News

We’re back with our final Sailing refinement topic! We've learned how Navigation will work, how you'll train the Sailing skill and the rewards for training it. Our last topic is all about how Sailing fits into the wider world through integration with existing systems, lore, and other skills!

Sailing is set to be our most integrated skill yet, with an entire new part of the world to explore, new ways to use older skills, and some familiar faces.Throughout refinement, we’ve shown you how Sailing fits seamlessly into the world of Gielinor. Now let’s learn exactly how Sailing will integrate. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

Before we get started, check out this visual representation of our design blog by the fantastic GentleTractor. Use the arrows on either side or the dots below the image to see all eight images!

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Sailing might be new to us, but the inhabitants of Gielinor have been zipping across the ocean in boats and ships for centuries. Ocean travel is an essential part of life in Gielinor – for trade, for exploration, for Fishing… and all kinds of useful things!

From the island of Karamja to the vast continent of Zeah, Gielinorians have travelled across the oceans to settle in all kinds of exciting places. As technology advances, they’ve been able to travel to even stranger climes – we’re sure you all remember the rediscovery of Fossil Island. Who knows what beautiful lands you’ll encounter on your own voyages?

Any adventurer knows what a chore it can be to travel by land. Remember all that time you spent running helplessly across White Wolf Mountain? Teleportation was a revolution in travel, but it’s not available to everyone – certainly not the humble trader or fisherman trying to get their goods to port. How do you think your Bank always has the exact number of lobsters you’re asking for to hand? It’s all achieved through the everyday magic of Sailing – and for the first time ever, you can try it out for yourself!

But you won’t be alone. Sailing’s long and bountiful history means that there are many seafaring Gielinorians – merchants, pirates, the daring Barracudas, and ordinary folks making a living on the great wide ocean. What kind of sailor will you be? That’s up to you!

Old School RuneScape is a game of humble beginnings that sprawl into epic adventures further down the line. Remember how you worked your way up from a humble Cook’s Assistant? Your journey into Sailing will have similar beginnings.

Meet Rob. You’re probably familiar with his father Ned from quests like Dragon Slayer. When Rob was a young boy, Ned often took him out Sailing – but after Ned retired, their trips around Port Sarim became less and less frequent. Now a young man, Rob feels the call of the sea more than ever, but Ned doesn’t think he’s experienced enough to venture out alone. Just look at what happened to Cabin Boy Jenkins!

Rob has a plan. He has an eye on a voyage that’s sure to make his Dad proud – a journey to Tempoross Cove, to recover the legendary Locket of Al’Bazir. Ned always dreamt of undertaking this voyage himself, but never got around to it. Now, Rob needs your help to make Ned’s dream come true!

Thus begins the quest ‘Maiden Voyage’, your introduction to the Sailing skill. In the course of this adventure, you’ll learn all you need to know about navigating, using your on-board facilities, and the dangers of the open sea. It’s comparable to quests like Druidic Ritual, Rune Mysteries, and A Porcine of Interest, which serve as a way to introduce new players to their respective skills.

Completing Maiden Voyage will reward you with your very own ship, so it’s the perfect place to start your Sailing adventures.

We haven’t yet decided whether this introductory quest will be a requirement for Sailing, like Druidic Ritual is for Herblore, or whether it will be optional, in the vein of Rune Mysteries. From a design perspective, we think it’s a better game experience to let the quest guide you through the basics before setting you loose on the open ocean – but we know you lot don’t like to feel forced to play content you don’t want to. There are pros and cons to both approaches, and we’re keen to hear your thoughts on the matter.

The land-based World Map is split into different regions, so it’s only natural that the sea should follow suit! When Sailing launches, you’ll be able to explore several different seas stretching all around the Gielinorian mainland.

Now, we’d like to bring up a point of feedback we’ve seen several times already. Unfortunately, the development team didn’t have a crystal ball 20 years ago, and we’ll be the first to admit that the existing World Map wasn’t made with Sailing in mind. As a result, there are some issues with Sea Scale. We touched on this in the first Refinement topic, but having seen your feedback, we’d like to revise our stance.

As you can see, some areas of the sea are too narrow for Large or Colossal ships, especially around the island of Karamja. We’ve already minimised this issue by introducing different water depths which prevent larger ships from Sailing around this area, but this doesn’t completely solve the issue. Areas like the Sarim Bay, which currently include Tutorial Island, don’t have a lot of room for players to explore – and that’s a problem, because we expect novice sailors to spend a lot of time here.

