Hello again fellow RuneHQers! The latest guide rewrite is now on the site! Check out the Champions' Guild Guide to see it for yourself. Thanks to Skeletonmat and everyone else who contributed to this guide!

We also have a new Special Report in our database too! Let's all take a few minutes or so to look at the Changing Your Base Appearance guide written by Terr002! Also thanking everyone else who helped!

~ Jakesterwars ~

The Al Kharid City Guide has been remade! A big thanks goes out to everyone who helped with it.



Keep an eye out for those changing items, monsters, people, or land areas and help us keep them updated!

~ Jakesterwars ~

Quotations taken directly from RuneScape.com

15 Aug 2007 - Themed World Changes

We have made some slight changes to those worlds that have been designated as themed worlds. This is because themed activities were causing lag on certain servers, while they weren't on others; some servers are simply much more able to cope with hundreds of people all crowded together into one Castle Wars game, for example.



With this in mind, it makes sense to move a few of our server themes onto worlds that can cope with the levels of activity.



Our first choice was always to select worlds that players had unofficially chosen for an activity and, where possible, we have tried to keep these activities on their chosen servers. The reduction of lag on a world, we now realise, is far more important - particularly if that world cannot cope with large numbers playing something server-intensive like Pest Control.

Discuss this update on the forums.

15 Aug 2007 - Development Diary: Audio Team

It's time for another Development Diary. This time we're looking at the Audio team and how they create all of the varied music and sound effects for RuneScape. There's also a reproduction of the music notes from the main theme song of the God Wars Dungeon - 'Armageddon'. Those of you with musical leanings might like to play it for yourselves, to get a taste of what's to come...

Discuss this update on the forums.

The RuneHQ Browser Bar for the Firefox web browser has been updated to version 4.1. Many new links have been added, and old ones have been either updated or removed.

For those who do not know what this handy add-on is, it is a little bar with handy links to different areas on RuneHQ, the RuneHQ forums, RuneScape, and TORC, that will appear within your Firefox browser.

To check if you have the latest version or to remove it, click Tools > Add-ons in your Firefox browser. This version was coded by hand.

~ [Im4eversmart] ~

Welcome, welcome fellow RHQ users! We have the awaited Clan Chat and You Guide on our database! Thanks to Dominion and everyone else who helped make this guide!

~ Jakesterwars ~

Quotations taken directly from RuneScape.com

13 August 2007 - Players' Gallery

Postie Pete has been working hard, sorting and sifting the wonderful art he's been sent. The result? Pete is covered in paint, and we have brand new gallery full of great pictures.

By taking a stroll through this week's gallery you will notice a decidedly draconic theme, with a full armoury of dragon axes, swords, helms and chains. Postie Pete is at a loss to explain this strange fashion for dragon items, but loves the pictures anyway (even with paint in his eye sockets, he knows a good picture when he sees it).

Head over to Pete's artistic haven and check them all out!

13 August 2007 - New Player Kit

The player kit update brings you a whole new selection of outfits and customisations for your character that you can choose from. If you have ever felt the need for a new set of clothes or a funky new hairstyle then you will be pleased to know that you can now visit Thessalia in Varrock and the Hairdresser in Falador to add that special touch to your appearance. Members can also visit Reinald in Keldagrim for a new selection of armguards!

At Thessalia's clothes shop, you will find a new range of styles for both men's and women's clothes, ranging from the highly tailored princely outfits down to the ragged clothing of the local peasantry. Visiting the Hairdresser in Falador, you will be able to sculpt your hair into fascinating new styles including braids, ponytails and more. If you are of the male persuasion, give yourself a fancy new beard or moustache style such as the 'Vizier' or even the 'Dali'! Reinald offers a range of designs for your wrists, in both silver and gold, so you can accessorise to go with your favourite clothes.

Most importantly, it can be a hard task to find the right clothing fashion and hairstyles to suit you, so for the first week Thessalia, Reinald and the Hairdresser will allow you to change your kit for free!

In other news...

We've updated the "Trade" tab at the bottom of the screen. While you're trading with someone, that tab will now display chat messages from your trade partner. This ought to make trading a little easier in crowded places!

Multi-target Ancient Magicks will now work against multiple players when fighting in a player-owned house combat ring.

Our Graphics team has been working hard on fixing a whole range of graphical glitches. They've fixed a huge number of trees that had recently started hovering above the ground, although we're aware that there are plenty more trees awaiting their attention. They've also fixed some buggy models, such as the slightly transparent Guthan chainskirt and the gnome goggles' strap that was changing its colour depending on the owner's hair colour!

