Runescape Tips And Secrets

A new quest has been released… the first one for 2010. Nomad’s Requiem is meant to be another long quest “grandmaster quest”. It is sounds like it will be reasonably tough, but we shall have to wait and see. Soul wars is a major part of it, so it looks like I will have to play a game of Soul Wars sometime. I have not done one yet, lol.

Soul Wars has a dark underbelly that Nomad would rather you didn’t see. His disappearances have become more and more frequent of late, and each time he returns looking…different. It seems he has been working on something with dangerous implications for the whole of RuneScape, and there is a chance – but only a chance – that you can stop it.

Our second Grandmaster quest is wildly different from While Guthix Sleeps; instead of searching the world for answers, Nomad’s Requiem is set wholly beneath Soul Wars. Don’t be foolish enough to think that this makes it less challenging, however. Indeed, expect quite the opposite: this quest is densely packed with intricate puzzles, punishing environments and at least one battle that will push you harder than almost any other on RuneScape, whatever combat level you’ve reached. You have been warned!

Those who persevere and complete this quest will be rewarded with Zeal Points (among other things), which are stored at Soul Wars and can be spent in your own time. Zeal Points can be traded in for varying amounts of XP in any combat skill (except Summoning), Slayer XP, charms to train Summoning, or a pet Slayer creature. For a more detailed explanation of how Zeal Points work, check out the Soul Wars rewards on the Knowledge Base.

Mod Rathe
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start Nomad’s Requiem:
Speak to Zimberfizz at Soul Wars.

Requirements to complete Nomad’s Requiem:
King’s Ransom (including the Knight Waves)
75 Magic
70 Prayer
66 Mining
65 Hunter
60 Construction
Must have fully completed the Soul Wars tutorial
Must have completed at least one game of Soul Wars (win, lose or draw)
Having very high (85+) stats in all combat disciplines is advised, unless you’re particularly good at combat

In other news…

We have improved how Zeal earned from playing Soul Wars is cashed in. If when spending 10 or 100 Zeal you gain a level in your chosen skill, then your new level will be taken into account as soon as it is earned, and the remainder of the 10 or 100 Zeal will be applied based on your new level. Remember that if you spend 100 Zeal at a time, you receive a 10% bonus to any XP gained, so now it is better than ever to save up your Zeal.

We’ve adjusted the apparent lag when using your inventory and clicking and dragging items around. This also means you won’t drop the wrong item selected if you’d clicked too fast. Additionally, a slot will not remain highlighted when it shouldn’t.

The tooltip description for the Soul Split curse has been corrected to reflect the actual amount of hitpoints restored.

You can now set an option to not offer the ability to switch between prayers and curses when recharging your Prayer at an altar. A few altars originally left out, including the ones found in the God Wars Dungeon, now offer this switching facility.

We’ve added a huge amount of drop sounds to items. It’s a nice little feature that should let you realise if you’ve dropped something by accident that you didn’t mean to.

The Christmas 2009 holiday event has now been removed from the game.

I personally am not going to try this event for a couple days so all the overcrowded lag goes away from the event. Good luck to all that try it.

Christmas time has come round again and the Queen of Snow has invited guests to her realm for one of her legendary Christmas feasts, and perhaps a snowball fight or two. Hop into one of the Christmas cupboards in Varrock, Falador or Draynor to join in the festivities along with Santa Claus, Jack Frost, and an entourage of guests from across RuneScape.

Hard as it may be to believe, not everyone in the Land of Snow is full of Christmas cheer. The Queen of Snow’s neighbour, Ebenezer Scourge, isn’t known for his goodwill or for his love of a good party, but that’s nothing to worry about. Nothing’s going to go wrong. I’m quite sure that this year we’ll have a quiet Christmas. I’m almost certain that there’ll be no kidnapping, ghosts of Christmas past, magical curses or vigilante snow imps.

Adventurers with the impish cunning to see this one through will be richly rewarded with a dramatic new emote, a fiendish costume, and not to mention a tasty-looking and festive wieldable item.

Merry Christmas from all of the RuneScape team!

Mod Edam
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start A Christmas Warble:
Enter one of the magic wardrobes in Varrock, Falador or Draynor Village.

Requirements to complete A Christmas Warble:
None.

 

In other news…

We’ve enabled a new graphical feature called ‘particles’ in the game engine. You’ll most likely notice our first use of particles during the Christmas event. Use of particles can be set to high, medium or low in the Graphics Options menu. Players with older versions of Java might not be able to experience the effects to their full potential. If this is the case, you may not be able see the snow particles or change this detail setting.

