Opinion: Old School Runescape's New Sailing Skill

Old School Runescape released its first new skill after running for 12 years 12 days ago, in which time I’ve played most of the new content. This includes completing the four new quests, playing the three barracuda trials, and charting the entire ocean. Here, I’ll document the thoughts, feelings and experiences I’ve had since setting sail nearly 2 weeks ago.

Launch Day

Upon logging in on Wednesday the 19th and heading over to Port Sarim to begin the first new quest, Pandemonium, I was able to board an NPC-owned ship and sail to the new starting area for the new skill, which the quest is named after. Having been trialled by players beforehand in several open tests, the ship controlled satisfyingly and moved in a believable way.

During this early play time, I was immediately struck by the quality of the new audio tracks. As somebody who enjoys the style and feel of the music in this game, I felt both that the new music was enjoyable to listen to (Yo Ho Ho!, a bouncy jig which plays while on the Pandemonium, became an instant classic for me), and that it fit in perfectly with the existing library of music tracks.

The early pre-barracuda trials experience gained mostly through charting the seas and port tasks, which are generally agreed to be essentially Amazon/FedEx on water, felt somewhat underwhelmingly slow on release day. This was quickly remedied, however, as I played through these parts again the next day on my Ironman account after the bond ran out on my main, and found it much smoother and more satisfying.

Quests

I found that the quests were paced well throughout the levelling journey to mix up the training methods with story content, as well as unlock additional sea charting methods to evolve how the seas are charted with each one.

Pandemonium

This quest is the first introduction to the sailing skill at level 1. It introduces the player to the mechanics of controlling ships, to the starting area of the same name, and allows the player to get their hands on their first vessel - the raft.

Prying Times

This one takes place at level 12 sailing, after the player has had some time to get to grips with sailing their raft. It involves the player making a scripted delivery from Port Sarim, ensuring they have a solid grasp of this basic mechanic, and visiting an old favourite character in an irreverant short story event, in which they gain access to a new sailing tool the crowbar, which allows them to pry open sealed crates around the open world seas, and sample the alcoholic contents within, often with humourous results.

Unlocking the crowbar, as with all subsequent tool unlocks, encourages the player to revisit seas already charted to further their progress toward charting the entire ocean. This can be made more lucrative by taking on port deliveries to ports in said seas to almost passively gain experience along the way.

Current Affairs

Another humourous and irreverent quest taking place in the long-beloved town of Catherby. This one unlocks the current duck: a live duck which can be released at locations in the open world where ripples are visible on the water. For each of these, the duck is released and must be followed to its destination, granting experience from the knowledge imparted by the duck’s path through the currents.

I found this mechanic enjoyable enough to not get boring over the course of charting the entire ocean, although I have heard other players writing it off as boring and tedious content.

Troubled Tortugans

The final quest takes place at level 45 sailing, introducing the much anticipated landmass The Great Conch, and its Tortugan inhabitants. It introduces the lore of the island and grants the player access to it and its resources, including new Jatoba and Camphor trees for the woodcutting skill, with camphor wood being used alongside adamantite in shipbuilding, and Gryphons and the Shellbane Gryphon for the slayer skill, with the Shellbane Gryphon dropping a new midgame stab weapon.

The new island is beautiful, and the plot leaves me curious about what will be next for the Tortugans, and how my character will gain further acceptance from them, in order to access some of the restricted parts of the Great Conch.

Sea Charting

After the quests are finished, the nine exploreable oceans remain to be charted: the remainder of the Ardent Ocean, which is between the Kharidian desert and the Feldip hills, and where all of the content so far has been, as well as the eight others in the new areas to the South and West, as well as between the existing areas between Tirannwn and Zeah and the various Fremmenik- and Troll-populated areas to the North.

Two charting methods are unlocked outside of quests: diving with mermaid guides and charting weather patterns for the meteorologist troll Meaty Aura Logist, at level 38 and 57 sailing respectively.

The mermaid guides require solving cryptic word puzzles before diving and, disappointingly for some, don’t show the sea bed. I found most of these too cryptic to solve and relied on the excellent OSRS Wiki for the answers.

Charting weather patterns require using the portable weather station provided by the troll to measure the circular path of the wind, and find the centre. By the time I got to this level, the sailing plugin for RuneLite was able to show the solutions for these, which I am glad of because of the precision required for the game to recognise that the player is in the centre of the weather pattern. The radius could do with being increased, and I wouldn’t be eager to try solving more of these without this change.

