Care to beat up some bosses for shinies? That sounds like the usual gameplay loop for nearly every MMORPG ever, but the new War’s Retreat hub coming to RuneScape is a little bit different in that it provides unique goodies for taking out bosses.
War’s Retreat can be accessed from a door either outside or inside of Death’s Office. At the central landing point of War’s Retreat are amenities like a bank chest, a campfire to earn a campfire buff, and War, one of the Riders of the Apocalypse, who will operate as an introductory NPC and shopkeep. What’s for sale? A variety of auras, consumables, and unlocks for the War’s Retreat itself like an Altar of War to earn prayer or summoning points, better campfires, or teleports to the Retreat.
Unlocking these goodies is a matter of killing bosses and earning Marks of War, which can be earned at a maximum of 1,000 Marks per hour. As one would expect, different bosses have different Mark values. Players can access all of this whether they’re a subscriber or not, they just need to be at level 60 Combat with the Reaper requirement met.
The War’s Retreat hub already went through some testing and even some recent tweaks thanks to feedback. For example, those with the Completionist’s Cape will now have four new achievements to earn tied to the hub. The auras available in War’s Retreat will also be removed from Solomon’s General Store, and there will be 50% more Reaper points to earn between the War’s Retreat launch on January 27th and February 10th. The weekly update also has the usual look at patch notes, Twitch Prime loot, and more.
Meanwhile, remember last week when Jagex was talking up RuneScape’s big numbers and said it had hired over 100 new employees in its Cambridge base? The studio revealed a few more of them this morning, but this one should stand out for MMO players in particular.
“Mike Donatelli has joined as Product Director of Old School RuneScape. Mike has nearly 20 years of experience in the industry, having begun his career at Mythic Entertainment. He holds a wealth of knowledge in online gaming having worked in senior roles on products such as Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online and Wildstar.”
