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Jagex RS2 News
Here you can find all the official Jagex announcements about RS2's debut. Remember, to find all the latest news visit Runescape.com
Posted from Oldest to Newest
Lots of people said it would be really great if RuneScape had more of an overall story-line and if there was some sort of ongoing plot. Therefore we're pleased to say that we've designed a massive twisting plot which we're going to release over multiple episodes.
Whilst the rest of the dev-team have been focusing on that, myself and Tony have been working very hard on the promised new 3d-graphics system. This is a mammoth task since we are replacing a vast chunk of the graphics and code. The new engine is coming together extremely well, although there's still a lot of work to do.
We're now nearly ready to show a preview demo of our new landscape engine, our new character animation system, and our new improved user interface.
However since that update is still quite a long way off, the rest of the dev-team is going to work on a new 'agility' skill next. This will give the members something else new to enjoy meanwhile whilst we finish off our big graphics update.
| We're still working on the big graphical update. It's still a way off, so here are some previews to show you how things are progressing. |  |
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Just wanted to let you know some exclusive behind-the-scenes news from Jagex!
The Runescape team is still busy working on the 3D update - a fairly massive undertaking as you might imagine! The 3D characters are now pretty much complete, with Andrew now turning his attention to the landscape design. The use of polygons allows for far more attention to detail, as well as giving a more enhanced sense of proportion.
As for buildings, the paper thin walls of old will be making way for structures that are satisfyingly chunky, and the windows are now extruded from the walls, rather than being flat texture maps.
Perhaps best of all will be the use of a moving vertical camera. Take an aerial view and get the drop on your enemies, before swooping in to see them face to face.
We don't yet have a final release date for all this, but at this stage you could say that things are looking pretty tasty. As usual please remember any previews of the our work will ONLY be on runescape.com NEVER enter your password anywhere except runescape.com. We will of course keep you posted on all this.
Hi there - last week I told you about the current state of play with the 3D graphics update. For some the excitement was just too much to bear, so Andrew decided to do the decent thing and release some screen shots...
Here you can see how the new version allows you to the adjust the camera angle, the images show the same scene at different angles.
So what else is has been going in our dark, dank lair? Well, Tom and I have been working on the next part of Runescape's large on-going quest. Those of you who have already rescued Elena will no doubt be frothing at the mouth for some more plague-based action. Well froth no more, because part two will be coming out next week! And be warned, it's pretty big...
And as if one set of live bacteria wasn't enough, you can also work up a sweat with a new jungle based adventure. As the debut quest from Tytn, the choice of location is all the more surprising, as "Tee" is normally known as being an obsessive hygiene fanatic. Still, someone has to clean the kitchen I suppose.
We just wanted to let you know how things are going with the big 3-D update.
Andrew had originally planned to just update the graphics. This is no small task, as it involves remodeling every single image, and creating a new system to run it on. But the big man is not someone who does things in half-measures...
For this reason, he is taking this opportunity to actually rewrite the underlying game engine. This way, Jagex can introduce new features that we've been itching to bring to Runescape for ages. Some of these things were suggestions from players, that just weren't possible under the current game engine.
Things like bank-to-bank trading, multi-player combat (e.g. multiple people against one dragon), and rare weapons with special moves. Excited? You should be!
Last December we decided that if we're going to spend this much time and effort doing 3-D graphics, we might as well have a game engine that can do justice to it. This does of course mean that you have to hold out a bit longer than we originally suggested, but we believe that it will be WELL worth the wait.
Runescape will of course be the same game that you know and love- just with more features and things to do. Watch this space for some sneak previews!
Progress on our big RuneScape update is going very well, so I've put together a page with some screenshots of the new graphics, and other information about the update.
(News from the screenshots page)
What happened to the '3d update'?
If you are wondering what happened to the 3d update we were
talking about last christmas. Well the original update was only going to include
new player and monster graphics, and nothing else. That's why we called it the
'3d update'
However we decided to do much more and make the update much
bigger. As such as we are now calling it the new RuneScape engine because
it definitely not just new graphics! This obviously means its taking much
longer, and that is why the release date is later. However it also does much
more, and is far better than the original "3d update" was ever going
to be.
Below is some behind the scenes information about the
"new RuneScape engine" we have been working on - enjoy!
