The phoenix, an ancient creature from RuneScape's distant past, is in need of your help. While flying to her roost she was injured, and now she lies wounded and dying in the depths of her fiery cave. By chance, a knowledgeable priest has discovered her home, and now he waits for an adventurer with the necessary skill and courage to aid the phoenix in her hour of need. Perhaps that adventurer will be you! Or are you...chicken?
In this quest you will navigate lava-filled caverns, learn the secrets of an ancient ritual and, if all goes well, save the phoenix from certain death.
Once you've completed the quest, you will be able to return to the phoenix's cave for a repeatable distraction and diversion reward that you can claim once a day. You will also gain the ability to summon a phoenix familiar to aid you in your battles - something that many of you voted for in April's Guaranteed Content poll. Sorry that you've had to wait a while for this!
Requirements to the complete the Phoenix Lair Distraction and Diversion, after the quest:
In addition to the above requirements, level 51 Slayer
In other news...
The skeletons in Olaf's Quest tunnels have been changed to make it easier for you to attack at range. These piles of bones will no longer interfere with you when you're ranging, or at any other time for that matter, as they're long dead!
You can no longer attack another player's familiar in single-way combat on a PvP world. This was never intended, and so should no longer be a problem.
There is a newly installed “make-x” feature for filleting fish such as sturgeon, salmon or trout that should make it easier for you to obtain the materials for making barbarian potions. Also, the barbarian super-restore potion will now correctly restore your Summoning points, just like other restore potions.
One of the changes made to While Guthix Sleeps meant you could no longer cast Ice Barrage on the barriers in Castle Wars. This has been rectified so that the spell now works as it previously did.
In response to your suggestions, a second world for Stealing Creation has been added, as the current one can get a bit busy at times!
A handful of songs (Garden, Still Night, Medieval, Adventure and Expanse) have been updated to sound better than ever. So tune in, and listen out for your favourite!
Finally, the Christmas holiday event has now been removed, but you can still enjoy the Myths of the White Lands quest.
A new year often brings with it a sense of change or new adventure. For some, this rebirth is a nice, friendly affair, involving a new haircut and a resolution or two. For others, it means complex nesting rituals and a fiery demise...or perhaps a new beginning? Could we be talking about the legendary phoenix?
Our first update of the year is actually one we have been talking about for a while - the new Summoning familiar you voted for during the Summer. Of course, we could have just produced a simple Summoning creature to follow you around and do the occasional funky trick, but we decided that a legendary creature such as the phoenix deserved the full treatment. So, it will have its own tutorial-style quest, in which you learn how to deal with the unusual nesting habits of the giant, fire-drenched beast, AND a repeatable challenge you can take on every day, should you wish.
Once you've helped the phoenix you'll be able to summon a smaller phoenix familiar to help you in battle, just as you would with any other Summoning familiar. Not only will it be able to fight alongside you (dealing Magic damage), it will also have the ability to fire ashes at your opponents, temporarily blinding them and making it harder for them to attack. On top of this, the phoenix will be able to be reborn from the ashes, leaving nearby nasties scorched by the accompanying flames.
We will also be releasing the next of our Achievement Diaries this month - this time set in the peaceful Seers' Village and its surrounding woods and castles. As always, the intention of the Achievement Diary is to introduce some of the hidden or 'non-quest' activities associated with an area, so expect to be learning all about coal carts, the Piety prayer, forgotten sorcerers, poisoned chalices, pet fish and bullseyes! Rewards include additional experience when cutting down maple trees, and a handy flax picker (similar to Bert, who collects buckets of sand for you after the Hand in the Sand quest).
Another of the changes prepared for January is a great suggestion from our forums - the ability to re-order your spell list. Now, don't worry, this is totally optional (and the default will still be the 'level order' setting you're currently used to), but you'll be able to set up the list with the combat spells first, or the teleport spells first, etc. This is all managed via a handy series of buttons at the bottom of each of the three (normal, lunar and ancient) spellbooks. We're making this change because we feel it could be useful, but if you think it could be even MORE useful, we'd like to know how - please let us know what you think.
Hopefully, you'll have already read the Behind the Scenes 2009 newspost written by Mod Vince, the new Head of RuneScape. As he said, we intend to spend a lot of time this year reviewing older content, making it more useful and user-friendly, and ensuring that yesterday's content is of the same standard as tomorrow's. The changes we plan to make cover all aspects of the game - this month we'll be increasing the length of the auto-logout timer from the current 90 seconds to about 5 minutes, and a 'You are here' arrow on the world map. We're even looking back over our old word lists, to remove words accidentally starred-out in chat.
Last but not least, we'll be bringing you a new players' gallery and the letters from Postie Pete's January postbag.
So, the first post of the New Year and you'll be wondering what the next 12 months in RuneScape will bring. The past year saw the introduction of PvP Worlds, RuneScape High Detail, Summoning, our first Grandmaster quest, combat minigames, and Distractions and Diversions. What can we do to top 2008?
Well, this is the challenge that we've set ourselves: 2009 has become our official Upgrade Year! So, what does that mean? It means our New Year's resolution is to tweak and polish what we've already got in the game alongside creating new content. For example:
Doing the 'little' jobs that make a big difference (e.g. a 'You are here' arrow on the world map) and basically fixing all the annoying little quirks the game has. Things that may be the least glamorous to work on and talk about, but which really add up.
Updating some of the earliest content/quests to bring it up to date, and take advantage of all the features we have added to the game engine since it was originally created. Also, reworking old clues that no longer work now the game is bigger (e.g. 'Look west of the mountains' was fine when there was only one mountain, but not now).
Making the interfaces as intuitive, flexible and user-friendly as possible.
Then, after all that, we'll start looking into abandoned and barely used areas/features of the game, and breathing new life into them.
Of course, we don't want to JUST do upgrades, so we're planning to do a mix of upgrades and new content. To achieve this we are planning on going back to releasing approximately four updates per month, which will alternate between upgrades and new content.
We've been trawling the forums, pooling opinions from our game teams and inviting everyone at Jagex HQ to voice their opinions on what they'd like to see in an upgraded RuneScape. As a regular player, there will no doubt be at least one feature you've always wanted to see introduced, to make your time in RuneScape even better. Chances are that it's already on our list, but to be on the safe side, why not let us know? We'll be monitoring the forums, so please tell us what you want to see. We can't promise we'll do everything, but we'll try to incorporate any particular trends we see into our plans, and let you know.
Well, at the end of my first newspost, I just want to thank you all for your continued support through 2008, and I look forward to seeing you all in Gielinor in 2009.
Today, we've launched the SMS payment option for players from Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, which can be used to pay for a RuneScape membership.
RuneScape members will get regular content updates and gain access to a world that's three times larger than the free world and packed full of members-only quests, minigames and skills. Members also gain fullscreen mode, advert-free gaming and the ability to post on the forums. More information about membership can be found here.
The PayBySMS service is currently available to players from the UK, USA, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