For these reasons, we’d like to modify specific areas of the map very slightly – specifically, we want to make changes to Tutorial Island and Tempoross Cove to give more room to passing ships. In Tutorial Island's case, we'd like to move it completely - since there's no reason for players to sail there (they can't even moor their boat!) there's no reason for it to stay where it currently is. We'd like to leave Tempoross Cove where it is for now, but turn it into a barrier between the relatively safe shallows and the deeper ocean by adding a storm that requires ship upgrades to pass through safely.

Initial feedback from the New Skill Discord has been overwhelmingly in favour of this change, but just in case, we want to see what the wider community has to say. Rest assured that we’ll take all your feedback into account once the skill is locked in.

Ports

Ports are where every Sailing voyage begins. They’re the bustling heart of ocean life, filled with Port Tasks to take on, NPCs to recruit to your crew, and ships to admire… or ‘borrow’ for yourself.

There are three ports which will be especially relevant:

• Port Sarim - A natural starting point for your journey. This is where you'll learn how to Sail, and likely do a bit of your early levelling.
• Catherby Port - A wealthy port in the Kandarin Bay which supplies both Catherby and Seers Village. Their biggest exports are wood and Flax. The Shipwrights particularly like Catherby because it provides easy access to materials.
• Rellekka port - The home of the Fremennik, situated in an area rich in minerals and fish. Access to this port must be unlocked to sail Fremennik-style ships.

Ports are an essential part of Sailing, in the same way that an Anvil is an essential part of Smithing, and the Player Owned House Portal is an essential part of Construction. They are your gateway to the vast open world of the sea and will be bustling hubs of social interaction.

Here’s what you can get up to at port:

• Access your ship ­– Ports serve as a gateway between the land and the sea. If you want to sail your ship, you’ll need to make your way to a port, first.
• Obtain a ship - Ports are areas where you can obtain a ship if you don't already have one. Ships can be built, bought or ‘borrowed’ (stolen).
• Upgrades – You can upgrade your ship yourself if you have the Construction or Crafting levels required, or you can hire a shipwright to help you out.
• Customization - A port is a safe haven where you can change how your ship looks. Similar to upgrades, you may require levels and materials for especially fashionable changes.
• Trade - A port is a natural hotspot for trading! You can expect to find merchants here with goods that other ships have brought in, or local treats that you can't get anywhere else. Of course, you can also sell some of the loot you’ve accumulated on your own voyages.
• Make Friends – Every sailor needs to visit a port at some point, so it’s a great place to meet like-minded players. If you’re looking for a crew for your next voyage, flexing your new ship, or just hoping to chat before you head back out to sea, then ports are the place for you!
• Store Your Ship - Your ship needs a place to stay when you're back on land. Ports are a good place for that! Consider it a parking spot for your ship.
• Undertake Tasks and Contracts – Ports are a great place to earn a little extra gold. There are no shortage of NPCs offering Port Tasks!
• Manage Your Crew – As the captain of a Large or Colossal ship, you’re going to want a crew to help you out. You can recruit new crew members and manage your existing ones at a port!

To achieve all this, we will need to change up the look of the existing ports. We need to make room for ship-building stations and places for the different factions to hang out. That said, we’ll be very careful not to make things too different – we know that these familiar spaces are highly nostalgic, and we want to keep them that way!

Crewmates

Although you can always sail the seas solo, you may find it helpful to put together a crew to help you with certain tasks onboard ship. Your crew can include other players or a mix of new and pre-existing NPCs! Which NPCs would you take on an epic voyage?

When we’re certain that the skill is ‘locked-in’, we’ll work with the community to flesh out the NPC crew system and decide how complex it should be. For now, though, we can outline some broad strokes.

Top of the list – we’re aware that some NPCs have very specific fates, dictated by their involvement in key questlines across the game. We want to make it clear that you will not be able to save them by making them part of your crew. Besides, unicorns suffer from terrible seasickness.

Luckily, there are a wealth of healthy, living NPCs for you to choose from. If you’re a proficient Slayer, perhaps Vannaka or Duradel might join you for an adventure. If you’ve completed Song of the Elves, Elena might fancy a little vacation. If you’re truly EVIL, you might even be able to tempt Evil Dave out of his mother’s basement… the options are endless!

