PvP worlds have arrived! Are you ready to pit your combat skills against other players in the halls of the White Knights’ Castle? Are you prepared to fight to the death in the fields of Lumbridge? Well, now is your chance.

To get started, load up the game like normal (click here to read about the changes to the log-in system we’ve also released today), and then choose ‘World Select’ on the title screen. Then pick a world which has a tick in the ‘skull’ column to choose a PvP world. To avoid nasty accidents, if you let the game choose a world for you automatically it will never select a PvP world. Also note that you require a Combat level of at least 20 (not including Summoning) to get into a PvP world.

Before you are logged in, you will be warned that you are entering a PvP world which is a dangerous place: you will lose your items on death and you will not get a gravestone. Upon entering the world for the first time, you’ll be teleported to Lumbridge and given a manual to explain the finer points of PvP worlds.

Here’s a quick run-down of the features:

* Fight players (within your level range) anywhere on the map, except in a few safe areas.
* Safe areas include banks, respawn points and some guilds.
* Level ranges are 10% of your Combat level, plus 5 levels. If you are fighting inside the Wilderness, the Wilderness level is added to this total. Your current attack range is shown on your screen at all times. (The 10% is measured from the higher of the two combatants’ levels.)
* Skulling is back – same rules apply. If you initiate combat, you are skulled and on death you will lose all items, with the Protect Item prayer saving one item as normal.
* Teleport Block is back in the normal spellbook.
* Some minigames are available to play, others are not – please see the Game Guide for more details.
* Death drops are back – new rules apply. Drops will be a mixture of items from the defeated opponent’s inventory and items from drop tables specific to PvP worlds. See below for details.

The quality of the drops you get when you PK someone depends on several different factors:

* To get a reward from a kill, you also have to risk some items yourself!
* To accumulate a possible reward, you have to risk a minimum of 75k of items on a members’ world, or a minimum of 25k of items on a free world.
* Note that your three most valuable items won’t count as being risked unless you’ve been skulled, as you wouldn’t lose them.
* The longer you spend on a PvP world (outside a safe area) with the required amount of items at risk, the better your possible rewards might become, to reward you for your risk.
* The possible reward increases even faster and goes to a higher maximum if you go into a ‘hot zone’.
* Note, however, that risking more than the minimum won’t improve your rewards faster, so it’s a good idea to take relatively cheap and useful items that won’t cost you too much to replace if you die.

When you get a successful kill, the exact reward you can claim depends on a number of other factors, including the level difference between you and the value of the items lost by the dying player. Any unclaimed loot is saved for the next kills, so you don’t have to worry about it being lost if you kill a low level player.

Don’t despair if you are dying a lot and losing a lot of items. The game will detect this and improve your chance of getting decent rewards when you do eventually get a good kill.

The above is a simplified description of how it all works. To prevent cheating there are various other factors taken into account. We’ve calculated the rewards and rates very carefully, so that a successful PKer should be able to get a good income, and PKers who get lucky might find themselves with a good drop. Higher level players may also get higher rewards to reflect their increased earning ability when not PKing, such that PKing is still worthwhile for them. The aim is to make PKing a fun alternative (albeit very high risk) way of earning money in the game.

Included in the PvP-specific drop tables is a wide range of new combat equipment and XP-boosting gloves. Members will get access to level 78 items for all three corners of the combat triangle, including armour as well as weapons, and a new set of Ancient Magick spells. Non-members will get access to corrupt dragon equipment. To find out more about these items, please visit the Game Guide.

Have fun PKing!

Mod Benny

RuneScape Content Developer

In other news…

We’ve changed the way your Combat level is calculated, so that PKers aren’t discouraged from levelling Summoning. It seemed a bit unfair that Summoning increased your Combat level everywhere but couldn’t actually be used everywhere. Therefore, your Summoning is now only counted into your Combat level if you have recently summoned a creature or held a Summoning pouch. When you log in, you will see that your Combat level has been split into two numbers (e.g. ’75+6′). The first number is your base Combat level, and the second is the potential extra available from Summoning. If you’re holding a Summoning pouch or have a familiar, this potential will be added on taking you to your full level.

For example, if you are level 55, this might be shown as follows:

* Without a familiar, a Summoning pouch, or having dropped a pouch recently: level 50+5
* With a familiar, a Summoning pouch, or having dropped a pouch recently: level 55

Players in the same clan chat channel will now appear as purple dots on the minimap. This is the second highest priority after friends (green) and before other players wearing the same team capes (blue). Note: Being in the same clan won’t remove the default attack option in the same fashion as a team cape!

Bogrog has expanded his enterprises even further and will now convert your spare Summoning spell scrolls to shards in a similar way to his already popular pouches to shards service.

The beacons scattered throughout the wilderness will now remember how many logs you’ve stored at each even after an emergency has arisen (quite literally).

The reward gloves from Fist of Guthix can now be used to pick nettles without injury. Also the Fishing gloves will now give the bonus experience for swordfish in Piscatoris.

Don’t get your feathered headdresses all ruffled. You can now craft these useful bits of headwear using the Assist System in addition to the traditional way.

The Corporeal beast has become wise to your tricks and has gained a stomp attack that hurts players standing underneath him. Watch out!

… yeah, unfortunately, I don’t PK. It’s just not in me to risk it all to make others lose it all. That, and I’m horrible at it. Honestly, I don’t like gambling all that much, even if there’s untold riches and benefits from it.

So instead, I’m going to turn you all over for a better in-depth analysis by someone who does it to blow some steam off and make heads roll (strangely enough he’d rather keep them then the drops …): Dex!

Z z z z … z z z z …

… Dex? DEX!

Z z- ug … yeah, what?

Um … write the article about the new PKing worlds?

You woke me up for THAT?!? Geez! Wake me in September, will ya?

… please? You’ve been there! You know what it is all about!

Seriously, what’s to even WRITE about? It’s nothing new, just a reminiscence of the past revived from the public demand to satisfy all.

Well, write about that, then!

… … you owe me a good dinner. Something with chicken, and lots of it. And no garlic.

Deal. … wait, no “garlic”?

Just make sure there’s meat …

All right, then. What’s happening here? Well, basically, Jagex STOLE a bunch of clan home-worlds (nyeah nyeah) and turned them into a darker, twisted version where once you log in, you have a couple of minutes to get yourself into position, be it at a bank or a food store, and then all heck breaks loose upon you. Anybody whose combat level is not colored white can (and most likely will) attack you, so make sure you set your spawn to Camelot or Falador if you want to save yourself from having to travel a lot. In a nutshell, it is just like how Runescape was back in the old days, except you no longer have a limited number of times to change between PK and non-PK.