Yeah, I know. You saw the Player Owned House improvements by the Runescape Ninja Team and thought, “Ho boy, Alex is going to flip out at this one”. And I would. Most certainly I would. I know this because I did. But, I was scolded more than once by Shane with a reminder that I had to remain professional, and I took the lesson to heart (he used a lamp shade and a bowl of oatmeal… *shudder*). So, I did all my flipping out in my own time (took a couple days to get it out of my system) so I can write more… heh heh… “professionally” to you, my beloved and slightly gullible audience.

Amidst my flipping out, I was able to actually partake in the construction update itself. To be fair, it wasn’t anything huge or anything. Basically, aside from a few extra conveniences throughout the skill, the big update was that we could now customize our ground and wall textures. Oh, and we can also change the outer lighting. You do all this by chatting with the estate agent. Glad the poor guy gets a little more attention. For being the starting force behind your player owned house, he kind of gets neglected after your first few levels and investments. Then, once your house is in Yanille and make of fancy stone, you never see him again. His work is done.

The wall textures are more or less the same as the originals. However, the ground doesn’t change whenever you modify them anymore. Instead, you can choose the ground separately into one of five themes; which includes a couple interesting new ones like “barren earth” and “tundra”. Whitewashed stone in the desert? Yup. A fancy stone house in the mud? You bet! Fancy a tropical wood house atop a cool tundra stonework? Well, now you’re being weird.

Dungeon walls can now be customized too with some brand new textures! Finally! Started getting a bit dull having a similar looking dungeon to everybody else. Now we can have a similar looking dungeon to only a sixth of everybody else!

Alas, we don’t get any new textures with this update; the themes have just been split up. But if you think about it, you kind of do. When you originally decorated the house, the dungeon updated with the theme, and you needed quite a high level to even see a dungeon, so because very few players redecorated their house after getting what they wanted earlier on, very few players got to see all the different types of dungeons unless they went to other friends’ houses.

Lastly, the lighting. Wow, the lighting! Sure you can update the wall textures, but if you want your house to really have a powerful mood, make sure you match it up with the ideal lighting. For example, try fancy stone at dusk, or dark stone at night. … colourful. Though it’s not too exciting for dungeons or inside the house, it does give the gardens and menagerie a bit of a new life. I hope that with the night lighting, we’ll be able to construct lanterns and lighting features in our gardens one day.

Also, besides splitting up the different kinds of home decorations, there were a few extra conveniences added to construction.

For example, there’s an update that included having the option to move your existing aquarium or games room should you attempt to build another, similar to how you can move the costume room. Good thing, too, because it would’ve been a nightmare if you had to remove the costume room to move it. That would’ve involved you having to take out every single last garment you have stored.

Another really nice update is that your POH gets cached better after entering, so re-entering it for construction training doesn’t take nearly as long. This means faster dragon bone runs and construction training! …and rapid-fire party crashing, if you’re going to be THAT guy.

Lastly, you can now toggle building mode on the entrance portal instead of having to hunt through the game options for that button. Seriously, can we get an in-game window for that stuff again?

So yeah, that’s it. A few cosmetics and conveniences. Not exactly the total redux I was kinda slightly hoping for, but this is a heck of a step forward in the right direction!

Until next time,

Cheers, cannoneers!