The new RuneScape engine! For the past few months we've been working on a complete
rewrite of the entire RuneScape engine! We've made literally hundreds of
improvements and implemented lots of suggestions and ideas that weren't possible
until now. This will easily be the biggest RuneScape update ever!
This is not just a graphical improvement, we also have a new
improved user interface, a more detailed map, and a vastly more powerful
scripting system which allows us to add content we could only dream of before.
However it's still the same game you know and love. It still
has the same cities, objects, quests, monsters etc.. although these have all
been tweaked and improved to look and work better. Everybody's character will
also be automatically copied into the system once it is complete, so you won't
have to start again.
The new version of RuneScape is actually a SMALLER download
than the current version due to improved compression, so users of 56k modems
don't need to worry that the finished update will take ages to load on their
connection.
I'm hoping to get most of the key elements of the game working
in the system during June, and will release more screenshots of new aspects as
they are completed. If all goes well we should be able to run a public beta
during July, and then do the full release after that. However bear in mind these
times are only estimates, there is a lot of work involved in an update of this
scale!
Remember NEVER enter your password ANYWHERE but RuneScape.com.
When the update is ready for testing we will put in on RuneScape.com. Beware
scam sites that offer to let you try it out early, they are merely trying to
steal your password
The images on this page are rather large, they actually take
longer to load than the entire new game does! because they don't use our amazing
compression. Please be patient whilst they load. Please do not link directly to
these images, link to this page instead.
(End news from screenshots page)
However please remember to NEVER enter your password ANYWHERE but runescape.com. When the update is ready for testing we will put in on runescape.com. Beware scam sites that offer to let you try it out early, they are merely trying to steal your password
Enjoy! - Andrew
I know lots of you are wondering how the RuneScape engine update is progressing so I've taken a few minutes to update my progress chart with the latest figures.
This is my personal progress chart, and so only show aspects of the update that I am working on. We'll probably get some of the other staff who are converting the maps and quests, to post their own progress reports too.
-Andrew
Andrew's progress chart for RuneScape-Engine-Update
White numbers indicate progress as of 27th Apr
Yellow numbers indicate updated progress as of 16th Jun
Please note you can't easily work out a release date from these numbers since the tasks are not all the same size or difficulty. For example the script interpreter is probably as complex as all the secondary tasks put together since it controls every single aspect of the game.
Not only are the tasks different sizes, but also as more tasks are completed it is possible to reuse earlier code more. For example the close-range combat took a long time to do, but the other combat types will be able to reuse much of the same code so should be far faster to complete. This is why it is difficult for us to give an exact release date
Primary tasks
Core modules
New 3d-engine - 95%
content delivery system - 90% - 95%
internal map-build system - 90%
player management system - 100%
location management system - 100%
npc management system - 100%
object management system - 90% - 95%
inventory management system - 90% - 100%
login/save-game server - 10% - 70%
Tools:
New animation tool - 100%
New map editor - 100%
New compression tools - 100%
Script system:
Specify new script system - 100%
Write new script compiler - 100%
Write new script interpreter - 50% - 90%
Interface system:
Specify new interface system - 100%
Write new interface designer - 90% - 100%
Write new interface interpreter - 60% - 90%
Multi-way combat system:
specify new combat system - 80% - 100%
close-range combat - 0% - 90%
long-range combat - 0% - 10%
duelling - 0%
prayer/magic - 0%
NPC AI
npc behaviour modes - 10% - 50%
npc scripting - 0% - 90%
Secondary tasks
Chat:
npc chat - 90% - 100%
public chat - 10% - 50%
friends-list - 0%
Non-scriptable interfaces:
mini-map - 100%
player design screen - 0%
title screen - 0% - 50%
Complex interfaces:
inventory/wear system - 100%
shop system - 0%
trading system - 0%
bank system - 0%
Misc:
player route-finding - 90%
camera behaviour - 50% - 90%
music/sound integration - 0% - 50%
data collect module - 0%
WARNING: Beware of anybody claiming the RuneScape 3d beta is available. It is NOT yet available.
We are aware of a fake program, which pretends to be our 3d update, but actually steals your password.
Do NOT download or run any programs claiming to be RuneScape from ANYWHERE except runescape.com ever!
