While working on the Chambers of Xeric, we decided to take a little detour and add some exciting new things along the way. We were actually aiming to release this a little bit sooner, preferably matching my own 9 year anniversary, but some additional things were added and needed some more testing. Nonetheless, grab a snack, sit back and let's see what this update has to offer!
Revenant Caves
The OSRS Revenant Caves have been added! They can be accessed through two entrances: one at level 17 Wilderness (east of the Bandit Camp), and the other in level 40 Wilderness (just south-east of the Lava Maze). An alternative way of getting into the caves is by using the Revenant cave teleport, which is dropped by the Revenants themselves or can be bought for 25 PkHonor points from the PkHonor Exchange Shop (at ::shops). These teleport scrolls provides the option to teleport to either entrance, or directly into the Revenant room.
This update comes with a range of new items:
Revenant ether
A guaranteed drop from any of the Revenants in the Revenant caves. It can be used to charge different items, like the Bracelet of ethereum and the Revenant weaponry: the Craw's bow, Thammaron's sceptre and Viggora's chainmace. Revenant ether is always dropped on death, even when it is stored as charges within the weapons or bracelet. Having Bounty Hunter enabled increases the amount of ether dropped by 25%.
Craw's bow
The Craw's bow is a shortbow that gets dropped by any of the Revenants in the Revenant caves. The bow requires level 60 Ranged to wield. The bow requires Revenant ether charges to be fired and provides its own ammo (similar to the Zaryte bow and Crystal bow). An additional 50% ranged accuracy and 50% ranged damage bonus is applied to any monster in the Wilderness. The bow will consume 1 ether charge per attack in any situation.
The bow can be activated using 1,000 revenant ether (these do not count towards the charges yet, and only 'activate' the bow). After using 1,000 ether, you can add additional ether to charge the bow (up to 16,000 charges). Upon death, any revenant ether will be dropped to the ground, even if the bow itself is protected.
Thammaron's sceptre
The Thammaron's sceptre is a magical weapon that gets dropped by any of the Revenants in the Revenant caves. The sceptre requires level 60 Magic to wield. The sceptre requires Revenant ether charges to be used. While the sceptre is charged with Revenant ether, an additional 100% magic accuracy and 25% magic damage bonus is applied to any monster in the Wilderness, consuming 1 ether per attack.
The sceptre can be activated using 1,000 revenant ether (these do not count towards the charges yet, and only 'activate' the sceptre). After using 1,000 ether, you can add additional ether that will be used to charge the sceptre (up to 16,000 charges). Upon death, any revenant ether will be dropped to the ground, even if the sceptre itself is protected.
Viggora's chainmace
The Viggora's chainmace is a magical weapon that gets dropped by any of the Revenants in the Revenant caves. The chainmace requires level 60 Attack to wield. The chainmace requires Revenant ether charges to be used. While the chainmace is charged with Revenant ether, an additional 50% melee accuracy and 50% melee damage bonus is applied to any monster in the Wilderness, consuming 1 ether per attack.
The chainmace can be activated using 1,000 revenant ether (these do not count towards the charges yet, and only 'activate' the chainmace). After using 1,000 ether, you can add additional ether that will be used to charge the chainmace (up to 16,000 charges). Upon death, any revenant ether will be dropped to the ground, even if the chainmace itself is protected.
Ancient artefacts
Ancient artefacts are a VERY rare drop from any of the Revenants. These Ancient artefacts can be brought to the Emblem trader (which is just north-west of the Revenant chamber) to trade them for 100M tickets. The highest tier artefact (the Ancient Relic) is worth 10 billion coins! The artefacts are always dropped on death, even if it's the only item in the player's inventory.
Since this update has brought quite a few new items to the Ironman hard clue scroll rewards and the Wilderness generally is no place for Ironmen, we have decided that when ironman hand in any ancient artefact they also get a roll on the Ironman hard clue scroll reward table. This will make Revenants a fairly good source of any of the Hard clue scroll rewards, and will hopefully compensate for the lower rate of Ex-ex parrots.
Bracelet of ethereum
The Bracelet of ethereum is a unique drop from the Revenants in the Revenant Caves. Players can charge the bracelet with revenant ether, and can hold up to 16,000 ether. When charged, the bracelet becomes untradeable and makes the player immune to damage from revenants, with 1 charge being consumed per attack against you. Revenants are also unaggressive when a charged bracelet is worn. The uncharged bracelet can be dismantled in return for 250 revenant ether.
The bracelet is always lost on death, and any Revenant ether stored within it will be dropped as well. Thus, it is recommended not to place too many charges in the bracelet, as player killers will always receive the remaining ether within it as loot upon death.