Finally, although it was not meant to be possible to kill oneself by eating the Recipe for Disaster rockcake, determined players had still achieved it by spam-clicking. Since we don't really need any more accidental deaths-by-rockcake, we've updated that rockcake to ignore spam-clicking.

Discuss this update on the forums.

13 August 2007 - Themed Worlds

We've just added a new column to the World Select screen to help you find a world for your favourite activities. We know that it's often more fun to do things as part of a group, so we've added this list to help like-minded people find each other.

To make the list we quite simply looked at the worlds that you already use! If you regularly go air running or play Trouble Brewing, you'll already know which worlds you go to, but now anyone else who wants to do the same will be able to join in the fun. Of course, we'll be checking frequently to see if any worlds get full regularly and updating the list when necessary.

Having said all this, you don't have to do the named activity on these worlds - no one should have to do anything just because of the world they're on. The list is simply a guideline for people looking for a specific activity. You can also still do any of these on any world, but if you want the largest games or more company you might want to check out one of the suggested worlds.

We haven't assigned an activity for Worlds 1 and 2 because they already get enough traffic from being at the top of the list. Anyone looking for a busy world won't have any difficulty spotting them.

Discuss this update on the forums.

Quotes taken directly from RuneScape.com

1 Aug 2007 - Behind the Scenes - August

August will begin with a new feature we're sure you'll all love: Clan Chat! You'll be able to set up your own chat channel that you and your clan-mates can use to keep in touch with each other, as well as being able to rank the members in your chat channel, control who can talk, and much, much more. It's an entirely new feature for RuneScape, but we have no doubt that you'll all take to it like fish to water.

Other updates this month include a few more of our small improvement projects. You’ll be seeing better examine descriptions on some items (which should help establish where they come from) and also some graphical changes, making potentially dangerous game areas LOOK more dangerous.

The second improvement project this month concentrates on some old friends. Ever grow tired of the selection of haircuts and base-outfits in the game? Ever wondered what those odd silver arm guards are that some people have? Ever been jealous of Romeo's great hair? Well, you too can have the “foppish” look and all sorts of other styles besides, when later this month we release a player kit update. During the first week or so of launch we will make all costume, haircut and arm guard changes totally free, just so you can have a bit of fun without it denting your pocket.

We will also be adding some information to the world select screen about “themed” servers. As you all know, it’s often much more fun to train and play minigames with other people, especially those team-based events like Trouble Brewing. Because of this, we decided that we would add a new column to the world select screen highlighting those worlds with associated activities. Naturally, you’ll still be able to play the content anywhere you like, but if you want to find people with similar ideas, then you’ll know where to look.

August's game updates will be complete with perhaps the most intense update of the year as we take a peek into the past... and into the God Wars Dungeon. For many centuries, legions of unique creatures lay frozen in time, locked in a battle that began back in the Third Age of RuneScape. Recent tectonic movement in the Wilderness has caused hot springs to surface in the dungeon, thawing the occupants, with potentially devastating effects. Inside their icy tomb, relics from the most destructive period of history have defrosted and resumed their grisly battle... Incredible loot, ancient boss-monsters, extinct species and one of the most graphically intensive updates of the year will leave you begging for a nice simple goblin* to kill. Don’t worry! There are even some of them in there, with the rest of the Bandos army. Yes, we said army. Oh, and Armadyl, too. Remember him? You soon will when one of his avian troops swoops down and disembowels you. Believe us.

We'll also be adding the usual website extras like the Postbag from the Hedge and the Players' Gallery, as well as a brand new Development Diary.

That’s all folks!

* No goblins were harmed during the writing of this Behind the Scenes document. Well, maybe a few. But they did call us names.

Discuss this update on the forums

Quotations taken directly from RuneScape.com

6 August 2007 - Clan Chat

This week we are pleased to announce the long-awaited release of Clan Chat for RuneScape.

Now, both Members and Free Players can have their very own channel for chatting to friends and talking as a group, and can even assign each other ranks. Players can setup and name their channel and, once up and running, other players can join in the fun. Joining someone's channel is as simple as typing their username in!

Like private chat, Clan Chat works whether you and your friends are on the same game world or all spread across many different worlds.

The new Clan Chat interface can be accessed by clicking on the two smiley faces at the bottom-left of your in-game controls.

To get a proper understanding of the Clan Chat system, we advise you to read the Knowledge Base article here.

You may well notice, in addition to the Clan Chat, that the interfaces have had a tidy up. The dwarves of Keldagrim have produced a fine new tablet in place of the chat scroll, there are more chat filters at the bottom of the screen, and the general controls have been improved, making your day-to-day RuneScaping that much smoother and easier to look at.

