Jagex Released A Sailing Update and Players Are KNOT Happy! 

My opinion is that sailing's main purpose can't be travel. The only way it will thrive is if the point is exploration; that is, the seas are filled with new places worth travelling to that can only be reached via sailing, not teleports. As such, the gameplay loop ironically benefits more from less interaction with the existing map, and this is a big reason why courier tasks that use places we already know won't feel fulfilling.

"Ahoy there! *sigh* its not a good start boys" hahahaha

My 10th great grandfather was captured off the English coast and pressed into Spanish naval service, so I guess I won't be the first person in my family to go sailing against my will.

Shamanism actually felt like a skill. Sailing is a minigame with extra steps.

This feels like a skill that needed to already have been here for it to work. Like i could see a case for the skill being needed to navigate to lunar isles or crondor or other islands we sail too currently. But we already have boats to everywhere

I’m trying to be optimistic about sailing but everything just seems more like a chore then an fun activity

"Welcome to sailing, here's your fuckin doordash bag go deliver bullshit"

jagex really the type of people who take a simple april fools joke so seriously over a decade later

I'm looking forward to sailing, don't know why people seem so against it

I think so many are knot happy because people think this is actually what sailing will look like. They basically haven't made any content yet, it's just engine work so the boat can move.

I still don't understand how sailing won the poll last year, this is exactly what I imagined sailing would entail and it sounds brain numbing. Jagex doesn't need a whole skill to add more islands and areas to the game.

Wow why couldn’t we get another fun skill like fletching, cooking, crafting or runecrafting???

I'm excited for sailing.

Beyond annoyed that sailing was even an option

Condor should do a whole stream as Ryan Ryan playing RS3. Clip farming would be an understatement 😂

I would still like to have some sort of ship/shipwreck studying. A more afk method, you study shipwrecks, or even actual boats, to learn methods of building or navigating them(lore) but it's mostly click study gain xp, click another part, etc. Have it give some rare bp to build ship parts like, "Eureka! you figured out a new design" or you find a good usable bit for something.. Could add a tiny sailing xp method shipping trawler, as in you help drive the boat in better water.

courier tasks could be fun. you can't just teleport since it would be mass quantities of items or supplies right?

Isn't this just Fishing Trawler the skill?

They could tie sailing into a good way to get clue scrolls, message in a bottle clue scrolls you find while you're sailing or something, maybe even untradeable QOL items too

I completely disagree with the travelling aspect being a problem, as long as the game play itself is engaging/rewarding. I've played games like Valheim for tens or hundreds of hours, and Enjoyed simply sailing around exploring. The reason we hate general travel in OSRS is because there is no benefit along the way; the destination itself is the only reward. With sailing, the activity of sailing itself will be the point. Like you mentioned in the vid, a beta is key to see how this really feels. But travelling doesn't need to be inherently bad if the journey is made to be fun. In some ways, I see movement in sailing as closer to something like Hallowed Sepulchre, where timing, placement and thinking ahead are key. Sailing could be similar in that you have to think a few steps ahead of the ship.

my idea for sailing is treat is as another form of combat that comes with its own types of enemies, resources (or new ways to get them), optional slayer tasks once you reach a certain sailing/slayer level, and fast travels to different ports unlocking at different sailing levels.

i completely agree and think sailing would be much better as a mini game or something but I am interested in seeing where it goes and think there could be a very large horizon for the skill. Could make the game alot bigger, new bosses/monsters on restricted island, new mini games, a new miscellania in the form of cargo ships or something along those lines. it'll be interesting to see where it goes!

It's the first milestone getting movement feeling good. I'm knot sure what's wrong.

I don't think traveling is inherently bad if it's interactive and you're getting xp along the way - that's basically all sepulchre is, and tons of people love that. The difference with sailing is that going back and forth is the skill, you're not just trying to get to a destination to do something there. However, if there are islands with exclusive content that can only be gotten to with sailing, THAT will definitely get annoying

Dark waters, would be a good idea for pvp area. easy way to mark wildy like ditch. Maybe in the middle of the ocean, take their keys and loot their chest at their dock or base

The salvaging is just Varrock museum cleaning reskinned. Is there gonna be a digsite Pendant V2 that we unlock?

sailing as a non skill sounds nice tbh, maybe tie it into multiple other skills like construction, crafting, smithing, fishing and slayer

The point in adding the skill is that it allows the develops to add more varied content. Like you said, firemaking was a skill that was always uninteresting, but the design space of firemaking let them add activities like wintertodt. The design space of sailing let's them add huge amounts of new areas to play in, with nautical themes, which many people enjoy. Way better as a base skill design than firemaking anyway.

