Old School RuneScape is adding a new skill. If you’re familiar at all with OSRS, this is a long and heavily community-involved process. There are three proposed choices, and a vote coming next week to pick between the options–Sailing, Shamanism, and Taming.
These three skill pitches were introduced in a video earlier this week to introduce the concepts, give some details, and break down the process ahead. A vote will happen on April 4th to determine which of these the team will continue to refine and build into a richer concept. After the community asked a number of questions,the team decided to break down the process further with a special FAQ on what this all means and more on what to expect.
As for those skills, Sailing would involve building an overworld expansion to enable the skill to be useful,including making sea tiles into playable content. Shamanism would involve gathering and production elements, but also the Spirit Realm, which would also turn into some kind of overworld expansion. Taming is what it sounds like, but this could also include area expansions for new creatures or activities.
For one, the proposed skills don’t have to even include the final one that will eventually be developed into a system for inclusion in Old School RuneScape. If you vote in the April 4th poll, you can vote for all or even none of them, with space to let them know if the latter is the case. What the community is voting on here is which should be taken further into refinement in order to create a more in-depth pitch,and not voting on a final concept (yet).
This also matters since development wouldn’t be quick, anyway. With so much community involvement in the development process overall, even if they wanted to get something together this year, it would, at best, be a playable beta.
“It's very possible we could have a playable Beta in 2023 if we managed to 'lock in' a Skill within the next 3-4 months. If we can 'lock in' a skill sooner, we'd be able to start development sooner and then work with the community on the much finer details as we go along.”
Since this is a big deal, they want to take their time.
For more details, head to Old School RuneScape for the new FAQ.
