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.

The following small fixes and adjustments have now been made to the game. If you spot any further bugs in-game, please use the Bug Report feature ('Submit a Bug Report' under the 'Help' drop-down menu of the website).

Graphical

• Fixed several ghost chatheads that were broken.
• Added backing to the walls in the Temple of Light.
• Fixed the fountain animations outside the Wizards’ Tower.
• Fixed Ava's arm from bending in odd directions.
• Adjusted the wall near the Falador grapple shortcut.
• Mining rocks in the desert have been graphically improved.
• Resolved a problem when wearing infinity boots and flared trousers.
• Corrected the colour of the bronze pickaxe near Piscatoris.
• Resized a key that was a bit small and hard to see on the floor.
• Adjusted the models for the lighthouse so it renders better in Standard Detail.
• Better aligned the walls in Falador near the armour shop.
• Corrected the height for the guard tower outside Varrock.
• Adjusted the walls in the classroom near Barbarian Village in Standard Detail.
• Corrected the image of halberds in the Strength skill guide.
• Adjusted the placement of the TzHaar and Werewolf Champions’ Challenge banners.
• Improved the timings for animations in a cutscene in the Contact quest.
• Removed a chathead issue from Thorgel the dwarf.
• Resolved a problem when wearing Barrows armour and an abyssal whip.
• Stopped some blood from hovering off the ground.
• Corrected some labelling issues when wearing a rune plateskirt and a rune crossbow.
• Improved the held position for an NPC with a staff.
• Stopped a few torches rendering through the floor above.
• Adjusted the colour of an Agility shortcut gap to properly fade to black rather than grey.
• Corrected several animations for rats and mice, especially in Rat Catchers.
• Fixed some labelling issues with the flame gloves.
• Mystic robe bottoms now match when worn and when in your inventory.
• Marius's beard now matches his chathead.
• Fixed a problem where some ground would be occluded and disappear.
• When picking your produce from farming patches, you should no longer have any offhand items shown in the animations.
• Fixed a problem when wearing the ringmaster top and holding Eek.
• Corrected several hat problems with the latest selection of hairstyle additions.
• Changed some mapping to prevent seeing into nearby squares.
• Frodi's shadow is now at the right height (i.e. floor height)
• Fixed the lava bubbles near Ourania Altar.
• Resolved a problem with the portrait in a Keldagrim pub.
• Flattened the calquat patch on Karamja.
• Mourning's Ends Part II will now correctly show as started in your Quest Journal.
• Corrected a render issue for a haircut on the player creation interface.
• Adjusted the area around the ladder down to the Champions’ Challenge arena.
• Players’ torsos are now correctly aligned when wearing Saradomin platebodies and larupia legs.
• Various animation issues in Spirits of the Elid have been resolved and various sounds added.
• Fixed interactions between top hats and male haircuts.
• Removed some bubbles from the bottom of Baxtorian Falls that didn't look great.
• Solved a problem when holding the bowl from Tears of Guthix and wearing larupia legs.
• Realigned the roof on the pub in Yanille.
• Graphically updated the mining rocks north of Yanille.
• A tree broke its trunk. We've splinted the gap and it should be healed in no time.
• Stopped a piece of wood floating in Burgh de Rott.
• The ship at Pirates’ Cove is now consistent with the ship at Lunar Isle.
• Magic trees grown by players now have sparkling effects on both sides.
• Remodelled a crossbow shortcut on Karamja.
• Fixed the Grand Tree and remove roof issues.

Audio

• Added more variance to the sound effects when casting spells.
• A sound has been added to the Telegrab spell.
• Slightly modified the song "Baroque".

Quests

• Removed a combat requirement from the Merlin's Crystal quest as it wasn't needed.
• Fixed a problem where Within the Light wasn't being filtered correctly even if you had the requirements to start it.

Minigames

• Added a bridge on the Treasure Trail map interface to reflect recent changes.
• Mobilising Armies no longer forces custom cursors in the minigame.
• Rewrote a fair amount of the logic behind the Brimhaven Agility Arena.

