10/28/23 | Patch Notes - A Neox Halloween
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Yes, yes, it’s a bit early before the big day, but we’d wanted to ensure everyone had plenty of time to partake in the festivities that mark the beginning of the Neox Halloween Event! Throughout these patch notes, we’ll touch base on exactly what’s been changed, what to expect, and try to shine a little light on the other bits of content that are unfortunately being paired with our Halloween stuff and kicked onto the stage to try and share the spotlight.
Within these patch notes, we’ll explore the Halloween Event, the changes we’ve made with the tournament system, falconry, the much anticipated introduction of dynamite, and several other additions and adjustments made to the lands of Neox. As always, please scroll to the bottom of the page for a more thorough breakdown of all changes that have been made.
Boo!
Neox Staff
Halloween Event
Once a serene and cozy hub, the Neox island has undergone a mysterious, thrilling, and spooky transformation! Gone are the gentle sunsets and soothing waves, replaced by eerie fog, pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, and peculiar creatures lurking about! It’s as though the very island, in spirit of the season, has adorned a costume. With prizes to be earned, secrets to be found, and an ever looming threat to be banished, the official Halloween event has begun! From the date of this post, up until the 6th of November, members will be able to venture forth and partake in the peculiar, the dangerous, and the intriguing!
Spooky Island
What would a proper Halloween Event be without a proper makeover? Decorations a’plenty, the Neox island has been completely refaced in a way to better bring it in line with the Halloween spirit; members will find extensive changes to the overall look! With candy having been dropped about by careless enthusiasts, webbing seemingly spontaneously spun up, and changes to various NPCs (including one particular good boy who hangs out behind the shops), the island has been given one magical and monstruous makeover.
We most definitely don’t want to spoil all of the surprises though, so get out there and explore and be sure to let us know what your favorite discovery is. Ours? Well, there’s only one goodest of boys… although he might not be so good anymore.
Candy Collection
Like every good trick-or-treater, members who log in during this time will come prepared to hold plenty of candy! By participating through most activities throughout the world, candy will be generated and automatically stored within a newly generated pocket slot (to keep those inventories free of clutter), which can be viewed by clicking on the Equipment tab interface. Collect candy may be spent within the Spooky Cauldron at home for rewards!
Upon interacting with the cauldron, members will bring up a shop that will allow them to exchange their candy for assorted cosmetics, as well as a brand new Halloween Mystery Box which contains all kind of unique items!
Halloween Event
The cause of all this mayhem and madness at home, you might ask? Well, it’s none other than the terrible Lady Wraith! A figure draped in robes of the deepest ebony, who lurks the very graveyard the Neoxians have long buried their dead in, and a nose that could smell coffee being brewed in another hemisphere, this wickedly witch is the matriarch of our Halloween Event!
When she manages to breach the barrier of the dead and goes back to the living, she beckons forth a legion of skeletons and thralls, bound by her otherworldly command! Every 2 hours, she’ll resume command of the graveyard, and will require members to work together to banish her summons in order to weaken her and eventually bring her down. In order to banish them, members will simply need to use the “banish” option on them! Although utterly terrifying, they’re not particularly strong, so members won’t have to worry about receiving damage in turn, nor gaining combat experience during the interaction.
Once enough of her summons have been defeated, she herself will also fall! Members will then be rewarded candy based on how much they’d contributed towards banishing her army, as well as a Halloween Mystery Box and a piece of the Witch outfit!
To reiterate, members will not take damage nor will they gain any form of experience for participating in this event. This is to ensure members of all account preferences are able to participate (looking at you, skillers).
A broadcast will play every 2 hours notifying members when the event is about to begin.
Tournament System
As mentioned within this update, we’d been looking to make some improvement to the tournament system, both to encourage members who might not be as privy towards the violence within to dip in a toe and test the waters, as well as introduce a whole ton of new cosmetics and incentives as a whole for participating. Within this section, we’ll outline the changes made and what members will be able to earn through participation!
