RuneScape

Introduction

In the ever-evolving world of gaming, it's crucial to stay up to date with the latest changes. Our beloved game has just received a significant update, and it's not just about bug fixes and new features. We've taken a step forward in ensuring a safer and more enjoyable experience for all players, especially the younger ones. First and foremost, we've revamped our End User License Agreement (EULA), Terms & Conditions, support articles, and Privacy Policy. We understand that legal jargon can be a headache, so we've made them clearer and easier to understand, even for our younger players. No more confusion or uncertainty! But that's not all. We've also made some important alterations to our Rules of RuneScape. We want to set clear expectations and provide additional information for many rules. From inappropriate language to real-world trading, we've left no stone unturned. We've even added a handy list of topics that we don't want discussed in our games. Plus, we've expanded our bug abuse rule to address concerns of accidental discoveries and potential bans. In addition to these rule changes, we've taken player protection to the next level. We've introduced a new service that allows parents to directly contact us if they have any concerns about their child's account use. We've also revised our internal processes to ensure the safe storage and processing of children's data, in full compliance with the law. So, whether you're a seasoned player or just starting your adventure, rest assured that we've got your back. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and keep enjoying the immersive world of our game.

WHAT'S CHANGED?

We have updated our End User License Agreement (EULA), Terms & Conditions, support articles and our Privacy Policy to make them clearer and easier to understand for younger players. We've also simplified the Rules of RuneScape, making our expectations clearer, and provided additional information for many rules. Alterations include:

- - Regarding Inappropriate Language, we've made the unacceptable behaviours clearer and we've added some clarification about swearing/cussing, as well as bullying and harassment. We've also added a small list of topics which we do not want discussed in our games.
  - We've added some context our Real World Trading rule and the associated risks.
  - We've expanded the Games of Chance rule to clarify the use of 'bots' and websites/services.
  - We have listed some of the most common scams for awareness, and offered some clarification around player-run 'swapping services'.
  - We have expanded the Staff Impersonation rule, focusing on attempted phishing.
  - We've clarified exactly what information is classed as 'personal details'.
  - Our bug abuse rule has also been tweaked, particularly for players who accidentally discover a bug and might be worried about being banned.
  - We've also added a short FAQ that covers what you should do if you have been muted or banned, how to submit an abuse report, an outline of how handle abuse reports, and what you should do if you are worried about another player.

Players without a date of birth on record will be prompted to supply us with one in the near future. This ensures that you are old enough to play our games and helps us process your data in line with the Age Appropriate Design Code. In addition, we will not send marketing emails to players under 18 years of age, regardless of whether they have opted in to receive them. We've also opened a new service allowing parents of players to contact us directly if they are concerned about their child's account use. Finally, we have revised our internal processes regarding the storing and processing of children's data, in accordance with the law.

THE CROESUS FRONT

The Senntisten graveyard was once a peaceful place to pay respect to the long-dead citizens of the Zarosian capital. But no longer. Bik has awakened Croesus, an enormous sentient fungus that threatens to spread across the city, feasting on any organic matter in its wake. That includes you – so you’ll need to cut this mycological monster down to size before it’s too late.

There is no combat on The Croesus Front – instead, you’ll need to use your gathering skills to fight back against the encroaching gunk. Throughout the graveyard you’ll find skilling nodes for Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing and Hunter, which will allow you to harvest fungus to concoct new consumables or repair and craft new armour. You can also feed it to the animals on your Player Owned Farm, but we won’t be held responsible for the contents of the manure pile if you do. You’ll need at least level 88 in the respective skill to access the standard nodes, whereas the enhanced nodes will require at least level 92. There are no skill requirements to face Croesus itself, although we do recommend having at least level 80 in Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing, Hunter and Construction.

BOSS: CROESUS

Croesus is different to any boss you’ve faced before. It cannot be killed in any way that matters – all you can do is force it back into a dormant state by summoning the spirits within the graveyard. Luckily, this encounter is massable, so you won’t be alone.

The four corners of the boss arena are home to four graves belonging to mighty heroes of the Second Age and their trophy kills. Croesus’ fungus is growing over the graves, leeching the power within. To stop it, you’ll need to work with other players and use your Woodcutting, Mining, Fishing and Hunter skills to clear the fungal matter. This will reduce Croesus’ strength, but watch out – the fungus will grow back in time, although you can slow it using Rotten Fungus you’ve already collected. For a more permanent solution, you’ll need to restore the statues of the four heroes using the materials you gather during the encounter. Once repaired, you can pray at the statues to subdue Croesus. Once it’s been subdued, you’ll gain access to the core fungus. Destroy that, and Croesus will be restored to its dormant state… and for a time, the city will be safe.

SKILL DRAIN

Luckily for you, Croesus won’t deal damage – but it will try to drain your skills using its powerful attacks. Lose too many levels, and you’ll have to retreat!

SKILLS AND XP

Croesus is RuneScape’s first skilling boss. As such, combat skills are not required on this Front. Instead, you’ll use Mining, Woodcutting, Fishing and Hunter to gather materials and wear the not-so-fun-guy down. Construction will also come in handy, to a lesser degree. You’ll receive XP in the appropriate skill any time you contribute towards a task, whether that’s using the skilling nodes, harvesting from the core fungus, repairing statues – or anything else!

