1 mo. ago • 95%

Corporate greed is killing RuneScape. What do people play instead?

RuneScape was my favorite game of all time when I was a kid. I'd play it for at least 8 hours a day every day, and never get bored. Now, RuneScape is RuneScape 3, terribly infested gambling microtransaction mess that looks like a really bad early access game, or Oldschool RuneScape, which is really fun, but is infested with bots. It's honestly so bad. I tried to play it and it feels so... good, but also low effort. The worst part, however, is the corporate greed. Jagex, the company that developes Runescape, has been sold numerous times. This time, it's owned by some Venture Capital or investment firm, the kind that kills games off to gain their IP and then sell them for huge amounts of money (CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments). The first thing they've done is raise the subscription of Runescape to nearly $15, which is truly nuts. This game used to be like $8 a month previously, some are still paying that much....

It's sad to see corporate greed kill such a great game. Idk what to even play now....

58 comments

There are fan projects like 2009scape that you can play for free.

46
- I agree. 2009scape scratches the itch that RuneScape provides and it’s playable offline. The game doesn’t have every single quest, but the addictive part is still there.
  
  https://2009scape.org/
  
  10
they've done a really good job culling the bots in osrs, imo the biggest hurdle in it is the long boring grinds it takes to get to midgame pvm where it starts getting really really fun.

I'd also say that if you think rs3 is the default game you are very mistaken

osrs has been the more popular game by far for almost a decade now.

32
- they've done a really good job culling the bots in osrs
  
  You're badly misinformed. Their official subreddit is rife with complaints constantly about how bad the bot problem is. Some top ranked players on high scores are bots too.
  
  Example one where top fishing skill players are bots.
  
  Example 2 The top 25 Bandos highscore ranks are dominated by ranged-only tick-perfect bots, with a combined kill count of 1.7 million, generating approximately 225 billion gold from Bandos sets and 50 billion gold from hilts, and similar botting issues persist across other high-level bosses and activities.
  
  Example 3 where CVC admits they have no fucking idea how many bots there even are but that they're important to OSRS and part of the game.
  
  The bot problem is out of control and they obviously profit from it massively, banning them takes away subscribers
  
  4
  
  example 1 is from a year ago, 2 is new so it may still be a thing but likely something they've already dealt with and 3 is from "someone close to CVC" how on earth are you gonna take that as fact?
  
  from mod ayiza's response to that 3rd one:
  
  "To give some context in the form of data, here are some ban stats:
  
  Last year we banned over 6.9 million accounts.
  
  So far in 2024, each week on average, we ban over 2,300 RuneScape accounts.
  
  So far in 2024, each week on average, we ban over 67,000 Old School RuneScape accounts.
  
  Of these accounts, 2,800 are for botting popular boss-related content.
  
  Each week, around 1.5T GP is removed from the RuneScape economy.
  
  Each week, around 900B GP is removed from the Old School RuneScape economy. "
  
  they're playing wack-a-mole because there's no possible way to preemptively ban bots, but they've done a good job of it and will continue to.
  
  9
  
  In addition to what the other commenter said, it's more likely as someone newer and thus engaging in lower level activities to encounter bots since it takes less time to set them up and get going than mid to late game content. I find it rare to encounter an obvious bot as someone doing high level pvm/skilling
  
  2
- There is also iron mode which helps to ignore bots. Yes they can still steal your ore deposit but there are enough worlds to go to.
  
  3
I don't know about nowadays, but back in 2007 when I got bored with Runescape I switched to Guild Wars. Great MMO. Kind of dead playerwise now, but the servers are still up and it is soloable.

16
- Guild Wars 2 is still kicking.
  
  6
  
  Guild wars 2 is a very good game, but very different than guild wars 1.
  
  They both avoid the endless gear and level grind, but gw2 is generally easier and less tactical. You can solo most of it. Builds are a little more limited, but it's also harder to make a useless character.
  
  They addressed the most common problems with early mmos: other players are never a bad thing. there's no kill stealing. If you're doing some event to fight off demons that have invaded the town, and other people show up, the game silently scales up a to accommodate more players, and everyone gets credit. it's great.
  
