News

Your Feedback, Our Next Steps - July 3rd

We’d like to thank you all for you taking part in the first week of Forestry and leaving us a solid amount of feedback. This little update is here to give you some insight into the next steps of Forestry and whilst some issues will be tackled with Wednesday’s game update, some will need more time and won’t be an immediate fix.

Experience & Balancing

An important part of any new content is reacting to feedback and balancing.

We are going to continue to monitor and investigate the current experience gained across Forestry and will be making a number of balancing changes over the next two weeks of feedback. We don't want to completely prohibit world hopping/CC scouting as that keeps to the spirit of collaboration that the content was hoping to achieve, but we want to make sure that the experience gained vs intensity vs rewards is balanced to still be rewarding and worth your time doing whilst not being too overpowered.

Event Rewards & Inconsistency

Players have reported that some users interacting with events don't receive the intended rewards.

As some of you are aware we released a few hotfixes detailed below, that stopped the player's client from crashing when interacting with events. To fix this issue without a coldfix (which would need us to reboot the game), this means we had to cap the number of players to ~50 that would receive the full intended rewards when an event ends.

We're happy to say that with this week's game update and the coldfix version in place, the limit will be removed and everyone participating in the event, provided they were in the same world when it spawned, will receive the full intended rewards.

Event Polishing

Let's take a quick look at the overall opinions of each of the current Forestry Events:

• Rising Roots: Low intensity, great experience, great rewards, decent social interaction.
• Struggling Sapling: High intensity, great experience, great rewards, great social interaction.
• Flowering Tree: High intensity, bad experience, bad rewards, decent social interaction.
• Leprechaun: Low intensity, great utility, a 'different' event comparatively.

We think this is a fairly accurate reflection of the events in their current state both in-game and across social media. We would like to remind players that because of the current limit, certain events like Flowering Tree might seem a lot worse and we'll hopefully have a clearer picture once this week's update addresses that.

Please bear in mind, the things we talk about in this section are mostly to improve the overall health of the events and may change due to our current investigations with experience, rewards and spawn rates. Here's a look at the potential changes for each event:

Rising Roots

Currently, players are enjoying this event for the low intensity and high reward trade-off, which as a player, why wouldn't you? We're going to be monitoring this one carefully as we continue our discussions.

We've also seen the feedback regarding the event giving roots, which will be more impactful with the introduction of teas in part two. This is something we will consider going into part two and we'll look to update you when we start Community Consultation.

Struggling Sapling

We've seen that overall this event is in a similar spot to Rising Roots and the level of social engagement we've seen during this event has been fantastic. Although we know that with event locating CCs and utilising other skilling training methods between doing these events, this event can reward some of the highest levels of experience that Forestry/Woodcutting can give. This is something we want to balance with this week's update and will look to reduce the experience granted when participating in this event by around 30%. Again, we will be monitoring the numbers closely.

Flowering Tree

This one is very dependent on our investigations, but we know that this event out of all events (excluding Leprechaun) players favoured the least. Not only is it low experience but the rewards of strange fruit and occasional seeds aren't enough. Alongside the accessibility issues, potential changes could include buffing both experience and rewards, increasing the number of seeds from the event and/or as we discuss later, making the event easy to understand. There are no confirmed changes for this event aside from the accessibility issues we discuss further down, but we will be reviewing its place after this week's game update!

Leprechaun

The biggest bit of feedback is the utility of the Leprechaun is great but lasts for too long, especially because events can't spawn whilst it's active. We've got two main approaches to this issue, we could either make the event be able to spawn whilst a Leprechaun Event is active or we could make the Leprechaun more of an interactable event alongside the banking benefits! Both options have their benefits however creating new mechanics for the event would take significantly longer, which we are bearing in mind.

We hope that these potential changes could benefit each event, again, dependent on our continued monitoring of the content.

Collection Log

Players are unsure why we didn't add a Collection Log for this update.

This was a mistake on our part and we should have included a Collection Log upon launch. We will be adding one over the next two weeks and it will retroactively unlock any untradeable rewards that players have already received. Still, it does mean you will have to re-buy any tradeable items from the Forestry Shop in order to have them completed in your Collection Log.

Forestry Kit Upgrade

We've also seen feedback from you all that creating the upgraded Forestry Kit Upgrade feels counter-productive when you can't easily deposit the items inside it whilst you're wearing it. Although there is an option to let you 'empty loot' on the Deposit Box the Fish Barrel of Log Basket doesn't work with this function, meaning emptying these items whilst equipped is more of a chore.