Tournament Timers
As we’re sure many of you are aware, tournaments before were being manually started. Not only was this not particularly intuitive, but it drastically limited the availability of the tournaments. Following this update, every 6 hours (at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, and 18:00 UTC), tournaments will automatically started pulling their format from a pool of preset options.
In time, we’ll look to both add to the formats as well as remove the less popular/enjoyed ones. The weighting for the format selection is also entirely random, so there’s no preferential treatment on which is selected!
The countdown timer has also been improved upon, notifying members when the tournament is 15 minutes away, then 10 minutes, then 5 minutes, and finally at 2 minutes.
Tournament Rewards
Through participation, members can receive “Tournament Points”, which is an account bound currency that may be spent within the Tournament Shop (trading the Tournament Guard) for unique cosmetics, weapon upgrades, and even just outright blood money conversion (1 point for 15,000 blood money). Placement, however, is everything! Members who place first will receive 10 points, second place will receive 5 points, third will be 3 points, fourth to tenth will receive 2, and anything below that will receive 1 point. Here’s a clearer display:
1st - 10 points
2nd - 5 points
3rd - 3 points
4th-10th - 2 points
10th and below - 1 point
Alongside the introduction of the different items and titles scrolls, we’ve also added titles that may only be unlocked through winning tournaments! Members who wish to be acknowledged for their great accomplishments within the arena using these unique titles will be required to win 1, 10, 30, and finally 50 victories for the final unlock!
Falconry
As a bit of a surprise, falconry is being added within this patch! For those unfamiliar, it’s a unique form of training for the Hunter skill which provides a little more interaction than the traditional process of just setting up traps and idling around until something (or someone) happens to stumble into them. For more information regarding falconry, please click here to be forwarded to the official wiki (ours doesn’t work a whole lot different from the official game).
To access and begin training this skill, simply head on over to the teleport hub on the Neox Island, and under the Skilling tab select “Piscatoris Falconry Area”. From there, head towards the man with the very spiky hair and follow through the dialogue in order to receive your very first falcon! Do be sure to bring 500 coins though for the exchange.
After talking with Matthias and paying him his fee, he’ll give you a falcon with which you’ll be able to begin training! We’re not going to go too indepth regarding the skill training, mostly because these are patch notes and not really a guide, however for members who’d like to learn more, again, please click here to be forwarded to the official wiki!
For those who’ll take to collecting furs, do be sure to visit Asyff over at Varrock’s Fancy Clothes Store to exchange your furs for some absolutely furtastic wears!
Dynamite
Skillers, rejoice, we have heard your plee! For those of you that seek completion in all venues (of a combat persuasion aside), dynamite has finally been introduced! Now, members will be able to interact with the Skilling Shop at home and begin building their very own cache of the volatile pots.
Remember though, this is only one part of the grand show. To be used for damaging NPCs, members must first combine them with Nightshade in order to add their poisonous effect! Besides that baseline interpretation from the original game, we’ve included a few custom adjustments to make them a little more effective:
Dynamite(p) can be used on NPCs you would otherwise have the ability to attack, regardless of their current hitpoints.
Has a regulated cooldown of 30 seconds in between uses.
Isn’t able to be lit on the ground, and may only be attached to NPCs.
Besides those few rules, the item will function the same as you would come to expect and will still require Nightshade to be made.
After the dynamite(p) has been created, members may use it on attackable NPCs to inflict damage upon them with a chance to poison the target. In short, the idea is to allow members to kill specific target creatures whilst not actually gaining any combat experience in doing so. Did someone say… skiller slayer training time? Here’s a hyper realistic depiction of the dynamite in action:
As always, we’ll be keeping an eye on the behavior of this addition and seeing if there’s anything we’ll need to do improve upon it or rein it in a little bit. Until then though, bombs away!
