We hope you’ve been enjoying your time out at sea so far. It’s been fantastic seeing so many of you set sail and experience the skill for the very first time.

Sailing opens up entirely new ways to explore Gielinor. From fresh character progression goals, to new areas, rewards, and plenty more to discover. As with every skill, Sailing will continue to grow and evolve over time. We’re only at the beginning, and today we’re excited to share our next project. One that truly reflects your new status as Captain!

Those of you who've been around for a long time might already know that Varlamore originated as a player suggestion from the wonderful GentleTractor, posted in the 2007scape subreddit. During Sailing's development, we'd hoped to keep up that style of community involvement by giving you the opportunity to create player-designed islands.

Since the community - that's all of you - have been building Sailing alongside us since the beginning, player-designed islands feel like a no brainer! We wanted to wait a little after release so that everybody had hands-on experience with the skill first, so you'd know what it might contain, and where it could sit within Gielinor’s oceans. With the skill now out, the time feels right to kick this off.

So, we’re delighted to reveal our new Player-Designed Island Competition!

From December 11th to January 7th, you’ll be able to take part in a competition to have YOUR idea brought to life by our development team. We’ll look at all of the entries, shortlist our favourites, then ask players to vote.

This is your opportunity to help shape Sailing in Old School RuneScape. Your ideas and creativity could become a permanent, lasting piece in the game’s history for everyone to enjoy!

So, if you’ve always dreamed of an island filled with Demonic Capybaras, Pet Rocks or the ghost of Cuthbert – let us know!

We can’t wait to see what you dream up.

   

We want your ideas to be exciting, rewarding, and imaginative. But they also need to be something we can realistically deliver! We’re aiming for this update to launch in a reasonable timeframe, so we’re setting a few guidelines around the scope and size of this project.

If a design ends up outside what’s feasible for the team, we won’t be able to move forward with it, no matter how creative it is. Please keep these points in mind when putting your entry together.

First up, we’re looking for content aimed at mid to high-level Sailors (levels 50–99). Since many of you are now starting to climb the leaderboards, it’s the perfect time to add a new and exciting area that you can all enjoy.

And although we’re calling this the Player-Designed Island Competition, you don’t actually have to design an island at all. We’re just as happy to see concepts for Points of Interest unlocked via Sailing. Think things like a giant capsized shipwreck, an underwater location, or anything else that fits the theme.

Sailing gives access to new reward spaces, and your design should follow that same spirit. Reaching the island is a reward from training Sailing, it is not a new training method or a way to gain additional Sailing XP.

Once entries are shortlisted, our plan is to run a ranked-choice vote using our new polling system so the community can decide their favourite. We’ll also work closely with the winner to ensure the final design is something the team is confident taking forward. This means that you should be willing to work with us under an NDA so that we can freely share our ideas and thoughts with you. If that’s not possible, then you can still enter the competition, but we won’t be consulting as heavily on design aspects.

When we’ve reached a design that we’re happy with, we’ll poll the content as usual under a 70% pass requirement. If that poll doesn’t pass, the design may need further tweaks or could be paused. Don’t worry - the winner and runners-up will still receive their prize either way.

Let’s run through content guidelines! Keeping close to these recommendations will ensure that your entry has the highest possible chance of being shortlisted by the team.

We’ll do our best to accommodate all entries, but these guidelines will help a lot regarding scope.

• Suggested Size: 64x64 tiles (for reference, this is about the size of the King Black Dragon’s Lair) - up to a maximum of 128 x 128 tiles (four King Black Dragon Lairs!). Please note, this also includes any underground areas like dungeons.
• For any creatures or monsters you want to include in the space, you may reuse existing ones freely, adapt any existing up to a max of 10 (e.g a red Cow would be one adapted creature), and create no more than one brand-new creature.
• A maximum of 1 short quest is required to access it (similar to Rune Mysteries or Scrambled!).
• Can include up to 3 small brand-new activities - or 5 total if including existing activities. A small activity might be crab hunting, a large activity would be something like a a boss fight. Large activities must be fewer relative to your design's size and complexity.
• Combat is optional, but if going with this any difficulty should match the Sailing level requirement.
• Music can include 1 new track. You can suggest the vibe and thematics, and our wonderful Audio team will compose it! Provide 3 keywords to describe the vibe of the music track, a brief sentence description of the purpose of the island and any references from the current OSRS music list that will help guide the above.
• The narrative concept should not seek to continue existing storylines but can build off of them. E.g. feel free to include Tortugans or Pirates, but don't expect this to be the continuation of those storylines. Note that we already have plans in place for a second Tortugan Quest, the Red Reef.
• We suggest "side-grades", rather than impacting any top-end meta in Skills and Combat, like best-in-slot items. Generally, changes to the meta need a lot of consultation and can be harder to get right. That said, if a good enough suggestion comes along and the community wants it, we won't turn it down!
• The island or point of interest must be located in the areas that are accessible in Gielinor right now. Areas that are currently locked will not be opened for the Player Designed Island Competition.

