News Update #4 10/04/09

Today's news takes us into the RuneScape realm and the OSPRO site.

In OSPRO news,
I'd like to remind everything this isn't a fansite so the need for quest guides is fairly silly. Especially when it's from Zybez. I know this because i clicked the image and it had zybez in the URL.
If there is a guide on here, it'll be a guide for something to do with Forumotion such as the guide to getting a portal on here and such.
I'm also removing the Games forum as it is essentially a spam forum where people can get posts up easily to get into things such as vent and theres no way to stop this happening. So farewell Games forum.
I feel that being on several different forums with a games topic is more then enough and this forum isn't a fansite as I've already said.

In RuneScape news and updates,
We see that the Forums are now open to the Free to Play users:

"Today, we have opened up the forums for high level free players to be able to post!

All free players who have earned over 12.5 million XP (that roughly equates to someone having all F2P skills on level 72) are now able to post. Exciting times!

There could be around 250,000 new forum users to add to the current active forum users, and over the coming weeks and months, we will gradually enable more high level free players to have access.

If you’re a member currently, and already have access to post on the forums, we’d appreciate it if you could give our new forum guests a warm welcome.

If you’re new to the forums, have a read of the Forum Code of Conduct and please check the Forum Specific Rules on the forums you want to post on. There’s also a welcome thread in the Recent Updates forum – check it out.

Enjoy!

Mod Kelvin
Community Manager, Player Support"

We also have the second Development Diary for the New Dwarf Quest.

"Last time, I announced that I was just starting work on a new dwarf quest. All I had back then was a blank page that I needed to fill with ideas. Since then I've spent a few days brainstorming, bouncing ideas off other developers, and covering the wall next to my desk with post-it notes saying things like “Commander Veldaban” and “Red Axe base.”

I've found it harder to come up with a good idea for this quest than I have for any previous one, and I wrote down several ideas before rejecting them because they weren't right. Finally, it clicked and I had a story I was happy with.

My next step was to write this idea up in a 'concept document', which lays out the plot of the quest in broad strokes. I showed this document to Mod Mark, RuneScape's lead designer, for approval. There was no point in developing the idea until he reached a decision; if he didn't like it, it would be back to my blank page. It turned out that he did like it, so development could continue.

The next step was for Mod Mark to give me a 'core aims document'. This formalises the general aims that I'd been given earlier, telling me what things the quest has to include, roughly how big it should be, how much of the Graphics team’s time I can ask for, and so on. Mod Mark also requested that I add a new skill training activity to Keldagrim to go along with the quest, so my next task is to work out what that should be.

No doubt you're dying to know what's in these documents. I don't want to spoil the plot for you, but I can tell you a few things:

* The quest will centre on the character of Commander Veldaban.
* This will not be the last dwarf quest. I am planning three more (including this one), so the Red Axe series will have five parts when it's complete. I have a general plan for how the series as a whole will end.
* I'll probably be adding a new destination to the mine-cart transport system.
* The level requirements haven't been decided yet, but they will be vaguely in the region of the first two quests – maybe a step up from them, but not a huge step.
* There is no release date yet, but writing a quest takes time – we're talking months rather than weeks.

That's where I am now. My next step is to write the project's 'design brief', which will be the core design document of the whole project. This will specify what happens in the quest in more detail, exactly how the puzzles will work, and what the level requirements and rewards are. I'll keep you informed of how the project is going.

Mod John A
RuneScape Content Developer"

So that's it for news today. Have fun chatting on the forum. And do go ahead and check out the Forums for OSPRO Halo and RuneScape where my script is and rsmv ideas and such will be/are. I could do with feedback on the script from you Halo noobs .

~Osborne1992~