In other news...

The King's Ransom music was playing correctly but not turning green when it was unlocked. This has been rectified.

Various items and objects which were previously causing graphical glitches or looking a little bit funny have been adjusted. This includes gems, food and several bits of armour and clothing that were being affected by each other.

The Items Kept on Death interface has been adjusted and should now be clearer as to what you'll keep and lose at that particular moment.

The price of cloth from the sawmill in Varrock has been adjusted so the price doesn't vary. For the last couple of weeks, when buying several pieces, the price was fluctuating more than intended.

Players can no longer get stuck at the end of the Fishing Trawler minigame. Abandon ship!

Discuss this update on the forums

We will be performing an upgrade of the forum to Invision Power Board version 2.3.1 Saturday Night starting at 11pm CST. The forum will be offline for approximately 2-4 hours while we perform this upgrade. There will not be much new after the upgrade, it is mainly to keep us up to date with the latest supported version. We are however adding a couple new modifications for PM Preferences/ Message tracking and also Profile preferences (Classic or Portal view).

~MrStormy~

After much toil and hard work, we finally have a special report for Various Texts, Tablets, Tomes, and Other Reading Materials Of RuneScape! There are many authors to this massive guide, and even now we still need everyones help to complete it!

Thanks,



~ Jakesterwars ~

Quotations taken directly from RuneScape.com

30 July 2007 - Postage from the Hedge

Postie Pete is back again with a new batch of letters for you all to read, including a rather intriguing contribution from Baba Yaga...

Find out how RuneScape's calendar works from Reldo, what the childerkin of Musa Point do with their spare time and what the werewolves think of the vampyre masters. Click here to read the Postbag.

Reldo has also been a bit more busy than usual, and has dug up a couple of new Area Guides: the Wizards' Tower and the Goblin Village.

Thanks to DarkBlitz and Alfawarlord, we have a new Falador City Map on our database! Take a look and enjoy!

~ Jakesterwars ~

The King's Ransom quest guide has been uploaded! Thank you Scorchy_Devil and everyone else who helped write it!

~ [Im4eversmart] ~

Quotations taken directly from RuneScape.com

24 July 2007 - Lores and Histories - Barrows

This month, Reldo has been sent a tattered manuscript by some Strange Old Man who lives in Morytania. This manuscript sheds new light on the area known as the Barrows, and the legend that surrounds its existence.

Reldo has transcribed this tale, entitled The Fall of Six, into the Lores and Histories section of the website for you all to have a read.

Discuss this update on the forums.

24 July 2007 - King's Ransom

Intrigue, murder and devious plots! Things are afoot once again at the Sinclair Mansion. The family has vanished without a trace. None of their neighbours are very sorry to see them go, but suspicions are aroused when King Arthur and his knights disappear as well...

Your help is needed once again to unravel the Sinclair family's plots. Those of you who have solved the Murder Mystery will be called upon to put your Defence skill to the test: as you act as the defence attorney and disprove the case you built up against them in the first place. All is not as it seems, though, and more people are involved in the kidnapping of King Arthur than is at first apparent.

If you're successful, you'll be invited to train with the Knights of the Round Table. If you can keep up with them, you'll be well rewarded...

Will you be able to deliver a King's Ransom?

Summary

In other news...

Seers' Village has undergone a graphical rework and now looks more impressive than ever. If you're in the area, have a look to see the improvements to this thriving little village.

The Party Room previously in Seers' Village has moved to the north-east of Falador, which means all of our free players can now attend other players' parties or host their own! Stop by to celebrate with Party Pete and arrange a balloon drop, or perhaps dance the night away with our expert dancer Megan and dancing knight cabaret.

We've added a feature to the hiscores that you can read about here. This will let you extract your character's stats to use as a signature on other sites with much less effort than trying to link the "full" version of your stats.

If you're lucky enough to catch one, ninja implings can now drop certed dragonhides instead of filling your inventory with the uncerted version. Happy hunting!

Discuss this update on the forums.

Come and join us killing ice giants, and for a drop party in the ice caverns! First we're going to Karamja to fish some food though, so bring along your fishing gear as well as your armour and weapon.

We meet at Draynor, world 55 at 4 PM CST (GMT-6). Please visit this topic for more information.

We hope to see you there!

~The Events Team~

Since we have heard people having trouble finding the guide in the Special Reports area, we have decided to move it to the Mini-Games guide area. You can now easily find it in the Mini-Game guide area labeled as "The Achievement Diary: Karamja".

Thanks for reading,

~ Jakesterwars ~