Runescape plans for 2016 revealed

RuneScape is celebrating 15 years of service this year and Jagex has a lot planned for the game.

Following feedback from their community they have selected what content will be added to the game in 2016 and there’s a lot that’s made the cut. Lead Designer David Osborne, detailed their plans.

God Wars Dungeon 2

• March will see the introduction of a sequel to the most visited combat area in RuneScape God Wars Dungeon 2, which comes complete with a dynamic battlefield that delivers the ebb and flow of a multiplayer shooter.
• Four new bosses will be introduced, each multi-staged and stretching the player’s abilities to snapping point. The players performance on the battlefield can be spent on bringing units into battle hulking demons are parachuted into the centre of battle, ready to decimate opponents.

Improved Crafting System

• By reworking RuneScape’s Mining and Smithing skills, players will be able to do things they can¡¦t in other MMOs.
• Players will be able to specialise at making certain weapons, being the best in their chosen field. They’ll be able to put their own brand on the items they make, and make a living from smithing swords, rather than swinging them.

Invention

• Introduced in January, Invention is a massive update that represents a new skill with 100s of hours of content behind it.
• Invention takes weapon, armour and tools customisation to unheard of levels and delivers a crafting system that’s best in class.
• Players can take the items they have grown to love and augment them, adding their choice of abilities to them. Players can aim for the perfect weapon, or create an armoury that is ideal for any situation. Invention delivers over 5 trillion permutations for items, and that number is growing.

A new continent – the Wushanko Isles

• As a community, our players selected the Wushanko Isles to be the new continent they most wanted to see in game. It’ll be available this summer.
• The Wushanko Isles form an archipelago, sprawling out to sea, with a mixture of Japanese and Polynesian themes, which is surrounded by sea monsters.
• The Isles have a different currency, and the indigenous people have never heard of the player’s adventures. Players will have to start afresh, building back up their wealth and notoriety – even long-term players will be on a level playing field.

Storyline – Sliske’s Countdown

• RuneScape tells substantial, choice-oriented and serialised stories. This stance on story is something RuneScape’s players cherish.
• Every two months, RuneScape will introduce a new three-hour quest in a storyline called Sliske’s Countdown, complete with a villain, Sliske, who likes to play high-stake games. His game is to offer a hugely powerful artefact to whomever kills the most gods.
• This will turn RuneScape’s world into a Battle Royale of gods. The player will determine which god gains the artefact, and that god will be different from one player to another. Sliske’s Countdown will make a huge mark on the game world.

RuneScape’s new game client – NXT

• Stories of RuneScape’s scope demand scale and – above all – immersion and that will be delivered with the release of our new game client, NXT, which enters closed Beta on the 19th of February.
• With the introduction of NXT, players will be able to experience RuneScape’s world with a much greater degree of fidelity. Draw distance, quality of textures, lighting effects, water effects and so much more, give RuneScape the visual update it deserves.

Plus!

• The Gower Quest: A collaboration with Andrew and Paul Gower, original creators of RuneScape, for a new quest that pitches them as arch mages in an adventure behind the scenes of RuneScape – coming this summer.
• The bloody conclusion of the 12-year long Vampyre quest series.
• Two more Raid encounters for our top-end players.
• A new solo boss, especially for players who like to showcase their skills on Twitch.

Design Director Mark Ogilvie is very positive about the future of RuneScape which is an MMO that probably doesn;t get enough credit for what it;s achieved.

“We aren’t going anywhere other than onward and upwards. Some say that MMOs are a relic of the past, where today’s gamers are hungry for casual, five-minute gameplay – I say balls to that! We’re not declining, were growing, and our old, and new games will take our fantastic, theme park of adventures to the new generation, because they demand it.”

The improved visuals with new NXT game client are a real step up as you can see from these comparison shots.