The Open Beta started on 2 March 2015 and is used to test various game changes prior to their addition to the live game. While there is only a member's server, both F2P and P2P are able to login. There is both an armour and a weapons trader in Lumbridge, handing out free equipment for players to test with.

Changes

From 2 March 2015 until 31 March 2015, the following changes were being tested:

• Legacy/EOC Mashup: combining the legacy interface with the Evolution of Combat combat mode and vice-versa.
• Melee 2H Improvements
  • Quake now deals 219% damage to the main target
  • Hurricane will now hit twice on the main target
  • Meteor Strike will now deal AOE damage to nearby opponents
  • Meteor Strike no longer requires the opponent to have more than 50% lifepoints.
  • Barge will now apply a 1.2 second bind on an opponent
  • Barge no longer shares a cooldown with surge
  • Barge with no target will no longer perform surge. This will be changed to use the targeting cursor in a future update
• Legacy Soul Split Healing: the healing cap is removed in the Legacy combat mode.
• PvP Focused Changes
  • Disabling prayers has been removed from Snipe, Dragonbreath and Havoc
  • Basic stuns now last for 1.2 seconds
  • Basic and threshold stuns no longer share a cooldown
  • Eating food in PvP in non-Legacy combat mode will drain adrenaline instead of invoking global cooldown

From 31 March 2015 until TBD, the following changes were being tested:

• Death Rework: Players will now respawn in Death's realm with the ability to buy back their lost items for 24 hours, should they decide not to return to their gravestone before it expires.
• New Looting Mechanic: Players may now use a looting interface to pick up various objects. This can be customised in the Gameplay settings interface, such as enabling the ability to use area looting.
• Bank tabs': Players may now drag and drop to reorganise their bank tabs.
• Legacy/EOC Mashup: Interfaces have been decoupled from combat modes, so now you can play with Legacy interfaces and EOC combat, or with the new customisable interfaces and Legacy combat. Choose your preference in the game settings menu.
• Combat Improvements:
  • Quake now deals 219% damage to the main target
  • Hurricane will now hit twice on the main target, dealing up to 219% on first strike and up to 176% on second strike
  • Meteor strike will now deal AOE damage to nearby opponents
  • Meteor strike no longer requires the opponent to have less than 50% lifepoints.
  • Barge will now apply a 1.2 second bind on an opponent
  • Barge no longer shares a cooldown with surge
  • Barge with no target will no longer perform surge. This will be changed to use the targeting cursor in a future update
  • Shadow Tendrils has had some of it's top end damage shaved off in PvP, lowering its max hit to 450% (down from 500%)
  • Basic stuns now last for 1.2 seconds
  • Basic and threshold stuns no longer share a cooldown
  • Basic stun abilities will no longer trigger diminishing returns.
  • Diminishing returns on stun drop off has been increased to 30s from 15s.
  • Asphyxiate/Destroy now deal a 3.6s stun at the start of the ability.
  • Disabling prayers has been removed from Snipe, Dragonbreath and Havoc
  • Protection prayers now reduce the incoming PvP damage against your target by 35%. All other sources are 50% protection. Devotion still buffs this to 75%.
  • Players will now be immune from further prayer disables for 20 seconds after getting their prayers disabled in PvP.
  • Eating food in PvP in non-Legacy combat mode will drain adrenaline by 5% instead of invoking global cooldown.
  • Saradomin brews now reduce adrenaline by 2.5% in EoC PvP. (Legacy and PvM are unaffected)
  • The Soul Split healing hard and soft-cap have both been removed in Legacy combat mode, in an effort to bring 2H Soul Split Healing in Legacy in line with others.

In the future, the following changes will be tested:

• Runescape Mobile.

Rewards

The Gamebreaker title can be rewarded to players who go above and beyond testing the beta.

Gallery

The login background for the 2015 Open Beta

The login background with the Dimension of Disaster theme

One of the tested features in the Open Beta

One of the tested features in the Open Beta

How the lobby banner looks like in beta.

External Links

• Open Beta