02/06/24 | Minor Update - The Big Plan

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Neoxians,

Over the last little while, we’d been hinting at an article coming out that was going to outline what the foreseeable future plan for our community looked like, more specifically in terms of the development track: where we’re aiming to be, what we’ve got in store, and what we’ve been thinking about; and the community track: our advertising plan and when it will begin taking place, the community state, and more… and, well, this is the article for that! As you’d come to expect, it’s going to be quite a long one, so hopefully you’re settled into something cozy and are ready for a read.

Neox Staff

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This is where things are going to be the most exciting! Originally, we’d drafted up this massive proposal that touched base on a ton of different areas within the game that we believed could use improvement in regards to the player experience. We’ve since run it through some internal discussions to see where each of the development team members landed on some of the ideas (with a few of them being fairly ambitious), and in this section we’ll outline the upcoming changes and ideas we intend to implement (ie the ones that made the cut). For starters, we’ll outline the Main Content focus, or the larger “content expanding” things that are coming, and then we’ll go over all of the topics from the original proposal that will be getting introduced as well.

Main Content

The following information will outline what we’ll be looking to address as our Main Content pipeline. In other words, this is our big focus on moving the currently available content forward! These updates will be made alongside progression of the Side Content.

Phantom Muspah

Progression with Phantom Muspah has been steadily coming along and we are very quickly drawing to the point where it will be moved onto the live beta for testing (and potential bounty claims), and then moved to the live server! More information regarding status updates and sneak peaks, as always, can be found on the Discord!

Prifddinas

Prifddinas has been one massive undertaking and we’re proud to say its slowly closing to a draw. As per the last updates within the roadmap, we’re just applying the finishing touches on the access quest for this content, then we’ll be doing a regional pass-over (a lot of this content was actually added by the junior development team ahead of time, so we just need to quality check it), and then we’ll be pushing it to the live beta for some exceptionally thorough testing. As mentioned before, once this specific area of content becomes available, we’ll be opening our beta servers for applications, but more information on that to come!

Upcoming Content

Following the release of Prifddinas, and whilst juggling the Side Content outlined below, we’re going to begin progression on Desert Treasure 2… along with introducing the Ruinous Powers from Leagues for members to make use of in overcoming our server challenges! More information on this to come, however this is our next major content focus. Hopefully you’re ready, Neoxians!

Side Content

The following information will outline what we’ll be looking to address for areas considered “side content”. These changes will be made alongside progression of the Main Content.

Collection Log Improvements

For some, the collection log is akin to the most valuable means of tracking account progression… and for others, well, it’s an afterthought. With the improvement we have coming for this log, we’d wanted to keep consideration for the former at the forefront of our changes:

• For starters, we’ll be introducing a reward track to incentivize and reward players for completing sequential logs: this will include a milestone progressional system, sort of like the one found within the challenge boxes, that will allow members to receive unique and substantial rewards for working through them.
  • Originally, we thought about introducing rewards to each of the individual logs themselves, but felt it put too much agency on something that’s entirely RNG related, and thus could be a cause of player frustration in the pursuit of. Our aim is to introduce the milestone system as a unique and enticing reward track, but not to put so much weight onto the collection log as a whole that the power dynamic between going through them and not is a make-or-break feature within the server. We’re still in full belief that the collection log as a whole is targeted towards completionist-type players, who are most likely to engage with the extremely grind-heavy content within, so it feels ideal to give them long term goals.

• The pet drop rate is going to be addressed because we believe it’s currently egregiously bad. Originally, the proposal featured the suggestion to move them from their respectively current residing tabs (as in within each of the boss categories), however we’ll instead be opting to address the rates and implement a threshold system so players who spend a lot of time doing these activities can expect to see a pet for it. We believe that keeping the pets in the same category as other drops also allows them to serve as the capstone of their boss and ties in nicely with the tasks and achievements we already do have. As it stands, the biggest concern we have is that they are too rare and RNG dependent, so that’s what we intend to address.

• We’re considering moving the collection log tasks up to a new Grandmaster tier, which would also drastically improve the rewards per the task system of completing them.

• We’re going to be removing unobtainable items from the collection log and improving the visibility of completable logs.

D&Ds | Distractions and Diversions

As in their namesake, D&Ds serve as alternative activity means for members both to streamline specific gear acquisition and to alleviate the monotonous feeling of lengthy activity engagement. When we’d first introduced this system, there was always plans on how we’d intended to expand and improve on it! The following points will outline what changes to expect:

• We’ll be introducing a unified reward currency and store for D&D participation. Members who meet a specific threshold within the particular activity will receive a credit for said store (saved in the same fashion as the loyalty shop), which they’ll then be able to spend towards reward unlocks.
  • The contents of this shop, however, are still something we’re actively discussing and will likely bring up within the community for further input.