Naturally, if an NPC joins your crew we’ll ensure that you don’t lose any access to game functions. Hiring a Slayer master, for example, won’t lock you out of Slayer until you set them back on dry land.

We’re really excited to hear which NPCs you’d make part of your crew!

Quests

We’ve already introduced Maiden Voyage, Old School RuneScape’s first Sailing-related quest. But what about the quests that are already in the game?

Several quests include segments where you sail your own ship. Dragon Slayer and Bone Voyage are the most obvious examples – how are we going to ensure Sailing doesn’t mess them up?

We want to start out by saying that under no circumstances will we enforce Sailing requirements for existing quests – so you won’t need to level Sailing before you can complete quests you’ve already finished. Losing progress isn’t fun for anyone, so we want to reassure you that we’re not putting you through that.

However, player feedback has indicated that you’d like to see Sailing XP added as a reward from these existing quests – including Cabin Fever, Bone Voyage, and Dragon Slayer.

We agree that these quests are thematically suited to Sailing, so it only makes sense for us to offer Sailing XP as a reward. We’ll do this in the form of an XP Lamp, which can be claimed from a quest-relevant NPC – provided you’ve completed the quest, of course! They will follow standard Lamp rules and require a minimum level in the skill so that they can’t be used to skip early Sailing content.

In addition, to keep the initial launch period of the skill competitive, we’ll prevent all kinds of XP Lamps from giving Sailing XP for the first two weeks after launch. This includes things like Achievement Diary XP Lamps – we want the race to 99 to be fair, after all!

This is also a great excuse to revisit these quests and make sure they’re ship-shape.

For Cabin Fever, we’ll be changing the ship battle segment to use ship facilities like the ones seen in Sailing, for consistency.

In Bone Voyage, we’ll remove the barge minigame and instead have the player sail the barge through a dangerous reef using familiar Sailing mechanics.

Islands

The world of Gielinor is full of exciting places to visit, and a fair number of them are islands. Right now, adventurers can only access these places via NPC-captained ships. Under certain circumstances, players can’t access certain islands at all!

Having your own ship which you can sail wherever you feel like could disrupt this flow – which is why we’re taking steps to ensure that Sailing doesn’t clash with existing lore.

We’ll start with islands that will remain inaccessible even if Sailing is added to the game. These include Tutorial Island, Tempoross Cove, and the Pest Control game area, among others. For obvious reasons, we can’t allow players to access these islands outside of the content they’re usually involved in – and there are narrative reasons you shouldn’t be docking there, too!

If players prefer, we can move these islands off the World Map entirely and have them only accessible through the methods that currently exist in game. However, we don’t think this is necessary – as we’ll discuss in a moment, we have less invasive ways to ensure that players don’t dock where they’re not supposed to.

Which brings us to the other subset of restricted islands – islands you can access, but only after meeting certain requirements.

For example, Crandor is locked behind Dragon Slayer, and Ape Atoll is partially locked behind Monkey Madness. Many of you have asked us whether it will be possible to sail to these islands, and what that means for the quests involved.

Don’t panic! Although these islands will be present on the World Map, Sailing won’t bypass the requirements to get to them. For one thing, that would have horrendous knock-on effects for the game!

There are currently 14 quests which grant access to islands either directly or indirectly. They are:

• Dragon Slayer
• Dragon Slayer II
• Lunar Diplomacy
• Fremennik Isles
• Throne of Miscellania
• Cold War
• Fremennik Exiles
• Cabin Fever
• Rum Deal
• The Great Brain Robbery
• Monkey Madness
• Monkey Madness II
• Ghosts Ahoy
• Bone Voyage
• My Arm’s Big Adventure

If you think we’ve missed one, do let us know!

We don’t want to restrict your freedom of movement out at sea, so you’ll be allowed to sail near and around these islands even if you haven’t completed the quest – but try to dock your ship there and you’ll find yourself in trouble with the Dockmaster.

These tough individuals are responsible for keeping unwanted guests away - and until you’ve completed the relevant quest, that’s you!

There are also some bespoke solutions we’ll implement in situations where it doesn’t necessarily make sense to let players get close enough to dock. For example:

• Lunar Isle: Attempting to visit before completing Lunar Diplomacy will result in the island’s mages magically teleporting your ship away.
• Ape Atoll: Attempting to visit before completing Monkey Madness II will result in the monkeys shooting arrows to scare you away.
• Mos Le’Harmless: Attempting to visit before completing Cabin Fever will result in the pirates shooting at you with their cannons.