This quest looks interesting, hopefully they have good rewards

The updates to Kuradal’s dungeon look promising, hopefully it won’t ruin it though as it is a very good dungeon

I wonder what the new creatures are. Will look when I get a chance to log on later.

The update to tzhaar shops will annoy some people but I like it as it makes tokkul earned from slayer tasks or just killing the creatures there worth it again.

Good luck to anyone doing the quest

The mysterious Lunar Isle rarely gets many visitors, and especially not of the ‘washed up on the shore unconscious, battling hidden demons’ kind. Eminent lunatic Baba Yaga requires your help in answering just one question: who is this stranger?

Finding the answer to this question will prove to be just the beginning of a journey that will see you delving back into the dream world, rescuing old friends and rallying the Fremennik of all isles, leading them to war against their deadliest and toughest foe – a new breed of horror from the deep.

Dust off your armour, weapons and runes – and we do mean ALL of them – and ready yourself for battle, Farstrider. This day, death (and glory) is upon all who call themselves Fremennik. And to the victor, the spoils, for any adventurer brave enough to succeed will be rewarded with hundreds of thousands of XP, new equipment and much respect.

“I’m glad to be continuing the Fremennik quest series and carrying on the prophecy storyline set up in Glorious Memories. This quest has proven to be a different challenge from that quest, though, with a much heavier focus on combat, as befits the Fremennik people.”

“I’m also happy to be furthering the Princess Astrid/Prince Brand thread from Throne of Miscellania. To get the most out of the storyline, your character must be as they were during that quest, so some players may wish to visit the Makeover Mage before starting this quest. I hope you enjoy it.”

Mod Hew
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start Blood Runs Deep:
Speak to Baba Yaga in her walking house on Lunar Isle.

Requirements to complete Blood Runs Deep:
75 Attack
75 Strength
65 Slayer
High Magic and Ranged levels are also recommended
Dream Mentor
Glorious Memories
Horror from the Deep
Completed all easy, medium and hard tasks in the Fremennik Achievement Diary

In other news…

We’ve made some necessary changes to how shops in TzHaar work. For full details, please read this forum thread.

Kuradal’s Dungeon Improvements

After some of your feedback about last week’s Slayer dungeon update:

* Kuradal can now assign dagannoths.
* Murky Matt can now combine ferocious ring charges.
* Hellhounds should now respawn at their normal rate.
* We’ve squeezed in a couple of extra creatures.
* You won’t get any Random Events while in Kuradal’s Dungeon.

A new update for Runescape has just happened…looks like we have a new slayer master called “Kuradal”. It looks like it she has some interesting tasks for high level characters and that there may be some more incentives to get higher agility levels… let us know what tasks she gives you..we shall share too, but I have been stuck on 198 spiritual mages for a while.. 1st task is 99 firemaking..less than 200k to go.

08-Dec-2009 – Kuradal’s Dungeon

Kuradal, daughter of Duradel, left Shilo Village to experience the fullness of combat and surpass her peers in the art of Slayer. Years later, she has settled somewhere she would call “comfortable” – the Ancient Cavern! Using only her raw power, she has rounded up various creatures of RuneScape and secured them in an off-shoot of the dungeon. Here, she’ll offer her skills as a new slayer master, allowing exclusive access to the dungeon if you have something in there to kill.

Is there more to this slayer master and dungeon? Kuradal is a keeper of many secrets and she has one task she might offer you that’s a little less conventional than other Slayer tasks…but that’s for you to discover. As for the dungeon, who knows what the creatures have foraged from their new location?

Summary:

* To be assigned a task from Kuradal, you need 75 Slayer and 110 Combat.
* 86 Agility is required for the low wall-climb shortcut
* 90 Agility is required for the dungeon wall-run

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news…

The Contact NPC spell from the lunar spellbook has been reworked. You should see at least one new face and some extra functionality that you might find quite useful!

The Cryptic Clue Fest event has now been removed.

All fonts should now be back to normal.

A new quest has just been released “The Temple at Senntisten”. It starts in Nardah at the desert. 50 prayer is the only skill required, although there are a few quests and museum kudos needed before finishing the quest. I won’t be doing this straight away, but wish all luck in completing it

The 5 minute warning may help with those who have trouble losing their cannons. Remember that if you do lose your cannon that you can still get it back from the guy south of Ice Mountain.

