We’re back with the new and improved Gielinor Gazette – with special guest star, the Community Showcase!
Welcome to the brand-new format of the Gielinor Gazette!
In our last Gazette, we asked what you’d like to see from a revamped version. One of many changes we’ve implemented is to split content between the Gazette you know and love and an all-new Community Showcase.
Here’s what the Gazette will feature:
- Monthly Highlights: links to the biggest newsposts, videos and other content that we’ve launched over the past month.
- Project Updates: brief information about the projects we’ve been working on over the past month, including our progress, teasers for upcoming content, and spotlights on areas of the team you don’t normally hear from.
- J-Mod Articles: Articles written by J-Mods about whatever topic they want to talk about – retrospectives on old content, side-projects they’re working on, or just whatever they want to ramble on about!
- Team Ins and Outs: who’s coming and going on the Old School Team.
As you can see, the plan is for the Gazette to feature updates on projects and other content-driven articles – but what about Postbag from the Hedge? What about the Player Creation Gallery? Well, these things have found a new home in the Community Showcase, which will include:
- Postbag from the Hedge: The classic format will continue as Postie Pete travels Gielinor, delivering your letters to NPCs and getting their responses.
- Players’ Perspective: This is an experimental feature where we hear from YOU! It comes in two forms; one where we ask experts to write articles like those by our J-Mods, and one where we ask the community a question and gather the best responses!
- Creation Station: An expanded version of ye old Player Creation Gallery, where we showcase your creations, from drawings to pottery, model-making and more!
- Video Highlights: This is where we’ll highlight videos and video series' we think you’d like to check out!
- Community Achievements: Speaking of highlights, this is where we’ll immortalise your in-game achievements, from your first legit Inferno to your last 99. We want to celebrate your successes!
Do you have stuff like that to show us? Click the button below to hand in your best work so we can show it off in next month’s Community Showcase!
Hopefully you all enjoy this new approach – and don’t worry, both the Community Showcase and the Gielinor Gazette will link to each other, so you can easily hop between the two.
Let us know what you think of the new format, and we’ll continue to improve your monthly roundup experience!
Content Newsposts
February 3rd: The Future of Official Account Builds
February 8th: Forestry: The Way of the Forester - Overview
February 14th: Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire: Rewards Greenlight Blog
February 21st: Bounty Hunter is Coming Back!
February 23rd: An Update On Forestry
February 23rd: 12th Annual Golden Gnomes: Nominations Now Open
Game Updates
February 2nd: Wilderness Boss Rework Tweaks & More
February 8th: Poll 78 Updates & More
February 15th: More Poll 78 Changes!
February 22nd: 10th Birthday Event
Polls
February 17th - 24th: Desert Treasure II Rewards: Community Consultation
Streams and Videos
February 3rd: Meet the CM and Marketing Team!
February 9th: We’re Discussing Forestry! & Transcript
February 16th: A Good Ol’ General Q&A (Plus Desert Treasure 2 Questions) & Transcript
February 23rd: Celebrating 10 Years of Old School!
New Skill Project
We’ve had over 40,000 responses to our community consultation survey! Thank you so much for all your feedback. As you’ve imagined, we’ve been VERY busy going through it all.
We’ve come up with three pitches based on your responses to the survey, and we can’t wait to show you all. We’re still in the early stages of the design, but we know you’re eager to find out what’s next.
In late March we’ll present these three top-level skill concepts and explain exactly how they relate to the results of the survey. We’ll begin inviting members to the New Skill Player Council around the same time – a lot of you have applied, so keep an eye out! We’ll be using in-game poll data as well as survey applications to inform our choices.
Thank you again for all your support and interest as we home in on Old School RuneScape’s first new skill. We’ll be back to chat soon!
Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire
Work has started on Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire, the thrilling continuation of the Mahjarrat storyline!
This Grandmaster quest will see you travelling to four new areas to take on four deadly bosses. If you're feeling really brave, you’ll be able to go back and fight them again upon quest completion.
We recently closed our first boss reward poll. In the coming weeks, you can expect further blogs and polls to finalise these rewards, as well as more information about the new Ruinous Powers Prayer Book!
As with Tombs of Amascut, we’re keeping our cards close to our chest. After all, the desert is full of secrets – and we’re not spoiling any of them!
Bounty Hunter
In last week’s newspost we outlined our thoughts on the future of this much-loved PvP minigame, including potential systems and lots of lovely rewards.
We’re in the Community Consultation phase just now, so we need you to have a read through the blog and then check out the survey at the end. Your feedback means we can come back with a refined design that we’re confident you’ll love before we get to work bringing it to life!
Forestry: Way of the Forester
Earlier this month we gave you the lowdown on what we’d like Forestry to achieve and what exactly is included in this Woodcutting expansion. Last week we released an update to that blog where we addressed your main concerns, went over the results of the survey, and talked about the changes we’d like to make!
Thank you to the over 7,500 of you who voted in the survey. As for the poll, you want have to wait long to cast your vote as it will be going live tomorrow! In the meantime, check out this awesome Forestry concept art:
Quality of Life Polls
We’re currently discussing the content of our next big QoL Poll – and we’ve actually come up for a few themes beyond that! Look forward to improvements for raids, minigames, PvP and more.