Miscellaneous

• Adjusted the logic when asking Oronwen to repair your trousers.
• Fixed a website link from the welcome screen.
• Corrected a few in-game links to the Knowledge Base.
• Reduced the clickable area for picking up the bank leaflet.
• Expanded the Barrows digging area to the north.
• Properly fixed the flowers required to create praying mantis Summoning pouches.
• Removed duplicate right-click options in the Clan Chat window.
• Fixed a few typos and grammar issues.
• Adjusted the checks when resting and casting spells.
• Ivy has been added to the suggested Woodcutting objectives.
• After the Ardougne Achievement Diary, your POH scrying pool will show the correct location.
• Adjusted the logic behind the Magic interface scroll bar.
• Ensured all lava in the Clan Wars area is blocked off.
• You can no longer stand on the same square as Frodi.
• Various extra checks have been added to the skillcapes and resting.
• Fixed a mechanical problem with the Lumbridge water wheel.
• You now need to be within a certain distance to be able to read signposts.
• Fixed a problem with sea snakes and poison attacks.

I've just come back from a fantastic trip to England to meet with the Jagex crew and get a nice little tour of what they do and what goes on behind the scenes. Here's a little day by day breakdown of how my week went:

On Wednesday, my brother and I arrived at the London airport in the afternoon and met up with our driver. We took a relaxing 2 hour drive to Cambridge and checked into our hotel. That night we wandered around Cambridge a bit trying to get accustomed to cars driving on the left side of the road. We also spent some time back in our hotel room trying to figure out how to convert English power outlets to American plugs, and ended up blowing out my power converter. After airing the room of smoke, we headed to bed for a big day at Jagex the next morning.

On Thursday, I met TehNoobShow for the first time in our hotel lobby, and we both rode over to the Jagex studio. There we met up with Mod Hohbein and Mod SJ, who explained what was planned for us that day. They also had us sign some non-disclosure agreements which would give Jagex full ownership of our souls if we told anybody about any of the company's closely guarded secrets.

We then met with the Community Management, Player Support, and Core teams and learned about all the people and effort that goes into keeping players like us happy... We let them grab a photo of us, and then headed down to the break-area to meet with them again and let them get some feedback on how we and other players felt about how they could improve community relations.

After that we took a quick tour through the Game Labs department and got to see a bit of the fun that goes into creating some of the FunOrb games. We did get to see a few of the new games which are in the works for the future, and at least one of them I am really looking forward to playing.

Next we broke for lunch, where we were greeted by both Mark Gerhard and Andrew Gower! Both of which are very interesting and down to earth guys. We talked endlessly about all kinds of things: the visions they had for Jagex in general, our opinions of how the RS community feels about RuneScape, what the hard-knock life of a RuneScape video maker is like, and we even talked about the pros and cons of other video games.

After a great lunch, we headed back to Jagex to meet the RuneScape team. We first met with the Content team, who seemed just as eager to meet with us. They showed us what goes into developing new content for the game, a sneak peak at some future in-game content, as well as the tools they use to create the content. Some really exciting stuff! Especially when they issued the admin command to instantly kill everything in sight! They then tried to pick our brains as to what kind of content we would like to see for the future. Being video makers, we probably didn't give them the suggestions they might have been looking for (sorry guys!), but they did seem genuinely interested in what we had to say.

We then got to meet with the Graphics team, who gave us some signed copies of some great concept art! Check your favorite e-auction sites in the next few days! (Just kidding guys!) Next we headed over to the Quality Assurance team, where they showed us what goes into verifying the new content that goes into the game, and then over to the Audio team who showed us how they build all the sounds that go into the game.

Afterwards we were brought back down to the break-area to conduct an exclusive on-camera interview with Mark Gerhard himself! We only had a few hours' notice, and since we were so busy learning about all the goes into the game, we didn't really have time to prepare a great script full of questions. We did do our best to "wing-it" for an hour or so, and hopefully came away with a decent video-interview, which will hopefully be hosted by Jagex in the near future.