Players can right-click the Toggle-absorption option on the bracelet to automatically absorb revenant ether from defeated revenants. Also, upon completion of the Wilderness PvM achievements, the Bracelet of ethereum will only have a 50% chance of consuming Revenant ether.
Revenant cave teleport
The Revenant cave teleport is a drop from the Revenants in the Revenant Caves.
The Revenant cave teleport scroll can also be bought from the PkHonor Exchange shop for 25 PkHonor points.
It can be used to teleport to several Revenant locations:
Wrath runes
The Revenants are currently the only source of the newly introduced Wrath runes. These runes can be used to cast Surge spells in the Normal spellbook. Read more about them in the dedicated chapter!
Revenant hunting
We listened to the community and their request for keeping the original Revenant minigame. We decided to leave the existing Revenants to wander the Wilderness like before! However, they have been renamed to 'Lost Souls' and the corresponding lore has been slightly altered. Other than their name and lore, the minigame itself remains untouched.
In-game music!
An addition nobody may have seen coming: PkHonor now has in-game music! We tried to cover most areas, but feel free to let us know if any areas are missing their corresponding music. The music volume can be altered in the settings tab, using the slider:
There's not much more I can say about this, but believe me when I say that this required a bunch of engine work Hope you enjoy it!
Hybrid equipment & Castle Wars
In recent years, Castle Wars has not been as active as we had hoped. The minigame is often played incorrectly, primarily just by running flags for countless hours. Players who actually want to play the minigame like it's supposed to, dislike this flag running. We have tried fixing this issue in the past, but it mostly comes down to the same thing; the lack of players playing the minigame. Running flags essentially isn't possible when there's a line of defense that blocks a runner's way, and mostly only happens when ~4 players are in the minigame.
A result of this is that the Castle Wars equipment (Vanguard, Battle-mage and Trickster equipment) is limited to those who have either obtained them through incorrectly playing the minigame or farming the minigame with a clan (which is not allowed). Only a select few have obtained the equipment by properly playing the minigame. This is not something we want to see from a design perspective; the best-in-slot equipment sets should not solely be locked behind a broken piece of content.
So we decided to add the Castle Wars tickets to the PkHonor Point Exchange Shop, where you can now buy the tickets for 20 PkHonor points each! Castle Wars will still be the absolute best way of obtaining Castle Wars tickets, but their availability in the PkHonor Point Exchange shop provides an alternative way of obtaining this equipment by playing any aspect of the game. This will make the grind more enjoyable, as a player can choose whatever route they prefer (either by skilling, PvP, hunting the WildyWyrm, etc). Keep in mind that this roughly translates to 94,000 PkHonor Points per set, which is an amount that only a select few currently have. So don't expect everyone running around in Hybrid equipment anytime soon.
We believe the two biggest benefits of this decision are as follows:
- Castle Wars will become more active as more players will obtain the Hybrid equipment (which still needs to be charged inside the minigame), so players will choose to play the minigame more often. The Hybrid equipment is also primarily charged by combat, which should stop flag running.
- The demand for PkHonor points will increase. Currently PkHonor points aren't too valuable late game content. Players outgrow their need after getting Chaotic weaponry and unlocking the quests and curses. These Castle Wars tickets will increase the demand in the late game, so players will remain motivated to collect PkHonor points. Aside from that, this will also increase the demand for anything that converts into PkHonor points upon death; adding additional ways of earning money for newer players.
- The refund price of the Hybrid equipment pieces has been increased to 1 billion coins per piece. It used to be 300m, which just isn't enough for its insane equipment bonuses.
- Upon death, each of the Hybrid equipment pieces will lose 10% charge, similair to Nex equipment.
We have also tweaked the Castle Wars minigame to reward winning the minigame. 'Running flags' will no longer be a viable method of obtaining tickets. The best source of points is simply winning the match. This will hopefully stimulate competition between parties, and reward parties for teamwork instead of limiting rewards to the player that captures the flag.
Refund box keeper
Since we have received several refunds in the past because of ambiguity between which items go to the refund box, and which do not, we decided there should be a better way of checking this. It's now possible to use any item on the Refund box keeper (in Edgeville or Varrock), he will then inform you whether the item will go to your refund box, in which situation and for which price.
This will hopefully prevent players from losing their favorite items and provide some more clarity on newly added items.
Some other changes to the refund box:
- The Royal seed pod will now go to the refund box for 100m coins.
- Like mentioned above, the Castle Wars Hybrid equipment (Vanguard, Battle-mage and Trickster) now have a refund price of 1 billion coins per piece. Originally, they were only 300m per piece.
Spellbook rework & Surge spells!
We managed to rebuild the entire Spellbook system, which now makes it possible to easily add, change or delete spells. This means: Surge spells! We have also added the "Lvl-7 Enchant" spell to enchant zenyte jewelry. The Revenants in the Revenant caves now drop Wrath runes, which can be used to cast the new surge spells from the Normal spellbook. These are incredibly effective in PvP, especially when used with the newly introduced Tome of Fire.