Sailing sounds like it could be a really expensive and fun mini game. Could be great for irons to collect misc resources other sailers 'dropped' from the ocean. Or, different oceans or regions could specialize in specific types of resources or bosses for combat. Could party up and work together on ships to do certain activities to improve the count so things get shared. Charters could be used to align on the deal before hand.

The way to alleviate the annoyance of traveling is to fill the seas with random events that can give worthwhile rewards not found elsewhere in the game. Then, you're not just focused on getting to your destination the whole time and are actively searching for said events during your journeys. That's what Sea of Thieves does so well

Altars and teleport rooms are mainly the only functional features of current POHs that date all the way back to release. I remember it was a heavily social thing among the players at large when it came out. Hardly anyone could afford to train it so it was a prestigious thing to have a good POH. House parties were huge for a while. So mainly a social thing on release but it did definitely overtake the prayer meta overnight.

I mean as long as there's some new area with new metas then sailing should have that point to it, just as construction has a point once you get all the teleports, fountain, spell swaps, etc unlocked.

I like the idea of something that can supplement afk training, and servicing other players with skilling methods. So let’s say your training your sailing skill, and it allows access to islands previously unavailable. Those islands have to have resources or slayer tasks etc that require sailing as a means to facilitate it. Let’s say onboard your ship, you can store idk, 100 items. Let’s say potions herbs ingredients etc. let’s say there’s a place you can gather resources like magic logs, Runite ore, other valuable resources that require banking to keep going. If someone can bank for you via docking during sailing and you can essentially put items in a deposit box on the ship and it takes your loot to the bank for a fee. Or another cool idea, let’s say you’re doing a slayer task on an island and they need food or potions to keep going as well as banking drops. You could have people sell inventory setups via sailing at increased pricing so that they don’t have to tp out, bank, and sail back to the island. However you could sell inventory setups at increased prices because you’re bringing them stuff almost like a runner for rc. Presumably the combat or bosses on these islands would be profitable so you still profit, but you get to buy re filled inventories of supplies and deposit your stuff to the bank by shipping it off. This could add value to otherwise less profitable items like fish, but you need to be able to afk train skills while doing the trips. Say cooking at a range on the boat, or mixing potions, fletching bows, crafting dragon hide bodies, with the added caveat of having to steer the ship or maintain it somehow. I can imagine an ecosystem around it that would function well, but it should supplement what we already have and enjoy.

So slayer is kill x quest, and sailing is deliver x quest, just need escort skill after.

sure shamanism would introduce **even more** power creep but it would probably be quicker to implement not requiring massive engine changes and even if it also just feels like a minigame at least the rewards would be meaningful

also geez are people in your chat very butthurt at this being developped. wth. Also alpha predictions: People will complain that: -loot suck -xp sucks -gameplay is too slow and can't be bothered doing that till 99... ignoring that it's an alpha, and about how the boat is moving overall, and not the skilling itself. Having no imagination of where the skill can lead to, or what is being made is the core, not the 1-99 leveling game play loop.

Courier tasks sounds like complete ass

I mean, the biggest issue, pointed out by @AR15user is that this whole thing is stemmed from an ancient meme in the community… nobody had an actual reason to want to put this in the game, past the joke. I appreciate the idea, but the execution of the skill is just… pointless and dumb. So… okay… why not make this an extension of Construction, rather than a whole SKILL, like with Forestry and Woodcutting? Also, don’t give me the loaded, smooth-brained whataboutism of Firemaking - that’s not an actual debate. Sailing, fundamentally, is about transportation, and holds no value. It’s moving around the map and getting random events… that’s… not worth a skill. Once you get the basics of movement down, it becomes just another movement style, and the skill ceases to have any value as a skill, or anything to make content around. Like… Jagex put their foot in way too deep with this, for the sake of an ancient meme… and now they can’t pull out, because it’ll upset the 1% of people that think this is worth being in the game. It’s like, the overall point of the sailing joke is that sailing and moving a slow ship around… is not engaging, can’t be turned into a skill, or even appeal to anyone… Ever notice how when you USE a ship, in game, it’s just a teleport, because the actual process is boring and holds no value to the game… I mean, I’m willing to be proven wrong, but Sailing is a waste of Jagex’s time and resources. I’m happy something new is coming in, but it’s just disappointing that a dead meme is what they’re going with, over something like fixing the flaws of Summoning from RS3, or a new and profitable crafting system…

For Java, it's very easy to make plugins in Java, not as easy for C++.

They need good exp rates and many sources of gaining exp. If they are going to try and make a skill based on exploration, get rid of the chores of leveling.

Sailing pvp is going to be so fun.

