Revisiting Gielinor: RuneScape's Past, Present, and Future
Reader, please indulge me this little bit of preamble: think back to around the year 2003 (if you're old enough, at least...). For me, I was 12 years old — still figuring out normal kid things, like why pre-algebra sucked, what movie to see with my friends. or what anime I'd watch during the Saturday morning cartoon block. At around this time, I had heard about an online game called Everquest from a close friend. You see, his entire family was big on Dungeons and Dragons and other assorted roleplaying type stuff, and he really wanted to play an online game with me, but I knew my home computer would never be able to run it. We had one of those dinky Dell Dimension desktops, and it could barely play the flash games on Neopets, let alone try load up the Plane of Fire or whatever Everquest zones were called.
Shortly thereafter, said friend asked if I wanted to try a new game that he had just discovered. This game was so low fidelity that it could run on any machine, including the school computers! (Back in 2003, most schools had no idea what a firewall was or how to block games from being played.) It was a massive game that took a fair amount of time commitment, and while it was free to start playing, it had a membership option for even more stuff to do, like Thieving! My friend dragged me to the library, loaded up a web browser, and introduced me properly to the world of RuneScape.
Most people my age might have a similar story; the game has been around for nearly 30 years, making it one of the oldest running online games in existence. Any game that old has its share of ups and downs, and RuneScape is no different. The 2007 Falador Massacre, (an event where a player accidentally granted other players the ability to PVP in non-PVP zones), the heavy embracing of microstransactions via the Squeal of Fortune (and later, Treasure Hunter), the complete rework of the game's combat with the Evolution of Combat update — there are too many major events to list in one article, but needless to say, the game (and its developers) has seen and done it all.
Around 2013, a "new" version of RuneScape launched: Old School RuneScape. Modeled after a 2007 build of RuneScape, back before graphical overhauls, game system reworks, and many skills and quests were released, OSRS aimed to be simply a return to older days for existing players. This rapidly shifted however, as overwhelming demand for OSRS eventually led to it getting a dedicated development team, completely new content not ever introduced in RuneScape, and, as of the date of this article, the more popular game mode between the two.
I had heard of OSRS, of course, but had no idea the number of changes the game introduced since its launch. I bought a subscription, loaded a new character and was soon well on my way to expericing Gielinor all over again.
Reminiscing about the olden days, excited about the new content, and curious about the future, I wanted to reach out to Jagex and pick their brain about the long, winding road from RuneScape 2 to now. Creative Director Kieren Charles was all too happy to oblige:
RPG Site: Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to sit down and speak with me, I really do appreciate it. Even removed from a journalistic setting, I'm a fan of RuneScape, been playing since I was 12 off and on, so being able to sit and chat with y'all is kind of like a dream come true of mine. It's just very nice to meet you.
Kieren Charles: Absolutely, I appreciate it, and it's lovely to meet you as well. I'm in the same boat as you, I grew up playing the game, and now I'm here in this role, so... *laugh*
RPG Site: I figured a good place to start would be taking a trip down memory lane. RPG Site just hit our 20 year threshold as a website, and the internet has changed drastically from 20 years ago, but one constant has been RuneScape — it's been around for forever. It's a little weird to think about a game that's been around this long, like, "hey remember in 2007 when a player glitched out a bunch of other players and allowed them to just kill people in the game world?"
Kieren: Yeah, there's been so many iconic moments, but it's crazy that RuneScape is over 25 years old now. Even Old School is getting up there in age now, I mean...Old School released in 2013, so 13 years old — that's half of RuneScape's entire history by itself. Mentally, I feel like Old School came out yesterday still, but the level of history is crazy. I think about all these things that had cultural impacts in our life, like, iPods were culturally so significant, and yet now it's a flash in the pan, right? We moved on to smartphones real fast. But RuneScape and Old School is still here and growing. Old School is, in fact, basically bigger than RuneScape at any point in its history, which is staggering to think about, really. It's humbling.
