Update:Dev blog: Poll 9, featuring Godwars



This week's dev blog brings details of Content Poll 9, and it's a big one!

The biggest item on the menu will be the God Wars Dungeon. In the blog, Mods Ash &amp; Nexus present a detailed account of what you'll get if you vote Yes to bring it into Old School RuneScape.

Along with the dungeon itself, Poll 9 will offer some extra options about what should be in there. For example, you'll be able to vote on whether the boss rooms' doors should be made one-way only, like they were in the other RuneScape. You'll even be able to vote on extra mage and ranged weapons to be added to the dungeon. Full details are in the blog.

In case high-level combat updates aren't your thing, Poll 9 will also offer a selection of updates to the bank, including more bank space, a search button and an improved Withdraw/Deposit-X feature.

So please check out the blog to make sure you know what you're voting for when the poll opens on Tuesday.

Mods Ash & Nexus Content Developers

Dev blog: Content Poll #9 featuring GWD

Introduction
It's time for Content Poll 9, and the biggest thing on the menu by far is the God Wars Dungeon, based on the original version launched in 2007. There've been quite a few changes to that dungeon over the last 6 years, so we'll use this blog to clarify the details of what you'll get if enough players vote Yes in the poll.

Content Poll 9 will also contain some questions that will apply only if the GWD itself gets 75% support, allowing you to request adjustments to the August 2007 version of the dungeon, or extra features to be released within it.

There'll be a small selection of other updates in the poll too, for the benefit of players who aren't so interested in the GWD topic. For a start, we already promised to offer you a bank search feature, now that we've got the interface editor tool.

We'll start the poll on Tuesday 3rd September so that you've got a chance over the weekend to let us know if any of the questions are unclear. It will be open for voting until Monday 9th September, giving the whole community ample time to cast their votes.

Things that are not the GWD
Excuse us for putting this section first, but we thought you might miss it if it were buried under a wall of text about God Wars! These are jobs that we plan to offer in Poll 9 alongside GWD. If they're unclear, please let us know so that we can adjust the questions before the poll begins.

As you'll see, we've focused heavily on the bank, since we've been very restricted in what we could do to the bank screen before we got an interface editor, and a bank update can benefit all those players who aren't so interested in the God Wars Dungeon.

The capacity of your bank will be increased by 24 slots (3 rows).

A Search button will be added to the bank screen, allowing you to filter the displayed items.

The bank will remember how many items you withdraw or deposit when you use 'Withdraw-X' or 'Deposit-X', and will offer this number as an extra 'Withdraw' or 'Deposit' option on each item.

A Deposit-All button will be added to the bank screen for attempting to deposit all the items from your inventory.

A Deposit-All button will be added to the bank screen for attempting to deposit all the items that you have equipped.

'''After you've killed another player in the Wilderness, you will be protected from other players' attacks for 10 seconds. You will not be permitted to log out during this time.'''

This protection will apply only to the player who got the loot, not to any other players who helped with the kill.

Thessalia will be given a right-click option to access her makeover options more conveniently.Players checking out yesterday's costume selection bugfix commented that her dialogue is very long.

We've held back from offering bank tabs in this poll. Bank tabs would be a considerable amount of work, requiring adjustments to every script that can modify your bank. Furthermore, players have made it clear they don't like the behaviour of the other RuneScape where items shuffle up to fill the gap as soon as you withdraw a stack, and we'd need to experiment to see if we can make a bank tab system that doesn't do that. So while we do plan to offer bank tabs in future, if the GWD passes its poll we'd be busy working on that for some time, so we'd prefer not to offer a second big project in the same poll. With a Search button to help you find stuff in your bank, a tab system will hopefully become less urgent anyway.

God Wars Dungeon
The God Wars Dungeon for Old School RuneScape would, in most aspects, be a copy of the original version that was launched in August 2007. However, a variety of issues and bugs arose in the weeks that followed the original launch. For releasing the GWD into OSRS, we'd aim to address these issues before launch.

Server load
For example, the game servers had problems with load caused by inefficient combat code running on the monsters. We mustn't release a version of GWD with that problem. If you vote for us to bring back the dungeon, we will be required to refactor the combat code first, although we will try - as we did before - to avoid changing their behaviour noticeably. This mostly applies to the monsters out in the main dungeon area, since they run a lot of combat code fighting each other.

