As part of Poll 82, you voted for us to make a highly-requested adjustment to the Wintertodt by introducing a Warmth metre.

First up, we'd like to apologise for the delay in this beta. We were due to launch two weeks ago, but discovered a bug that was causing crashes on mobile devices which needed to be resolved to prevent these issues from persisting beyond the beta. As a result, mobile players cannot currently access this Beta. Now, let's talk Wintertodt Changes!

The core aim of this system is to make Wintertodt's damage feel equally punishing for players at low and high Hitpoints levels, which should alleviate the feeling that you need to do as much Wintertodt as you can stomach before levelling your Hitpoints on a fresh account.

Since this is a pretty significant shift, and taking on the Wintertodt is a dangerous activity, we've opted to run a beta for this new system first to iron out any kinks ahead of release and make sure nobody's caught off-guard! This blog aims to give you a rundown of all of the changes and provide some useful tips for getting started with beta testing.

Note: We'd heavily recommend converting your save before trying out today's beta to account for changes to the game's engine between now and our last Open Beta. You can learn how to do this further down in the blog.

There's honestly not a whole lot to get through so we'll keep things brief, we just want to make sure you're up-to-date and not in for a nasty surprise. Let's take a look!

Starting with the lobby, you'll likely notice two new sets of Sprouting Roots (one on each side) that you can use to obtain Bruma herbs. You'll only be able to pick these while the Wintertodt is active, so it might be worth grabbing a couple as you wait for those last few bits of the Wintertodt's Energy to drain. Of course if you're a solo player, you'll be able to stock up on these before braving the cold of the Wintertodt and kicking things off!

You'll also notice a swanky new Warmth Metre at the top left, displayed in a fitting orange so that it matches your Pyromancer garb. Warmth effectively replaces Hitpoints as the resource you need to keep topped up if you'd like to avoid being frozen into an early grave. This means that the Wintertodt's basic and special attacks do damage to your Warmth, this damage is mitigated by wearing Warm clothing, having more braziers lit will reduce the Warmth damage you're taking - pretty much what you're used to, just with a different flavour now.

What's most important here is that decreases to Warmth are universal and apply to everybody in the same way. This means that a play with 10 Hitpoints and 99 Hitpoints will be taking the exact same amount of damage to their Warmth and using the same resources to replenish it - in essence, 100% Warmth is equivalent to 10 Hitpoints before the change but with a little more granularity.

Replenishing your Warmth is simple and doesn't require a change in behaviour - you can just use food! So long as a piece of food provides at least 4 Hitpoints per bite, such as a Cake, you'll replenish 35% of your Warmth upon eating it. To stick with Cake as an example, each bite restores 35%, totalling 105% Warmth recovered for the entire sweet treat. Just like Hitpoints, Warmth also naturally regenerates over time just like Hitpoints, so if you notice it randomly jumping up then don't report it as a bug - it's a feature!

Perhaps you don't want to use conventional food and you're all about self-sufficiency and sustainability. Luckily for you, we've added a 'Drink' option to the Rejuvenation potion (shown above) which will restore 30% of your Warmth per dose, totalling 120% for the full potion, meaning you'll be able to keep yourself topped up indefinitely if you'd like.

Naturally, swapping the left-click on these Rejuvenation potions might make healing the Pyromancers a little more annoying and result in you wasting supplies that you could be using to maximise your points, but don't worry because we've already got that covered!

To reduce potential for accidental potion-consumption, we've added a left-click 'Help' option to the Pyromancers. If you're not familiar with this, you can actually use Rejuvenation potions to heal the Pyromancers when they've taken damage or have fallen to the floor - they don't just magically get up by themselves. You even get points for healing them, which might get some of you to actually give them a helping hand rather than running to a different brazier and hoping nobody notices...

Also in the screenshot above, you can see the new hitsplats for Warmth damage. This clearly separates them from direct damage to your Hitpoints and should make it crystal clear when you're taking damage. We've also popped a Warmth meter just below your usual Hitpoints bar so that you can keep your eyes on the action rather than UI elements at the top left.