We then headed back to our hotel for a quick break, and shortly after, met up with Mark Gerhard, Mod Paul M and Mod Poppy (plus a few appearances by other Jmods) for some drinks at a local pub, followed by a great fireworks display for Guy Fawkes night, and then a wonderful dinner with the group. After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to pass-out for the night.

Friday, we were greeted at our hotel by Mod Paul M, who took us on an awesome punting tour of the River Cam. The river winds through most of the Cambridge colleges, and we got to see plenty of beautiful architecture and buildings older than my country.

After the punt-ride, we walked a bit through downtown Cambridge and took in the many sights. We had some lunch at the historic Eagle pub, the place where American Air Force pilots hung out during WWII and also where the discovery of DNA was announced.

We then headed back to Jagex for some gaming fun. Noobshow and I both logged into RuneScape for a community event, met with players and Mods Crow and ChrisH(?) hanging out in Falador and tried to chat as best we could. We had a quick Clan Wars battle (Team Excl beat Team Noobshow!) and then had to log-out because our eyes were hurting from all the chat scroll. Next had some epic Fussball battles and video-game soccer battles. There's nothing like trying to watch two Canadians and two Americans negotiate the rules of "football" with Mod Poppy laughing profusely at us in the background.

Afterwards we headed out for some dinner with Mods Paul M and Poppy and spent hours just chatting it up with them about anything in general. We thanked everyone for their great hospitality and headed back to our hotel for our last night in Cambridge.

Saturday, we went our separate ways. After several car, bus, tube and train rides later (always catching my ride with only minutes to spare) I wound up in Birmingham to catch my first European football match ever, and then headed back down to London to catch as many of the tourist sites that I could in a couple of hours. By midnight, I was finally back in my hotel (caught all the last trains/shuttles for the night by minutes) and had one last night in England.

I flew out of London Sunday morning, and wished I had time to spend several more weeks in England. What a fun trip! A big, big special thanks to Mods MMG, Paul M and Poppy who had to put up with my antics for way longer than any human should be subjected to. And also to all the other Jmods and Jagex employees that I met (I'm horrible with names!) and made my stay a wonderful experience!

My brother isn't a RuneScape player, and even he came away extremely impressed!

Excl

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

Thanks everyone for the comments.

Sorry you all couldn't make it, but there will be two videos about the trip in the near future, so you guys might get to experience at least a little bit of the Jagex experience. (Elvarg the roller coaster was awesome by the way!)

By the way, Mod Hohbein looks exactly like his avatar.

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.

This week’s patch notes are also more extensive than usual. To read the complete list, check out this forum thread.

The following small fixes and adjustments have now been made to the game. If you spot any further bugs in-game, please use the Bug Report feature ('Submit a Bug Report' under the 'Help' drop-down menu of the website).

