Receiving awards is available until August 31*

Welcome to a new monthly Q&A series presented by the Conqueror’s Blade development team! We’re starting with questions focusing on the current season of Conqueror’s Blade (Helheim), but this is just the beginning.

We’ve gathered your burning questions and paid attention to feedback from the community to bring you this instalment, so we hope you enjoy the insight from the developers at Booming Tech!

Q: Why did the team decide to make a second Viking-themed season rather than one with a new theme?

A: The Viking era is too vast to cover in a single season. After Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarök, which focused on the early Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies (Sons of Fenrir, Berserkers, and Shieldmaidens), many players requested that we add Vikings more akin to the massive and brutal warriors of history.

Many asked for the Huskarls and Varangian Guards. And with those two units, the game now features five Viking-inspired units, rivalling the rosters of our units inspired by China and Western Europe.

(Editor’s Note: Check out the Behind the Scenes article about this very subject here!)

Q: Why did the team decide to only release two units this season?

A: As this is the first time ever we've only released two units, we believe it’s important that we explain our reasoning.

First of all, designing and creating units' behaviours, animations, and balancing takes plenty of resources and effort. This means that the devs working on these are unable to undertake other equally important tasks. We have collected a lot of feedback from our players that focussing on releasing new units may slow down the game as a whole and that perhaps we should focus more on fixing balance issues and bugs.

We wanted to give our design team and animators time to polish existing animations and AI behaviours, and work on improving the balance of existing units and heroes.

The team was able to release weekly balance patches and address multiple issues for heroes like the Glaive and Nodachi during the production of Helheim. These changes are our initial steps for making these two weapons more viable in the current meta, and we will be analysing data before making any further changes.

Regarding Unit balance, we made changes to the Ottoman-inspired units (Azaps, Jannisaries, and Royal Janissaries), adjusted the Shieldmaidens slightly, and re-worked the Mongolian-inspired Kheshigs. In addition, we made over a hundred minor changes to other units and worked on AI behaviours, animation bugs, and map balancing.



Q: How does the team select themes for new seasons?

A: Many factors play a part in the decision-making. Firstly, while Conqueror's Blade is not a historically accurate game, it is heavily inspired by history and encompasses certain historical time periods from which we seek inspiration for factions, units, and stories. We want the units on the battlefield to look organic when fighting one another, as opposed to having a melting pot of units from every possible era all mashed into one.

While we are based in China, we are an international company with an intercultural team comprising members from all across the globe, similar to how our players come from all over the world. This is why we aim to create a game with a multicultural representation of factions and units.

Some themes and cultures are expansive and very popular among our players, and we naturally want to expand on these when possible.

We need to respect the lore and world vision of Conqueror's Blade. Each following season must be connected and naturally integrated into the world with respect to the game's geography and the lore of previous seasons.

Finally, players often express their opinion on desired factions, and that plays a part in which theme we choose.

Q: Are there any plans to remove "Play X Mode" quests from Seasonal Unit Challenges to make them more accessible?

A: We are continuously adjusting Weekly Challenges and Unit Challenges and plan to continue doing so throughout the upcoming seasons. As many players have noticed, we are adding more and more alternative choices for challenges so that each player can choose those that they enjoy.

At the same time, we want to encourage players to play a variety of game modes and not only grind Siege Battles. That's why we plan to add more alternative goals that can be completed within PvP sieges while still retaining the challenges of other game modes.

Q: Are there any plans to introduce more Weapon Classes to the game?

A: New weapons are always a hot topic when it comes to a new season. For sure, we would love to add more weapons to Conqueror's Blade and plan to do so. However, that being said, we won't be adding new weapons as often as we add units due to balancing reasons and the development time required.

We've seen some really cool ideas from the community and have had serious discussions about those (and I do believe some of you have received our feedback). It also takes plenty of time to bring new features into the game. Most importantly, we would love to hear your crazy and creative ideas! You guys are like a never-ending spring of fantastic ideas!

