Arceuus Spellbook Beta and AKD Preparation - Weekly Update (28/04/21)

[h2]Hotfixes and Issues (29th April)[/h2]

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Though we do say it ourselves, we reckon this update is truly spellbinding! We've opened a special Beta world for members to try out the new Arceuus Spellbook before the release of A Kingdom Divided and made some main game changes that set the stage for this exciting new chapter. We've also tweaked Below Ice Mountain, rebalanced some equipment and launched more 20th anniversary merch! Abracadabra, let's be 'aving ya...

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[h2]A Kingdom Divided: Beta[/h2]



The next chapter of the Great Kourend storyline is on the horizon – A Kingdom Divided. Ahead of its release, we've been working hard on one of the additional rewards for completing this continuation. Introducing: the Arceuus Spellbook!

We're giving you the chance to experience the reworked book and try out all of the new spells across Gielinor. As of today, members will be able to log-in to the special Beta-worlds and test all the new additions and changes!

How do I access the Beta worlds?

Only members can access the Beta. When the game has loaded, you can find the beta worlds W401 (US), W407 (UK) and W412 (AUS), which will be highlighted in blue within the World Selection screen.

What happens when I log in?

Choosing any of these worlds will load a separate profile to your main account. Once you've logged-in, you'll find yourself within Ferox Enclave, with max skills and suitable gear, along with an Inventory full of Runes! If you're wanting to try out some other gear or experiment with different stats, head to the rooms next to the Castle Wars and Free-For-All portals, and rummage in the Supply Chests on the tables. Here you can select your gear and set your stats accordingly.

What can I do in the Beta?

You’ll be able to take part in any content you could find on the main game worlds, apart from the Inferno.

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[h2]Existing Spells[/h2]

So, what's cookin' in the new spellbook? First, let's cast a glance over the already existing spells and any changes that may come with them:


Reanimation Spells

In the current Arceuus Spellbook, there is a reanimation spell for each relevant creature, making a grand total of 22 spells. With the rework, these will be replaced by four new reanimation spells. No changes will be made to the amount of experience granted from reanimating creatures.

Spooky scary skeletons!

With this update, these changes to reanimation spells will also be available in the main game.



Teleport Spells

Most of the teleport spells will be unchanged with this rework. However, the teleport to the Lumbridge Graveyard has been replaced with an Arceuus Library teleport. Handy!

Moving and grooving!

For any players currently with any Lumbridge Graveyard teleport tablets, these will be changed into Arceuus Library Teleport tablets.

With this update, the change to teleport spells will also be available in the main game.



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[h2]New Spells[/h2]

And for our next trick... brand shiny new spells! To use these you will have to complete all of A Kingdom Divided, apart from Ghostly Grasp and Inferior Demonbane. Demonic Offering is the only spell we've left out from the Beta, as we've not added the Demonic Ash item yet. Other than that, you'll be free to wreak havoc with these excellent enchantments:

It's Degrime time!

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[h2]New Mechanics[/h2]

Combat Spells

Some items can be used to auto-cast spells:

• Slayer's Staff
  
• Skull Sceptre (which has had its Attack bonus increased from +4 to +10)
  
  • With this update, the above change will also be available in the main game.
• Ahrim's Staff
  
• Staff of the Dead
  
• Kodai Wand

The following spells from the Arceuus Spellbook can be auto-casted:

• Inferior Demonbane
  
• Superior Demonbane
  
• Dark Demonbane
  
• Ghostly Grasp
  
• Skeletal Grasp
  
• Undead Grasp

Arceuus Spellbook auto-cast spells.

Corruption

When a player is corrupted, they will start to lose Prayer points over a short amount of time. After six seconds, 1 Prayer point is drained. After another six seconds, 2 Prayer points are drained. After a final six seconds, 3 Prayer points are drained. If a Mark of Darkness has also been cast, corruption will occur every three seconds instead. This new type of damage will be reflected with a new type of hitsplat icon.

The animation for casting Greater Corruption.

Naturally, Corruption spells can only be cast on a player who is not already corrupted. However, there is no cooldown between Corruption expiring and a new Corruption spell being cast. It is not possible to stack multiple Corruption spells on a single player, even within multi-combat zones.

Resurrection

To perform a Resurrection spell, players will need to equip the Book of the Dead. This new magic book will be obtained as a reward from A Kingdom Divided, acting as an upgrade to the completed Kharedst's Memoirs!

Much nicer than the Necronomicon!

The Book of the Dead would provide +6 Magic attack and +3 Prayer bonus. Completion of A Kingdom Divided is required to equip the book.