Safe-spotting in boss rooms
A more visible complaint was that players could easily safe-spot the bosses by catching them on the angled walls or doorways of their rooms. For example, it used to be a common trick to catch Graardor's attention, then stand in the doorway of his room and watch him completely fail to navigate along the wall towards you.

The illustration shows our map editor's view of Zilyana's room as it was in August 2007. As you can see, all four corners of the room are angled. Large monsters in RuneScape can get caught on the bevels of the corner, making them relatively easy to safe-spot. That's why other boss lairs, such as the King Black Dragon's room, tend to be rectangular. Even in RS3, the God Wars Dungeon is still designed around rectangular rooms; here's the map editor's view of Kree'arra's room from the present day.

To address these problems, if you vote for us to bring back the God Wars Dungeon, we will remap the four boss rooms as rectangles to discourage safe-spotting.

Monster settings
On launch, the bosses and their bodyguards couldn't walk through each other or through players, so it was relatively easy to get them stuck behind each other while you killed them in relative safety. This was changed in September 2007 so that they could walk through each other and through players. We would do this for launch if we bring back the God Wars Dungeon.

Aside from that, there were various monsters elsewhere in the dungeon with flaws in their combat AI, such as creatures that tried to range players without any code specifying how they should do this, or without any ranged combat stats. One Bandos monster in particular would refuse to retaliate if you fought it while wearing Bandos kit, and one of Kree'arra's bodyguards just wouldn't retaliate reliably at all. We would review all the monsters' settings to avoid this sort of bug.

Excessive adamant bars
Aviensies had a chance of over 20% of dropping four adamant bars in banknote form. Although the God Wars Dungeon should be a generally rewarding place to train, this is far too easy to farm.

Various players have pitched ideas for changing this drop. A popular and simple suggestion is to make the adamant bars drop as items instead of banknotes; this is what we will implement if the God Wars Dungeon passes its poll.

General bugs
The following bugs are less controversial, but ought to be fixed for launch:


 * Slayer XP was not always being awarded if a monster dealt the killing blow. The original Slayer skill code, written in late 2004, did not take into account that monsters might be fighting each other. This bug got fixed in 2009.
 * A section of the Wilderness near the dungeon entrance had incorrect map blocking, and players got stuck in it. We would need to ensure that anyone affected by the updated map got teleported out safely.
 * There was a check on the entrance of the dungeon to stop people taking in followers. This didn't work correctly, and it was removed in September 2007. We would simply remove this check; it's not needed.
 * Players leaving the dungeon would not always have their killcounts reset to 0 on re-entry, giving them a big advantage for getting the required killcount to enter the boss rooms. We should be able to make this work reliably.
 * The snow overlay didn't always vanish correctly on leaving the area.

Poll questions
In addition to the bugs and critical issues outlined above, players have requested that we consider making various other changes to the dungeon, mostly to address perceived balancing flaws. We will offer these as individual questions in Poll 9, each requiring the usual 75% support to pass. If the GWD itself doesn't end up being released, these questions will be ignored.

Do bear in mind that these are not big jobs that would delay the GWD by weeks if you vote Yes for them. If GWD passes its poll, we'll aim to deliver the whole thing as soon as possible.

It's entirely possible that people's views will change once they've had a chance to play in the dungeon again, and we fully expect to be running polls after its launch offering further changes. Along with other post-release adjustments, we may offer ideas from any of these questions that don't pass now. For example, even if you don't currently feel the need for new mage/ranger weapons to balance out the godswords, you might reasonably feel differently in a few weeks or months as godswords become more common.

Loot broadcast
Old School RuneScape doesn't have a formal lootshare system to distribute loot around your chat-channel. When the God Wars Dungeon was first released, there was no lootshare system; people relied on their friends' honour to share loot fairly, as they had done since the earliest days of RuneScape, without Jagex's involvement. Mod Chihiro created the lootshare system because trade restrictions were coming to RuneScape, and teams would no longer be able to distribute their loot. Fortunately, Old School RuneScape isn't about to get trade restrictions like that, so you can continue sharing loot with your friends manually.

Nevertheless, we've had requests for some kind of broadcast system to tell nearby players what items are being dropped, so that dishonourable players can't cheat their friends by lying about the loot they've received. If this idea looks popular, we could offer in future polls to extend it to the Kalphite Queen, the Dagannoth Kings and the King Black Dragon.

Question: If the GWD is released, the four bosses and their bodyguards will broadcast messages to all players in their rooms to state what items have been dropped, and to whom.

