Todays update introduces Grid Master Rewards, Poll System Improvements and the first batch of New Player Experience updates!

Changelog - October 22nd

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Grid Master

• Grid Master reward shop is live! Head to Nevet in Varrock square on any non Grid Master world to spend your points and grab your prizes.
• Unlocking the Grimoire now correctly grants full access to all spellbooks, including Ancient and Lunar, without needing to complete Desert Treasure I or Lunar Diplomacy.
• Fixed a bug where players couldnt claim the Ardougne Elite Diary rewards on Grid Master worlds without having 91 Smithing.
• The Minimum Potential perk now applies correctly when throwing chinchompas, ensuring all affected targets receive hits of 5 or higher.
• The Total Recall perk now only updates your saved teleport location when you manually store a memory, rather than being overwritten by other teleport methods.
• A confirmation prompt has been added when selecting your three skills for Combatant, Craftsman, or Gatherer, letting you review and confirm your choices before locking them in.

New Player Improvements

• The "How familiar are you with Old School RuneScape?" question during character creation now has its own UI screen, featuring new progress pips.
• Returning players that have been marked as 'experienced' will skip this step automatically, jumping straight to the Gielinor Guide.
• Updated default settings for new players to improve visibility, usability, and accessibility.
• Returning and experienced players receive sensible modern defaults (longer AFK timers and interface settings).
• Tutorial Island is now a trackable miniquest with full Quest Journal integration.
• Existing players keep their progress - no replay is required.
• Improved the control guide box to update dynamically, disappear, and reappear contextually.
• NPC dialogue boxes have been rewritten for better clarity and character - NPCs tell the story, the Control Guide tells you what to do.
• Added soft yellow highlights to important NPCs, Key tutorial objects, interactable objects, and Side-panel icons.
• Woodcutting actions on Tutorial Island are now twice as fast (4 ticks instead of 8), and Fishing speed increased slightly (1 tick faster for shrimp catching).

Poll System Improvements

• The Poll System has been completely overhauled to make polling faster, smarter, and more flexible.
• Polls can now include multiple question types, including multiple choice, ranked lists, free-text, and rating-style questions.
• Greenlight and Lock-in poll types have been made more obvious, letting us explore ideas or commit to updates with more clarity.
• Polls now support formatted text, images, and in-game links for better context while voting.
• Multiple polls can now run at the same time, removing previous scheduling limits.
• Polls can be scheduled to open and close automatically, keeping everything running smoothly and on time.
• The website poll section has been redesigned to match the in-game interface, with skip votes now correctly displayed.

Other Changes

• The spooky chair can no longer be used to body block NPCs.
• The Spooky chair can now be placed in the Menagerie in your PoH.
• Players can now pierce NPC melee prayers using the Ancient Mace and Dragon Sword specials, or Veracs set effect (1/4 chance).

PvP Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A

• 539 - (US) - PvP World
• 318 - (UK) - Bounty Hunter World
• 548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
• 577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

World 569 (AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been activated with this rota.

The PvP Arena is using 'Zerker' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

Grid Master Rewards

What a week its been! Weve been glued to our screens, grinning ear to ear, watching you tackle Grid Master like its your new favourite grind. The sheer dedication, clever strategies, and moments of brilliant improvisation have been nothing short of perfection. Now the moment youve all been waiting for: the Grid Master reward shop officially opens today!

If your memorys a little fuzzy from all the grid grind, fear not - weve got a handy blog that lays out the rewards waiting for you here, but in case you need a reminder, here's what you can expect:

The Grid Tabard - A Medieval-style FashionScape with different colour variations

If you can't see the image above, click here!

The Grid Swords & Emblem - You'll finally be able to wield swords and a shield on your back!

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Login Screen Chapel Cosmetic - Decorate the Chapel in your PoH just like the iconic login screen

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Shop point changes

Now, you may notice a slight difference in cost for these rewards from what was previously advertised on the Wiki page. Along the way, we spotted a small mismatch in the cosmic order of Grid Master points vs. rewards. Previously, completing the full Grid Master challenge could earn up to 20,700 points, but Nevets shop had everything totalling 22,000 points. Which meant even the most hardcore grid-busters couldnt snag every single reward.

So, weve adjusted, and weve balanced the scales of justice to ensure all your hard work is properly rewarded. Heres the updated breakdown:

• Tabards: 750 points
• Swords & Emblems: 1,100 points each
• Scrolls: 6,000 points

With these tweaks, the total cost of everything in the shop now comes to 19,400 points. Comfortably below the maximum of 20,700.

