Reduced Death Costs & Raptor's Rampage Event! - This Week In RuneScape

Written by developer on 09 January 2023. Posted in RuneScape News

It’s 2023 and we’re kicking the year off in style – we’re finally reducing death costs, giving you even more freedom to experiment and push yourself further than ever before! Plus, there’s a new special event to help you score some rare boss drops. Happy new year indeed…

Death Cost Reductions & GE Tariffs
Over 80% reduction to death costs!

Move over January sales, because the only reductions we care about right now are on permanent death costs!

Yes, the long-awaited death cost changes are finally here, making the final frontier less punishing to your wallet for the year ahead. If costs have prevented you from experimenting with bossing in the past, there's no better time to try something new for 2023!

With today's update, death will cost at least 80% less compared to before. The Ring of Death also gets an update to keep it viable: die and you'll be reborn in place on the battlefield, but with a three-minute debuff that deals incrementally increasing tick damage. Finish that boss kill quickly or get to safety before it overwhelms you!

Today also marks the arrival of Grand Exchange Tariffs. With over 60% of gold drain coming through deaths, we needed to balance the economy to support the new death costs. Now, 2% of gold from all sales on the GE will be taken by the tariff to cover the gap.

Oh, and there’s more. While it won’t launch with today's update, we’ll soon be introducing an engine update that will enable sales over the current Max Cash limits! Stay tuned for more news on that in the near future.

If you'd like to go into lots of juicy number-crunching detail on the death cost reduction and GE Tariff specifics, check out the recent lovely maths-y post: Here

Event: Raptor's Rampage
Chase those rare boss drops

Now cheaper death costs have kicked away your January blues, why not sink your teeth into our brand new special event?

Raptor has arrived at War's Retreat to offer a handy buff that can be activated once a day!

Once it’s up and running, your next boss kill will get three rolls on the bosses rare drop table – that means more chances to grab those elusive boss drops!

A few exceptions:

Telos and Arch-Glacor will not be subject to this benefit due to their Streak mechanics.
Raids receive a flat percentage increase for loot and do not consume the buff.
Bosses without rare loot will not be affected or consume the buff.

The Raptor’s Rampage is on until January 22nd!

Frank's Free Chest
Start the year with loot!

Don’t forget, an extra members-only event is already underway: have you visited Frank's Free Chest yet?

Every day you log in, or hour you play, will earn you a Pirate Key – with a max of 12 up for grabs each week.

Head to Frank, who has set up shop at Port Sarim, to spend your keys and score a random selection of loot. Who knows, it might even include Uncharted Island Maps or 100 Million GP!

Frank's Free Chest runs until January 31st.

Patch Notes
Fixes and improvements in this week's game update

General

You must now complete the Succession quest to use Dive in theoretically any circumstances. Ability no longer can be used despite not being unlocked when placed on action bar
Drop trades can now track more types of items eg. coins via telegrab and player watch
Worst Witch Grimoire Achievement blocker has been corrected and should correctly display progress
Applied a long-term solution to being unable to bank bankable items from the 'Choose your prize' interface while a bonus reward is present alongside Wrapping Paper in Treasure Hunter
Guthixian High Druid (World Wakes) - the World Guardian title has been remove
Khnum - removed the clear title option
Fixed an issue that caused script errors when Festive Aura was replacing the Portable Snowfall aura

Community
The latest goings-on from our community