Allana / Miss Misty

Thank you @RuneScape and Jagex for letting me and mum interview about the incredible 20 year game!!! I have never known a game with such a fantastic community - it truly is unique :)

Brighter Shores is 1 year old today. In the last year we have launched: - A heap of quality life improvements. - Leaderboards. - Transmog system. - Potion Belt. - 3 holiday events. - Merged combat profession. - 5 new quests. - Player-to-player trading. - Botanist profession. We also have a good pipeline of in-progress stuff including a 6th quest ready to go, and a massive amount of work on project milestone already done. The focus this year has been on making sure the fundamentals of the game are right before we make it a lot bigger. Re-engineering the fundamentals of the game is much more time consuming than creating new content, so once project milestone and the combat rework are done, we should be able to ramp up the pace of development. I also spent over 10% of my time last year on recruitment and training and moving to a bigger office, to put us in a good position for our 2nd year. Thank you to everyone who has supported us on our journey so far, we are still just getting started, so watch this space!

@AndrewCGower I have loved the game and BS has a unique and lovely community! Thank you for an amazing year, my only regret was not starting earlier! I think it’s exciting to see where the game can go. We are privileged to be part of a growing game and a growing community! Thank you all x

@AndrewCGower If only games were written in SQL :P x

We are recruiting for an additional game developer who can both design and code new content for Brighter Shores. For more information see: brightershores.com/careers/game_d…

This post gives some more details on Project Milestone which we are currently working very hard on! Project milestone was conceived specifically to address two common requests. 1) make levelling up feel more rewarding. 2) make the game content feel less recycled. We completely understand that some players are frustrated that too much later game content is just a reskinned version of the earlier content. However just removing all the later skins without ALSO replacing them with something else that would result in the game being too short, so clearly that can't be the solution. There are a few ways we can see to improve this: 1) Add lots more content, with new mechanics of what you DO as opposed to just new graphics. Botanist is a good example of us doing this. It is replacing the entire gatherer profession (which is essentially a recycled version of the forager profession) with a new botanist profession which works in a different way and ISNT just recycled content. Likewise you will see we have lots of minigames planned in project milestone which again is all about adding new (optional) ways of levelling up at higher levels as opposed to just requiring the player to repeat the same mechanic with different graphics. However as you can imagine approach 1 is very time consuming and making every single activity in the game have a unique mechanic would take a very long time. So we need more than just this. 2) Make it so the later activities are still the same mechanic, but occur in new map rooms with entirely new graphics as opposed to the same map room with just reskinned/recolored graphics. The problem with this approach is: a) It involves making the map 10x bigger. b) It will require a huge amount of graphics resource. c) It wont actually make the later levels FEEL any different. They will still just be the same activity with different graphics. We asked the players about this idea some while ago and the majority said this wasnt a good idea, or a good use of our time. And also expressed concern that expanding the map out like this would mean not meeting other players as much. This idea 2, therefore is NOT part of project milestone. 3) Make sure nothing repeats sooner than 50 levels apart (at the moment some things repeat way too soon). This means rebalancing some levels and adding a few new things to do, but is a reasonable goal. 4) Switching things up on later repetitions so for each repetition as well as getting new skins and bigger numbers, it also FEELS a bit different. For example: - the first time around (levels 0-49) is just the basic activity we have currently. - the second time around (levels 50-99) adds some new (optional) mechanics such as bounties, and dungeons so as well as having new skins and bigger numbers it also gives some new ways of playing and feels a bit different. - the third time around (levels 100-149) also throws some more activities/locations/minigames/dungeon rooms/etc.. into the mix. So again whilst is mostly the same content with new skins and bigger numbers it also has some new stuff to look forwards to. etc... 5) Changing how the levels and repetitions are presented to make it feel more like a deliberate fun mechanic as opposed to just repetitive content. In particularly we are making it so finishing a repetition is celebrated as a big milestone with lots of rewards and unlocks at a 'milestone level' which is fun goal to work towards. 6) Once we have made sure that at least the first 100 levels of every profession feels very varied and non-repetitive, resume work on adding more episodes, so there is a greater variety of things you can do before the only thing left is the (unavoidably) more repetitive later levels. Hopefully this gives you some more insight into what Project Milestone is all about, and how seriously we take listening to player feedback. I am very glad we decided to launch the game early into an early access version, as we have learnt a huge amount from doing so. Project milestone which will make the game a lot more compelling wouldn't have come about at all if we hadn't launched early and so got that very helpful feedback sooner rather than later. It means in the long run we will have a much better game than if we had just developed it in isolation. Since the early access launch we have also doubled the size of the team, so the rate at which we can do all of this is faster. The new starters are getting up to speed now so you should start seeing the impact of this investment.

Honestly obsessed with #BrighterShores. The Gower game magic has happened again. Great stories, humour, social chat, care for the community and it’s a game you can pick up and put down or completely grind out. No complexity, ease of playing and a sense of achievement! X

@AndrewCGower Poor FTP peeps getting teased for EP 3 right from the start! :P Honestly excited for Botanist though that’s going to be a nice distinction of two similar professions!!

bones will be moving to ep1 forager as you can’t botany bones :)

Monty’s is back ! #MontysCrusaders @RuneScape

@AndrewCGower As it stands, I pray premium, will continue to do so, love the game, and keep doing what you’re doing !

@AndrewCGower Negative voices and bad news is always heard louder and travels faster. 90% of players are probably unaware of what was planned and what has changed. Loads of positivity out there. Though I will say the clip of the CM out there isn’t the best look for how you think of players 😬

❓ Did you enjoy the song played during the opening ceremony? RuneFest Medley by Cole Rolland featuring Mod Ash drops this Monday on all streaming and digital music platforms Add it to your playlist here: lnk.to/runefest-medley

@RuneFest @twinklemilton OMG the Zuk song by the guitarist <3 HEAVEN

Visit @UnitedRune Runefest: Sunday 2 March ebay: ebay.co.uk/usr/unitedrune Discord: discord.gg/xbQjtrvHKa

Who fancies a cheeky little giveaway? Like, Follow & RePost to Enter 1 Winner will receive a small random treat bag containing a Runefest, RuneScape or Creator Item, MUST be UK or can collect at Runefest Winner will be drawn 26th Feb 2025.

You can now follow us on the 'other' platform! 100 followers and we do a giveaway bsky.app/profile/united…

@TracyRoshLuna Me and bubble will always be there of course to support and help run ! Xx although really keeping fingers crossed the Jagex team can find a way to still make this happen xx

Would You Attend a Player Run 'Runefest' docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI… #RunefestCommunity

Honestly really feeling for all those @RuneScape #Runefest organisation team - we know you are trying your best - we can make this work! It is a big “oof” but we all have faith in you and know you are doing your best. If not - Scapers - let’s take over the local Spoons!!

@JagexAllstar Oh gosh good luck everyone! I’m doing a thurs - mon trip too! Double the isms!

@Miss_MistyRS 2 days worth! ;)

I panicked so hard that I was going to miss out on #RuneFest tickets that I bought two standard despite being eligible for the companion ticket for my ma x looking at this Madness I am quite glad I went straight for it !!! :P who else is coming xxx I’ll be at the Ibis Styles!

@Clue_RS Just keep trying as people cancel and timeouts they are refreshing a lot x

@Miss_MistyRS not sure yet, still trying to get a ticket lol