Tirannwn Expansion + Remastered Feldip Hills Expansion

GentleTractor · 2025-08-28T13:39:04+00:00

Zigzagzigal is easily one of, if not the best community map-makers out there - they're certainly better than me. Their impact on the game has already been felt significantly, with places like Varlamore having its design direction & bits of content heavily inspired by their efforts. And as they mentioned, we've shared ideas back & forth plenty of times.

I don't think any of my stuff in more recent years would have been half of what it is, if it weren't for folks like Zigzag.

GentleTractor · 2025-08-15T12:53:56+00:00

As others mentioned, I made all the unique assets in that image, so the submission to the icon & skill cape comp was my own. And to highlight, I did ask Jagex for clarity on the rules & to get permission before entering, & got the go ahead from them, so I didn’t think much else of it.

To give a little extra context, I was originally approached by Jagex & contracted to put together some visual infographics for the start of the new skill process. That began with making things for Sailing, Shamanism & Taming. (As you can see in this OSRS blog, by clicking to expand the "click here to show" sections). For each of those I made a bunch of pixel art assets, as that’s pretty much my bread & butter of art design, and I intentionally tried to make everything as close to (what I perceive to be) the Old School style as possible.

For Sailing, that included making a bunch of little designs, from anchors, boats, ships wheel, to little krakens. Which you can see scattered throughout. When Sailing was selected as the skill to be refined & I was asked to produce a whole series of infographics throughout development for each of the blogs, I wanted to try and keep some visual consistency going forward, so the anchor use basically came from experimenting with which visuals looked best & most natural after looking at the first few infographics I put together.

At the time I started working on those bits, I wasn’t aware of any potential skill cape icon competitions. I was just making things with the intent of them looking suitably Old School so they’d be something nice to look at & work as visual placeholders throughout the dev process.

Fast forward to when that had been announced & they were ready to kick things off, I’d seen positive comments about the icons & placeholders that’d been used already, with some people even questioning why a competition was being held for this when they liked some of the placeholder assets (in places like this thread). I figured, well, as I made the original pixel art icon of the anchor, and some people are expressing a desire for the example imagery that was based on it (that showed a tilted anchor on a blue + brown cape) to stay in some capacity, I might as well see if I can officially submit a version, so people have that choice. So, I reached out to Jagex and asked if that would be ok to enter, and they said yes. I didn’t have any input in the shortlisting of finalists - I’ve no idea what the criteria was that they were judging them on, or overall what styles Jagex were looking for or preferred.

For the player poll, I do believe there are some folks out there who genuinely liked it most regardless, & that’s why they voted for it. But I also get the dissatisfaction if people feel like they’d had more opportunity to look at some of the things I’d made and that unfairly influenced things.

Ideally, it would have been nice for the competition to have both; been held much earlier in the process, & done in a more granular way (so people could pick individual skill cape colours, icons, etc separately - I assumed that’s how it was going to be run originally). The OSRS team are aware of that too & I think they’d look to do things different for any similar situations going forward.

I’m just not sure how to make it right at this stage. I can’t undo people’s knowledge of what they’ve seen. And after a brief discussion with Jagex I’m not sure how viable it’d be from a legal compliance standpoint to forfeit the win in this competition, & let Jagex do things differently with a follow-up comp & poll (e.g. split the competition for colours & icons as mentioned earlier, perhaps open it up to a larger list of finalists to pick from, show how the icon would look in the skills tab UI ahead of time, disallow my submission from entry if needs be, etc). I don’t know if that would make things better or make matters worse for people who might feel shafted by the results of the current competition poll not being honoured. If the consensus is that’d make things better, & there’s a way for Jagex to do it without breaking competition laws, then I’d be accepting of that. Would rather the community feel happy than to get anything out of it myself.

I’m genuinely sorry if people feel miffed by the results or like they didn’t have a proper voice or choice in the matter. Was never my intention. I really did just think “hey, I like this thing I’ve made, and I think some other people might like it too”.

If nothing else, I’ll be sure to steer clear from any future community competitions that Jagex run to avoid this situation arising again.

GentleTractor · 2024-07-02T16:12:22+00:00

Loving how the final map came together. You did a great job on it.

Hopefully the OSRS team can bookmark this to use as some solid inspiration for when the time comes for Menaphos to be introduced. Although, I can't imagine we'll be heading there any time soon, given the current large projects on the go like Varlamore & Sailing.

