At the end of November we offered an array of changes to content on Fossil Island in the form of a poll. Now that Dragon Slayer II has been released and our Christmas celebrations are complete, we're able to deliver the changes in today's game update. There are a fair few changes to detail, so pop the kettle on before you sit down to read through them all.

Fossil Island Improvements

A mini-task list has been added to the archaeologists’ camp, documenting your exploration of Fossil Island. Completion of these tasks will reward you with additional fossils to start your display case. Some of the actions on the mini-task list were already being tracked in the game; you’ll find these have been ticked off for you already, getting you a start towards claiming Peter’s extra fossils. The task-list can be accessed via the noticeboard located immediately next to the General Store.

Dismantling birdhouses will now return the clockwork used to build the birdhouse. This will apply to the seeded birdhouse before it begins catching anything, and will apply if you dismantle the birdhouse before the seed supply is exhausted, however in these two cases no other item will be returned. You will not be able to dismantle the birdhouse if you don't have space for the clockwork.

All tiers of birdhouses can now hold up to 10 birds, with higher-tier birdhouses yielding increased chance of nests and seeds.

Higher tiers of birdhouse have been introduced for Maple, Mahogany, Yew, Magic, and Redwood logs.

Maple birdhouses require level 45 Crafting to build and 44 Hunter to use, yielding 35 Crafting XP

Mahogany birdhouses require level 50 Crafting to build and 49 Hunter to use, yielding 40 Crafting XP

Yew birdhouses require level 60 Crafting to build and 59 Hunter to use, yielding 45 Crafting XP

Magic birdhouses require level 75 Crafting to build and 74 Hunter to use, yielding 50 Crafting XP

Redwood birdhouses require level 90 Crafting to build and 89 Hunter to use, yielding 55 Crafting XP

Feed and catch the birds by placing these in the right spots.

The underwater Agility and Thieving activity no longer rewards players directly with both Agility and Thieving XP. The activity will now yield Glistening mermaid tears. Glistening mermaid tears can be traded with Mairin for XP of the player's choice: Agility, Thieving, or a combination of the two. You may not cash in more than 700 tears at a time. Attempting to exchange more than 700 tears will result in the surplus tears being discarded. Mairin will warn you of this once you obtain a Glistening mermaid tear and you already have 695 or more.

Ceto will now allow players permanent access to an instanced drift net area for a one-off fee of 20,000 numulites.

A new mermaid has been added to the drift net cave. She can hold on to your spare drift nets to help you save space. She will accept noted and unnoted drift nets, and can store up to 2000 nets. Nets are returned only in unnoted form.

The collection screen for fish caught in your drift net now displays an option to bank your whole catch for a cost of 5 numulite. Puffer fish are not bankable. No numulite will be taken if banking isn't successful (should you not have any fish you're able to bank).

Fossil wyverns and Ancient wyverns have had their defence levels lowered:

Fossil wyverns' Defence levels are decreasing from 120 (which matches Skeletal wyverns) to 90.

Ancient wyverns' Defence levels are decreasing from 220 to 150.

Players can now purchase a task block option via the Slayer rewards menu which will stop Slayer masters from assigning Fossil wyvern tasks. This option costs 500 Slayer points and can be toggled via the Slayer rewards menu to disable and re-enable the assignment (you will not need to pay the fee again. The reason for this seemingly high cost is that it's a one-off purchase for a block which has a toggle option, and it doesn't take up one of your existing block spaces.

Wyvern tasks are now blockable at a cost of 500 Slayer points.

The chemical process used to calcify fossils into enriched bones is now completed at a 1:1 ratio of Calcite to Pyrophospite. If you're interested in how it used to work, read on. Previously there was a 1/3 chance of calcium being deducted, alongside a separate 1/3 chance of deducting phosphate. This means there was a 1/9 chance that both would go down, a 2/9 chance that just the calcium would go down, a 2/9 chance that just the phosphate would go down, and a 4/9 chance that neither would go down.

The Prayer experience obtained from using all forms of enriched bone on the strange machine in the House on the Hill has been increased by x5.

Small enriched bones will now yield 500 Prayer XP.

Medium enriched bones will now yield 1000 Prayer XP.

Large enriched bones will now yield 1500 Prayer XP.

Rare enriched bones will now yield 2500 Prayer XP.

Implings can now spawn on Fossil Island.

The shop in the Volcano Mine now sells Volcanic ash at a cost of 40 points per item.

Tar monsters now inflict less damage with both their standard attacks and their AoE attacks. Additionally, the left-click option on Hoop snakes is now 'Use' which should assist you with stunning the Tar monsters.

