Bonus XP Weekend/March 2010



The bonus XP weekend is an event that started at noon 12:00PM GMT Friday, 12 March 2010 and will last until noon 12:00PM GMT Monday, 15 March 2010. During this event, players can gain a significant amount of extra experience for the first seven hours of their personal gameplay time. This event is members only, but members can participate on free-to-play worlds.

Mechanics
When players initially log in on the weekend, they gain 2.7 times the usual rate for all "normal" training activities. The multiplier then decreases over time to a minimum of 1.1. Time spent off-line or in the lobby does not count towards the lowering of the multiplier.

The "XP+" mini-interface tracks the total amount of bonus xp gained per playing session (not the total experience) for example, lighting a maple log (135 xp) under the 2.7x multiplier would give 364 xp; however, the bonus XP+ counter would only increase by 229.

The current multiplier is shown in-game over the course of the weekend. Players have access to an interface showing a running total of the extra experience they've earned, over what they would have normally earned (since the player has logged in, not over the entire event), as well as the amount of time they have been logged in (total, over the entire event).

Originally, Jagex released an equation that gave the bonus xp multiplier as a function of time, and it was stated that the multiplier would be recalculated on every XP event, accurate too one minute. It was also stated that this equation would apply for 10 hours, after which the multiplier would fall to 1.1 and remain there for the rest of the weekend.



The formula was: $$\left(\frac{x-10}{7.5}\right)^2+1.1$$ for the domain 0<x<10 and where x is the number of hours played. The graph to the right was also released with the formula.

Taking the integral of the given equation over the 10 hours gave 16.9 (an average multiplier of 1.69 over the 10 hours)

However, when the event started, players noticed that the the bonus xp multiplier could only be a multiple of 0.2 + 0.1. Additionally, the multiplier decreased faster than expected due to intermediate rounding. It is not clear that Jagex actually QA tested this update, as this was an incredibly obvious error. The above formula and graph were then deleted from the developer blog and Mod Fnord said that the mistake would not be corrected.

The following table shows how much bonus XP is actually received after a certain amount of play time. Notice that the 1.1 rate is actually reached after 7 hours and 1 minute, not 10 hours as expected.

The amount of random events a player receives when the bonus modifier is in effect is greatly increased. Some players experienced six or more random events within the first half-hour of play. This suggests that the frequency of random events is at least partly dependent on the amount of experience being gained, due to the fact that doing the same activity resulted in more random events with a higher multiplier than with a lower multiplier or no multiplier.

Limitations
The bonus XP rate does not affect XP gained from quest rewards, XP items (such as genie lamps), or XP gained on a point by point basis (such as Penguin Points). Furthermore, the effect of Sacred Clay items, Penance horns, and brawling gloves does not stack with the bonus XP rate. Those items can be used without any degradation or potential decrease.

Goldsmithing gauntlets do not work during the bonus XP weekend. Gold ore smelted using the gauntlets will be the same as gold ore smelted without. This gives a smelting XP rate of 22.5 XP per ore times the multiplier.

When training prayer, Player-owned house altars do not give the usual extra experience for having high level altars and/or burners lit during the weekend - instead they only perform at the player's current bonus XP weekend multiplier rate. Conversely, the bonus XP weekend multiplier rate is not applied to the Ectofuntus which continues to give the quadruple prayer experience that it normally does.

Strategy
To optimise the benefit the basic strategy is to prepare items in advance - acquiring ores, bars, tertiary ingredients, charms and so forth, then processing these as fast as possible. Detail depends on the player's preferences, for example: If overall gain (towards all 99s, say) is the goal benefit from individual activities is better measure in time saved than in XP:
 * 1) Achieving a particular XP/level goal in some skill or skills
 * 2) Optimising net XP earned
 * 3) Minimising a disliked task
 * 4) Saving money
 * 5) Saving time

Effective multiplier = (multiplier x (prep time + skilling time) - (prep time)/skilling time

So for the basic extractive skills, combat, runecrafting where prep time is virtually nil, the benefit is simply the multiplier, whereas for summoning collecting the charms probably takes 10 times as long as crafting pouches so the effective multiplier would be 11 instead of 2 : (2 x (10+1) - 10)/1.

