19-Jan-2010 - Barbarian Assault Improvements

Southrend · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 7:43 am

www.runescape.com wrote:

19-Jan-2010 - Barbarian Assault Improvements

Some time ago, we released the minigame Barbarian Assault. From your feedback (and from playing the game ourselves) it’s become clear that the rewards were not quite up to scratch, so we have devoted some time to improving them. Although our focus has mainly been on the rewards, we also took this opportunity to alter some small aspects of the minigame itself (though we do also have a long list of other ideas for potential future updates).

The list of changes is extensive, but here are some of the main ones to whet your appetite:

* New Penance horn that lets you gain double XP in Agility, Cooking and Mining (in a similar fashion to the tools from Stealing Creation).
* New colours of abyssal whips.
* New Penance trident weapon.
* Penance armour stat improvement and Prayer restoring set bonus.
* Penance gloves now reduce more weight.
* Gamble points rebalanced (they still include a rare chance for dragon armour).
* Ability to show off your achievements in the roles of attacker, defender, collector and healer.
* High score tables for the attacker, defender, collector and healer roles.
* Waiting rooms increased in size.
* Additional wave room ticket system for saving progress through battles.
* Blue penance eggs now reduce the target Penance’s stats and deal damage.

If you speak with Commander Connad at the Barbarian Outpost (you can teleport directly there with a games necklace) he’ll show you all the new rewards, which are also listed on the Barbarian Assault KB page.

Bring on the Penance!

Mod Tim
RuneScape Lead Content Developer

In other news...

The various dwarves of RuneScape have had a visit from the Makeover Mage, who has given their chatheads a new look.

The Soul Wars cape from Nomad’s Requiem can now be stored in your POH costume room.

Activating your special attack bar will no longer interfere with auto-cast timing.

Players will no longer receive activity points in Soul Wars when bandaging players that are already at full health.

Because of the recent snow we've been having, snowballs have stayed frozen for a bit longer than usual. The snow has now gone, though, so you'll find your snowballs will now melt, unless you have the snow globe from the Christmas 2008 holiday event.

Adbot · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 7:43 am

Davo · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 8:45 am

I am very glad that they finally have come back to this minigame. I think it was coming down to the only people that played it was to get Penance Gloves and Fighter Torso. After that, they haven't touched it since. I am guilty of that actually. The new horn and different colors for whips? That sounds extremely interesting. I think I'm going to have to pay a visit and check out all the new rewards. Very nice update to kick off the New Year. They're continuing the resurrection of old game components for the higher level veteran players. They need to keep this train rollin'.

Brimmk · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 11:33 am

Davo wrote:

I am very glad that they finally have come back to this minigame. I think it was coming down to the only people that played it was to get Penance Gloves and Fighter Torso. After that, they haven't touched it since. I am guilty of that actually. The new horn and different colors for whips? That sounds extremely interesting. I think I'm going to have to pay a visit and check out all the new rewards. Very nice update to kick off the New Year. They're continuing the resurrection of old game components for the higher level veteran players. They need to keep this train rollin'.

I agree Dave, they really did need to do a rework for it and it is a nice way to kick off the new year, with this and the new agility benefits (Shane's going to be happy about that). I've already got my whip painted a nice yellow to contrast my dragon armor. The paint doesn't make a whole lot of difference aesthetically but it's just one of those nice touches that make the game more interesting, and without messing with the economy too much (since you can't trade the painted ones, although whip prices are probably just skyrocketing atm). I had forgotten how much fun barbarian assault can be with a good team, although, I'm not sure whether it's just me, or are most defenders and healers mentally challenged in the first few waves? I'm a lvl 3 healer (soon to be level 4) and for some reason the defenders and fellow healers have been the most incompetent players in the rounds I've played, although they do have the greatest tendency to be incompetent...
anyway,
5/5 for me

Reventon42 · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 8:45 pm

kool whip colors, but I liked the transparency of the old whips more

+1 for Soul Wars update. gg sw prods

Tim · **Posted:** January 19th, 2010, 10:14 pm

FInally it's out of the blue. Now there is a reason to go out there, takes a couple of 1-10 rounds to make the horn full, but it's worth it. Now I need to write some more guides on how to be an Attacker and Collector.
5/5 I really like the update.

Xbladez · **Posted:** January 20th, 2010, 4:56 am

certainly had potential to be a decent update until i got the master horn and have had the rooms set to fill it with xp potential for 20 waves now (1-10 twice) and it's still only saying about 1/4 full.

Adbot · **Posted:** January 20th, 2010, 4:56 am

Uhfolks · **Posted:** January 20th, 2010, 8:29 am

This is my favorite update since.....I honestly can't think of something this good. BA is my favorite minigame, and I played it despite the horrid rewards. There's FINALLY a reason to actually play it!!! The whips are a fun little touch, but the best part is the horn. That, and the penance set effect, make this a 5 out of 5 for me!

Dokter Bob · **Posted:** January 20th, 2010, 9:14 am

Whips went up another 150k today. :\

Just another update to make items rise considerably.

3/5

Alex_SE · **Posted:** January 20th, 2010, 1:12 pm

Seems like a good update. Another reason to make players interested in the mini-game.
Personally I love this update. Can't wait to dye my whip with some colour.

Oh! And:

www.runescape.com wrote:

The various dwarves of RuneScape have had a visit from the Makeover Mage, who has given their chatheads a new look.

My word! Took them long enough! It was a struggle! But here it is!
Hope they do this with the gnome chatheads soon. Maybe around 2015.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Thought this isn't directly on topic, it does relate to the Christmas events. I want to see Jagex allow your amulet to bring back your imp at any time of the year. Kind of like Eek. I mean, it does make sense that your snow imp would rather stay behind in the Land of Snow, but I think he should allowed to come out any time you want him to as a player. That's just my recommendation. Otherwise, p2p updates don't directly affect me. :/

Mi Thrill · **Posted:** January 22nd, 2010, 4:20 am

Still kinda confused about how the horn works exactly, how long it lasts etc.

Reventon42 · **Posted:** January 22nd, 2010, 8:17 am

Mi Thrill wrote:

Still kinda confused about how the horn works exactly, how long it lasts etc.

Not sure on mining or firemaking, but for agility the horn lasts for 13 hours at ape atoll agility course, giving 94k xp/hr

This equates to around 61k agility xp/hr, it takes ~7 hours to fill the horn

Cnbc-e985 · **Posted:** January 23rd, 2010, 3:56 am

Colored abby whips are untradeable. How much for paying the color for abby whip??