The deserted pub in East Ardougne needed your suggestions to bring it to life. Several weeks ago, many of you submitted your ideas for a name for the pub, the NPCs who will populate it, and the food and drink the pub will serve. The best ideas were whittled down and organised into five themes. Then, two weeks ago, we launched the Guaranteed Content: Name a Pub poll. More than 70,000 of you voted for the ideas you wanted us to add to the game, and we were very pleased with the response from the RuneScape community. The poll is now closed, and we can announce that the winning option is ‘The Poison Arrow’. Further details can be found below:

• Suggested name: The Poison Arrow
• Suggested NPCs:
  • Marion the barmaid used to lead a group of merry bandits, but now she is content to stand behind the bar and polish her numerous archery trophies, in between serving drinks to thirsty travellers.
  • Geoff sits by the dartboard fletching arrows, which he tests by flinging them at the board. He once tried to join the Ranging Guild, but failed his entry test after accidentally shooting a squirrel out of a tree, injuring it.
  • Sparky the squirrel’s injured leg hasn’t been the same since, but Geoff promised to look after him, and gave him one of his arrows to use as a crutch.
• Suggested beverage: ranger’s ade – golden in colour and flavoured with local honey for a sweeter taste, it really hits the target.
• Suggested snack: skewered kebab – grilled meat and vegetables skewered on an arrow.

Expect to see The Poison Arrow winging its way into the game during the next few months!

We really enjoyed getting you involved with the game, so we will be running another Guaranteed-Content Poll two weeks from now. The aim of the poll will be to name a new Slayer creature, so the first thing we need to do is get your ideas. Head to the “Suggestions – Monster and NPC” forum to find out more. The “Name a Slayer Creature” thread (Quick find code 79-80-957-58851629) contains more information about the creature, and even some concept art to inspire you. We hope to see lots of imaginative ideas soon!

Mod Kat
Web Content

With useful changes to run energy on the horizon, here's an insight into how the QA team are dealing with the bug catching side of the project. In this diary, we talk about the challenge we faced and the ongoing battle with the dreaded balancing.

There's even a dancing chicken...

To read this diary, click here.

Mod Frantic
RuneScape QA Tester

There are many secrets hidden in the depths of the desert. Forgotten tombs of forgotten rulers from a forgotten time, when the world was a very different place...or at least they were forgotten. The spread of human civilisation, however, means that many of the hidden corners of the world are being uncovered, often by treasure-hunters with little regard for preserving the sanctity of these ancient places. Recently, one such tomb, near Uzer, was discovered by treasure-hunters. Leela of Al Kharid does care about the sanctity of this particular place, and she wants your help to recover information that is of great importance to her.

Mod Newmatic
RuneScape Content Developer

Warning – Mild Spoilers

Please note that we haven’t forgotten about your request to not start too many new quest series until we have continued with, and finished, a few of the existing ones. While it might not seem like it initially, this quest is actually part of the same quest series as Tale of the Muspah; this one just approaches things from a very different direction, so it’s probably not entirely clear how things fit together yet.

We’ve been calling this quest series Mysteries of the Mahjarrat here in the Jagex office. It is going to be tying together a few loose ends from various quests, and hopefully bringing more cohesion to parts of the Runescape mythology and storyline. While we’re starting the quest series with low-level requirements, later quests will have progressively higher requirements as we draw in the different existing storylines. Additionally, Missing My Mummy also ties into some of the ongoing desert storylines.

Paul

Summary:

In other news...

We have improved Low and High Alchemy so that if you don't time your clicks correctly, it'll still return you to the spellbook after your inventory. Hopefully you'll find this useful when you’re going about your daily alching! You can also queue up one to cast while the current spell is being performed.

We have added an activity bar to the Soul Wars minigame. If you've been taking part in the game the bar should remain green, but if you don't take part the bar will slowly turn orange, and eventually run out, at which point you'll be removed from the game.

You'll find that after killing someone in a Bounty or PvP world you'll have a bit of time to pick up drops before potentially being whisked away for a random event.

Back when we launched the Chosen Commander quest in March, we quietly released a small number of limited edition hoodies, to see how many of you had eyes sharp enough to spot the new addition to the store.

These hoodies feature the mark of Bandos (which you may remember from Zanik’s forehead) and the face of Bandos himself!

For those unfamiliar with Bandos, he is the god of goblins, orks, ogres, and other brutal creatures (many of which are mercifully extinct). He identifies himself as a god of war, and the goblins refer to him as the ‘Big High War God’. The origins of his symbol aren't known, but it has been used to represent Bandos at least as long as he has had an influence on RuneScape.

We’ve still got a few hoodies left from the original batch made in March, so if you want to get one now is your last chance, as once they are gone they will never be made again.

Head over to the store now to see the Chosen Commander hoodie.

Today we’re releasing the second part of fairy area improvement development diary. This part talks about turning the concept art into 3D models, and has some previews of how Zanaris is going to look. Click here to read it.

Mod Joe
RuneScape Art Director