.

We’d like to thank everybody who voted for us – we couldn’t have achieved this without the support of our players. We’ll continue to work hard and do all we can to try to live up to this prestigious award.

Many thanks to you all!

Mod MMG and Andrew

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RuneScape Cards in the UK

Predator — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:28:01 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

29-Oct-2009 - RuneScape Cards in the UK

We are pleased to announce that we have launched the RuneScape membership pre-pay card in Sainsbury’s stores throughout the United Kingdom. The card comes in two versions: 30 days' subscription for £4.99 and 90 days' subscription for £12.99.

Once you have purchased your card, you can use the PIN number on the back to subscribe to RuneScape. Click here to find out how.

These cards are also available in the United States, and they can be found in branches of Target, 7-Eleven, Wal-Mart and Rite-Aid. We are hoping to launch these convenient cards in more countries in the future, so keep an eye on ‘Recent News’ for updates.

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Web of Shadows

Aeolus — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:42:09 -0500

26-Oct-2009 - Web of Shadows (Halloween 2009)

A dark house portal has appeared to the south of Falador once again. Tremble as you approach it, for it leads to the house of the Grim Reaper, Death himself!

In this year's Halloween event, Death has a problem with an uninvited guest. Choose to help out and you will journey to a realm rarely trod by creatures with only two feet, and converse with its irritable monarch.

Completing the event will reward you with two new wearable items – one of which has a mind of its own – so seek out the house of Death...if you dare!

We've also created a wallpaper based on this event, which you can download here.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

Quote:

Summary:
Where to start Web of Shadows:
Enter the dark house portal south of Falador.

Requirements to complete Web of Shadows:
None

In other news...

We’ve made some improvements to the way banks calculate your free space. Free-players who used to be members will no longer have to dump all their members items to be able to use their banks and everyone can now see their usage in more detail on the interface. For more information, please read the Controls - Banks page.

We've updated the bank to make it automatically resize to fit your screen better. The interface will automatically extend downwards to show you more of your bank items.

Zahur in Nardah, who's moved to the building east of the bank, will now decant all of your potions (in any combination) into 3-dose vials for you. He charges a small fee for this service to cover the cost of any extra vials needed.

We've swapped two tasks in the Ardougne Achievement Diary. The medium diary might look a little odd if you've already completed it, but you should still be able to wear the cloaks for their effects.

An auto re-pick feature has been added when harvesting your mushrooms, berries and fruit from Farming patches.

When collecting a single item at the Grand Exchange, left-click will now withdraw the actual item and right-click will withdraw it as a note. Withdrawals for multiple items will behave as before.

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Anti-‘76k’ing Measures

Aeolus — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:41:24 -0500

26-Oct-2009 - Anti-‘76k’ing Measures

As many of you know, since the opening of PvP Worlds, ‘76k’ing has become a very common practice. We’ve never been happy about this as we believe it spoils the game experience for players who want to play on PvP Worlds as intended and exhibit their PvP skills, with high rewards for high risks, rather than it being a safe method for earning large amounts of money. Looking at our forums, it looks like many players feel the same way.

Designing and developing a solution to this issue that worked, but which did not lessen the rewards for legitimate kills, turned out to be rather tricky. We’re hopeful that the solution we’ve come up with will reduce 76King without having too significant an impact on legitimate PKers.

Players who trade kills will find that the drop they receive is lessened in value. Legitimate PKers might find that some of their kills will result in smaller drops (e.g. when getting revenge on someone who has just killed you), but since you’ll still only lose as much Earning Potential as is used for the drop, your average drop will stay the same.

Mod Chihiro
Senior Technical Developer

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Web Page Security

Predator — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:13:49 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

22-Oct-2009 - Web Page Security

Following yesterday’s update to the web page login form, we have introduced two more changes to our websites.

When logging in to website features, such as the forums, we now have Extended Validation SSL certificates, which will turn the address bar green in most browsers: Extended Validation involves a rigorous checking procedure so you can be sure that data is securely transferred and that the owner of the website is who they say they are.

In addition to this, we have changed the internal addresses of some of our pages, so you may want to update your bookmarks if you have any. The old addresses will continue to work for the time being.

