It’s pretty tough knowing when to pull the trigger on your Christmas content. One school of thought would argue that folk love Christmas, so get stuck in the first moment you’re possibly able. Others would advise you hold fire – too much Christmas too early can leave people feeling burnt out, like a jaded shopper listening to Wonderful Christmastime on loop queuing up in a supermarket in mid-October.

However, with the first mention of RuneScape’s festive content the GLOVES ARE OFF! Put up the tree! Crack open the Quality Street! Put on a silly hat! Someone stick It’s A Wonderful Life in the Blu-ray player! Christmas has officially arrived in RuneScape!

Or at least will do on Saturday…

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Festive Aura

Check out the wares on offer from either Xuan, Dilwyn or Azibo from December 1st for the chance to grab the Festive Aura. Donning it will grant you a whopping 50% experience boost for 30 minutes each and every day throughout December. This stacks with other bonuses. Once your time is up you can continue wearing it for its lovely cosmetics, although the XP gain won’t kick in until the reset at 00:00.

Daily experience is capped at 50,000. You can check the current amount remaining at any time by selecting the aura itself.

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Winter Weekends

Winter Weekends is nearly here! Here’s what we’ve got lined up this year. Note that the Grand Exchange will be hosting portals to each of the events as and when they happen:

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All month (November 30th-January 7th) – Player Owned Ports

25 voyages per day instead of 15.

All player-owned ports voyages return 30% extra resources or trade goods.

Ability to get The Barmaid's special voyage on Saturdays and Sundays as well as Thursdays.

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November 30th-December 3rd – Elite Dungeons & Dungeoneering

Double DG tokens can be earned from DG and elite dungeons

Elite Dungeons

Lore book drop rate doubled

25% increased Slayer XP from dungeon NPC's

1 extra T92 material whenever the material is hit on the drop table

1 free death per run - works in story mode AND normal runs

Dungeoneering

No experience penalty upon death

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December 7th-10th – Deep Sea Fishing & Fishing

Fishing

Spots move around half as frequently as before

Deep Sea Fishing

Will be available to all players regardless of level

Encounters are more common

Bottled boosts last twice as long

Uncharted maps, fishing notes and bottled boosts are found more frequently

XP bonus cap increased to 30% and bonus builds up 10% quicker from fishing frenzy

No electrified jellyfish spawn

Swarm fishing acts as if you were 5 levels higher

Custom fish (sea turtles, great whites, manta rays) bait is 50% more effective

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December 14th-17th – Combat & Slayer

Charm drops give one more charm than normal

Increased chance of rare drops and enhanced lucky items

25% increased Slayer experience

All Slayer assignments are treated as using a Slayer VIP ticket

Shattered Worlds grants 50% extra anima

10% cheaper instance fees

Ability to loot from Mazcab Raids once per day

You may choose your Boss Slayer assignments over the weekend

Increased ushabti catch chance

Increased drop rate of grimoire pages from Solak

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December 21st-24th – Gathering & Support

10% chance not to deplete uncharted isles resources while harvesting

Mining rocks and trees replenish twice as quickly

Divination

Knowledge fragments spawn more frequently and training hotspots move less frequently in the Hall of Memories

Thieving

Increased loot and chance of totems from safecracking.

Hunter

Chance of getting +1 loot.

Agility

Higher chance of activating The Pit Minigame

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December 28th-31st - Minigames

+1 Castle Wars gold ticket per game, regardless of win, lose or draw

Double commendation points from Pest Control

Double Bonus XP and gambling rewards from Barbarian Assault

Bosses killed in Dominion Tower are counted twice for the purposes of reward unlocks

+50% Dominion Factor earned

+50% produce points at Livid Farm (stacks with boosters)

An extra 600 daily bonus points in Cabbage Facepunch Bonanza

100% increased Menaphos reputation from Shifting Tombs

Double zeal from Soul Wars

Double points from Stealing Creation

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January 4th-7th – Player Owned Farm & Farming

Player Owned Farm

Improved chances of breeding

Improved chances of shinies

Improved happiness and health from feeding

Increased yield from harvested animals

More beans from selling animals

Increased drop rate of animals from combat

Honeycombs are more effective when used on animals

Farming

10% increased yield from allotment and herb patches

25% increased yield from compost bins

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Advent Calendar

This year’s Christmas countdown has begun! From December 1st through until Christmas Day itself, players can enjoy a festive free daily gift!

