Fen Research Opens Up About Brighter Shores in Reddit AMA

Will skills in previous episodes get changed/updated for more interconnectivity as more episodes come out or are they going to remain mostly self-contained?

1. Noted items/Buying in bulk: Is this something you'd be willing to let us do? Having to run back and forth only carrying 24 at a time feels like a massive chore and sucks the fun out of skilling. It will also dampen any enjoyment of p2p trading if we we can't trade in bulk.

2. Player Housing: Is this coming with the builder skill? As someone who plans on maining blacksmith, I fantasize about building my own forge, along with anything else neat we might be able to do with it. It would also be cool if we could hire players through some kind of contract system to come to our plots and build it for us.

3. Enchanter: The npc is adamant about not enchanting our tools of war, does this hint at the possibility of players getting it as a future skill? I could see a lot of extra interaction between players, and I would personally love playing the role of a magic blacksmith. Would be the dream profession of mine in any game.

Thank you for your time, passion, and dedication. I enjoyed beginning my journey through your world 20 years ago, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this new one unfolds over 20 more.

Hey Fenresearch team! Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA - super excited to be here.

I've got two questions about Fenforge and one about Brighter Shores:

• When do you plan to release the Fenforge engine?
• Does the Fenforge programming language have a name?
• And for the fun one: What's your favorite mob, and why is it Mawchest?

Playing brighter shores on steam link is great. Is there an ETA on a mobile version of the game or will that come after full release?

1.) I'll start with the elephant in the room: Your past work on Runescape. What, if anything, are you doing differently this time around on Brighter Shores? One of the biggest issues with modern day RS is the years and years of spaghetti code that seemingly makes it hard to update the game. Are you doing anything differently now to avoid those problems in the future? Do you expect Brighter Shores will be easier to develop new content for than RS?

2.) I am currently climbing the ranks thru the Minefighter profession, and cant help but wonder what comes next? Is there a plan for the combat? Will we get bosses for each episode so we can put our skills to the test? Or is PvP going to be more of the endgame focus, sort of like Albion? And if the latter is the case, can we expect to see pvp in each episode? Or will we be leveling up a new combat profession specifically for pvp?

3.) What is the biggest challenge you are facing right now? Are there any specific content updates or fix requests that are particularly challenging to implement?

Hey guys thank you very much for hosting an AMA it is most appreciated, I'm currently one of the top woodcutters in the game and I'd like to ask a few questions!!!

My first question would be for Ms. Nicole Bates & Mr. Greg Brown our artists (great work by the way).... Do you think there is any plans to release additional cosmetic options for our profession tools that could provide more aesthetically pleasing appearances to our tools or perhaps even offer additional experience bonuses, that could be earned by completing tasks or challenges within the game? I am positive you could come up with some incredible designs!

Secondly.. As I am currently focusing on the woodcutting profession socializing becomes quite difficult it's a little lonely out there!!! Is there any plans to implement the creation of a in game clan system as well as a chat interface where we could speak amongst each other regardless of where we are in the world?

Lastly I would love to know if it is possible if there is anything in works for additional Co-Op skilling methods and/or possible events akin to Shooting Stars or Evil trees(Runescape skilling events) within the game? I believe these would greatly benefit communication amongst players and bring us together!!!!

Thank you very kindly for your time and I cannot wait to continue playing this game with everyone!!!!

Question 1:
With the skills out as they stand, I feel they lack a certain interconnectiveness. Will you consider adding further perks and unlocks for leveling these, which will enhance the experience of training other skills without being mandatory? An example of this would be the shortcuts that Detective provide for Merchant and general QoL navigating throughout the city, or the armory space increase from Brannof's Inheritance. These give players a reason to train skills that aren't a direct gathering->production pipeline.

Question 2:
There is much discussion surrounding the rankings of the leaderboards, especially for the higher ranks, about people opting-out temporarily to gain a competitive advantage. These players only opt back in once they've passed the competition or reached 500 as a kind of informational warfare rather than an actual concern for privacy. Will you consider changing this so that people who opt out are shown as Anonymous Player with their level instead, like they are in the "Nearby Players" tab? That way we can maintain the privacy of the people involved, while also maintaining the integrity of the leaderboards and the fun of climbing the ranks.