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Web Page Login

Aliensvortex — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:56:32 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

21-Oct-2009 - Web Page Login

Today we have introduced some changes to the way you log in to our website and its features, such as the offence system and your message inbox.

We have changed our log-in form, so that you will no longer have to wait for a Java applet to load. This should make logging into the website a speedier process for you. The new form also contains ‘Recaptcha’ support, which requires you to decipher words from scanned books if your log-in attempt fails.

Whenever you need to log in with your username only, such as submitting an account recovery request, you will still use the Java applet.

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Ardougne Achievement Diary

Aeolus — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:20:12 -0500

This news taken directly from http://www.RuneScape.com

20-Oct-2009 - Ardougne Achievement Diary

It's time again for another Achievement Diary, for those players who like to explore what’s available in a specific area. It's the turn of Ardougne to come under the all-seeing-eye of the diary taskmasters, but we're not limiting things to just a few tasks here and there this time. A number of them have either come from or been inspired by player suggestions on the forum thread we ran for this not too long ago.

Explore the Ardougne area as you've never done before! From the Legends' Guild to Castle Wars, and from the Combat Training Camp to Yanille, there's something for everyone. You'll uncover some fiendishly difficult tasks that will push your skills to their limits, plus a rather ‘sneaky’ reward at the end of your travels. Hopefully, everyone will learn a thing or two along the way too.

So get out those gloves of silence and your teleport runes, and take a walk round Kandarin today.

Mod Maz
RuneScape Developer
Queen of the Squirrels

Summary:

Quote:

Where to start the Achievement Diary:

Speak to Dr Orbon in the church, Ardougne’s town crier or Aleck in Yanille’s Hunter shop.

In other news...

Health bars will no longer become completely red unless the player/monster has zero hitpoints.

When you're in resizeable mode, the chat window can now be vertically resized to show more lines of text, chat and other messages. Your stats interface will also expand itself to remove the need for a scroll bar.

After completing Within the Light, you can ask Eluned to help you add a choice of destination to your teleport crystals.

Your gravestone should now be indicated on the minimap.

The position of your Friends and Clan Chat list vertical bars are now remembered between logins, provided you're using the signed applet.

You are now allowed to purchase multiple skillcapes.

We've changed the way the TzHaar Fight Cave records your progress. In future, if you get disconnected during a wave, you'll automatically restart from that wave rather than having to begin the minigame again. You can still use the logout button to make the minigame log you off when you've completed your current wave.

The interface that lets you change the left-click function of the Summoning status globe (next to the minimap) will no longer be closed by combat.

Murky Matt at the Grand Exchange can now combine the charges on members' teleport jewellery.

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Golden Joystick – Last Chance to Vote

Aeolus — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:06:24 -0500

This news taken directly from http://www.RuneScape.com

20-Oct-2009 - Golden Joystick – Last Chance to Vote

Back in June, we announced that Jagex has been shortlisted for the Golden Joystick Awards as one of the UK’s top developers. We were really touched to see Jagex recognised in this way by the gaming community and shocked by the fantastic response from our players (who crashed the voting website when we released the newspost). This post is just to say that the poll closes at the end of this week, so if you wish to vote for Jagex and have not yet done so, this is your last chance!

If you don’t know anything about the awards and still want to show your support for Jagex, you can do so by visiting the Golden Joystick website at http://www.goldenjoystick.com and clicking on the UK Developer of the Year listing on the ‘Vote Now’ page. We also recommend that you un-tick the preference boxes if you don’t wish to be contacted by the organisers or any third parties.

We hope that you all continue to enjoy RuneScape as much as we enjoy making it.

Mod MMG and Andrew

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Duel Tournaments Rework

Aeolus — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:57:50 -0500

This news taken directly from http://www.RuneScape.com

20-Oct-2009 - Duel Tournaments Rework

Duel Tournaments have undergone a little bit of an overhaul. Everything will look the same, but we've been working under the hood to make some improvements to the mechanics of this minigame. The changes are as follows:

On entering the Duel Tournament waiting room, you will now be assigned to a single registrar. This assignment is partially based on combat level, but also on many other factors.

The registrar you are assigned has a Tournament Rank cap. You will not be able to gain rank beyond that cap until you move on to the next registrar. The best way to move up a registrar is to train your combat skills.

