BTS#18: New Challenges, New Security

Behind the Scenes New Challenges, New Security
There are few things in life more frustrating than falling victim
to some scallywag taking all your stuff and emptying your bank account.
Thank Saradomin then that JAG is here!
Before we get stuck into that though, Mod Liono has got a brand new challenge system for you.
The challenge system is a brand new piece of content we're putting into RuneScape
that is designed to encourage variety in skilling methods
and also to teach players that those skilling methods exist and how to do them.
There are over seven hundred challenges in the challenge system
which cover high level and low level content in every skill in the game.
You can expect to see a whole variety of activities in the challenge system
from chopping a bunch of trees, mining a bunch of ore, killing a boss in God Wars,
massacring a bunch of goblins in a cave.
There's a whole bunch in there to cater to all gaming styles.
You can complete as many challenges as you want to in one day in order to get the guidance.
The special challenges, or the daily challenges, you get one extra a day
and you can have up to five active at once.
When you get a new one, your fifth one will drop off the bottom of the list,
and those are the ones you want to complete
because those are the ones that give you big, tasty rewards at the end.
The benefit of doing daily challenges compared to skilling as normal
is that you will be rewarded for the time as if you had spent it doing the most efficient method,
as well as gaining whatever resources and XP you do for doing whatever the challenge asks you to do.
So, if you're doing some mining and the challenge is to mine some mithril,
we ask you to mine mithril for ten minutes,
you'll get ten minutes of XP as if you were drop mining iron, which is the most efficient method.
So it will basically double up your XP gain for that time.
As well as the XP for the challenges, because some of them ask you to give in the items you earn in,
you get given a bag of rewards at the end which will be equivalent of the value that you had to put in.
So say you had to hand in ten mithril ore,
we'll give you a bag that's worth the same on the G.E. as ten mithril ore,
but it will give you crafting materials in another skill up to that value,
so you might get a big stack of summoning tertiary ingredients
or you might get a big stack of dragon hides in return for your mithril ore.
We've got one new colourful NPC who has been introduced.
He's the imperial guard quartermaster who handles all your challenge needs
and gives out the rewards and things.
He's a bit grumpy, he got wounded in war and now he does inventory all day,
so that's why he's handing out the challenges instead of out there fighting the trolls, and not too pleased about it.
He's situated in Burthorpe, in the combat hub.
Alongside the challenge system we're introducing a new interface called the notice board.
The notice board is going to be the new one-stop shop
for finding out what you should be doing in RuneScape at your levels.
So, we're going to have the featured content panel on the notice board
which will display the most appropriate skilling, combat, quest for you to do
as well as advertising the most recent updates.
There'll be the challenge system which contains the challenges and daily challenges that are currently accessible.
There's the quest system, which will integrate the quest list and the quest journal all back onto the notice board
so that all that information is in one place instead of spread across multiple interfaces.
We've also got the achievements tab which will integrate
the task system and the old achievement diaries all in one place,
and the minigames tab which will let you access minigames quickly,
like it will teleport you to the nearest lodestone, and it will swap worlds to the themed world
if there is one for that minigame.
We're always trying to evolve the challenge system
and the best way to make something better is to ask the people who use it,
so if you've got an idea then get in touch on the forums in the suggestions forums.
Just give us your ideas and we'll see if we can put them in!
It's rare that you hear 'exciting' and 'account security' mentioned in the same sentence.
But yes, there is indeed some exciting news about your account security
with the launch of the Jagex Account Guardian, or JAG. Very clever!
We tracked down Mod Duice to find out more.
The Jagex Account Guardian is an enhanced level of security,
so something in addition to your login name and password.
It allows you to lock your account down to certain devices, devices of your choice,
just by going through some simple security checks.
What it means as well is that you can actually set up temporary access or permanent access
so it's a pretty cool feature to have if you're interested in keeping your account safe,
which I suggest, everyone should be.
Hijacking is illegal.
In most places around the world you can be prosecuted for it,
and we've got a lot of ongoing cases at the moment to tackle that
and we've got a specialist team who actually look after it 24/7
to ensure that we're doing all we can to stop organised scams
and other individuals from being able to hijack your account.
I work for the anti-hijacking and phishing team
and we work 24/7 investigating accounts, making sure that they're secure,
that they are in the hands of their owners,
and we're constantly looking at ways to stay one step ahead of hijackers and the phishers.
That's one of the reasons we implemented account guardian.
We spend a lot of our time tracking down hijackers, investigating them and finding out who they are
so that we can liaise with law enforcement to try and get action taken against them.
We've had a few successful arrests in the past and we've got a few ongoing cases now
so anyone who's actively involved in hijacking or who's thinking about starting it
might want to think about finding another hobby to do.
To use JAG is really simple. All you need to do is go to your account settings.
There's a JAG tab in there, open that up and you'll see that there is an enable button.
Click that and just follow the on-screen instructions.
It's all done through your validated email address,
asks you to set up some security questions that you'll be asked when adding devices at a later stage.
It's really important that you put memorable answers into each of the questions when you're setting it up,
because when we ask them at a later stage it'll be in a random order,
so you need to be able to recall them.
But if for whatever reason you have forgotten them, you don't know what they are,
if you go to the FAQ there's some questions and tips in there, but also some contact details
to get in touch with the customer support team.
If you've got more than one RuneScape account,
I actually recommend that you put JAG on all of those accounts.
So, it's available for every account, for every player
so if you want to protect your account and try and ensure it doesn't end up in the wrong hands, enable JAG.
If anyone's interested in finding out more on how to keep their account secure,
or what sort of phishing threats are ongoing at the moment,
there's loads of information on it on the wiki.
So, just head over to the account security section of the RuneScape wiki
and you can find all the information you might need.
If you've been wondering what's in store for Al Kharid,
then you really don't want to miss next week's behind the scenes.
We'll bring you news on Stolen Hearts and Diamond in the Rough,
two brand new quests coming to RuneScape very soon.