October is traditionally a month of scary surprises and toothache. This month will be no different when it comes to our Hallowe’en content, with a quest AND holiday event both to be available on the free servers. For scary surprises: how about entire worlds where you can PK and hunt other players to your heart’s content? That’s right, PvP worlds are coming! But first, a few words about how we’re going to update RuneScape in the future.

During the last six months we’ve been reading through the forums, talking to you in-game and running polls on the sorts of updates you really want. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that it’s the bigger, chunkier updates that really get you excited, those like the God Wars Dungeon or a new skill. These are the sorts of updates we found that you wanted to play. Updates that you want to go back to time and time again.

So, starting from this month, we’re changing the way we release content. From now on you’ll see one massive “headline update” (such as a Recipe for Disaster or a Castle Wars) every month. On top of that, there will still be a secondary release, much more like the size of update you’re used to right now. We’re also still committed to making sure that no two weeks pass without something new.

Basically, from now on our releases will be like this:

• Four week months will have two updates: one big headline release and a secondary one.
• Five week months will have three updates: one big headline release and two secondary ones.

So, on to this month’s updates...

PvP Worlds

Ever found yourself wanting to say, “Look, it’s my tree. If you don’t stop chopping it...I’ll chop you!” Sounds cool, right? Yeah, but where could you do it? And when? The answers are PvP worlds and October!

From log-in, those that are interested in PvP content will be able to join in on special PvP worlds. The danger on these worlds will be very clear from the first messages you see, ensuring that players never log onto these worlds by mistake. After all, we don’t want players accidentally getting involved with PKing (player killing) if they don’t want to. Normal, non-PvP worlds will still act just as they do now, so don’t worry if bashing others isn’t really your thing.

Those that want to get involved will find a number of differences to the usual set-up on PvP worlds. Firstly, you’ll be able to fight people pretty much anywhere, so long as their Combat level is similar to yours (within a certain range of levels). This means that almost everywhere is dangerous. Some places, like banks and respawn points, will be deemed “safe” and no combat will be able to occur there, and some of the minigames will be disabled (you won’t be able to PK team mates while playing Castle Wars, for example) but many will still be active. Other places, like Falador, Varrock and the entirety of the Wilderness, will be considered “hot spots” where the danger will be even greater and a higher concentration of opponents.

Now, onto the money side of things. Many of you will be aware of the RWT (real-world trading of RuneScape gold for money) reasons we changed the old Wilderness. We certainly can’t just bring that threat back to RuneScape, so we have devised a system that rewards players based on a variety of factors. This means that things such as risk, level of foe and location will help to calculate rewards. Drops will be determined by a combination of drop tables and some of the gear that your opponent drops. We will go into more depth about this on the day of release.

Hallowe'en

As well as changing things around with the headline updates, we also decided to change the way we do things with our holiday events. We wanted to make the most of the little bits of fun we have every year, and give the free-to-play game a taste of the content we release in the members’ world. This year, we will be releasing a Hallowe’en-themed quest as well as the traditional holiday event. This quest will be available to our free players for the two weeks around Hallowe’en, along with the holiday event itself, and members will be able to play the quest at any time (the normal holiday event will disappear after two weeks as usual). What’s it about? Well, you’ll have to wait and see, but expect some funky decorations to start appearing.

Spooky player letters and artwork will also await those strong of stomach...so be prepared.

Updates being released after October

In case that little lot isn’t enough for you, let’s take a few moments to talk about the headline content we’re releasing in the months after October:

Stealing Creation

Not long to wait now for this crazy combination for skillers and PKers. Can you and your team work together capturing resources and equipping your warriors? Will you avoid the multitude of threats bearing down on your safe haven? Will you try to make your own way to the higher level gear, or will you just PK and destroy your opponents’ hard work? Will you be able to keep the enemy at bay while stealing creation?

Mobilising Armies

Ever fancied assaulting a castle with your very own army? You will be able to hire a mercenary force to battle against three other players, complete set objectives and earn rewards. Mobilising Armies will be a fast paced tactical minigame allowing you to control your very own RuneScape army with troops made up of humans and other races. There will also be some special effects including dive bombing gnomes and giant catapults. Will you be up to the challenge?

Have fun!

 Doesn't look or sound too bad but we will have to wait and see.

i can't really tell if its going to be a big fiasco. but im pretty sure it is going to end bad.

Yeah I think its going to end bad too. Its just going to be a huge mess. Oh well, hopefully the halloween event might be okay. I have to get the holiday item and emote.

For some reason, I'm just not looking forward to risk losing millions of coins when I can only earn about 10K from pking.

Why am I not excited about this?

Hello again comrades and commisars. I was reading the article above, when I saw this: "Ever found yourself wanting to say, “Look, it’s my tree. If you don’t stop chopping it...I’ll chop you!” Sounds cool, right? Yeah, but where could you do it? And when? The answers are PvP worlds and October!".

What kind of joker company would try to advertise their new system of killing with that kind of vibe. Anyway, sounds like they're making more of these juvenile PvP game systems. I'll just wait until these things get released and Ill ask Tuss or someone else how it works. By the way tuss, how are things going in runescape? what observations have you come upon? feel free to let us know.

Originally posted by Matt269

Yeah I think its going to end bad too. Its just going to be a huge mess. Oh well, hopefully the halloween event might be okay. I have to get the holiday item and emote.

For some reason, I'm just not looking forward to risk losing millions of coins when I can only earn about 10K from pking.

Since when did they release a good Halloween event? Besides little kids I don’t think anyone likes to do the Halloween events(because their so corny). They should change it back to when they had holiday drops, the holiday events are more like a chore to do every year so you can get that item and or emote.

Yeah if I was Jagex I would return to the old ways of Holiday Drops. No more idiotic jobs like "talking to the idiotic chocobunny" or "making eggs and transforming into a baby bunny". Kids stuff . I'd rather just drop the rares right onto the floor. Just like the old days, when scythes, bunny ears were dropped.

Originally posted by Blissey

Yeah if I was Jagex I would return to the old ways of Holiday Drops. No more idiotic jobs like "talking to the idiotic chocobunny" or "making eggs and transforming into a baby bunny". Kids stuff . I'd rather just drop the rares right onto the floor. Just like the old days, when scythes, bunny ears were dropped.

I know, who in their right minds wants to do those corny half baked holiday events, seriously? Plus their a waste of time since after the week that the event is up their gone forever never to be seen again, that’s a waste of resources. Jagex could use the time they waste on holiday events for a weapon upgrade to actually put some use to all the crud weapons in runescape that no one ever uses and actually put diversity in the game, or a new area, or patch to all the freaking glitches in the game that they have failed to fix for years. Maybe jagex could even use the time they waste on holiday events to think about how much they suck and to consider selling the game to a company that doesn’t put their profits in front of their players.

I think this was the face I made after I finished the last holiday event that I participated in -->

I can honestly say the holiday event left a bad taste in my mouth.

Like many others... why am I not excited lol.

I don't even think it is worth my time to find out at this point lol I give up on Jagex. Maybe i will just see what everyone else says, after that i might check it out, but I don't plan on it at this point.

Don't worry I understand how you feel about it. Anyway, it is very common these days to find 39,000 people playing  every morning when I wake up. the amount of people playing very much reminds me of 2003, the year when the Beta version came out, because during the RS Classic years, it usually amounted up to 11k-22k people playing every morning...that's what I can remember.