Registrar caps are as follows:

Registrar 1: rank cap of 1999
Registrar 2: rank cap of 2499
Registrar 3: rank cap of 2999
Registrar 4: rank cap of 3499
Registrar 5: no rank cap

Please note that you will not lose any rank due to this update if it is currently above your assigned registrar's cap. To remind yourself of your current cap, simply examine your assigned registrar.

We also now record when your rank passes a multiple of 500, which is referred to as a rank milestone. This milestone will be saved so that if you lose a tournament, and that loss would take you below your milestone, your rank will simply be set to the milestone amount. For example, if you had reached a Tournament Rank of 1045, your milestone rank would be recorded as 1000. If you subsequently lost a tournament which would reduce your rank by 50 points, it would only drop your rank down to 1000, since that is the last milestone you reached.

Finally, the most exciting change: we now reward the entrant who places second in a tournament with 20% of the entry fees! Now all your hard work will get some reward.

Mod Nancy
RuneScape Content Developer

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Future Q&A Sessions

Predator — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:57:48 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

16-Oct-2009 - Future Q&A Sessions

We got a lot out of the recent Q&A sessions, so we’ve decided to hold them on a more regular basis. To that end, we’re planning to do the next round of Q&A sessions in January next year, with a further session or two to be held throughout 2010.

As with the previous Q&As, we would open a thread for everyone to ask questions in, collate and then answer those questions a short while later, then hold a live Q&A session on the forums. We also plan to slightly mix up the topics covered for a bit of variety. A detailed schedule for the next session will be published early in the new year.

Also, from next Thursday (22nd October), we will be holding weekly CM-related Q&A sessions, which will be announced and run on the forums, and will cover such topics as Mod recruitment, clans, player-created gameplay, etc. Keep an eye on the Jagex Lite forum for more details.

Mod Kelvin
Head of Community Management

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Within the Light

Predator — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:48:40 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

13-Oct-2009 - Within the Light

Those who have unraveled the mysteries of the plague in West Ardougne, met with the elves and infiltrated the Death Guard will find themselves able to help Arianwyn once again, as they go Within the Light.

In reactivating the Temple of Light’s safeguards, you may have thwarted the Death Guard’s plans to harness the ancient elven power of a certain altar – at least for the time being – but just what is so special about this altar? Why did the elder elves go to such trouble to protect this one particular altar? Find out as you further explore the mysterious Temple of Light.

This quest is a continuation of RuneScape’s longest-running quest line, the first three parts of which – Plague City, Biohazard and Underground Pass – were originally released for RuneScape Classic. Four further quests later – Regicide, Roving Elves, and Mourning’s Ends Parts I and II – plus the Catapult Construction side story, and we reach Within the Light.

As it has been a while since those quests were released, this quest introduces a new NPC in Lletya – the elven scribe – who will happily help you to recall your past elf-related glories. Within the Light ties together some of the strands of this storyline, which will start to give you a better idea of what is to come.

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:

Where to start Within the Light:
Speak to Arianwyn in Lletya.

Requirements to complete Within the Light:
69 Agility
70 Fletching
75 Woodcutting
75 Ranged
Mourning's Ends Part II: The Temple of Light

In other news...

The last suggested name for Clan Chat channels persists when changing worlds and between logouts, and will attempt to rejoin the channel if it still exists.

The Wilderness Agility Course has been added to the allowed areas for Bounty and Bounty (+1) worlds.

When inputting numbers (for example, when withdrawing items from your bank) you can now use 'k' (or 'K') for thousand, and 'm' (or 'M') for million.

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Website Maintenance

Predator — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:28:45 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

13-Oct-2009 - Website Maintenance

We are currently performing maintenance on one of our web systems. During this time you will be unable to create a free account either in game or on the website. We apologise for the inconvenience, and are aiming to restore normal service as soon as possible.

This does not affect existing users who want to log in to the game.

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Postbag, Gallery and Wallpapers

Predator — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:58:08 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

08-Oct-2009 - Postbag, Gallery and Wallpapers

We offer a brand new Postbag from the Hedge this week. In it you'll find the customary stories, thoughts and opinions of our cast of characters, as well as a request for you to produce party cracker jokes for a Christmas postbag.

