Kevin♫

The New Interface System Beta was opened up to all members a couple of weeks ago and it's been great to see so many of you trying it out and giving us some excellent feedback.

The feature request we’ve had more than any other is to add keybinding to the NIS, so that you can use keyboard shortcuts to open interfaces. It's a perfect fit for the New Interface System, so we've now added the function to the NIS Beta.

The keyboard is now yours to freely customise. We’ve opened up almost all of the interface’s functionality for you to map to the keys you want. This means you can open your backpack with B, access your prayers with P or home teleport with a T - the choice is yours! We’ll keep the F keys (F1, F2, F3, etc) for our new management windows, and you’ll always be able to access options and log out via the Escape button, but everything else is yours to define.

So, to summarise:

• You now have a customisable loadout of keyboard shortcuts for the most common action interfaces. Press Escape and select the 'Controls' option to start setting up your preferred keybinds.
  
• The F keys have fixed shortcuts that open the main management interfaces.

This is different than what you’ll be used to in the live game, so if you’re a member make sure you log in, give it a go and your say on our dedicated feedback forums. Experiment with different shortcuts, customise to your heart’s content and then let us know what you think before it goes live with RuneScape 3.

The New Interface System’s design is driven by you - the players - so thanks again to everyone who has tried it out and given their feedback. We look forward to hearing what you’ve got to say to about this latest update.

The RuneScape Team

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For our 50th Behind the Scenes video, we caught up with Mod Chris L and Mod Avatar to talk about what's coming with next week's combat update: instanced God Wars, and updates to hit chances and the armour system:



Don't forget that there's still time to vote on which of the following quest series you'd like to see continued: Pirates, Gnomes or Dwarves:



Discuss this - or any Behind the Scenes video - right here.

Paul M and the Video Team

Miners throughout Gielinor are uncovering a mysterious new element: starlight ore, as well as even more precious and rare starborn diamonds. On top of that, monsters have been dropping blueprints for extraordinary new starfire weapons.

For the next twelve days, most mining tasks in the game will have a chance to yield the ore needed to forge these spectacular new weapons. The blueprints can be obtained as drops from most monsters in the game, and - for members - there's a chance to pick up the diamonds when mining, too.

You can also pick up starlight ore, the blueprints and starborn diamonds on the Squeal of Fortune during this time.

Ivar at the Artisans' Workshop can forge the new weapons for you, in exchange for the necessary ore and blueprints. If you're a RuneScape member, he can also embed a a starborn diamond into any starfire weapon, upgrading it to an amazing starfury weapon.

You’ll find starlight ore, starborn diamonds ,blueprints and even starfury weapons on the Squeal of Fortune and across Gielinor between Friday 26th April 00:00 GMT and Monday 6th May 23:59 GMT.

Any unused ore, blueprints and diamonds will disappear from the game on Monday 20th May. You’ll be reminded of this in game, during the preceding week.

You can purchase spins here, or by clicking ‘Add Spins’ in the Squeal of Fortune interface. Don’t forget that members get two daily spins instead of one, and can wield the mighty starfury weapons!

For further details - or if you have any other questions - take a look at our FAQ.

The RuneScape Team

Discuss this here.

Fan Art Competition

To celebrate the launch of our You Choose the Content! video last week, we're calling all artists to send in artwork of the characters, areas and moments from those particular quests you want to see made next. You could help gain extra votes for your chosen quest and win some in-game rewards too!

Check the forum thread for details.

Events

Last weekend saw a deluge of players descend upon Ice Mountain for this year’s RuneScape Gathering (much to the confusion of the Oracle, who didn’t see them coming). Loads of you turned up to meet your favourite video makers, and a great time was had by all! Here are some screenshots taken by Mod Seven, Jenul and Collin892:





Skillers should head over to RuneHQ to get involved in the next Skilling Competition! This week’s theme is cooking, so don your chef’s hats and head on over to the RuneHQ forums to sign up.

Speaking of skill competitions, RSBandB have chosen Slayer as their ‘Skill of the Month’ for May. There is still time to register your interest, so head over to their site to get involved.

Fansite

We mentioned this last week, but there’s still time to enter Sal’s Summer Banner Competition! The closing date is Sunday May 5th, so get those entries in and you could see your work up in lights at the top of a popular RuneScape fan site!

Community Video

Mystery and intrigue abound in this new machinima series from TheChaoticBlade! Check out the first episode, which is entitled The Dark Ocean Part 1: Raan.



That’s all for this week. Be sure to check out the comment thread below and let us know what you think. As always, please continue to send all of your creations, events and news to us here at the Community Team. You could be featured in a future issue!

Thanks, and have a great week!

Mod Seven and the RuneScape Community Team

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The alpha version of our New Interface System (NIS) is now available to Gold and Silver Premier Club members, as well as a newly selected group of members who registered their interest in the RuneScape Beta Programme.

If you have access, you're ready to start trying out the customisation features and other improvements that the new interface system brings. First off, though, we'd suggest watching our bonus Behind The Scenes walkthrough video, filled with tips from Mod ThatJim on how to get started:



After that, log in by clicking here, then clicking the 'go to beta' button and logging in with your usual details. Please note: if you're eligible for the just the alpha, you'll be taken there automatically. If you're eligible for both the NIS Alpha and the HTML5 Beta, though, you'll be given a choice of which to log into.

You'll be given a choice of presets so you can start with something that you're used to, and from there you'll be free to tweak, reorganise and experiment to your heart's content.

You'll also notice some tweaks to the camera system. The angle from which your character can be viewed is slightly lower than in the live game, and you can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel for a much closer view than before. Play around with this and let us know what you think.

For now, the alpha is running on the Java client on dedicated servers with a separate game save to the live game. Your existing game save will be imported the first time you log into the alpha.

As we're at alpha stage, there will be glitches, performance issues and bugs. Please report these via the in-game bug reporting system, as it'll be a huge help in our ongoing development and testing.

What's most important to us, though, is your feedback. We're really pleased with how the new interface system is shaping up, but there are as many ways to play RuneScape as there are players. Try to find the best way to customise the interface for your play style, and experiment with different setups for different parts of the game. If there's something you want to do but can't, or if there's something could be made easier, let us know on the dedicated NIS Feedback & Discussion forums, set up for those with access to the alpha. Using your feedback, we are building an interface system that'll let you play your way.

As with the HTML5 Beta, we'll be expanding the group of selected members over the course of the alpha, so don't worry if you didn't get in right away - we'll let you know if you're chosen. Later, we'll also be making the New Interface System available for all members to try before its full release.

Any questions? Take a look at our FAQ or our wiki page.

Enjoy!

The RuneScape Team

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