If this question doesn't pass, the broadcast system will not be implemented for the launch of GWD.

One-way doors
When the GWD was initially released, players would walk in and out of the boss rooms via the doors. Some time later, the doors were changed to stop working as exits, and the altars were given a 'Teleport' option to let people out of the boss rooms.

Question: If the GWD is released, the boss room doors will be entrances only, and the altars will have a 'Teleport' option to let you exit.

If this question doesn't pass, the doors will work as entrances and as exits, and the altars will not have a 'Teleport' option.

Rate of Slayer assignments
When the God Wars Dungeon was originally launched, spiritual fighters were assigned as Slayer targets very frequently. A month later, they were reduced to a more normal rate. We think this was intentional, since players may have been keen to train Slayer on the exciting new monsters straight away.

Question: If the GWD is released, spiritual warriors, rangers and mages should be assigned as Slayer targets very frequently for the first month after launch, and then reduced to a normal rate.

If this question doesn't pass, the dungeon will be released with those creatures being assigned at their normal rate.

Banknote herb drops from bosses
A few weeks after the launch of the GWD, the bosses were changed to drop banknoted herbs rather than the real items.

Graardor boss was changed to drop 3x snapdragon banknotes, not a pile of three items. Zilyana was changed to drop 5x ranarr banknotes, not a pile of five items. K'ril was changed to drop 10x lantadyme banknotes, not a pile of ten items.

Question: If the GWD is released, when the four bosses drop stacks of herbs, they should do so in banknote form.

If this question doesn't pass, the bosses will drop the herbs as items, not as banknotes.

Armadyl godsword
A very common complaint on the forums has been that the Armadyl godsword is extremely powerful, partly due to its stats and partly because its special attack can be used twice in quick succession. While various players have proposed that the stats be nerfed, the most common suggestion for adjusting the sword has been to leave its stats alone, but make its special attack cost 60% of your power.

Question: If the GWD is released, the Armadyl godsword's special attack will cost 60% of your power.

If this question doesn't pass, the special attack will cost 50% of your power.

Dragon boots
Another common complaint is that rune boots will have no value once dragon boots are available. Rune boots are dropped by nechryaels, requiring a Slayer level of 80. Dragon boots come from spiritual mages, requiring a Slayer level of 83. It's been suggested that the spiritual mages could instead drop some dragon material that is used to upgrade rune boots into dragon boots. This would mean that level 83 Slayers could keep their monopoly on bringing dragon boots into the game, yet level 80 Slayers would still find a market for rune boots.

There would be no level requirements for upgrading the rune boots into dragon boots; a player who's earned the stats to slay spiritual mages will be permitted to construct the dragon boots without further requirements.

Question: If the GWD is released, spiritual mages will drop a shard of dragon material that is used to upgrade rune boots into dragon boots, instead of dropping the dragon boots directly.

If this question doesn't pass, the spiritual mages will simply drop dragon boots.

Additional Barrows item
With the release of level 65 and 70 armour from GWD, players have raised concerns about Barrows kit becoming redundant. While we would prefer not to nerf the GWD armour, we could offer to add a new item that enhances the bonuses of existing Barrows kit.

One idea is to create an Amulet of the Damned, dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth. While you are wearing a full set of Barrows equipment, and the Barrows set bonus is in effect, the amulet would automatically absorb combat damage. For each combat splat, the amulet would ignore the first 15 points of damage, but would absorb 20% of damage above that threshold. The amulet's own stats would match those of an amulet of glory.

While worn in combat, the amulet would degrade at the same rate that Barrows items do, and would crumble to dust when worn out. The pristine version of the amulet would be tradeable; once it is degraded, it would be untradeable. Although the amulet could not be repaired by characters such as Bob, it would be possible to use two degraded amulets on each other to "decant" the remaining health of one amulet into the other one, rather like pouring water between two watering cans.

'''Question: If the GWD is released, a new degradeable item called Amulet of the Damned would be dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth. If worn alongside a full Barrows set, the amulet would absorb a fraction of combat damage from any hitsplat over 15 hitpoints. See the dev blog for full details.'''

If this question doesn't pass, the amulet would not be added to the update.

Additional mage and ranged weapons
The reward weapons from the GWD are mostly melee weapons. It's been suggested that we replace a couple of the godswords with a staff and a bow. Again, we'd prefer not to make such a drastic change to those iconic items. However, we could instead offer new mage and ranged weapons as additional drops from Zilyana and K'ril.

