This week we've got music system improvements and Deadman: Annihilation tweaks, alongside some under-the-hood improvements!

Changelog - February 11th

Will It Slide?

If you caught our Game Jam VII blog (link), you already know that some music system improvements are landing with this update. OSRS grinds in Gielinor just aren’t the same without the soundtrack along for the ride, so as we roll into our 25th anniversary year, we figured now was the perfect time to freshen up the music system interface.

Audio Slider

Picture this: a banger tune starts to play in-game, you go to turn it up- only to find out that the slider doesn't actually... slide?

Turns out that “slider” was really just 21 buttons pretending to be one. After three days of focused development work, and a couple of interesting bug fixes later, that’s officially a thing of the past! The volume sliders in the settings menu will now - you guessed it - slide whenever you want to adjust the volume.

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

Area Mode

Previously, those atmospheric, nostalgia-packed Old School tracks were tied to perfectly square areas instead of general locations. That meant you could find yourself vibing to the tones of White Wolf Mountain, but take one wrong step into Catherby’s map square, and boom, your whole flow gets interrupted.

The good news: a few years back we added a modern music area mode, where boundaries follow scenery such as walls and cliffs rather than being in perfect squares. However, it was only rolled out for some areas of the world. We're happy to announce that we've now expanded this mode to cover the entire game. This results in a more natural transition from one melody to the next, making each location change more atmospheric.

Click here to see the new natural transition with the Area Mode!

'Scape and Jam to Playlists

There was one specific request you've asked for a lot when it comes to the music system interface, and now it's time to tackle it: Custom music playlists! You can now make up to three custom playlists of your own. Just pick any music tracks you’ve unlocked in-game, right-click them, and add them to a playlist. Once you’re set, the playlist will randomly play through those selected songs. You can also remove any music tracks from the playlist in the same way; right-clicking them and selecting the relevant option. If you prefer Area Mode or Single Mode, you can activate those options via their relevant buttons.

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

The buttons in order: Area Mode, Shuffle Mode, Single Mode, Skip Track.
If you can’t see the image above, click here!

Additionally, the random music mode is now updated to a true shuffle, and we’ve added a host of new settings to help refine your music experience. You can now:

• Enable remembering the last music mode on login rather than always reverting to Area Mode
• Choose a default track to play when entering an area in Area Mode
• Automatically update music when switching between playlists
• Pick which music mode is used when manually selecting tracks
• Hide locked or unlocked tracks in playlists
• Change the colours of locked and unlocked tracks in playlists

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

We hope you find these changes to be sound!

Deadman: Annihilation Tweaks

Deadman: Annihilation mayhem continues! Whether you are a seasoned PvPer or this is your first PvP experience, it's been amazing to see so many of you joining the action. As we enter the second week of all-out PvP chaos, we've got a few feedback changes and fixes for you:

• The Trinket of Fortuity's teleport timer can no longer be bypassed if you place it in your looting bag.
• Only the 7-second teleport timer will apply if you have a Trinket of Fortuity active on you, meaning you no longer have to also wait for the out-of-combat timer too.
• The Emblem Trader will now roam in the multi-area of the Revenant Caves without any issues, so you can hand in your Emblems without needing to high alch them.

Permanent Deadman Tweaks

• Your autocast settings will now be remembered in Permanent Deadman, just as they are in Deadman: Annihilation. This means that if you haven’t attacked a player for 20 seconds, your staff’s autocast setting will remain even after switching to another weapon and back again.
• The bank chest found inside the Chambers of Xeric raid can no longer be used in Permanent Deadman.

Android 32 bit & Min Spec Increase

We previously mentioned that we'll be making a few changes to our Minimum Specification. As Old School continues to grow, and devices evolve, we have to periodically look at what our baseline is for what we test against internally and can realistically support. As part of this process, we're now deprecating the Android 32 bit platforms.

Why deprecate Android 32 bit?

