Hey all,
On Thursday, the Jesters, the team behind Dragonkin Laboratory, organised an internal play test of the content. This was the last one before launch: a front-to-back playthrough of all the content, to give a thumb up or down about readiness. The play-testers genuinely loved it, but felt that the second and third boss battles just weren’t polished enough – not to the degree that the team expect from themselves. When the Jesters got together to discuss how to broach the feedback, they felt that polishing the bosses (moving time from other areas) would lead to bugs elsewhere. Ultimately, they weren’t happy with launching on the 30th July, and the team came to us and asked for more time.
We looked at other options, like bringing more developers onto the project, but that’s never a perfect solution: the new developers need time to understand the code and the update itself, and the timeframe was too short to make that worthwhile. So, we concluded that we needed to delay the project. If we wanted to be proud of it, and if we wanted you to feel secure playing it (you’re the ones potentially risking resources by playing it, after all), then we needed that delay.
We have all agreed on a date of the 13th August. That gives the team an extra two weeks (three weeks, if you take the very original date), to give a comprehensive polish pass, and be supremely confident in the launch (at least, as confident as you ever can be with a release).
We want to make sure that the delay comes with a small bonus to you: the team can bring in additions that won’t affect the polishing time, but will make the release a little fuller, and – more importantly – will address some of the feedback that came through from Temple of Aminishi. The team had already been fluffing the rewards for Dragonkin Laboratory, for example, but the extra time allows them to add cherries on top. Specifically, from this delay, the team will be able to add:
- In addition to the planned Fury, Flurry mutated abilities, you can expect a mutated Barge
- General loot improvements across the entire dungeon, including some buffs to the existing relics
- More Elite Dungeon achievements
- An ‘Elite’ title, for those who complete all Elite Dungeon achievements
- Additional rewards that affect other content like Slayer and Shifting Tombs
- A pet purchasable with Dungeoneering tokens
We are very aware that July has been virtually empty of content releases. It’s far from what you expect and what we aim for. We want to make sure that there is still a game update on the 30th, so we will be bringing you a Clan Improvements Week alongside the already planned Beach. These are highly requested clan features that clans themselves have suggested. Here are some highlights:
- Orts converted to Clan Citadel Boosters - When you first log in, you’ll be given Clan Citadel Boosters in relation to the number of orts you’ve gathered (the update will remove anagogic orts).
- Clan Chat Muting - Before, clans had to kick members as a form of punishment, and now they can just silence them with a Clan Chat mute
- Clan Avatar Rework - No longer will you be limited to admins-or-higher needing to have an avatar out. You can take out your own avatar yourself, regardless of your rank, and get one of two bonuses: a way to cap faster at your skillplots, or a permanent XP boost (3% base, capping to 6% if you have Fealty 3)
- Clan Login Messages - A way to communicate with your clan if some members have been inactive
- Clan Broadcasts - When your clan member receives a drop or anything that broadcasts in-game, it will also broadcast to your clan and guests (if you allow it) so you can share in their achievements
- Improvements to Clan functions - Including the Clan Noticeboard, Clan Chat & Clan Citadel
We will also be giving every member several elite dungeon rewards on the launch of Dragonkin Laboratory. This will include drop enhancers and dungeoneering tokens, and will be gainable by talking to Bryll Thoksdottir outside of the Dragonkin Laboratory.
You’ve been patient with us, and we want to thank you so much for that. Please know that the extra time will put Dragonkin Laboratory in a much better place. We also believe that you’ll enjoy it more for the polish.
There are good things on the horizon, including more mobile invites next week, and we’ll talk about some of them in Friday’s Month Ahead for August.
Thank you all again.
Mod Osborne and the RuneScape Team