• We’re going to look to introduce several new activities to the D&Ds, aiming to cover different skills! There’ve been some really interesting ideas shared within the community that we might just look to explore into the possibility of adding.

• We’d had several requests for members to be able to initiate their own D&Ds, and so a system for this is something we’ll be looking into implementing. We’re under the impression, however, that it’s going to be quite difficult to find a good balance for this… especially with all of the upcoming changes to the D&Ds as a whole.

• Finally, we’re going to be introducing a leaderboard that will feature some super neat information for members to track and compete with one another surrounding some of the D&D activities.

Binary Reward Tracks

A lot of activities within the server feature a variety of potential rewards with varying time commitments to reflect that, and some… well… don’t. Our biggest concern when it came to the binary reward track for some activities is that it can lead to a lack of interest in the activity from those who may be unfamiliar with it due to the difficulty or time involved, or the frustration with participation from those who aren’t rewarded due to the current binary format. The biggest offenders of this were CoX and Inferno, but we’ve had quite a bit of discussion on behalf of this subject and with the recent CoX changes, believe this isn’t such a big issue. All the same, we felt we should relay our thoughts on the matter.

• With the introduction of the new Cox reward system, including the mercy mechanics for accumulated points, the previously binary reward system for CoX has been drastically improved upon. We’ll be keeping an eye on the current rates and may make changes in the future, however we’re quite happy with the rates at which items are flowing from there at the moment.

• Inferno was a little bit more contentious. After much deliberation, we’d landed on the decision that ultimately it’s still mostly a prestige type of content and we’d rather not modify it as we’d like to have at least some sense of aspirational content. We’re also not too worried about the limitations in regards to the access of this content as it will only get easier over time as we introduce updates that push player power in combat above what is possible in OSRS.

Loyalty Points

We believe it goes without saying that the system itself is kind of lackluster and could definitely use some improvements, and as such, shall receive them! As it stand, this is currently the oldest unmodified system within the server, having been introduced during the beta and not really worked on since. We’re intending to make some pretty strong changes to the system’s behavior and reward track:

• For starters, we’re going to be reforming the shop, introducing unique items (such as the D&D activators, as mentioned above), but also really taking the time to rebalance and introduce some excitement and worthwhile incentives to further push community voting and interactive gameplay.
  • With this in mind though, we’re not too sure HOW heavily we want to pour power into the loyalty shop. We’ll very likely be bringing this up as a discussion point within the community for further input.

• We’re going to look into improving on and expanding the way the loyalty point acquisition system works, potentially introducing more expansive modifiers (such as login streak bonuses).

Challenges: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly

Challenges serve as the perfect system to give direction to those who might not otherwise know what they want to focus on, as well as rewarding said activities. As it stands, the system doesn’t scale very well into the late game for maxed accounts with consideration for them already having max stats, so the experience rewards become of less interest and the sole purpose of doing them becomes the boxes. We’re going to be looking into ways to improve on this system as a whole with the following changes:

• We’re going to be introducing ways for members to receive additional challenges beyond their scheduled, timely fashion.

• Expanding on the current challenge system by introducing new challenges for newer content, improving some of the rewards to add a little bit of diversity and consideration for maxed accounts, and allowing players to block challenges for skills they are already maxed in (thus opening them up to more activity driven focus and less skilling).

Random Events

Although Bob’s Island has become a bit of a meme with everyone’s fairly due discontent with its very existence, we figured it’s about time to expand on the available random events. There’s not too much to add in the way of specifics, however we’ll be actively looking to introduce new random events for members to be whisked away to at the most unfortunate of times!

Mystery Boxes

Mystery/Challenge boxes seem to be in a fairly decent spot, but there’s always room for improvement. Our biggest concern is for ironmen specifically as the boxes they receive are pretty heavily limited, but it’s with fair intent in keeping the gamemode’s integrity as a constant factor in design choice. Mystery boxes will be receiving the following changes:

• Whatever new items we end up introducing, such as the D&D activators, will become candidates in the pool.
  • We’d considered adding donation items such as the telekinetic trinket or farming book, however wanted to stay away from one-time, permanent upgrade items as we believe it’s not a healthy system to introduce their power into the boxes themselves and will be looking into the possibility of adding them in healthier formats outside of the loot pool.

• Although we’d considered buffing the ironman boxes and their content, we’d landed on the balance of improving the rates for items outside of the dust, such as the boosters.

• We’ll be looking to add a new form of mystery box that will include credit amounts for its prize pool as means to expand upon the current “mystery reward system” without oversaturating the current pools. We’ll be actively looking for ways to organically incorporate this new box into the current reward systems.

Login Rewards

One of new systems we’ve been discussing the possibly introducing of is an advent calendar style interface which would allow members to claim a small recognition prize each day for logging in, and we would expand upon milestones and streaks in the same fashion (ie weekly consecutive logins, or monthly). This would also allow us to tie in expansions to the loyalty multiplier, as well as introduce credit means to members who might not be able to acquire them otherwise.

