Runescape Bits & Bytes

With 2021 coming to a close it’s time to look back at RuneScape’s PvM updates. We start with the Rex Matriarchs, and we move through the Elder God Wars, touching on the most important patch notes and sleepers of the year.

Download Now
Direct Download – 64 Kbit MP3 (Full Show Notes)

Join us in-game at Friends’ Chat: BitsBytes, Follow us on Twitter @rsbandb, Join our Discord: rsbandb.com/discord
A Special Thanks to Our Patreon Supporters

• AmosReed
• Andrew C
• Arvīds L
• Christian S
• Chunkthemunk
• Cook Me Plox
• Diana
• DramaFreee
• Durhamax
• ElloMatey
• Free Milk
• Jade Gizmo
• Jason S
• Jebus
• Jesse W
• KeskyPlays
• LuckyDucky
• N8 the grr8
• Pyrnassius RS
• Ren Hawk
• Ricky A
• Samuel F L
• Scott D S
• Seth W
• Singer
• Stobbeve
• The Bears O.P.
• The Naked Captain
• TheLion
• Tom V
• Zackaree M
• Zant

• 2021's Ranged Changes
• 2021's Melee Changes
• 2021's Magic Changes
• Elder God Wars Scriptures
• Cease
• Gloves of passage?
• Cleave/Sweep (Dragon Halberd special)
• Grasping Rune Pouch
• Pernix Quiver
• Accessibility Round Up
• The Winner's of 2021 Mid-Range and High End
• Shane’s Pick of the Week: An Unexpected Christmas
• David’s Pick of the Week: The Princess Switch 3

Holiday rare #2 appears: a green Santa hat! We discuss the motivations for releasing it and just how rare it actually is. Then, Elder God Wars banter is back, as is Icthlarin. Who’s coming back to life? Finally, our best updates of 2021.

Download Now
Direct Download – 64 Kbit MP3 (Full Show Notes)

Join us in-game at Friends’ Chat: BitsBytes, Follow us on Twitter @rsbandb, Join our Discord: rsbandb.com/discord
A Special Thanks to Our Patreon Supporters

• AmosReed
• Andrew C
• Arvīds L
• Christian S
• Chunkthemunk
• Cook Me Plox
• Diana
• DramaFreee
• Durhamax
• ElloMatey
• Free Milk
• Jade Gizmo
• Jason S
• Jebus
• Jesse W
• KeskyPlays
• LuckyDucky
• N8 the grr8
• Pyrnassius RS
• Ren Hawk
• Ricky A
• Samuel F L
• Scott D S
• Seth W
• Singer
• Stobbeve
• The Bears O.P.
• The Naked Captain
• TheLion
• Tom V
• Zackaree M
• Zant

• Presents from the Sledge: Green Santa Hat
• Tweaks and Fixes (Patch Notes - 13-12-21)
• God Banter December 13
• The 2021 Mini Year in Review
• RSBANDB is on Patreon
• Listener Questions
• Tanis’ Pick of the Week: MINISTRY - Search And Destroy (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) - YouTube
• Shane’s Pick of the Week: 2021 Advent of Code
• Questcaping’s Pick of the Week: Stellaris
• Xurdones’ Pick of the Week: Why Modern Blockbusters Bore Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
• Achievements of the Week
• RSBANDBUpdate! Help Wanted
• What have we been doing?

If you played Runescape back in the the old days or currently play Old School Runescape, then I’m very sure you’ve spent a lot of time grinding for Pest Control points to get that magnificent Void armour. While it’s barely used in the main game, it’s still very popular in Old School Runescape, especially amongst ranged PK’ers. Despite being such a popular minigame activity, the Void Knights had barely any backstory until the first of the Void Quest series arrived on the 22^nd of April 2010. As a personal note, I really enjoyed the quest series but I felt like the lore wasn’t extensive enough as I wanted to learn more about them. While I was researching the Void Knights, I discovered a trove of information I hadn’t come across before. Therefore, this month’s installment will be about the Void Knights.