And for certain especially iconic locations, we’re implementing some really wild solutions:

• Isle of Stone: The quest involves Rellekka being invaded by the basilisks from the island, so we'd introduce basilisks in the sea nearby that require a mirror or reflective figurehead to bypass. We'd make this a schematic that you can purchase from a Fremennik after completion of Fremennik Exiles.
• Fossil Island: This quest involves you helping to build a special Redwood Hull. We’re interpreting this as necessary to bypass a dangerous reef surrounding the island. Players will be able to acquire the schematic to build their own Redwood Hull by talking to the sawmill operator after completing the Bone Voyage quest.
• Crandor: This quest involves finding a map to Crandor – but given its location, it should just be visible from the mainland. Instead, we’d look to tweak dialogue relating to the island being hidden to instead talk about the need for a sea chart which shows a safe path through the hazardous waters surrounding the island. Additionally, we think it makes thematic sense for Elvarg to be a little bit hostile towards ships that get too close. Lastly, and most excitingly of all, we’re not opposed to letting players with plenty of experience under their belt to Captain the Lady Lumbridge themselves, with Ned and Jenkins joining as crew members – although we’d like to note that all the Sailing skill in the world won’t save Jenkins from his untimely demise.

There may be a few other niche situations we haven’t covered here, but we plan to approach them in broadly similar ways.

You’ll unlock access to non-quest related ports via Port Tasks, which will help you gain the trust of the relevant Dockmaster. This will be a straightforward process that will lend a sense of progression to the port mechanic.

Death

He comes for us all eventually… even if he has to get a bit damp in the process. Let’s see how Death works at sea!

We’ve seen one question pop up time and time again, especially among Hardcore Iron players – if your ship sinks, is it considered a death? In short, no – but there are serious consequences for sinking your ship.

In the Navigation refinement blog, we talked about capsizing, and how it could potentially work differently to player death. After all, the captain needn’t always go down with their ship. There are all kinds of helpful folks out at sea, and they’d be happy to rescue a fellow sailor – and perhaps even retrieve their ship… for a price. You won’t lose any items, but you will have to pay to repair your vessel – and you’ll be deposited back at the nearest port, as a small inconvenience.

We’re interested to hear whether you think capsizing should count as a death or not, and whether this should apply equally to Group Hardcore Irons or not – after all, they have more dangerous areas available than their non-group counterparts.

Now, let’s talk about what definitely counts as a death at sea. There’s plenty of trouble you can get into on the open ocean, after all! To keep things simple, if your player character drops to 0 HP, this should count as a death. This might happen if your ship is boarded by pirates, if you fall foul of a sea monster, or if you encounter something nasty on an island. There should still be consequences to setting out on a voyage unprepared – just like any number of adventures you can undertake on land.

We’d really like to hear your thoughts on this, and when Sailing is locked-in we’ll put plenty of work into making sure death mechanics feel right – and fair. We expect the Sailing beta to give us some good feedback on this point!

Slayer

We’ve already spoken about various hybrid training methods at sea, including using Hunter and Slayer to track down powerful sea monsters.

However, we know what you lot are like – however cool a new training method might be, if it isn’t efficient, you’d like the option to skip it.

Oftentimes new Slayer content like this would lock the new monster behind Slayer Points, which meant that you don’t have to unlock any monsters that look too scary – uh, we mean ‘inefficient’.

However, we don’t want all the Slayer content at sea to be unavailable at launch – we don’t want you farming Slayer Points when you could be having fun Sailing the seas!

To resolve this, we’ll be considering Slayer Tasks at sea on a case-by-case basis for each new creature we introduce. If we’re only giving you gryphons, a single unlock makes sense. If we’re adding three new creatures, a different solution might be better.

We’ve also seen your questions about a new Slayer Master at sea. We love to see ideas like these, so… keep ‘em coming!

Ironmen

In the Rewards blog, we talked about how we expect players to be able to sail alongside each other as part of a crew. How’s that going to work for Ironmen, who famously prefer to go it alone?

The big problem here is that if Ironmen are able to board other players’ ships, they can quite literally be carried to wherever they need to go, bypassing content on the way. This isn’t in the spirit of the game mode, so we won’t allow Iron players to board other players’ ships. If they want to command bigger vessels, NPC crewmates will be on hand to help them out – so they won’t miss out on what Sailing has to offer.