Graphical

• Synchronised rake animations and adjusted how players hold it.
• Reworked the model for the camel mask.
• Updated Varrock Museum workmen models.
• Prevented the toy kite from floating while playing Vinesweeper.
• Resolved the differences between Dharok’s axe’s inventory icon and wielded model.
• The evil tree can no longer cause items to float above its roots.
• Added map bordering to certain underground areas.
• Fixed a render issue with an Agility shortcut in Taverley Dungeon.
• Adjusted some wall around the Grand Exchange area.
• Removed an issue where players would become invisible if stood on a certain spot.
• Fixed various roof issues in Goblin Village.
• Tweaked the timings of the animation to Zanaris from Lumbridge Swamp.
• A plaque on a wall in Edgeville couldn't be seen properly.
• Added highlighting to the Trollheim Teleport icon.
• Updated various mogre animations.
• Fixed an issue with the spirit tree chathead.
• Resolved a problem with the death animation of bandits.
• Fixed the chimney smoke animation.
• Improved the walls and minimap looks for the dungeon area under Lumbridge.
• Replaced several broken textures in Standard Detail mode.
• Corrected some tree models that appeared to have a line across the bottom part of their trunks.
• Corrected some mapping around the Clan Wars arena.
• Players are now animated when planting spirit trees.
• Improved the animations for the Al-Kharid/Lumbridge Agility shortcut.
• Resized the camouflage helmet to better fit players’ heads.
• Fixed a see-through wall between Draynor and Port Sarim.
• Added some missing animations to menaphite thugs.
• Improved some walls in the Living Rock Caverns.
• Removed a gap between a jaw and head model in Ictharin's Little Helper.
• Adjusted the animations when using the ectophial as a monkey.
• Altered the render order of some of the scenery in the Great Orb Project waiting area.
• Corrected the model for the cannon’s Grand Exchange set when dropped on the floor.
• A lit torch now has a flame when in your inventory.
• Made the water look better in the Living Rock Caverns.
• Tweaked various inventory graphics for noted longbows.
• Stopped clipping of the white sword and scimitar on their inventory icons.
• Jimmy's chathead should now be consistently drunk.
• Added the daze effect when you're ‘baguetted’ by the sandwich lady.
• Adjusted some wall in Falador to match its surroundings.
• Prevented the icebergs to the north from being see-through.
• Various bridges now look better on the minimap.
• Fixed god capes rendering oddly when in the Oo'glog spa pools.
• Resolved a selection of ground issues around Karamja.
• Fixed a graphical problem with the cutscene and ship deck in the Rocking Out quest.
• Corrected a remove roof issue with the pirate ship north of Port Phasmatys.
• Improved various projectile animations and prevented them from disappearing with a low camera angle.
• Fixed a wall beam render issue in Falador.
• Players’ shadows should no longer look odd on the Gnome Agility Course’s rope swing.
• Corrected the remove roof feature for the Toad and Chicken Inn.
• Adjusted NPC firing animations for the Dorgeshuun crossbow.
• Changed the Easter 2009 emote to look better while Prayer icons are active.
• Extracted a fence that went through a tree.
• Improved the flag animations in Varrock Museum.
• Greatly sped up the death animation of pyrefiends.
• Improved and tweened the animations of the children in Varrock Museum.
• Added an animation for pressing the case buttons in Varrock Museum.
• Adjusted some floating rocks above the elemental workshop area.
• A large amount of NPC pirate models have been updated.
• A mapping problem in Falador is now water under the bridge.
• Updated the water in some random events.
• Removed other various white spots of water around the world.
• Ogres dying and fences were causing render order issues.
• Removed a few pillars that weren't holding anything up.
• You can no longer see through the river on Lunar Isle.
• Fixed Sigli's chathead model.
• Corrected the graphics for several log balances.
• The stairs in Varrock’s west bank no longer descend into a grey/white void.
• Stopped the tree gates in Lletya from jumping when players are passing through them.
• Adjusted fogging and brightness in some catacombs.
• Corrected some roofing on the Void Knights’ Outpost.
• Fixed a rope that was missing a section.
• Reworked various zombie and skeleton combat animations.
• Re-added animations to an Underground Pass Agility pipe.
• Adjusted the height of Juliet's balcony.
• Reworked a bit of mapping near Ardougne where the ground was overly spiky.
• Corrected some roofing on Ape Atoll.
• The penguin Spin emote no longer has a Crafting cursor.
• Tweened a selection of animal impression animations in Varrock Museum.
• Fixed a few problems with the minimap in Taverley Dungeon.
• Realigned a piece of wooden fence.
• Fixed a texturing problem with maple tree stumps.
• Fixed some combinations of hairstyles and hats that were causing render issues.
• Fixed a long standing issue where ice warriors would lose the transparency of their models in combat.
• Updated a considerable number of water areas around the world.
• Improved the music track 'Soundscape'.
• Added music back to the Observatory’s dungeon area.
• Added a few sound effects to the Wolf Whistle quest.
• Corrected the unlock message for the music track 'Expedition'.
• Improved the catapult sounds in Castle Wars.
• Added some new music to the upper floors of Lumbridge Castle.
• Corrected some mapping where a piece of platform was floating.
• Stopped a crate glowing due to a lantern next to it.
• Fixed various graphical issues in several dungeon map squares (mostly lava- and flame-related).
• Added Zanik's mark back to the NPC model to match the chathead again.
• Fixed a problem with a river bank next to a wall.
• Resolved a few problems with walls that have gaps and holes in.
• Corrected the minimap look of a stile that had an odd red line associated with it.
• Resolved an animation problem with the cleaner in Varrock.
• The Slayer ring will now display the correct chathead relating to your Slayer Master.
• Corrected a problem with the fire cape when using fairy rings.
• Fixed various graphical and mapping issues around Baxtorian Falls.
• Altered some mapping to fix the floor and walls in the Falador Mole Lair.
• Corrected a few emote problems with Eek the spider.
• Flattened the pier flooring in Port Sarim.
• Steam from the pools in Oo'glog shouldn't make players slightly transparent any more.
• Added a missing carpet to Nardah and adjusted some of the flying animations.
• Corrected some of the sea near the Piscatoris Fishing Colony.
• Tweened the animations of Varrock Museum’s guards.
• Fixed a problem with some of the walls in Dorgesh-Kaan.

