Old School RuneScape Shelves The Ruinous Powers After Beta Testing

mmorpg.com:

The  Old School RuneScape team has been, for a while now, working with the community to approach the Ruinous Powers, a Prayer book that the team proposed as a Desert Treasure II reward before pulling back after the first rounds of feedback.

After a new beta test, they’ve decided to cancel the idea entirely. An update today explains their decision, as well as the process leading up to this point, and what we can look forward to in the future.

With the return of Desert Treasure, the OSRS team wanted to create a very special reward. enter the plan to create the game’s first-ever new Prayer. Some ideas were floated around for what The Ruinous Powers might be and potential ways it could work, so the usual community polling was done. The first round of polling was so split, specifically between those who were in favor of the new Prayer benefiting different playstyles, that the team shelved it temporarily. They planned to be back with more polling after incorporating some of the feedback they received. 

Some of the original proposals were abandoned quickly, including making it Skilling-based and something called Overprotection would’ve protected two items on death, which made it an unpopular proposition among PvPers.

They decided to run a new beta test but ultimately cut it short because they couldn't find a way to make it work, with testers calling it repetitive and not feeling much different from existing prayers. Certainly not something that’s supposed to be a truly special reward for Desert Treasure II. With the different attempts, they say that what they wound up with in testing didn't match up with their original vision.

The team is focused on getting Desert Treasure II finished, and didn’t want to continue pouring