We have teleportation and several other ways of transportation. Beyond a minigame whats the point

Shamanism and Taming sound like way cooler skills how did sailing pass above those two??? Even just fkn slap Summoning in and call it a day sailing was a horrible idea for a new skill from the start

Yeah boaty is absolutely the main reason this dog shit proposal passed. If boaty didn’t make that video I bet we wouldn’t be here. Idk how many people used that video as reference. The whole proposal has been dogshit. They need to scrap this immediately and focus on real matters. This is going to be too divisive

You will get npc crew members to trim your sails at later levels for you

I really wish sailing wasn't a thing... like ever

They just need to scrap this a repoll between taming and shamanism

Cant wait for this skill, i think the point of sailing is just to be a fun and exploration skill with transport obviously not being the main point as you said its pointless if we have teles and charters already

So their gonna NDA some streamers / players to test the new skill... In side trading will happen... Rock climbing boots 2.0

i personally dont think sailing or any of the proposed skills was the way to go i think they should keep considering other options

Should be able to do randomized dungeons that take place on islands in the middle of the ocean, more dangerous and better loot the further you go out but also require different gear on ship and higher levels

Dead air when sailing is boring. Tedious tasks while sailing feels bad as well, or just teleporting with a click. Add destination/s that provide supplies and make it a nice mid-game money maker or a helpful means for irons to get supplies early onward is my suggestion

everything the showed in the preview still looks like it should just be in the game without a separate skill. I would've much rather seen shamanism where you can enchant lower tier weapons to give you a small dmg or acc bonus temporarily while you are grinding out higher tier gear or maybe just pre reqs for bis gear.

They have to implement deep sea content. Islands you can explore (slayer exp/new items/sailing items) maybe bring some relevance to the fish bowl helmet and diving apparatus. They can do a deep sea raid with new power items. Make an underwater city and questline. Idk there's a lot you can do with Sailing. Hopefully traveling around the map isn't the only thing they do it it will be a fail.

In regard to the c++ client, no plugins are not on mobile. As someone who used to program those two languages are completely different and switching runelite to c++ would take a lot longer than the amount of time that the c++ client has been out. Porting everything like player made plugins would take ages and we would lose a lot of plugins that are already used by thousands of people like visual metronome, metronome, ground markers, and a lot more plugins that you may not use but plenty of other people use.

Sailing should have been more on the meme side where they trick us that’s our “skill” then make a shipyard type construction 2.0 where you can have your own POP (Player owned Ports.) where you can have a mini g.e, make people walk a plank off the dock, build smaller ships for players for trade, and so on. THAT would be the move just my opinion.

Yeah the whole luffing/trimming thing to me is indicative of why sailing would really benefit from not being a skill. If it were a minigame or a content expansion or something we’d probably just be moving on the water to wherever we want to go, and the focus would be shipwrecks, islands, sea monsters, and dope loot. But because it’s a skill, they feel like there NEEDS to be some basic repeatable action, so they came up with something that will interrupt your traveling every so often and slow you down unless you address it. And the worst part is you have to LEAVE navigation mode to fix it, and then go BACK IN to resume steering your boat. Obviously we haven’t had the alpha yet, but I can’t imagine that feeling anything other than tedious, clunky, and annoying

Sailing needs to unlock some interesting PVM content, like mermaids/sirens encounters, maybe a sea based Raids 4.

will gulls drop feathers with sailing?

I was thinking wind waker as soon as I saw how big theme boat is. B4 the sail nonsenc3.

i hope the exp rates arent trash. i have a feeling most players will just pick it up and then put it down because its just a minigame.. and the rest will just begrudgingly grind it out for an inevitable high level quest requirement

To me sailing feels like the small group skilling activity, you level it up to bring more people. Thats the point.

I'm interested in the new locations they might add to the game over the seas that you can sail to. Plus, it's still very early in development so it might change a lot from what we see in the video.

Okay hear me out tho. Why do we skill? Because quests or the goal of maxing. All the 180 or so current quests wont require sailing. The only goal for sailing would be new items (so gp), but for a GP based location you have the wildy already. I think sailing could be good group content, but skills are mostly just for quest reqs.

The only way I see it working is if they get me to transport a case of t bows that I can choose not to give to the end destination guy.

I'm just still pissed they didn't poll sailing vs shamanism like they said they would.. I just think they should do a survey.. its never too late to reassess

Shamanism would have been legit. Sailing is going to be clunky and trash.

2 clients doesn't mean 2 engines, engine runs on the server, Java is also a lot easier to instrument than c++ when it comes to open source clients and plugins what they could maybe invest dev time into is writing a layer in between java based plugins and the c++ client, I'd imagine the interfaces have to be somewhat similar

They absolutely are trying to force it through. That's why they didn't do the run-off they said they would when sailing and shamanism were extremely close in vote percentage.