The Android OS itself is moving away from 32 bit, and continuing to support it holds back what we can do to improve Client performance on mobile.

What to expect?

Around mid-March, a client update will ship without Android 32 bit, at which time the App will no longer be available in the stores for those devices, and existing installs will no longer be able to update or access the game. We'll give you a heads up closer to the date, too.
Behind-the-Scenes Improvements to Combat Infrastructure
In addition to above changes, a large portion of this week’s update focuses on behind-the-scenes improvements that players shouldn't notice, but are essential for preparing the game for upcoming content.

Basically, the team has been strengthening and future-proofing the combat infrastructure for major releases like Leagues VI, The Blood Moon Rises and The Fractured Archive. This will help ensure these combat-heavy updates integrate well with the engine, and are implemented smoothly for launch.

So while you shouldn't be seeing any visible changes with this game update, this foundational work helps ensure the battles ahead are stable and ready for action. If you come across any bugs or unusual behaviours though, please let us know - as always, we'll be keeping an eye of your feedback!

Birthday Cake Competition

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

To celebrate Old School’s upcoming 13th birthday and RuneScape's 25th, we’re hosting another 🎂 "Bake an OSRS-themed birthday cake" competition!

Whip up a cake that would make the Lumbridge Cook proud!

Competition opens 10:00 am UTC February 13th and ends 10:00 pm UTC February 22nd.

Once the competition kicks off on Friday, share your masterpiece in the dedicated Birthday Cakes channel on the Official OSRS Discord - stay tuned!

We’ll narrow it down to three finalists, and the ultimate winner will be determined by the Twitch chat live on our Birthday Stream on Friday, February 27th.

Prizes for the winner include:

• 12-month OSRS membership
• 10 x Old School bonds

Full Terms & Conditions here. Good luck!
Other Changes
This week there’s just one change here, and it's one driven by your feedback. Some of you asked if Wilderness boss diary requirements could be bypassed while on a Slayer task. Now, if you’re on a boss-specific Slayer task, you can enter the lair of that specific Wilderness boss without meeting the diary requirements. Note that this won’t work for generic Slayer tasks, it has to be for that specific boss.

JMod Wars: Free-to-Play Castle Wars Chaos

Get ready for another round of JMod Castle Wars chaos - this time, in Free-to-Play!

If you can’t see the image above, click here!

On Saturday, February 28th, join us at the Ferox Enclave on World 499 as Mods Rach and Civ go head-to-head in a Castle Wars showdown.

This isn’t your standard Castle Wars match. Each team gets a J-Mod dropped into the action as an unkillable, flag-stealing menace. Mods Rach and Civ will each have 100k Hitpoints, zero fear, and one goal: steal the enemy flag. As soon as the match begins, the opposing J-Mod will teleport straight into your base. Your job is to stop them, protect your own J-Mod, and escort that walking mountain of Hitpoints safely home.

When?

• Saturday, February 28th
• 16:00 UTC/GMT (massing from 15:45 UTC/GMT, 10:45 ET, 07.45 PT, 2:45 AET)

Where?

• Ferox Enclave
• World 499
• The Mods will be live in a Discord Call and screensharing too, for anyone who wants to sit back and watch the chaos unfold!

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.

The PvP Arena is using '1 Def Pure' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

You can also discuss this update 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 Abe, Abyss, Acorn, Ape, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Asherz, Ayiza, BigRig, Blighted, Blossom, Boko, Brooksie, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Curse, Daizong, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Freddie, Frogs, Fuzz, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grace, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Ivory, Jalo, Jamesy, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Lotus, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Mobius, Moogle, Morty, Moz, Necro, Nin, Nixon, Nox, Nylu, Ori, Other, Otter, Philomel, Pork, Pumpkin, Puppi, Rach, Redfield, Rice, Romy, Roq, Roy, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Schmidt, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Spyro, Squid, Starry, Stilrush, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titania, Titus, TJ, Tomb, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy, Yozora & Yume

The Old School Team.