Giant's Foundry would make excellent free-to-play content.

[full pier]

Giant's Foundry and it's quest Sleeping Giants have a lot of interesting features that would contribute a lot to the end-game f2p experience, my key points are as follows:

• Having a quest that involves the Hill Giants would be thematically appropriate for f2p.
• Obor, the free-to-play Hill Giant boss is name dropped during the quest.
• It exists within already free-to-play areas.
• The quest only requires items that are already available in f2p.
• It would provide a useful means of raising smithing in f2p, especially useful for f2p ironmen.
• The Colossal Blade, an extremely cool concept of a weapon, is scarcely used in members, but it would see much use in f2p.

From here, I'll go into deeper exploration of these points, and how I believe it could vastly improve the free-to-play experience and encourage more players to upgrade to members.

The Iconic Hill Giants.
One of the first things that come to mind when thinking of free-to-play is Hill Giants, countless free-to-players have spent untold hours grinding on these giant goofballs for their useful drops and especially the Giant Keys. However! There is not currently any quest that pertains to them available in free-to-play, so the players who spend the longest time interacting with them arguably know the least about them. The writing is in Sleeping Giants is very good, and I believe that by exposing more players to it would add both a deeper appreciation for the Hill Giants themselves, and for the writing of the OSRS team.
And on top of all of that, that Obor, a named boss every late game f2per has likely fought dozens of times is referenced in the quest would add a sense of interconnectivity to the f2p world(s).

(Continued in the comments of this post due to length limits.)

All the ingredients are already present.
Both the Hill Giant area near Al Kharid and all the items needed during the quest are already available in f2p, which would lower the amount of work needed by the osrs team to make this a possibility.

It would have a positive effect on both Ironmen and PvP/PKers.
One of the most notorious things Ironmen go through in f2p is the infamous smithing grind for the Rune Scimitar, but even ignoring that particular item, the Mithril, Adamant and Rune Axes are also all locked behind smithing in f2p, enabling Ironmen to have a more convenient smithing endgame is a net upside. Though, I would recommend some of the higher tier moulds and the smithing outfit be locked to Members, to prevent the XP from being to free.
PKers and those who play Castle Wars would likely also appreciate a new tool to fight with. The Colossal Blade is an extremely cool weapon but is directly outclassed by the Barrelchest Anchor as well as dozens of weapons that are simply higher tier than it. In free-to-play, it would receive the respect it deserves- And think about it, how cool would it be for the Hill Giant weapon to be the inarguable best-in-slot in free to play?

These are my thoughts on the subject, I've played as a main and ironman both in members and f2p, and that may have tinted my view on this a little, but I do think this is genuinely a good idea for the health of the free-to-play gamemode.

I'd love to hear any thoughts anyone has on this!

[indigo summit]

the issue is bots unfortunately, cant really do this when 95% of the f2p playerbase is bots who would be very happy to have something like giants foundry to bot vs botting the beer glass shelves in al kharid lmao

[full pier]

I guess I didn't consider that. Perhaps entry to the area could be gated behind Obor KC? I'm sure there is a way we could make it happen without allowing the bots to overrun it.

[indigo summit]

there's not really a sufficient requirement you could put on that would prevent most bots that wouldnt also gate most of the real f2p players

[full pier]

What if we made ore packs members only? Wouldn't that remove the primary reason to bot it?

[indigo summit]

there's also kovags grog and the coins from turning in swords

if there is ANY tradeable reward, it will be botted

[full pier]

I think it would still be worth having the minigame in f2p if all tradable rewards were removed.

[indigo summit]

yeah if there was 0 money to be made from it, then it would be feasible to allow in f2p

[marsh dagger]

I think it would be better suited within F2P tbh With some extra members only things.

[lucid swan]

Only points (maybe even decreaced rate) and no gp in f2p, kind of like how lms and cw have reward restrictions could work. It's certainly a much more engaging way to train smithing.

[strong isle]

they would have to limit reward points or the coins being refunded

grog is already quite expensive and the whole thing is profit at mith/addy tier

[jaunty mulch]

Jagex needs to put more resources into bot banning so we can add fun content to f2p without everyone worrying about bots. This would be so great for real players but it won't happen because of bots

[strong isle]

Fun content being locked behind membership is how they make their money

[calm vault]

I'd say make all rewards except for the sword p2p locked, halve the money from making swords and send it.
give f2p some love

[strong isle]

I would see it agreeable if purchasable molds were locked to members and no coins or points were given for tasks

[full pier]

I think the Colossal Blade would be an incredible addition to f2p, perhaps it could be earned without points somehow?

[ivory oar]

Colossal blade is too powerful for f2p, it is basically a dragon weapon instead of rune.

If there was a nerfed version, maybe, but I can’t get behind something that powerful for f2p.

F2P has been free of powercreep for a long time, and that is good for it in my opinion. I don’t mind the more balanced improvements like bryo staff and hill giant club, since those are still “40 attack” items.

[strong isle]

this is how it compares in dps vs obor

all with adamant boots

[lusty flint]

Not a valid argument against this. If the only argument against an update is "bots" then that's not a content or update issue, that's a botting issue. Same could be said about Colosseum Nex ToA Zulrah Doom etc etc so by your logic we should never get any new PvM content either since people will make bots for it. See how dumb your argument sounds now?

All that being said, love this suggestion, I support this.

[indigo summit]

no, for F2P it is absolutely a valid argument, members is a whole different story

if you can't understand that, it's not my problem and i'm not gonna argue over it - F2P is almost entirely bots and they will bot literally everything no matter how good it is, like I said I literally saw bots botting the al kharid beer glass shelves for 20k gp an hour the other day lol

There's no reason to give F2P access to giants foundry with all of the rewards available unless your goal is to tank the price of kovag's grog lol. The benefit of pulling in a few extra players to members does not outweight the cost of having thousands of f2p suicide bots flooding the content. It's not like I'm arguing against content being added to the game because bots exist- I'm just saying that there's no benefit to letting f2p access the content. There's a reason that F2P rarely gets updates, and when they do, the rewards are primarily untradeable

[calm vault]

you could just make the sword the only unlockable item in f2p

[indigo summit]

sure, and no gp rewards for turning in swords too

[calm vault]

as I said here

not having access to better molds will hit cash rewards too

[lucid swan]

As for monetary rewards they should definetly be nerfed to make the activity a loss in every way (compared to just selling ores), as thats the only realistic way to mitigate botting here. It can remain an engaging way to train smithing for real players, but at a cost vs p2p where it can turn a profit.

[ivory oar]

I am not against a very nerfed version of the activity, but I do think the blade is too powerful for F2P.

If there was a nerfed version of that too, then sure, but we are asking a lot of dev at that point, so I just don’t see it happening.

[idle breach]

I voted 👎 here because I think it is just kind of important that F2P is straight less efficient than P2P. I let my membership expire last summer and after a couple months not playing, I started back up in F2P killing golems to complete Caamdozaal & barronite mace. Once I was done, F2P was pretty much done as well

Giant's Foundry would unlock too long of a grind - it's one of the best smithing training methods all the way to 99. Now folks here have been saying "no mould unlocks" & maybe other nerfs - but at that point why even give F2P it? I think what smithing in F2P could really use is a straight mining/smithing rework