The Dust Shop

Much like the Loyalty Shop, it’s a fair stance to have that the Dust Shop is quite underwhelming. We’ll be looking to overhaul the contents within to bring them more in line with the current iteration of the game, introducing some of the new items we’re going to be adding during this period as well as bringing in items members might already be familiar with! We’re also going to be looking to adjust the prices to have them be a little more… sensical. Placeholder prices? Out!

Within this section, we’ll be discussing our plans for elements that are outside the server! This will include the promotional plan, some of the upcoming Discord and website changes, and our thoughts on the community state. We have some very large things in the works, however we want to clarify a lot of what we’re aiming to have accomplished before most of that is put in motion. Anywho, without further adu, let’s get started!

The Advertisement Plan

In a lot of ways, the advertisement plan hasn’t changed. We’re in the midst of a lot of backroom discussion with some major content creators in working out conditional arrangement for them to sponsor our server. The most exciting part of this is that same of them include already well established OSRS content creators, although we don’t want to go listing off names until the agreements themselves have been set in stone. Additionally, as we get closer to the deadline, we’re going to be contracting a ton of the previous representation we’d had for the server in aims to shine as big a spotlight on the project as a whole. A lot of this, however, kind of hinges on that BIG wall of text above, going over all of the changes we’d like to make.

Originally, we’d mentioned how following Prifddinas we’d wanted to start the advertisement plan… however that’s no longer the case. After some internal reflection, we’d kind of come to the conclusion that the systems we’re going to be addressing as outlined were causation for a lot of original member retention issues. We want to address as much of this as possible over the next little while before we really pull the trigger on the promotional campaign, addressing the pain points and areas of improvement as necessary. Prifddinas as a whole has taken up a ton of the development focus, so with it coming to a draw, we’re going to be freed up to begin shifting our attention onto all of the mentioned Side Content whilst still progressing through the Main Content.

We know the news of a slightly further delay in the advertisement campaign might be disappointing to some, but we genuinely believe it’s for the best in the longevity of the project. Once this big advertisement campaign happens, we want to be comfortable in knowing a lot of those new players will find a comfortable home to settle in on and we’re strongly of the opinion there’s just a little more work to be done before we can be that for them. More information regarding this to come as the updates begin rolling out, however for now this is what we believe is best.

Discord and Website Changes

There’s not much to say here, aside from we’re going to be looking to consolidate some of the sections as means to make them a little more understandable and easier to navigate. Currently, the Discord is seeming a little too convoluted, so we’d like to do our best in cleaning it up a bit… staring with the guidelines! The rules for both our ingame guidelines and discord guidelines alike are going to be rewritten and merged, making them easier to understand. For staff, we’ll also be looking to restructure the “punishment behavioral” guidelines to make their interpretation significantly more intuitive and easier to follow.

Although this isn’t heavily related to the Discord, we’re also going to be looking to continue development, expansion, and integration of the Wiki. Our server is… quite deep, and a lot of the systems themselves might not be the most intuitive to understand at face value, so we believe that with some minor tweaks and the bridging of a lively Wiki, we should be able to alleviate a bit of that new player experience strain in navigating all of the different systems that encompass our humble project.

The Community State

Regarding the community, we really couldn’t be happier. There comes a certain serenity (although at rare times, perhaps a smidgen interrupted) that comes with a smaller, intimate community… and especially one like ours. Seeing the same lovely faces enjoying the project and investing their time to be with us, it’s been an incredible experience thus far. It’s going to be a hard thing to let go of once we begin advertising, just because the flood of new members, though GREAT for the overall experience and health of a project, will undoubtedly change the community in a way where a lot of that kind of smaller, more communal charm is lost.

For the last little while, it feels like we’ve been floating in this sort of passive state with steady updates that don’t rock the boat too-too hard, but a lot of that is going to be changing quite drastically as we begin putting everything within this big plan, and more, into motion. With that in mind, we’d wanted to emphasize that everything we do for the project is what we, as the founders who started this out of a simple Discord group chat that was 75% shitposting and memes, believe to be the best. We may not get the chance to log in as often, or to partake in the glorious grind of going several hundred KC above the expected drop rate for that damned Archer’s Ring, but we do see and talk about everything that goes on; there is nothing more important to us as we continue the development of this project than the experience each of you has playing through it. We might not always nail the sweet spot, but we’ll never stop putting our best effort forth in trying to do so.

That’s all. If you have any questions, concerns, or simply want to talk about some of the topics outlined within this article, please feel free to reach out. As mentioned, we’re going to be hosting a community meeting in the next few days to talk about everything, so if you’re like to join in on that, do check our community Discord for details!

Be seeing you~