So, we would like to explore the option of including an 'empty storage' option inside the bank, meaning that your Upgraded Forestry Kit & Fishing Barrel could be deposited whilst wearing them. This isn't a small change and would also require a poll as this is something that would affect everyone and multiple pieces of content outside of Forestry. We would probably include this alongside either a QoL poll or the Forestry: Part Two poll.

Cannons, Fires, Flowers & Griefing

Currently, one of the biggest concerns from players is the sheer number of Cannons, Fires and Flowers being placed by players that cause frustration when interacting with the different events that spawn around them.

Within the next two weeks, as an immediate action to help stop griefing, any fires or flowers in an events area will be removed and any Cannons will automatically degrade. This is another area we will continue to monitor the situation and react to any issues we see that still actively make it harder to participate in Forestry.

Accessibility/Visibility

A big piece of feedback that comes alongside the above point is the lack of visibility for players, especially players with accessibility issues (visual impairments) or playing on Mobile.

To help those will visibility issues, we'd like to make this clearer. During the Flowering Tree event, it's very difficult to keep track of which bushes need to be pollinated, especially on mobile.

We've requested to give all of the bushes different colours, which will allow you to easily identify which two coloured bushes need pollinating and will help communication amongst players! We'll also look to change the names of each bush to include their colour on each object such as Flowering Bush (Blue).

This won't be an immediate change, so we'd like to just keep you informed that we're aware of this feedback and are working towards making it better! We will continue to discuss and look to improve the accessibility aspects of Forestry to make it better for everyone playing.

Ultimate Iron Players

Speaking of making things better for everyone, we've seen a number of discussions surrounding Ultimate Iron players and Forestry Shop prices.

We made some changes to the Forestry shop prices which seem very drastic when you compare it to what we initially said in the Beta newspost. This is something you only would have known if you had tuned into the Livestream or Discord Stages call, which from a communication perspective, is not the most effective or efficient and we could have done better.

Overall, we are happy with the current prices and feel they give more value to the reward. However, it did mean that those people preparing for the update would have been caught off-guard on release, especially for UIMs.

So where does that leave us? Well previously we were going to poll a change where the Friendly Forester would be able to note logs, this would have meant huge changes to how UIMs play and go against the spirit of the gamemode.

Much like the log storage next to the Air Balloon Transport service, we'd like to a place similar, one-way Log deposit box next to the Friendly Forester which would allow you to put in noted/un-noted logs as a one-way transaction to only be used within the Forestry Shop. This would be available for all players and means that those of you who want to collect and deposit logs in smaller increments, can!

Smaller Changes

• Allow players to add the Woodcutting Cape into the Clothes Pouch and still gain the benefits of the cape (this would only count for the Woodcutting Cape, not a Max Cape, etc).
• Some Fremennik Isle trolls that were not dropping noted Arctic Pine logs will correctly drop them from next week's update. The Ice Trolls found in the caves which only drop bones have been renamed to Frenzied Ice Trolls.
• Make the Forestry Kit free.
• Open an Australian world for Forestry.
• Change the number of chat messages you receive when collecting Anima-Infused Bark.

We hope that the feedback we are addressing will help to improve part one of Forestry for everyone, so it continues in part two and beyond in a healthy and interesting expansion for Woodcutting!