Kieren Charles: Absolutely, I appreciate it, and it's lovely to meet you as well. I'm in the same boat as you, I grew up playing the game, and now I'm here in this role, so... *laugh*
RPG Site: I figured a good place to start would be taking a trip down memory lane. RPG Site just hit our 20 year threshold as a website, and the internet has changed drastically from 20 years ago, but one constant has been RuneScape — it's been around for forever. It's a little weird to think about a game that's been around this long, like, "hey remember in 2007 when a player glitched out a bunch of other players and allowed them to just kill people in the game world?"
Kieren: Yeah, there's been so many iconic moments, but it's crazy that RuneScape is over 25 years old now. Even Old School is getting up there in age now, I mean...Old School released in 2013, so 13 years old — that's half of RuneScape's entire history by itself. Mentally, I feel like Old School came out yesterday still, but the level of history is crazy. I think about all these things that had cultural impacts in our life, like, iPods were culturally so significant, and yet now it's a flash in the pan, right? We moved on to smartphones real fast. But RuneScape and Old School is still here and growing. Old School is, in fact, basically bigger than RuneScape at any point in its history, which is staggering to think about, really. It's humbling.
RPG Site: It is staggering. Old School has not only succeeded at what the original mission was, but has gone off and moved into a life of its own. Do you think that when Old School was first crafted and pushed out, the goal was just to revisit a part of RuneScape's history without the baggage of certain decisions like Squeal of Fortune/Treasure Hunter/Microstransactions and getting, essentially, a second crack at the pinata? Did you think that it was going to be something that would last 13 years and beyond?
Kieren: I joined Jagex in 2015, so when Old School was already a few years into its lifespan. I wasn't part of the team that made those decisions or planned it's goals from day one, but from the context that I know, I don't think anyone at Jagex truly believed Old School would be anywhere near the size and scale of where we are now. There was demand and interest, of course, which came from the community saying "You know, it's cool that RuneScape is doing this stuff, but it's not the game I remember loving growing up." Obviously with any title, seven, eight years down the road, new features and systems are going to be added or changed. So there's a version of RuneScape that people want to play, but they cannot literally play it. So the community asked for it and, frankly, out of skepticism almost, Jagex laid down the gauntlet to players and said "Right, prove it, we'll put out this big sort of official vote." There was a big petition on the website, where you had to sign in with your account and click the button to say "I want Old School."
I think it needed to be around 250,000 votes to get a permanent development team to build stuff for it, because Jagex wanted to see how much demand there truly was. Ultimately, I think the votes were just shy of that goal, but it was definitely close enough, so they decided to give it a small team and see what happened. Then, well, the rest is history, right? It's been built with the community at its core, using a similar voting system that's sort of maintained a level of identity and familiarity to the Old School style. Players tell us what we can and cannot do. The team behind Old School has grown and grown because the method's proved itself.
When I joined Jagex, the team was around 10 people large. When Old School first launched, the team was maybe 3 or 4 people. But players proved they wanted it, and the content the team was able to do with minimal resources encouraged more and more players to check it out. This has been a major part of my personal history with the game, because like, I first started playing in 2007, so I lived through a lot of the changes, including the ones I personally didn't vibe with. So for me, when Old School launched, I was like "Oh my god, this is going to be amazing to have this version of the game back!"
Kieren: I joined Jagex in 2015, so when Old School was already a few years into its lifespan. I wasn't part of the team that made those decisions or planned it's goals from day one, but from the context that I know, I don't think anyone at Jagex truly believed Old School would be anywhere near the size and scale of where we are now. There was demand and interest, of course, which came from the community saying "You know, it's cool that RuneScape is doing this stuff, but it's not the game I remember loving growing up." Obviously with any title, seven, eight years down the road, new features and systems are going to be added or changed. So there's a version of RuneScape that people want to play, but they cannot literally play it. So the community asked for it and, frankly, out of skepticism almost, Jagex laid down the gauntlet to players and said "Right, prove it, we'll put out this big sort of official vote." There was a big petition on the website, where you had to sign in with your account and click the button to say "I want Old School."