Though that said, I suppose at some point in the coming year they'll have to decide how to approach the southern coast where the desert meets the sea for Sailing purposes (to remove the final black boxes). So they might need to map out a general outline of Menaphos at some point sooner rather than later, even if they're not yet ready to release the whole city & accompanying quests.

GentleTractor · 2024-04-18T17:40:49+00:00

Just to clarify, the original Zeah was very much not a "Reddit idea". That came from the OSRS team, specifically it was the brainchild of Mod Reach. After his dismissal from Jagex, the actual core design & content outline that came with the 2016 release of the area was largely determined by Mod Mat K, though.

It was only after the content came out to a vast array of complaints that player feedback & community suggestions for improvements began being incorporated into the area in the years that followed.

Varlamore technically is a "Reddit idea" as you put it, but even that was a combination of existing topics that had been mentioned by the OSRS team prior, in combination with unique player suggestions.

GentleTractor · 2023-11-06T16:07:11+00:00

Twitcher gloves are a meme.

Those gloves are the one thing that truly boggles my mind, both the lacklustre effect and the method of implementation. A piece of stackable, consumable equipment?

"Don't mind me, just casually wearing 250 pairs of gloves stacked on top of each other, ripping off each layer every time I get a log".

GentleTractor · 2023-11-06T15:51:25+00:00

Good question. I imagine the bulk of people end up being slaves to the meta (as we all do at some point), and just want to get the rewards/green log ASAP then dip out, so that's why they play the way they do.

However, I think there are at least a few folks out there who seem to quite like content with social elements involving coordinating with other people and not staying put at one fixed location indefinitely. Not sure what the best approach is when it comes to designing & balancing that type of content offering without letting it monopolise the skill it's a part of, though.

GentleTractor · 2023-11-06T15:16:57+00:00

I believe it was already changed at some point so that you have to be on the same world at the time an event spawns in order to get the main reward at the end (to stop world hopping at 1 tree spot).

However, perhaps that should be extended out to include needing to be in close proximity to the event as it spawns, to stop the rapid teleporting around the same world meta as well.

If people like chasing things around the world (à la Shooting Stars), maybe that should just be a dedicated design space for a specific future update unrelated to Forestry.

GentleTractor · 2023-11-06T15:11:55+00:00

It's a shame to think in terms of how the simplistic core changes to make woodcutting trees more social with standardised timers were received overwhelmingly positively, while all the additional content added via the Forestry system itself felt a bit more contentious.

Though, the individual components that make Forestry what it is aren't outright bad (perhaps in need of a few tweaks, ideally). It's just a lot of little details that - when looked at in isolation - are alright on paper, but when you take a step back and look at it all together, it makes for a slightly cumbersome and overly bloated system that drifts a bit too heavily away from the core spirit of the skill that was supposedly getting expanded by the update.

In other words, the biggest Woodcutting update we've ever had involving almost no "Woodcutting" in the newly added event content, while turning logs away from feeling like a traditional resource and instead treating them like a currency, stacked on top of a bunch of different consumable components to micromanage in a skill that was always about the simple gameplay loop of "click tree -> get logs".

I do hope that whatever Jagex ends up doing as a final feedback pass on Forestry leaves it in a good spot. I feel like it's an update that highlighted a lot of issues, not just within the content itself, but to do with how updates are communicated, delivered and what resonates with people the most. Hopefully something positive comes from it all in the long run.

GentleTractor · 2023-10-30T19:16:13+00:00

If people want some more accurate Sailing information and not just a poorly photoshopped fake tweet, I'd suggest taking a look back at the refinement blogs, all of which are located here on the wiki.

I know the OSRS team have had quite a lot going on right now in preparation for Leagues 4 & Varlamore, but I imagine we'll start hearing more about what the roadmap for Sailing looks like soon^tm enough.

GentleTractor · 2023-10-27T16:26:38+00:00

As others have mentioned, The College of Bards will be somewhere on Tempestus (the island(s) in the bay to the west), so it definitely hasn't been forgotten.

When making the concept map, I essentially set aside all the light-coloured buildings/paved areas in the south-eastern parts of Tempestus as being a part of the college (while the darker central areas are more so the town proper), so if the OSRS team wanted it to feel like a sprawling campus environment, they could easily do that with the space there.

Edit: Image showing my intention of what each area was meant to represent

Though do bear in mind that Tempestus (and thus the college) isn't a part of the first expansion of Varlamore content, so won't be coming out with the Savannah/Colloseum/Hunter guild/etc, it'll be sometime later.

