The current coronavirus epidemic has been extremely disruptive in the world of film and entertainment. According to an 2.500-person survey conducted from the Game Developers Conference ahead of its summer convention with OSRS Accounts that is exclusively digital coming up in July, a third of developers reported that COVID-19 was the cause to delays. The most prominent delay in recent times was the release of Double Fine's Psychonauts 2. that was granted an updated release date during the Microsoft's Xbox Series X showcase Thursday. In the current craze, Jagex is hoping to give its players something to keep them amused with the RuneScape Desperate Update to Measures.

Desperate Measures is a new component of RuneScape's Elder Gods questline, which has been under development since. The main storyline has been around for a while, but each piece must be approved by the relevant stakeholders prior to beginning the development process so that the information can be made available in "accessible and engaging" ways. Rsorder interviewed Jagex Director of Design David Osborne, Senior Games Designer Tim Fletcher, and Lead Content Developer James Crowther about how RuneScape is driven by its fans and how the work for Desperate measures has been impacted by global events.

The Desperate Measures update, which has been officially released today was discussed during the development process of the counterpart Desperate Times. The place it is on the development timeline was "shuffled around" because of other projects such as the addition of the newest skill in RuneScape Archaeology in March according to Crowther. This means Jagex was undergoing the new quest's development after the epidemic was in full swing and the situation was "less than perfect."

"Creating content is an artform, and this kind of creativity benefits greatly from having people around to share ideas with," Crowther said. "Whilst Zoom is perfectly functional however, it doesn't have the same level of interaction with other people and this makes it more difficult to communicate ideas."

The strain of battling an epidemic that is global, and taking care of family responsibility in a challenging working environment can cause issues in development in the opinion of Crowther. There are "hiccups" because of information not being translated because of coworkers not being together similar to the way explained in the article written by Jason Canam for Finish Line Games' Skully as that team completed its polishing and bug-testing process on Discord. However the Jagex team is satisfied with the results they've managed achieve due to the "adaptable" team and plans to implement even more.

Osborne who has been in charge of the revival of RuneScape after it changed from Java-based Old School RuneScape (OSRS) to the HTML-focused RuneScape 3 in 2013. Osborne said that the idea of having players wait for more content over months was "the wrong strategy." Instead, the current release schedule is to release each month new content to ensure that players are able to play the game. It's not likely to be a major adventure, but it might be a handful of new goals with "kickass prizes." However, Osborne said even these minor events will create momentum into the overall story.

This focus on the fans of RuneScape even in the face of a world-wide pandemic can be seen in the way that new quests are created in a case-by case basis too. Fletcher is the person in charge of the teams that are working to complete The Elder Gods story, said that the developers are active in social media. The response with OSRS Boosting of fans varies, Crowther said, and even though not everyone is a fan of every piece of content the team is hoping that their continuing quest line will appeal to the people who have had been "crying for help" to continue the story.