Hello adventurers! We've got a few updates that we want to share with you about March's update and 0.11 as a whole. We're full speed ahead on delivering Dowdun Reach, our 0.11 update at the end of March. 

Fishing

We are going to be decoupling Fishing from the 0.11 release. We know that many of you, myself included, can't wait to start reel-y getting into things, and getting hooked on the skill.

Fishing is a significant piece of our roadmap, and we are hugely invested in delivering this update to the best it can be. We are provisionally earmarking the April update, 0.11.1 as the release date for Fishing. This will arrive alongside our 1 year anniversary, together with more quests. The update will include all of the features you're expecting - Skill Spells, decorations, new fish to catch and cook. All of this is something we're really excited about, and we wanted to be truly happy with Fishing when it releases. As we get closer to the completion of Kuldra's Saga and the next chapter in RuneScape: Dragonwilds' development, the quality bar for new content continues to rise. We feel that fishing doesn't quite meet our standards just yet, and we want it to have the potential to become your favourite skill so far.

Skills

It will, however, have the skill capped at 99 - like the other skills. As we mentioned during the Dragonwilds Summit in January, we'll be raising the skill cap to Level 99 for all skills. It's a request from the community that we've heard from almost day one. You want to grind, even if the higher levels will be getting backfilled with content in later updates - just like RuneScapes have done it before! The content you expect up to Level 50 (or 65 for Farming) is all there, but we're opening up the path for you to show off your grind!

Get a look at those capes. Gosh, lovely stuff. We're also raising RuneCrafting to Level 99 and refactoring/reworking the skill to include an entirely new skilling activity for you to get stuck into.

The other thing we want to talk about is Dedicated Servers.

Dedicated Servers

We're still aiming to release these in March, after having pulled the release date forward in response to player feedback and excitement around the feature. You asked, and we answered - and we've chosen our preferred partner for supporting these Dedicated Servers - Shockbyte. The other big headline is that we're going to support the increased player count from 4 to 6 players on Dedicated Servers.

Here's a little something from Mod Icecream about what's happening on our side: 

Our team is hard at work bringing you Dedicated Servers! We're optimising, streamlining UI and creating tools so you can start managing your Dedicated Servers the way you want it. When 0.11 launches, you will simply see a new, free product in Steam appear called "RuneScape: Dragonwilds Dedicated Servers". We suggest using our partner Shockbyte to host them - we've worked directly with them to improve tools, stability and performance. Shockbyte also simplifies mods management and ensures your progress is triple-saved. And the devs over there are RuneScape fans!

For the most technically minded adventurers, you will also be able to host your Dedicated Servers on one of your spare computer or even in the cloud. Our Online team will provide you with a ready-made Container Image to kickstart you.

We also focused on Player Management and added an Admin status. Admins can kick, ban and unban users on your behalf. We've simplified the Character management and selection in the main menu. A neat set of filters in the Worlds menu will help you find the game best suited for you!

Our devs want to add a bazilion other features but we had to chose. Next update will pack in-game World management tools and increased max player count!

Lovely stuff - it's worth noting that currently, the scaling systems for damage and health we have in-game cap out at 4 players rather than 6. Your experience might change with 6 players, but we're going to continue to iterate on it as we develop the systems further. 

And here's our friends at Shockbyte with more:

We’re beyond thrilled to be partnering with Jagex to power Dedicated Servers for RuneScape: Dragonwilds. With over 1 million game servers hosted to date, we’re bringing over a decade of infrastructure expertise to Dowdun Reach & beyond, to ensure your adventures are backed by world-class stability.

For our team, this partnership is a dream come true. We aren’t just providers; we’re lifelong fans. Many of our team grew up in Gielinor, (our founder even maxed his account!), so we know exactly how much every bit of progress matters to the community.

We’ve worked closely with Jagex to ensure that high-performance hosting is as accessible as possible. Our infrastructure is specifically tuned for the lowest possible latency, while our custom tools make managing mods and server settings a simple, one-click process. We’ve removed the technical hurdles so you can spend less time in menus and more time exploring with your party. There’s no such thing as XP waste on our watch!

Dedicated servers and the new 6-player limit represent a massive leap forward for the game. To quote a certain swamp-dwelling legend: this changes everything. We can’t wait to see you all in-game!

We're really looking forward to seeing folks jump in with Dedicated Servers, and as a reminder - you can host your own dedicated servers using the RuneScape: Dragonwilds Dedicated Servers tooling that will be available in Steam once the update releases. 

We're very excited to be sharing more about Dowdun Reach throughout this month ahead of its release, and we're so ready to see you all rocking Max Capes in your Dedicated Servers very soon, too!