Well, it’s been a long hard road, but we’re getting there! Development is coming to a close on the Elite Achievement Diaries. This has been completed in between me training three new content developers (Mod Raven, Mod Jack and Mod Ana), and developing Shattered Heart, Familiarisation and a couple of other projects! I’ve been a very busy squirrel.

Diary developments

When I first wrote about this project in the first Elite Tasks - Design dev blog last November, I was at the very beginning of the design process writing down what I thought could constitute the Elite diaries. This was made a lot easier, as I’d previously had a great many suggestions from you, the players, for good tasks and rewards to include. I’d say about 50-75% of the tasks we ended up using were suggested by players.

Since that blog, we also decided to expand this project by looking back at the previous rewards to make them work more consistently with each other. As most Achievement Diaries were developed by different people, each was implemented in a slightly different way. For example, some put teleport toggles on objects, others put them on NPCs. So Mod Mark and I created a set of guidelines and applied them to all previous rewards. You’ll find a lot of the old rewards now don’t require you to wear the corresponding piece of kit to receive the benefits they offer.

Kitted out

Coming up with rewards is always the hard part of an Achievement Diary, especially rewards that are valued by the player and which don’t cause problems from a balancing perspective. For example, we don’t want to ruin the game by allowing everyone with Karamja gloves to be invulnerable while wearing them. I think we have ended up with a good mix of rewards for skillers and combat lovers, and, as much as possible, themed them to the areas of the diaries.

With the release of this elite tier of diary tasks, we’ve tried to unify the look of the complete kit a little. Not so much that it all looks like it was designed to go together, but enough that it looks good when worn in full. Each piece was, after all, crafted by a completely different culture, with their own methods and tools. To do this, the legs for the kit had to be designed at the same time, but they’ll not become available until a future Achievement Diary is released (where that will be set and when it will be released is something we have yet to decide). I really like the end result and I hope you do too.

Where is it?

So, what’s next?

After development, the project went through a period of review and feedback. Multiple people played through and evaluated the content to make sure things felt and played right, and fitted in the game well. All of this feedback was collated and then I implemented the bits we all agreed on.

We’re currently in the full QA phase of the project, where the code is tested and bugs squished, and, as you may have seen in the Behind the Scenes - September newspost, we’re hoping to release this update later this month!

I look forward to hearing all of your opinions after release!

To discuss this blog on the forums, please visit the Elite Tasks thread.

You may have proven yourself in arguing your case, be that for the Prosecution or the Defence, but now you have to do some real legwork. Interviewing witnesses in the field is now a key part of building a case; for example, how do you prove that Evil Dave is evil? Ask his mum! Or how about finding crucial evidence at a crime scene, which could make or break your case? Would finding chicken feathers in Professor Oddenstein’s lab prove he performed illegal transmogrification tests on Ernest?

Not all cases are so black and white either. Do the wizards of RuneScape deserve compensation from the barbarians for an invasion that happened over a century ago? Is the sawmill operator running an illegal monopoly or is he just protecting his intellectual property rights? Cases like these have no easy answers!

With more challenging cases come bigger rewards, including larger amounts of Attack and Defence XP and more items from grateful clients. Also, the Court House likes to reward you for your hard work too, so, once you've completed 10 and all 16 cases respectively, you'll receive a barrister's top and a gavel to match your barrister's wig.

Mod Nancy
Senior RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:

In other news...

If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll notice that players and other humanoid NPCs have gained some important facial features. That’s right, some character now have eyes!

We've streamlined the amount of effort it takes to get through Shantay Pass. Chatting to the guard is now quicker, right-clicking the guard can now pay him from your bank or inventory, and if you have a pass you can go through unobstructed or bribe the guard easily enough if you don't. The bribe amount has increased slightly to compensate for the ability to take payment from your bank.

The character rotate on Thessalia's clothing interface is now optional. Clicking on either side of the representation of your character to start spinning. Clicking again will stop the spinning and return the representation of your character to normal.

Romance blossoms during September in a brand new free-to-play quest, coupled with some rather elite achievements for our most experienced of members. If you’re not busy planning for the Bonus XP Weekend, why not swat up on your legal drama, as we prepare for the latest batch of court cases?

Court Cases: Back in Session

It’s been busy recently at the Seers’ Village courthouse, with cases closed and wrongs righted by those of you skilled enough to argue, examine and accuse, all while wearing a stylish wig. The court case update will consist of 11 new cases (as mentioned in the Back in Session blog), each far more fiendish than those released earlier in the year. Interrogate witnesses in the field, use viewing orb magics to investigate crime scenes and discover incriminating fingerprints for yourself as you uncover the truth behind some of our most popular personalities.

Cases once again navigate through a wide range of issues and characters from Barbarians vs. Mages (looking at RuneScape history from two conflicting perspectives), round Evil Dave, past Professor Oddenstein vs. Ernest, and taking a sharp left turn at the Sandwich Lady. Rewards still focus around Attack and Defence XP, but also include a barrister’s top, and a judge’s gavel that comes with an appropriately themed emote to let you conduct your own brand of justice.

Bonus XP Weekend

As you know from the newspost last week, we’re planning a second Bonus XP Weekend to take place from 3-6th September. We’re taking a slightly different approach this time, though, so do read the newspost or the Second Helping FAQ blog to learn more about this update. It’s a great time to train up those skills you’ve been neglecting, as well as work on your main attributes, with plenty of time to mix and match between all sorts of content.

Elite Achievement Diaries

The Elite Achievement Diaries update is one we have been discussing in our blogs as early as November last year and, finally, we can talk about the release. We are adding some epically high-level diary tasks to all of the Achievement Diaries, and some new hard tasks to the Lumbridge diary. Requirements include stats as high as 95 Prayer, 96 Fishing, 93 Slayer and 92 Firemaking with an inferno adze.

With new challenges come new rewards, of course, and the elite clothing comes with some useful perks. The highlights are access to a new mining area where there’s an NPC who exchanges ores for certs, more Slayer points from Lapalok, High Alch spells for the explorer’s ring and log chests for the beacon network. Not only that, but there are also improvements to the existing diary rewards AND some huge XP lamps? FTW!

Z-buffering

Improvements to our engine will bring a major graphical improvement to the game in the form of z-buffering. This means you will experience less 'clipping' issues (objects/scenery cutting other objects in half or sticking through each other) and find that scenery 'layers' on top of each other in a more predictable way. This will see improvements to high-paced game content like PKing and allow players to better see the threats around them.

Upon release, the end result will be fewer graphical glitches in software mode and we get faster OpenGL! This also bodes well for the future, as we can now design even more impressive areas and characters, particularly for OpenGL. It also allows us to improve the interaction between players in the future, such as multi-player emotes.

Gunnar’s Ground

Love is in the air in this month’s planned quest: Gunnar’s Ground. What can happen when a dwarf poet is rendered speechless by his love for a Fremennik chieftain’s daughter? You’ll face RuneScape’s first poetry composition puzzle and learn about the history of how the Barbarian Village came to be.

This is a brand new quest for the free-to-play game and will be replacing the old Romeo and Juliet quest. As we have often said in the past, we’re always trying to improve our existing content, but some elements just don’t age well and are often best removed entirely from the game; we feel that’s the case with Romeo and Juliet. Don’t worry, though: nobody will lose out on Quest Points or rewards.

In other news...

We also plan to speed up the Shantay Pass, give compost bins the ability to tell you how full they are, increase the clickable area of rope swings and allow you to define the colour of your Clan Chat.

Have fun!

Mod Mark
RuneScape Lead Designer