OSRS New Death Mechanics Incoming

Hey everyone,

For those of you that aren't aware, new death mechanics will be implemented to OSRS on Thursday during the usual update time. You can read about these changes here.

Before this update, we would have an hour to retrieve items on death without paying a fee. When Jagex made these changes, they were only meant to be temporary due to a high likelihood of server disconnections at the time, but stayed implemented for years.

Starting Thursday, the new death mechanics include the introduction of Gravestones and the Death Office for OSRS. Basically, on a PvM death, you will have 15 minutes to return to your gravestone to retrieve your items (timer pauses if you disconnect/log out from the game). After that, your items will be transferred to the deaths office (conveniently located near respawn locations). Note that recovering common/cheap items from Gravestones and the Death Office will be free, but more valuable items will require GP to be reclaimed (example - 1k GP fee for an item worth 100K, 100k GP fee for an item with 10M GP). Thankfully you won't need GP in your inventory to reclaim items, you can reclaim items with the GP stored in your bank. Also note, there will be a 50% reduction fee for ironmen - note ultimate ironmen will not be receiving these new death mechanics.

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about these changes yet (time will tell =p), but I do believe something needed to be done with the old death mechanic system. Some of the changes I am very happy with though are the changes to deaths on instances. Before this update, you would lose items on death in instances that did not have a reclaim items chest or a way to retrieve items, but now Gravestones will appear outside of instances so that the owner can retrieve them. Note that areas that have NPCs to reclaim items for a fee such as instances like Vorkath and Volcanic Mine will be the same/not see these changes. Zulrah however, will have a 100k fee to reclaim items after death if the player has at least 50 kill count on the boss.

There are a few other changes you should be aware about, so I highly recommend reading the "Death Changes" post I linked above, also found on the OSRS website.

I'm curious to hear how everyone is anticipating these changes. Hopefully this post will help some people be less "surprised" after their first death once the update is live!

This is good to know, Tin

I'm not so sure about this either, but like you said, only time will tell!

Thanks for the awesomely informative writeup, Tinn! I honestly had no idea the update was being implemented this soon. Only realized when I logged in and everybody was talking about it.

Now, I'm not condemning these changes right from the get-go, but I'm kind of curious as to whether anyone actually asked for this. Seems like it's going to needlessly punish people who die due to disconnects, Jagex server shenanigans included.

I agree regarding the changes to instanced bosses, however. Not fair that people should lose millions in hard earned gear simply due to a disconnect. Though, Lokandur made a good point when we were chatting about it earlier; how many bosses are actually instanced, and who actually stands to benefit from this? I can certainly see it being useful at Skotizo and Kraken. Lots of people killing those at any given time. Corp as well. Sometimes people use the paid instance to avoid crashers, especially doing solos. But, what else aside from those few? Would have made just as much sense to work on those individually.

At any rate, doesn't really matter what I think. I don't do a ton of PvM myself. Community response on the whole will dictate whether this lasts or not, I think.

Thank you again for the info. Good to know what to expect!

Thanks for the update!

Interesting to see gravestones are making a return, quite nostalgic

as someone that came from RS3 I can't help but feel that this is a bit of a copy/paste from there, I guess time will tell how this update is received.