RuneScape: Dragonwilds News

[p]Since RuneScape: Dragonwilds launched into Alpha testing, we've been stewing on how to improve cooking. We initially ideated how to create a satiety system where you could eat a few meals at once, with unique additive effects, but feedback was clear that players wanted to consistently min-max slots and the experience felt less RuneScapey.[/p][p]We've spiced things up a few times before but we're heading back to the kitchen, again. Your feedback around cooking has been clear. [/p][p][/p][p]But your feedback has also been focused on how RuneScapey cooking feels, or rather, doesn't feel. So we've gone back to the chopping board... or, drawing board. [/p][p]Hello Doom and hello to the greater Dragonwilds community! [/p][p]As some of our alpha testers may have noticed, we had a completely different food system and no thirst system to speak of prior to our initial EA release. We added these mechanics very late in development, mere weeks before we launched in fact, and as such they weren't really given the space to breath and be iterated on, we also felt we didn't quite hit the mark when it came to replicating that OSRS feel. Now that time has passed and we've received lots of fantastic feedback from our players, we've gone back to the kitchen, revised our recipes and are ready to introduce Cooking 3.0 which we hope players will enjoy a lot more![/p][h2]Chef in Training[/h2][p]Is there anything more OSRS than Burnt Shrimp? No! That's why we've brought back burnt food as part of players skill progression. Now when you process an ingredient into a cooked ingredient at a campfire or our new Grill processing station (imagine a nicer campfire that can be built in your home and doesn't have a fuel cost to process food!) you'll have the chance to mess up and burn the ingredient. You can still eat burnt ingredients, but they'll restore less Sustenance, or Hunger and make you a bit sick! Burnt ingredients will also come in handy in a future update that sounds like 'Arming. [/p][h2]Plate Up[/h2][p]In addition to the two processing stations (campfire and grill) players will eventually gain access to two Crafting benches, the pre-existing Range and an as yet to be properly named 'Stone Range'. This is where you'll craft different meals and beverages from the items you've previously processed. You'll get far more insight into exactly what you're making and what benefits you'll receive. There's no more throwing random ingredients into a pot and trial and erroring your way into the meal you wanted.[/p][h2]Skill Up to Fill Up[/h2][p]As you progress in your Cooking Skill, not only will you reduce your chance to burn an ingredient, but you'll also gain access to better quality recipes for both Food and Drink, with these recipes offering new Perks to help empower your play. Some of our later recipes have also been reworked to feature DOUBLE Perks which is a new idea that we've been playing with. We're looking forward to expanding on this Perk first approach to Food and Drink as the game grows and expands on our way to 1.0 with new regions offering new ingredients and new recipes to help players survive in those harsh and hazardous locales. We can even imagine a world where recipes become as valuable to players as a new Helmet or Sword. [/p][h2]One to One[/h2][p]We've gotten rid of the 2 to 1 raw to cooked item ratio, so now 1 potato is 1 potato. Hooray! No more stray bits of unusable food clogging up your inventory and storage boxes.[/p][h2]Revised Hunger and Thirst values[/h2][p]We've completely rebalanced our Sustenance/Hunger and Hydration/Thirst values for Food and Drink. While Thirst and Hunger are still important parts of the survival salad, we know players were getting frustrated with how often they were having to eat.  At some point we want merely cooking to survive to be less of a concern, and for players to instead to eat and drink for interesting Food and Drink perk combos to help them focus on the activities they want to focus on at any given time. We want to make Food and Drink more about empowerment, rather than punishment. [/p][p]But seriously... Stop drinking dirty water people![/p][p]We hope you're excited about what we're cooking, and we're always listening to your feedback, so please dive in to the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord and get chatting with us across our socials. The JMods are always ready to hear from you and chat more about all things RuneScape: Dragonwilds! We're on Twitter, BSky, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok too![/p]