Drawing upon the power of defeated creatures, Resurrection spells bring to life an undead thrall that will aid you in battle. Yikes! This will require runes and Prayer points, and only 1 thrall can exist at a time. Thralls will remain active for one game cycle (0.6 seconds) for every Magic level the caster has. For example, if a thrall is resurrected when your Magic level is 60, it will last for 36 seconds before dying. Hey, maths can be fun - and violent!

A resurrected thrall will not act like a typical follower. They will wander the area where they were created and attack anything the player attacks, provided the target is within range.

It's possible to resurrect a thrall throughout most of Gielinor, even if the undead creature being dragged from its grave is not present in that area at the time. Certain exceptions to this will apply where the aid of a thrall will not be possible – much like how setting up the Dwarf Multicannon is not possible in specific areas.

All resurrected thralls will attack at a rate of four game cycles (one attack every 2.4 seconds). Thralls cannot be damaged and their attacks ignore accuracy checks, but it will still be possible for them to hit 0 at times. While their damage ignores accuracy checks, Protection Prayers will reduce their damage accordingly.

Thralls will not aid you in PvP situations.

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[h2]Main Game Changes[/h2]

Along with this lovely new Beta, we've also made some changes to the main game. Some of these are made to allow for the Beta. Others are A Kingdom Divided-relevant changes we're intentionally launching early to help ensure the main release goes smoothly! The following changes will go live with this update:

Hitsplats

We've updated the appearance of some of the more unique hitsplats in the game, as the ones we had were not suitable for colour blind players. This doesn't impact the iconic hitsplats for things such as damage and poison, but lesser used ones for shields, armour, healing, charging and discharging.

Spell Filtering

With the slate of new spells being added to your Spellbook today, we've included an option to filter out the ones that you don't meet the requirements for yet. We're also planning to poll a visual indicator for these spells as part of Poll 75.

X Marks the Spot

From a timeline standpoint, X Marks The Spot is the first quest in the Great Kourend storyline. However, it actually came out long after the next quest in the series, Client of Kourend, and was not required for it. We want to make sure anyone new to the series has a clear understanding of the order of events, so we've made X Marks the Spot a requirement for Client of Kourend. For anyone who's already started Client of Kourend, X Marks the Spot will instead become a requirement for the Five House quests. If you've already started all five of those, X Marks the Spot will be a requirement for A Kingdom Divided when it launches.

What can we say? We're just maintaining lore and order...

Music

Listen up beat fiends, because we've made some behind the scenes improvements to our music system.

First, music tracks should now loop more reliably, rather than stopping half way through. Looping should occur even when music stops for a jingle or because it's been muted/unmuted.

Second, because we now have a better idea of when a music track ends, we're able to randomise the playing order! It will take a while for us to roll this out across the entire game, so we've started with the free-to-play area. Rather than the same track looping and then abruptly changing, music will now shuffle between suitable tracks when moving from one area to another.

The music in Old School is of course iconic, especially in the free-to-play area, so the track shuffling isn't totally random. Instead, different parts of the map have different sets of tracks assigned to them. This ensures each area of the world retains its musical identity. For example, there are six tracks that play in the Lumbridge area. Previously, each of these tracks would only play in a small part of Lumbridge. Now, they can play anywhere in and around the town. Once one finishes, a different Lumbridge track will kick in. Most importantly, the first track for any new arrival in Lumbridge will always be Harmony. Ahh, memories.

And that's it! We'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback over the Beta period and we look forward to hearing what you all think.

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[h2]Equipment Rebalance: Part One – Feedback[/h2]

Some items were missed in last week's first batch. They've now been added:

The Gilded Spear and Gilded Hasta have increased attack rate from 5 to 4, to match their Rune equivalents.

Guthan's, Verac's, Dharok's and Torag's legwear now have -11 ranged attack instead of -7 ranged attack, to match the change we made to other plate legwear.

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[h2]Below Ice Mountain[/h2]

Players can now exchange excess items for Barronite Shards:

• Barronite Head - 100
  
• Barronite Handle - 100
  
• Barronite Guard - 100
  
• Barronite Mace - 500
  
• Imcando Hammer (Broken) - 350
  
• Imcando Hammer - 500

Simply show the item to Ramarno and he'll offer to convert them into shards. Remember, any relics you find in the ruins can be traded at the Varrock Museum for extra change!

We've made some changes to the Vault beneath Ice Mountain:

• The entry fee has been decreased to 750 Barronite Shards.
  
• The drop table has been rebalanced, to reflect the difficulty/time spent.

Players can now interact directly with the forge to add/remove/check the amount of Barronite they have collected.

The Imcando Hammer has been updated to include some of the original Hammer's functions that were missing.

You can now store the Imcando Hammer in your Player Owned House.

Players looking for some extra Kudos will now see the Camdozaal Relics appear on the Kudos list in the Varrock Museum.