As for the direction of Poll 79, we’ll be revisiting one of our most-requested features – a points-based system for Combat Achievements! As for the rest of the improvements, you’ll just have to wait until the poll goes live…
Official Account Builds
After reviewing your feedback from the most recent Official Account Builds newspost, we’ve decided not to continue with the project. You can learn more about our decision in Official Account Builds: What’s Next.
However, we’ve asked you whether we should explore a couple of options that will still help out restricted account types:
- Investigate a setting which would disable selected Combat Styles.
- Poll changing the Combat Rewards from a couple of quests (including Nature Spirit) into XP Lamps.
- Include warnings on any quests that give combat XP before the quest is finished.
Hopefully, this will help out players trying to enjoy restricted account playstyles without making life even more complicated. We’ll continue to find ways to support niche account builds in future, but you won’t be seeing the Official Account Builds system again.
Mobile Rework
The Winter Summit also showcased the upcoming Mobile UI rework, which received a bit of a lukewarm reception. We know this is critical to mobile gameplay, and the rework is something we're passionate about, so we want to make sure we get it right. We've been listening to your feedback, and we also want to deliver clearer messages about the improvements we’re making and what we are trying to achieve.
We'll go into more detail in an upcoming newspost but in the meantime, we'd like to hear from you about your Mobile playing habits and what you're favourite (and least favourite) things are with the current client!
Enhanced Client
We’re still hard at work making the new C++ Client the best it can be – and the next update will be something you’ve been pestering us about for ages!
With the next set of features, pencilled in for May, you can expect to see Ground Items and the long-awaited Loot Tracker, so you’ll have a better handle on all your loot-related woes!
For those unfamiliar, Ground Items is a system that names the items on the ground, so you can see exactly what’s on the floor without having to right-click or zoom all the way in! The minimum limit for loot can be set so that only items above a certain value threshold show up, particular items can be prevented from showing up entirely, and items can be colour-coded by value!
The Loot Tracker will help you keep on top of the loot you’ve gathered. You’ll be able to exclude certain items from the Tracker so only the ones you really care about show up. You’ll even be able to track things like the number of Marks of Grace received from Agility courses!
There’s lots of work going on behind the scenes to get the newest client onto the launcher, which means you’ll soon have another official way to play our newest clients, alongside the Steam and mobile options. Stay tuned for more news soon!
Jagex Accounts
Speaking of the Jagex Launcher, we’re well underway with the Closed Beta we discussed a few months ago! Invited players have received an inbox message titled 'Jagex Accounts Closed Beta Invite' containing instructions for accessing the Beta and where to share any issues or feedback.
As we said when we announced the Closed Beta, we'll invite more players once we're satisfied with the feedback we receive, but we'll be ready to move on to the next phase very soon and are excited to onboard you into the new and more secure account system!
That said, we'd like to remind you all that
ALL EMAILS ABOUT JAGEX ACCOUNTS WILL ALWAYS INCLUDE YOUR CHARACTER NAME AND WILL NEVER TAKE YOU DIRECT TO A LOGIN PAGE.
If you are receiving an unprompted email from 'Jagex' make sure to always double-check how legitimate it is. Here are a couple of handy tips:
- Check the subject line and/or body for your RSN. If your accounts are secure, it’s quite hard for scammers to know both your email and RSN. We know both and will use both.
- You can activate your browser’s phishing filters to alert you of potentially unsafe websites. Here’s how to enable phishing filters on some popular browsers:
- We’ll never send you to a link which asks you to login straight away. We may send you to landing pages but you will always log in through your usual method.
- If you’re not sure, ask! Before clicking on any links, contact customer support and ask if the email is safe.
We've also got a full article on how you can avoid phishing found right here!
If you’re worried about your account being changed, visit the website directly or via the Account Settings menu in-game to view or change your details. This is always the safest alternative!
Miscellaneous
Did you see our revamped studio on the 10th Birthday Livestream? If not, catch-up on all of the birthday shenanigans including Player-Designed items, a look back at the first 10 Years of Old School, and Birthday Quiz and a roundp with Mod Ayiza & Sween.
For those of you that are wondering about RuneFest we also had the one and only Mod Pip join us for the beggining of the livestream to talk about Old School and it's journey!
With the studio back in full swing, we hope to make more use of its lovely, cosy aesthetic by hosting more in-person streams. This also means fewer annoying delays – there’s only so much Mod Spear can do!
Even more exciting news: we don’t plan to limit this to Q&A livestreams, either. We’ve been talking for a while about more stream activities we can try in 2023, so keep your eyes peeled!
by Mod Sarnie
Hey there, it's ya boy and resident puzzle-lover Mod Sarnie here! It was an absolute pleasure to see everyone running around throwing cards at each other last month, but some of you may be wondering: where did these things come from, and why?
Our story begins all the way back in 2021, before the beginning of Leagues III: Shattered Relics.
Mods Brow, Lenny, Nin and myself all got together after a previous discussion about ARGs and decided that the first story-driven League would be the perfect place to implement one!
