Summoning

Summoning is a members-only skill released on January 15, 2008. Before using this skill, players must first complete the Wolf Whistle quest. This quest is started by speaking to Pikkupstix in a house on the east side of Taverley.

Before it was released, Jagex planned to release four mini-Development Diaries and three wallpapers detailing the process of developing the skill. All three wallpapers and four development diaries have now been released. Conflicting reports from Jagex moderators have been given, however Paul Gower has said that Summoning will definitely be members-only. This has been confirmed in the final development diary.

Also stated in the final development dairy was that a second batch of creatures are being released in February. This is due to the trouble people may have at downloading such a large amount of content at once.

Summoning Items
Summoning includes the use of 4 new subitems. These include Pets, Familiars, Summoning Scrolls, and new Summoning only items. These and their required Summoning skill levels are listed below:

Shops

 * Yanille
 * Yanille Petshop
 * Taverly

Obelisks

 * 1) Gu'Tanoth
 * 2) Taverly
 * 3) Mort Myre
 * 4) Isafdar
 * 5) Brimhaven
 * 6) Piscatoris
 * 7) Kharidian Desert

Fights
This familiar will fight with you when you attack something, the level in brackets indicates the familiar's Combat level. Note that you must choose to attack for it to come to your aid. The pack yak and unicorn stallion will only fight to defend themselves, and then only if you have auto-retaliate turned on.

Light enhancer
Some familiars - notably bats - can see well in the dark and will make any light source you have with you brighter.

Right-click
A small number of familiars have a special ability that they can use (normally in combat). To trigger one of these, right-click your familiar and select the name of the ability.

Skill boost
Some familiars can temporarily raise your level in a given skill, while some other familiars provide an 'invisible' boost that is always active. The number in brackets indicates the size of the boost, and the term 'invisible' indicates that is always active as long as your familiar is close by.

Remote view
These familiars can fly into the air and allow you to see through their eyes, giving you the ability to see things much further away.

Beast of burden
A beast of burden can carry a number of items equal to the number in brackets. In some cases, it will only be able to carry certain items, in which case they will be listed.

Forager
A forager will find certain items from time to time, and can carry a number of them equal to the number in brackets. You are only able to 'Withdraw' items from these familiars.

Background
The first hint of Summoning was the discovery of Life runes, which were never released. For more information about life runes, see below.

Summoning was mentioned in Issue 20 of the God Letters when Saradomin mentions the Mysterious Old Man who apparently roams RuneScape looking for people who are "of such low intellect that they cannot respond even directly to their own name" and would teleport the aforementioned over great distances (using a mysterious type of rune) if they did not respond in an attempt to "test" Summoning.

On March 31, 2004 a Behind the Scenes-like article was published, which included the updates of the next few years. Within these, there were also "Summoning spells - summon skeletons, demons, etc...!".

Some degrees of Summoning were introduced in RuneScape, both from NPCs and players.

Many NPCs summon monsters and other magical energies; for example, Malignius Mortifer summons ghosts, skeleton mages, skeletons and sometimes fungi when he fails to summon another creature, though he will tell you himself, that necromancy has nothing to do with summoning. Wizard Grayzag, at the top of the Wizard's Tower, used to summon imps to fight for him when he was attackable, but according to Malignius, he is also a Necromancer. Strongbones also summons four Skoblins to fight alongside him. And Melzar the Mad summons cabbages from his garden.

On February 19, 2007, the Tower of Life quest and the subsequent Creature Creation minigame were introduced, where players could "summon" certain creatures. At the time, some players speculated that this was all there was going to be to players' summoning abilities. After the Tower of Life quest came out Mod Ash stated on the forums that this was not summoning and that it was more of a test to see how the servers would handle summoning. He also stated that there was more to come in this area.

Concept
Firstly, Summoning was considered as an addition to Magic, leading to the creation of life runes. They were never released, but some players managed to deduce their existence. After the development of alternate spellbooks, Summoning was changed to become an independent skill.

