Desert Treasure II – The Fallen Empire is almost here! Among the many exciting parts of this quest, you’ll encounter four brand new bosses: Duke Sucellus, Vardorvis, the Leviathan and the Whisperer.
These bosses are no pushovers. After all, this is our most ambitious quest to date, and it’s only fitting that the bosses match up. Each one is unique – if you’re expecting another Vorkath, you’ll be in for a shock!
But now that development is starting to wind down, we think we could take this fearsome foursome even further… with harder variants.
We’re not kidding around, here. We’re classing these variants as ‘aspirational content’ – a particularly challenging goal to work towards, that appeals to those of you who've completed other aspirational content like the Inferno, Grandmaster Combat Achievements, or the Cursed Phalanx from Tombs of Amascut. These goals give you something to strive for, and they tell every player you encounter that you don’t mess around.
These challenging battles would take the form of amped-up encounters against the four Desert Treasure II bosses that double down on their unique mechanics to make for some seriously formidable fights against Awakened bosses.
The ‘Awakened’ form of these bosses will be unlocked with the Awakener’s Orb, a tradeable drop available from their regular forms. The Orb can be consumed for a single attempt at an Awakened encounter, where it’s all or nothing – get the kill, or leave empty handed. If you want to try the fight again, you’ll need another Orb.
This high-stakes approach adds an economical incentive to take on the regular bosses – if you’re not yet up to the Awakened challenge, you can simply sell your Orbs on.
Now, a key part of aspirational content is being rewarded with something that tells everyone around you how cool you are. What’s the point in overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles if you can’t flex on everyone at the Grand Exchange?
These bosses have one primary purpose; test your strength to unlock Blood Torva. Whilst they will have a higher chance of uniques than their counterparts; it will by no means be efficient to complete these for uniques.
The art team have made a handful of changes since we first showed this off, the above image shows their changes following some common player feedback!
Although we think the Awakened bosses would be a super-cool addition to the game, we can’t actually start development until we get the greenlight from you. The following question will make an appearance alongside questions from Poll 80 (coming soon):
Poll Question #1
Should we add challenging, 'Awakened' variants of the Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire bosses, as described in the blog? Successfully defeating all four Awakened bosses would reward players with the ability to recolour their Torva armour into Blood Torva armour.
We’d love to know what you think of our proposal, and hope you’re all excited for some more aspirational content in Old School RuneScape.
There’s one more thing to address, though – those of you with a good memory will notice that the Blood Torva set above looks a little different to the original proposal. This leads us neatly into the next section of this blog – a message from our Art Team about Old School, its art direction, and Torva Armour…
Old School RuneScape’s art style is one of the most recognisable things about the game. It’s grown and blossomed over the 10 years we’ve been working on the game, and we’re proud of what our fantastic art team has done with it.
Just compare the early-era crocodiles of the Kharidian Desert (not you Roger, you’re perfect) and the crocodile models seen in Tombs of Amascut. While remaining true to our blocky, noughties roots, our art team has put stylish new spins on content, locations and models all across the game world.
That said, art is subjective – and sometimes, we miss the mark. It’s time to talk about Torva.
Backporting and Torva
Torva was backported from the RuneScape 3 version of the model, and our artists immediately noticed subtle, but critical differences in its visual style which meant it was at odds with the simple and bold aesthetics of Old School RuneScape.
Following release, we realised it wasn’t just us – hundreds of you took to social media to show off your player-made Torva redesigns and share your feedback.
Now that we’re looking at a new cosmetic override in the form of the Blood Torva set, we feel it’s time to address these visual discrepancies. As a best-in-slot item, this set creates a precedent for future kits and cosmetics – so it’s really important that we establish a strong foundation.
So what is the problem, exactly? If you compare Torva to the Bandos and Justiciar sets, you can more clearly see the issue at hand.
We use a vertex grid to design all our models – a 3D map that tells us where every point of the model is supposed to be.
The level of detail on Torva’s model means that our vertex grid is pushed to its limit, leaving little room for further additions even if we think they’re required. Compared to the other, more simple models in the game, Torva stands out as an anomaly.
The reason for this is that Torva was designed for RuneScape 3’s world scale, which is much larger than that of Old School RuneScape. While it looked beautiful in RuneScape 3, in Old School the same design seems cluttered and out-of place.
Considering that we planned to backport more things from RuneScape 3 in future, we needed a process in place to ensure models look Old School without compromising the key elements of their design. Here’s how we’ll do that with the Torva Armour:
Here's how our proposal looks from all angles!
The art team have made a handful of changes since we first showed this off, the above image shows their changes following some common player feedback!
Why Now?
We’ve known that Torva is visually inconsistent for a while – so why are we addressing the issue now?
The truth is, our definition of the Old School art style has gone through a number of refinements over the years. When we first backported Torva there was less scrutiny around the quality of backported content, but as we progressed through the catalogue we noticed that the art style was starting to drift away from what we intended.
As we mentioned above, we’ve developed a pipeline exclusively for handling backported models. Now each and every asset goes through various checks where we balance it against the existing Old School library to ensure consistency in style.
Usually, there are lots of reductions and refinements to make – you can see one recent example in the Ancient Warrior kits from the recent Bounty Hunter relaunch.
We’ve already mentioned that Old School – and RuneScape in general – has gone through several visual shifts over the years. Rest assured that we’re dedicated to upholding Old School’s visual consistency and iconic look.
As we look at the possibility of releasing the Blood Torva kit as a cosmetic reward from harder variants of the Desert Treasure II bosses, it seems the perfect time to iron out this long-standing inconsistency. So… let’s take a look!
Blood Torva
With the new, simplified Torva, there’s space to make changes to the original design without straining the vertex grid. This helps ensure a future where best-in-slot gear can continue to get funky variants, without crunching up against our tech.
As some of you have already seen, Mod Soffan’s done a fantastic job with the Blood Torva design – so without further ado, let’s take another look at the final version!
Here's a side-by-side of our proposed Torva changes alongside the Blood Torva kit:
Subtle changes like these really help the visual health of the game and keep Old School’s unique visual identity alive. We hope you like it!
Note: we're treating the proposed Blood Torva reward as separate from our plans for the base Torva appearance. If you're unhappy with the proposed changes to the base armour, then make sure to let us know, but when voting on the Awakened bosses and Blood Torva, bear in mind that they are a separate project.
As always, we’re listening for your feedback, and we can’t wait to continue our journey into the art direction of Old School with you!
You can also discuss this update on our official forums, 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.
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