You’ll find the Advent Calendar on the Community tab. The prizes will remain available up until January 7th, so don’t worry if you miss a day here and there. The Treasure Hunter promotions will be time-limited, however – once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Free goodies include lamps, prismatic stars, relics, crates and an assortment of new cosmetics. Also look out for an exclusive Christmas Day treat.

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Snowboards

Do you already own a snowboard from previous Christmas events? If so then we have great news – you’ll be able to use it for the rest of the month! And don’t forget to right click to perform the tricks, which are available when the snowboard is equipped.

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Mining & Smithing Beta

We hope you've been getting stuck into our Mining & Smithing beta. If you've not yet had a chance to check it out then good news - we're extending it for another week! There will a be a few tweaks and additions too, but expect details later.

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Patch Notes

This week we have a mighty list for you:

Combat

Multi-bite foods once again show healing information on their tooltips.

Bleeds will no longer deal 1 damage on their first hit in PvP.

Kal'gerion demons can now be damaged while charging their special move.

Instance creation player limitation now works correctly for certain boss fights.

The Tsunami ability now casts in the direction of your target rather than in the direction you are facing.

It is no longer possible to restore negative prayer points using spirit prayer pigs.

The Provoke ability can no longer be queued whilst queuing isn't active.

Removed some blocking which prevent Araxxor from being able to move between phase 2 and 3, whilst on path 3.

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Ninja

Kal'Gerion demons can now be damaged while charging their special move.

Shortened challenge scroll lead up dialogue with Izzy No Beard after the first time you've done the clue.

Hidey holes can now be filled while the objects to store are still worn.

Mutated barge, fury and flurry codex drops will now broadcast to friends.

Messages noting urn partial fill thresholds are now caught by the chat spam filter.

Ali Morrisane has a right-click Trade option, which bypasses a lot of dialogue and allows quicker access to the shops.

It is now possible to close the on screen Treasure Hunter button when you have other interfaces open.

Arcane, elysian and divine spirit shields now list their passive effect on the object tooltip.

Moved the ready and leave options on the Dungeoneering floor complete interface to larger more obvious buttons on the bottom.

Toned down the amount of fireworks displayed when levelling multiple skills to milestones simultaneously.

Increased the pack yak's summoned timer from 58 to 64 minutes, to better account for instance length handling.

Aquarium building materials obtained from prawn balls may now be disassembled.

Araxxi's fangs, webs and eyes may now be disassembled.

Attempting to open the door behind a locked door glyph in Daemonheim now unlocks the door (provided your party has its key) instead of telling you that you can't reach the door.

Resource information in now shown on the each of the Wushanko regions on the Ports Management interface.

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Graphical

A Small area near sheep pen in Lumbridge will now have correct texture.

A small area in Lumbridge with out-dated textures has been updated and is now consistent with its surrounding environment.

Removed force walk tiles by rock in north Lumbridge.

The golden cane will no longer cause clipping with the icon on some Retro Skillcapes.

Removed floating tile in Games Room.

Fixed a gap that appeared when players equipped Dragonbone Gloves and platebody.

Some torch particles have been updated in Yanille Dungeon.

Fixed some graphical issues near Digsite.

Fixed an issue with main and off-hand items not recolouring correctly.

Removed the strap on the steel hatchet when it's sheathed.

Fixed a graphical issue with a structure inside the Tower of Life.

Fixed some texture issues on Bronze platelegs.

A Willow tree (near the Tower of Life) has had their branches surgically re-attached.

Bronze plateskirt no longer stretches in combat when worn by a male character.

Fixed an issue with the floor texture not lining up with the buildings above the Dwarven mine.

Fixed a graphical issue with yak plushie and Ozan outfit.

Adamant maces are now sheathed onto the correct hips

Added geometry to the back of the chest plate on the bronze platebody.

Some force-walk tiles in the south of Draynor have been fixed.

Removed invisible blocking from a house in Rimmington.

