Update:Dev blog: Content Poll 10 - New Rewards



If you want to see how to get a cow's mask, super anti-fire potions or the Armadyl crossbow, make sure you read this developer blog now.

Dev blog: New rewards

New Rewards
It's not been long since Poll 9, in which you voted overwhelmingly to bring back the God Wars Dungeon and update your bank screens. The GWD project is progressing well, but we need to ask you some extra questions about the new reward items that will be coming from the dungeon. We'll be opening Content Poll 10 next week to get your answers.

Along with the GWD reward questions, we've gathered a wide range of requests for extra rewards for Nightmare Zone, the new minigame. There are quite a few ideas in the list that could be developed without unduly delaying the GWD, so we'd like to use Poll 10 to offer you some new Nightmare Zone rewards too.

Finally, as the nights grow longer (in our hemisphere, anyway) our thoughts turn to Halloween. We'd like to offer you a proper old-school celebration by re-opening one of the holiday events from the old days.

Ranged weapon
In the last poll, we offered a new crossbow, and it scored 72% support. That's a significant majority of players in favour of having a new ranged weapon, so we've been gathering your feedback about how we could offer a slightly different version of it.

A common complaint was that the crossbow lacked a special attack. One player suggestion was to make the special attack guarantee that enchanted crossbow bolts would perform their special ability in the next shot. This would consume 100% of your special attack energy.

Another major complaint was that the question in Poll 9 was unclear. So for this version we'll make the question a lot more thorough.

The crossbow would be added to the drop list of the Saradomin boss in the God Wars Dungeon; although it would be an Armadyl item, Commander Zilyana may be assumed to have stolen it. The Armadyl boss doesn't particularly need extra drops on its table, whereas the Saradomin boss used to be less popular.

'Question: A new level 70 crossbow will be released with a range attack bonus of +100 and a prayer bonus of +1. Its attack distance will be +1 greater than the runite crossbow, and it will have the same attack rate. Its special attack would be to guarantee that enchanted bolts would perform their special action in your next shot. This would drain 100% of your special attack energy. The crossbow would be an Armadyl item, but would be dropped by the Saradomin boss in the GWD because she stole it.'

Magic weapon
Players voted in favour of us creating a new magic weapon with behaviour similar to the Staff of Light. In the blog that preceded that poll, we described it as follows:


 * 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.

It was pointed out that the Staff of Light also used to give a 15% increase to your max hit in magic, and that we hadn't listed this in the blog. So the poll was offering a weapon that didn't have that magic bonus. We'd like to offer that magic bonus now, so that you can decide whether or not it should be included when the weapon is released.

'Question: In last poll, where we offered a magic weapon that would behave similarly to the Staff of Light, we didn't specify that it would boost magic damage by 15%. Should it have that bonus?'

If this question does not pass, the weapon will not boost magic damage.

A common concern from the staking community has been that this weapon's special attack would change the way people fight in the Duel Arena in melee duels. While the Duel Arena lets you disable special attacks, the special attack of a poisoned dragon dagger is extremely popular, so that's not an ideal solution.

We'd therefore like to offer you a change to the special attack of the weapon. Currently, for one minute, it halves all the melee damage that is dealt to you. It's been suggested that we could make it also halve the melee damage that you deal to other players or monsters.

'Question: The new magic weapon has a special attack that halves the melee damage you take for one minute. While that is in effect, should it also halve the melee damage you deal?'

If this question does not pass, the weapon's special attack will not affect the melee damage that you deal.

We've not yet confirmed what model the weapon will use, nor even the weapon's name. We don't have the model used by the actual Staff of Light, since that wasn't made until long after August 2007. So we'll have to re-use an existing model from the Old School repository. A simple idea would be to take a standard staff and recolour the orb to yellow. Alternatively, instead of using a staff at all, we could copy the metal wand from What Lies Below, and call it the Wand of Darkness. It's being dropped by a giant demon, after all. Your views would be welcome.

Nightmare Zone rewards
At the moment, the minigame's reward shop mostly gives out resources for use in training activities. In a previous poll, we offered to create new mid-level armour items that could be obtained from the minigame. Although those questions got quite a lot of support, things have changed since then: you've got the GWD coming soon, with new armour available in there. So we're not planning to offer those armour items again now.

Instead we've taken a range of suggestions from the forums. Once you've had a chance to review the questions and highlight issues and concerns, we'll offer these to you in Poll 10.

Imbued rings
Question: The following rings could be imbued, using Nightmare Zone points, giving them higher combat stats: Seer, Archer, Warrior, Beserker, onyx, dragonstone and diamond.


