Upcoming updates

This page is a list of upcoming RuneScape updates.

Skilling diversity updates
Jagex are aiming to introduce more fun and sociable skilling methods; with more rewards being gained when they are used interactively with other players. Ideas for new Thieving and Fishing training methods were shown at RuneFest 2017.

Deep sea fishing is the first activity that will be released. It is intended for release between February and April 2018. It will be available to players with a range of Fishing levels, and will encourage them to fish in a hub area together. The minimum Fishing level to participate will be around level 68 (the same as is required to enter the Fishing Guild. It will have several different activities including:


 * Fishing spots where players must click on the active spot to gain the best experience rate. These would not give fish but may award a kind of reward currency. Success rate will depend on the player's Fishing level, up to a maximum of 100% success rate at level 99. This is intended to give the best Fishing experience rate in game: Prifddinas Waterfall Fishing experience rates may be adjusted to achieve this.
 * Baitable spots where players may throw bait into spots to attract fish and create a new fishing spot. These may contain fish that are already in-game but which are hard to obtain, such as sea turtles and manta rays from Fishing Trawler.
 * Shoal fishing spots for new kinds of stackable fish which would be low healing, with unique uses or the ability to be traded in.
 * Ourania Runecrafting Altar style fishing spots: giving the player the chance to catch a range of fish, including those that they do not meet the Fishing level requirements for, at a very low catch rate.
 * Sail fish will have the highest Fishing level requirements and will heal more than other fish in the game.
 * Random events and interactions.

Safecracking will be an expansion to the Thieves' Guild aimed at players with level 65-95 Thieving. It is aimed for released between February and April 2018. It will involve the player looting from treasuries across RuneScape. Players will gain experience while trying to open a safe, with a larger experience drop when successfully opening the safe. Doing so will have the chance to gain legendary items, which will act as Thieving perks that grant the player experience and hanky points. New tiers of hanky point rewards will be added, allowing the player to unlock additional loot bags and safecracking techniques. Rewards will include the ability to put a lockpick and stethoscope on the tool belt, as well as stun protection to prevent being stunned while thieving.

Mod Timbo is also working on a design for Firemaking that will give the skill a key milestone.

Off-hand skilling items
Off-hand skilling items called magical relics will be added. The relics will have "themes" that grant benefits for skilling. Possible themes may be:


 * Sacrifice: damages or kills the player while giving more buffs
 * Restoration: buffs for skilling potions, regrowing locations
 * Time: make complex training methods less intense
 * Elemental
 * Destruction: destroy resources for alternative rewards

Magical relics will give set effects when used with the associated regular experience-boosting set. Relics and the catalyst fragments will be made augmentable, allowing the player to use skilling perks with the items. A further off-hand skilling item may be a heroic, elven related item. This would be a rare crystal item with lore relating to Lady Trahaearn.

Mining and Smithing rework
Mining and Smithing was expected to get an update in the second half of 2017. However Jagex found it difficult to produce a concept that could satisfy all players' expectations. An in-game poll was used to determine whether players would rather have an update to introduce new content at the higher levels of the skills, with a full rework being left to another future update. Players voted in favour of having a complete rework of the skills, and it was stated at RuneFest 2017 that development had started around mid-September. As part of the rework many pieces of content related to Mining and Smithing will be altered, including monster drop tables. Urns will likely be reworked to include a new decorated smelting urn, with strong smelting urns being changed to require level 70. A beta for the update was launched on 12 February 2018 and is expected to be open for 2 weeks.

Mining rocks will no longer deplete and there will no longer be competition with other players for ores. When mining the player will receive experience every time that they "strike" a rock (every 4 ticks). The player's Mining level and pickaxe will affect how much experience is gained per strike. Additionally, 1/10 of the player's Strength level will be added to their Mining level in determining the experience gained per strike. Stat boosts will affect the Mining level used to calculate the experience gained.