Fixed corrupt chainbody alignment on female characters.

Graphics options with dropdown boxes will now displaying correctly if the resolution dropdown is opened first.

Fixed a tree near Ardougne mill so it no longer loses its canopy when remove roofs setting is applied.

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Text

Fixed a typo with ingression fragments from God Wars Dungeon 2 when used outside the heart.

Fixed a typo on the naming of Magic tree stumps.

Fixed a typo on the rewards interface for Blood Runs Deep.

Corrected the examine on the Shifting Tombs reward enhancer.

Removed the word 'farming' when adding items to either the Tool Leprechaun's farming store or Lady Ithell's Crystal Seed storage. They both had the word farming in the phrase when storing items because they ran through a similar check, but it's pretty obvious which one you're looking at so there's no need to mention farming!

Updated the reward text after completing Evil Dave's Big Day Out - 'Eating spicy stews now have a better chance of giving you positive stat boosts and will always boost the stat by 2 when a positive boost is given.'

The 'Use all' option for prismatic stars + cancelling out no longer gives incorrect messaging.

The examine text for Unferth's patch no longer says 'potatos' instead of 'potatoes'.

Changed the text during Family Crest quest when talking about how to defeat Chronozon - it now specifically states Blast spells are required.

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Other

Chat messages for destroying herbs with Herbicide and when attempting to use a spell without the required runes are no longer duplicated.

Malignius Mortifer no longer has a chat option about magic secateurs before you start the Fairy Tale quests.

An incorrect Wisp spawn location has been removed from the Wisps of the Grove Distraction and Diversion at The Lost Grove.

Fixed an issue with text running outside the limits of interfaces at shops

Fixed an issue that was preventing daily parcels from being consistently given out. (HOTFIXED).

Fixed an issue where new players in legacy mode were unable to find the path system interface.

Closing the Treasure Hunter Item Information interface now returns you to Treasure Hunter.

The herb hoarder upgrade for herbicide has been fixed to work properly with herbs dropped in multiples.

Information text is no longer cropped when attempting to sell more bamboo reaching your sell cap with the Bamboo Merchant on Waiko.

If a pet you owned is no longer unlocked, it will now be removed from the summon cycle when you add a new pet to it

The 'Nowhere' option on the Ring of respawn no longer teleports the user to Lumbridge.

If you have you dominion medallion keepsaked you can now reclaim it from the Strange Face in the Dominion Tower.

Arcane, elysian and divine spirit shields now list their passive effect on the object tooltip.

Compacted silver jewelry will no longer degrade to dust.

The message for a grapple breaking no longer appears when using the grapple on the toolbelt, since it cannot break.

Reduced the painted down area of Manor Farm which was covering a wider area than it perhaps needed. This meant farm checks were running when you walked from places like the Ardougne lodestone to the Fishing Guiid. The areas have now been tightened up to only cover the the outskirts of all pens and the hives.

You can now chat to Granny (or access via a new right click option) about which Contract buyers should turn up. Timing restrictions will still apply, in that you'd have to wait until the next day for them to turn up. Doing this will overwrite the standard game mechanic, but that can be turned back on by chatting to Granny at any time. Small, Medium and Large buyers can now each individually be set.

Players who were in a bad state during In the Branches of Darkmeyer" due to a reset and could not get the required mysterious medallion can now search the coffin to have their variables corrected and receive the medallion as normal.

Two tiles in the north-west paddock of Player-owned-Farm should no longer cause the player to be stuck under certain circumstances.

Pirate treasure's quest reward no longer references unlocking pay-fare option on sailors.

Players are now directed to the correct settings interface to access any bought loot beams from Death.

Added banana pizza to the cooking skill guide. (Still don't know why banana pizzas are added to the game. Thank you Mod Shogun...)

You can now visit another player's uncharted isle, with this update you'll also be able to toggle restrictions on who can visit your Island. - Speak to Quartermaster Gully (Island Options) to travel to another player's Island.- You can also toggle Island settings on Island Options and allow everyone to visit your Island, friends only, or no one.- When visiting another player's island you will not be able to use the skilling resources there nor pick up the Island customations, however you will be able to catch any birds/implings there.- You will also not be able to loot Treasure Chests on claimed islands.- If you log out on a Player's island you will be teleported back to Waiko.