Alongside your impressive contributions to the Players' Gallery, we have five wallpapers to enjoy and download. The God Wars bosses and a battle across the Lum are the focus of the latest batch.

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Photo Booth and Forum Avatars

Predator — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:55:42 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

07-Oct-2009 - Photo Booth and Forum Avatars

Iconis the wizard has set up a strange tent in a quiet field near Falador, not too far from his colleague the Makeover Mage, just through the members’ gate. He’s advertising there the wonders of his new picture-taking magic, which sends a still representation of any adventurer to a completely different plane of existence altogether: the RuneScape forums.

Expose yourself to the mischievous magic of Iconis’s impish business partner in the Photo Booth and you may find that the next post you make on the RuneScape forums will have a picture of your head and whatever was on it when the spell was cast. (Note that you can't pose for a photo while wearing or wielding borrowed items.)

There are only so many spells the poor imp can perform at any one time, though, so for the first few days, it might take several hours from you taking your picture to it being displayed on the forums. Iconis thanks you for your patience.

Mod Maylea
RuneScape Content Developer
and
Mod Heinz
Web Systems Developer

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High-level Herblore Potions

Predator — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:53:27 -0500

This news was taken directly from runescape.com.

07-Oct-2009 - High-level Herblore Potions

This week, high-level herbalists will find a variety of new, untradeable potions at their disposal. Using your increased knowledge of the Herbloreskill, you will find you now have the ability to add tertiary ingredients to some potions to increase their effect.

These potions aren't just limited to stat boosts either. Have you ever wanted to take your godsword on dragon-slaying trips? Now's your chance, with the super antifire potion (at level 84). Are you approaching near mastery of the Herblore skill? If so, there’s a potion that may just ‘overload’ your entire body (at level 96) – dare you drink it?

On a side note, those who can mix the extreme magic potion will find it doesn't work in a similar way to its lower-level equivalents. When used, this potion will boost all offensive spell damage by 40% for a duration of six minutes, and will stack with magic staves that boost magic damage.

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news...

As part of the conversion of the worn interface and inventory to a newer internal file format, certain items now have clearer right-click options when using them. For example, the amulet of glory now lists the four different destinations it can take you to instead of just saying 'Operate'.

The Game Engine team have made sure the player list is now randomised to prevent priority being given to some players over others because of their IP address.

You can now navigate around the world map using arrow keys.

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Worst Update Ever

Aeolus — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:08:36 -0500

This news taken directly from Runescape.com.

02-Oct-2009 - "Worst Update Ever!"

We have decided to freshen up the Official Jagex Store a little by introducing some brand new items and packs.

T-shirts
Designed by staff here at Jagex, we wanted to bring these t-shirts out as a special and personal celebration of our experiences of the unique history and culture that has developed around our games. Check out the "Worst Update Ever", "Mugger Level 6" and "Rare" t-shirts, and the FunOrb "Let's Bounce!" t-shirt, and you’ll see what we mean.

Posters
We have also added four high-quality posters to the store in response to demand we've received over the last few weeks. You will now be able to find three RuneScape scenes in the store, and a brand new Arcanists-themed poster that our FunOrb players might be interested in.

Packs
We’ve released six new packs that offer some great savings – our new gamer pack is better than ever – and with the variety that’s now on offer, there should be something for everyone.

Head over to the store now to check out the new items for yourself.

Mod Simon S
Head of Business Development

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Display Names

Aeolus — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:42:44 -0500

This news taken directly from http://www.Runescape.com

Members are now able to change their display name to something different from their username. This display name is the name by which other players will see you in all Jagex games and across all website features – from the hiscores to the forums. Your username will always remain the same, regardless of what you change your display name to, as this is what you use to log into the game and website. (NB: Everyone’s initial display name is the same as their username.)

Changing your display name
The ability to change display names is currently only available to members of either RuneScape or FunOrb. To change your display name, visit the Account Management section of RuneScape or FunOrb and select ‘Change your display name’. You can then change your display name to anything that is not currently in use by or ‘held’ for (see next paragraph) another player. (NB: Once you have changed your display name, you will be unable to do so again for 28 days, even to revert back to your previous display name, so make sure you are happy with your new name before confirming the change.)