For each strike the player will make progress towards gaining an ore, shown on a progress bar above the character's head. The amount of progress gained will depend on the player's Mining level and the tier of pickaxe that they use. Lower tier pickaxes will not be effective in mining higher tier rocks. Approximately every minute a nearby rock of the same time that the player is mining will "explode". Player can click this to gain 10 times more progress towards gaining an ore for one strike. Ores will be stored in an ore bag that will spawn automatically in the player's inventory when they are mining. Players can click the bag to fill it without interrupting mining. Higher tier ores take up more spaces in the bag. With this update the coal bag will be altered, possibly by making it an upgrade to increase the capacity of the ore bag.

A resting mechanic will be added: every so often the character will take a break from mining for around 15 seconds. Players can re-click the rock early to gain a better experience rate, or choose not to click and wait until the character automatically resumes mining. The player's Agility level will determine how long a rest lasts and their Mining level will determine how frequently breaks are needed.

New tiers of ore will be added:

To preserve the value of dragon and crystal pickaxes, the tier 70 necrite pickaxe will be worse than them and will not be augmentable. Higher tier pickaxes will require the crystal pickaxe as part of their upgrade. The tier 90 pickaxe will be augmentable.
 * Coal (level 30) will no longer be necessary for high level Smithing. To preserve its usefulness it may be used in the heat mechanic.
 * Luminite ore (level 40) will replace coal as the secondary ingredient for adamant and runite bars.
 * Runite ore (level 50)
 * Drakolith ore (tier 60) will be for a weaker version of the dragon equipment that is forged by the dragonkin. It will not require use of the dragonkin forge to make. Drakolith won't be used to upgrade crystal pickaxes or hatchets or ascension crossbows.
 * Necrite ore (tier 70) will require phasmatite ore as a secondary ingredient.
 * Bane ore (tier 80) will require dark animica ore as a secondary. This is currently planned to use a similar idea to existing bane ores: the new bane ore will be used to make bane weapons that can be used to tune towards more things, with the weapons being boosted from tier 60 to tier 80 stats against the intended targets.
 * Elder rune bars (tier 90) will be made out of three ores: colossite ore/elder runite ore; living rock ore; and light animica ore.

Smithing will gain a new hopper system for storing ores and bars. Ores and bars will be deposited directly from the inventory/ore bag into the hopper, which will be shared across all furnaces and anvils. When smelting bars will go into the player's inventory, but they may be deposited straight back into the hopper. Smithing will use materials directly from the hopper.

Similarly to the planned mechanics for Mining, Smithing experience will be gained per "strike" while smithing: every 2 ticks while using an anvil. Strikes will count towards a progress bar which grants an unfinished item upon completion. A second progress bar will show how much "heat" that the item has. Every anvil will have a forge next to it to produce heat: the higher the heat the more progress and experience will be gained per strike. No progress will be made with 0% heat; 0-50% heat will give regular progress; 50-75% will give 2x progress; 75-90% will give 3x progress; 90-100% will give 4x progress.

Additionally, it'll be possible to get upgraded versions of base equipment. +X items will have the same level requirement to smith and equip as base versions, but will have +X tier stats. Players will be be able to create +1, +2, +3, +4 and +5 versions of base equipment: with the tier of equipment determining the maximum number of times that it can be upgraded:


 * Bronze: not upgradeable
 * Iron: +1
 * Mithril & adamant: +2
 * Rune & drakolith: +3
 * Necrite & bane: +4
 * Elder runite: +5

Creating +X items will give better experience than creating regular items and they will be tradeable. When an item is upgraded the maximum number of times the player will be able to convert it into an untradeable decorated version. It will be possible to give decorated items to an NPC to gain a large amount of experience.

Farming
Mod Easty is working on a rewrite of Farming code in RuneScape, including reworking how ticks work within the skill. This may allow for new quality of life features such as left-click planting (bypassing interfaces) and the previously scrapped Farming timer concept to be implemented.

Brimhaven Agility Arena
The Brimhaven Agility Arena will receive a high level addition which will involve players tagging pillars together. This is planned for release between March and April 2018.