  I really like it. I don't play it every day, but I go back to it all the time.
  
  7
  
  I've tried getting into GW2, but just couldn't really get into it.
  
  Doesn't help that I fell of contact with all of my old guild mates who were supposed to be switching over.
  
  2
- I miss the heyday of both RuneScape and Guild Wars 1. Those were fantastic times.
  
  2
- Did the Legendary Defender of Ascalon during Corona.
  I should do some other titles with that character too…
  
  2
- Recovered my account a couple years ago with support and providing my og serials. Can't believe it worked but it punched me in the face nostalgia-wise when I got into it.
  
  1
  
  I still occasionally fire it up and just walk around some of the hub cities.
  
  1
- Man, spent so many hours in it. Recently installed it again and it still runs perfectly fine too.
  
  1
- You just reminded me, I should see if I can get City of Heroes Homecoming running on my computer.
  
  1
Check out walkscape beta

14
- I second this! The game has really interesting idea and I have talked with developers and they are really awesome people.
  
  5
- Another vote for WalkScape! I’m doubling my walking time since joining, and it’s feeds the “gotta chop 100 birch trees” part of my brain.
  
  1
- I’ve been playing this! It’s a bit hard to progress sometimes because I don’t have the time to walk as much as I want, but it’s really nice when I do.
  
  1
I'm not sure what you mean by "low effort"? OSRS is an incredibly good game and keeps getting new content all the time. I'm happy to pay 15$ a month since we get a free update every wednesday. Sometimes it's just some hotfix , other times it's a whole new boss or continent. We had an new part of the map just last week.

Yes there is bot, but I never felt like it impacted my gameplay other than lowering the price of some items. The team is also doing a lot to ban them, it's getting much better.

The community is booming. If you look around on YouTube, there's a lot of content creators doing awesome thing on OSRS: custom game mode, weird twist on existing challenges, documentary, etc.

Honestly, I think we are currently in the golden age of Old school RuneScape, and if you feel like the game is bad or low effort, it might not be for you, which is fine, but the game itself is not the issue.

I hope you find some other game to give you what you had with RuneScape back in the days !

14
- For the last bit hoping they'll find something like what RS used to be, they won't. That type of game can't really exist anymore. (It obviously could make money, looking at OSRS's player base, but it would never get the funding it needs.) The best options are OSRS (or RS3, which has pros and cons with OSRS and doesn't deserve all the hate), potentially Brighter Shores in the future (developed by one of the brothers who created RS), or playing a modern MMO.
  
  4
  
  BS comes out next month btw!
  
  2
- How is it a free update if you are paying $180/year?
  
  1
Final Fantasy XIV may lack the point and click tick based combat and semi AFK gameplay but it's a solid MMORPG.

10
$8 in 2001 is about $14 now. Kinda seems like the same value is there, it's just adjusted for inflation.

8
- No, it's adjusted for corporate greed. World of Warcraft has never once raised their subscription. Also, they shouldn't have had to raise their subscription because they introduced microtransactions in both RS3 and OSRS which further boosted revenue. You're comparing two very different times in the game. There's no excuse whatsoever.
  
  6
  
  The only microtransaction in OSRS is the ability to buy membership with in game gold. As someone who is normally staunchly against all MTX it's a very reasonable tradeoff
  
  1
- OSRS was in the $4 per month range for me when I played it when it wasn't OS. I never got it.
  
  5
Perhaps Albion Online for a similar kind of game?

7
- Never tried that. What is it?
  
  2
  
  Bit of an interesting game, when I tried it a long time ago, but it was too much of a grindfest for me. Then again, I never got into Runescape either for similar reasons.
  
  5
  
  At low levels, a free-to-play isometric fantasy MMO.
  
  At higher levels, a grindy gankfest.
  
  3
- I played Albion Online for a while until it was clear it needed a lot of grinding and paying to be able to play properly. Not going back.
  
  1
You could stand by and hope for great things with Brighter Shores, from one of the original makers of RuneScape. I'm hoping it gives me that seem feel rs did decades ago.

