Welcome to RSR!

This week we bring you extensive improvements and new rewards for our brand new skill, Dungeoneering!

Hidden Resource Dungeons
Experienced dungeoneers will now be able to locate secret dungeons scattered far and wide across the world of RuneScape. Not only will these dungeons give a one-off Dungeoneering XP reward for locating them, but they also contain extremely useful resources within. Each dungeon requires a specific Dungeoneering level to access, from level 10 up to level 85. Rewards include new rune rocks, greater numbers of 'busy' monster spawns, herb spawns and trees to name a few. For a full list of the reward dungeons, including five for the free game, check out this Knowledge Base page.

Construction Hotspots
Players will be able to use their Construction skill in a dungeon to build useful locations in the start room. Requiring a hammer and some of the logs and bars found within the dungeon, you’ll be able to make:

A group gatestone portal
A photo booth
A farming patch
A range
A prayer altar
A skillcape stand, to show off your mastery of Dungeoneering.

Group Gatestone
The group gatestone portal is the default location found in the Construction hotspot. A group gatestone is given to the party leader, and anyone using the group gatestone portal will be teleported to wherever the group gatestone is, or next to whoever is carrying it. We've also added a Group Gatestone Teleport spell to allow you to teleport directly to the group gatestone from anywhere in a dungeon, not just through a group gatestone portal in the start room. This is available in the free game. Also, the Gatestone Teleport spell now requires no runes to cast, and the Create Gatestone and Group Gatestone Teleport spells each only require one type of rune to cast.

Prepare to take your place at the Wise Old Man’s side as he comes out of retirement to confront an extremely unpleasant figure from his past! If you can handle the combat, the puzzles, the vicious sarcasm and the romance, you could unlock some new Construction and Magic abilities for yourself.

The quest begins at a barn north-east of Draynor Village, where a damsel in distress is looking for an adventurer to help her. Sounds like a straightforward little quest, right? Before long you’ll find yourself chipping teleport tablets, solving puzzles and entering a deadly battle where you’ll be fighting not just for your life, but for the reputation of adventurers everywhere.

It’s time to discover whether the bank guard is coming down from his tree, what the Wise Old Man is planning for the Wizards’ Tower and what Traiborn means when he talks about thingummywuts.

Mod Ash
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:

Where to start Love Story:

Speak to Mabel at the barn north-east of Draynor Village, near the windmill.

Requirements to start Love Story:

Swan Song
Recipe for Disaster - Saving Sir Amik Varze
Level 77 Magic
Level 68 Construction
Level 68 Smithing
Level 67 Crafting

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In other news...

As mentioned in this month's Behind the Scenes, we’ve graphically updated some of the dragons in game. This includes, but is not excluded to, green, blue, red and black dragons (including baby variants), plus bronze, iron, steel and mithril dragons. Check them out if you can handle the heat!

Quiet Before the Swarm is the first in a new series of Void Knight content (three quests and one activity), which will come to a conclusion in the coming months. The series will involve all of the main orders of knights in RuneScape, but revolves around the mysterious Void Knights and their long-running struggle to prevent their greatest fear – a full-on pest invasion of RuneScape.

For too long, the Void Knights have been diligently, yet quietly, fighting their battle against the pests in Pest Control. In this quest, you will travel to the Void Knights’ Outpost to inquire about the possibility of a pest slipping past their vigil and escaping onto the mainland. There, you’ll put your investigative and puzzle-solving skills to the test, wading through a torrent of small community squabbles to discover who could do such a thing.

The time has come to put names to the Void Knights’ faces and get inside their heads (literally, in some cases!) as you unscramble thoughts, guide broken memories into place and fight your way to the truth – but the truth is never black and white; there are always shades of grey...

Mod Nancy
RuneScape Content Developer

Summary:

Where to start Quiet Before the Swarm:

Speak to Sir Tiffy in Falador Park.

Requirements to start Quiet Before the Swarm:

Imp Catcher
Wanted!
Level 42 Strength
Level 35 Attack
Completed at least one game of Pest Control

In other news...

We’ve changed the animations for all of the Strike, Bolt, Blast, Wave and Surge spells (for all four elements). These spells now use some of the game engine's newer features such as particles, and have updated sound effects to accompany them.

The Swept Away and Myths of the White Lands quests have been made permanently free-to-play! These two quests were created, respectively, to go alongside the Halloween 2008 and Christmas 2008 holiday events, and were available to free-players during the two weeks of the event, before becoming members-only quests. Any free-players who missed out on the opportunity to play these quests before can now do so at their leisure.

These two quests have been made permanently free-to-play to replace Sheep Shearer and Witch’s Potion, which are now no longer classified as quests for anyone, as we no longer feel they’re up to the standard of other quests. Although Sheep Shearer and Witch’s Potion no longer appear in the Quest List, adventurers can still undertake them for their experience and item rewards (by talking to Fred the farmer in Lumbridge or Hetty the witch in Rimmington).

Myths of the White Lands and Swept Away will each award either 1 or 2 Quest Points, depending on your progress through Sheep Shearer and Witch’s potion before the update. No one will lose any Quest Points due to this change.