The Hoop snake now has twice as many spawns, and it respawns at a faster rate.

The Deranged Archaeologist has been moved to a location found south of the Sulliuscep mushroom Woodcutting area.

Players chopping Sulliuscep mushrooms will find they are no longer inconveniently forced to the south-western side of the area.

Using Superglass Make now rewards you with the correct amount of Crafting XP when Giant seaweed is used. Previously 10 Crafting XP was given regardless of seaweed type. Now using Giant seaweed to Superglass Make will reward you with 60 XP.

The Deranged Archaeologist has been moved to a location found south of the Sulliuscep mushroom Woodcutting area.

In Other News

Heraldic shields, painted in a Player Owned House, now show the colour of their original metal on their back sides.

The thatched rooftops of Ardougne are now more consistently coloured.

The colours and symbols on Imbued god capes have been changed to be more consistent with other capes.

Some of Lutwidge's dialogue in Dragon Slayer II has been changed when telling players which grand feats he is known for.

Ladder icons have been added to the staircase in the Myths' Guild.

The Mythical cape will no longer find itself attached to the hands of female characters when mixing potions.

The Prospector legs and Prospector torso now connect correctly when worn by female characters.

Male characters wearing both a Dust staff and any of the god cloak will be pleased to see that they are no longer attached to one another.

Male characters will also find that the Shayzien banner and the Evil chicken head are no longer attached when worn together.

Players reaching level 78 Fletching will now receive a prompt informing them that they are able to fletch Dragon crossbows.

Various types of bones will now appear above vials when dropped on the ground.

Players will no longer require a free inventory slot when acquiring the relic from Toban during the Watchtower quest.

The refresh rate of sliding puzzle boxes has been modified to reduce the flickering experienced by some players.

A tile within the Dark beast section located in the Catacombs of Kourend has had its blocking removed.

Nurse Boubou, who resides within the Shayzien House infirmary, now refers to the correct location of the shayzien medpacks used to heal soldiers to gain Shayzien favour.

The colours and symbols on Imbued god capes have been changed to be more consistent with other capes.

What's Coming Up

As we mentioned earlier in the month, we'd like to spend the entirety of February dedicated to Quality of Life updates. In previous QoL months we have adopted a formula consisting of a week dedicated to PvM, a week dedicated to Skilling, a week dedicated to PvP, and so on. This worked rather successfully, and so we'll look to repeat it this time around. We'll soon create specific avenues of communication for you to give us your suggestions, but in the meantime we'd recommend utilising the Old School Content Suggestions forum or Reddit (/r/2007scape/ and /r/oldschoolrs/) to share and garner support for your suggestions. Having suggestions posted in these places is preferred to them being lost in the ether of shortform social media, such as when suggestions are sent to individual Mods on Twitter.

Old School RuneScape turns five years old on the 22nd February, and we have a very special three hour stream planned to celebrate our birthday. We'll have more information for you coming soon, but in the meantime go and follow twitch.tv/oldschoolrs which is the new Old School RuneScape Twitch channel, as well as registering for a stream reminder!

Thursday 11th January saw the end of the Deadman Spring Season, and with it the qualification for the Deadman Spring Finals. We're not yet ready to specify a date for the Finals, but we hope to be able to announce the exact dates in the very near future.

As well as our 5th Birthday, February will also see Old School RuneScape, RuneScape, and Jagex as a whole, support SpecialEffect’s Gameblast 2018! For those of you not familiar with Gameblast, we did a 24 hour stream back in 2016 that raised over £100,000, and every year SpecialEffect help many people with disabilities enjoy video games by providing specialist equipment and access to otherwise out of reach resources. It’s an amazing cause, and for Gameblast 2018 we’ll be hosting a 24 hour stream on twitch.tv/oldschoolrs, alongside a 24 hour stream on twitch.tv/runescape. There's no shortage of ideas, but if you have anything you’d like to suggest then please do so on the official Forums, or via social media.

If you frequent social media you may recently have seen that the Theatre of Blood, Old School's second Raid which was announced at RuneFest, is beginning to enter the design stage (do not confuse this with it beginning development). In the near future we'll begin communicating with you all regarding the Raid design and the rewards. We're dedicated to working closely with you to make sure that its release is as strong as the Chambers of Xeric was.

Finally, since this newspost is dedicated to Fossil Island, it seems fitting to remind you all that much later in the year we're looking to introduce a boss to Fossil Island. This hasn't yet even entered the design stage, so we'll have more information to share with you at a later date.

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