Keep in mind that while the Wintertodt won't be attacking your lifeforce directly, running completely out of Warmth will kill you. Wintertodt remains a dangerous activity, HCIM are not safe here - keep yourself warm or somebody will bury your bones for Prayer XP while the masses laugh at you.

Otherwise, all of the core Wintertodt gameplay that you're already familiar with is effectively unchanged. One extra bit of QoL we've added is a slightly longer cooldown on being interrupted by the Wintertodt's basic attacks while fletching your Bruma roots into kindling so that you'll be guaranteed to fit a few fletches in before being interrupted and not have to deal with a string of interruptions that do little beyond frustrate you.

The only other change we're making here ties into that point around 'keeping yourself topped up indefinitely'. If you're already familiar with the Wintertodt then this may sound a little counter-intuitive because your Inventory is likely to fill up with Supply crates and hamper your points-earning potential in the next round. Introducing: the Reward Pile!

Gone are the days of Supply Crates bloating out your bank. Instead, for every crate you would have earned or every roll you would have gotten (in cases where you might obtain a significant number of points and therefore have a crate with multiple loot rolls), you'll get another search added to the Reward Pile. It's right next to the bank so that things are kept convenient, and you can even use the 'Big-search' option to loot 5 times at once!

This should alleviate bank space issues and make Wintertodt a little more appealing for any Ultimate Irons out there.

That's about all there is to this set of Wintertodt changes! Note that even if you're not able to jump into the beta worlds or you have a friend returning to the game after some time, we'll be placing a dialogue pop-up in-game for anybody with Wintertodt killcount who tries to enter Wintertodt after these changes. It's a one-time thing, but we want to make sure nobody comes back for some Firemaking gains and finds themselves overwhelmed by any of the changes.

Before we wrap up, here's a crash course for getting started in beta worlds!

The Open Beta for all these changes is open right now! This section will clue you in to all things Beta Worlds and provide some guidance as to what’s worth trying out in one.

Log in to Beta Worlds 585, 586, 587, 588 or 589, and you’ll find yourself on Tutorial Island. Be sure to skip the Tutorial so you can start testing – or use a more familiar profile to see how these changes impact the gear setups or Firemaking level you're already accustomed to.

To import your main game save to a Beta World, open the Settings menu while logged in to the main game and search for 'Beta', then tick the 'Convert save to Beta Worlds' button. From there, you can hop to any Beta World and should find yourself logging in at the same location, with the stats, gear and progress of whichever save you copied over! Please note, we recommend making sure you have some space in your Inventory before converting your save.

Note: We'd heavily recommend converting your save before trying out today's beta to account for changes to the game's engine between now and our last Open Beta.

Once logged in, assuming you had space in your Inventory, you should notice a charming little egg brightening up your UI. Left-clicking on this egg, or 'Boss helper tool' to use its government name, brings up a Debug menu with a number of options. You'll be able to use this to teleport directly to the Wintertodt so that you don't have to quickly scramble up a Games Necklace!

'Teleports' brings up a list of - you won't believe it - teleport locations for most of the bosses in Old School. 'All Gear' brings up the Tournament Supplies interface (shown below) which you can use to grab any gear you fancy, including the Pyromancer Outfit. 'Gear Loadouts' provides you with some rudimentary setups if you're not sure where to start building out from. 'Swap Spellbook' does exactly what it says on the tin. 'Set Stats' lets you set the level of any skill, which will be handy for you to experiment at a variety of Firemaking levels. 'Unlock Everything' can be used to tick off all the Quests or Achievement Diaries you might need, in case you can't interact with a piece of content you’d like to test.

That’s all we have to share today! Do give the Beta Worlds a go and let us know if anything doesn't feel quite right, tell your friends about the changes and most importantly: don't let the cold of the Wintertodt seep into your bones!

You can also discuss this update on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

Mods Abe, Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Errol, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hooti, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nin, Nox, Nylu, Other, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Rice, Roq, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, TJ, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume

The Old School Team.