If you’ve passed all your archaeology exams you’ll know just how strict the researchers at the Digsite can be, so when an unproven archaeologist shows an interest in restoring the temple you discovered in the caverns under the site, the archaeological expert there is somewhat suspicious.

As it so happens, your colleague Ali the Wise is also an acquaintance of this Dr Nabanik, and has suggested that you might be of assistance. With Dr Nabanik’s experience and your adventuring know-how combined, perhaps you can restore this long-forgotten temple.

It won’t be easy, though. Only original artefacts are good enough for this expert in all things ancient, and the current owners of these artefacts are unlikely to give them up without a considerable fight.

“Since creating the first quest in this recent Mahjarrat series – The Tale of the Muspah – I’ve been eager to develop more. Mod Newmatic (Missing My Mummy), Paul (Curse of Arrav) and I combined forces to bring you this latest episode of Mahjarrat-based antics.”

Mod Roderick
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start The Temple at Senntisten:
Speak to Ali the Wise at his home in Nardah.

Requirements to complete The Temple at Senntisten:
50 Prayer
Desert Treasure
Devious Minds
The Curse of Arrav
125 Kudos with Varrock Museum

In other news…

There’s a new setting in the display options menu for CPU usage, so you can set how much of your computer’s CPU resources are available to RuneScape. You may have to test it out to see which setting works best for your setup.

The delivery cost for dragon daggers has been slightly adjusted and their initial shop supply has been improved.

The recharge costs for most items (excluding gloves) from Fist of Guthix have been reduced.

Five minutes before your cannon fully decays, you’ll notice some new animation effects to give you a bit more warning.

For those who have not completed the Cryptic Clue Fest, we will be removing it from the game on the week commencing 7th December, so you have a few more days to unravel it.

Blood runes may go up in price due to the 4 new high level magic spells that have been introduced. There is an interesting update to runecrafting, where you now get a chance of getting extra runes while going to an altar. This may lead to a decrease in price of nature runes, as there is a big gap between obtaining 1 and 2 (level 91). I have level 92 runecrafting, so may be able to do Nature runes now rather than deaths and astrals. Jeffsterz will have to update his comprehensive runecrafting guide at some stage.

The pharaoh’s sceptre change is a good one… I hated having to examine it every time to examine the amount of charges left in it.

Potions, Spells and Runes

We’ve taken a careful look at the extreme Herblore potions we released a few weeks ago and have now reintroduced them to safe PvP minigames – that includes Castle Wars, Soul Wars, safe Clan Wars, TzHaar Fight Pit, and the Duel Arena (but not ‘no-potion’ fights or Tournaments).

As part of this, we’ve slightly changed the way in which the extreme magic potion works – it now provides a visible Magic stat boost of 7, which decreases over time as with other stat-boosting potions. The normal magic potion’s level boost has been increased to +5. We have, however, also made a change to the Magic skill itself, so that if your Magic level is boosted by any means, you will inflict +3% magic damage per boosted level. This is on top of the +10% magic damage you inflict when wielding certain staves.

Part of the reason for these changes is that we’ve added four new high-level elemental battle spells to the standard spellbook. The Wind Surge (level 81), Water Surge (level 85), Earth Surge (level 90) and Fire Surge (level 95) spells each require one blood and one death rune, and some air runes (and some water, earth or fire runes for those respective elemental spells).

The max hit of Fire Surge is:
28 without boosts
30 with a magic damage-boosting staff
33 with extreme magic/overload
37 with both extreme magic/overload and a magic damage-boosting staff

With those updates, you’re going to need some more runes, so, to top it all off, Runecrafting also gets a tweak. As of today, crafting multiple runes out of one essence has changed for the better. Before, you would only gain the ability to craft an extra rune at specific Runecrafting levels (e.g. 2 air runes at level 11, 3 air runes at level 22, 4 at level 33, and so on). Now, there is a ‘chance’ of getting an extra rune on ‘some’ of your essences if you are between those set levels, with that chance increasing as your level increases (e.g. at Runecrafting levels 12-21, you will gain 2 or 3 air runes per essence). If you want to imagine it visually, what used to be a step graph has been smoothed out into a curve. This is explained in a little more detail in the Game Guide, but the bottom line is that you’ll receive more runes for your hard work.

Mod Chris L (potions/Magic), Mod Rathe (new spells) and Mod Nancy (Runecrafting)
RuneScape Content Developers

In other news…

Your run mode setting is now stored between logins.