Solak
Solak is a new boss that will be located within The Lost Grove. It is intended for release some time around March 2018. The boss may be killed with between 1 and 7 players. Each body part will have its own health bar. The boss will be a product of the anima, similar to Telos and Vorago. It will drop tier 92 dual wield Ranged weapons and a codex for a new Ultimate Ranged ability.

Hostilius
Mod Pi is working on creating a new demon boss called Hostilius that players will have to kill "from the inside out". The fight will scale to the number of players in a group (or solo). It will have three difficulty levels: casual, regular, and hardcore.

Combat fixes

 * Specific numbers will be added for certain buffs/debuffs.
 * Gizmos will be visible on augmented items when examining another player.
 * An update to Shattered Worlds will make its gameplay more interesting and will be worked on after Invention batch 2. There will be new objectives and hiscores of different types.
 * Clan Wars' rule selection and wars in progress interfaces will be updated.
 * Raids will receive improvements, such as reasons to do Raids more often; a better grouping system; reducing the amount of players required; improving the jellyfish (e.g. by giving buffs from killing it); and a gold version of the Daredevil title. The title would require the player to complete all Raids feats in one run without dying.
 * Corrupted slayer helmet is being improved by Ninjas. One of the improvements is 5% higher capture rate of souls.
 * Tier 90 augmentable degrade to dust weapons and armours will be able to level up to level 20.
 * Bounty Hunter will be fixed; this will involve useful rewards being redistributed to other content.
 * Mod Daze is working on making Telos more accessible for players who are colourblind.
 * Telos' "so much power" queue will correctly clear on phase transition.
 * Telos' anima bar will reset if using Immortality in phase 5.
 * When siphoning from fonts in a Telos fight, Telos will be untargeted so that golems take priority in the render order.
 * 4 tick auto attacking will be addressed:
 * Outside of Legacy Mode, the auto attack swing will not be reset/go backwards by changing weapons.
 * Performing an ability will delay auto attack swings by at least 5 ticks.
 * Add more interactivity to combat through other means to all combat styles. Current ideas are:
 * For Magic a new threshold, dual wield ability. This would cause basic abilities to reset the player's auto attack swing to allow spells to be cast in between using abilities. On top of this a bonus damage on would be gained on auto attacks for each unique damaging spell used during the buff. The passive effect would not be removed if switching to a staff.
 * For Ranged a new ultimate ability for all weapon types would be added as a drop from Solak. When activated global cooldown would be lowered from 1.8 seconds to 1.2 seconds for a short time. The cooldown of this ability would be longer than Death's Swiftness, as the player would be mobile during the ability being active, allowing adrenaline gain.
 * For Melee Bladed Dive would be able to damage an opponent while on global cooldown, potentially with a different amount of damage than when used off cooldown. Additionally, all stabbing weapons (daggers, swords. spears, and rapiers) may have a chance to not incur global cooldown when an ability is used. The Khopesh of the Kharidian would be converted to a stabbing weapon as part of this.
 * Soul Reaper tasks will be added to the in-game Slayer counter.
 * Mod Shauny is working on improving the Monster Examine spell to include detailed information about the player's chance to damage their target, and their chance of being damaged by their opponent.
 * An issue with Nex: Angel of Death becoming aggressive to different players will be fixed.

Pieces of Hate
During RuneFest 2017 it was announced that the next quest to be developed would be Pieces of Hate, a continuation of the pirate quest series. It is currently under development by Mod Raven, Mod Chaose and Mod Rowley. and is aimed for released some time around February 2018. NPCs including Mi-Gor, Barrelchest, Cap'n Izzy No-Beard, and other pirates will be graphically updated with the release of the quest. It will also see new characters, like Madame Shih, who will be a bridge between the pirates and Eastern Lands.

Double XP Weekend and GameBlast
The next Double XP Weekend will take place between 23 and 26 February 2018. This will coincide with GameBlast 2018. There will be new cosmetic outfits and eBay auctions, with previous cosmetic outfits also being available. The Well of Goodwill will not be re-opened.

Spring Fayre
The Spring Fayre will return in 2018, with less focus on needing RuneCoins to participate.