As I'm sure the majority of people know, Guthix is the God of Balance, and in the past we’ve covered many of his followers; Some examples would include the Druids who are mostly peaceful, and the Legiones who are extremists. The Void Knights, however, are different, as they consider themselves as being the military side of the Guthixians. Nowadays we know that they’re keeping the world safe from the Pests entering Gielinor, but this was not always their job. The Void Knights were actually assassins who killed to keep the balance, and any threat to that balance would face their wrath. Sadly, due to unknown reasons the Knights Order collapsed.

During the Fourth age, a Saradominist called Dracs Melrose had a vision; Guthix spoke to him in his dreams about a threat about to befall Gielinor, and Guthix tasked Dracs with reviving the Order to combat this threat, as the Druids could not due to their pacifist nature. Dracs abandoned his status as a Saradominist, which he had never felt comfortable claiming to be regardless, and became a Guthixian. His goal? Revive the Void Knights. Dracs wrote a handbook which all followers would obtain upon joining. The revived Order believed that Guthix was the true creator of Gielinor and that they required true balance within themselves. They would use military force to create balance where their pacifist brethren could not. In addition to this, they were warned that a future threat would one day come and that they were the ones who would defend Gielinor against it.

As the Order grew bigger over time, the King of Falador intervened and restricted the Knights to Taverly. This was most likely to stop their political influence from increasing even further, and so they remained in Taverly for about fifty years. Around this time reports came in from the south stating that strange beasts were reported to have been invading the seas, and the Void Knights understood that this was the threat they had been warned about. Admiral Boyce Khael ordered Commodore Matthias to rally the troops to combat these Pest creatures. The Void Knights built the outpost on an island so they could sail out to any island that played host to the Pest portals. Ever since then the fight has been seemingly never-ending, and the situation has grown dire enough that the Void Knights would enlist mercenaries, such as the player, to aid them.

In Year 169 of the Fifth Age, the Void Knights’ status quo was challenged when a Pest was spotted on the mainland. Sir Tiffy of the Temple Knights would go on to send the Adventurer (who would later become known as the World Guardian) to investigate the matter, and after questioning several people on the Outpost the Adventurer discovered that the researcher, Jessika, had released the Pest. She empathised with the creature and wanted to grant it its freedom. Commodore Matthias would set sail to the mainland with the intention to deal with the Pest, but he and the other Void Knights were ambushed at sea. Commodore Matthias and his Knights died at the hand of the Pest and the wizard known as Melville Grayzag, although this would not be discovered until later.

Afterwards, Jessika, Korasi, and the Adventurer would go on to investigate the escaped Pest and its whereabouts as more and more people fell ill. After much investigation, it was discovered that the Kinshra were using the escaped Void Leech’s purple goo to weaken people. Their plan was to use this toxic substance to overthrow the White Knights of Falador by delivering it to people via Waxwood crates, which was the only container waterproof enough to hold the goo.

The Adventurer was then sent undercover to the Kinshra hideout, where they broke into the Kinshra storeroom and would go on to discover that Melville was the mastermind behind this dastardly plan. His plan was to summon the Pest Queen to Gielinor with the intention to wreak havoc. In order to be able to stand against this threat the Void Knights, Temple Knights, and even the Kinshra formed a temporary alliance. Their armies marched towards the summoning ritual site, and it was here that Melville successfully summoned the Pest Queen with the death of either Jessika or Korasi depending on the players choice. The allied forces fought together alongside the Adventurer until the Pest Queen lay dead upon the ground. Melville was then either captured or killed by the one of the members of the alliance depending on the players choice, and the status quo in the Void Knights’ battle against the Pest creatures was once again restored.

To this very day, their fight to defend the mainland from Pests continues. While they only have one quest series consisting of three quests, I feel like they’ve obtained quite a bit of interesting lore with their release. I personally hope that Jagex will once again cover the Order in a future quest. Especially with the Elder God Wars threat currently raging on, I feel like the Void Knights would be one of the first to show up to defend Gielinor. We hope you’ve enjoyed this month's installment of Forgotten Lore. See you next time for more lore! Until then, defend the Void Knight!

We unravel our Golden Gnome choices, unpack what was and was not answered from Mod Osborne’s livestream, share our 2022 predictions, and talk about skill reworks and the early game. What do Crafting, Agility, and Hunter have in common? We dig low.