Head to Nevet in Varrock square on any non grid master world to spend your points and grab your prizes. Weve seen your Grid Master prowess, weve loved every moment of it, and we cant wait to see the final masterpieces you show off to the world!

Grid Master Bug Fixes & Tweaks

We've also made a few adjustments based on your feedback:

• Unlocking the Grimoire now correctly grants full access to all spellbooks, including Ancient and Lunar, without needing to complete Desert Treasure I or Lunar Diplomacy.
• Fixed a bug where players couldnt claim the Ardougne Elite Diary rewards on Grid Master worlds without having 91 Smithing.
• The Minimum Potential perk now applies correctly when throwing chinchompas, ensuring all affected targets receive hits of 5 or higher.
• The Total Recall perk now only updates your saved teleport location when you manually store a memory, rather than being overwritten by other teleport methods.
• A confirmation prompt has been added when selecting your three skills for Combatant, Craftsman, or Gatherer, letting you review and confirm your choices before locking them in.

Grid Master Games - A Community Twist on Grid Master

Cant get enough of Grid Master? Neither can the community!

Thanks to the ingenuity of community creator Scritic (with a helping hand from Mr Gecko), players now have a new way to experience the event with Grid Master Games - a fan-made, points-based challenge system that extends the fun long after the main event ends.

Watch the full showcase video by Scritic here:

Play it yourself: https://gridmastergames.com/

What Is Grid Master Games?

Grid Master Games is a community-created web tool that reimagines Grid Master as a fully randomised, replayable challenge mode. Each playthrough presents a fresh set of tasks, a new scoring system, and 14 optional bonus objectives to keep things interesting.

Heres how it works:

1. Start fresh
   Youll need a new account to play. This can be a side hustle account - a forgotten Ironman, the GIM, or a main account you haven't touched in years.
2. Generate your options
   On the website, click New Game to receive three random tasks per tier: green (easy), orange (medium), and red (hard).
3. Lock in your choice
   You can only choose one of the three tasks to commit to. Harder tasks offer more points, but youll need to balance the challenge against your accounts current progress.
4. Complete or skip
   Once locked in, you must complete that task before moving on. You can choose to skip, but doing so costs points - so pick carefully.
5. Earn bonus points
   There are 14 additional tasks available for those who want to push for the highest scores and prove their mastery.

Proving Your Progress

To support fair play and community competition, players can optionally download a .journy file containing a complete log of their playthrough.

This includes rolled tasks, skips, and other non-personal data like time zone and browser information. The file is Base64-encoded so it can be safely shared on Discord or via email, and lightly transformed to prevent casual tampering.

Built by the Community, for the Community

Grid Master Games is not an official Jagex release - its a community-driven passion project designed to keep the Grid Master spirit alive. If youve finished your board but arent ready to hang up your cape just yet, this is the perfect way to keep the challenge going.

New Player Improvements

Todays update rolls out the red carpet for new adventurers setting foot in Gielinor for the very first time!

We know that Tutorial Island holds a special place in everyones heart, so don't worry, we haven't reinvented it - just given it a loving polish to help new players find their footing.

You can check out the full blog here, but for now, lets look at whats landing today!

New Player Experience Selection

Right after creating and naming your character, youll be asked a simple question:

"How familiar are you with Old School RuneScape?"

This new dedicated interface replaces the old NPC chat box and presents three big, bold buttons you can't possibly miss.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Once you choose, the game automatically applies the corresponding default settings and toggles so your early experience feels right for your level of familiarity. Weve even added progress pips across the top, so you can see how far you are through each step of character creation.

Returning players wont see this screen - if your account has already been marked as experienced, the game will automatically apply your returning-player defaults and skip straight to the Gielinor Guide.

By making the experience question impossible to miss, and presenting it in a clear, intuitive way, we can make sure every player gets the setup that suits them best, right from the start, so your adventure now starts on the right foot.

Let's take a look at the settings you can expect to be applied once you've made your choice.