[p]0.9 is dropping on September 9th, including Custom World Sliders, Creative Mode and, of course, the Ranged Skill Tree. We're talking new weapons, new skill spells, and rewards for grinding through those levels. Let's get stuck into what's on the menu:[/p][p]The crossbow is a new 1-handed long-range weapon that you'll be able to craft and wield. While Shortbows and longbows allow adventurers to deal damage from afar, and stay agile and evasive, we've heard your feedback around wanting to be able to off-hand a secondary tool, whether that's a torch or a shield. The Crossbow offers a versatile, powerful alternative to the bows that lets you combine the weapon with a shield or torch so you don't have to compromise on attack OR defense.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Crossbows will be crafted with a new station:[/p][p]The Fletching Bench! This is your new go-to place for all your Ranged crafting needs. Once you've gathered Wood and Flax to unlock it, you'll find every recipe – both old and new – for every Bow, Arrow and Bolt in one convenient place![/p][p]These can be cratfted with a range of wood types for frames, with limbs made from bone or metals. We've heard your feedback around the process of crafting equipment feeling more like RuneScape. So, expect the traditional RuneScape crafting methods. Mine rocks to get ores, smelt ores to get metals, forge metals to make limbs, craft limbs into crossbows, load them up and fire away. We want to hear your thoughts on how this process feels, so your feedback on this is super important! [/p][p]This will be the start of your journey from humble hunter-in-training to a ranger of renown, mythical in speed, accuracy and carrying lots of arrows without making a lot of noise.[/p][p]On the subject of arrows, we're working on an update to add an extra inventory stash, much like Runes or Quest Inventories, that will let you store arrows and bolts in a separate storage tab for easier organisation. [/p][p]As you progress through both the Ranged Skill, and crafting tiers, you'll be able to acquire more potent resources to craft more powerful weapons. Much like with Melee and Magic before you'll be able to feel your progression with every hit. You'll also be able to pump that DPS up even more with Trick Shots, which we'll get into later... [/p][p]As with every Skill in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, your progression will unlock the power of Skill Spells. You're going to want to leverage the power of these spells to give you the upper hand in and out of combat.[/p][p]We've got two new skill spells dropping in with 0.9 that we're really excited to share with you. We saw a lot of feedback from players early on when testing the bow and arrow, that there weren't enough options to open up space, or kite enemies from a safe distance. Feedback like this:[/p][p][/p][p]So, we got thinking - what could a hunter use to prevent their prey, or their enemy from moving - either too close, or too far? Snare is our solution to that problem.[/p][p]Snare can be cast to mark an area of the ground that will trigger when an enemy moves into it. Upon triggering, the spell will entangle the target in roots, pinning them in place, and leaving them vulnerable to any and all forms of attack.[/p][p]At later levels in your progression, you'll unlock the Skill Upgrade: "Venomous Trapper".[/p][p]The Snares that you place now trigger a cloud of damaging poison when activated, causing enemies stuck inside to become poisoned over time. Once poisoned, enemies will continue to take poison damage even once the trap subsides.[/p][p]Feel like you're being swarmed? Wish that you could hit more than one target with an arrow? Good news! You can! Introducing "Spectral Arrows".[/p][p]Enchants a player's ranged weapon with Astral Magic for a period of time. While enchanted, arrows fired from the bow are able to penetrate through targets, allowing players to call on their accuracy and timing mastery in Ranged combat to hit as many enemies as they can with each arrow. There is no limit to the number of targets the arrow can pierce through.[/p][p]When you draw your arrows, you will see a particular glint at the tip of the arrow that may catch your eye. We've introduced "Trick Shots", a system that lets you get into a rhythm when firing your arrows. This will let you capitalise on hitting a particular rhythm when shooting that grants you an additional damage boost when you shoot, to keep up a more consistent, higher-damage output that rewards a calm, steady hand.[/p][p]When you wield a crossbow, you'll see a small bar/meter that appears below your crosshair when you fire. That bar will fill after each shot, showcasing the remaining time on the reload between shots. It's only a few seconds, but there's a sweet-spot somewhere along the bar, part of the way through the reload. If you can time it right, and fire again in that sweet spot, you'll perform an Instant Reload, and immediately launch another shot, cutting the reload time down. If you can consistently hit that rhythm, you'll be dealing damage at a much higher pace, so find your rhythm and focus in![/p][p]There are THIRTEEN new ammo types coming into the game with the 0.9 update - now bringing us to a total of seventeen ammo types. As we mentioned earlier, we're going to be adding an additional inventory tab to accommodate these ammo types in the near future, so listen out for that coming in an update very soon. [/p][p]As you progress through your Ranged skill tree, you'll unlock the ability to brew new potions at the Brewing Cauldron using the new herb: Kwuarm. Brew this with a Poison Ichor to create - you guessed it - Weapon Poison. Use this on a melee weapon to poison your blade, or create Poison Arrows. You can finally poison enemies back. Give them a taste of their own medicine! [/p][p]Then, there are Weapon Barbs - brutal spikes to rend your foes with every swing, stab or shot. Use these to create Barbed arrows, that apply stacks of bleed damage. Then there are also Fire arrows, which trigger (you'll never have guessed this) fire damage! Experiment with the builds, stack up DPS and turn those pesky Garou into pincushions![/p][p]The passive ability of the Ranged Skill Tree will be a chance to be able to retrieve your arrows from an enemy's body once they die. Arrows are brittle, delicted precision tools of dealing death from afar, but as you improve in your martial prowess, you might be a bit less cack-handed with them to boot. [/p][p]Think you're a stupendous sharpshooter? Best-in-class Bullseye blaster? Tremendous target terminator? I'll stop now. [/p][p]You'll be able to craft and place an archery target to test your sharpshooting. May the best marksman win! [/p][p]All of this will be arriving as part of the 0.9 Update, along with Custom World Sliders, and a Creative Mode, which you'll be able to enjoy. That's just the start. We'll continue to iterate and build on what we've got here as a foundation, and there's some extra awesome updates coming later on as part of our 0.9.1 update towards the end of September.[/p][p]We hope you're excited about what's coming with the Ranged update, and we're always listening to your feedback, so please dive in to the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord and get chatting with us across our socials. The JMods are always ready to hear from you and chat more about the Ranged update, and all things RuneScape: Dragonwilds! We're on Twitter, BSky, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok too![/p][p]Until next time, be good![/p][p]We'll see you in Ashenfall.[/p]