If you’re not familiar, an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) is an interactive, networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. Thanks, Wikipedia!
Basically, it’s a really interesting way to tell a narrative through player participation. The players uncover puzzles and hidden clues to help progress the story – from obscure messages in videos to hidden links in newsposts, or secret codes! These clues lead you down a rabbit hole of secrets and lore – in my opinion, it’s one of the coolest forms of storytelling out there!
So when Leagues III was ready to launch, Mod Brow took the lead and snuck in some peculiar-looking basalt pillars around Gielinor – at the Lighthouse, Harmony Island, and the eastern shore of Hosidius. A mysterious card was placed atop each one, and clicking it would open a link in your browser:
Weird, right? While the first image had nothing special on it (yet), the other two featured hidden messages. Playing around with the levels in an image editor revealed the following:
Keep watching
keep waiting
for the moment
in and out of time
there is more to find
keep watching
keep waiting
for the moment
in and out of time
But what does it all mean?!
After a little while, new text appeared on each page, which unlocked more puzzles to solve! Now, we don’t have the character limit to dive into what happened next, but needless to say the RuneStone Hunters Discord did an excellent job keeping track of all the progress, puzzles and solutions. You can find it all here!
One of the coolest parts of the ARG involved some sleuthing in real-life locations! Certain clues pointed towards hidden geocaches in the UK, US and Australia – meaning that the first people to solve this particular puzzle would discover a real-life item with some more clues.
The three players who found the geocaches had to work together to line up the broken QR codes on the back, which led to an URL that would eventually be used for the ARG’s finale. It was an amazing experience to watch the RuneStone Hunters track down the caches and share the details – and the three lucky players who got their hands dirty now have a unique Old School RuneScape souvenir to celebrate their victory!
We also sent out medals with further hints about the future of the ARG. Around this time, Mod Brow sadly left Jagex – but the reward was already in place, and all we had to do was wait for you to uncover it.
At the end of December, you may have seen some suspicious behaviour on my social accounts. Now, I don’t remember much, but after catching up, it seems that a mysterious stranger was posing as me!
This revelation sparked the beginning of the end, as players used the skills they’d developed over previous puzzles to discover the final missing piece… a phrase for a horseman.
After some interaction with the puzzle and the strange individual impersonating me, players discovered a code, which, if mentioned to Diango, would gift them the Mystic Cards item. What? He’s a horseman, he sells horses!
If you haven’t claimed your cards yet, you can do so by speaking to Diango and giving him the following code: v1r354cqu1r173und0
I can honestly say that this has been one of the funniest things I’ve worked on. As a lover of ARGs myself it’s been a fantastic experience! Although not everything ran smoothly we learned a lot during this first attempt, and I hope we can utilise some of those learnings in future.
Speaking of the future, we had a ton of ideas that weren’t utilised in our first ARG adventure, and I for one would like to go even bigger and better next time.
I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone involved, whether you were at the forefront of puzzle solving or just lurked to see what was going on. It’s been a true gift to see players working towards the goal and get really invested in something we’ve never really tried before.
Extra thanks to Mods Nin, Lenny, Jerv, Maylea and West, who were critical parts of the process – and how could I forget the ARG king himself, Mod Brow? This was the crowning achievement of his great work at Jagex, and hopefully a fitting send-off. Here’s to you, Mod Brow!
Well, with that mystery resolved, I think I’ll kick back and relax for a while. Let’s just hope ǝɥ doesn't come back…
We’ve actually got two familiar faces joining the team! One is a previous J-Mod making a triumphant return, and the other is a Deadman pro who’s been refining his tech skills on the sly. Let's make sure to give Mod Sween and Mod Manked a warm welcome!
Mod Manked has joined as a Junior Content Developer
Hello there! I'm Mod Manked, a new Junior Content Developer on the Old School team. I've been PKing in RuneScape for the last 17 years, giving thousands of players free trips to Lumbridge. Prior to joining Jagex, I spent a year solely focused on developing my coding ability to acquire this position. I hope to combine my game knowledge and newly acquired coding understanding to release amazing content for you all to experience.
Mod Sween returns as a Senior Marketing Manager
Hello everyone! It's odd to be writing this for this month's Gazette since you may have seen me on stream and on social media over the past couple of months, but... I'm back!
I first joined Jagex in August 2015, I left in October 2021, and I'm back of last month. I'm not in the community team, instead I'll be spending my time doing more marketing bits.
When I left in 2021 I spent time at another studio, and then had a short stint consulting for a few more studios. Jagex was one of those, and that time spent consulting (and working on cool things like the Winter Summit!) convinced me of how awesome Old School is going to be and that my place is back here alongside the Old School team.
I'm sure of one thing, Old School RuneScape (and its players - you! That's two things. Okay, I'm sure of two things...) is something special, and in my new role I'm going to do my best so spread that message to reach as many would-be players as possible.
I missed you all!
You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
Mods Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Nin, Nylu, Other, Redfield, Regent, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Sova, Squid, Starry, Stevew, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, Torrance, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy
The Old School Team.