You can now take Ava’s Attractor and Accumulator to Lanthus and you will be able to retrieve dropped ammo while in Castle Wars. There’s also a toggle option on both items to allow you to stop receiving junk.

The pharaoh’s sceptre now displays its remaining charges in the name of the item.

The Summoning skillcape now has a boost option to match other skillcapes.

Cannons will no longer waste cannonballs on NPCs in the process of dying. You can now also top up the ammo when it’s already firing and there’s an auto-setup feature.

Bones to Peaches and Bones to Bananas can now be used to convert any bones up to and including big bones.

This update looks great for slayer with the get task option and making gargoyles easier to kill.

I’m not all that fussed about the challenge scrolls, maybe they will give decent rewards to get me interested. New hairstyles look ok, gets boring with the same ones over and over.

Skill total worlds don’t seem all that much of a necessity in the game but atleast it might stop people begging now.

It’s good that they changed some stuff in the stores as it was annoying having to run back and forth collecting vials of water because no-one sold them on the grand exchange at times. The update about the confirmation of alching something over 500k looks good as it was annoying to alch weapons or axes back in the day.

Fairy ring changes look good was annoying to find the code or try remembering them all the time.

Overall I think this update is great and should please many people.

A new challenge awaits worthy adventurers at the Champions’ Guild! It doesn’t matter if you have never seen a champion scroll in your life or have defeated all of them already, there will be something for you. The leprechaun champion is taking on all-comers – there’s no need to find a challenge scroll to fight this little pugilist. Just head on over to the Champions’ Guild and prepare yourself for some ‘no items’ fisticuffs.

Also, three new races have just joined the guild. If you prove yourself to be their enemy, one of them might just drop a scroll challenging you to a duel with their champion, so keep an eye out when battling monsters! Meanwhile, Glophren, the gnome champions of champions, is waiting for the worthiest of adventurers so he can finally issue his challenge. Will you be one of them?

What with the days getting shorter and colder, we thought we’d brighten things up with some new hairstyles! The much requested ‘mullet’ haircut is now available, as well as a few variants on existing styles. The full list is as follows…

Male hairstyles: Dragon variant, Mohawk shaved, Mullet.

Female hairstyles: Asymmetric fringe, Half-up/half-down, Headband, Page boy.

Mod Maylea (Champions’ Challenge) and Mod Nancy (Hairstyles)
RuneScape Content Developers

—————————————-

In other news…

Two worlds have been designated ‘Skill Total’ worlds – that’s world 113 (free) and 114 (members). Only players who have a total level of at least 1,000 will be able to log into these worlds. If this proves to be popular, we can always add more worlds.

We’ve created a handful of item packs for some shops, similar to the box of spirit shards. In certain shops, you can now buy the whole stock of eyes of newt, empty or water-filled vials, raw bird meat, and empty baskets or sacks in one go.

A click-delay issue has been fixed in Castle Wars. The game engine has been modified to adjust the behaviour of these clicks back to their previous speed.

An animation has been added for when players are viewing the world map. Other players will see them in-game looking at a map.

A large number of items with parentheses after their names have had spaces added for consistency and easier searching on the Grand Exchange (e.g. “Agility potion(4)” is now “Agility potion (4)”).

An altar has been added to an upper floor in Falador Castle for players to recharge their Prayer points at.

We’ve added a confirmation when casting High Alchemy on items with a Grand Exchange value of 500,000gp or higher. This should prevent the accidental alching of those expensive items.

We’ve also converted the Superheat, Enchant lvlx and Plank Make spells to work in a similar fashion to High and Low Level Alchemy spells (i.e. you can now queue up your next cast).

Slayer Masters have now been given a right-click ‘Get-task’ option to speed things up a bit. You can also find out how many more kills you need with a right-click option on enchanted gems, which will even work if you are currently in combat. Finally, gargoyles have a new ‘Smash’ option when they’re near death to allow you to more easily finish them off with a rock hammer.

Drop tables for the TzHaar have been significantly reworked and now drop more TokKul than before. This is to make up for the changes in the ThZaar shop prices earlier this year. The TokKul awarded for defeating TzTok-Jad in the Fight Caves has also been doubled.

The fairy ring network has been given an auto-dial feature. You’ll still need to discover each fairy ring destination to put in your log, but once there they can be simply clicked on to input the code for you.

Yanille has had more points of entry added to it in the form of a new ladder and doorway.

