Hunter Skill

Introduction

First and foremost, apologies for the lack of update posts as of recent. Going forward, all update posts will happen here on the site, rather than in the Discord's media channel. Expect updates to be more frequent than in the past too, although smaller. There will be a heavy push towards getting content out rapidly from here on out, as we have most of the engine features we needed completed now.

Development

Two weeks and 125 hours of development time later, we have our second-to-last missing skill - Hunter. This has been the most time-consuming and complicated skill to date, even surpassing Farming which took roughly 110 hours. Happy to announce it is complete now though, with every hunting technique and relevant content implemented!

Hunting Techniques

Below will be a walk-through of every hunting technique that can be found on Blurite now. I am confident we are the only server out there to actually support everything on this list, and everything on the skill guide.

It is also worth mentioning that all eligible hunting techniques also support smoking the traps, and baiting them, if applicable. While the boosts aren't anything special, they're still implemented and can be used to gain that slight edge.

Tracking

Starting off with an interesting one - tracking. Despite being mostly composed of low level hunter creatures, this hunting technique was by far the most complex I've had to implement, and it wasn't even close. When most other methods took anywhere from 2 to 5 hours, with a couple exceptions, this took the crown by taking three full days to wrap up.

Regardless, it is done now. From polar to razor-backed kebbits, or Herbiboar - whichever you prefer, you can now do. The respective RuneLite plugins for razor-backed kebbits and Herbiboar were tested in depth too, and function as expected.

This hunting technique requires the player to search through burrows, bushes and other scenery to find tracks that could lead to the creature responsible for said tracks. At the end of the trail, the player will have to capture the creature, typically with a noose wand.

Birds

A classic low-level technique found on most private servers. I don't think much needs to be said about this one, lay down a bird snare and wait for a bird to get caught in it. This was a fairly straight-forward technique to implement.

Butterflies & Moths

Butterflies can be caught bare-handed or with various butterfly nets. Our Stealing Creations' volatile and sacred clay butterfly nets also work for this, providing extra experience in doing so. These butterflies come with various benefits as of a recent update in OldSchool RuneScape.

Impetuous Impulses, Implings & Puro-Puro

A well known hunting method consisting of capturing implings across the world, and in Puro-Puro. Much like with butterflies, one can use the volatile and sacred clay butterfly nets to get extra experience for capturing these implings. The entire impetuous impulses minigame was implemented as part of the Hunter skill, with all the rewards features that come with it included. Players can seek out a crop circle in Gielinor by speaking with the Wandering impling found near the static crop circle on Zanaris. Doing so provides the player with significant boosts for moving through wheat, making the whole experience a lot more pleasant. Spells such as bind, snare, entangle and dark lure are also functional here.

Furthermore, this is where our first custom features start to come in - new implings: pirate, zombie, spirit and kingly. While we haven't quite decided what the rewards for these new implings will be, rest assured, they will be introduced in a fitting manner. These implings allow us to increase the profitability of implings which, while being a good method in OldSchool RuneScape, is not as interesting in a private server. I would also like to create an event that involves implings in the future, potentially being the method of introduction for these custom implings.

Deadfall

Deadfall consists of the player setting up a boulder trap which falls on a hunter creature unfortunate enough to walk underneath it. Players can set up one deadfall trap at a time - although we are open to increasing these limitations. Additionally, maniacal monkeys are also part of this hunting technique, allowing one an alternative method of obtaining the rare monkey tail.

Box Trapping

Another well-known hunting technique, consisting of setting up a box trap and waiting for a creature to get caught in it. From ferrets to embertailed jerboa, or chinchompas - all these creatures can be caught in this manner.

We are considering increasing the number of chinchompas players get from this hunting technique, as with boosted experience rates, and the usefulness of chinchompas in various aspects of the game, the number of chinchompas entering the game will not be enough by default.

Net Trapping

With a piece of rope and a small fishing net, players can set up net traps at specific young trees found throughout the game. This hunting technique allows players to catch various salamanders, including the new rare mature Tecu salamander.

