Aug 3, 2023

Distant Worlds 2 - DLC & Update Announcement

Distant Worlds 2 - FremboT3

Distant Worlds 2: Factions - Quameno & Gizureans

The Galaxy Expands! The second Distant Worlds 2 expansion brings two new playable factions – the introverted puzzle-solving Quameno and the numberless and ruthless Gizureans!
Distant Worlds 2: Factions - Quameno & Gizurean will be out on September 7th.

The Quameno mostly prefer to be left alone to focus on their research and their societies are often organized like war-time economies, but with a focus on research instead of military matters. They value puzzle-solving and the discovery of new knowledge above almost everything else, certainly more than distractions such as diplomacy, war or espionage. They also have a natural aptitude when it comes to energy technologies and because of the abundance of energy in their ships, stations and cities, they use energy fields where many others might use solid materials.

Their governments are typically based on a Geniocracy, which uses unique facilities such as the Enigma Maze to determine which are the most worthy to lead and the Transcendence Hub, a wonder which will trigger a singularity of sorts, which will free them from their physical limits and allow research to continue through eternity.

The Gizureans are legion, with an incredible reproduction rate, along with a ruthless focus on gaining and consuming enough resources to keep their burgeoning populations happy enough to stave off their tendency towards tribal strife. They also have a mysterious past, as the hive mind they once had was broken and a more limited shared consciousness is all that remains. They engineer their ships through partially organic processes, which allows them to be tougher, but their real focus is in their numbers. Gizureans tend to focus on numbers and tactics based on quantity in space combat, specializing in many smaller ships and large quantities of hive starfighters for their ships, stations and colony defense with the earliest access of any faction to planetary starfighter bases.

Each of these new factions also comes with their own special storyline and unique story locations, adding to the possible exploration events and to your knowledge of galactic lore. The Quameno will give you some additional insights on the Ancient galaxy and some of the mysteries the Ancient Guardians left behind, while the history of the Gizureans is connected with that of the Hive threat as well as the ancient enemy known as the Shakturi!

Distant Worlds 2 - Discovery Update

But that’s not all, we have some other exciting news for you: Thursday August 10th at 04.30pm BST, on our channel there will be a special streaming event with Erik Rutins, producer and co-designer of Distant Worlds 2. Get a reminder here.

During the stream, Erik will be previewing the upcoming Discovery update, releasing on August 22nd, which brings fixes and improves many long-standing issues with gameplay and system compatibility. In addition, the new update will bring new contents to the game.

This is an amazing opportunity to get an exclusive preview of the new update for Distant Worlds 2, straight from the source. You won't want to miss it!

The streaming event will be taking place on August 10th at 04.30pm BST, so be sure to tune in and join us for what promises to be an incredible showcase of Distant Worlds 2.

See you there.

The Galaxy lives on

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2409480/Distant_Worlds_2_Factions__Quameno_and_Gizureans/

Aug 3, 2023

DT2 Feedback Tweaks | August 3rd

Old School RuneScape - Mod Vex

Changelog - August 3rd

[expand type=show more]
Desert Treasure II

Adjustments have been made to the post-quest Desert Treasure II boss drop tables. More information on this is given later in the post.
A chest has been added to Kasonde's hideout in the Stranglewood. Stink bombs can be taken from it. When set off, a stink bomb will attract the nearest Strangled to the coordinate it was set off on.
New bits of scenery have been added to Lassar and the Stranglewood that when interacted with, provide a stamina boost.
Improved pathing to Salt deposits within Duke Sucellus's room. You should now be able to click from the upper floor to a deposit with ease!
Vents within Duke Sucellus's room will now correctly despawn when the encounter ends.
Resolved an issue that could prevent the Duke Sucellus encounter from starting.
Female Sanguine Torva has the correct assets.
Both body type versions of Sanguine Torva now have the correct inventory models & chatheads.
Torva has been replaced with reworked version that was shared in the Poll 80 newspost.
Players are no longer able to feed Abyssal leeches items with a "destroy'' option.
The leeches in the Persten wight fight will now always target the player.
Ketla and her clones were not doing the right amount of damage, this has been changed so they are closer to what we had intended.
The Amulet of the Eye will no longer be lost on death.
The bandit in the Ancient Vault will now sell you multiple rings. In addition, the ring now has a charge option to make charging easier. This option also tells you which runes are needed if you don't have the right ones.
Some puzzles within the Ghorrock Prison have been improved to make the solution clearer.
The gates in Ghorrock Prison are now clearly named to show what gem their lock is.
Damage should no longer carry over to Kasonde once the fight has ended.
Various minor balancing changes have been made to the quest versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses (the difficulty of these bosses should remain very close to how they were last week). Their respective combat levels have also been increased to better reflect their difficulty.
Some temple walls within the Stranglewood can no longer be walked through.
Awakener's orbs have been added to the Collection Log. As the orbs are tradeable, any gained before this update will not appear.
Boss slayer tasks for the four new bosses could be given before completing DT2. This is now fixed.
Slayer tasks no longer apply to the Awakened versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses.
Vardorvis has had some clickbox improvements.
It is no longer possible to safespot the Mysterious Stranger.
Wearing the Ring of Shadows will correctly show the hidden ghosts inside the Sepulchre.
Some scenic Braziers within the throne room of the Lassar Undercity have been removed.
Progress while in a Scar maze will now save, so if you need to leave and return, you don't need to redo already completed challenges.
Boss information has now been added to the Combat Achievements interface, alongside Monster Examine being enabled.