Patch Summary
For those of you that celebrate Halloween, we hope that each of you have an incredible holiday and with what little we’re able to provide, hopefully we can improve even just the tiniest bit upon it. For those who don’t, we still wish you all the best and thank you for continuing to be a part of our humble little project. Below will outline all changes found within this patch. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to share feedback within our Community Discord.
Features
- Halloween has come to Neox!
- Starting with this update and ending on November 6th, a Halloween event will be active across the game.
- During the event, you will find Halloween candy as you perform most activities around the world.
- Collected candy will automatically go to your pocket slot, shown in your Equipment tab interface.
- Candy can be traded in for rewards at the Spooky cauldron on Neox Island, next to the Graveyard.
- Added a new mystery box, the Halloween mystery box.
- Contains a variety of items similar to the existing challenge reward box, but with many Halloween-themed cosmetic items.
- Includes new Ultra-rare tier items, the Red, Green, Blue and Black Halloween masks.
- Can be obtained by trading in Halloween candy, defeating Lady Wraith, or purchased from the store.
- Added support for many new Halloween cosmetics, most of which can be obtained from the Halloween mystery box.
- Every 2 hours, a witch named Lady Wraith will appear at the Graveyard on Neox Island, and begin summoning her army of undead.
- You can help push back her army by banishing her thralls. To do that, simply use the ‘Banish’ option on them.
- This does not trigger actual combat and does not reward experience, so skillers can participate too!
- When a thrall is banished, Lady Wraith will lose energy. Once her energy reaches zero, she will be defeated and you’ll be rewarded.
- Upon defeat, you will receive candy according to how much you contributed towards banishing her army, as well as a Halloween mystery box and a piece of the Witch outfit.
- You can help push back her army by banishing her thralls. To do that, simply use the ‘Banish’ option on them.
- Neox Island is now Halloween themed!
- The Tournament system has received the following improvements:
- Tournaments will now start automatically every 6 hours, at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 server time. (UTC)
- Tournaments started in this fashion will choose a randomly selected preset to be used.
- Participating players will now earn tournament points as a reward, based on their placement.
- Tournament points can be exchanged for rewards with the Tournament guard. These rewards include a direct blood money conversion as well as other useful items, cosmetic items and new title scrolls.
- Added several new titles that can be unlocked by reaching 1, 10, 30 and 50 total tournament victories.
- Added Falconry.
- This hunter training method can be accessed south of the Piscatoris Fishing colony.
- The Custom Fur Clothing shop in South-east Varrock can now be accessed in order to create hunter gear from animal fur.
- Added poison dynamite.
- Created by combining dynamite with nightshade, these explosive items can be used to kill monsters without gaining any combat experience.
- Regular dynamite can now be purchased from the Skilling shop on Neox Island.
- Mind shields can now be purchased from the Slayer equipment shop.
Improvements
- Increased the chance of obtaining the following items from Larran’s chests:
- Dragon dart tip
- Palm tree seed
- Magic seed
- Celastrus seed
- Dragonfruit tree seed
- Redwood tree seed
- Torstol seed
- Snapdragon seed
- Ranarr seed
- The chance to obtain pieces of the Dagon’hai set from Larran’s keys has been increased from 1/80 to 1/50.
- The clue scroll step that requires you to play the ‘Scorpia Dances’ music track is now found on Hard tier clues, rather than Medium.
- Grubby and Crystal keys are now stackable.
- Increased the chance to obtain an Alchemist’s key from pickpocketing Gnomes and Elves.
Fixed
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to use the bank in a Chambers of Xeric raid after a raid had already been started.
- Fixed the amulet of chemistry displaying the wrong amount of charges left when it consumed a charge.
- Fixed an issue causing the Voidwaker’s special attack to ignore prayers.
- The ‘Mine 3,000 Amethyst’ task now correctly states that it requires 3,000 amethyst to be mined, rather than 5,000.
- Fixed issues with several clue scroll steps that were not completing correctly, and removed others that had issues.
Removed
- Nothing was remove this patch! Spooooky, we know!