Download Now
Direct Download – 64 Kbit MP3 (Full Show Notes)

Join us in-game at Friends’ Chat: BitsBytes, Follow us on Twitter @rsbandb, Join our Discord: rsbandb.com/discord
A Special Thanks to Our Patreon Supporters

• AmosReed
• Andrew C
• Arvīds L
• Christian S
• Chunkthemunk
• Cook Me Plox
• Diana
• DramaFreee
• Durhamax
• ElloMatey
• Free Milk
• Jade Gizmo
• Jason S
• Jebus
• Jesse W
• KeskyPlays
• LuckyDucky
• N8 the grr8
• Pyrnassius RS
• Ren Hawk
• Ricky A
• Samuel F L
• Scott D S
• Seth W
• Singer
• Stobbeve
• The Bears O.P.
• The Naked Captain
• TheLion
• Tom V
• Zant

• 11th Annual Golden Gnome Awards: RuneScape Finalists
• The Fourth Age of RuneScape (A Short Film) #8 by TheBookOfRS
• The Staff of Armadyl by Willow
• 11th Annual Golden Gnome Awards
• Patch Notes - 6-12-21
• RSBANDB is on Patreon
• General Q&A Part 2 with Mod Osborne - Notes
• Our RuneScape 2022 Predictions
• Listener Questions
• Tanis’ Pick of the Week: Star Wars Rebels
• Shane’s Pick of the Week: Dexter New Blood
• Achievements of the Week
• RSBANDBUpdate! Help Wanted
• 2021 Clip Show Clips
• What have we been doing?

It started with Easter Eggs. Not video game perks, but literal painted, edible Easter eggs.

They were pretty much hand-traded and dropped directly from JMods at the time; namely Andrew and Paul Gower. Just a little something to celebrate Easter and show their appreciation to the community for playing Runescape for the quarter-year it had existed. It was a nice little gesture, and at the time, the brothers imagined that folks would just use them as food (they did heal a considerable amount at the time in lieu of shark and manta ray). Heck, it went so well that come Halloween, the released the Pumpkin drop. Same ordeal; trading to players, giving them some tokens of appreciation to help out a bit with their training and monster fighting. Being all fancy and all that.

What they did not foresee, however, was how much accumulated value these limited-edition items would have with the general trade economy. Like rookie baseball cards, their trade value skyrocketed as supply diminished. It was intended that the eggs and pumpkins appear in subsequent events, but because of this sudden influx of value, the whole premise of the holiday item changed to something beyond comprehension. They became a symbol of status. Of wealth and showmanship. Folks would trade others just to show off these holiday treats as a form of pompous bragging.

Wild, isn't it? Holiday-themed items, of all things, actually becoming the most sought-after thing all year round? So, to help the folks along with this, the third and pivotal holiday item was released in the form of a server-wide drop. The Christmas Cracker. An item used directly on another player, and in turn, both players got a sweet reward from it. One would get a runite piece, (best and most expensive in-game armor at the time), while the other (randomly determined who was who) would get a partyhat of a random color. It was a simple little head accessory meant to be one of goofy celebration, and unlike pumpkins and Easter eggs, offered nothing but a simple cosmetic appearance. Not practically worthwhile; it both took up an inventory slot and offered no stat bonuses or anything when worn as a helmet.

I imagined they figured that this would sort of settle the matter of the whole holiday-items-becoming-status-symbols from their ridiculousness. They were based off the original paper partyhat, after all, which is quite popular in Britain. A cut-out piece of paper that anyone could make with a pair of scissors and some tape, used mainly to add a bit of color to a party. If they really wanted to try, they would've released the Santa hat, or reindeer antlers, or something considerably more fancy for Christmas. Instead, they opted for the cheapest and most silly party decoration universally available... and it exploded. Rising quickly to the price of runite; folks were trading the runite drops for party hats instead. Then dragon battleaxes and dragonstone amulets. And as time went on and Runescape evolved, this relic of 2001 became used almost as an item of insurmountable currency to get the very best in in-game gear and equipment!

