At Runefest 2011’s You Be the Judge session, attendees chose a new Runecrafting training method from a choice of 5 potential updates. As promised, today sees the release of a brand-new Runecrafting training method: the Runespan.

The Runespan is an arcane plane of floating islands and wild magic, making it the ideal place for an evolution in Runecrafting training. You can siphon runes from the creatures that inhabit the Runespan, and from elemental nodes that manifest across its vast expanse.

Doing so will grant you runes (as well as a healthy stream of Runecrafting XP, of course), which can be used to activate the transport platforms installed by the wizards of the Runecrafting Guild. The further you traverse the Runespan, the higher the value of the runes you can craft, and the XP you gain from doing so.

While you’re training, you’ll also have the chance to take part in two new D&Ds:

Stranded wizards: You’ll always be able to return to your starting point within the Runespan, but some hapless hedge-wizards aren’t so well-prepared. Occasionally, a stranded wizard will call out for aid, and you’ll have the chance to help him home by bringing him the runes he needs. The grateful mage will no doubt have some Runecrafting experience to share with you for the favour.
Runespheres: Occasionally, a runesphere – a conduit for pure, runic energy – will manifest within the Runespan. Siphoning from its outer shell is not only excellent training in its own right, but will also provide you with rune dust. Piercing through the layers of the runesphere will be hard, and you’ll need the help of others to get through before the runesphere dissipates, but break through and you’ll be able to combine the dust with the sphere’s glowing core for a big XP reward.
The Runecrafting Guild claims ownership over the Runespan, and it’s only through their portals that the plane can be accessed. As such, you’ll have to hand in any runes crafted in the Runespan when you exit. You’ll be reimbursed in points, which can be spent in Wizard Finix’s shop on some unique rewards, many of which help traditional runecrafting in Gielinor. These include robes that enhance the wicked hood when purchased; recolouring options for the wicked hood and robes; staves which hold spell charges and absorb hostile spells; and a degradable pouch that can hold up to 18 rune or pure essence. You’ll also be able to spend points on Esteem ranks, which unlock icons to customise your wicked robe set.


How to access the Runespan:

Speak to Wizard Finix in the Wizards’ Tower.
There are three levels to the Runespan. Everyone can reach the first level and a small part of the second, but you must be a member for full access to the second and third levels.
Mod Pi

In Other News

Trimmed completionist cape wearers will now need to attain the highest Esteem rank possible from training in the Runespan (rank 1) in order to wear their cape.
Over the next week, you'll find lily of the valley growing across the grassy areas of RuneScape.
Point gain in the Flash Powder Factory was slightly lower than intended, and has now been increased by approximately 10%.

The following small fixes and adjustments have now been made to the game. If you spot any further bugs in-game, please use the Bug Report feature.

Graphical:

The ghostly face of Akrisae has been added to the Barrows Prayer-drain interface.
The Werewolf emote now delays the player as it plays.
An area used in The Golem no longer goes white with bloom enabled.
Damis' Lair is no longer bright white with bloom enabled.
An area used in a section of Summers' End no longer goes white with bloom enabled.
The iron sickle's wear model is now more closely resembles the inventory model.
Some willow trees south of Rimmington are no longer split in half and no longer hover.
The wield position of enhanced Excalibur has been altered to line up with auras.


Quests & Tasks:

The crystal mine key from Haunted Mine now works when on a steel key ring.
Some objects from Gunnar's Ground are now using the correct capitalisation.
Crafting a 4-dose potion now counts for completing the "Finding your Balance" task.



Skills & Minigames:

Finding the unlock locations in a dungeon for Fremennik Sagas no longer cuts off the unlock message. It is also now a colour that appears more clearly on fixed screen mode.
A "trivial" typo in the Moia saga has been fixed.
The mind interface in the Moia saga now suggests that the audio hints are optional.
Nomad in Dominion Tower will no longer get stuck between two pillars.
Starving NPCs will now only eat one item of stackable food during Temple Trekking.
An NPC cutting down a tree in Temple Trekking now shows the correct tree stump.
It is now possible to destroy Court Case objects if a player manages to get hold of them outside of a court case.


Other:

120 Dungeoneering is now announced through the player broadcast system. Broadcasts will also now only appear once for each achievement.
Several Grand Exchange armour sets are now using the correct derived prices from their components in the trade tracker.
Checks around bought Squeal of Fortune spins have been made tighter to prevent players from not receiving them.
The graphics options screen now fully displays in the lobby.
The make-x interface now shows cutting a red topaz as the cut version instead of the uncut.
A typo on the Investigator's Notebook in Player owned house bookcases has been fixed.
A typo on trying to quickswitch a Dungeoneering ring has been fixed.
Torch sound effects have been made quieter.

Very excited to get started on this. I hate training runecrafting so this hopefully will be a good alternative to traditional training.

Funny story, the other day, they must have been running some tests because there were news announcements in game about "a rift opening and wizards gathering" that had to do with the Runespan...I decided I wanted to train RC and tried to find information on how to enter the Runespan, but it hadn't been released yet.

The crystal mine key from Haunted Mine now works when on a steel key ring.

Currently the best XP is from sitting on an island on the top floor draining the soul creatures. Anyone making a ginger joke will be banned.

Actually the best xp would be every 5 mins spend 1 min finding the yellow wizard gaining around 7k xp every 6mins x 10 = 70k xp per hour alone just from wizards, add the xp of 5 mins in between wizards spent on soul creatures your looking at a ton of xp.

at around lvl 80 rc yellow wizard gives 5.2k xp every 5 mins, 60k xp per hour

not that hard since there are 5 wizards, 4 blue that when talked to show a arrow on the map leading to the yellow wizard.

so far i have gone from level 75 to 81 and got my full set of wicked as well as recoloured it purple, and rank 6 esteem all from monday and tuesday.