Upcoming updates

This page is a list of upcoming RuneScape updates.

Skilling pets
Skilling pets to represent players' prestige/ability in skills are planned for release in August 2016.

Augmenting dyed equipment
Mod Ramen is working on making it possible to augment dyed tier 90 armour and weapons. The ability to augment weapons has been completed, he is now working on making it possible to augment armour and to dye armour and weapons which have already been augmented. Augmented dyed equipment will not feature the cogs associated with most augmented items (they will look identical to non-augmented versions), and are expected to be released in August.

Augmentable skilling tools
Jagex are looking at adding more augmentable devices for skills which do not involve use of tools e.g. Smithing and Crafting. The addition of augmentable pickaxes for Mining, which was dropped and replaced by augmentable Fishing tools during the initial release of Invention content for non-combat skills, is planned to be released alongside the Mining and Smithing rework.

Batch 2
Batch 2 of Invention is planned for second half of 2016. This is planned to include content post level 99, machines, a larger Invention Guild and additional tech trees.

Mining and Smithing rework
A rework of Mining and Smithing was planned for September 2016, however the rework has since been postponed to 2017 due to player feedback. The following information about Jagex's plans for the rework was revealed before they made the decision to push back the rework.

On 6 May 2016, the first of a series of Mining/Smithing rework polls was released, to gauge player interest and what the community wanted from a rework. From this survey Jagex found that players wanted Mining to remain a mainly AFK skill; for the Mining level cap not to be increased to 120; and for Mining and Smithing to involve keeping and using ores rather than drop training. The main aims of the rework are to bring the Mining and Smithing levels required to use ores in line with the Defence levels required to use the weapons and armours created from them; to add a reward space for future content; and to make Mining more exciting and less competitive. In a livestream on 14 June 2016 Jagex revealed their plans for the rework. It is proposed that the Mining and Smithing levels required for existing ores will be reduced and that new ores will be added in their place at higher levels:

Proposed new ores:

As part of the rework all ore and smithable items will be removed from monsters' drop tables. Attention will be paid to monsters that will lost most wealth from the removal of adamant and rune drops: their drops will be replaced with materials that help with Mining and Smithing where necessary. Jagex will also be replacing these items in clue scroll, crystal key, crystal triskelion, and boss monster drop tables. The new necrite, invictum and aetherium ores, bars and equipment will not be obtainable as drops.

There will also be changes to some existing training methods. Due to decreases in the tier of mithril, adamant, and runite, Smithing experience gains in Artisans Workshop and Lava Flow Mine will be reduced. Blast Furnace's resource return rate will be rebalanced to take into account changes in coal requirements. Seren stones will remain mostly the same, but smelting corrupted ore may give a lower experience rate. Mining familiars will no longer giving a Mining level boost, but will instead increase the amount of damage done to rocks. There will not be new divine rocks, but the existing ones may be altered.

A rework of the Mining and Smithing skills was first mentioned at RuneFest 2013 by Mod Jack. The project was pursued again after it being voted the most wanted update by long-term players currently on a break and third most popular by current players.

Mining
The mechanics of Mining will be reworked so that rocks have a "capacity" mechanic, similar to life points. When a player mines a rock they will have a chance to either hit or critically hit the rock. A successful hit will deal damage to the rock and award the player Mining experience. A critical hit will deal greater damage to the rock's capacity and award ore and bonus Mining experience. Reducing a rock to zero capacity will reward the player with a bulk amount of Mining experience and at least one ore, if they have passed a sufficient threshold of damage dealt. It is intended that capacity will be per player, though technical investigation of this possibility is still underway.

Rocks will also have a "hardness" value indicating how difficult it is to mine them, with higher level rocks having increased hardness. The speed mechanic of pickaxes will be removed; instead higher tier pickaxes will deal increased damage to rocks' capacity. Pickaxes will have a "penetration" value indicating how easily they can overcome a rock's hardness. Mining a rock with a higher hardness than a pickaxe's penetration value will make critical hits less likely, so the player will receive less ore and have a lower experience rate.

There will be new pickaxes for each of the new types of ore. Additionally there will be a consumable pickaxe giving a greatly increased rate of mining. It will be possible to smith this at level 99 Smithing; it is intended for training post-99 Mining. Crystal pickaxes will be removed and players who own them will be refunded 4,000 harmonic dust and a dragon pickaxe. A dragon pickaxe will instead be required to make the aetherium pickaxe. It will be possible to use harmonic dust to buff the new pickaxes to provide extra of the new Smithing secondaries.