REWARDS

But XP isn’t all you have to look forward to. The Croesus Front is absolutely infested with rewards.

CRYPTBLOOM ARMOR

The Cryptbloom Armor set is Tier 90 Magic tank armour, and it comes with a set effect that grows with each piece you have equipped:

At 2 pieces, incoming magic damage is reduced by 12% and incoming melee damage is reduced by 8%.
At 3 pieces, incoming magic damage is reduced by a further 6%, melee damage is reduced by a further 4%, and these bonuses are doubled if your primary spell is earth type.
At 4 pieces, every time you take damage you have a 6% chance to infect your target with Croesus’ death spores, which will increase the damage they take from behind by 10%.
With all 5 pieces equipped, you’ll get all the above and when you fall below 20% HP you’ll gain a fungal shield, which scales with your armour rating and Defence level, for 15 seconds. The shield has a 120 second cooldown.

SKILLING OFF-HANDS

The Croesus Front has a bumper crop of two new skilling off-hands – one for Woodcutting and one for Mining. Tagga’s Core Hammer is a level 80 Mining off-hand that’ll give you +10% critical strike chance and +35 critical strike damage when equipped. When mining ores from the fungal core using Tagga’s Core Hammer, you’ll have the chance to receive Deathspore Arrowtips. The higher tier of ore, the higher the chance to get Arrowtips – and the more you’ll get!

Sana’s Fyrtorch is a level 80 Woodcutting off-hand that gives you +6% success chance when Woodcutting, and 20% chance to get an extra log. When Sana’s Fyrtorch is equipped you’ll also get the chance to receive Splintering Arrowtips when chopping logs. Again, the higher the tier of log, the higher chance of receiving Arrowtips, and the more you’ll get. Also of note: with Sana’s Fyrtorch equipped, you’ll be able to burn Croesus’ sticky fungus instantly.

ARROWS

While wielding either of the new skilling off-hands, you’ll have the chance to receive Splintering or Deathspore Arrowtips, which you can then craft into Arrows. Splintering Arrows cause any attacks used within 4.2 seconds after Greater Dazing Shot to apply puncture stacks. Of course, you’ll need to have unlocked Greater Dazing Shot from Shattered Worlds for this to work. In addition, the maximum number of puncture stacks will be increased to 13 while using Splintering Arrows. Deathspore Arrows boost your critical chance by +3%. When you crit, you’ll gain a stack of Feasting Spores. At five stacks, you’ll gain a buff which makes your next Ranged ability that would normally cost adrenaline free if you cast it within nine seconds. This effect has a 60 second cooldown, but each time you crit while using the Deathspore Arrows this cooldown is reduced by 1.8 seconds.

SEED BAG

The Seed Bag is an item that stores up to 40 different types of seed, to their usual maximum stack. You’ll be able to craft the Seed Bag with materials you collect from the Croesus encounter – although we’re keeping mum on the exact recipe for now.

GRASPING RUNE POUCH

The Grasping Rune Pouch is an upgrade to your existing Rune Pouch. It holds up to four different runes and gives you a +4 bonus to Prayer. You’ll also have a 25% chance to not use runes when using combat spells.

SCRIPTURE OF BIK

With Croesus we introduce the scripture of Bik.

Special Ability - Nature's Veil: When using non-combat skills, you will occasionally reveal a catalyst of alteration, which can be interacted with for rewards. Upon gaining rewards, receive a 5% XP boost for 1 minute.

REQUIREMENTS

There are no skill or combat requirements to access the boss fight, but we recommend at least level 80 in all relevant skills. Remember, your skills will be temporarily drained by Croesus’ attacks, so the higher they are, the safer you’ll be. The standard skilling nodes dotted around the front all require at least level 88 in Mining, Woodcutting, Fishing or Hunter. The enriched nodes require at least level 92 in those same skills. You’ll also need to have RuneScape Membership to enter the Elder God Wars Dungeon. And although not essential, we recommend playing the City of Senntisten quest to get a grasp of the story so far.

SKILLING NODES

Throughout the front you’ll find both standard and enriched skilling nodes – they’re the unfortunate guards covered in fungus. Use your Mining, Woodcutting, Hunter or Fishing skills to harvest from them. You can use that fungus to create consumable items for use in the boss fight, plus the new armour and some other funky stuff.

CROESUS

Bik’s general can be found in the furthest section of the Senntisten graveyard, where it’s busily chowing down on four ancient heroes of the Zarosian Empire and their most iconic trophy kills – an Araxyte, a Giant Mole, a Crassian Leviathan and a Dagannoth Rex. They’re all dead, of course, but to beat Croesus into submission you’ll need to pry its dirty mitts off their graves and rekindle their heroic spirit. Work as a team and use your skills to remove the fungus from the dead creatures around the edge of the arena. Once you’ve gathered enough resources and sufficiently weakened Croesus, you can repair the four heroic statues. When they’re restored to their former glory, they’ll shine brightly and fire a cleansing ray of light at the boss. Yowch!

