Earlier this year, in April, RuneScape: Dragonwilds had a surprise Early Access launch, and the team at Jagex has been pretty consistent with the roadmap. We spent time with the game when it initially launched into Early Access and enjoyed what it had to offer, but it still felt like a bare-bones crafting survival game with a solid foundation. While we haven’t revisited it since April, it sounds like the game’s development has been going smoothly, with the latest update adding the Ranged Skill, Creative Mode, and more.
For those who love building bases, Creative Mode is made for you. When creating a new game in 0.9, players will have the option to choose either Campaign or Creative, which means Creative world characters can only join Creative worlds, and the same applies to Campaign characters. As a result, the number of character slots is also increasing from four to eight. In a Creative world, all building pieces are unlocked and buildings have no material costs. Characters also have infinite carry weight.
This also means that all crafting recipes are unlocked with no material cost, all skills are maxed, there are no rune costs or cooldowns for spells, and players don’t have to worry about Hunger, Thirst, or Endurance. Creative worlds also mean no world events, and AI will not attack, so players can freely build in peace. What’s probably most exciting to hear for many builders is that stability can be toggled on or off, so we can’t wait to see some really complex builds.
As for Campaign, the biggest addition is the Ranged Skill, allowing players to reach Level 50 with Ranged and enjoy a slate of new Spells, along with a fletching table for the new sets of arrows and more. The Ranged Skill brings a new Snare ability, which can later be upgraded to Venomous Trapper, and a new ability, Hunter Sense, to gain awareness of nearby foes. The focus on ranged combat also means the arrival of one-handed crossbows and new bolts.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds is also testing controller support with the latest patch, and there’s a wide range of fixes. You can see the full patch notes and a dev diary on 0.9 below.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds 0.9 Update Dev Diary
RuneScape: Dragonwilds 0.9 Patch Notes
The Ranged Skill has arrived!
- Skill up to Level 50 and enjoy a slate of new Spells, a fletching table for the new sets of arrows, and much more.
- Stop your foes in their tracks with the new Snare ability (which is later upgraded to Venomous Trapper!).
- Use the new Ability Hunter Sense to gain awareness of nearby foes.
- Enchant your bow to Astral Magic to allowing arrows to pierce multiple enemies.
- New Archery target buildable
- 1-Handed Crossbows are here! Now! Along with that, plenty of new bolts to unlock and use.
- Tons of other abilities are there to be unlocked, so have a look!
- For more information around the ranged skill, check out our blog post “Introducing the Ranged Skill!”.
Creative Mode is now available!
- You will need to create a new “Creative Mode” character to access worlds that are Creative Mode enabled.
- For those that just want a relaxing, chill and build experience. Check out our blog “Introducing Creative Mode!” with Mod Deluxe for more details.
Custom World Settings
- You will need to create a new “Custom World” character to access worlds that are using Custom World settings.
- When creating a Custom World, click on Advanced in the upper left to access the World Settings.
- Over 40 settings are exposed, from damage, thirst, hunger, to XP rates and processing.
Controller Support (Alpha State)
- As mentioned in our blog post last month, “The Road to Fellhollow: A Check-In form our Product Director” with Mod bitf0x, controller support is being updated however we believe it still needs polish.
- Players will be able to lock onto enemies, navigate through menus, and we’ve refreshed / reoptimized input bindings.
- We’ll be keeping you updated on when we’ll be releasing the next round of polish to make these feel good on the sticks.
- Functional Keyboard Rebinding implemented
- New multiplayer protections have been added:
- Gravestone Protection: A new option in gameplay settings so that other players will not be able to loot your gravestone.
- Build Protection Totem: We have added totems with a sphere around them that will prevent other players from building within that area. You will have 8 to place.
- Chest Privacy: Chests can now be locked by the owner. Just open the chest and check the box labeled Private.
- Updated Character and World List UI
- As part of adding Custom Worlds and Creative mode, new icons have been added on character selection and the world selection screens to denote the type of world.
- Character Slots increased from 4 to 8.
- Antipoison potions have been updated:
- Antipoison now uses Marentill rather than Haarlander
- Both Antipoison Potions and Fungal Fortitude grant Poison resistance, and this resistance stacks together
- Consuming the Antipoison pot clears/cures any poison buildup, as it did before.
- Any level of poison resistance (Fungal Fortitude OR Antipoison) grants you immunity to the ambient swamp gas in the toxic swamp, allowing you to explore it freely.
Additional Fixes
- Status effects will now persist correctly on reloading
- Fixes to places where players or AI could get out of bounds
- Floating Rune Essence will be appropriately damaged by secondary staff attacks
- Clock widget will now display night correctly for clients
- Improvements to desync in AI combat
- Ranged projectiles should display correctly
- SFX added in multiple places where it was missing
- Multiple UI and icon display fixes
- Text updates for some incorrect information in quests and the journal
- Abyssal Whip special attack will now damage Velgar as expected
- AI will no longer attack through Palisade Walls
- Clouds are more visible when it is raining
- Player waypoints will appear on the compass
- Many fixes to foliage clipping through terrain throughout the world
- Some improvements to unnatural animations and poses in specific scenarios
- Various performance and stability improvements
Known Issues
- Controller Support still needs work to get it feeling how we want it to
- Custom World Setting values displayed are not always fully accurate
- We are tracking the specific settings that are acting up and will hot fix them in the coming weeks.
- Host & Clients’ weather state may not be in sync
- A restart may be needed immediately on launch, particularly with AMD GPUs
- Temporary Freeze when the Protection Totem is first placed in the world
- Unlock notifications will incorrectly display for building pieces in Creative Mode