Pitfalls

Pitfall traps are used to catch large beasts, such as larupias, graahks, kyatts and antelopes. Players can tease the respective creatures with a teasing stick, or a hunter's spear, and lead the creature over a trap, allowing them to capture the beast.

Aerial Fishing

While technically not hunter, it is part of the hunter skill guide and requires high hunter levels to participate. This content was implemented with the fishing skill about a year ago.

Falconry

Pick up a glove and a falcon and send the bird out to catch nearby kebbits. Players can do this activity by paying Matthias 500 gold for access each time, or by spending a whopping 500,000 coins for permanent free access to the falcon.

White Rabbits

A lesser known niche hunting method involving the use of ferrets. Set up rabbit snares in the Piscatoris hunting area and send a ferret in one of the burrows, leading to a rabbit running out of the burrows to another spot. If your snare happens to be in the path of the rabbit, it will get caught in it.

Magic Boxes

Similar to box trapping, players can lay down magic boxes to try and capture common imps found throughout the game. If successful, the player will have an imp-in-a-box, allowing them to send any item or stack of items to their bank. It should be noted that this functionality is limited in Wilderness, as it requires the player to not be in combat to send items out.

Birdhouses

Head over to Fossil island and set up a birdhouse - or four. This is a great passive way of training the skill up. Birdhouses work very similarly to farming - on average every five minutes, a bird will get caught in each of the active birdhouse traps. After all ten have been caught, players can dismantle the traps and grab all the birds.

Drift Net Fishing

Similarly to aerial fishing, while technically not hunter, this training method requires a hunter level as well as a fishing level. Set up a drift net underwater in Fossil island and capture nearby fish shoals in it. This can be done passively for slow experience, or sped up by prodding the fish to get caught up in traps quicker.

Clothing

Various hunter clothing and equipment can be created via one of two NPCs found in the game - either Asyff in Varrock, or Pellem in the Hunter Guild. Bring either of them the furs you've captured, and they might be able to turn it into hunting gear, as long as you can afford the fees. These hunter outfits have various benefits - from reducing your weight to reducing the damage you take from creatures caught via pitfall traps.

Hunter Guild

A recent addition to Old School RuneScape. This new guild offers a hub for various hunting activities, with numerous hunter creatures close by to the area. The guild offers many features - a bank, a fur trader, a hunting equipment salesman, a quetzal and a few new creatures.

Hunter Rumours

In addition to the aforementioned features found in the Hunter Guild, players can talk to one of the guild hunters found in the Burrows, beneath the Hunter Guild. Starting at level 46 hunter, players can grab a tier 1 rumour which will require them to find a rare creature part somewhere in the game. Find it, bring it back to the respective guild hunter and you will be rewarded with a nice chunk of hunter experience, as well as a loot sack containing all kinds of supplies. At various completion amounts, players will also unlock further features, such as quetzal whistle blueprints, abilities to cook hunter meats and various historical notes regarding the Hunter Guild.

Giant Eagles

While not a hunting technique on its own, it is listed in the skill guide and as such must be implemented! Grab a rope and throw it around the neck of one of the three giant eagles found in the game and travel between the nests of these eagles. Who knows, there might be a hidden reward for doing so!

Miscellaneous

With the addition of Varlamore, the skill received quite a few quality-of-life improvements - meat and fur pouches. Players can craft these pouches out of fur caught from various hunter creatures - allowing them to store any meat and fur they find during their hunter training. Additionally, bonecrusher may be used to automatically crush any bones you get from hunter directly. Any tools and hunter gear may also be stored in a huntsman's kit - obtained from the loot sacks received from completing hunter rumours. Additionally, Varlamore resulted in the guild hunter outfit being released. This outfit provides an increased catch rate to hunter creatures, as well as faster completion of said hunter rumours.

Conclusion

That about sums the skill up. It is a very content-packed skill, with lots of techniques to offer - all of which can be found in Blurite. Just to reiterate - everything found on the skill guide is implemented (and no, we didn't delete elements from the skill guide to be able to say that). It is one of our goals to try to knock off everything found on the skill guides - hopefully we can accomplish that before the release of the server.

- The Blurite Team