This will temporarily subdue Croesus and give you access to the fungal core from which the boss draws the majority of its strength. Hack away at that to weaken Croesus further. After a while, Croesus will go back to guarding the core, so you’ll need to restore another statue to get at it again. Once the fungal core has been completely removed, Croesus will re-enter its dormant state – and you’ll be free to claim your rewards.

KNOWN ISSUES:

Some drops are missing from the Adventurer's Log / Player Log
Scripture of Bik is missing from the Boss Collection Log
Players may get stuck inside the boss after the central node timer has run out
Traversal Mushrooms won't sparkle once the instance has timed out
Croesus can be poisoned with the Cinderbanes
Coloured Runepouches don't have the rune saving effect
New potions cannot be decanted with decanting NPCs
Player gets two messages when habitat depletes

Hotfixes:

Players can now reliably cook fungal soups on various fires and ranges across the game.
Ironmen can now group with non-ironmen in private Croesus encounters, matching the behaviour of public encounters.
Fixed an issue that was preventing players from completing a public Croesus encounter due to the Leviathan nodes disappearing.

Feedback addressed:

Public Croesus encounters are now capped at 18 players max per instance, down from 30.

We sincerely apologise for any inconveniences caused, and we appreciate your patience as we work through these issues as best we can. We’ll keep you updated with any news as we get it.

TREASURE HUNTER IS CHANGING

Greetings, adventurers. Many of you will have been following the gradual alterations we've been making to Treasure Hunter over the last couple of years or so, as we work towards building a better experience for everyone. Now we're ready to roll out further changes that will make Treasure Hunter more transparent and rewarding than ever. Our new look Treasure Hunter experience will go live on Monday September 27th. So, what are we doing and why are we doing it? To address the latter point, we want players to have as clear a picture as possible about the probabilities of receiving prizes, and the kind of XP gain they'll earn as a result. Plus, the prizes themselves are being overhauled and improved while we're at it. Here's a look at what we're doing.

PROBABILITY DISCLOSURE

As you play Treasure Hunter, the probability of winning particular prizes will be calculated and displayed in real time. This information will be presented in a new window replacing the former Categories interface. Take a look at this before and after:

Before

After You'll also notice there have been a number of other minor changes to the interface, including the removal of Alice and other mascots.

HEARTS OF ICE DISCONTINUATION

A big part of these changes will be the end of Hearts of Ice. We've done this because:

Many of our promos now have alternative control methods and transparent probabilities built in
The other changes render them redundant
They've always been a bit fiddly

Players who are currently holding onto any HoI will be reimbursed with Oddments at a rate of 1 Oddment for every 5 Hearts of Ice (when numbers are uneven, they will be rounded down). There's no upper limit to this conversion. Other things to note:

Should a player own a Heartfreezer Amulet containing unredeemed Hearts of Ice, these will be drained and added to the conversion total. The unlocked cosmetic version of the Amulet will be available from Diango.
The same applies to some other legacy HoI objects.

Head here for more information about the discontinuation of Hearts of Ice.

CHANGES TO PRIZES

The following prizes will be removed from Treasure Hunter:

Skilling Outfits (Normal and Elite)
Slayer Masks - these will instead be available through Shattered Worlds play
Wicked Hood Tokens - now available in the Runespan Shop for 1.5k points each
200m Coins (this has been replaced by a 50m Coin prize, but thanks to the new balancing players will be sure to net more coins in total than previously)
Brilliant Alchemist Fragments (fragments that were otherwise lying around have been converted to 250 Oddments each)
All cosmetic items except those applicable to a current promotion

Note that cosmetic items from non-active promo items that are part of a set will be listed in the Oddments Store in bundles that are discounted for each owned component (similar to the Felix the Cat outfits). In contrast, the following prizes will be added:

Giant Stars and Giant Lamps (promotional versions of these also exist (i.e. Smouldering Lamps, Bubbling Lamps etc)
Huge Coin Pouch (new - values change according total level)
Portable Packs (assorted sizes)

We've also given all Lamps and Stars a bit of a graphical makeover, too.

BALANCING

The rate at which items of assorted commonality can be found has also been tweaked. Promos that contain one-time unlocks will inevitably differ slightly, although positively! And remember that the probabilities will be reflected dynamically in the interface as you play. We've also increased the Oddment conversion rate for Treasure Hunter prizes to make up for any lost value for Keys in the wake of the Hearts of Ice removal:

Rarity	Old Convert	New Convert	Increase
Common	20	25	25%
Fairly common	50	60	20%
Uncommon	100	120	20%
Rare	250	300	20%
Very rare	750	850	13%

NEW XP CURVE

While the new XP curve now scales to 120, the section from 100-120 will only impact those skills which also reach 120 (Archaeology, Dungeoneering, Slayer, Farming, Herblore and Invention). And that's everything! Once all these changes go live on September 27th, Treasure Hunter will be more transparent than it has ever been before. Thanks ever so much to all of you who have offered us feedback on Treasure Hunter over the years. We know the road here has been a long one, but we hope you agree that these are all steps in the right direction. All the best,