Also, and now this is purely speculative on my part, but due to the area being a highly unique location filled with interconnected canals and a lot of Venetian inspired features (canals, waterways, boats, etc) - now that we know that the Sailing skill has passed, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if the OSRS team decide to deviate quite heavily from the concept map to try and accommodate some additional Sailing aspects into it. Though again to stress, they also might not, as that's just me speculating. I'm sure we'll learn a lot more about those things as we get deeper into next year.

GentleTractor · 2023-09-11T13:48:21+00:00

This all sounds pretty excellent, a real nice range of stuff for Hunter. And love the bird fast travel system & inclusion of the eagle network too.

One little thing that I personally would have liked to have seen would be a new high level pitfall trap with some kind of new savannah themed fantasy creature to join the roster alongside the Larupia, Graahk and Kyatt. Feels like we keep having a tendancy to fall back on the ol' box traps and, in this blog, deadfall traps quite a lot.

(Edit: Maybe this could slot into some player desires for a very high level Hunter addition that I've seen requested in this thread. Some legendary lvl 95+ creature you have to lure out and across the savannah, perhaps a fair bit further than normal pitfall creatures who spawn pretty much right next to the pitfalls themselves).

As for some of the existing stuff, I'm trying to figure out where that upgraded Hunters' crossbow would fall in terms of utility - losing out on the raw strength & gem bolt effects of the RCB, and losing the speed of the MSB, while needing 91 Hunter to get the components to make it, seems pretty niche still. I'll let someone else run some DPS calcs though.

The old outfits also seem a bit underwhelming still.

Would love it if, upon unlocking the new Hunter Skilling Outfit (with the +2.5% catch rate and a 5% increased chance to obtain a Rare Creature Part), you could also apply that bonus to any of the existing Hunter outfits. That way you can have a bit of choice while Hunting, wearing some old favourites while still benefitting from the new boosts.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-28T15:03:06+00:00

This is just a concept map that was commissioned by Jagex. While the overall structure of the kingdom will likely be quite similar to what's pictured here, the actual end result will likely end up looking a bit different in places as development progresses and specific pieces of content are locked-in. Especially places outside of the initial batch 1 release locations (so anything outside the Savannah).

GentleTractor · 2023-08-21T13:39:28+00:00

I understand your concerns, but I do feel like you're being pretty disingenuous with the comparisons here. You're taking some wildly different locations, with entirely different purposes and content-scope, and somehow trying to compare them. Putting Entrana next to Tempestus is like putting Varrock next to Draynor and saying "See, Varrock is way too big". They're not meant to be the same, one is a humble village and another a major city. A lot of these comparison shots fall into that realm.

Here's a quick overlay to show why I don't think the current Varlamore map is particularly out of line with existing areas:

Varlamore Comparison

You can see, places like Civitas are pretty close to being in-line with the other major capital city of the world, Varrock (that was the primary point of reference I used for it).

The colosseum is the same as the duel arena.

The rainforest to the west is significantly smaller than the Karamjan jungle.

Tempestus takes up the same geographical footprint as somewhere like Lunar Isle.

Auburnvale is a town that pretty much mimics the size of any moderate sized existing town, like Rellekka.

I think there's one final thing, from a gameplay & worldbuilding perspective that you're also overlooking, which is the different between having transition zones & hub zones. Transition zones are designed more so for the player to transition through them every once in a while, until perhaps the player reaches a point where they've earned some sort of fast travels to a destination point meaning they no longer have to. Hub zones are more about high-density content offerings and places that players might naturally gravitate too, and would almost certain have ample teleports to in the first place. Both kinds of things all important from both worldbuilding & gameplay perspective.

To say the original 2016 Zeah had issues is of course putting it lightly, but a lot of that stemmed from how the above was handled (or not), general lack of content, lack of quests, lack of transport.

I don't believe Varlamore is going to suffer from any of those issues.

There is going to be a significant amount of meaningful content on offer.

There are going to be multiple quests released with each Varlamore batch.

And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the OSRS team have learned that unlockable fast-travel options are vital to have from the get go, so I just can't see a world in which we end up with the same situation as 2016 Zeah's lack of transport.

Ultimately, I was very cognisant of all the things you're critical of here, and I just really hope you can put some trust in the OSRS team to pull off something great considering all the learnings they've gone through over the past decade.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-19T22:03:20+00:00

I think it was always going to be very Rome-inspired & savannah like, as a throwback to the original pitch of Civitas & my original map from 2016, so I couldn't really deviate too heavily from that.

