OSRS Development Blog 2014

[Marc]

Dev Blog: 2014

With the new year now with us it seems the right time to talk about what the future of Old School holds for you. Over the last few weeks we have been working on a plan for the next 6 months and we want to present that to you now.

In November we held a survey, the results of which you can see here, to ask what was important to you and this has formed the basis of the plan for the next 6 months.
 

What will be polling?
PvM
PvP
Skilling
The big issues
Holiday events

 

What will be polling?

We want to remain with the three week cycle of polls which means that we will aim to do around 8 polls in the next 6 months. The polls will consist of the quality of life updates which you are used to. In each poll we will also be targeting one of three areas (PVM, PVP and skilling) to add new content or improve existing content. From the results of the survey we hope to offer a selection of PvM polls, PvP polls and skilling polls, we also want to deliver two of these through Player Designed Content competitions so you are even more in control.

One of the most important things to us is to ensure that any update that passes a poll is delivered to you as quickly as possible. If there are some big updates you want that will take extra time, we may delay some polls to focus on the delivery of the updates.

One of the key things we want to ensure is that we are able to react to what you want as quickly as possible which is why we aren't going to plan when these polls are going to take place. When it becomes time for us to consider a new poll we will look at what is important to you and ensure that the theme of the poll meets what you need.
 

PvM

Your answers to the survey suggested that the reason you like PvM is to fight brand new monsters which are profitable to kill. You also like to kill monsters with your friends and have them drop new equipment that helps you level a variety of skills. So, this are all things we will bear in mind when we look at what we can offer you in these polls. There are numerous ideas that you have put forward to us already such as the Kraken boss, combat pets, Soul Snatcher minigame and necromancy; all of which are possibilities.
 

 

PvP

The first poll of this year will be a reworking of the wilderness in order to encourage more activity. Conversations with the community started about this back in December and we will put a dev blog out shortly with more information on how we have used your ideas so the debate can intensify. Any update to PvP will be designed to make PvP profitable, encourage players to fight in groups and with the possibility of adding new items to fight with, the things you told us were most important to you.

Some of the PvP ideas you have come to us with are clan wars, a bounty hunter mechanic and equipment for pures. One question that we would like you to talk about is whether you think the Bounty Hunter mechanic would work best in the Wilderness or in a separate arena? Or perhaps a separate area entirely?
 

 

Skilling

You told us that the most important aspects of skilling to you were that it needs to be profitable, that gaining XP needs to be engaging and that you want to be able to skill with your friends. So, we will be looking at how we can incorporate these into the two skilling polls that we offer. One idea that was presented to us during the Player Designed Content competition was being able to raise your own animals, something we think is a really exciting prospect.
 

The big issues

There are two major issues that you are facing which we want to ensure we deal with over the next 6 months. The first, and unsurprisingly, is bots. We want to be able to remove the bot menace from disturbing your experience so you can enjoy the game the way you want to. Later this week we have a meeting with the anti-bot team and from this meeting we will draw up a plan to achieve our aims. We may not be able to share everything we plan with you, but what we can share we will.
 

The second issue is trading. We know world 1 is very difficult to trade in and we want to solve this too. I am sure a lot of you have just had images of the Grand Exchange run through your mind, however we don't have to introduce it in the way it was originally, there is no trade cap so we can do things differently. Most importantly the solution has to be right for you so before long we will need to start a discussion on what the solution should be.
 

Holiday events

You may initially think that there is only one holiday in the next six months, Easter. However, we know you guys enjoy holiday events and so we will be ramping up community activity around Valentine's Day, Old School's first birthday (22nd February), RS2's Birthday (29th March) April Fools and Midsummer too. There is going to be plenty for everyone to get involved in.

As with everything Old School, you decide where the game goes and if the community suddenly decides the most important thing are pink ponies and purple elephants then we will ditch the plan and do that instead.

 

Mods Ash, John C, Mat K and Reach

 

 

- Some interesting answers from JMods to people's questions;

 

 

MSPaint - But it IS a bannable/reportable offense, correct?

It is unlikely anyone will get banned for just using an autotyper - we'll mute them, but we are unlikely to ban them.

Roadruner426 - So, why on earth did you destroy bolt making (smithing) by adding broad bolts?

We react to what the players want and there was a large demand in adding broad bolts as you can see by the polls.

Quest Nature - I'd like more bankspace,

You'll get more space, have no fear.

T o m m i - Do you think that everyone who does PvP is a pure...? We need new equipment for all kinds of players

Don't look at what it says in the dev blog and assume those are the only ideas we have. Pures are a specific area which we think need some love but we're not going to do that at the expense of the rest of the player base.

Diane Meyer - What is this "can't share some anti-bot ideas with you" talk? I mean I understand you want to have the jump on botting companies but don't do anything drastic like suddenly release bonds or something (this is an exaggeration but you get what I mean).

Any major changes will be polled to the players first. Our aim is that the only impact of any changes we make to the honest player is bots disappearing.

Diane Meyer - Also really Mod Mat K, you guys need to address the issue of inputting/ not inputting new content.

We know some players want no changes to be made to Old School, however the majority of the players are showing in the polls that they want changes to be made.

Shizzle Shot - Sounds good, what do you think of the idea of having a cut on the GE (5%?). This provides an excellent money sink and keeps player trading alive.

Taxing any solution to the trading issue is something we have already discussed, but the ultimate decision is up to you guys.

Edited January 8, 2014 by Marc

[Mafia_Boy]

#BRING BACK G.E. 

[Anton]

Meh Clanwars pls

[siden]

pls clan wars pls

[debb]

eop

 

and ye, g.e and cw

 

[I J3r I Pur3]

g.e clnwar target system pls

[k or as i]

Embrace yourselves for more shit updates

[`Liam]

Lets hope they make the right updates 

[Nearly Godz]

I pray for Clanwars, and while their at it add G.E.

[Kid Ink]

literally would love g.e. 

[Marc]

I would love to see an GE without any set prices, so e.g. you could sell a rune scim for either 100 gp or 100m

[GFX]

Clan Wars??

[mlaK]

yeah definately G.E, i miss flipping

[Coggy]

I pray for Clanwars, and while their at it add G.E.

[Kid Ink]

need alot of updates 

[H00Di]

corrupt items pls

[Tony]

hmmmmmmmm