After these 28 days, you will have a period of time in which you can revert back to your previous display name, should you wish. You will have at least 7 days after the 28 days to revert to your previous display name, as it will be ‘held’ for you and unavailable to anyone else in this time. Depending on how long that name was in your possession before you changed it, you may have more than 7 days to revert to your reserved name.

When you change your display name, an icon will appear next to it on your friends’ Friends Lists. This will inform your friends that you have just changed your name and, by hovering their mouse cursor over that icon, they will see what your previous display name was. It will take a while (up to 15 minutes) for your display name to be updated across the website, so your previous display name may still show on the hiscores or forums for this short time.

Offensive display names
Display names allow us to remove names we deem offensive. Previously, we were only able to ban accounts with offensive names; now, we will simply remove the offensive name from the account. Should this happen, you will receive a temporary display name in the form of a random string of numbers (such as “[#123456789]”), and you will not be able to log into the game until you choose a new name. Players who repeatedly choose offensive names will lose the privilege of being able to change their display name for one year, and will instead be assigned one by a Jagex moderator.

Finally, please be patient with the system at this time, as it will be under a lot of load by many players trying to access it. If you do not get a response, please try again at a later time.

Mod Duncan
Web Systems Developer

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Patch Notes 23/09/09

Aeolus — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:43:40 -0500

The patch notes were taken from RuneScape's official forums. All patch notes can be found in the patch notes archive (quick find code 15-16-466-59617288).

Patch Notes 23/09/09

The following small fixes and adjustments have now been made to the game. If you spot any further bugs in-game, please use the Bug Report feature ('Submit a Bug Report' under the 'Help' drop-down menu of the website).

Graphical

* Fixed some ground near the turoths in the Fremennik Slayer Dungeon.
* Fixed various animation issues when undertaking tasks on Miscellania and optimised the code at the same time.

Quests

* Fixed a sailing bug in the Regicide quest.

Miscellaneous

* Corrected the POH rooms available in the new advisor system.
* Repaired a building in the old tutorial.
* Improved the caret feature to better handle '<' and '>'.
* Display the correct chathead when conversing with Millie the miller.
* Stopped non-cat followers saying “miaow” and other such phrases.
* Corrected the examine messages when talking to Hotfuthand at the Grand Exchange
* Changed some core code to fail gracefully rather than cause the game client to crash.
* Sped up gem cutting to match their original behaviour.
* Certain gnome cuisine items should now have more flexibility price-wise.
* Corrected the advisor information for Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf.
* Lumbridge melee dummies will no longer be affected by the Zamorak spear’s special attack.
* Ensure players can only have one god cape at a time.
* Stopped players walking through the ropes in the combat training hall in Lumbridge.

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Woodcutting Rebalance

Aeolus — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:09:52 -0500

This news was taken directly from Runescape.com

23rd September 2009 - Woodcutting Rebalance

Willows, maples and magic trees all have their uses, but what of the lesser known vegetation such as the hollow trees of Mort Myre or the arctic pines of the Fremennik isles? With this week’s update, we’ve taken a closer look at the Woodcutting skill, rebalancing experience for the less popular trees and cultivating some new forms of training, but it’s not just XP rates that we’ve been analysing...

Teak and mahogany trees now also have a special log or two up their sleeves, which are worth much more than their weight in gold to the right buyer! Choking ivy has been seen clambering up the stone walls of RuneScape’s major cities and is much tougher to deal with than it looks. We’ve also tweaked arctic pine-splitting and put up some Prayer-refreshing hollow bark torches in the Haunted Woods, so get your hatchets out and your arms chopping!

Finally, the workers at the Lumber Yard are inviting high-level woodcutters to participate in 'Sawmill Training', where you can grab, slice and saw your way to greater experience. For more information on all of these changes, head over to the Woodcutting section of the Game Guide.

Mod Trick
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news...

Hobgoblins were starting to feel a bit left behind in the looks stakes compared to their Bandosian brothers, so we've given them a graphical rework.

We've removed the doors to Edgeville's furnace to make it easier to use, but moved the furnace two squares further from the bank to maintain the balance. You will still need to have completed the necessary Varrock Achievement Diary tasks in order to use the furnace.

You might notice a small new feature has been added to the Friends List (the ability to move the line separating players’ names and online status). This feature is associated with the Display Names update, which we’re hoping to release later this year.

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