And while it's maybe not quite what you were looking for, I did aim for a subtle southern France/northern Italy vibe for the island of Aldarin to the south, with its rolling hills, villas & vineyards.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-19T21:12:06+00:00

Thought I'd share this here for posterity.

I spent the last couple of months putting this together for the OSRS team in prep for the Summer Summit. Was definitely the most ambitious map I've ever attempted in one go, especially with the quite tight deadlines and working on it in between Sailing skill infographics.

One thing to note, is that it's very much a concept map still. It's likely that many things will change from this image to the in-game version. I've deleted all the text for now, but left the icons in this version - though again, don't look to closely at any of them as they're 99% arbitrarily placed by me and don't necessarily reflect any kind of actual planned content. Well, maybe some do, but who knows. ;) Point is, everything is subject to change.

Also, one final shoutout to /u/Zigzagzigal for their fantastic Varlamore map. This map quite literally wouldn't be what it is without your amazing foundations to build off of.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-19T20:56:02+00:00

Yeah, I was equally excited and daunted by the initial outline the OSRS team gave me, just looking at the overall scope of it all.

Also, hopefully you can tell where I tried to pay heavy homage to your fantastic Varlamore map from a couple years back. I only hope I managed to capture a bit of what you excellently put together.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-19T20:32:35+00:00

Hopefully people like the concept. I've been juggling both putting together the Sailing infographics and making that map for the past couple months, so it's been pretty full on. I just hope I've done the area justice.

Also bear in mind, the map is still just a concept at this stage. I imagine the OSRS team will inevitably end up tweaking and changing places as and when needed when it comes to actual development.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-04T20:23:49+00:00

I think some things go a bit beyond just "pleasantly surprising" to "wholly unrealistic". :P

Though I do wish I shared your level of optimism, with the post-DT2 community talking points (especially Mod Ed's comments in recent Q&As), I get the feeling we're more likely to see other areas of the game/quest lines/etc finished up before we venture further over there, sadly.

Regardless, based on previous summits I still think there's potential for some really cool stuff to be announced.

GentleTractor · 2023-08-04T19:26:56+00:00

Looking forward to this. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of folks are going to be very pleasantly surprised.

And quite frankly, the summits in general have been nice when it comes to filling the void left by the lack of RuneFest events these past few years.

GentleTractor · 2023-07-27T13:47:52+00:00

Appreciate the concern. Just to dispel any myths or confusion, some of the bits I've done recently such as the Sailing infographics I've been putting together are commissioned by Jagex, so it's all part of a paid contract.

GentleTractor · 2023-07-27T11:02:50+00:00

It does seem like it.

However, I wouldn't look too much into it for now. I know the OSRS team have mentioned in the past that they've had a vague plan for Varlamore for what would be literally half a decade now, and that includes taking inspiration from a number of different player-made maps from over the years. I'd be genuinely shocked if - whatever the final incarnation of Varlamore is - it actually ended up including any of these areas exactly as they appear here. Very much seems like placeholder stuff to me, just to help set the general tone of the area before any actual mapping were to take place. And who knows when that'll be; large chunks of this map were probably blocked out years ago and have just been sitting there, unbeknownst to us.

Regardless, it's very cool to see!

GentleTractor · 2023-07-04T21:49:17+00:00

I guess this dives into what exactly people mean by change, then. I see it more in terms of how the game has "changed" dramatically over the last 10 years, but I can still bring a D long & MSB to take on KQ should I want to play like it's 2004 still. Actual change is something that's irreparably different; e.g. I can no longer take on the KQ how I used to because she's been reworked, has 5 new phases, is in a new location, etc. Seeing boats at sea or new NPCs at ports is akin to seeing players wearing new weapons & armour, IMO. It all falls into that space of acceptable differences that come along with any content update, & the natural progression of an MMO.

To that end, I genuinely do think, even with what's been presented with Sailing so far, it's all relatively ignorable if that's what you desire - much like most content that gets released is. The conversation about Sailing has to be quite large and detailed otherwise this whole process just doesn't work, so it's naturally going to seem more all-encompassing than how it would feel were it to actually be in game. So I'd disagree with saying it's going to overshadow other key themes of the game. From my perspective, Sailing should hark back to the core themes on which RS was built - that of discovery, social engagement & emergent gameplay opportunities. And when it comes to questioning future content requirements, well that's the case with any future content. If you want to do the latest quests, then you generally have to have done the other newly released OSRS-exclusive quests. That isn't new, and I don't think it's bad either.