Another potential addition shown in the first Mining and Smithing rework livestream was mining shafts. These are not currently being developed and will not be released with the initial rework. In this content players would explore mine shafts to search for ores. The mine shafts would be procedurally generated limited instances allowing several players to explore a mine shaft simultaneously, though the mine shaft would not appear the same to all of them. Delving deeper into the mines would grant the player higher level ores but also increase the risk involved. Exploring mine shafts could result in non-safe death to the player. The following mining shaft levels were suggested:


 * Basic levels (1-3) - up to adamantite ore available, little danger but little to explore.
 * Early levels (4-6) - increased chance of rare ores, bonus hit chance to gathering ore and small risk.
 * Level 7-9 - increased hit chance to gathering ore; reduced chance to spawn common ores and increased hit chance to gathering ore; greater sense of exploration (no paths already opened) and moderate risk from monsters, environmental danger and tunnel collapse.
 * Level 10+ - superior hit chance to gathering ore and best chance to discover rare ores, greater sense of exploration and high risk from dangers.

In the initial livestream Jagex also suggested that they could add more types of pickaxe. Examples given were two handed pickaxes, with a poor rate of ore but superior experience per hour, and dual wield pickaxes, with a superior rate of ore but poorer experience per hour. However, these are not going to be included in the initial rework; and different plans for new tiers of pickaxes were revealed in the second rework livestream.

Smithing
Smelting will be altered so that more ores are required to make bars. Coal will only be required for lower tier bars; new secondary ingredients will be required for the new bars. It is intended that this will cause Smithing to introduce fewer items into the economy while maintaining the same experience rates. The experience curve for Smithing is intended to make it so that it is always more beneficial to smith the best tier items available to the player. The new bar recipes will be:

As more ores will be required for smelting, players will be able to create storage crates to carry ores. Storage crates will be automatically filled when mining and the ores contained within them will be used directly when smelting and smithing. It will be possible to empty a storage crate into the backpack or bank. There will be a crate for each tier of new ore (orichalcum, necrite, invictum, and aetherium) which will be made from the ore from the tier below.

Smithing will be updated to include masterwork Smithing, which will involve using hard-to-make ingredients to create items with higher levels and stats, as well as the existing standard Smithing. Bars created from standard smithing may be spent on obtaining and completing work orders. These will give the best Smithing experience but no items. Players will unlock new kinds of work order with a maximum of 4 bars being required to complete the tasks. The player will be able to become a master of smithing both particular types of item and particular tiers of item by smithing a number of items of a type/tier, which will unlock benefits when smithing the items.

Masterwork Smithing will involve using untradeable tertiary ingredients, obtained only from Mining, or bars to make standard items. These items can then be broken down to make folded bars which can be smithed into masterwork items. These will include the new 70+ Smithing armours. The proposed new necrite, invictum and aetherium armour sets will include full helmets, platebodys, platelegs, shields, scimitars, gloves and boots. These items will be tank armour but will have lower stats than those obtained from PvM at the equivalent tier and take longer to get, to maintain viability of monster drops. Aetherium armour will also have a life point boost. It will also be possible to smith new pickaxes for each of the tiers. The masterwork combat equipment will be tradeable and augmentable.

By using smithed masterwork items as well items smithed from orichalcum and dragon equipment on the dragon forge it will be possible to make honed masterwork items which will have additional stat bonuses.

Stats of the new masterwork and honed masterwork armour:

Summer Beach Party
The Summer Beach Party will return in August 2016. It will include some new events as well as popular events from the beach party in 2015 (coconut shy, coconut collecting, sandcastle building, fishing, beachball rolling, battleships, cooking grills, strongmen, and Claudia). New events will include terrorbird racing, which will give Agility experience, hook-a-duck, which will give Hunter experience, and a daily treasure hunt. New rewards will include a striped beach towel cape and wearable shark fin as well as starfish and seahorse pets. The seahorse pet will be obtained via a Treasure Hunter promotion. Players will once again be able to gain titles previously available from the beach and use Distraction and Diversion portals. There will be a new portal to The Arc region.

The event was originally planned to incorporate some content from the 2012 Gielinor Games to celebrate the and, however Jagex later decided against this as it was felt that the content now looked too dated.

Sliske's Countdown
The final four quests of the Sliske quest series are being released in 2016 as part of what Jagex are calling Sliske's Countdown, alongside the God Scoreboard. Nomad's Elegy was released on 15 February, and Kindred Spirits was released on 23 May. The remaining quests are:

Fate of the Gods II
Fate of the Gods II is an upcoming quest that will be a sequel to Fate of the Gods as well as part of the Sliske quest series. It is expected to be released in Autumn 2016.

Sliske's Endgame
Sliske's Endgame will be the finale of the Sliske quest series, it is planned for release in the second half of 2016.

