OSRS December Update

            With the end of the year and the holiday season encroaching, many MMOs are looking to add content to either reinvigorate their gameplay or to entice former players back to the fun.  Old School OSRS is no exception to this rule, but they have a second motive. OSRS and its mods are dedicated to providing fresh content all the time and highly invested in the player base, which is admittedly quite refreshing in the realm of MMOs. Other developers do look for player feedback, true, but none so meticulously as the OSRS team and their rigorous polling to confirm the player base likes the direction the content is headed. In fact, all of the material coming with the update will be polled for approval as well, so some of the stuff we are talking about aren’t concrete yet.

            The upcoming update is themed heavily around A Kingdom Divided, a quest-line about Great Kourend and the political turmoil that surrounds the council that plays political games for power and with the lives of its citizens at stake. This competition for power may have blinded everyone to a greater danger that lurks just beyond the horizon. Some pretty exciting stuff, to be sure, and we haven’t even gotten to the cool rewards you get.  This update will have a huge impact not only in-game, but also to players who buy and sell OSRS accounts as these changes will have a huge effect on account prices.

            The big reward is also new content, a completely reworked Arceuus spellbook. Apparently, this has been something players have been asking for, and the team thought now would be an excellent time to release it. The original version of the spellbook was a bit cumbersome and not fun to use, but this new version sounds much more streamlined.

            There are also going to be a lot of new and altered spells that are going to be coming with this major magic update so we are going to break it down into the biggest changes. First off we have the complete restructuring of reanimation magic. There used to be one spell per creature type to reanimate them, now the previous 20+ reanimation spells will instead be reduced to just 4. The four reanimate spells will break the creatures down into categories based on their power. The stronger the creature the stronger the spell required.

            A whole new spell (that sounds similar to reanimation but is quite different) is the resurrection spell. Insurrection will let you summon a thrall from the body of a defeated creature. A thrall is similar to a follower in that it will help you in combat. It differs from a follower in a couple of ways, though. It will attack the enemies you will attack, but it will stay within a certain radius of its resurrection point and not follow you around. It will also not attack in PvP situations. You cannot have more than one thrall at a time and it will live one cycle for each level in magic you have at the time of casting. The good news is that the thrall cannot take damage or die and it doesn’t have to make accuracy checks to hit (though it can still swing for 0 sometimes.)

            The last major change to magic that comes with the Arceuus spellbook update is the addition of the corruption effect. Corruption is an effect that can be caused by spells that will result in the target slowly using prayer points over time. This effect cannot be stacked but a second casting can reset the spell. This seems like this will be a very helpful PvP spell if you want to stop your opponent from calling on their faith abilities.

            The new Arceuus spellbook definitely has a much stronger necromancy theme than the old one did and it shines through much better with the rework.

            The update isn’t strictly anti-faith in its build. In fact, some new items are being added to improve the rate that faith experience is earned. Now ashes can be dropped from certain enemies and scattered for faith XP, similar to burying bones. You can even combine certain new spells with ashes to raise the amount of XP earned.

            With the massive additions to The Great Kourend area comes a restructuring of one of its cities, Shayzien. The mods felt that Shayzien hadn’t aged as well as some of the other parts of the OSRS map. They even remark that its nature as a city/military camp was really ambiguous and didn’t make it feel like a natural part of the world. So with this update, Shayzien will be separated in two.

            The north will form the military camp and still maintain the same chaotic feel that Shayzien was supposed to inspire with its makeshift tent city. It will also contain several new dungeon and mob areas to reinforce the idea that the camp is an area of war. These new areas will also contain new enemies, like a boar, undead lizardmen, and necromancer. Chances are that the necromancer will be able to wield some of those new spells the mods have been talking about. That makes us nervous but also we welcome some new fun challenges too.  With this new level of difficulty, many players may find themselves having to gear up at the Grand Exchange and buying some OSRS gold in the process.

            The south of Shayzien will now be the home of the town proper. Smaller wooden buildings will form the staples that players look for in towns. Also since the town is being restructured several new buildings, like an administration building, will fill the hole left by the absence of a former military structure, like a general’s tent. Definitely some exciting developments for players who like exploring new areas.

            One last bonus to the rebuilt Shayzien is the addition of an agility course. The course is meant for lower level agility training and has two courses at one sight. It’s still a little up in the air but this could end up being a great area for some agility leveling, with some cross leveling into faith for good measure.

            Some big changes for OSRS players are coming with this holiday update. New quests are always great, who doesn’t love new content, but we are most excited about the Arceuus spellbook rework. New content is good, but seeing older content finally shine like it was intended just warms a place in our hearts.  With this update, there is no better time than now to buy a osrs account and jump in the game right before the holidays.