[p]
What a month we've had, eh, Adventurers? We're hard at work delivering our 0.9 update, which includes the Ranged Skill, Skill Spells, as well as a new weapon type we're exploring based on player feedback we polled across our socials! That's arriving on September 9th, but we're also launching a 0.8.3 update in August, with an extra batch of awesome fixes - including building from chests! We have plenty to look back on for this month! Let's get stuck into this one, shall we? 

[/p][p]
We put out a call for feedback, votes and invited discussion from you, the Community, on what we should focus our attention on first for the Ranged Skill update that will be coming in September: Crossbows, or Throwables?

The response was clear - 77% of you wanted Crossbows. 

So, Mod Pointy and the team have started cooking. We're showing you a very early look at a (janky!) test of what we're hoping to allow you to do with Crossbows - shield yourself. It's early days, but the work is still ongoing, and since I drafted this blogpost, work has been done! It's an exciting time to be a ranger.


I want to caveat this and be very clear - what you're seeing above is a developer gym, a whitebox area that showcases rough, unfinished assets that we can use to test ideas. The team are moving fast with this, so what you're seeing is already going to be out of date by the time this reaches your eyeballs, and the project is moving super fast. I'm hoping to share how the project is coming along with you all at regular intervals between now and the launch of 0.9 in the start of September - only a few weeks away now!

[/p][p]
We sat down with our Executive Producer Mod Dutch and our Creative Director, Mod Rook, to answer YOUR questions.

[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
[/p][h3]Fidgety Widgety, Timey Wimey Stuff[/h3][p]
We released our 0.8.1 update - a modest little spritz of fixes, QoL updates and adjustments based on player feedback! UI improvements, a day-night widget, solo game pausing, and a cape rack. Check out a more robust list of changes in the patch notes here.

[/p][h3]Picky Bits, Fixy Bits[/h3][p]
Our 0.8.2 update has brought in improvements to picking up items by increasing the clickbox, added additional protection to terrain and interiors against dragonbreath attacks, and a bunch of extra bugfixes. 

[/p][p]
Many of you asked "When are there going to be level requirements for combat gear?" and since then, we've been pondering the idea. Mod Pointy jumped in to talk through our approach and we put the vote to you, our players, on Discord and Reddit. The reponse was clear - Unlock Requirements were the most popular design approach, so now the team are ready to go away and assess how we can take learnings from this system into our future updates.