That's all for the first instalment of Ask The Devs! We know that you have plenty of other questions that need answering, and the Conqueror’s Blade community team will be choosing the most popular topics and sharing feedback with the Development team for next time. Keep sharing your thoughts with us on Discord!

Three-hundred-MILLION accounts have been made for RuneScape to date and we're still a little stunned honestly. It's an amazing number and one worth celebrating - so we're throwing a party in RuneScape all month at the G.E!

And, as the cherry on top of this new party full of goodies, Double XP: LIVE kicks off this Friday too! Read on all for all the info.



It's actually unbelievable to be marking the creation of over 300M Accounts for RuneScape. - partly because our front page timer lied to us (Spaghetti Code™) and we've been trying to make it play catch up for a while now, but mostly because it's such an incredible number of accounts! But here we are, over 300M accounts deep, 21 years into this amazing journey.

With the counter now correctly showing that at the time of writing over 320M accounts exists (for those interested in the specifics, we're working on getting the exact number to accurately show!), we just wanted to say a big thank you to every single person who has taken the time to enter the world of Gielinor. RuneScape exists and endures because it's more than a game - it's a world, a place, a community. This is a moment to celebrate all of you who bring this world to life and mark yet another milestone for the history books. While not every account represents a unique player, each one represents sometimes time, effort and interest in spending time in this world. That's pretty damn awesome and we'll never forget it.

Now, as you'd expect, we've known this big milestone was coming this year for a while now - so we've been preparing a few things to mark the occasion.

Firstly, we're throwing a Party Event throughout August in RuneScape that launches TODAY! More on that below.

However, we've got something else in the works too. We've been working on this for many months now since we first thought about how we could really celebrate hitting 300M players, and while we're not quite ready to talk about it today, we're almost at that point. Stay tuned for more news next week. It's gonna be fun.



To celebrate 300M Players, we're throwing a special event party with a whole host of exclusive event cosmetics to collect! Unfortunately, Party Pete was the one asked to put the party together and went a little TOO big by trying to run a Gielinor-wide drop party. He horribly miscalculated and all the balloons ended up popped - leaving fragments all over. We're gonna have some work to do.

The Grand Exchange is party central for this event! Head to the partied-up G.E to find Party Pete, this event's host, and claim your free 300M Keepsake Glasses!


Party Pete now needs your help to clean up all those Balloon Fragments from his failed drop party plans.

Find balloon fragments simply by playing the game - as you earn XP, you'll earn balloon fragments. You'll also get balloon fragments with every Treasure Hunter key used too. For every 200 Fragments you return to him, he'll give you a special balloon filled with rewards ranging from exclusive event cosmetics to GP and more!

Depending on the balloon colour depends on the rarity of rewards you can find beginning with White, then Blue, then Purple and then finally the best of them all - the Gold Balloons. Gold Balloons feature a guaranteed token for one of the Platinum Armour cosmetic sets or a whopping 300M GP!

You can also claim a free bonus balloon every day from Party Pete. Easy extra opportunities to find those treasured Gold Balloons!

Party Pete whipped up a selection of new goodies to put into the Drop Party. Here's what you can find that's brand new to this event:

• Platinum Pernix, Torva and Virtus Cosmetic Armour*
• Found as a Tradeable Token
• The Token unlocks a Platinum Cosmetic Override of the full armour set
• Chance to find in all balloons - significantly higher chance in Gold balloons

• Party T-Shirts*
• Found as a Tradeable Token
• 3 cosmetic overrides to find featuring RS Icons: King Black Dragon, Wise Old Man and Gnome
• Chance to find in Purple Balloons

• One of the Many & Party Title Scrolls*
• Found as a Tradeable Title Scroll
• Chance to find in Blue Balloons

Party Pete has also packed the balloons full of other goodies including some past cosmetics! Here's what else you can find across a variety of different balloons:

• 25K - 5m GP (or 300M as a potential Gold Balloon prize!)**
• Boogie Bow (last seen at the 200M Celebrations!)
• Disco, Cool Disco and Super Disco Outfit pieces
• Conga Dance Token*
• Party Fever Token*
• XP Lamps**
• Bonus XP Stars**
• Silverhawk Down**
• Tight Springs**
• Party Food
• Oddments

You've got plenty of time to collect the rewards as you play as these festivities will be running until September 4th!