Updated Default Settings

Default settings for ALL players:

• AFK Timer set to 25 minutes.
• Ground Items overlay enabled.
• Move follower options lower down: On.
• Auto-equip Worn Items from Gravestone: On.
• Highlight Agility Obstacles: On.
• Highlight Agility Shortcuts: On (based on requirements)
• Max Hitsplat threshold (the minimum max hit you'll need to see that lovely golden outline): 2.
• Loot drop notifications: On. Minimum value: 20,000 GP.
• Untradeable loot notifications: On.
• Player Attack options: Always right-click.
• NPC Attack options: Left-click where available.
• PK Skull prevention: On.
• Enable precise timing: On.
• Split friends private chat: On.
• Rune-picking behaviour: On.
• Ammo-picking behaviour: On.
• Hide roofs: On.
• Enables new-style Skill guide interfaces: On.
• Collection Log - New addition notifications: On.
• Collection Log - New addition popup: On.
• Music Volume: 10%
• Sound Volume: 20%
• Area Sound Volume: 15%
• Default Client mode: Resizable - Modern layout.
• Cannon low and no ammo notifications: On.
• Cannon low notification amount: 10.
• Chatbox Mode - Set Automatically: On.

Default Settings changes for players who tell us that they're new to the game:

• Accept Aid: On
• HiScores Minimenu Lookup: On
• Highlight Quest start points: On.
• Filter Quest start highlights based on requirements: On.
• Quest list sorting: Starter. This is a new sorting category aimed at newer players.
• Show Quests you lack the requirements for: Show as unavailable.
• Show Quests you lack the recommended stats for: Show as unavailable.

Default Settings changes for players who tell us that they're returning to the game:

• Accept Aid: On
• HiScores Minimenu Lookup: On

The Quest Journal

The heart of Old Schools adventure has always been the Quest Journal, and now new players will be introduced to it from their very first clicks.

Tutorial Island is now a fully trackable miniquest, complete with Quest Journal integration. Youll learn to follow objectives, check your progress, and get familiar with one of OSRSs most powerful tools before you even see your first Goblin.

When you talk to the Quest Guide during the tutorial, youll now unlock the Tutorial Island Quest in your Quest List. From this point on, you can open the Quest Journal at any time to review what youve learned so far, or see what comes next.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

If youve chosen the 'brand new' option during character creation, the quest appears right at the top of your list. However, for returning and experienced players, you'll find it neatly placed at the bottom to avoid clutter.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

The quest completes when you cast Wind Strike on the chicken (the most iconic rite of passage in Gielinor history), and dont worry - your Quest Capes are safe! Anyone whos already completed Tutorial Island will automatically receive credit and the 1 Quest Point reward.

Improved Control Guide & Dialogue Boxes

Weve given both the Control Guide (that handy orange instruction box in the top-right) and the Dialogue Boxes a bit of a clean-up! Together, they now provide a clearer, more intuitive learning experience that helps new players focus on what matters most - learning the ropes and enjoying the story.

A Smarter Control Guide

The Control Guide has been rebuilt from the ground up to act as your reliable companion throughout Tutorial Island.

No more disappearing tips or confusing gaps - it now follows your progress step by step, updating automatically as you move from one task to the next. When youre done with an activity, it gracefully disappears until you need it again.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

When pointing you to the next instructor, the guide now names them directly - so you can easily match them on hover. For example, 'Speak to the Survival Expert north of the house'.

From fishing and cooking to smithing and combat, the orange control box is no longer a one-off helper, but instead is your reliable teacher throughout Tutorial Island!

Streamlined Dialogue Boxes

At the same time, every NPC conversation on Tutorial Island has been rewritten to be shorter, clearer, and more characterful.

Before, dialogue boxes often tried to do too much - mixing world-building, control tips, and instructions into a single wall of text.

Now, theres a clear divide:

• Dialogue = story.
• Control Guide = instruction.
• You'll notice concise, natural phrasing across every tutor, improved pacing, removed clutter, and better flow.

NPCs now stick to their roles as teachers and storytellers, while the Control Guide handles the 'how-to' side. This means less reading, less repetition, and a more enjoyable introduction to Gielinor.

Mod Other "We didnt want to change the soul of Tutorial Island - just give it structure. The journal acts as your high-level summary, while dialogue and control guides keep the hands-on learning fun."

Together, these two systems make Tutorial Island cleaner, faster, and more readable - without losing any of that classic Old School charm.

Returning players will find the tone familiar yet snappier. New adventurers will simply find it easier than ever to understand what to do next - and hopefully fall in love with Gielinor, just as we all did.

Visual Highlights & UI Cues

To make Tutorial Island easier to follow, weve also introduced a brand-new suite of visual highlights and subtle indicators to help players see exactly what to do next.

These cues appear throughout the tutorial to make it clear which NPCs, objects, or interface buttons are part of your current task.