The other spellbooks should also have improved, having a better layout and giving more responsive feedback to clicks. Alongside that, the Miasmic spells have been removed. These simply haven't been used for years, and were an annoyance to PvP'ers who were used to the Ancient spellbook layout in OSRS.
Alongside these new spells, the Glacors, Ice Strykewyrms and Frost dragons now have a weakness to Fire spells (Fire surge, Fire wave, Fire blast, Fire bolt and Fire strike). This will increase your damage output with +80%, almost doubling your hits. This will be the new meta for these monsters.
PkHonor Exchange Shop
We decided to remove the PvP armour from the PkHonor Exchange Shop. This includes Vesta's, Statius', Morrigan's and Zuriel's equipment. The armour is not discontinued and can still be obtained through killing Lost Souls throughout the Wilderness. However, they will no longer be as easily accessible through the shop. This change means that the Wise old man now requires a Fighter torso instead. This is our first step towards rebalancing PvP - feedback is highly appreciated.
In return, new items were added to the PkHonor Exchange shop! The Castle Wars tickets were added (read more about them in the dedicated chapter), and several different ornaments can now be purchased. The Obsidian armour has also been added. This is a melee armour set which requires 60 defence to wear. When all 3 pieces are equipped, all obsidian weaponry will be given a 10% boost in melee accuracy and melee strength. This stacks with the Berserker necklace bonus.
Bounty Hunter Changes
We really wanted to work on the Bounty Hunter minigame. The minigame is really part of the Wilderness, so requires extra care. First off, we added a completely new HUD interface when you have Bouny Hunter activated. The HUD shows some more information, including the tier of emblem your target is carrying. This HUD can be toggled in the newly designed quest tab.
Alongside the new interfaces, more rewards were added to the Bounty Hunter store:
Tome of Fire
The Tome of fire is a book held in place of a shield and requires level 50 Magic to wield. The tome can be charged with burnt pages to act as a source of fire runes whilst equipped. Each page adds 20 charges to the tome and it can hold up to 1,000 pages. If a charge (1/20 or more) is consumed and the page is removed, the entire page will be consumed. Casting fire spells with a charged Tome of fire equipped will increase the spell's damage by 50% (multiplicative bonus on top of magic damage bonus) and consume one charge. This can be extremely helpful when using the new Fire surge spell. Casting a non-combat spell requiring fire runes will not consume any charges.
Imbued god capes
The Imbued god capes are powerful Magic capes. They provide +2% magic damage, +15 magic attack and +15 magic defence. The cape is tradeable, contrary to the OSRS counterpart.
Ring of Vigour (i)
Not a direct addition to the shop, but now accessible by combining two Ring of Vigours with a Ring imbue scroll. When worn, this ring saves 15% special attack usage. This could be a very interesting tool, and will also make the regular Ring of Vigour more useful and sought after. Not only does it have uses in PvP, but also ToB parties will find these useful. The BH-point price of the regular Ring of Vigour has been increased to reflect the ring's new usage.
The YouTuber rank
As mentioned in February’s developer blog, we started exploring the possibility of adding the YouTuber rank. Since then, we have been working out how exactly the rank will be implemented and managed. We’re happy to announce that from today, players who regularly post high-quality videos will have the option to be awarded the YouTuber rank!
How can I obtain the rank?
The rank will be awarded to those who meet our criteria. However, you will not be able to apply for the rank, similar to the way our current helper rank works. Youtuber ranks will be awarded by Ely & me (Thoby). We’ll continually watch the latest PkHonorvideos and keep ou the lookout for new YouTubers, provided you meet the following requirements:
- Already have created 3+ videos on PkHonor.
- Post frequently. At least 2 videos every month.
- Maintain good overall quality (Editing, Good quality and audio)
- Be an ambassador of PkHonor by following our rules and upholding our values.
- Youtube icon in-game in front of your name
- Youtuber displayed on the forums under your avatar, however your forums colour will not change.
- Videos posted into the #featured-media discord channel.
- The ability to yell in-game (if you do not have donator rank yet)
It's worth noting that the rank itself will have no benefits in-game.
Tip: Posting your videos in the In-game media section will increase your exposure. However, we will be keeping up to date with the latest videos posted to YouTube too
Discord Announcements
Inspired by Brant's suggestion, there now is Discord Integration. In-game announcements, such as big drops/loot (over 15B) or significant HCIM deaths will now display a message in the Discord #general chat. If it is deemed too spammy, we can always look into changing the rates or displaying the messages in another channel!
If you haven't joined our Discord yet, this is a wonderful time to do so. We show a bunch of sneak peeks of upcoming content and you can chill and have a chat with other players. Join here!