*Ironman Players also have access to buy these cosmetics on the Grand Exchange

**Not available for Ironman Players



While you're Skilling for your Balloon Fragments, you'll also revel in some DXP from this Friday until Monday August 22nd!

For those who don't know, Double XP LIVE is a 10 day event where you have 48 Hours of Double XP to use at your leisure. You can even pause the timer if you need to do activities where you don't want to lose precious Double XP time. If you won't be using all your time, every day you can also trade 1 tour of Double XP time for credits to use with Nic The Trade.

Need to know more? Head here: https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/summer-double-xp-august-12---22



Here's a look at what's happening in Treasure Hunter this week!

Time To Train: August 11th - 17th

Stock-up on supplies for your Double XP skilling with plenty of chances to find Proteans, Portables, Dummies and more! Don't forget about the Combat Dummy improvements that have now made them more useful and efficient to use! Find out more here: https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/summer-double-xp-august-12---22

Mysteria: August 9th - 10th

Mysteria constantly rotates various versions of Treasure Hunter over the course of two days! Find the super-charged XP bonuses of Prismania through to iconic Loot Duels with beefy multipliers.

Double Dragon Chests: Now - August 9th

Double Dragon Chests award various multipliers to your Treasure Hunter findings, with up to 5x if you find a God Chest.



Wednesday August 10th | 16:00 Game Time | 300M Party & Wilderness Reborn

Join the team as we talk about two recent updates – the 300M Party & The Wildy Reborn!

See you on Twitch!

• Based on your feedback we have made the following changes to the Abyss:
• The Abyss can now be entered without the requirement of being opted-in to PVP. The 250% Runecrafting XP bonus still applies for opted-out players who Runecraft via the Abyss
• The Forinthry bracelet no longer consumes charges when entering the Abyss while equipped. The examine has been updated to reflect this change.
• Players who do opt-in for PVP and use the Demonic Skull receive the 350% XP bonus
• Fixed an issue with the Wilderness Slayer Chests being destroyed on death. They now work as follows:
• If you are inside the Wilderness with PvP enabled, the chest will be destroyed.
• If you inside the Wilderness with PvP disabled, the chest will be protected
• If you outside the Wilderness with PvP disabled, the chest will be protected
• If you outside the Wilderness with PvP enabled, the chest will be protected
• Additional sound effects have been added for the following
• Wilderness Volcano shortcuts
• Wilderness Volcano random event (projectile)
• - Wilderness Ambushes (spawn sound)
• Super antifire potions can now be traded and bought/sold on the Grand Exchange.
• Picking up coins outside of the Wilderness - no matter your pvp state - will now see them go directly into the coin pouch, rather than your inventory.
• Fixed a small section of tiles that did not count as being "Wilderness"
• Updated two of the Onyx dragons in the wilderness dungeon to Dragonstone dragons
• For their own safety, the Ghostly piper has moved away from their old spot to a new spot nearby. One that is a bit less dragon contested
• Fixed an issue where creatures spawned in via Wilderness Threat could appear at higher mapping levels, making it look like they are floating.
• Wilderness dark beasts now drop loot matching other dark beasts
• Killing Soulgazers whilst on a 'Soulgazers (Wilderness)' task will now decrease your slayer count.
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to attack Abyssal Demons inside Kuradel's Dungeon if they were on an 'Abyssal Demons (Wilderness)' slayer task.
• Dummies can no longer be placed down whilst inside the Wilderness.
• The reward chest outside of the Dragonkin Laboratory has been re-mapped down on the surface world.
• Moved a piece of the environment that was blocking access to the Sword of Edicts Engram
• May's quest teleport now takes you to the bottom of the Falador throne room stairs, instead of the version of the throne room not used for Daughter of Chaos