Issues and Hotfixes

Last Updated	Issues Raised	Current Progress	Status
12:20 BST - June 28th	Some players are reporting losses of bonds from their inventory and when buying from the Grand Exchange.	The team have rebooted the G.E. for Bonds and the errors have ceased to continue. We will be investigating any errors we received about those who did not receive their Bonds.	FIXED
12:40 BST - June 28th	Reports of issues with interacting with Herbs/Grimy Herbs aren't working correctly.	We've released a Hotfix that should have resolved this issue.	FIXED
15:11 BST - June 28th	We've received a number of reports of players crashing and not receiving event rewards when chopping trees with numerous amounts of people.	The team has released a hotfix to resolve the issues around crashing. We will continue our investigation into the inconsistent rewards.	FIXED
13:50 BST - June 28th	Some reports have stated certain trees are respawning extremely quickly or not despawning for longer than intended.	We've released a hotfix that should now make trees behave as intended. The team will keep a close eye on this for any further inconsistencies.	FIXED
14:10 BST - June 28th	Players have been able to change the colour of their Beaver pet without the Funky-Shaped Log unlocked.	We've deployed a hotfix to stop this from happening and we are looking into reverting any Beavers back to their original forms for anyone who has not unlocked the reward.	FIXED
17:25 BST - June 28th	We've received reports that players can spawn events inside the Woodcutting Guild.	We've deployed a hotfix to stop events spawning inside the Woodcutting Guild as this is not the intended behaviour.	HOTFIXED
17:40 BST - June 28th	Players have stated you cannot deposit Teak Logs with the Leprechaun event.	The team are currently investigating this issue and has found this also affects Mahogany, Arctic Pine & Blisterwood Logs.	FIXED
14:00 BST - June 29th	Players are able to obtain Anima-Infused Bark very quickly by buying items from the G.E. and selling them back to the Forestry Shop.	We wanted Forestry to have its own economy of tradeable items, but it was never our intention to allow players to bypass participating in the content to gain untradeable rewards. As such, we've released a hotfix that will temporarily remove the ability to sell all items back to the shop. This is a temporary measure and in next week's Game Update we'll be looking to enable selling back suitable items, in case you accidentally purchase multiple of the same reward or just fancy a change!	HOTFIXED
15:50 BST - June 29th	Players can have events scouted and are able to hop worlds and join events at the very end for the massive drops at the end.	The amount of experience gained from scouting and hoping worlds to join at the end goes beyond the threshold of experience that should be gained from events, sometimes reaching between 200-300k XP per hour. We have made the following changes to help this: If you are not logged into the world when the Flowering Tree or Struggling Sappling event spawns, you will not receive the final drop of experience at the end. If you are not logged into the world when the Rising Roots event spawns, you will receive reduced rewards. We have also reduced the duration of the Flowering Tree event (by approximately 1 minute) and the Leprechaun Event (by approximately over 1 minute).	HOTFIXING

This week we’re logging the hours with part one of our Forestry update!

Changelog - June 28th

Forestry: Way of the Forester - Part One

• Trees will now despawn on a timer that activates after the first cut and regenerates if players stop cutting the tree.
• Multiple players chopping the same tree will now receive an invisible Woodcutting bonus which scales with the number of players, up to a maximum of 10.
• Forestry Kits are now available.
• Four different Forestry events will now appear.
• The Friendly Forester’s Forestry Shop is now open for business.
• The Ice Trolls that can be found north of Jatizso and Neitiznot now drop noted Arctic Pine Logs.

Other Changes

• The Pride event is over!
• Players can claim Pride-themed goodies from Gilbert, southeast of Barbarian Village.
• Players will now see a visible difference when the Escape Crystal is active or deactivated.
• Added a parenthesis to further clarify the difference.
• The Escape Crystal’s auto-teleport can now be toggled with a right-click option.
• Apprentice Cordelia now has a right-click option for more convenient Pouch repairs.
• A Chisel now spawns near the cell table in Guardians of the Rift.

Narrative Survey

• Whether you’re a verified lorehound or a serial spacebar smasher, take part in our Narrative Survey!

PvP Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period B:

• 560 - (UK) - PvP World
• 579 - (US) - High-Risk PvP World
• 561 - (UK) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 580 - (US) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been de-activated with this rota.

The PvP Arena is using 'Main' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

Forestry: Part One

Grab your plaid shirts and venture into the great outdoors with the first part of our much-anticipated Woodcutting expansion!

We've setup three activity worlds that will help you find some fellow Foresters:

• World 444 (US West)
• World 487 (US East)
• World 510 (UK)

New Tree Mechanics

To help support group play and reduce competition, trees will now despawn on a timer that activates after the first cut and regenerates if players stop cutting the tree before it’s fully chopped.

The length of the despawn timer is based on the average time each type of tree currently lasts:

• Oak: 27s
• Willow: 30s
• Teak: 30s
• Maple: 1m
• Hollow Trees: 36s
• Mahogany: 1m
• Arctic Pine: 1m 24s
• Yew: 1m 54s
• Magic: 3m 54s
• Redwood: 4m 24s

In addition, chopping the same tree with other players will give you an invisible +1 Woodcutting bonus for each person at the tree, up to a maximum of +10 for 10 players.

As a reminder, you won’t receive this bonus while cutting normal trees, or within the Woodcutting Guild.

And remember, this part of the update is available for both Free-to-Play players and Old School RuneScape members!

The Friendly Forester and Forestry Kit

The famous pheasant-hunting Friendly Forester is your main man when it comes to Forestry. He’s set up camp in Draynor and Seers’ Village, where you’ll be able to visit him for handy tips, access to the Forestry Shop and your free Forestry Kit.

This new wearable item lets you store a variety of new tools and materials which let you interact with Gielinor’s forests in whole new ways. You can craft new additions to your Kit using existing materials combined with items from the Forestry Shop.

To buy them, you’ll need an untradeable currency only found in Forestry: Anima-Infused Bark. You’ll naturally earn this while participating in Forestry Events – if you have a Forestry Kit with you, it’ll be conveniently stored in there!