That's not to say that everything from now on will be locked behind a level requirement, but there will be items/gear pieces that we'll be looking to implement level requirements down the line so look forward to more news from us on that as we go!

[/p][h3]There's no place like Bone[/h3][p]
We shared a first look at the Skeletons that will be joining the fray as part of the Fellhollow update. This calcified crew will be causing problems, and we wanted to give you an early look at them in all their ghoulish glory. 
Read the full breakdown with a section from our Art Director, Mod Aaart, here. 

[/p][h3]Ambient beats to wade/trudge to[/h3][p]
We've opened up a poll in the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord to ask you which classic OSRS or RS3 song we should adapt into RuneScape: Dragonwilds' musical style - Nyckelharpas, Dulcimers, all the clicky-clacky, tactile, earthy sounds that have been serenading us as we wander the lands of Ashenfall. We've heard from so many of you offering suggestions, and far too many of you ignoring the bit where I told you not to say Sea Shanty 2, but that's fine. The tracks that came through ran the gamut of tracks from OS and RS - from Zulrah's "Coil" to the Croesus Front, from Fe Fi Fo Fum (seriously?) to Yesteryear. 

We shortened that list down to 4 results: Stagnant, Dead Quiet, Morytania and Yesteryear. The result was close, but Morytania took the top spot. Look forward to us sharing progress on what we're cooking up in the future! 

The poll was over in the Discord - join today to make sure you're part of these in the future! 

[/p][h3]Now you're thinking creatively![/h3][p]
Mod Deluxe jumped in to share some news about the upcoming Creative Mode that will be launching this September as part of our 0.9 update!
[/p][p]We'll be launching the update with a broad range of features: [/p]
[h3]Building[/h3][p]

• All Building pieces will be unlocked.
  
• Buildings will not have any material costs.
  
• Infinite carry weight.
  

[/p][h3]Crafting[/h3][p]

• All crafting recipes will be unlocked.
  
• No material cost for crafting.
  

[/p][h3]Skills[/h3][p]

• All skills will be maxed.
  
• No rune costs for spells.
  
• No cooldown for spells.
  
• No rune costs for Lodestone usage.
  

[/p][h3]Environment and Survival[/h3][p]

• Hunger, Thirst and Endurance will always be full.
  
• No world events (Dragon attacks, "You are being hunted" events or Base Raids)
  
• AI will not attack.
  

To accommodate multiple game modes, we're doubling the number of potential character save slots from 4 to 8 characters. You'll also be able to set up whether a world will, or will not, have stability systems on when you create a world. Once you create the world, you can't change the setting, so please be sure of what you're looking to do when you make the world!

[/p][h3]Can't spell JMod without... uhhh. Mod.[/h3][p]
We recently shared our updated Fan Content Policy and Modding Guidelines for RuneScape: Dragonwilds. The TL;DR is that Modding is possible, supported and encouraged. To be clear: this isn't substituting our commitment to delivering content to you. Meaningful content every quarter is still our mandate. We're not looking to "outsource" our content to community modders, but we also know that some absolutely legendary content, game modes and moments have come from community modding. Being able to modify your game, customise your experience or just add something new and unexpected is something we want to enable, so you can continue to enjoy this game, your way, for countless hours to come. 

We recently put a survey in front of players to ask about their experience and preferences with modding - make sure you're part of our Discord and Reddit to hear more about surveys like this one! We'll try and keep updates on Steam to be the biggest pieces of the month, every month, so you're not feeling overwhelmed.

Speaking of which, I wanted to showcase a Mod Creator that's been creating some really great mods, with a sprinkle of lore flavour too! Spartandestroyr1 has been making a range of mods, the one that's caught my eye being "The Demon's Guidance", which extends your Fire Spirit Skill Spell. We can't wait to see more mods in the future!

[/p][p]
Our Discord member and building master "divine_gaze" has been absolutely crushing it on the builds which have taken some 600 hours of solo play!

BoldSawyer has made a Duel Arena inspired battleground with four distinct arenas within its walls. Whose corner are you in? Lougrim? Saradomin? …Zamorak?