• Made changes to the Zamorak, Lord of Chaos rare drop table to incentivize pushing higher enrages:
• Rare chance now increases further with boss enrage
• Bow chance now increases with boss enrage
• During Phase 7 of the Zamorak, Lord of Chaos encounter, the chaos demon(s) that spawn into Infernus could be used to negate the damage done by the attack itself. This should no longer occur.
• Completing a Zamorak, Lord of Chaos kill at 2000% enrage now unlocks the 'Chaos Witch Master' outfit, rather than the 'Chaos Witch Adept' outfit
• Fixed an issue with the Resonance and Reflect abilities when engaging in PvP whilst having the Bow of the Last Guardian equipped
• The following boss encounters were missing a broadcast for completing their respective boss collection logs. This now been fixed!
• Zamorak, Lord of Chaos
• Croesus

In the coming months, RuneScape will no longer support Windows 32-bit builds or graphics cards that do not support OpenGL 3.0 or higher. This change allows us to focus our technical development and testing resources on more commonly-used platforms.

For more information, and to check if your system meets these requirements, head here.



@Legend_Arts wonders what Chaos Elemental would be like if they were a little Zamorakian?


u/1to99Artscapehttps://www.reddit.com/user/1to99Artscape/ has designed an eldritch update to the Chaos Elemental

@Ayrieton showcasing another fantastic design


u/IrlonSL has sculpted this imposing General Graardor, check out the post for more wonderful shots.
FrostDragonZ checking the baths temperature before jumping in.

Lix is wondering if they chop down all those trees will they get their Woodcutting cape.

Snowythehunter admires the Volcano and new wilderness.

AWeeRedPanda taking a break from the doom and gloom to find peace with the Iaia Skybox.
Each week the Pink Skirts put on a selection of fun activities that everyone can join. Here are the main events this week:

Corporeal Beast

• Hosted by: Patrick K & Clackworthy
• Date/Time: Monday August 8th, 19:00 Gametime
• World: 123
• Location: Corporeal Beast Lair

• FC: Patrick K

Nex - Angel Of Death

• Hosted by: Pippyspot & Boss Guild
• Date/Time: Friday August 12th, 20:00 Gametime
• World: 88
• Location: God Wars Dungeon - Ancient Prison
• FC: Boss Guild

Nex - Angel Of Death

• Hosted by: Spotleewolf & Nexaodmass
• Date/Time: Friday August 12th, 23:00 Gametime
• World: 92
• Location: God Wars Dungeon - Ancient Prison
• FC: Nexaodmass

If these don't take your fancy, take a look at the full events schedule here. There’s sure to be something you’ll enjoy
Shining a little light onto community events and activities.
The RuneScape Art Community continues to battle it out in a vicious gang war of drawings, comics, fan fiction, music, sculpting and a whole host of other mediums as after a whole month there has been a total of 526[/i] pieces created!

Here is what the scores currently stand at!



If you are not familiar with the Art fight premise here are the rules, to summarize, 2 teams of talented artists are creating artworks of the opposing team (of their own allies in some instances) in order to gain points based on a variety of factors with the team with the most points winning!

We have gathered up a few of these recent attacks to showcase just some of the wonderful work that is on show!



First up! Ravon of the Black Arm Gang attacking Geena using Sliske to a devastating effect!



Black Arm Member Suizzy with a beautiful portrait of ChunksOfPlum and some Guthixinian butterflies.



DrTigrexPHD of the Phoenix Gang attacking Elej with an astounding full sculpture of their in game character.



And last but definitely not least Willoway of the Phoenix gang with this fantastic group shot of various members of the teams in a High School Anime style to strike back at Nikki, for a little more context, Nikki has been creating some amazing art of the teams as if the members all went to the same school and the whole Art War was just rival school gangs and it is hilarious and wholesome. This piece is littered with in-jokes of the community and it is a fantastic amalgamation of the Art fight as a whole.