NPC Highlights

Every instructor you need to speak to (from the Gielinor Guide to the Magic Instructor) now receives a soft yellow outline when its time to talk to them on the Official Client. The effect fades once youve spoken to them and reappears later if you need to return.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Object & Transition Highlights

Key interactable objects, such as trees, fires, ores, doors, gates, and ladders, now glow subtly when theyre part of your next tutorial step. If two objects interact, they'll have a yellow outline to indicate their use.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

UI Highlights

When youre asked to open a side-panel (like your Inventory, Equipment, or Skills tabs), those icons now display a yellow pulsing outline. These indicators are designed to be subtle, gentle cues to help first-time players learn the flow of the tutorial. Once you open the correct tab, the highlight disappears - simple, satisfying, and clear.

Action Speed

Weve also made a few subtle but important tweaks to the pacing of early tutorial actions to make everything feel more responsive and rewarding.

Certain core activities (like Woodcutting and Fishing) now complete faster on Tutorial Island, helping new players maintain focus and quickly understand the rhythm of gathering and skilling.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Heres a quick breakdown:

• Woodcutting now takes half the time (four ticks instead of eight).
• Fishing is slightly faster by one tick, making the first catch of shrimp feel much snappier.
• Other skills, such as Mining, Cooking, Smelting, and Smithing, remain unchanged.

Dont worry - these changes only apply on Tutorial Island. The rest of Gielinor is still as grindy as ever.

Hello Home Teleport

To wrap things up, the Wizard at the end of Tutorial Island has learned a new trick, or rather, hes teaching you one!

Players are guided to open the spellbook and cast Home Teleport directly. The spells cooldown is temporarily reset for the tutorial, so you can teleport right away and stride into Lumbridge like a true adventurer.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Ironman players will be properly guided to the Ironman Tutor or Node instead, with dynamic highlights updating if you change your mind mid-step.

Now youll leave Tutorial Island knowing not just how to fish and fight, but how to find your way home too!

Poll System Improvements

Democracy just got an upgrade!

As of today, the Poll System Improvements are officially live - giving us more flexible, informative, and fancier ways to hear from you in-game.

You can check out the full deep-dive here, but if youd rather the short version: polls are still the same Old School polls you know and love: 70% pass rate, same charter, same principles, but the system behind them has levelled up. Big time.

Gradual Rollout & Live Testing

The launch of any new system can be tricky, especially one where every game world needs to talk to a separate server that manages poll data and webpages. To make sure everything runs smoothly, were rolling this one out gradually.

To start with, only staff will be able to access the new poll menus in-game while we carry out some final live checks. Once were happy everythings stable, well use hotfixes to open the poll booths for members.

Our first live poll will be a Road Test - a short run of questions that wont affect any in-game updates. In fact, most of them wont even be about the game itself. The goal is to make sure the system performs exactly as intended before we start using it for real decision-making.

Were aiming to open the Road Test poll to all members by the end of Wednesday 22nd, though well hold off if our testing uncovers any issues. Keep an eye out for the poll system's usual in-game notifications that'll tell you when it's open. The new poll webpages will also become available once their rollout is complete.

New Question Types

We can now go far beyond the humble tick box. Say hello to new question formats, including:

• Multiple choice: Pick a few favourites from a list.
• Ranked lists: Drag and drop your order of preference - like which rewards youd prioritise.
• Free-text responses: Type your thoughts directly in-game (be polite!)
• Matrix-style questions: Rate different aspects of an idea on a scale - i.e, do you strongly like, like, neutral, dislike, strongly dislike.
• Single choice: The classic Yes/No remains, because sometimes simplicity wins.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

Better Poll Formatting

Polls can now include text blocks, images, and headers - even direct links to blogs for more context. No more flipping between the game and your browser just to understand what youre voting on. Polls are now as readable and informative as a proper Old School news post - just with more voting.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

New Poll Types

Not every poll in Old School is a simple "Should we add this?" anymore, and now, the game makes that clearer than ever.

Weve updated the poll interface so you can easily see what kind of poll youre voting in - whether its a Lock-in, a Greenlight, or a casual Opinion Poll. These poll types have been part of the community process for a while, but until now, it wasnt always obvious which was which.

Heres what each means:

• Lock-in Polls: These are the commitment-style votes. If a proposal passes the 70% threshold, well go ahead and make it - unless we hit an unexpected development hurdle, in which case well explain why.
• Greenlight Polls: These are early-stage feedback polls that ask whether we should explore an idea further. If they pass, well take the concept back to the design stage and return later with a refined proposal for a proper Lock-in vote. This change doesnt alter how polling works; it just makes the process clearer and more transparent in-game, so you always know exactly what kind of decision youre helping shape.

If you can't see the image above, click here!

