It's double XP time, with even more XP up for grabs than normal. There's a secret new quest, too, and a bunch of new perks for inventors and owners of skillcapes alike!

Double XP Weekend

The big news this month is the Double XP Weekend, which starts at midday on the 17th of February. The normal double XP madness runs until midday on Monday the 20th, but were also adding some further bonuses until the 27th of February, especially for those of you who have other plans that weekend. Every player will get an increased XP return during that following week - up to 1 million XP’s worth. This will be a great time to train those slower skills which tend to get left out over the busy weekend. Look out for a news post with more information, and watch out for the 'Time To Train' event to help you get all the materials you need for those precious gains.

Game Jam

During the Double XP Weekend, we will be running a RuneScape Game Jam in the office and you peeps can get involved as well. We will be working on small, meaningful projects with the aim to release a bunch of them over the following weeks. Most of the ideas will come from suggestions on Reddit and the forums, and over the Saturday and Sunday there will be several live streams where we will update you on our progress and listen to your feedback. We will also have channels set up to chat to Jmods while we aren’t streaming. So why not tune in and get involved while grinding out those levels?

Quest

We always find time for JMods to explore their personal creativity and to work on updates they really want to experience as players. This month were releasing one such project, a secret 5th age quest that’s part of a plotline we haven’t explored for many years. It's a project that Mods Nexus and Helen were so passionate about, and when they told us about their idea we just had to give them the support to get it launched! However, continuing the secrecy theme we talked about earlier in the year, I won’t give you more information than that - I wonder if you can work it out yourselves. Let me know on Twitter what you think it is.

Veteran Cape

Soon, Hans will finally be able to hand out his new veteran cape to our most loyal, long-term players with 15-year old accounts. It comes with a special emote, of course, and we’ve added a new emote to the 10-year cape too to celebrate! It always amazes us how dedicated those long term players are, so now’s your chance to show off your awesomeness.

Invention Tools

Also this month, Firemaking and Smithing will be added to the set of skills supported by invention tools. Look out for new augmented hammers and tinderboxes, including the crystal ones, and 5 new tool perks, like the Prosper perk which allows you to gain clue scrolls while skilling, and the Pyromaniac perk.

Skillcape Perks

Talking of perks, the ninjas have added a perk to every single skillcape, each of which offers a handy advantage when using that skill. There’s all sorts on offer, like the Herblore perk that automatically cleans all your grimy herbs or the Invention perk that slows down your charge drain rate. You’ll be able to choose up to 3 of these perks to use on your Max or Completionist capes, if you own one!

Finally, don’t forget to get involved in this month’s Valentine event. There’s love sprites aplenty as you break down devotion rocks and fix up unity machines with your invention skills. Plenty of rewards await those with room in their hearts, like new walk and rest animations, loved up loot beams and your own love sprite pet. Awwww.

Have fun, and wooters out!

What is a Behind the Scenes article?

Behind the Scenes is a sneak peek at the planned game updates that we hope to launch in the coming month.

This, however, is only a plan - not a promise - that a particular update will be released in a particular way or at a particular time. To get you the highest quality updates as quickly as possible, we usually keep on tweaking and testing right up until the moment before release, so sometimes things change or take a bit longer than expected. We aren't afraid to change our plan if necessary, as we will never launch an update before it is ready.