Finally a special shout out to Siroquois for their contributions to the event, they have personally created 37 Art pieces hitting each and every member of the rival gang in a variety of formats from solitary drawings, to comic strips, parodies, and even a 22-page (11 sheets) long graphic novel they have been an absolute Art Fight Professional and deserve a thunderous round of applause!

- The RuneScape Team

Dear players, everyone:



In order to ensure the stability of the game operation and improve the game experience, Shadowbane's first server [Gungnir], second server [Mjolnir] and third server [Gram] will perform routine maintenance on August 08 17:00-19:00 Pacific Time (8:00-10:00, August 09 Beijing Time). If the maintenance content cannot be completed within the scheduled time, the service opening time will to be postponed. Please understand.



Shadowbane game project team August 08, 2022

Play this new Visual Novel and Escape Room!
You will take on the role of Danny Bent, a boy who wakes up in a train car. Without memories and without knowing why he is there, he soon realizes that something strange is going on. Can you solve all the puzzles? Of discovering the truth? Will you be able to escape?

As summer draws to a close in Albion, human and animal alike are coming out to harvest nature’s bounty. But dangers lurk, and some creatures seek out one prize above all else: unsuspecting adventurers.

You can do a little harvesting of your own with this beastly new mount skin, arriving next week to the in-game store! Look out for more details coming soon…

Update v0.30.6 Is Live!

• Added a Bug Box Collector to the underside of the Furnace Bricks, to avoid any objects getting stuck when Purchasing the Furnace objects.
  
  
• Removed the Beaker Bug Box collider.
  
  
• Made it so if the Audio Sliders are set to 0% they completely mute the respective audio.
  
  
• Fixed certain Inner Component Animations not playing correctly.
  
  
• Fixed the XP Bars not Updating their values Correctly when leaving the 'Skills' Tab open.
  
  
• Added the Ability to Rotate Objects while disassembling by pressing [Z]/[C] as well as being able to Zoom in and out with the [-]/[+] Keys.
  
  
• Fixed the bug where after maxing out a Perk tree would make it so Loading would become stuck at 17%
  
  
• Reworked the new Carrying Method remove the ability to levitate with Objects.
  
  
• Along with this new addition to the Carrying Method which seems quite stable at the moment, I have completely removed the Carrying Look down limits for all objects, besides the default limits that avoid the camera from doing full flips.

Hot Fix:

• Fixed Randomized Objects on PCs, Servers and Laptops not being detected by the new system that disables the colliders to avoid the Levitation glitch.

Hola Warlords!

This is the first episode of Ask the Devs, and we want to get started with questions focusing on the current season. In the Ask the Devs, we'll be choosing the questions from within our community from the last 30 days and responding to these.

We'll keep this series going forever, and this episode is just the beginning. Let’s play!



1. Why did the team decide to make a second Viking-themed season rather than one with a new theme?

The Viking era is too vast to cover in a single season. After the Wolves of Ragnarök which focused on the early Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies (Sons of Fenrir, Berserkers, Shieldmaidens) many players requested that we added Vikings more akin to the massive and brutal warriors of history.

Many asked for the Huskarls and Varangian guards. And with those two units, the game now features 5 Viking-inspired units, rivaling the rosters of our units inspired by China and Western Europe.

2. Why did the team decide to only release 2 units this season?

As this is the first time ever we've only released 2 units, we believe it‘s’ important that we explain our reasoning.

First of all, designing, and creating units' behaviors graphs, animations, and balance takes plenty of resources and effort. This means that those working on these will be unable to undertake other equally important tasks. We have collected a lot of feedback from our players that a too big focus on releasing new units may slow down the game as a whole, and that perhaps we should focus more on fixing balance issues and bugs.

We wanted to give our design team and animators time to polish existing animations, AI behaviors, and work on improving the balance of existing units and heroes.

The team was able to release weekly balance patches and address multiple issues for heroes like the Glaive and Nodachi during the production of Helheim. These changes are our initial steps for making these two heroes more viable in the current meta, and we will be analyzing data before making any further changes.

