After being chosen by the community as their favorite skill pitch, Sailing has become the new skill in Old School RuneScape and might hit the beta stages sooner than expected. The development schedule has been made public so everyone knows what to expect and what the J-mods spend their time on and what it means for your account.
Context
Jagex and the Old School team are going for the big guns this year. From a full rework of three of the Wilderness bosses to a new grandmaster quest (Desert Treasure 2), a new prayer book, a brand-new boss (Phantom Muspah), an expansion to the Woodcutting skill (Forestry), and an unprecedented return of the Bounty Hunter minigame, this year is huge when it comes to new and exciting content. But the cherry on the cake is certainly adding a new skill. This has never happened in the game’s history, so Jagex is taking cautious steps to develop a new skill by heavily involving the community.
Brief History
Jagex first put up a poll on whether the community wanted a new skill or not, then gathered a lot of feedback from players as to what they’d expect the new skill to be, and then finally came up with three skill pitches and asked the players to pick their favorite skill in another poll.
The three skill pitches that Jagex came up with based on the community’s extensive feedback were Sailing, Shamanism, and Taming. The poll asked the community which of the three was their favorite, and the most popular amongst the poll respondents was the Sailing skill, followed closely by Shamanism.
Refining Sailing
The sailing skill now enters a new stage of development: the refinement stage. This stage will begin with around two months of feedback and discussions between Jagex and the community on 4 different aspects of the skill. Jagex will then incorporate and put up a poll before proceeding with the actual Dev work on the skill for the beta testing.
According to Jagex, each of the following points will be thoroughly discussed for roughly 2 weeks:
- Core System and Gameplay Loops
- Navigation and Map/Sea Scale
- Reward Space
- Overall Game Integration and Lore
Before these discussions, which are scheduled to start mid-May, Jagex wants first to understand what the community expects from the skill, so they are collecting data through a survey.
Sailing Refinement Survey
The survey aims to understand how the players already feel about these four crucial topics. This is reflected in questions regarding your past poll history, such as whether you voted yes or no on the initial poll asking whether you agree with the addition of a new skill or not. Jagex takes an interest in your total level, the amount of time you spend weekly in the grind, and if you’re actively playing an Ironman account and your favorite in-game activities. They also ask whether you voted sailing as your favorite during the in-game poll, where you picked your favorite skill.
Core System and Gameplay
Once this basic information is filled in, Jagex asks about the skill’s preferred training methods and gameplay. The team is trying to understand whether the players would prefer a particular method of training that has some variations to it, like Slayer, or multiple training methods like Hunter. The poll proceeds with questions about various potential training methods like courier missions between ports, slayer tasks on islands, or discovering and conquering new islands and asks the respondents to rate each activity. For each of them, you can express a strong like, no preference, a dislike, or a strong dislike. Jagex is also curious about the intensity you’d prefer for training Sailing.
Mechanics
Another set of questions refers to what Jagex scheduled for late May and the mechanics of the skill. The survey asks the players to rate how important it is for them to be able to walk around the ship and do various interactions to navigate. Even more intriguing, Jagex gives the respondents the choice of a point-and-click, WASD, or interface-driven navigation system. Another point under this category asks players to rate various statements, such as whether the navigation should feel suitable for PC and mobile or seeing other players.
An important topic that falls under this same category helps Jagex understand how much content they should develop before the release. They also ask players to rate various pieces of Sailing-related content concerning whether they would be happy with such content on release, see it as the very minimum, don’t think it’s important to be released on launch, or don’t want it altogether. For example, players must rate content such as new islands, bosses, dedicated guilds, minigames, and ship upgrades.
Rewards
Jagex plans on having a broad discussion on this topic in mid-June. Still, until then, Jagex once again asks what activities you’d like with the Sailing skill, rating various rewards such as cosmetic rewards, bosses, ship upgrades, or new resources.
Integration
The final part will be broadly discussed in late June and involves lore and the integration of the Sailing skill. The survey asks whether you want crossover skills such as training both Sailing and Fishing or another skill simultaneously, access to existing training methods such as farm patches, and wholly new and separated Sailing training methods. Another important question relates to the integration of ports within the Sailing skill.
Refinement Summary
For mid-July, Jagex has scheduled a blog potentially followed by a poll that will summarize all the in-depth discussed points and consider loads of feedback from the playerbase. From then on, they will work on the beta or return to a previous stage of development if the poll doesn’t pass.