If a player had their Barrows entrance set to Akrisae's sarcophagus but have since lost access (eg by a defense reset), they can now access the Barrows through Verac's sarcophagus.

Spirt yaks from summoning and zygomites from farming will now be able to be harvested with a full inventory, where one of your items (yak pouch or a mushsroom) will be replaced as it reveals itself to be a creature.

There was an erroneous check for contract buyers that meant if your first login of the day was on a free to play world, the buyers wouldn't refresh when they were supposed to. Now, if your're member, on your first login of the day, despite what world you log into, the contract buyers will correctly refresh.

A number of safety precautions have been added to players who are in the new character name interface.

Adjusted values of shiny-boosting traits to Sparkling (+1%), Glistening (+1.5%) and Radiant (+2.5%) (which is an increase overall if you stack all three on the same animal).

Removed a guaranteed drop of ghostly essence when the As the Rooster Crows Player-owned-Farm animal perk is active; it now only increases drop chances for an amount of kills after you hear the rooster's crow, as described.

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Black Friday

This is your last chance to take advantage of the Black Friday free shipping offer on the RuneScape merch store. Free shipping will be available until Monday November 26th on orders over £50/€60/$70. Items include:

NEW Limited Edition Black Max Cape and Xmas Max Cape keyrings

NEW Slayer Skill Cape keyring

Large Fine Art Print of Illustrated Map of Gielinor, deskmats, tees, hoodies, mugs and Angels Scapes pins and keyrings.

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LOOTSCAPE

If you’ve been watching our livestreams, you must know that it’s a great opportunity to grab some awesome in-game prizes. And for November, we have ‘Thankful’ prizes that many of you have been asking for – past Thanksgiving Event rewards! That’s right, you might have missed the opportunity to celebrate one of the most delicious American holidays in RuneScape over the last years, so now’s the time to get a bite at that turkey. Rewards unlocked include:

Give Thanks emote (from Thanksgiving 2008)

Turkey herald cape crest (from Thanksgiving 2011)

"the Thanksgiver" title (from Thanksgiving 2014)

Turkey drumstick override (from Thanksgiving 2015)

Mackers pet (from Thanksgiving 2011)

That’s not all! As you may have already noticed, Postie Pete is back. And he has prepared a special LootScape surprise for those of you who follow our streams: an extra Parcel from the Hedge (awarded to non-ironmen players).

Exciting isn’t it?! So don’t wait up, connect your RS account to your Twitch account and find out more about it here. Once that’s done, have fun and watch our streams during the day for a guaranteed drop.

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LIVE STREAMS THIS WEEK

Each week, we host developers Q&As, exclusive in-game first looks and more. And it’s all live on our Twitch channel, join us!

Missed a stream? Don’t worry, we keep them all on our YouTube channel. So be sure to Subscribe to it!

Tuesday, November 27th – 17:00 UTC (Game Time) – Content Showcase: The Art of "Violet Is Blue"

As we’re going back to the Land of Snow for our new Winter-themed quest, let us introduce Violet and her snowy universe in the most awe inspiring way: a whole hour of Art! Discover the origins of this upcoming quest, the ideas behind the design, animation and concept art, have a first look at what’s waiting for you in a few days, and probably some surprises too. Don’t miss it!

LootScape will be enabled (see all details above).

Sunday, December 2nd – 19:00 UTC (Game Time) – PvM with Mod Lee

Our resident PvM expert Mod Lee knows no fear and he’s ready to take you all on another round of boss mass this Sunday. From Vorago to the Kalphite King, the Corporeal Beast, the Angel of Death, if you’ve got a set to complete, an achievement to unlock, or simply want to hang out with friends and slay some, this is the place and time!

PINK SKIRTS EVENTS

Of course, adventures continue in Gielinor even when we're too busy (PKing) creating the adventures of tomorrow. Our PMods are here to welcome you in a range of PvM Boss Masses, Events and Q&As each week. Check out all the community events organised by the Pink Skirts on their official schedule here

The RuneScape Team