A popular request for a new mage weapon has been the Staff of Light. We don't have the graphic used in the other RuneScape for that item, but we could certainly adapt an existing graphic and re-create the staff's special abilities:


 * Level 75 Attack + level 75 Magic to wield.
 * Special "attack" halves all melee damage for one minute, stacking with the PvP damage reduction effect of the Protect from Melee prayer. This special feature would consume 100% of your power.
 * When casting combat spells with the staff equipped, the staff has a 1/8 chance of negating the rune costs of the spell.
 * The Slayer Dart spell could be cast using this staff.
 * Stab attack bonus +55, slash attack bonus + 70, magic attack bonus + 17, slash defence +3, crush defence +3, magic defence +17, melee strength bonus +72.

'''Question: If the GWD is released, a magic weapon similar to the Staff of Light would be dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth. See the dev blog for full details.'''

If this question doesn't pass, this staff would not be added to the update.

An Armadyl crossbow has been suggested as a potential new ranger weapon, to be dropped by Zilyana. Although the lore regarding that crossbow was released into the other RuneScape only recently, similar events may be assumed to have occurred in our RuneScape too. The crossbow's graphic would be adapted from existing old-school crossbow graphics.


 * Level 70 Ranged to wield.
 * Range attack bonus +100, prayer bonus +1.
 * Attack rate equivalent to a runite crossbow.
 * Attack range 1 tile greater than a runite crossbow.
 * The weapon would count as an Armadyl item.

'''Question: If the GWD is released, an Armadyl crossbow would be dropped by Commander Zilyana. See the dev blog for full details.'''

If this question doesn't pass, this crossbow would not be added to the update

Summary
In summary, we're opening Content Poll 9 on Tuesday 3rd September, offering the God Wars Dungeon, and separately offering a selection of extra features for it that you might find useful. Along with the GWD, we'll also be offering some smaller updates taken from your forum suggestions, mostly involving the bank screen. The poll will be open until Monday 9th September.

We're not able to predict exactly how long it'll take to integrate the God Wars Dungeon into Old School RuneScape and resolve the bugs it had back on 2007; no-one's exactly tried doing this before! Naturally we'll go as fast as possible, but you should expect it to take a few weeks. If the poll passes, we'll be keeping you informed of the development progress throughout.

So, let us know if any of the poll questions seem unclear to you, and we'll try to sort it out before the poll opens after the weekend.

Non Godwars Related questions
The capacity of your bank will be increased by 24 slots (3 rows).

A Search button will be added to the bank screen, allowing you to filter the displayed items.

The bank will remember how many items you withdraw or deposit when you use 'Withdraw-X' or 'Deposit-X', and will offer this number as an extra 'Withdraw' or 'Deposit' option on each item.

A Deposit-All button will be added to the bank screen for attempting to deposit all the items from your inventory.

A Deposit-All button will be added to the bank screen for attempting to deposit all the items that you have equipped.

After you've killed another player in the Wilderness, you will be protected from other players' attacks for 10 seconds. You will not be permitted to log out during this time.

This protection will apply only to the player who got the loot, not to any other players who helped with the kill.

Thessalia will be given a right-click option to access her makeover options more conveniently. Players checking out yesterday's costume selection bugfix commented that her dialogue is very long.

Godwars Related questions
Should God Wars be released?

If the GWD is released, the four bosses and their bodyguards will broadcast messages to all players in their rooms to state what items have been dropped, and to whom.

If the GWD is released, the boss room doors will be entrances only, and the altars will have a 'Teleport' option to let you exit.

If the GWD is released, spiritual warriors, rangers and mages should be assigned as Slayer targets very frequently for the first month after launch, and then reduced to a normal rate.

If the GWD is released, the Armadyl godsword's special attack will cost 60% of your power.

If the GWD is released, spiritual mages will drop a shard of dragon material that is used to upgrade rune boots into dragon boots, instead of dropping the dragon boots directly.

If the GWD is released, a new degradeable item called Amulet of the Damned would be dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth. If worn alongside a full Barrows set, the amulet would absorb a fraction of combat damage from any hitsplat over 15 hitpoints. See the dev blog for full details.

If the GWD is released, a magic weapon similar to the Staff of Light would be dropped by K'ril Tsutsaroth. See the dev blog for full details.

If the GWD is released, an Armadyl crossbow would be dropped by Commander Zilyana. See the dev blog for full details.

Mods Ash & Nexus Content Developers