Audio

• Added some variety to bird flapping sounds.
• Updated the music track 'Attention'.
• Corrected the sounds associated with Torag's hammers.
• Updated the unlock hints for a handful of music tracks in the Wilderness.
• Corrected the sounds for lit and unlit torches.
• Added a stove sound to appropriate locations.
• Added fireplace sounds to the fireplace in Lumbridge Castle.
• The track 'Newby Melody' has been changed slightly.
• Added a variety of sound effects to the preparation of food products.
• Modified the timing and sounds when hammering planks in the Cabin Fever quest.
• Added sound effects for opening various lockers and depositing plunder in the Cabin Fever quest.
• Added sound effects for when failing to get into mine carts.
• A metal gate no longer sounds like a wooden door.
• Added sounds to the catapult on the Barbarian Agility Course.
• Added various ambient sounds around Lumbridge.
• Added a missing eat sound for tangled toads' legs.
• Adjusted some of the core audio sounds that are used in various songs.
• Corrected the sound and animation timings for the church bell in Lumbridge.
• Updated the Hallowe'en 2008 music unlock information.

Quests

• A check in the Rum Deal quest now checks your actual level rather than current level for a stat.
• Removed a hole in the floor in the Legacy of Seergaze quest.
• Included a little more info to the latter part of the Myths of the White Lands caverns.
• Fixed the flames in the Smoking Kills dungeon.
• Corrected the Legacy of Seergaze quest complete message.
• The Roving Elves quest should correctly cross out the requirements when you meet them.
• Updated some of the code in the King's Ransom quest.
• Added a bit more info to the Dragon Slayer quest journal.
• Rewrote some of the logic in Monkey Madness.
• Improved the looks of the mirror rotation interface in Mourning’s Ends Part II