 * Seer: +8 magic attack and magic defence.
 * Archer: +8 ranged attack and ranged defence.
 * Warrior: +8 slash attack and slash defence.
 * Beserker: +8 strength bonus and crush defence.
 * Onyx: +6 for all attack and all defence.
 * Dragonstone: +5 for all attack and all defence.
 * Diamond: +5 stab attack, +4 for all other attack.

The imbued rings would be untradeable. If dropped on death, they would revert to their un-imbued state.

In the other RuneScape, the Mobilising Armies minigame allows players to imbue a wider selection of rings. For now, we've focused on the most high-profile rings; ruby, emerald, sapphire and gold rings had relatively little use. We've seen ideas for giving the other rings special abilities, and would be willing to consider offering them in a later poll.

Super potions
The Nightmare Zone shop currently sells potions that can be used only inside the minigame arena. The three potions offered here would not have any such restriction. In each case, the ingredient and the potion would be tradeable.

'Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades an anti-fire potion to a super anti-fire potion, requiring level 89 Herblore. The super anti-fire potion would block all dragonfire damage, and would also reduce the effects of the KBD's other attacks. Level 93 would be needed to add caviar.'

'Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades a super energy potion to an energy renewal potion, requiring level 92 Herblore. The energy renewal potion would restore all your run energy, and keep it topped up for 30 seconds. Level 96 would be needed to add caviar.'

'Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades a prayer potion to a super prayer potion, requiring level 94 Herblore. The super prayer potion would increase your Prayer by 4 points more than the existing prayer potion does, and could boost your Prayer stat above its base level to do this. Level 98 would be needed to add caviar.'

The super anti-fire potion might be handy if you'd like to use the two-handed weapons from the GWD to fight dragons. We'd install warnings to let you know when it's due to expire.

Herb packs
'Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell packs of 10 unidentified herbs. The herbs taken from these packs would be random, with the same distribution as you get from standard monster drops.'

For your convenience, we'd let you empty these packs into your bank without having to constantly close and re-open the bank screen.

Imbued crystal equipment
Question: A crystal bow or shield could be upgraded, using Nightmare Zone points, making it keep its combat stats unchanged as it degrades.

This upgrade would expire when the item finally reverts to seed; if you got the seed chanted into another bow or shield, you'd have to get it imbued again. The fee for imbuing the crystal equipment would be reduced if the equipment is nearly worn out already.

Trimmed quest capes
Question: If you are wearing a quest cape at the moment when you complete an Endurance dream, the cape could become trimmed blue, giving it a +2 prayer bonus and increasing its defence stats from +9 to +11.

Question: If you are wearing a quest cape at the moment when you complete a hard Endurance dream, the cape could become trimmed red, giving it a +2 prayer bonus and a +1 attack bonus, and increasing its defence stats from +9 to +11.

N.B. A fire cape would still offer more bonuses that either of these capes.

If the first question passes, and the second one doesn't, you'll get the blue-trimmed cape from completing an Endurance dream in normal mode or hard mode.

Scrolls of redirection
Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell scrolls of redirection for use on a Teleport to House tablet, redirecting it to any house portal or to Trollheim.

The scrolls and redirected tablets would be untradeable. The Trollheim tablets might be convenient if you want to visit the God Wars Dungeon in the coming weeks, so we'd aim to deliver this update in time for the GWD launch if it passes its poll.

Imbued black mask
We've had numerous requests for some kind of Slayer update. Once the GWD and PvP world projects are out of the way, we're hoping to undertake a larger Slayer project, but we'd nevertheless like to offer something for the slaying community now.

'Question: Black masks could be imbued, using Nightmare Zone points. The imbued version would give a 15% bonus to your accuracy and max hit against your assigned Slayer target in melee and ranging, and 15% bonus to your accuracy with magic, and would have no negative attack bonuses in ranging or magic. The imbued masks would be untradeable.'

This is the same sort of bonus that the existing black mask offers in melee.

Cosmetic cow mask
'Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell a cosmetic cow mask. The mask would be untradeable.'

The cow mask was made for a random event that we decided not to launch. It involved going to ScapeRune to help the Duke of Bridgelum reassemble dead cows from their component parts. The testers at the time pointed out that the dismembered cow parts looked grotesque ("Please pass me the cow's udders!") so the project was cancelled. We kept the cow mask for posterity. It's mildly grotesque too.

More resources

 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell Mort Myre fungus to players who have completed the Nature Spirit quest.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell unicorn horn dust.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell desert goat horn dust.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell Wine of Zamorak.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell swamp tar.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell limpwurt roots.
 * Question: Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell vials of water.

Halloween Event
Finally, for Halloween, we'd like to re-open the holiday event from 2006. That's the one where Diango's accidentally got his workshop infested with poltergeists, written by Mod Wilson.