When preparing and offering fish in Camdozaal, the menu is now context-sensitive to which fish you have in your inventory.

One for the gym bunnies here: players can now replay Altas's workout cutscene (for a fee) and even keep track of how many times they do it.

The Barronite Mace now has a Strength bonus of +40 and an anti-Golem bonus of 15%, as mentioned in the original newspost.

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[h2]Fishing Skill Boss[/h2]

We're thrilled to see so many of you battling against the newly awakened Spirit of the Sea, Tempoross! We've made some small QoL changes to make an even bigger splash:

A new overlay has been added to the lobby and the surrounding area. This will show how many players are waiting in the lobby, and indicate how long until the next encounter.

Your Personal Bests and Time Taken stats are now displayed after successfully defeating the boss. They've also been added to the stats board in the Ruins of Unkah.

A quick-climb option has been added to the Tempoross lobby ladder, as well as a water pump aboard the ship.

UI on both mobile and PC has been moved to create more space on the screen.

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[h2]Merch[/h2]

We've added even more new lines to celebrate the 20th Anniversary year of RuneScape! You may have already spotted these in the Anniversary packs we sent out to content creators - well, now they're coming to the merch store for everyone to get their hands on!

• Special Black and Gold Map of Gielinor Print
  
• Commemorative Black and Gold Map of Gielinor Tee (with 20th Anniversary logo in neck)

The RuneScape anniversary is not the only milestone we're celebrating. Angels Scapes has now designed a whopping 200 official pins and keyrings for the merch store! You can grab the special commemorative Fire Cape, alongside other designs celebrating content over the past 20 years:

• Angels Fire Cape - 200th Design Limited Edition
  
• Void Sea Pin
  
• Dugeoneering Mastercape Keyring
  
• Thieving Skillcape Keyring

Restocks of Ice and Blood Barrage Pins and the popular Agility, Ranged, Firemaking Skillcape keyrings are also available.



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[h2]Other News[/h2]
It's Raining Cats and Dogs!

This one should make your tail wag: you can now interact with several cats and dogs across Gielinor! Address your pats and strokes to:

• The Myths' Guild dog
  
• The dog in the Falador chicken coop
  
• The dog in the Museum Camp
  
• Mark (Grace's dog, Rogues' Den)
  
• The cat in the Farming Guild

PvP World Rota

The PvP world rota has moved to Period B.

• The host for the High-Risk PvP world will be W337 (US East)
  
• The host for the Standard PvP world will be W325 (UK)
  
• The host for the free-to-play PvP world will be W371 (UK)
  
• The members-only LMS world will be W492 (US East)
  
• The free-to-play LMS world will be W326 (UK)

Extras

• World 315 (US) has now become a designated Fishing Trawler activity world!
  
• The trawler is now leakier when more players are on it. Stands to reason, right? However, more than one player can now fix a trawler railing at a time. Problem solved!
  
• The stock of swamp paste in the Port Khazard general store has been increased. It also restocks faster.
  
• Players will be prevented from accidentally clicking on Inventory items while using the Deposit Box or entering a Bank PIN.
  
• Gravestone payment messages have been added to the game.
  
• The Theatre of Blood is now a safe zone on PvP worlds.
  
• The Serpentine Helm will no longer ask the player how many Scales you want to add to it, as long as no other Scale-using items are in the Inventory. This is in-line with similar items.
  
• The Soul Wars shop has been updated to include a 'buy X' option for the XP rewards. We will look to do the same to other tabs of the shop at a later date.
  
• Dragon Slayer II notes can now be combined into a book!
  
• The Fight Cave leave timer has been reduced to three minutes.
  
• Some new counters have been added to the Collection Log, including the number of Tempoross Reward Permits claimed, and Spoils Of War opened in Soul Wars!
  
• Radimus Erkle's clone has been removed, meaning he will no longer appear in two places at once!
  
• A toggle for the border setting has been added to the Settings menu.
  
• The 20th Anniversary Cape no longer clips when you're carrying an Ale Of The Gods. Cheers to that!
  
• Clearer messaging is now provided for players who are attempting to fight the Thermonuclear Smoke Devil off-task for the Achievement Diary but aren't yet at the required Slayer level.
  
• Death in the Clan Wars free-for-all arena no longer removes PK skulls, for consistency with Clan Wars challenge battles.
  
• The bankers in Mos Le'Harmless now face west by default.
  
• Items no longer vanish when dropped at the top of some stairs in Dorgesh-Kaan.

That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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Mods Acorn, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Bonsai, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Flippy, Gecko, Gee, Grub, Halo, Husky, Jndr, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kieren, Kirby, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Maylea, MikeD, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Oasis, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Squid, Steve W, Sween, Tide, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko

The Old School Team