Minigames

• Adjusted the models for the siege game type in Mobilising Armies.
• Some Sorceress’s Garden messages have been added to the spam filter.
• Removed a bottleneck at the Blast Furnace by removing the door and making appropriate changes to the anvil.
• Players will no longer be swimming if they're removed from the Fishing Trawler under certain circumstances.
• Corrected a problem when using the Clan Wars viewing orbs, which were viewing the wrong locations.
• The Mobilising Armies quest kit is no longer destroyed upon death.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed some drawers in Taverley that couldn't be closed.
• Swapping tea around with a full inventory no longer causes cups to be dropped.
• Ensured a Fishing spot near West Ardougne can actually be fished from.
• Prevented thrones from occasionally disappearing in your POH.
• Prayer icons should now be correctly removed if you run out of Prayer points in a random event.
• You can now chisel limestone in larger quantities without repetitive clicking.
• Modified the elemental mind helm to resolve a few problems.
• The Death Altar portal in the Abyss is now a little more informative if you don't have the requirements.
• Enshored that a Fishing spot is no longer partly on land.
• Adjusted an interface that was having text problems in various languages.
• Added a few Summoning-related messages to the spam filter.
• Added the Teleblock spell name to Quick Chat.
• Slayer Masters are now referred to by the location they reside in.
• Removed a duplicate "Nothing interesting happens." message when Firemaking.
• Clue scrolls have been updated to reflect the recent name change of the Spin emote to Twirl.
• Improved the timing of Ancient Magicks teleports.
• Rewrote pestle and mortar grinding code.
• Made wheat locations a bit easier to click on.
• The penguin is now correctly sitting on the block of ice in Varrock Museum.
• Made tool leprechauns’ references to buckets consistent.
• Fixed various spelling errors and grammatical issues.
• Ensured players aren't crouched after hiding in a crate.
• The demon butler will reappear even if you are busy doing other things.
• Updated the POH guidebook to reflect recent additions.
• Adjusted the text of Grim's book to fit the interface.
• A hole for a cellar door can no longer be walked on.
• Ensured poison is properly cured during a cutscene and the green glow on the status globe is turned off.
• Adjusted the behaviour of wily cats when placed in a menagerie.
• Removed some unnecessary blocking from Waterbirth Island.
• Added messages to the spam filter when trying to gather phoenix feathers.
• Run energy should now continue to be restored when charging various orbs.
• Reduced the number or right-click options on the barriers around the Grand Exchange NPCs.
• The dwarf hand cannon correctly states that it's a members’ item in the skill guide.
• Penguins will no longer appear to talk with cat chatheads on occasion.
• Removed some excessive blocking from Lumbridge’s basement areas.
• Improved the code that attempts to rejoin you to a Clan Chat channel on login.
• The ‘Items Kept on Death’ interface will now give a bit of extra info about gravestones if applicable.
• Removed a members-only message from an Agility shortcut in Falador.
• Updated some of the code for the Hunter skill.
• Put the tanning icon back on the map correctly in Canifis.
• Removed a duplicate shortcut icon from the map.
• Improved some of the code affecting the bank and switching tabs while searching for items.
• You will now be returned to your POH if you were in it when you received a random event.
• Roddeck will no longer advise you to 'smelt' rune essence.
• Optimised the code for player notes.
• Rewrote the code controlling the Summoning pouch/scroll creation interfaces.
• When fighting the knights as part of King’s Ransom, it should now properly remember your progress should you logout.
• Improved the various error messages when trying to create an account.
• Updated the code checks for clockwork toys.
• Removed a Summoning option on the spirit Tz-Kih that doesn't exist.
• Improved the logic dealing with cats changing to their fully grown state.
• Adjusted the ‘delivery cost’ (the mark-up for players who buy these items from shops and sell them on the Grand Exchange) of mithril seeds, bone bolts and white boots.
• Improved the code involving the rat pits and certain cat checks.
• Rewrote some of code for the Werewolf Agility Course and fixed a stepping-stone bug at the same time.
• Fixed a piece of code in the God Wars Dungeon where a stat-reducing attack didn't reduce the correct amount.
• After killing Bork your Prayer icons should be correctly updated.
• You can now re-acquire a pendant of Lucien from the NPC in Lucien’s house (the one west of the Grand Exchange) after completing the Temple of Ikov quest.
• ‘Accept’ Aid now affects the ability for trading while in the Stealing Creation minigame.
• Resolved an issue with the rune payment interface for the banker at Ourania Altar.
• Rewrote some of the skillcape trimming code to better handle all scenarios.
• Fighting with kick selected and Eek in your hands will no longer play a punch animation.
• Removed the follower restrictions on magic carpet, canoe and balloon journeys.
• Sped up the interaction when passing through the Al-Kharid toll gates from Lumbridge.
• Corrected the action names found on ledges that referred to doors.
• Added tooltips and reworked Varrock Museum’s interfaces.
• Free players are now given a bit of text when trying to enter the desert.
• Sawdust is now correctly set as a members’ item.
• Fixed a minor problem when trying to deposit certain items into a full bank.
• Explorer Jack's chat now has a chat option to end the conversation.
• Yanni now recognises different genders in chat.
• Adjusted the stock of various dyes and changed the shop they're sold in accordingly.
• Crawling hands can now drop purple gloves on occasion.
• We’ve also added various gloves (in small amounts) to a shop in Canifis.
• Certain items will now have a bit more freedom on the Grand Exchange, including anti-poison, pizza bases and thin snails.
• You can now bless as many silver sickles as you like without having to drop them on the floor.
• Increased the shop stock for pots of flour.
• Ensure hit splats always show on players when attacked by wizards near the Wizards’ Tower, even if it's a 0.
• Players are now given more information if the client can't switch to High Detail mode.
• Butlers can no longer be trapped upstairs in rooms that no longer exist.
• You can now log into a Bounty or Bounty+1 world if you are in a random event, providing the location you were taken from originally is a valid location on these worlds.
• Fixed a few problems with the Barbarian Agility Course and slightly streamlined the high-level part of it.
• A stepping stone Agility shortcut has been placed in Shilo Village requiring 74 Agility.
• Rewrote a fair chunk of code dealing with Keldagrim’s mini tasks.