The folks at Jagex didn't notice this incredible influx right away, as other artifacts followed suit, like the Halloween masks and the Santa hats of 2002. Upon realizing, however, just how much the economy was centering on their rare items, every subsequent holiday item was labelled untradeable. The bunny ears, the scythe, and the yo-yo were among these things; folks could still receive them and show them off to display their status as being old-school players, but ultimately it was a game-loyalty flex rather than a monetary one.

So what was the big deal here? Why not let there be these rare wicked-expensive items? Because of legality issues. They announced the halting of such practice to dissuade folks from going so far as to obtain partyhats via real-world trading, which was a real issue back in the day. Back then, the internet was still getting its bearings on online transactions, and a number of dodgy websites had sprung up offering in-game trades to players of various online experiences, like World of Warcraft. Runescape was no exception, and with the rise of both "legitimate" and bogus scam sites, it wasn't long before there were parents yelling at Jagex for ripping them off because they didn't know any better.

The legitimate sites were no better, because to keep up with supply and demand, they created bots, which hogged up resource nodes and NPC spawns. And in the days of Runescape Classic and Runescape 2, a lot of the resources were not instanced like they are today. It was first-come, first-serve, and if a bot was there, you were competing for resources with a computer. Good luck.

Jagex's response to this was impressively hardcore; the removal of the wilderness and incredibly tight trade restrictions. This took out both the real-world trading market and helped eliminate the majority of bots, and it also restricted the trade of these rare holiday items, so they didn't pass hands very much. Fortunately, the block on trading was abolished thanks to some new and impressive detection technology, plus the Grand Exchange, and holiday rares returned to the market and reclaimed their rightful place as symbols of monetary status.

Naturally, halting the practice of releasing rares and trading them altogether only served to make them even more valuable. Without changing hands, party-hats and stuff would disappear as folks stopped playing Runescape, and the economy was left in a perpetual state of unknown where nobody knew their value anymore, so out of sheer panic and desperation, the price fluctuated all over the place.

Mind, Jagex could've gone the other route, like Runescape Old School 2007 does where the same holiday items are dropped every year. This would equalize the price considerably at the risk of harming the economy, but since it was already messed up from the introduction of unobtainable rares, it was just too big a gamble. Long-time players would've been cheesed off as all their acquired assets would have been devalued in an instant. It was just too late. The party hat was here to stay.

Gradually, as time went by and we got year after year of holiday themed cosmetics and items, they rose and rose in value to the point where they hardly were traded anymore. One sacrificed an entire bank just to obtain one of these highly coveted items, almost as a form of wealth prestige mode. They became time-honoured investments, reliably rising in price with each year that went by, promising additional fortune to those who were patient enough to wait and bank on it when the time for them was right. They were literal money generators; top-tier. The best of the best, and only the best (or luckiest to have been around at the time) would ever own one.

So where does that bring us with the Golden Partyhat hunt? Is it really just Jagex's way of celebrating the 20 year anniversary with the callback to something that was otherwise an accident? The telling of a joke that grew beyond what anyone could've imagined into something just so fantastic it's absurd?

I'd like to think so, yes. There's no doubt the game-making folks in Cambridge have an awesome sense of humour, as seen in many of the quests and in-game content. This isn't a celebration of in-game wealth and the unbelievable valuable and rareness of a partyhat, orchestrated to be somewhat repeated due to how difficult it is to obtain a golden one. It's the celebration of the evolution of a mere gag that completely reshaped an entire in-game community and economy. The show of how the smallest and silliest of ideas could change things, for better or for worse. They've already celebrated the partyhat's value with a couple of equally hilarious gags, like the super-expensive New Varrock cosmetic and the April Fools giveaway of a Pea-Hat (lol).

No, to bring back the concept of a rare, unobtainable, and tradable item and quite literally add a new addition to the partyhat line is homage to the joke itself. There's no fun to be made here. The Gowers did something funny, and it became something incredible. How couldn't they celebrate such a feat for a 20th year anniversary?

So I wish you guys luck in obtaining your golden relic of 2001. It's a tough one to get, but not as impossible as you might think. You just need a little patience and persistence. Just like we did back in the Runescape Classic days of 2001.

And for gosh sakes, don't bring your golden partyhat out into the wilderness.

Until next time,

Cheers, cannoneers!