Hopefully the reward from this event will be useful, I rarely do the events unless they are worth doing for the reward. The update about withdrawing 1 item from grand exchange is helpful, it was a pain to buy an item then withdraw it as a note or have to right click just to take it out normally.

A dark house portal has appeared to the south of Falador once again. Tremble as you approach it, for it leads to the house of the Grim Reaper, Death himself!

In this year’s Halloween event, Death has a problem with an uninvited guest. Choose to help out and you will journey to a realm rarely trod by creatures with only two feet, and converse with its irritable monarch.

Completing the event will reward you with two new wearable items – one of which has a mind of its own – so seek out the house of Death…if you dare!

We’ve also created a wallpaper based on this event, which you can download here.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:
Where to start Web of Shadows:
Enter the dark house portal south of Falador.

Requirements to complete Web of Shadows:
None

In other news…

We’ve made some improvements to the way banks calculate your free space. Free-players who used to be members will no longer have to dump all their members items to be able to use their banks and everyone can now see their usage in more detail on the interface. For more information, please read the Controls – Banks page.

We’ve updated the bank to make it automatically resize to fit your screen better. The interface will automatically extend downwards to show you more of your bank items.

Zahur in Nardah, who’s moved to the building east of the bank, will now decant all of your potions (in any combination) into 3-dose vials for you. He charges a small fee for this service to cover the cost of any extra vials needed.

We’ve swapped two tasks in the Ardougne Achievement Diary. The medium diary might look a little odd if you’ve already completed it, but you should still be able to wear the cloaks for their effects.

An auto re-pick feature has been added when harvesting your mushrooms, berries and fruit from Farming patches.

When collecting a single item at the Grand Exchange, left-click will now withdraw the actual item and right-click will withdraw it as a note. Withdrawals for multiple items will behave as before.

Personally I have never liked PVP although I like this update because it has made most of the prices go back to the price they were a few years back, even higher for some items. The 76kers made slayer less profitable by getting all the common slayer items and lowering the value of them. This update motivates me more to get the legendary 99 slayer. Good luck to all pkers that are out there, hopefully this update doesn’t ruin it for you.

As many of you know, since the opening of PvP Worlds, ‘76k’ing has become a very common practice. We’ve never been happy about this as we believe it spoils the game experience for players who want to play on PvP Worlds as intended and exhibit their PvP skills, with high rewards for high risks, rather than it being a safe method for earning large amounts of money. Looking at our forums, it looks like many players feel the same way.

Designing and developing a solution to this issue that worked, but which did not lessen the rewards for legitimate kills, turned out to be rather tricky. We’re hopeful that the solution we’ve come up with will reduce 76King without having too significant an impact on legitimate PKers.

Players who trade kills will find that the drop they receive is lessened in value. Legitimate PKers might find that some of their kills will result in smaller drops (e.g. when getting revenge on someone who has just killed you), but since you’ll still only lose as much Earning Potential as is used for the drop, your average drop will stay the same.

I personally have never entered a duel tournament yet, so I’m not sure if this update will make it any better then it was. Hopefully it does make it better. Good luck to all that go into the dual tournaments.

Duel Tournaments have undergone a little bit of an overhaul. Everything will look the same, but we’ve been working under the hood to make some improvements to the mechanics of this minigame. The changes are as follows:

On entering the Duel Tournament waiting room, you will now be assigned to a single registrar. This assignment is partially based on combat level, but also on many other factors.

The registrar you are assigned has a Tournament Rank cap. You will not be able to gain rank beyond that cap until you move on to the next registrar. The best way to move up a registrar is to train your combat skills.

Registrar caps are as follows:

* Registrar 1: rank cap of 1999

* Registrar 2: rank cap of 2499

* Registrar 3: rank cap of 2999

* Registrar 4: rank cap of 3499

* Registrar 5: no rank cap

Please note that you will not lose any rank due to this update if it is currently above your assigned registrar’s cap. To remind yourself of your current cap, simply examine your assigned registrar.

We also now record when your rank passes a multiple of 500, which is referred to as a rank milestone. This milestone will be saved so that if you lose a tournament, and that loss would take you below your milestone, your rank will simply be set to the milestone amount. For example, if you had reached a Tournament Rank of 1045, your milestone rank would be recorded as 1000. If you subsequently lost a tournament which would reduce your rank by 50 points, it would only drop your rank down to 1000, since that is the last milestone you reached.

Finally, the most exciting change: we now reward the entrant who places second in a tournament with 20% of the entry fees! Now all your hard work will get some reward.

Mod Nancy

RuneScape Content Developer