Santa, Flax and Castlewars
[Source: Runescape.com ]
21st December 2004

Santa visits RuneScape

Santa has come to RuneScape and he has a present for everyone! He can be found in Varrock, Falador, Ardougne, Catherby and Yanille. We're not going to say what the present is. Like all good Christmas presents that's a surprise. Santa will be around for roughly two weeks on both free and members servers, so there's lots of opportunity for people to get a present. After those two weeks Santa will leave RuneScape. Don't lose out, get your present before he goes as you won't be able to get one afterwards. Players who lose their present don't need to worry though as they will be able to get a replacement from Diango in Draynor Village.

Flax

We have now made flax easier to pick again. It no longer blocks. You can get a random number of flax from the flax plant before it disappears (It works in a similar way to the oak trees). It now regrows more than twice as quickly too.

Castle Wars Changes

Many people have pointed out to us that the rewards for Castle Wars are too easy to get. It hardly takes any time to get the tickets for a full set of Castle Wars armour. We agree, the ticket prices were too low. In actual fact it was a little too easy, and risked devaluing mithril armour for new players. To avoid unbalancing the game we have therefore changed the current decorative armour to be equivalent to steel. But don't worry, to compensate we will be putting a variety of higher level goodies to buy with your tickets, into Castle Wars next year (including decorative armour equivalent to adamant and mithril). For people who have the current castlewars armour and are wishing they'd saved their tickets for better future Castle Wars rewards, we will give them the opportunity to trade their armour back in and get their tickets back when new rewards are added.

We have been receiving reports that players are getting their own teams flag and then running up and down stairs in their own castle so people can't follow them. This makes them virtually impossible to kill and protects the flag till the end of the game. This wasn't in the spirit of the game and could lead to some very unbalanced results. To fix this, when going up and down stairs, you can no longer take your own teams flag AWAY from it's starting area.

We have now fixed it so that you can no longer take the castlewars equipment and flags out of the gaming area. We have also fixed a bug which let you be a imp, sheep or bunny outside of the gaming area. Be warned that taking advantage of a bug to remove equipment intended only for castlewars into other areas (such as the wilderness) to gain an unfair advantage there is bug abuse. If you find a bug, report it to customer support - Don't try and abuse it to your advantage. If you deliberately abuse a bug it can lead to a permanent ban (see rule 4).


The Haunted Mine
[Source: Runescape.com ]
21st December 2004

Recent forays into Morytania by some of Saradomin's more fanatical supporters have unearthed murky rumours concerning a vast abandoned mine in the south.

Legend speaks of an unusual material, hidden in the depths of the mines, that is somehow linked to the desolation and fear that now surrounds the place. Do you have the nerve to find out more, and enter the haunted mines of Morytania?

The mine is located to the southwest of Mort'ton and there is a lot to explore there. To start the haunted mine quest speak to the zealot outside.


Changes to Castle Wars
[Source: Runescape.com ]
15th December 2004

We have made a few improvements to Castle Wars today:

# You no longer need your own flag to score a point for your team, just bring the enemies flag back to your flag point! This should lead to more exciting higher scoring games.

# The yellow arrow will now point to where your opponents flag is if it's been dropped or being carried by someone.

# There is now a timer displayed in the game window while in the waiting areas showing you when the next game will start - no more trying to spot time messages in your chat window!

# Your own team will now appear green on the minimap and your opponents will appear white. This replaces the normal friends list effects in the castlewars area.

# "Attack" is now the left-click option on all your opponents, and right-click on all of your own team.

# The doors out of the respawn rooms are now "Energy Barriers", so the whole team can pass through at once.

# A few minor fixes.



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