We can also run opinion surveys to ask you broader questions, letting you shape future updates before they're even designed. For example, a survey could ask about the storylines you'd be most excited to see us continue next. We also ask this kind of question via other platforms like Alchemer, but we hope more players will respond if they can do it from within the game's own menus, so we'll get a better sense of how you all feel.

Who Gets to Vote?

The default poll requirements still apply - youll still need 300 total level and 25 hours of playtime to take part in most votes.

Whats changing is how we use our existing targeting tools. Weve actually been able to run polls for specific player groups for quite some time (for example, Ironman-only questions), but we havent always used that feature to its full potential. Sometimes thresholds werent quite right, and sometimes players felt unfairly excluded from votes about content they might try one day.

Going forward, were improving how we manage and communicate these targeted polls. That means ensuring players always know upfront who qualifies and why.

Some examples of what we may target include:

• Asking only players whove defeated a boss to rate its drop table
• Getting feedback from Skillers on new gathering methods

These refinements help us balance expert insight with community-wide sentiment, while keeping the polling process clear, fair, and representative of the players most affected by each question.

Scheduling, Automation & Multiple Polls

We can now run multiple polls at once, schedule polls to open and close automatically, and even tease upcoming polls in advance so you can see whats coming. That means no more waiting weeks for one poll to finish before another can start!

A Fresh Look

The poll interface (both in-game and on the website) has had a well-earned glow-up. Poll results now display identically across game and web, including proper handling of skip votes (finally!).

Behind the scenes, the system is far more robust, drastically reducing the chance of poll data getting corrupted or lost.

The beating heart of Old School remains the same: if its coming into the game, it needs 70% of your votes. However, now, we can ask smarter questions, run polls with ease, and make it better than ever for your voice to shape the future of Gielinor.

Merch

US Merch Store Reopens

Good news for our American Scapers! The US Merch Store is back!

Our merch partner had to temporarily close the store after changes to US customs rules came into effect on August 29th, but were pleased to confirm that orders can now be placed again. There are a few changes to be aware of if youre shopping from the States:

U.S. Customs now requires duties to be prepaid, which means youll see these clearly calculated at checkout.

All US orders will be sent via DHL tracked. The team are still working with Royal Mail and hopes to bring back a cheaper, non-tracked option in the future.

We know shipping from the UK isnt ideal. Work is already underway on a proper long-term solution that would see US orders fulfilled from a warehouse closer to home.

To help ease the sting of these new duties and shipping changes, we've put together some special bundles and offers on popular items where possible.

Other Changes

• The spooky chair can no longer be used to body block NPCs.
• The Spooky chair can now be placed in the Menagerie in your PoH.
• Players can now pierce NPC melee prayers using the Ancient Mace and Dragon Sword specials, or Veracs set effect (1/4 chance).

Community Discord Event

JMod Wars

Join us for another round of JMod Castle Wars action!

If you can't see the image above, click here!

When?

• Friday, October 24th
• 4:00-5:00 PM BST (Massing from 3:45 PM be ready! 14.45 UTC / 10.45 ET / 07:45 PT / 01:45 AET)

Where?

• The official OSRS Discord - Streamed on a stage for anyone who wants to just watch the chaos!
• World 522

What?

We're flipping your classic Castle Wars experience on its head and unleashing some chaos.

Two J-Mods, Mod Nerco and Mod Rach, will join the fray as each team's unkillable, flag-thieving behemoths. These arent just mascots theyre mobile mega Mods with 1,000,000 Hit points and a dream!

The plan?

As soon as the game starts, the enemy J-Mod will teleport into your base to steal your flag. Your team must stop them at all costs, while also escorting your own J-Mod and their mountain of hitpoints back to safety. The JMods will have a few tricks up their sleeve - so watch out.

Bring your gear, bring your A-game, and get ready for the most absurd Castle Wars match youve ever seen!

PvP World Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

• 539 - (US) - PvP World
• 318 - (UK) - Bounty Hunter World
• 548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
• 577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

World 569 (AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been activated with this rota.

The PvP Arena is using 'Zerker' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

You can also discuss this update on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

Mods Abe, Abyss, Acorn, Ape, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blighted, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Curse, Daizong, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Freddie, Fuzz, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grace, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Ivory, Jalo, Jamesy, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Mobius, Moogle, Morty, Moz, Necro, Nin, Nixon, Nox, Nylu, Ori, Other, Otter, Philomel, Pork, Pumpkin, Puppi, Rach, Redfield, Rice, Roq, Roy, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Schmidt, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Spyro, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titania, Titus, TJ, Tomb, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume

The Old School Team.