I know what you're thinking! "Wow, a photo mode to capture these in all their glory would be amazing!". Well, we're exploring how we can introduce a Photo Mode in a future update, if that's of any interest to you folks...

For now, that's everything. But we'll be sharing more songs, sneak peeks, shooty things and so much more in the coming weeks. Be sure to join the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord server to show off your best builds, find parties of dragon-slaying adventurers and chat! Be sure to follow us on our socials, too! We're on Twitter, BSky, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok!

Be good, and we'll see you in Ashenfall. [/p]

• Picking up items from the ground is now easier. The clickbox for items on the ground is now taller and more generous. No more having to precisely cursor over logs on the floor to start crafting!
  
  
• Interiors are now vastly improved against Velgar's scorn - Dragonbreath and Meteors will now be blocked inside caverns, for example. Unnaturally powerful dragons blocked by natural formations. Naturally.

• The clock widget will now show nighttime correctly. Old character saves will still experience this bug - new characters will no longer encounter this issue!
  
• Cabbage and Dwellberries, and Raw Bird Meat and Potato, can be cooked together. Excellent pairings.
  
• Garou Tents no longer highlight as if they are interactible. They're not.
  
• Players will not get stuck in the block potision when equipping a Bow.
  
• Resolved an issue which caused a crash when placing Tier 2 Palisade Walls.
  
• A handful of terrain fixes where players could get stuck.
  
• Removed some out-of-place Marrentill that were incorrectly placed.

[p]We're starting to ramp up Community polls, asking questions around what kind of upgrades, progression and systems you're hoping to see over on Discord and the official Subreddit, so go check them out if you haven't already done so! We've got another Community Q&A coming later this month, more sneak peeks at Fellhollow coming soon, and so much more to talk about, so be sure to check out our socials at the bottom of the post. Right, let's get into it - 0.8.1![/p]

• [p]You can now pause the game while in Solo mode.[/p]
  • [p]If you've got little gremlins IRL to chase after, or need a bathroom break without a Warband literally catching you with your pants down, then good news![/p]
• [p]We've added a Cape Rack! [/p]
  • [p]A buildable piece of gear to show off your coolest cape or maybe your entire selection if you're looking to flex.[/p]
• [p]We've made improvements to the Compass UI to improve readability, clarity and generally add more to it.[/p]
• [p]Added a Day/Night Widget so you know when it's time to sleep.[/p]
  • [p]You'd think the great big ball of fire in the sky that moves around would be a good indicator but some of you spend too much time indoors.[/p]

• [p]Fixed an issue where wearing the Leather Armour caused your character to either T-Pose or have phantom armour pieces floating out of sync with animations.[/p]
  • [p]Bit early for stuff to get spooky with Fellhollow. [/p]
• [p]Resolved an issue causing geometric deformities on Very Low graphical settings.[/p]
• [p]Ghost piece shader at night[/p]
• [p]Player being locked in position when using shortbow M1 attack as a guest in MP Worlds[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue which caused AI to be able to phase through building pieces. [/p]
  • [p]Those walls are there for a REASON.[/p]
• [p]Various Journal fixes around the Magical Focus. [/p]
  • [p]Listen, the player is learning as they go, so we're figuring this out.[/p]
• [p]Missing SFX for AI after beginning a combat encounter with them have been restored.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue which caused popups to repeatedly appear when restarting the game to apply a graphical setting change. [/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue which caused the Dark Mage Hood to not be visible for clients in multiplayer worlds.[/p]
• [p]The Abyssal Demon's magic attack now deals appropriate damage (tons of it) in Hard Difficulty. [/p]
• [p]Improved fade-in transitions when entering/leaving a vault or teleporting via lodestone. [/p]
• [p]Players will now need space in their inventory to receive quest rewards from Dragon Slayer.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a crash where using the D-Pad to navigate certain menus caused a crash.[/p]
• [p]Assorted other lovely crash fixes.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Again - make sure to join the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord and check out the Reddit to take part in Community Polls and have your say, and be sure to follow us on our socials, too! We're on Twitter, BSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok! [/p][p]See you in Ashenfall, adventurers! [/p]