If the traveling is more like a minigame i might enjoy it. Also fishing at sea or plundering island dungeons could be cool.

Careful guys you are upsetting the osrs new skill discord. They're crying a hurricane about this comment section lolol

Rewriting RuneLite into C++ is a massive undertaking. Honestly it’s less like rewriting and more like writing RL completely from scratch. It sounds like something that would take a team of devs multiple years to complete. Good devs too, not the ones fresh out of uni. It would be a massive undertaking and cost a shit ton. Not saying it shouldn’t be done, but it is much more difficult than people expect. I’m also not sure that rewriting it would be a step forward. Java is a higher level language so it’s easier for many programmers to learn and use efficiently than languages that are closer to compile code (c++). What would probably be the best for the future would be to rewrite the entire client into a faster HLL like python.

'Knot Happy' Love it 😂😂

I gotta say, if their is not some good boss with good drops or a way to get decent gp per hr/ some type of supply for ironmen from this. Will be dead content after people get 99. I prob wont touch it until the last skill

I’m personally excited as hell for sailing.

It's going to unlock a lot of ports for 1 def pure just think about it pking in priffs on a 1 def

The point of sailing should be adventure. Possibly the best reason a skill can exist for and offers the most possibilities just need to work on it

I honestly wouldnt mind long sailing trips that take an hour or so for certain courier things or maybe a raid for sailing. would be hilarious

THOUSANDS of hours going to a skill that lets be honest will be an uber delivery service based on rs3 ports. lot of development hours that could have gone to an infinite numbers of other important things to make osrs better.

I love exploration in games , Iv'e been playing runescape since 2005. I would enjoy something that would reward exploration to break away from going anywhere in 1min.

If the active methods are interesting and give sailing xp thay just feels like playing the game, and theres a slow afk method it can work

Seems pretty cool, like dungeon crawling but on water

Just moving your ship around shouldn't be the part that requires skill.. They're really screwing the pooch on a good opportunity if leveling up and the skillcap being related to just moving around open water

everyone loves cleaning finds at varrock museum, lets base a whole skill around it and luffing sails wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Honestly dreading this update..

Sailing bout to be Dungeoneering in the sea, lmao.

Maybe quick travel could come with a certain level achievement or something like that

I wouldn't mind this if sailing could have you access higher mining/fishing XP rates.

I think everyone needs to remember the only thing set is stone is sailing as a new skill. ALL of these pitches, steps, ideas still have to be polled

The guy in your chat that said everyone is jumping to conclusions and imagine if they teased construction and only showed chairs and larders without showing end game poh stuff...yeah well that's kind of the point. We've had YEARS of development on the game at this point, and first impressions are everything. That's not just true in game design and marketing that's just true of life in general. So you would think they would lead with or at least show off some of the supposedly "good" aspects of sailing. So far everything looks like a damn minigame or just pointless fluff that gives you horrible XP amounts like a step in an agility course. Someone in your chat put it really well "Idk who this skill is even made for because new players already have way too much shit to do" and I'll add on that bored players with nothing to do need to go touch grass or make a new account type lol. I love that this community talks about how much development time is wasted on pointless bullshit that no one wants but then they vote for shit like this when it's clear Jagex has no idea how to design it to be fun or rewarding from everything seen so far. So far it looks like this shit needs to cook for a couple more years cause this is way too fucking rough a draft to know anything but the crappy shit they've shown so far.

If they make sailing kind of like the game dredge id be down for it.

i dont have a dog in this fight and im not going to be able to finish the video right now. but why cant the activates be a money making method (granted what i saw was not very much money) and then high lvl in the skill allows more instant travels? that way the reason for "sailing" is still there and you get those "teleports" in a sense to locations that would be helpful. i mean yea construction i dont remember having a whole bunch of use back in the day but now its teleport central at higher levels. Sailing can do this i think. So personally from what i saw im ok with the skill.

I'm honestly making the assumption you won't see other peoples ships

There is a reason rs3 hasn’t done sailing yet

This skill looks like absolute ass IMO - it's like it's being forced at this point. Never wanted it, and now I've got to be forced to train it to get back my max cape. It feels and looks like a mini game!

19 content creators and 1 regular homie

This skill is a prime example of why letting Reddit decide every aspect of your game isn't the best idea.

Make it a mini game that combines a bunch of skills like crafting and fletching and strength etc, make it like 40k/hr exp shared for all skills or something. Then add shamanism

This should’ve been a mini game and not a skill.

Only way for sailing to work is to make a giant new spot for it and not allow teleportation to anywhere inside of it, only to the dock that will take you to the new area.