While chopping, you’ll also collect leaves, which can also be stored in your Kit.

All the items and components to upgrade your Forestry Kit are tradeable, including leaves!

Here’s what else you can find inside your Forestry Kit:

Leprechaun Charm

These charms attract the attention of friendly Leprechauns. When someone in your group successfully chops a tree, having this charm in your Forestry Kit means there’s a chance a Leprechaun will appear and offer his services!

You can create the Charm with 70 Crafting, 70 Woodcutting and 35 Farming. Buy a Clover Insignia at the Forestry Shop and combine it with an Emerald and a Ball of Wool to create 10 Leprechaun Charms.

Bee on a Stick

These buzzy buddies help pollinate plants. While chopping trees, they have a chance to detect strange bushes that are ready to pollinate and will assist in you doing so!

You can create this with 50 Hunter and 35 Woodcutting. Buy some Powdered Pollen at the Forestry Shop and combine that with a Ball of Wool and some Logs while near a Bee Hive to create 10 Bees on a Stick.

Nature Offerings

Nature Offerings give you a 60-80% chance to receive an additional log while chopping trees. The Offering will be used whether you receive the extra log or not.

You can create this with 50 Farming and 68 Woodcutting. Buy some Ritual Mulch at the Forestry Shop and combine that with one high-tier herb (Avantoe, Kwuarm, Snapdragon, Cadantine, Lantadyme, Dwarf Weed or Torstol) to create 40 Nature Offerings.

Forester's Ration

The go-to snack for Woodcutting enthusiasts, these tasty treats have a 30% chance to restore 20 points of Run Energy when chopping trees with a 1-Handed Axe.

You can make your very own once you've got 35 Cooking and 35 Woodcutting. Simply combine Leaves of any type with a slice of Cooked Meat!

Secateurs Attachment

Want to rake in the Leaves? These handy clippers get you more Leaves when chopping trees – roughly doubling the amount you’ll receive!

Once you've got 35 Smithing and 35 Woodcutting, buy a Secateurs Blade from the Forester and combine it with an Iron Bar to create 50 Secateurs Attachments.

To reiterate, all the Kit upgrades are tradeable and stackable – so you can buy them on the Grand Exchange or trade them with your fellow players!

Events

Please note: Hollow Trees and Redwood Trees do not spawn events!

Forestry brings Gielinor to life with new and exciting events – and four of them arrive today!

These special events can occur any time someone’s cutting a tree with a Forestry Kit somewhere on their person, and there are no other events happening in a 20-tile radius. We estimate that players will see 4-5 events per hour when chopping solo, but a group of 10 players should expect around 7-9 events per hour.

We’ve also balanced events across tree tiers. Oak Trees, with a shorter timer, naturally have a lower chance to spawn events – so to make up for it, they’ll get more rolls on the table. The higher-end trees, like Magic, work the opposite way!

When a tree is first chopped, the game rolls on the Events Table. If the event is set to happen during chopping, the event picks a random point during the tree’s lifecycle to spawn. Otherwise, the event is rolled and executed when the tree falls.

You’ll need a Forestry Kit to spawn an event – although some events have further requirements. Events check every player at the tree for the required item, so as long as someone has it, the event will spawn. If you’re one of the players with the necessary item, you’ll lose it when the event spawns, but you’ll gain bonus rewards and XP from the event as compensation.

So, what events can you take part in?

Rising Roots

Look out! These gnarly roots are trying to protect their woody brethren. Cut them down for some XP and Anima-Infused Bark – and make sure to keep an eye out for the glowing ones!

Flowering Tree

Help the bees find the right two flowers to pollinate! You’ll need a Bee on a Stick for this event to appear, but you’ll be rewarded with XP, Anima-Infused Bark, and some seeds or tasty treats!

Struggling Sapling

Help the poor sapling grow big and strong! Create the right combination of Mulch to feed to the baby tree before it withers away. Get some XP and Anima-Infused Bark in return!

Leprechaun

If you have a Leprechaun Charm, you may attract a friendly Leprechaun who’ll take your Woodcutting resources straight to the Bank. What a helpful chap!

Remember, all events scale in experience and difficulty depending on the number of players present. This means you’ll be well-rewarded for your efforts, even when playing in a group!

Forestry Shop

We’ve already covered the Forestry Kit upgrades you can purchase from the Forestry Shop, but what else is on offer? If you’ve got the Anima-Infused Bark to spare, you can spend it on the following goodies…

Log Basket

This handy lil' basket works much like the Fish Barrel - when open, it can store up to 28 logs of various types. You've got easy 'fill' and 'check' options to make managing your Inventory a breeze!