On this basis summoning is the optimal skill to train since its preparation ratio is largest, and not buyable.

To gain maximum XP however by boosting farming one might:
 * 1) Log on 12:00 Friday, check, cut and replant all trees, log off
 * 2) Log on 12:00 Saturday, check, cut and replant all trees, log off
 * 3) Log on 12:00 Sunday, check all trees. (Continue with any other tasks having used a fairly small amount of the time.)

This could provide hundreds of thousands of xp, but the time saving is fairly minimal. On the other hand double value has been had from potentially expensive seeds, saving maybe millions of coins.

You can also have your highest level farm items planted in advance of the bonus xp weekend. Check them immediately upon log in. Replant before you leave the area and repeat above.

Prayer is pretty much cheaper and faster at a player owned house without the bonus XP than normal burying (figures based on 2x).

Slayer is an apparent candidate skill because both slayer and combat skills will be bonused. However this benefit is illusory, the saving is purely in time and as slayer generally yields money, time would be better spent in loss making skills.

For Herblore the best method is to make the highest potions possible and regress to lower potions as supplies deplete. Making a potion high or low level takes the same amount of time the only difference being how much xp gained. Since the Weekend Bonus will eventually go down, making the better potion will yield the better bonus. Keep in mind that by gaining levels more potions may be unlocked for herbs.

Half or pre-potting the primary item in advance will greatly effect experience gained.

For high-level Runecrafting since ZMI and Graahk methods have conflicting benefits normally, ZMI generally reckoned to be superior in XP, Graahk clearly the leader in coins, players who use both should dedicate this time to ZMI to maximize the XP benefit. Similarly woodcutters who mix Ivy and tree cutting, should choose this time for Ivy cutting, however if they are also fire-makers they would do better still by burning logs which would normally be considered too expensive for the XP gained.

Effect on market
The Grand Exchange market mechanisms were not able to respond quickly enough to the massive surge in demand for precursor items.

Consequently the market sold out of many items, such as magic, yew and eucalytpus logs, most tertiary summoning components (such as tinderboxes, raw beef, uncooked bird meat was trading off exchange for 2k, however less used items such as steel bars were still available), and many other items.

Many of the items relating to less popular skills to train during the weekend went down, notably expensive weapons. For example, dragon claws dropped 1.5m in one day. However, they recovered rather quickly; dragon claws rose about 400k the day after it dropped 1.5m.

Moreover a glut of product meant that pouches for example were likely to drop in price.

Trivia

 * A glitch occurred, that when using any shop interface the XP counter would show that it was adding the same amount of experience you last gained as a bonus when you opened the interface, attempted to buy something, and closed the interface. This experience was not actually given and did not actually be added to the bonus XP.
 * There was no system update when this was added into the game, so some players found themselves wasting the first 1-5 minutes wondering when it would update.
 * It is not yet known which activities are affected by the Bonus XP Weekend.
 * Upon opening the several store interfaces, one recives a random amount of bonus exp (most likely based on the last received amount of bonus xp), then when purchasing an item another amount of exp, and a final amount of exp for closing the interface. This doesn't affect any skill, and doesn't add up to the xp counter. You just see the xp moving to the total, just like gaining xp. If the player didn't gain any xp since the last login, the amount of added xp would be -1, which is impossible, as you can't lose xp in RuneScape.
 * In the article on Double Exp Weekend found on the front page on the Runescape website, it was said that one's XP counter would reach 1.1x after 10 hours of gameplay. Players were dissapointed to find out that it acctually hit 1.1x after 7 hours of gameplay.