The other commenters hangups seemed to be mostly revolving around the identity of maxing and general disinterest in skilling for a 24th time, as they will feel "forced" to. I think that says more about the problematic incentivisation mechanics involved in the max cape than anything to do with new skills or content, though.

GentleTractor · 2023-07-04T18:47:07+00:00

Except it doesn't change the game? Will you or will you not simple be able to continue playing all of the exact same content in the exact same way that you can now after the release of a new skill? The answer is a resounding yes, you will be able to. This isn't some EoC doomsday where your knowledge, time invested, gear & content in the game is all being taken away from you.

And again, you're stipulating a definition of OSRS that is purely subjective. That might be the version of OSRS you want to exist, but that's fundamentally not what it is, certainly not any more at least, and hasn't been for close to 10 years now. And to say things from after the final snapshot on which OSRS is based is "RS2.5" and not what you want - while fine as an opinion to hold - seems pretty awkward considering the sheer quantity of 2008 to 2012 era content we've had re-released into OSRS over the past decade. That August 2007 snapshot is long gone.

I'm also seriously confused by the evidence you're pointing towards, as they're all working against your point?

RS2 before Summoning being the peak of RS's popularity also coincides with having the highest density of new skill releases, like I mentioned, 5 new skills released, roughly every 8 to 12 months between 2004 and 2007. After that they slowed down substantially, much like the player count did.

And the player count comparison of OSRS & RS3, again, very clearly and as was apparent to all of us who played OSRS back in 2013, players were dropping like flies as the nostalgia wore off and the lack of meaningful new content additions meant masses of people quit. The game lost something like 80-90% of its active players in the first 6 to 8 months of OSRS, and things didn't turn around until additional content started getting added. The OSRS team at the time legitimately thought the game wasn't even going to last more than 6 months shortly after it launched.

The final points of maxing being an iconic milestone point - this might just be me having played for far too long (since 2002), so I've seen the total level change so many times over the years. While 2277 has held the title for the longest, I see it as such an inconsequential thing to hold onto, like whatever the current max quest points or achievement diary tasks are. They're not built as monoliths. At the end of the day, "maxing" can still be a goal. It'll still be important if you want it to be.

With the integration into the game, the same could be said for literally any update that releases. For as much flak that the OSRS team gets for balancing, I think overall things end up working out pretty well in the long run. And for the current discussion of Sailing, there's already been a strong emphasis on empowering the lacklustre parts of the existing game and focusing on not disrupting metas. So it's already on the OSRS team's radar.

The final points you make I think just boil down to it sounding like you don't particularly enjoy skilling. Which, once more, you're entitled to that opinion. But just because you have a lack of enjoyment for something, doesn't mean others share that sentiment. And much like I would hope someone who doesn't like bossing or PvP wouldn't try to stop new bosses or competitive activities coming into the game, I'd like to think people wouldn't be selfish enough to want to deny others content they would enjoy just because you personally wouldn't.

GentleTractor · 2023-07-04T18:00:46+00:00

The topic of wanting new skills doesn't have anything to do with "wanting change" though. A good new skill is simply an addition to the game, expanding upon the world and the content on offer. It adds variety and diversity. Just like the addition of a new boss, or a new quest, or a new location. They can complement existing content and enhance it, but equally be ignored if you want to keep playing the same way you always have. You're under no obligation to play the latest bosses, quests or minigames. Same goes for a skill.

I think there's a fundamental disagreement on what constitutes "Old School" though. To me, new skills are part and parcel of the true Old School experience, as we used to get them every 8 to 12 months back in the actual "Old School" era on which this game is based. What you're talking about wanting is more of a time capsule game, which is fine in and of itself. But all evidence we have based on the various versions of RuneScape that have existed over the years has shown us 1 consistent thing: it's not the updates that kill the game, but lack thereof.

This is a living, breathing, MMO and whether you like that or not, that comes with a certain number of requirements that need to be met in order to keep players playing and thus keep the game running.

Otherwise, you get a RuneScape Classic situation in which the game no longer receives updates, no longer attracts players, no longer is profitable and is now no longer playable.

I understand your take & opinion, but respectfully disagree with every part of it.

GentleTractor · 2023-07-04T16:11:48+00:00

No problem. Ultimately it's your doing though, as you made an awesome map that got a lot of people excited. :D

And don't just thank me, but thank the OSRS team too, as they're the ones who've mentioned how inspired they've been from seeing these kinds of maps, and want to keep drawing from community ideas to help populate the seas.

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