In February 2005, Mod Bennett wrote the initial brief for Summoning, which wasn't well-received. The development was halted, but it was revived in mid-2005, after Jagex moved into a new office. A new brief was written by Mod Wilson, this time calling the skill "Animal Lore", and with more focus on non-combat aspects of the skill. Some of the brief was considered technically infeasible by Jagex, and development was again halted. The brief was then modified to use a different approach, allowing the skill to again be named Summoning. Development based on this concept began in September 2006, shortly before the release of the Hunter skill.

Announcements
Most of what is currently known about Summoning comes through the four Development Diaries that have been released on the topic to date. Several wallpapers have also been released, although it is not possible to determine very much regarding the nature of the skill from these.

One of the most controversial aspects of the skill is that it will increase the maximum combat level to 138. Since it will not be available to free-to-play players, many have commented that this is unfair to them, since their maximum level will remain 126. Players have speculated based on this fact that Summoning will actually be available to free-to-play to balance this, with a Jagex moderator even "confirming" it, however contradictory statements have been given from Paul Gower and at least one other Jagex moderator. The fourth Development Diary, however, says that it is a members-only skill.

It is also known that Summoning will make use of birds' eggs, including those released in a hidden update in late 2007. Over 70 creatures were said to be summon-able in all.

The Development Diaries indicate that Summoning is expected by Jagex to be a difficult skill to understand. A quest, named Wolf Whistle, has been developed to serve as a tutorial for the skill and will be released on the same date as the skill itself. Its starting point is known to be in Taverley, giving further credence to the confirmation by Paul Gower that Summoning will be members-only.

With the final development diary being released as of the 9th of January, speculation on whether or not summoning will be available for both free players and members has all but ended with the note: ""It's my favourite members' skill that I've helped to release," says Mod Mark." The release date is still under speculation, however. The calendar in the picture at the top of the diary has days 14-20 circled, and "Jan" in the bottom right corner, supposedly meaning it will be released on or between the 14th and 20th of January. Also it was said that Jagex would release something summoning related every week untill the release, and nothing is planned for next week.

THIS JUST IN:

Summoning has come out! So far it has had a great amount of people trying it. It is very interesting as it holds many things nobody suspected. There are various "traits" of each summon. They include:

Scavenging- The ability to search for and randomly generate certain items

Beast of Burden- The ability to hold on to certain items

Remote Vision- The ability to let you see from a birds-eye view

Specials- These include boosts to stats and the ability to be used in fishing. For example, the Granite Crab can be used in place of a big net.

Scroll Specials- These are usually attacks which require you to turn a Summoning Pouch into a scroll and use to cast. These deal very good damage and require no runes.

A familiar that is summoned can only stay for a limited time, but you can re-start their timer at the cost of some points. This is convienent, as then you don't need to use another pouch to re-summon the same creature.

Leaks


If a player stands next to the table on which there is a green potion on the first (American: second) floor of the Magic guild, they can see part of a pet store in Yanille. It can also be viewed from a different angle by standing on the Yanille city wall. This is only visible on low detail. Every five minutes or so, the pet shop owner will exit the shop and take her bulldog for a walk. When you talk to her, however, she will say she is too busy preparing for the grand opening to talk.

It was possible to summon a Karamthulhu before the official release of Summoning but this "programming oversight" was soon fixed. Anyone trying to summon one using those methods before the skills release will receive the message "Sorry, you'll have to wait a little longer for one of those! :-)" in their chatbox. Mod Wilson explained that this bug has been around since Rum Deal but no one took much interest in it. He went on to explain that the Karamathulu has underwent further developed and that the one from the bug was just a prototype.

Skill icon


Each Summoning-related Achievement Diary featured a mug that had an image of a quarter circle with part of an image inside it. When these were put together, it was revealed that they formed the head of a wolf. There was much speculation on the nature of this image, and it has since been revealed to be the skill icon for Summoning.

Training
Initially it is not possible to use tomes of experience on summoning. You are advised to "try again in a few weeks".

Trivia

 * Summoning was released about 14:54 15 January 2008. Dark Dude 98 was the first to show up on Hiscores with level 30 at or before 19:55 15 January 2008 (UTC), which is about 5 hours after release. This includes completing the quest needed before starting the skill.
 * At the end of the day at 2359 15 January (about 9 hours after release) there were 122 players on hiscores with one at level 37.