Needle Skips
Mod Osborne and Mod Krista are working on a murder mystery style quest called Needle Skips. It is aimed for release some time after April 2018.

In-game events calendar
Mods Erator and Chaplain have been working on an in-game calendar as part of a GameJam project. This is being tested and is intended for release between February and April 2018. The calendar will record events such as Treasure Hunter promotions, official livestreams and Jagex moderator events. There may also be support for showing when an account's membership expires and for "super events" which would take over the square for an entire day to notify the player of important updates. The calendar has been developed and is awaiting QA testing.

Rebuilding Edgeville
An update planned for between February and April 2018 will see the player repairing the dragonkin's destruction of Edgeville from Ritual of the Mahjarrat. Players will be able to begin the clean up by speaking to Mandrith in Edgeville to gain a to-do list. Completing all the tasks will award a dragonkin lamp and the chance to gain the Effy pet when using dragonkin lamps.

Treasure Trails
A rework for clue scrolls is being worked on by the ninja team and is going to be released on 26 February 2018. This is intended to make completing clue scrolls more rewarding. The rework will look at addressing players' most requested changes to clues:


 * Allowing players to have multiple clues of the same tier, with only one being active. Players will be able to have up to 25 clues of each tier of clue at the same time.
 * Improving Guthix and Saradomin wizards (making them left-clickable in the Wilderness, graphically updating them and Uri, making them weak to all combat styles, and making them use melee attacks only when the player is in melee range). Zamorak wizards will only occur in the Wilderness.
 * Make hints more helpful/less misleading.
 * Allow skillers to get more clue scrolls. Clue scrolls will be obtainable from Mining, Fishing, Woodcutting, and Divination.
 * Add a new clue tier: master clues. Master clues will involve new and old types of clue, including anagram and emote clues. New emote clues and two new puzzle boxes will be added. There will be a new type of clue called skill riddle challenges; for these the player will have to identify and complete the correct high-level skilling activity. Master clues will be obtained from high level PvM and skilling; completing clue scrolls, with more chance from higher level clues excluding other master clues; and the crystal triskelion. Most of the new rewards will be exclusive to master clues, with one exception being the robin hood outfit.
 * All tiers of clue will be available from skilling (Woodcutting, Fishing, Divination, and Thieving).
 * Look at drop tables.
 * Add a collection log (similar to the Boss collection log). The items obtained from clues are already being tracked since an update in Autumn 2017.
 * All clue rewards will be given as a casket, and puzzle caskets will turn into normal caskets after the final puzzle is solved. There will be no limit on the amount of caskets a player can have at once, and caskets will be bankable and stackable.
 * Introduce STASH (store-things-and-stuff-here) units to store the items required for emote clues. Players will be able to build STASH units near to locations required by emote clues with the appropriate Construction level.
 * Improve anagram clues by making them point to more relevant and recognisable NPCs and making the anagrams use recognisable words and hint towards their solution.
 * Players will be able to have up to 3 rerolls per tier of clue at once.
 * Scan clues locations in the desert will all be on the eastern side of the River Elid and locations in the Kharazi Jungle will all be located within the jungle (Herblore Habitat locations will be removed).
 * Meerkats will increase a scan clue's range by 5. They will gain a new animation to alert players when they're close to the clue's location.
 * Over 60 new rewards including the ice dye, following a successful in-game poll; mega-rare second age equipment; a flaming sword cosmetic override for main-hand and off-hand weapons; ballgown and tuxedo outfits that will be for male and female players; pyjamas; a robin hood outfit with an upgrade to increase its stats; gilded boaters and cavaliers; white and black hobby unicorns; pack yak masks, and dragon masks. Some existing rewards will be made available in free-to-play.
 * A reward to make the character leave a visible footprint trail may be added at a later time.
 * Master clue rewards will not be received from the Giant Oyster, but new rewards at other tiers may be received.
 * White Wolf Mountain scan clues will be replaced with Menaphos scan clues.