Court is in session

When I wrote King's Ransom over two years ago, we introduced a judicial system to RuneScape, by way of the Seers' Village Court House. It seemed a shame that you only get to use it during the quest and the rest of the time it just sits there.

I've been toying for quite a while with the idea of involving the Court House in either another quest or possibly making a minigame out of trialling cases. No quests I worked on really needed a trial, though, and a full-on minigame seemed as though it would be difficult to code and very boring.

This month, my workload finally cleared up enough that I had a chance to start concepting a new Distraction & Diversion to take place in the Court House. I wanted to use a lot of the same mechanics we had in King's Ransom, but add some new ones and give it some spice.

Getting the format of the D&D wasn't hard, since I had King's Ransom to work off of, but I hit a roadblock when it came to what cases should be about. Who in RuneScape should go on trial?

I happened to mention this idea to Mod Osborne and Mod Srowley (the RuneScape editors), seeing as they create the Postbag, and they had tons of ideas! I also went through the website's area guides to see what interesting characters from all over RuneScape might have an issue they'd want resolved in court. You'll see a lot of familiar faves in court including a few that used to be familiar, but were recently retired...

I've coded a prototype case involving a certain 'Mugger (level: 6)'. Mod Mark played through it and loved the gameplay, so I've been given the go-ahead to code the rest of the project.

Currently, you'll be given a case and get to choose whether you want to prosecute or defend the accused. Then you read a few documents on the background of the case and do a bit of sleuthing. When you feel ready, you start the trial and present all your findings to the jury, just like you did in King's Ransom, but with a few new surprises...

In a follow-up blog, I'll hand you over to the RuneScape editors who are going to be writing a few of the court cases.

If you'd like to discuss our support for community events this blog on the forums, check out this thread.

Finally, the hangover from winning the UK Games Developer of the Year award at the Golden Joysticks on Friday is lifting, albeit slowly.

It wouldn’t be right to celebrate this incredible, humbling achievement without expressing our sincerest thanks and appreciation to the entire Jagex community for helping make this landmark achievement a reality. We have never seen so many people simultaneously spit their champagne at each other as when Jagex was announced as the winner! It was truly a vision that will make me smile forever. =D

This award was indeed special as not only was there some really tough competition, but this is one of the only awards voted for by the players themselves rather than an industry “old boys' club”. This year, over 1.2 million votes were cast, ensuring a World Record in itself for the Golden Joystick Awards as the biggest ever player-voted competition, and I would like to believe that most of those votes came from you, our epically sized community, not to mention the small fact that you managed to crash their website four times with all your votes!

The Jagex development team have worked tirelessly over the last eight years, their only concern creating great content for our players and games that we wanted to play ourselves – all totally under the radar of the traditional games industry and press. So while it is nice to be recognised so publicly by the industry (no doubt they will all be thinking about developing online games of their own), I would like to give everyone the assurance that our focus will remain on building great games for our community, and that we’ll continue to work hard and do all we can to try to live up to this prestigious award.

So, once again, many thanks to you all! The credit goes to our much-loved players and we hope that our entire Jagex community will share in the success along with the team at Jagex. A big cheers to all the players!

Mod MMG & Andrew