Of course, Iron players in a Group will be able to board one another’s ships, just as they’re able to participate in other multiplayer activities together.

We’re curious to hear feedback from the Iron community on this matter, so please let us know your thoughts in the survey below.

Update - 26th July

Previously we stated that iron players couldn't set sail with other players because of how they could bypass content. Since then we've heard your feedback – you want to sail with the homies! You are of course right – iron players, while self-sufficient, should still be allowed to join in on sailing adventures with their friends. We are happy to change this decision so that iron players can indeed sail with others.

The specifics of how multiplayer Sailing works is still to be ironed out. Exactly what you can do on someone else's ship and what you're allowed to do for iron players will be addressed if Sailing passes the lock-in poll. Rest assured that we will do our best to maintain the integrity of the ironman mode while still allowing multiplayer Sailing.

In Gielinor, most skills have their own Guild – a place you can go to train up and socialise with other sufficiently advanced skillers. We expect Sailing would be no different!

Here’s a WIP concept for what the Sailing Guild might look like. After Sailing passes the poll and becomes locked-in, we’ll knuckle down and outline all the exciting things you can do here. In the meanwhile, we’d really like to hear your ideas about what you want from a Guild. Do your thing, Old School Community!

In the next part of the blog, we’d like to give you a taste of some of the fantastic Sailing lore we’ve been cooking up…

The open ocean is home to all kinds of people, and all kinds of creatures… but not all of them are friendly. Venturing into the deepest part of the ocean puts you at risk of running foul of a Legend of the Sea – powerful beings that are feared by all who speak of them.

• The Sharhai: This legendary sea monster feeds off anything it can fit into its gargantuan maw… and its favourite snack is unwary ships who stray too far from land. Little is known about this beast, as those who’ve encountered it rarely live to tell the tale…
• The Dark Dame: A dreaded pirate ship, wreathed in shadow. This ghastly vessel is said to roam the North Ocean, seeking unwary victims. Those who’ve witnessed the Dark Dame claim it seems to appear and disappear out of nowhere… no wonder the authorities can’t bring its crew to justice.
• Roqar, the Thunder Bird: They say that thunderstorms at sea are… different from those on land. With waves higher than the tallest masts, most sailors are too busy saving their souls to look up during a storm. Those few that do, however, report seeing a gigantic bird circling around the clouds – as though magnifying the power of the storm itself.

Luckily, not everything you meet at sea is planning to eat you. There are loads of friendly factions for you to encounter and help. Let’s meet a few of them!

Tortugans (Turtle People)

You’ll be familiar with Floopa and her people from the Sailing Reward Space blog. Today, we’d like to talk about the tortugans in greater detail – giving you a small taste of some of the different cultures and stories you can encounter while Sailing!

The tortugans live out at sea, mostly on the Great Conch – a large island found only by those who know where to look. It’s named for its distinctive seashell shape. While the Great Conch is in a sunny region, it’s prone to devastating storms.

For the tortugans, the sea is an important part of life. They mainly eat fish, which they have some unusual ways of gathering. Thanks to their fingerless flippers and relative isolation from the rest of Gielinor, they’ve developed unique technology and training methods – including a brand-new way of Fletching.

Everyone in tortugan society is expected to contribute to society – as a fisher, a scout, a warrior, a gatherer, or a healer. Their custom is to paint their shells with designs which showcase great achievements in these fields. They look to their elders for wisdom, trusting the experience and knowledge they’ve accumulated over the years.

A tortugan’s go-to-tool is their trusty spear, which can be used for fighting, fishing, climbing, and all kinds of other activities. Tortugans craft their spear when they are young and test it out in a series of challenges. The spear isn’t just for adolescents, though – they’ll carry it throughout their lives, and if they’re lucky enough to reach old age, they’ll be able to use it as a walking stick. It’s common for tortugans to express their personality by attaching trinkets and other decorations to their spears.

Unfortunately, the tortugans are at risk. Gryphons nest higher on the island, where they can spot potential prey. While they struggle to attack the tortugans thanks to their tough shell, they’re able to pick up lighter turtles – often the youngest ones – and drop them from heights to split the shell. A large, elderly tortugan will have survived many attacks in their lifetime.