An NPC called Zaida will be added to the area just outside the main entrance to the Varrock Grand Exchange. Zaida will give players advice about clue scrolls and will provide the player with a clue scroll, dependent on their level, upon the release of the rework. Players who are 2018 Premier Club members will be able to claim a free master clue from Zaida for 2 weeks after the update's release. From here players will be able to access an interface which will have the ability to toggle receiving clue scrolls of particular tiers and show all possible STASH unit locations (organised by clue tier) and whether a player has built and filled the unit at each. An information board will also be added to this area; showing the statistics of the last 50 clue scrolls to be completed on the player's current world.

A reward currency will be added for completing clues. Currency will be added retrospectively, based on the number completed on the player's Quick Chat. This may be used to buy the globetrotter outfit, which will consist of four items and backpack. Each piece of the outfit will have an active ability to help in solving clue scrolls:


 * The boots will allow the player increased run energy, similar to the Oo'glog pool effect.
 * The gloves will allow the player to use teleports directly from their bank.
 * The shorts will allow the player to perform the required emote for an emote clue.
 * The backpack will allow the player to swap their active clue for another clue of the same tier.
 * The jacket will allow the player to teleport directly to their active clue's location.

Using these abilities will require the player to use charges. One charge will be gained for every five clues that the player completes. Each outfit piece may store up to 3 charges per piece. Owning a full outfit grants additional passive bonuses:


 * An additional charge may be stored per outfit piece.
 * One less clue will be required to gain a charge.
 * Players may store an additional clue reward reroll (four instead of three) with two outfit pieces, and can store five rerolls with a full outfit.
 * The outfit will act as the items required for a clue, if the appropriate items are stored in the clue's hidey hole.
 * Acts as luck of the dwarves for clues.
 * One less step will be required to complete clues.

Banks


The ninja team has been working on an update for banks that was aimed for release during the second half of 2017. However, due to the larger than anticipated amount of work on the game engine, this update is currently on hold while the engine team finishes work on RuneScape Mobile.

However, some changes that do not require engine work are being worked and will be released in February 2018, ahead of those that require engine work. These include access Diango and player-owned house costume room storage through the bank; a junk clean-up service like the Wise Old Man's; and 10 bank preset buttons being present in the bank interface. It is also possible that bank placeholders could be released ahead of the bank rework, some time after the bank rework taster.

Clans
Jagex have plans to update clans in 2018, however development will not begin until RuneScape Mobile is released. Potential updates include making clans easier to manage, introducing new players to clans earlier in the game, and having more competition between clans.

Clan avatars
Mod Moltare was working on changes to clan avatars, however he has since left Jagex. The project has since been finished by Mod Shauny and is now going through code review and QA:


 * The anagogic orts system will be removed: clan members will not need to pay orts to receive avatar buffs. Instead clan members will be able to activate their weekly buff using the avatar control stone which will be located next to the avatar habitat.
 * Clan members can choose between a buff of having 10% increased resource gain from clan skill plots (increased up to 50% with fealty) or base XP boost of 3% (increased up to an additional 3% with rank 1, 2, or 3 clan fealty).
 * The buff will work in places where familiars are disallowed, e.g. Runespan.
 * The avatar warden clan job will no longer be required to summon an avatar.
 * The heal over time, familiar faces, auto ort, random resurrection, and protector avatar buffs will be removed.
 * Each clan member can summon a clan avatar via the follower pets section of the pets interface, if they are in a clan with an active avatar habitat and have activated their weekly buff.
 * Ironmen will be able to take out the clan avatar but will not receive bonuses from it.
 * Avatars' gather resources while in citadel action will be accessible by the avatar control stone. Avatars will gather resources while summoned as pets up to a weekly maximum that is shared by the clan, scaling based on habitat tier.
 * Avatar customisation will be accessible via the avatar control stone for clan admins.
 * The clan XP buff icon will only show one icon which will display the total % of additional experience being gained by the player.
 * A buff icon will be added for the skill plot bonus buff.
 * The Clan Noticeboard will not longer show statuses of avatars.
 * The Clan Settings interface will be graphically updated and it will be possible to alter Clan Settings while skilling and during combat.
 * The clan avatar will have a special appearance when stored in a menagerie.
 * The Woodcutting, Mining, and Firemaking skill plots will grant more clan resources when used.
 * The Crafting, Mining, Smithing, Firemaking, and Woodcutting skill plots experience will be increased by 20% between level 80 and 99.
 * Urns will be filled by skilling at skill plots.
 * The active obelisk at the Summoning skill plot will change every 30 seconds, instead of every 17.
 * The chance to break a root while training at the Woodcutting skill plot will be reduced.