Hotfixes Now Cold

Issues with stairs in the Lassar area have been resolved.
Fixed an issue that prevented pillars from being destroyed during The Whisperer encounter.
Fixed an issue that caused the Soulreaper axe to hit higher than intended.
A bug has been resolved that means the Leviathan is less likely to use Melee to prevent players from bypassing all mechanics of the encounter.
Leviathan, if enraged during the spin lightning special attack, would carry on doing it. It should stop.

[/expand]

Desert Treasure II - Week One Tweaks

Since last week's release, tens of thousands of you have taken it upon yourselves to undergo the epic adventure that is Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire.

Before we get into talking about what we're changing, what we're likely to change in future and what we're still waiting for info on, we'd like to take another moment to say thank you to each and every one of you. The response to Desert Treasure II and everything that's come with it has been overwhelming and we're beyond grateful for all of the kind words you've shared with us.

With all that said, we'd like to make a handful of changes this week to improve players' experiences with the quest itself, as well as cementing some of the hotfixes we've implemented since the quest's release. You might not see as many changes as you anticipate this week, since our focus is on quest improvements and bugfixes first and foremost. The remaining feedback changes will be coming in next week's game update, so you won't have too long to wait!

Ring of Shadows

Let's kick things off with something we know you'll appreciate! Have you ever fallen afoul of multiple axes simultaneously while fighting Vardorvis, prepared yourself for the walk of shame to re-gear, and only then realised that your Ring of shadows is stuck in your gravestone and you'll have to run from half the world away? Us neither, but it's happened to a friend of ours...

Today, you'll be able to Trade with the Mysterious bandit in the Ancient vault to purchase multiple Rings of shadows, for a mere 75,000 coins. Perhaps now you'll be able to leave the Witch's plant pots alone, she worked hard on those and your grubby hands are starting to disturb the soil.

Stamina-Boosts

All of the areas added alongside Desert Treasure II are pretty hefty, and will absolutely put your cardiovascular systems through their paces. While Stamina potions do exist, some players pointed out that it felt unusual to be provided with stamina-restoring items in Ghorrock prison and the Scar, but not in either of the remaining areas.

Anybody starting (or continuing) the quest this week should keep an eye out for shrines in the Stranglewood and rejuvenation pools around Lassar, which we've added to help you keep topped up while navigating these sections of the quest.

Ghorrock Prison

Many of you seem to have really enjoyed your prison break from this icy hellhole, while others have found yourself broken instead. Two puzzles in particular stand out as perhaps a little unclear for some of you, so we've updated a handful of the notes throughout this section of the quest in the hopes that the correct solutions feel more intuitive to any budding escape artists!

Additionally, we received reports that some of the locked gates throughout the prison were difficult to discern for players with various forms of colourblindness, so we've renamed the gates to reflect their associated gem key.

The Strangled

For those of you struggling to navigate your way through the Stranglewood (you're definitely just spam clicking the minimap, aren't you?), we've got a stinky addition to help you sneak past the hungry Stranglers.

A chest has been added to Kasonde's hideout in the Stranglewood. Within this chest you'll find some Stink bombs that can be taken from it. When set off, a Stink bomb will attract the nearest Strangled to the coordinate it was set off on, keeping them far enough away from you to make your great escape. Nice.

Awakened Boss World Firsts

It's been exhilarating watching you all take on the awakened forms of the Desert Treasure II bosses. For those of you who missed it, here are the first ten completions we saw since they were released on Friday, 28th July.

Good luck to all of you still chasing for the infamous Blood Torva!

Whilst we're on the topic of Blood Torva, we accidentally included the old models with last week's game update. This week, we've added the refined versions following your feedback. Check out the blood dripping look below!

Desert Treasure II - Drop Rates

Let's take a step back from the enigmatic and thrilling battles of Desert Treasure II, it's time to turn our attention to a burning issue that has been the talk of Gielinor - the hotly-debated drop rates. We've seen the speculation, and your fervour hasn't fallen on deaf ears.

In response, we're pulling back the curtain on the drop tables. It's time to dispel the rumours, clarify the odds, and equip you, our intrepid adventurers, with the knowledge you need to brave the challenges of this exciting new update.

Rates to hit the unique table before today's update:

Vardorvis - 1/180
Duke - 1/108
Leviathan - 1/120
Whisperer - 1/77

Note: the Awakened variants of these bosses have 3x the chance to hit the unique table.