Because of the threat they pose to their children, tortugans are more than happy for players to hunt the gryphons – although adventurers must beware, as the gryphons see them as a helpfully unwrapped snack! You’ll find yourself powerless against these terrifying beasts unless you can find a way to make yourself too heavy for them to lift – a fun twist on the game’s weight system.

Luckily, thanks to their vast experience fighting the gryphons, the tortugans are able to give you some tips. After all, they’ve spent centuries developing the perfect weapon to fight these dangerous beasts…

The Barracudas

In the Core Gameplay blog, we established that the Barracudas are a faction of thrill-seeking sailors who run the Barracuda Trials. Let's learn more!

The Barracudas are not a formal group, but a mix of people from all over Gielinor with a shared love for the sea. They love to challenge themselves and are constantly pushing to become the fastest sailors with advanced techniques and super-powered ships.

You’ll come across members of the Barracudas all over the sea, and they’re happy to let you take part in their trials. Be warned – some of them will be easier than others!

The Barracudas are united behind a desire to improve their skills. Their leader, Mako, is always happy to help newer sailors improve their skills, and most of the group are content to feel the breeze in their hair as their ship rushes through dangerous reefs, dodging monster attacks and outsailing the greatest of storms.

As a boy, Mako lived in a small coastal village – but he always dreamed of sailing the seas and making a name for himself as the best sailor in the world. Later, he met like-minded people, and soon proved himself as their leader. Today, he’s seen as the father of the group, ensuring that his Barracuda family sticks together and has all the support they need to thrive. Don’t mistake his kindness for weakness, though – Mako has certainly earned his reputation as the fastest sailor in Gielinor, and he’s a force to be reckoned with.

As we said, you can find Barracudas all over the world – and perhaps some of them might be familiar faces! We’ve heard your suggestions about including Captain Siad and reckon that he might very well be a former Barracuda. We’ll explore this further when Sailing passes the lock-in poll.

The Alliance of Merchants

Merchants are the backbone of Gielinorian trade. They can be found at every port, making gold by transporting goods and selling them on. They’re the very best at tracking down exotic wares and bringing them to places where they can turn a profit – and while they’re often in competition with one another, they have plenty in common.

To solidify their relationship and protect their interests, various merchant factions have formed an Alliance. But who are these people?

You’re likely already familiar with Trader Stan’s Trading Post and their charter ship services. Perhaps you’ve also encountered Ali Morrisane, who’s taken his business to the high seas with a network of merchants selling high-quality, unique clothing.

Although the merchants are nominally in an Alliance, they don’t quite trust each other. This is a cutthroat business, and while it may look above board from the outside, there are shady deals taking place within. Paying pirates to target competitors, bribing nobles for the best trade deals, and pushing out new businesses to elevate their own status in the hierarchy – there’s all sorts of drama going on below decks!

We’d love to explore how you as a player could try to make it in this business or dig deep and find out just how deep the corruption runs.

At a surface level, you’ll still have various unique interactions with merchant groups:

• Supplier– Sell exotic wares from around the world! Merchants are particularly interested in the new Sailing resources. The rarer the item, the better the price.
• Buyer - Merchants have unique items that you can't get anywhere else. Keep an eye on the different traders at port to see what they have in stock!
• Worker - As mentioned in the Core Gameplay blog, you can take on Port Tasks and offer your seafaring services to the merchants, earning their trust as one of their own.

We might well introduce quests, or even an activity, that let you try your hand at merchanting yourself. What do you think? Let us know in the survey!

The Shipwrights’ Association

We’ve seen lots of questions about how you’ll look after your ship. Can my ship be damaged? What if it capsizes? What if I have an ill-advised teleportation incident and leave my ship drifting aimlessly off the coast of Karamja?

The answers to all of these questions are bound up with the Shipwrights’ Association.

Firstly, yes your ship can be damaged, and even sink. Luckily, it can also be repaired in port by a qualified shipwright – and even more luckily, the cost will be less than what you paid to build it in the first place. Shipwrights can also build upgrades and facilities that you don’t have the Construction or Crafting level to build yourself. They’re a handy bunch!

If the worst happens and your ship capsizes, you’ll fall unconscious and return to the nearest port. The Shipwrights, meanwhile, are already on their way to retrieve your sunken vessel and fix it up good as new, for a reasonable price.

And if you do manage to teleport away from your ship and leave it ‘Lost At Sea’, you’ll be able to sheepishly admit your mistake and have a Shipwright bring it back to port for you.