Question 3:
Will there be any procedurally generated content in the future, like a multi-room dungeon that's different every time you enter? This could be a fun way to train skills in an alternative way and give people more reason to train them. Something like a big tower where you can select the episodes whose skills you want included. And the more skills you select the better the rewards.

1. Are there any current plans that some future episode combat professions would differ significantly from the current melee-based combat e.g. magic based combat or something else that would have new wholly different sets of weapons and armor that require new skills to craft?

2. While most current resources / mobs get replaced by higher tier equivalents as we level up, leading to the skill locations eventually starting to "loop" as we progress, merchant stalls and crime dens keep adding new available node locations / shortcuts far into skill progression. Will there be more skills like this in the future with similar design?

3. Which feedback / request from the community so far has been most unexpected for you, either in themselves or in how passionately the community feels about them?

For the Artists. Love the art work / aesthetic in the game. Are the 3D models made in proprietary Fenforge software or something like blender? Either way what's the benefit of that approach?

For developers, was it challenging to learn the custom scripting language used to create content for the game?

1. Will there be future episodes where we have the opportunity to use our skills from previous episodes - Or, will they always be 'region' specific?

2. What was the theory behind having such small armour/weapon bank spaces?

3. Are we going to have mobs with unique drops and if so, how far off the implementation roadmap is that?

Just wanted to say you guys have created an absolutely cozy one-of-a-kind game and I am loving it so far. Is there plans to have end game group content like raids?

Hi team all the way from New Zealand (its 3am here lol) :) Firstly a massive thank-you to you Andrew for all the memories from your award winning game. You've been a huge part of my life, and I hope you realise the impact you've had on hundreds of millions of people! I would love to buy you a beer one day haha.

My first question is for Andrew: Have you considered a centralised feedback system where we could possibly vote on player / developer ideas to be implemented for that week / fortnight? I feel like all our great ideas are all over the place, but if we come together, we could push awesome ideas and grow this game collectively :)

My second question is for Andrew too: Do you envisage the nature of MMOs evolving from grindfests to more afk as our lives get busier? It is quite tiring wanting to level at the moment (currently grinding 500 combat), but if we could AFK more in game with marginal inputs, we could possibly level and access higher level content faster, and retain more players?

My third question is for Andrew too lol: Do you see co-op and/or party systems being a big part of training professions in the future? This is what initially hooked me into the game, but it feels like the experience right now is very single-player mode. I've made great friends, and I think a co-op opportunity for each profession that generates marginally better XP per hour will make the game more fun.

Thank-you again for this wonderful opportunity and I hope you do this more often (weekly / fortnightly basis) as I think it will help make the game standout from the rest. Wishing you all the best for the future of Brighter Shores and always know there will be a community here ready to support you no matter what happens. Have a great rest of your year, and Merry Xmas!

1: When PVE bossing arrives they'll offer good rewards such as gear, if this gear is better than crafted gear the crafting professions will become worthless. Will boss drop items be items that need to be crafted to keep crafting professions important or straight gear drops?

2: can we get 4 star gear named legendary instead of epics?

3: Will we be able to fuse crafted gear into untuned epics we can trade?

1. Is there going to be social hubs just for guild/clan's, central banking/trading, housing, minigames?

2. Are we going to be able to cast spells with a book/wand/staff etc

3. Is there going to be rideable mounts?

1: Is there going to be any changes to the profanity filter and how automotive is behaving with some words and phrases? We understand that the game allows 13+ but some of the words and phrases are being restrictive to full communication during an activity and require people to seek outside chat (discord).

2: Based on the answer to the first, is there going to be Player Moderators in Brighter Shores? That way specific people who are being toxic can be muted or actioned upon beyond just reporting them. Some players are rather toxic and try and bait others at times, and want to provide some possibility of active actions applied.

Hi there! I am one of the people who have finished the Monument. I just want to say I love the game and it's direction and can't wait to see what's in store! Here are my questions:

1: Do the team have a reward in mind already for the Monument?