Weightings:

Virtus 1/8

A separate 1/3 roll then determines which piece is awarded

Vestige roll 3/8

Rolling this will increment a variable by one, the third time this is hit, drop the vestige and reset the variable

Chromium Ingot 3/8
Axe Piece 1/8

Untradeable Unique rates

These drops get more common with your KC until you get it for the first time, then they are flat rate as per the below:

Teleport tablets - 1/25
Ancient Elemental Quartz - 1/200

Awakener's Orb rates:

Vardorvis - 1/80
Duke - 1/48
Leviathan - 1/53
Whisperer - 1/34

Clue rates

Equal chance to roll for any Easy/Medium/Hard/Elite clue
Trate is 1/40 for a specific clue mentioned above

Pet rates

Vardorvis - 1/3000
Duke - 1/2500
Leviathan - 1/2500
Whisperer - 1/2000

Drop table order

Roll for tradeable unique
- If not, roll for Awakener's orb
  - If not, roll for untradeable uniques
    - If not, roll 1/5 for supply drop
      - If not, roll for resource drop
Additionally roll for clues & pets

Let's take a moment to dive into the drop rates for the Virtus set that's been catching everyone's eye. Finding that sweet spot between Ahrim's and Ancestral's price has been key, so the rarity of Virtus had to be dialed in just right. We made the decision to include Virtus as drops for all four separate bosses, encouraging you to grind all of them for their unique drops. You still have the option to focus on one boss if that's your thing, but we wanted to make sure that if you were going for each of the respective rings, you'd eventually get Virtus passively along the way

We did toy with the idea of having just one boss drop the whole Virtus set at a more common rate, which could have made target farming the set much easier. Implementing it this way could also prevent a potential crash in the set's value, as it wouldn't be coming into the game as quickly as it will when all four bosses are being farmed simultaneously by those hunting for their Vestige. Ultimately it all boils down to a delicate balance of rarity, demand, and the effort required to obtain them. We feel like the current implementation is the best option for the long-term grind, but understand why some of you may feel frustrated if you're exclusively seeking out Virtus.

As for general drop rates, we feel much more comfortable erring on the side of caution, especially for the initial few day. We'd much rather avoid a situation where too many uniques are entering the game vs not enough. It's much healthier for us to correct too few uniques entering the game vs too many.

With all this in mind, now that we have more information, we're changing the tradeable unique rates to be approximately 20-30% more common, depending on the boss (Vardorvis and Leviathan have received the biggest improvement). This means the following rates will now apply:

Vardorvis - 1/136
Duke - 1/90
Leviathan - 1/96
Whisperer - 1/64

Note: the Awakened variants of these bosses have 3x the chance to hit the unique table.

Keep in mind that we might fine-tune the drop rates even further down the line. Our goal is to ensure that the long-term value of items remains balanced, but we're also considering how these items fit into each player's progression journey, taking into account the time and difficulty of each encounter. So, stay tuned for any updates in the future as we continue to optimise your experience.

Other Changes

As Raiding dungeons can now contain banks, players protected by the Deadman Mode PvP protection are no longer permitted to enter them. You can speak to the Doomsayer to cancel your protection early.
Various spelling mistakes during Desert Treasure II dialogue have been resolved. Thankfully most of you spacebar spammed and didn't notice, but we fixed them anyway.
Improved pathing to Salt deposits within Duke Sucellus's room. You should now be able to click from the upper floor to a deposit with ease!
Vents within Duke Sucellus's room will now correctly despawn when the encounter ends.
Resolved an issue that could prevent the Duke Sucellus encounter from starting.
Female Sanguine Torva has the correct assets.
Both male & female sanguine torva has correct inv models & chatheads.
Torva has been replaced with reworked version shared in the Poll 80 newspost.
Players are no longer able to feed Abyssal leeches items with a "destroy'' option.
The leeches in the Persten wight fight will now always target the player.
Ketla and her clones were not doing the right amount of damage, this has been changed so they are closer to what we had intended.
The Amulet of the Eye will no longer be lost on death.
Damage should no longer carry over to Kasonde once the fight has ended.
Various minor balancing changes have been made to the quest versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses (the difficulty of these bosses should remain very close to how they were last week). Their respective combat levels have also been increased to better reflect their difficulty.
Some temple walls within the Stranglewood can no longer be walked through.
Awakener's orbs have been added to the Collection Log. As the orbs are tradeable, any gained before this update will not appear.
Boss slayer tasks for the four new bosses could be given before completing DT2. This is now fixed.
Slayer tasks no longer apply to the Awakened versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses.
Vardorvis has had some clickbox improvements.
It is no longer possible to safespot the Mysterious Stranger.
Wearing the Ring of Shadows will correctly show the hidden ghosts inside the Sepulchre.
Some scenic Braziers within the throne room of the Lassar Undercity have been removed.
Progress while in a Scar maze will now save, so if you need to leave and return, you don't need to redo already completed challenges.
Boss information has now been added to the Combat Achievements interface, alongside Monster Examine being enabled.

PvP World Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

539 - (US) - PvP World
318 - (UK) - Bounty Hunter world
548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

World 569(AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been activated with this rota.

You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

Mods Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nox, Nylu, Other, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Rice, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Shroom, Sigma, Skane, Skylark, Sova, Squid, Starry, Stevew, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, Torrance, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy

The Old School Team.