Please note, there is a limit of one entry per person.

You don’t have to be a designer, or a developer to submit your entry. We want to hear from everyone. Yes, that includes you!

Try to imagine your design now. Ask yourself:

• Why does this location exist?
• Why should players visit?
• What rewards, activities, or stories make it compelling?
• How do players reach it?
• Does it make sense in the Sailing release area?
• Keep your submission concise (less than 1,000 words) and feel free to include sketches, charts, or diagrams to convey your idea.

Entries should be submitted to us in a written format, via e-mail to oldschoolcommunity@jagex.com. We strongly encourage the use of imagery to explain your design, since that will help the team to create it. If you would like to add a video or animated image to supplement your design, you are welcome to do so. However this is not necessary or a requirement to enter.

Please also ensure that it is clear from the subject of your e-mail if you're contacting us regarding the player-designed island competition.

We will require you to declare that your entry is your own work, and that the content and illustrations are your own creation, rather than being AI-generated. We can't realistically stop players from submitting an entry as part of a group, however, please note that only the person who has submitted the entry will be considered an entrant and eligibile to receive the prize. Jagex does not take responsibility for splitting the prize pool amongst group members.

You are welcome to share your designs on social platforms; however, we encourage you to submit them to us first so that we can verify your entry as the ‘original’ version.

We would also recommend the use of watermarks on any entries posted on social channels to prevent them from being redistributed or stolen.

Getting your design in-game isn’t the only thing you’ll get if you take part in this competition! We've partnered with StarForge Systems to bring in some absolutely awesome prizes, you can check their store out here.

Grand Prize Winner:

• Your island developed and added to OSRS! The OSRS team may adjust the design if required. We’ll do our best to consult with the entrant on any changes. The content is also subject to further changes via community feedback, and of course a 70% poll.
• StarForge Old School RuneScape PC Bundle, ($2499.99) & StarForge Mystery Prize
• 1 year of OSRS Membership

3 Runner-Ups:

• StarForge Desk Mat & StarForge Mystery Prize
• 1 year of OSRS Membership

Please note, the Mystery Prize from StarForge is set at a value of $279.99. It isn't released yet, and if we're unable to get it in time for the competition then we'll substitute it with another StarForge product around the same value.

All Winners will need to ensure they can be contacted via the e-mail used to submit their entry to redeem their prize.

As mentioned, we would require the Grand Prize Winner to discuss their design under NDA if they want to be consulted during development. If this is not possible, we'll try to stick as close to the original design as possible, but changes may be made for balancing reasons.

Further information regarding the competition can be found in our Terms & Conditions. Please ensure that you read these through fully before submitting your entries over. Certain locations are excluded from the competition for shipping reasons, so make sure you've read through the full terms, including locations that StarForge will ship to, before entering.

Jagex reserves the right to withdraw the award of any prize if no entries are deemed to meet the required standard or criteria.

How Winners Are Selected

A panel of J-Mods from the Sailing development team will review all submissions and select 4 shortlisted entries. During the Winter Summit livestream, we'll ask you to vote for your favourite in a ‘ranked choice’ vote. The entry that wins this vote will be refined further by the design team, under consultation with the entrant (under NDA). We'll do our best to stick as close to the original design as possible, but some changes may be needed for balancing reasons or otherwise.

Once we're ready, we’ll come back to the community with the full design. If further changes are required, we may adapt the design further based on feedback. The community will then have a final vote on it (with a 70% threshold) and we’ll seek to put it into the game thereafter provided it passes.

This is your chance to dream big, get creative, and influence the future of Sailing. Whether you sketch a secret pirate hideout, craft a mysterious underwater cave, or create an island that becomes the next fan-favourite spot in Gielinor, we want to see your ideas!

Start planning your design today and get ready to sail into adventure like never before.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

You can also discuss this update 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 Abe, Abyss, Acorn, Ape, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Asherz, Ayiza, BigRig, Blighted, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Curse, Daizong, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Freddie, Fuzz, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grace, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Ivory, Jalo, Jamesy, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Mobius, Moogle, Morty, Moz, Necro, Nin, Nixon, Nox, Nylu, Ori, Other, Otter, Philomel, Pork, Pumpkin, Puppi, Rach, Redfield, Rice, Roq, Roy, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Schmidt, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Spyro, Squid, Starry, Stilrush, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titania, Titus, TJ, Tomb, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume

The Old School Team.