When the real version of the 3d update is ready it will be announced here on "runescape.com"
Progress on our big RuneScape update is still going very well, so I've put together another screenshots page showing the latest features added.
(News from the screenshot page)
Latest news on the new RuneScape engine
I haven't had a chance to write about the latest developments on our big update for a while, but we're still very very hard at work on it.
Many of the original quests have now been converted across to the new system and are fully working under the new engine. The new animation capabilities of the new engine mean you now see everything happen that is described in the quests, so for instance when you kill delrith there is an animated sequence of him being sucked in the portal, and when you fire the balista on the battle field you'll see the huge balista bolt flying through the air across the battle-field.
In terms of the programming which I have been doing - most the big tasks are now done, but there are still many small tasks left to complete to make it feel totally finished. I'm now basically implementing new features and making tweaks as the development team needs them, and so far I've made about 80 improvements/tweaks to the engine in this way in the last month.
The main thing that still needs finishing is a lot of conversion and content work to do to make sure all the quests and skills are available under the new system, and that they take full advantage of the new engines capabilities. Therefore the whole development team are now spending most of their time on this to get it completed.
It will be released when it's ready! :-)
I'm not going to try and give an estimate of when I think the public-beta will be ready, because my estimates are always misinterpreted as promised release dates. We're making great progress - but it will still be at least a couple of months before everything is complete, since we obviously don't want to mess up this update by rushing it out before it's ready. Thanks for your patience.
In the meanwhile there are several more quests going through testing right now for release into the current game to keep you busy.
Scam warning
Finally, I'd just like to remind you that you should NEVER enter your password ANYWHERE but RuneScape.com. When the update is ready for testing we will put it here on RuneScape.com for everyone to see, and will post about it in our 'news'. Beware scam sites or emails that offer to let you try it out early, they are merely trying to steal your password.
(End News from Screenshot page)
Finally, I'd just like to remind you that you should NEVER enter your password ANYWHERE but RuneScape.com. When the update is ready for testing we will put it here on RuneScape.com for everyone to see, and will post about it in our 'news'. Beware scam sites or emails that offer to let you try it out early, they are merely trying to steal your password.
Enjoy! - Andrew
Well we've completed another months work on the new version of RuneScape, so to keep you updated on our progress I've put together another page of 4 screenshots which shows just some of the things we've completed recently.
Click here for the latest screenshots.
Enjoy!
Andrew
Work on our massive 'RuneScape-2' update has gone very well in the last few weeks, and we feel sufficiently confident in our progress to finally commit to an exact date for the public beta test.
The beta test will begin here on www.runescape.com on the 1st-December-2003. For more info on how the beta will work please refer to our RS2 FAQ
We would like to thank all our current members. Without your support this massive update wouldn't have been possible. In recognition of this members will get first try of the beta on 1st-Dec, with a free-players launch following a few weeks later.
We are now going to focus all our resources on this update to make sure it's ready on time.
I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that we're still on schedule to release the RS-2 beta on the 1st-Dec.
I've been getting into work early, and working a few weekends, and I've managed to make up the time it took to do the Halloween event, so 1st-dec is still on.
We are very pleased to announce that the RuneScape2 Beta has launched!
For the moment, only RuneScape Members can access this exclusive beta by clicking the link at the top of our front page.
Important Note!
There will initially be a large number of users trying to download the new
RuneScape2 client - please be patient and do not restart your client download if
it seems slow.
Since the RuneScape2 game window is larger than before, we advise that users running at a resolution of 800x600 use Internet Explorer's fullscreen option (press F11 or select 'View -> Full Screen') and then auto-hide the top navigation bar by right clicking on it and selecting 'auto-hide'.
Oh, and if you want to talk in colour try:
red:hello
yellow:greetings froobs!
or
wave:wooohooo!
We hope that you enjoy testing RS2 - please send all feedback/bugs for this RS2 beta to our Forums rather than via Customer Support.
Thanks,
Andrew and the RuneScape Team
We have added another three worlds to the RuneScape 2 beta to add more capacity for downloading and playing RS2.
We were also experiencing some bandwidth problems with our servers located at San Jose, but these have now been resolved.
Thanks to all of our members who have been very patient in waiting to download the RuneScape2 client - our servers were always going to be very busy with so many of you wanting to download the game right from the start!