So who are these superhuman Shipwrights, and why are they so invested in helping sailors fix their ships?

Well, the obvious answer is that helping out adventurers is a very lucrative business opportunity. The Shipwrights have the skills to help you out, and you have the gold to help them out. Savvy?

That explains how they fix the ships. But teleporting them? That’s the work of a helpful wizard – and any group of Shipwrights worth their salt has their own wizard on deck.

All in all, the Shipwrights offer some absolutely essential services, including but not limited to:

• Port to Port Retrieval: The Shipwrights have a vast network across Gielinor, and can ask fellow Shipwrights to pick up your ship and sail it to the port you’re currently at. This convenient service comes at a reasonable GP cost.
• Sea to Port Retrieval: As above, but for ships which were abandoned at sea (for example, in the aforementioned Karamjan teleporting incident). This is slightly more expensive as the Shipwrights have to engage the services of a specialist search and rescue team – who sometimes outsource their work to other players through Port Tasks. Obviously, this all seems to happen instantaneously, but rest assured that there’s loads of work going on behind the scenes.
• Ship Repairs: If a ship takes damage players can pay the Shipwrights to repair it for them, if they don’t have the Construction skill required to sort it themselves.
• Capsize Recovery: When a ship capsizes at sea you will find that the mages employed by the Shipwrights have automatically recovered it for you. Your ship will still need repairs, and they can also offer this service should you require it.
• Facility Construction: As mentioned in the Rewards blog, the Shipwrights will offer their help in building facilities that a player has the Sailing level to use but not the Construction level to build. The player will still need the materials required and will have to provide payment for the service. Note that the Shipwrights will be unable to build certain especially powerful things, but they’re skilled enough to keep you going well into the mid-levels.
• Schematic Sales: Lastly, the Shipwrights have a roaring trade in Schematics, which let you build facilities yourself, provided you have the requisite Construction level. Some basic facilities will be available without Schematics, but mid-level and advanced facilities must be learned through interacting with Sailing content.

These aren’t all the factions you’ll meet at sea. We’re really excited about the possibilities here – there are all kinds of ways we can explain player convenience features through NPC factions and interactions.

Our goal is for Sailing to fit seamlessly into the game world, answering questions like ‘how does Sailing work in a medieval low-fantasy MMO?’ and expanding that to answer bigger questions about the game world.

We hope that today’s blog has whet your appetite for more Sailing lore, and we can’t wait to work together with you to make Old School’s first skill its best skill. On that note…

This was our final refinement blog. The last six months have been an emotional journey, and we hope we’ve shown you all the potential Sailing has as Old School RuneScape’s first ever new skill.

There is, of course, lots more work to be done – but before we can start, we need you to tell us whether we should continue with this exciting project or not.

While the last six months have been incredible, engaging with players and bringing you closer to the development process than ever, we’re conscious that our development time needs to be spent wisely. We’re itching to get started on Sailing for real, but we just can’t do it without your help!

So… how can you help?

It's been a long voyage, and we're nearing the point where Sailing goes to the lock-in poll. Now more than ever, we need you to take part in our survey and tell us what you think about the skill so far.

We’re extremely open to making changes at this stage, as long as we can see they’re what the community wants. If you have bugbears, reservations, or just crazy ideas, we want to hear them right now!

We’re not quite certain when the lock-in poll will take place, as it depends how many improvements, we need to make based on your feedback. If all goes well (and we hope it does!) we expect to run it sometime in August – which if you’ll look at your calendar, is pretty soon!

Immediately before the poll we’ll present a final design blog containing top-level information about the skill and covering any changes we’ve made since the refinement process. We’ll discuss these changes in NDA calls and Discord Stages before the blog goes live, too.

As always, the power is in YOUR hands. Depending on the result of the lock-in poll, a number of things could happen. Check out Mod Ayiza’s explainer for a refresher.

Throughout this process, Sailing has truly felt like a skill made by the community, for the community. We want to give our utmost thanks to everyone who’s contributed to this project so far. Thanks to your input, we’ve been able to give you the refinement process you expect and deserve – and we will continue to work with our fantastic community as we move further into development.

Bring on the lock-in poll!

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.

Mods Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nylu, Other, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Rice, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Shroom, Sigma, Skane, Skylark, Sova, Squid, Starry, Stevew, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, Torrance, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy

The Old School Team.