Hello Ashenfall Adventurers! Welcome back for another This Month in Ashenfall. 0.8 is out the door- or, should I say, gate.

What Have We Done?

We've launched 0.8 - including Coziness, Hard Difficulty, Palisades, a Building Health rebalance, Bloom and Depth of Field Fixes, changes to lighting and building textures, and of course - Magic Skill Spells! 

Recently, I sat down with our Executive Producer, Mod Dutch, to talk about what our vision for the future of RuneScape: Dragonwilds looks like - in Early Access, and beyond. Check the video out here, it's a casual chat you can enjoy while AFKing or generally vibing. Since the launch of 0.8, we've been listening to your feedback, your hopes and expectations for 0.9 and 0.10 in particular, with the launch of Fellhollow in December. So, let's get stuck into some exciting stuff that's been cooking up this month! 

What Are We Doing?

On the subject of Fellhollow, our team has been working away at building out the concepts of the kinds of things we can expect to encounter in Fellhollow. I don't want to spoil too much here, but we wanted to show you what we're exploring and looking into. This is a first blush at the sort of things we're building out into the region, and we hope we can share more glimpses at what's going on with every new TMIA, going forwards.

Harold (don't let him know I called him that, we're not really on first-name terms yet), Death himself, is coming to Ashenfall. Our old boney buddy needs somewhere to get caught up with all the paperwork he's been tasked with tidying up on this continent. So, of course, he needs an office. 

Knock knock...

This is an initial concept art of what we're aiming to achieve with Death's Office. A reclaimed temple, once filled with the bowed heads of Saradominists, now contains the boned head of Death... and you. At least, I hope your head has bones in it. We've taken inspiration from some of the spookiest places in Gielinor to bring Death's (Temporary) Office to un-life. Fellhollow will include a range of Points of Interest for you to visit and explore, but the main hub of operations you'll be checking into will be Death's Office, so you'll need to familiarise yourself with the place! I'm sure it's going to be lovely when it's finished. 

Right, let's get into what we're looking at in the near term.

In 0.8.1, our next update, we've heard your feedback around all sorts of issues but one big one for Solo players was: pausing. You wanted to be able to pause the world, without coming back to a famished fighter, or dehydrated dragon slayer. Great news, we're working away at getting that introduced in an update in July!

We're introducing more information and guidance on Status effects and tooltips for spells, to ensure that you're getting the information that you need. We're also tinkering with the UI around the Compass to improve its functionality so more information is clearer on it. We're also adding in a way to see how the day/night cycle is progressing so you know when to consider heading home for a snooze. Huzzah.

What Have We Heard?

We've heard your feedback around many things, most notably your fears around when you can expect "major" content updates and expansions - we're still on track with Fellhollow, as we always planned. As Mod Dutch already said in the previous Vision For The Future blog, soon more hands will be getting stuck in with code, art and design to expand the game with regular updates every quarter. This might still be a step removed from the normal "RuneScape" game updates where you get weekly updates and monthly content releases, but rest assured, we're setting ourselves up to be able to speak to you very regularly (think weekly check-ins) with our journey.

Beyond that, we're working on some really nice QOL fixes that we're hoping to test in July for release as soon as they're ready (either in 0.8.2 or in 0.9!) These include being able to pick up items without having to directly look at them, and also being able to Craft from nearby Chests. The functionality of this one is still being worked on by our lovely engineers, but they're continually working on this one to ensure that we're giving you the best experience with this possible.

0.9 is on the horizon, and the team are already getting stuck in with designing and developing Skill Spells for the Ranged Skill Tree, Controls/Sliders for World/Server settings for you to customise the experience to your liking, and a range of other goodies that we're hoping to be able to bundle together for you when 0.9 launches on September 9th! 9/9 for 0.9 - I don't think we even planned that intentionally.

Community Art

squill-i-am has cooked up a Masterwork Shrine to showcase their rather intimidating collection of weapons. 

Zetnus treated the Wise Old Man to a bit of an upgrade in Bramblemead Valley by not just putting a roof over his head, but building a whole palatial estate around him, festooned with all the goodies any adventurer would need! More than he deserves, if you ask those bank tellers in Draynor.

Hasenearl has taken up the challenge of building a Stave Church that doubles as a base of operations. That ought to help them stave off attackers, eh?

NYChannel returns with art of "Sock"! This bag of noggin-clad adventurer seems a little bit... unusual compared to the average adventurer but does love chopping down trees in any way shape or form that they can! They're so widely renowned across the continent, in fact...

That they've got fan art themselves! BucketCultist in the RuneScape Art Community created this amazing piece of art of Sock taking a much-deserved nap after chopping down all but one tree. Sleep well, Sock.

Be sure to join the Official RuneScape: Dragonwilds Discord server to show off your best builds, find parties of dragon-slaying adventurers and chat! Be sure to follow us on our socials, too! We're on Twitter, BSky, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok!

Until next time, be good!

We'll see you in Ashenfall.