Dragon Defender
The Dragon Defender has been obtainable from the Kalphite Queen since its release. However, since this did not age too well, and is fairly confusing; we moved the Dragon Defender to the Cyclops in the Warriors' Guild. However, it is still only accessible after completing 26 Wise Old Man achievements (like the Dragon Defender from the KQ). Also, when all Wise Old Man achievements have been completed, their droprate doubles. The Dragon defender can no longer be alched.
The Dragon Defender remains on the KQ droptable, but instead is advertised in dialogue to primarily come from the Warriors' Guild. To compensate for the lost unique dro, the Kalphite Queen now also drops the Dragon defender ornament kit, which can be used to trim a Dragon defender. This is a new unique drop.
Elder chaos druids
The Elder chaos druids have been added to the Wilderness. They are very similar to the elder chaos druids from OSRS, except they will not teleport you around when walking away. Their addition means you can now get the Elder chaos druid equipment, which is very useful for pure pking!
Quality of Life
- Changes have been made to pathing. It still isn't perfect, but there should be some improvements. We really appreciate feedback on this.
- The summoning skill icon has been made transparent, indicating its unavailability. It will also show information about its unsuccessful poll.
- The tab icon of the spellbook will now change according to the currently selected spellbook. This is solely a visual indicator.
- You can now toggle the visibility of the clan chat rank icon next to clan chat messages. This can be toggled in ::settings and is active by default.
- The Fountain of Heroes now also restores run energy.
- You can now right-click the fountain in Varrock and drink from it. This will act in the same way as the Fountain of Heroes in Edgeville.
- Superior slayer creatures now always drop a Dark totem piece.
- Added noted Sacred Eels for skillers that really want to collect a lot of fish.
- It's now possible to remove a tentacle from any of the Tentacle custom whips. The tentacle will be destroyed in the process. This can be used to combine a custom whip with a Completionist cape.
- Slightly lowered the time between waves in the Fight Caves.
- The charges on the Bracelet of Clay have been increased to 100, versus the original 28.
- The amount of bolt racks in the Barrows chest has been increased to 1200 (from 400).
- 'A Key to a chest' has been renamed to 'Thermonuclear key'. This will hopefully give it a more understandable name and easier to refer to.
- The Castle Wars capes (Saradomin and Zamorak capes) now also have the Ava's Accumulator ammunition collection effect.
- Astral runes have been removed from the Ironman magic store.
- Honor accounts no longer have access to any of the Slayer helmet perks.
- The Brimstone chest now drops the correct Dark totem piece, according to the type the player has the least of.
- Removed all other right-click options from the Bonecrusher as they were not functional.
- Added a "noted" version of the Magic shop and Armour & Weapons shop. It's now possible to switch tabs and quickly stack up larger amounts of the provided equipment.
- The 1B, 500M and 100M tickets are now stackable by default.
- The Ancient warriors, Ancient mages and Ancient rangers are now assigned as a single slayer task, combined under 'Ancient guardians'. They no longer have to be killed individually.
- The Ex-ex parrot, bought from the Vote store, no longer costs 2 Ring of Wealths. We've seen a lot of players being annoyed and confused by the fact that they cost 2 uncharged ROWs.
- The Rogues at the Fight Arena can now also be attacked.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug with the Kraken dropping Uncharged tridents.
- Fixed the bug where the Lectern in Karamja would ask the player to craft bones to peaches tabs when having extra runes in their inventory.
- A bug was fixed where Vorkath's projectile seemed to hit the player even though it was aiming for a tile.
- The map icons on Premium island have been removed. This was for testing and I forgot to remove them, whoops.
- A bug has been fixed where some item dialogue (Amulet of Aggression and Infernal items) would cause a different dialogue to open, for example the Lottery dude's dialogue.
- Fixed a bug with the Dragon harpoon where players were able to indefinitely boost their fishing level above 99, gaining insane fishing rates.
- Disabled the Ruby bolt (e) special attack on Verzik's first phase. It is now heavily lowered and will not hit through her protection like before.
- The poison indicator on the hitpoints orb should now be cleared by antipoison potions.
- Red chinchompas now have the same attack speed as their black counterpart.
- The prices in the Price checker now get updated every 12 hours. Originally, they were only loaded upon starting the client, but some players use the same client for weeks.
- The magic calculations are now 100% accurate and your max hit is no longer increased when boosting your magic level.
- The Malevolent mage now uses magic attacks.
- The Amulet of the Damned now properly works with Dharok's equipment set.
- It is no longer possible to charge already charged Amulets of glory.
- The ::bork command now displays the correct amount of time until your next "First Bork kill of the day" bonus when you have the "Big ork visitant" perk unlocked.