Regarding unit balance - we made changes to the S3 Ottoman-inspired units - Azaps, Jannisaries, and Royal Janissaries, adjusted the Shieldmaidens slightly, and re-worked the Mongolian-inspired T5 Kheshigs. In addition, we made over a hundred minor changes to other units and worked on AI behaviors, animation bugs, and map balancing.

3. How does the team select seasonal themes for new seasons?

Many factors play a part in the decision-making. First, while Conqueror's Blade is not a historically accurate game, it is heavily inspired by history and encompasses certain historical time periods from which we seek inspiration for factions/units/stories. We want the units on the battlefield to look organically when fighting one another, as opposed to having a melting pot of units from every possible era all mashed into one.

While we are based in China, we are an international company with an intercultural team comprising members from all across the globe, similar to how our players come from all over the world. This is why we aim to create a game with a multicultural representation of factions and units.

Some themes and cultures are expansive and very popular among our players, and we naturally want to expand on these when possible.

We need to respect the lore and world vision of Conqueror's Blade. Each following season must be connected and naturally integrated into the world with respect to the game's geography and the lore of previous seasons.

Finally, players often express their opinion on desired factions. And, of course, the marketing potential, timing, and current trends play a part in which theme we choose.

4. Are there any plans to remove "Play X mode" quests from Seasonal Unit Challenges to make them more accessible?

We are continuously adjusting Weekly Challenges and Unit Challenges and plan to continue doing so throughout the upcoming seasons. As many players have noticed, we are adding more and more alternative choices for challenges so that each player can choose those that they enjoy.

At the same time, we want to encourage players to play a variety of game modes and not only grind Siege Battles. That's why we plan to add more alternative goals that can be completed within PvP sieges while still retaining the challenges of other game modes.

5. Are there any plans to introduce more weapons into the game?

​New weapons are always a hot topic when it comes to a new season. And for sure, we would love to add more weapons to Conqueror's Blade and plan to do so throughout the upcoming seasons. However, that being said, we won't be adding new weapons as often as we add units due to balancing reasons and the development time required.

We've seen some really cool ideas from the community, and have had serious discussions about those (and I do believe some of you have received our feedback). But it also takes plenty of time to bring new features into the game. Most importantly, we need all of you to keep sharing your crazy and creative ideas with us! You guys are like a never-ending spring of fantastic ideas!

6. Why did the team decide to change up some of the terms in the English MY.GAMES version?

We have partnered with MY.GAMES for years, and they have been supporting Conqueror's Blade in NA and EU ever since we released there, both regions which include a great number of English-speaking players.

We recently began working on an intercontinental mode for SA, EU, and NA to fulfill our vision for Conqueror’s Blade: to enable players from all over the world to have fun together. Confusions and differences in terminologies between the different English versions shouldn't be barriers standing in the way.

We feel you that it'll be difficult when some things suddenly get renamed. So we have announced our plan in advance and will be implanting these changes gradually to give you time to grow accustomed to them. At the same time, we have opened a channel on our English Discord for discussions over some terminology. We are also planning to provide more interesting information about how these units got their names to fuel the discussion.

AND, we have explained it with more detailed thoughts on Discord earlier (check on our Discord #en_term_changes)!

---

That's all for the first episode! We know that you have plenty of other questions that need answering. While we cannot directly invite you to be part of the development of the game, we do want to keep you up to date with all that's to come. Just keep sharing your thoughts with us!

In regards to the English Discord, we've made some changes to the channels so that it's hopefully more apparent what each channel is aimed at. Click Here to join our Discord and follow our English Twitter!

Thank you, Warlords! And see you on the battlefield!

Hi everyone! We have just released an update with a few changes, including a new card! Here is the full list of changes:

• New Card: Bullet Pulse
  
• New rare enemy variant
  
• Added support for AZERTY keyboard layouts
  
• Added support to cast using controller right bumper

If you would like to stay up to date with all changes, join our Discord!