6
- I'm done bro. I have no hope left in me after Back 4 Blood. The original creators of Left 4 Dead, totally failed to deliver a fun and interesting game. I can't believe the whole "original creator" bait anymore
  
  5
Try Wakfu. There are a lot of chill trades to grind casually and the economy is completely player driven. There are no NPCs to buy or sell your loot to.

The PvE gameplay loop is really fun. The game has an adjustable level system that encourages players to replay lower level dungeons. Battles are turn based and have a surprising amount of strategy.

The only real problem with the game is that the devs seem to not care about player growth at all. They do zero marketing and sometimes the registration system is broken and won’t get fixed for awhile. It’s like the opposite problem to RuneScape.

4
- How's the bot situation?
  
  1
  
  Minimal. There’s a unique captcha system in harvesting that makes it difficult to bot. The closest thing to bad bots are people running multiple accounts on single account servers to run dungeons. It’s a bannable offense and people do get banned for doing it.
  
  1
Corporate greed has killed all of my favorite mmos, and every new mmo that comes out is further down the spiral.

So I decided to make my own damn game, a mashup of my top 5 favorite defunct mmos. Base gameplay/progression/dynamic events from Tabula Rasa, Star Wars Galaxies crafting/building, Firefall jumping/gliding/thumping, the mechs from Exteel, and the territory control map from Planetside 1.

It's 100% a shameless asset flip, and currently jank af, but pretty fun at the moment.

4
- This for real?
  
  1
  
  sorta ^^
  
  3
- Am down for that. Anything public yet?
  
  1
  
  Not yet, there are a few bugs i need to squash before I'm ready for the next round of testing.
  
  2
If you're not excited about Brighter shores then I really don't know, for some reason no one else has ever tried to make the same type of game (aside from Genfanad and Titanreach, both of which have shut down quickly after release)

You could check out Project: Gorgon, it's something of a mix between Runescape's multitude of slow-to-level, interconnected skills on one character and a more typical MMO with distinct classes, buildcrafting and group content. It has a free demo on Steam. All of that said it's only vaguely similar, and I wouldn't mention it if there was anything closer to OSRS.

3
Waiting on Brighter Shores to come out!

3
I quit RuneScape in 2011ish after squeal of fortune introduced legacy loot. I’m sorry, but for a game that was all about 100% completion, making loot legacy and unobtainable if you didn’t gamble for it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

3
I've never played Runescape so my answer is I play literally any other games.

My comment is unhelpful but I'm posting it anyway.

2
Honestly it sounds like you might like some of the aspects of EVE Online

2
This is going to be a weird suggestion but, if you like the pvm aspect of killing bosses to get powerful loot and take on more difficult challenges, you should play Remnant 2.

It's a souls like shooter about exploring a few different worlds searching for new gear so you can make better builds, loot is not randomized so there is a clear BiS for your build.

1
I play old school maplestory on maplelegends. They have strict "no real world trade" rules and no pay to win. It really is just the game how it should be played, which really highlights all the flaws in the game (there are many)

Obviously the main draw is nostalgia, so if it's something you've never played it won't have much value, but the community is great and it's an mmo with lots to do and endgame content to aspire to

1
I stopped playing due to all their stupid additions all the time. Like the sailing/whatever skills they want to add, it's all bullshit and copium by and for adults wanting new stuff. Their "democratic" voting is an absolute joke; "oh it didn't pass? let's just poll it again with slight changes". That's a cheap and dirty way of pushing their own agenda.

I did the maths some time ago, a subscription to 1 Runescape character is 20 times more expensive than a WoW character.

0
- does them adding new content somehow detract from your ability to do whatever it was you liked to do before said content was added?
  
  "I hate that expansions are provided at no additional cost, and also it costs too much" is kinda one of the wildest takes on the game I've ever heard ngl
  
  2
  
  Yes it does. The waste of experience feels terribly wrong on RS.
  
  2
- I don't understand your last paragraph unless there's some weird regional pricing going on. It's $13.99 USD for a month of Runescape membership vs $14.99 USD for a month of WoW membership
  
  2
  
  WoW membership gives you 65 character slots.
  
  1

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