2: Is there a chance that I, or the community can participate in the creative process for what the monument will do?

3: Is it possible for you to add in-game community support features? Such as for bug reports, queries or player reporting?

Thank you very much in advance! I would love to see more updates where the community work alongside the developers (not specifically for the monument but on a much broader range of things), so that both you as the developers can fulfill the true vision of the game with the community being a part of that development process!

1. Will the chat filter system be reworked? Currently it's way too strict for many of us, a lot of silly things are getting blocked. Can we have some form of opt-out for chat filtering?

2. Is there any work going on to tackle bots in the game? There's been several bots that players have spotted in the game, which unfortunately is inevitable in this style of game. But it would be good for us to know if you're working / planning to work on ways to detect them.

3. Do you plan to offer any public APIs? I was planning to build a xp/level tracker, but you've put the leaderboards in the game so I can't really do that without building something that interacts with the in-game leaderboards. It'd be amazing if this is something you could offer, as i'm sure many of us would be happy to build external resources that help improve the ecosystem.

1. Will there be full loot / inventory drop in PVP?

2. Will there be a PVP area with contested resources such as the wilderness? will it be full loot/inventory drop/ no loot drop?

3. What is the vision for PVP, will it be an aspect of the game people can do like a minigame or it will be incorporated more heavily in the game such as pvp zones, rewards, etc?

Thanks!

Thanks in advance for reading!

1. TRANSMOGS: The recent addition of the transmog feature has been fantastic. Are there any plans to expand on this system outside of holiday or event items, such as profession-related transmogs?

2. CAPES: Are there plans to add more completionist capes? Such as per episode, base 50s/100s/200s, etc.?

3. POTION STORAGE: Are there plans to expand the potion belt to include things like xp or fear potions?

I have only 1 question for roleplaying purposes, could we carry a tool in our hand as a cosmetic? I want to run around Crenopolis with my magnifying glass when doing investigations.

for Andrew, do you plan to hire more devs in 2025?

1. Are you aware of the rumors of third party utilities being in development, such as a Brighter Shores Runelite equivalent, and do you intend to fully crack down on cheat utilities like those?

2. What is your attitude towards the community finding and leveraging unintended behavior/bugs to play "efficiently?" Examples are the animation cancel bug combat had for a little while, and tick manipulation in RS. Personally, I feel like these things should be bannable and have absolutely no place in Brighter Shores, but I'm interested in your perspective.

Let me start out by saying I'm grateful to the whole team for creating such an amazing game and I can't wait to see what you have in store for us in the future!

Now for the questions.

I feel like one of the most fun and important content are the quests. They introduce you to important and often fun new characters while telling you stories about this mysterious world. I do however feel like the quests that are in the game lack character. They experience of doing quests mainly consists of long levelling grinds and pretty forgettable NPC's that I feel like lack some character. This is a real missed opportunity in my opinion as these characters could really make us feel connected to this world.

What are your plans regarding the future of quests?

I'm also curious what future multiplayer elements will be added to the game since right now most content is done solo. I see great potential in the game for multiplayer combat and skilling methods.

What are your plans regarding multiplayer content?

Lastly I'm very curious how the community will be involved in future decision making. With Andrew's vision of creating a game that people actually enjoy, instead of making it a money grab, I feel like community input is crucial.

How does the team plan to involve the community with future development choices?

Hi guys, great work on the game so far. I'm loving it!!

1. Is there an ETA on Episode 5?

2. How many episodes do you plan on releasing before you exit your "early access"?

3. What does the game look like after you exit "early access"

Thanks again and keep up the good work!

Question 1: How will we find out about new big content updates such as new episodes, will it be an announement a month before the update or will it just randomly drop, pretty much just asking how can we expect to find out about big new updates coming soon?

Question 2: Similar to question 1 but will we see a more consistant update schedule like every monday is update day at a certain time or will it be whenever they're ready?

Question 3: Will we ever see region total capes?

Thanks!

For Greg and Nicole: What would you describe Brighter Shore's art style youve created as?