Mod Moltare had been working with Mod Asherz to make changes to the game engine to allow clan avatars to work with familiar overrides, before he left his job.

Seers' Village
The next in-game area to be graphically reworked will be Seers' Village and Camelot. Mod AoB is working on the update in between other projects. Currently the rework is at the stage of moving buildings around and blocking them out. Jagex are planning to make Camelot castle larger and built into the mountainside. Some unnecessary things, such as the estate agent, will be removed from the village. The Seers' Village Courthouse will be moved into Camelot castle and the coal truck mining site will be moved closer to Seers' Village furnace.

Dailies
The number of daily repeatable events will be addressed; several design options are being discussed.

Minigame hub
A hub for minigames will be added. Alongside this, unused minigames may be removed from the game.

RuneScape Mobile
RuneScape Mobile is an upcoming version of RuneScape and Old School RuneScape announced on 17 July 2017. The tentative release date is around 2018 Q3 at the moment for Runescape 3. Old School RuneScape was originally planned for release in Winter 2017, but has been delayed until early 2018.

Group Ironman
An update for Ironman Mode players, which will allow linked Ironman players to interact freely with each other and participate in group bosses and Dungeoneering, was announced at RuneFest 2017. Mod Ramen will be working on this after Solak is released, which is intended to be around March 2018. He will however be working on group ironman as TAPP prior to this.

Microtransactions
The Live Events team are currently working on updating the Members Loyalty Programme; this will include a review of current loyalty store items. Treasure Hunter will also be reworked. During the 2018 Year Ahead Q&A Mod Osborne stated that any new skilling outfits released would be added via game play.

Miscellaneous
The following fixes are planned for future updates:


 * Mod Timbo's current long-term projects include increasing the value of seeds; increasing ghostly essence drops; and removing resources from PvM.
 * Mod Edge is working on improving the skill guide:
 * Better navigating.
 * Toggle to hide members items.
 * Mod Osborne and Mod Ramen are working on adding examine texts to The Lost Grove.
 * More tier 92 weapons will be made dyable, this was initially planned for December 2017.
 * Optimisations will be made to the game including FPS improvements, fix camera at Barrows, and targeting for monsters which will allow the players to begin attacking using abilities rather than auto-attacks.
 * Potion tooltips will be made more informative. They will display what is being boosted and the amount being boosted.
 * Teleporting and creating teleports in Dungeoneering will be taken off the global cooldown.
 * The beasts interface will be improved in legacy mode; the interface will be grey like other legacy interfaces.
 * The follower information interface will be grey in legacy interface mode.
 * Tool tips will be added for all potions. These may be toggle on and off in settings.
 * Right-click "get rune" and "teleport" options will be added to the rune symbols in the wicked hood interface.
 * Mod Daze has created familiar overrides for all colours of the Bombi pet and has added a right-click recolour option for Bombi in the pet interface.
 * Mod Edge is planning on adding options to display a message when an aura is ready to use and to automatically extend favourite or non-favourite auras by 50 or 100% using vis wax to aura management.
 * Energy rifts will have a right-click configure option to set which energy/experience conversion option is the default for left-clicking the rift.
 * Item examines will have Grand Exchange prices and alchemy values added to them.
 * The Prifddinas clan teleports of the master camouflage outfit will show how many strikes the player has gained from each clan while thieving.
 * An option to sort alphabetically will be added to the emote interface.
 * Information about an auras' effect will displayed on hover-over if they are placed on the action bar.
 * Menaphite gift offerings will be made stackable.
 * Menaphite gift offerings will be made stackable and bankable and will have a right-click redeem X option added.