While exploring the Western Ocean, I first heard my favourite new music track: A Sailor’s Dream, composed by Alan Walker, an artist I’m not too familiar with but know some of my friends are big fans. It’s exciting that Jagex managed to get an artist of this calibre on board with the project, especially for the publicity the game will receive as a result.

Barracuda Trials

The Barracuda Trials are the high-attention, high experience activity, described by Jagex as the sailing counterpart to agility’s Hallowed Sepulchre. They are refreshingly forgiving for the purpose of getting experience, as experience is still granted even when the target time was not achieved, but the later trials can be extremely frustrating when trying to earn the rewards for achieving the times, not helped by the fact that the sailing code seems to need some post-release optimisation, suggested by many players, including myself, experiencing reduced framerate and dead clicks when many players are playing the trials.

Achieving the top rank, Marlin, in these trials unlocks a flag which is flown at the rear of the player’s boat to signal their skill to others. This feels rewarding in a similar way to untradeable cape slot items equipped by the player that signal their mastery over PvM content.

The Tempor Tantrum

I found this first trial to be the perfect balance between too easy and too frustrating - once I got to grips with the intended approach, I was able to achieve the Marlin rank after a few attempts without a guide, and racked up a satisfying chunk of experience during those attempts.

The Storm Tempor, in which this trial takes place, is an opportunity well taken to flesh out the storm introduced with the third group skilling boss Tempoross. I enjoyed exploring the course and seeing the island on which Tempoross is fought in the middle.

The Jubbly Jive

This was the first point in this content that I experienced real frustration. I found the mechanics unintuitive to begin with, but figured it out before long; this would have been acceptable on its own. What made it aggravating was the aforementioned optimisation issues, causing me to often get half way around the course before realising the I hadn’t quite sailed in range of a crate or pillar, despite it appearing that I had. This may be a problem that will fix itself when the there are less players playing the content. As it stands, I don’t plan to revisit it on this account having achieved Marlin rank, and I dread the idea of potentially having to play this content again on another account.

While the Feldip Hills and ogres are far from my favourite content in the game from a lore perspective, the course fits the theme of the area and doesn’t look or feel out of place.

The Gwenith Glide

While the mechanics are more intuitive than the Jubbly Jive, and I experienced less performance issues here, the hitboxes still feel frustrating on this course and the target times feel very strict, and this is the only trial I haven’t yet achieved the marlin rank for.

It looks great though, and the crystal-flecked sea design fits the area near Prifddinas nicely.

Sea Combat and Bounties

I tried two bounties early on, one for bull sharks and one for terns, and found it unsatisfying — combat quickly chews through cannonballs for a disappointingly low amount of damage. Perhaps this will be better at a higher level with better cannons and cannonballs; I will find out when I grind out high-tier dragon boat components from high-level sea creatures later on.

Ship Building

I like the pace and feel of upgrades throughout the levelling process, as the requirements for surviving various hazards and unlocking various areas make certain milestones feel good when reached. There is a good mix of existing materials required, some of which being under-utilised before the release of sailing, and new sailing-specific materials such as the logs and planks from the new trees.

Based on the short time I played the sailing content with my main account, I personally found the Ironman play style to be preferable, as it encourages engaging with the new content, rather than bypassing it by buying materials from the grand exchange.

Closing Thoughts

Sailing has been some of the most fun I have had with the game recently. Charting the new areas in the previously unused seas around the game world feels really good, and the new music brings the whole experience together. The issues, particularly with the combat and barracuda trials, are frustrating, but Jagex have an excellent track record for listening to players and adapting according to feedback, and with more sailing updates planned I have no doubt that they will be ironed out over the coming months.

I feel this has been a very successful launch, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from players overall. Most of the negative feedback I have heard is due to it not directly benefitting players’ content of choice, but most of us have enjoyed it largely as an independent experience within the existing world, that makes it feel more complete and varied. Future content, such as the planned sailing raid, will likely bridge this gap.

I think this expansion should be studied by game designers and developers as an example of how a dedicated team of developers, who are themselves fans and players of the content, can introduce an update with entirely new gameplay and themes to an existing game in a way that doesn’t negatively disrupt players, while making the old and the new feel greater than the sum of their parts.