You can grab this handy upgrade for 5,000 Anima-infused bark, 300 Willow Logs (noted) and 300 Magic Logs (noted).

Log Brace

Don't want to take up additional space in your Inventory with the Log Basket? Simply grab The Log Brace and combine it with the Forestry Kit and Log Basket to create a wearable version with the best bits of both items!

Brace yourself to spend 3,000 Anima-Infused Bark, 300 Maple Logs (noted) and 300 Yew Logs (noted). In order to make the all-in-one Forestry Kit you'll also need 75 Smithing and 75 Woodcutting along with 45 Nails, 2 Ropes and 3 Adamantite Bars!

Lumberjack Outfit

Is Temple Trekking too spooky for you? Fear not (literally!) – you can now buy each part of the Lumberjack Outfit with Anima-Infused Bark. The full set grants you a total of 2.5% more Woodcutting XP, so it’s well worth picking up!

Here's what you'll need to acquire the set:

• Lumberjack Hat: 1,200 Anima-Infused Bark, 200 Yew Logs (noted) and 100 Magic Logs (noted)
• Lumberjack Top: 1,500 Anima-Infused Bark, 60 Yew Logs (noted), 120 Magic Logs (noted) and 120 Redwood Logs (noted)
• Lumberjack Legs: 1,300 Anima-Infused Bark, 160 Yew Logs (noted) and 140 Magic Logs (noted)
• Lumberjack Boots: 1,000 Anima-Infused Bark, 200 Yew Logs (noted)

Forestry Outfit

Looking for a more stylish option? Whet your sartorial appetite with this Forestry-themed cosmetic override that will make you feel one with the forests of Gielinor!

Each piece costs 1,250 Anima-Infused Bark, the appropriate Lumberjack Outfit piece, and 60 of the following logs (noted): Oak, Willow, Teak, Maple, Mahogany, Arctic Pine, Yew, Magic and Redwood.

Clothes Pouch

If you’re really attached to your current FashionScape, we have just the product for you! The Clothes Pouch will let you gain all the benefits of the Lumberjack Outfit while wearing whatever outfit you like.

Do note though that other set bonuses will override whatever’s in your Clothes Pouch. If you’re wearing a Graceful Top, the benefit of the Lumberjack Top in your Clothes Pouch will be ignored, and so on.

You can grab this item for 10,000 Anima-Infused bark, 300 Willow Logs (noted) and 300 Maple Logs (noted). You’ll then have to craft it using Thread, Leather, 50 Crafting and 50 Woodcutting.

Funky-Shaped Log

This Log’s too funny looking for Forestry purposes – but feed it to your Beaver pet, and it’ll change colour! Don’t worry, we’re pretty sure this is safe.

The Funky-Shaped Log is a one-time unlock, but once your pet has gobbled it up you’ll be able to change their colour any time you like.

This gnaw-ly item can be yours for 15,000 Anima-Infused Bark and 500 of the following logs (noted): Oak, Willow, Teak, Maple, Mahogany, Arctic Pine, Yew, Magic and Redwood.

As an added bonus, because we know that there was no way to obtain noted Arctic Pine Logs, the Ice Trolls that can be found north of Jatizso and Neitiznot now drop them.

You may be wondering what’s happened to that 2-Handed Axes we were talking about. We’ve made the decision to move this reward to the second part of the update so we can correctly address your feedback regarding this hefty new reward.

On that topic…

Forestry: Part Two

Forestry: Part Two is coming in the next few months!

For those of you who missed it, we made the decision to split Forestry into two parts, so that everything in this massive update gets the attention it needs.

This means we’re heading straight into Community Consultation for the second half of Forestry! We’ll be discussing:

• Leaves and Tertiary Effects
• Campfires and Bonfires
• Tea Brewing
• New Events
• New Rewards (including the 2-Handed Axe)
• Balancing and Feedback Changes

Here’s the tentative schedule so far:

• Discord Stages Call - Feedback and Part Two: Friday, June 30th - 5pm BST
• Foresty: Part Two - Community Consultation Newspost: Late July (TBC)
• Discord Stages Call - Part Two Discussion: Late July (TBC)
• Forestry Part Two - Poll: Early August (TBC)

In the meanwhile, check out our previous two blogs (here and here) to learn more about what’s coming in Part Two or watch the video below from the queen of Woodcutting herself Hanannie!

Peepo Plays Forestry

Created by the fantastic WitchCrafty, Peepo decides to try out Forestry and invites a friend to Draynor to chop and chill!