As promised, we'll be making available all the Halloween-themed holiday items. If this Halloween event passes its poll, players who complete the event will permanently unlock all the untradeable Halloween-themed items: pumpkin mask, skeleton costume, zombie head, scythe. They will also receive TWO (so you can save your bank spot) of each of the following tradeable items: pumpkin, red mask, green mask, blue mask.

We will also create a black Halloween mask, and award it to players who complete the event. This black mask will be untradeable, and can be reclaimed from Diango or a player-owned house costume room if it is lost. The item will be made available again in future years on Halloween.

'Question: The 2006 Halloween event will be re-opened. As a reward, it would give a black Halloween mask, which would be untradeable.'

If this Halloween event doesn't pass its poll, we'll design an alternative way of making the Halloween-themed holiday items available, as previously promised.

People have asked why we don't do Halloween 2007, or release the Halloween 2007 rewards from the Halloween 2006 event. Integrating all the graphics for the Halloween 2007 event would be a fairly lengthy process, and we'd prefer not to delay the GWD update more than necessary. Nevertheless, those graphics seem to be available to us, and they might come in handy in 2014...

Summary
Next week, we'll be opening Content Poll 10. It'll offer some feedback changes to the forthcoming new GWD weapons, and will also offer a large selection of new rewards for Nightmare Zone. Finally we're offering to re-open the Halloween 2006 event.

Here's the provisional list of questions for the poll. Please let us know if anything's unclear so that we can fix it before opening the poll after the weekend.

God Wars Dungeon

 * A new level 70 crossbow will be released with a range attack bonus of +100 and a prayer bonus of +1. Its attack distance will be +1 greater than the runite crossbow, and it will have the same attack rate. Its special attack would be to guarantee that enchanted bolts would perform their special action in your next shot. This would drain 100% of your special attack energy. The crossbow would be an Armadyl item, but would be dropped by the Saradomin boss in the GWD because she stole it.
 * In last poll, where we offered a magic weapon that would behave similarly to the Staff of Light, we didn't specify that it would boost magic damage by 15%. Should it have that bonus?
 * The new magic weapon has a special attack that halves the melee damage you take for one minute. While that is in effect, should it also halve the melee damage you deal?

Nightmare Zone

 * The following rings could be imbued, using Nightmare Zone points, giving them higher combat stats: Seer, Archer, Warrior, Beserker, onyx, dragonstone and diamond.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades an anti-fire potion to a super anti-fire potion, requiring level 89 Herblore. The super anti-fire potion would block all dragonfire damage, and would also reduce the effects of the KBD's other attacks. Level 93 would be needed to add caviar.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades a super energy potion to an energy renewal potion, requiring level 92 Herblore. The energy renewal potion would restore all your run energy, and keep it topped up for 30 seconds. Level 96 would be needed to add caviar.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell an ingredient that upgrades a prayer potion to a super prayer potion, requiring level 94 Herblore. The super prayer potion would increase your Prayer by 4 points more than the existing prayer potion does, and could boost your Prayer stat above its base level to do this. Level 98 would be needed to add caviar.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell packs of 10 unidentified herbs. The herbs taken from these packs would be random, with the same distribution as you get from standard monster drops.
 * A crystal bow or shield could be upgraded, using Nightmare Zone points, making it keep its combat stats unchanged as it degrades.
 * If you are wearing a quest cape at the moment when you complete an Endurance dream, the cape could become trimmed blue, giving it a +2 prayer bonus and increasing its defence stats from +9 to +11.
 * If you are wearing a quest cape at the moment when you complete a hard Endurance dream, the cape could become trimmed red, giving it a +2 prayer bonus and a +1 attack bonus, and increasing its defence stats from +9 to +11.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell scrolls of redirection for use on a Teleport to House tablet, redirecting it to any house portal or to Trollheim.
 * Black masks could be imbued, using Nightmare Zone points. The imbued version would give a 15% bonus to your accuracy and max hit against your assigned Slayer target in melee and ranging, and 15% bonus to your accuracy with magic, and would have no negative attack bonuses in ranging or magic. The imbued masks would be untradeable.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell a cosmetic cow mask. The mask would be untradeable.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell Mort Myre fungus to players who have completed the Nature Spirit quest.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell unicorn horn dust.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell desert goat horn dust.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell Wine of Zamorak.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell swamp tar.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell limpwurt roots.
 * Nightmare Zone's reward shop could sell vials of water.

Halloween
The 2006 Halloween event will be re-opened. As a reward, it would give a black Halloween mask, which would be untradeable.

Mods Ash & Nexus Content Developers