After spending a day at RuneFest last month one thing rang clear. This is a company very interested in providing the fans of the game what they want to see. To that end they sent out a survey to the entire player base seeking feedback on what players wanted most out of Runescape. Thousands reported back. Here are some of the most notable based on developer response and crowd feedback at the show..
Not surprisingly for a 15 year old game some of the systems need to be reworked. The number one requested feature was a bank rework. Nothing sexy there but sometimes we just want our bank to work better. This was followed by the agility system. The biggest surprise to the team was that the weather system ranked extremely high on the list. They plan on trying to introduce something exciting for a new weather system, rain, snow, and seasonal weather. They would like to add physics to the wind. Have flags move, and maybe even have sandstorms in the desert. Jagex said all of those won’t make it in but that is the road ahead.
They plan on adding in solo bosses. The one they used for an example is Lovecraft inspired and designed to scare the hell out of you. Speaking of Lovecraft they also mentioned a new Elder God quest. When they said this there was an audible “ahhhhh” throughout the crowd. Apparently in Runescape there is only one Elder God and he is a small one, but there are eggs down below. Yikes!
A fan favorite Evil Dave is making a big appearance. He will have his own quest and it’s going to have all that British humor Runescape fans love. Apparently he is going to have a freaky body swap vibe.
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The developers love this game and want to make it for another 15 years. No shock there. I don’t think anyone wishes their game would end. They do have a plan for going forward and there are going to be some drastic changes over the next 12 months.
The biggest change for 2017? They are going to update the game every two months. They plan on releasing expansions. Apparently Jagex has never official referred to any of their previous updates as expansions. Coming June 2017 will be there first one. These expansions will be consist of an area or region in the game that is released and is content complete on launch day. In the past they would release an area and piecemeal out content. According to them no more. You never can tell though. I’ve seen games go from subscription, to microstransaction, to buy to play. No telling what a developer is really going to do long term.
There will be three big expansions for 2017. The first will be the Golden Gate of Menaphos. This should be released in June. Menaphos will be a new hub city. It can be used as an alternative to the elf city. A new feature they are working on is NPCs reacting differently towards you based upon your reputation. As you gain rep you can work your way to becoming a master of the city. As such the NPCs will treat you differently. They didn’t get too detailed on how they would treat you differently though.
While you are waiting for the next expansion to come out you won’t be left in the lurch either. They will have other small monthly updates that come out. In July and August they will have the Shattered Worlds event. You’ll hop in a portal to another dimension and complete tasks then hop into another portal to go on to the next one. This will all take place on the clock. They will introduce a global dedicated shattered world leaderboard to you better be prepared to show off to all your friends and the community.
Apart from those updates they also plan on cleaning up the achievement system at the beginning of the year. They are going to pull them all into one place so you can track them better. They want achievements to act as a roadmap for people to tackle all the content in the game and believe this will help.
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One thing they talked about that was purely for fun was a new Account Bidders. This is the Runescape’s take on the storage wars and other reality TV shows of its ilk. Players will have the opportunity to bid and purchase the contents of old banned accounts. You may get a ton of materials in an account. You may get next to nothing. I think this sounds hilarious but I have to caution you. Buyer beware.
Those were my big takeaways from the road ahead for Runescape in 2017. Do you see any of those that get your really excited? Let me know in the comments below.
