Dev Blog: Boss Collection Log


Introduction
You know how we said we wanted to keep you up-to-date with what we're working on? Well that's exactly what we plan to do, and with that comes many more Developer Blogs!

For this blog we'll be focusing on a project we're currently working on known as 'Boss Collection Log' - a system which records unique items obtained from bosses and allows you to showcase your boss expertise to others. Sounds interesting right? Let's get started...

Note: This is still a work in progress, and subject to change.


How it works
So how does it work?

When you obtain an item that is part of a bosses collection log, it will now be tracked and the total obtained will be displayed within the collection log.

The log is mainly separated so that each boss has its own collection of items, however there are a few exceptions to this where we have decided to group them due to the number of drops they have or the number of drops that they share.

The exceptions are:

• Liberation of Mazcab (Raids) - This collection has items from both Beastmaster Durzag and Yakamaru
• TzHaar - This collection has items from both the Fight Caves and the Fight Kiln

When selecting a boss you will be able to see exactly how many of each unique item you've obtained on the right so there's no need to manually record your drops anymore as this will do it for you!

The star in the top-left currently acts as a favourite button, so that when you next open the interface it will default to that page. However, as this is still a work in progress, we're planning to remove this and allow you to access the collection log via the beasts tab.





Sharing your progress
We know how much you guys love being able to share your achievements and progress within RuneScape, and because of this we've added the ability to quickchat every single drop! That's right, you'll be able to tell your clan exactly how many Malevolent Kiteshield's you've obtained, or whether you've managed to obtain that elusive Vitalis pet.

You can select the chats that you would like to share with, and then click on an item and it will send that information out. Not only that, but other players will also be able to respond to this quickchat message with their own progress. Nothing like some friendly competition right?



Completion rewards
When it comes to PvM we know that there are many different types of players, some who love to kill any boss including group bosses and others who have a favourite boss which they like to stick to.

Knowing this we wanted to give you the ability to show other players that you've really mastered a boss. Having killed the boss hundreds of times with RNG on your side we plan to add titles for having obtained all* unique items from that boss.

You'll be able to walk around the game showcasing your specific boss expertise!

*This isn't necessarily going to be the case for all bosses, some examples of things we're current looking at:

• Vorago will also include the Omen's outfit
• Chaos Elemental has a large number of PvP armour/weapon drops and we're looking to group this into just obtaining one of those
• Angel of Death will only require you to obtain one of the chests

The technical stuff
If you're interested in knowing some of the technical stuff then read on...

As you can imagine, we're now tracking a lot of items with this system, and because of this each item will be able to track up to 255, at which point it will no longer increment. This is due to the technical limitations of splitting a 32bit variable down so that we can use it for more than one item. Essentially a single variable is being split into 4 sets of 8 bits, and 8 bits allow us to store from 0-255.

Some of the items that are referenced in the collection log are things that we already track, such as boss pets. We made use of these variables, which means in the example of boss pets, the collection log will only show that you have obtained it once you activate the pet unlock item and not when you receive the drop itself.

Not all items within the collection log will count up as there are items that can/should only be obtained once, and we feel as if would be a waste of storage space to track these beyond this point.


Questions
We imagine there are questions, below are some we've tried to answer in advance:

Question: Will this show the items I've already obtained?

• Answer: Nope - this update introduces the tracking variables for the items meaning it will start tracking from the update. We will however be looking to update the log with the untradeable items that you currently have as we know that you obtained these yourself (e.g. Fire cape, Raids items)

Question: How soon can we expect this?

• Answer: The short answer is, when it's ready. We want to make sure that it's the best it can be before we release it.

Question: Can we expect to see something similar for particular Slayer creatures with unique drops?

• Answer: Maybe in the future but not currently. Also, due to the technical cost we would like to keep the collection logs for the bigger things such as bosses.

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We welcome any questions and please give us your feedback! We're always looking at the Ninja team forum, Twitter and reddit.

Thanks,
Ninja Team

That's a really cool feature. Something I personally don't care too much about since I don't PvM, but would be cool for high-tiered players that do Telos.

Completing all the boss drops is pretty nifty too, specially for ironman.