15 Year Anniversary Celebrations
15 Year Anniversary Celebrations marking 15 years since the creation of RuneScape will be ongoing throughout 2016. In addition in-game celebrations, these will feature:


 * Re-opening of RuneScape Classic for the whole year.
 * Creation of a documentary, RuneScape - 15 Years of Adventure, about the history of RuneScape, which was intended for release in Spring 2016.

Bounty Hunter rework
A Bounty Hunter system will be reintroduced on two dedicated worlds.

Deathmatch
Deathmatch is a new safe player vs player minigame that will replace the Crucible.

Shattered Worlds
Shattered Worlds is a competitive minigame involving combat that is planned for release some time after Summer 2016.

This week's patch notes
The following fixes will be released in the week beginning 1 August 2016:


 * Tier 85+ weapons and armour, as well as some other rarer items, will now be consumed when keepsaked. This is to prevent players having keepsakes of items which they no longer own following the introduction of new rare weapons from Telos. Players who own keepsakes of the affected items will have them removed from their keepsake slots and will be refunded a keepsake key for each item removed.
 * Fixes for The Arc.
 * It will be possible to disturb strykewyrms from a greater distance using Magic/Ranged and the delay between disturbing a strykewyrm and being able to attack it will be reduced by one cycle. Stats of strykewyrms will be buffed: jungle strykewyrm's life points will be increased from 6,000 to 8,000 and their max hit from 268 to 643; desert strykewyrm's life points will be increased from 8,000 to 10,000 and their max hit from 296 to 710; and ice strykewyrm's life points will be increased from 15,000 to 25,000 and their max hit from 304 to 729.
 * Chronicle Players will be moved inside pubs.
 * Jack of trades aura will correctly display which skills the player has gained experience in.
 * Invention will be added to the auto-redeem option from Treasure Hunter.
 * Teci items will now have their names correctly stated in the raids reward shop instead of "null".
 * Rick Turpentine v. The (Rich) People court case will be completable again.
 * Corrected Grand Exchange prices on examines of broken Heart of Gielinor items.

Other planned fixes and updates

 * Mod Ramen is looking into converting item pets into interface pets in his personal project time. An override for the Vitalis pet will be added when this conversion happens.
 * The following items will be made keepsakeable: lava whip, strykebow, staff of darkness, disguises from Rocking Out (fake moustache and nose, fake monocle, moustache and nose, curly wig, and straight wig), attuned crystal gloves and boots, snowball, water balloons, Harry's cutlass, lucky cutlass, rapier, eagle cape, and rat pole.
 * Mod Orion is working on making cosmetic overrides for god books during his personal project time. Players will be able to use different recolours if they have created the corresponding god books. Additional colours will be available if the player has all other recolours unlocked.
 * Mod Doctor is developing some improvements for player-owned houses in his personal project time. These include:
 * Adding a toggle for the "There's no place like home" loading screen which is displayed when entering a house. It was initially planned to remove the loading screen, however this idea was altered due to player feedback.
 * Adding an option to replace door hotspots with walls to increase customisation of room layout.
 * Customisation of furniture hotspot's positions and rotation within a room. Players will still be restricted to placing types of furniture within the corresponding room.
 * Ability to move rooms without losing their contents.
 * Mod Dolan is working on updating graphically some amulets and necklaces.

Wilderness Tasks set
Wilderness updates including a Wilderness Tasks set will be added in August 2016. New content for the Wilderness will include:


 * Divination wisps at the Sword of Edicts which produce different types of divine energy depending on the player's Divination level. These wisps will give faster Divination experience rates than other spots.
 * 3 new potions: luck potion; camouflage potion (makes the player's minimap dot not show up); and aggression potion (makes all combat NPCs attack the player). These will be made using the new bloodweed herb which may only be grown in Wilderness herb patches.
 * Increased tools and levels of monsters in the Bandit Camp and made them aggressive to non-skulled players.
 * Contracts to kill Slayer monsters in the Wilderness. These can be lost if the player is pked and progress will be transered to the pker. Spawns of abyssal demons and gargoyles in the Wilderness were shown in the August behind the scenes video.
 * Charming moths on the eastern coast of the Wilderness; these will give Hunter experience and charms when caught, similar to charm sprites.
 * Rogues will be pickpockettable.
 * Cape merchants will be able to bank items. There will be a new cape merchant called Harrison.
 * The demonic skull will be extended to work on 6 skills.
 * The Chaos Altar will be upgraded.
 * A new switch called "Switch A" which may be pulled

Catherby and White Wolf Mountain graphical rework
Catherby and White Wolf Mountain will be updated in August 2016.

The Arc
The second half of The Arc will be released in October 2016.

New game guide
The Jagex-run Runescape Wiki will be removed from the website and will be replaced with a smaller game guide section.