I think it needed to be around 250,000 votes to get a permanent development team to build stuff for it, because Jagex wanted to see how much demand there truly was. Ultimately, I think the votes were just shy of that goal, but it was definitely close enough, so they decided to give it a small team and see what happened. Then, well, the rest is history, right? It's been built with the community at its core, using a similar voting system that's sort of maintained a level of identity and familiarity to the Old School style. Players tell us what we can and cannot do. The team behind Old School has grown and grown because the method's proved itself.
When I joined Jagex, the team was around 10 people large. When Old School first launched, the team was maybe 3 or 4 people. But players proved they wanted it, and the content the team was able to do with minimal resources encouraged more and more players to check it out. This has been a major part of my personal history with the game, because like, I first started playing in 2007, so I lived through a lot of the changes, including the ones I personally didn't vibe with. So for me, when Old School launched, I was like "Oh my god, this is going to be amazing to have this version of the game back!"
RPG Site: Do you have any memories of the pre-Old School days that really stick out to you?
Kieren: Yeah, like during my childhood, I remember things like the Falador Massacre like you mentioned, but the one that sticks out the most to me was a bug involving Stealing Creation.
[Editor's Note: Stealing Creation is a competitive mini-game where players work together on teams to gather and shape clay into tools, resources, weapons, and so on.]
In the mini-game, you know how players can pickpocket from opposing players, right? Well, two players actually ended up with a Jagex Mod joining them for a round, and the players ended up stealing a "mod item", in this case a rotten potato. This was Jagex Mod-only item that grants developer-level commands to the holder, such as raising a skill to max level, instant-healing, or manipulating the game world.
Kieren: Yeah, like during my childhood, I remember things like the Falador Massacre like you mentioned, but the one that sticks out the most to me was a bug involving Stealing Creation.
[Editor's Note: Stealing Creation is a competitive mini-game where players work together on teams to gather and shape clay into tools, resources, weapons, and so on.]
In the mini-game, you know how players can pickpocket from opposing players, right? Well, two players actually ended up with a Jagex Mod joining them for a round, and the players ended up stealing a "mod item", in this case a rotten potato. This was Jagex Mod-only item that grants developer-level commands to the holder, such as raising a skill to max level, instant-healing, or manipulating the game world.
RPG Site: My first memory of RuneScape was when the Grand Exchange got implemented. Prior to the update, if you wanted to sell anything in-game, you either had to post on the Jagex Official Forums in the Marketplace, or you had to stand in World 1 or 2 Varrock Bank (either one, but West Bank was more popular.) We didn't have a tool like Discord at the time, and most of the commerce happened via the forums, so I remember when the update was announced there was a lot of doom and gloom about it. "Oh, prices will be set in stone, we can't stand in Varrock Bank all day and do fancy chat colors advertising our noted Maple Logs or Lobsters."
Kieren: Exactly, and the Old School build that launched was the build that predated the Grand Exchange — I think the build was dated August 2007, and the Grand Exchange launched later that year. So in Old School, there was a big discussion about implementing it. A lot of Old School's success is down to the nostalgia and how important it is as an ingredient for certain topics. Nostalgia is very important, but it doesn't make a successful game that can last 13 years or more. It needs to have more than that. Like you said, we all remember standing around and shouting glowing text, trying to shout the loudest to get people to buy your Abyssal Whip but not that person's. But when you play it for a year, you quickly realize you don't really want to spend hour after hour just buying and selling items, you want to be killing monsters or training skills. Players wanted the freedom to trade more easily, and it came down to a pretty big vote from the players.
We asked the players, "Do you want us to bring in the Grand Exchange?" and it narrowly passed. There was a lot of debate about it on both sides, but I think if you asked players now about it, it wouldn't be nearly as close. It's too fundamental a feature.
Kieren: Exactly, and the Old School build that launched was the build that predated the Grand Exchange — I think the build was dated August 2007, and the Grand Exchange launched later that year. So in Old School, there was a big discussion about implementing it. A lot of Old School's success is down to the nostalgia and how important it is as an ingredient for certain topics. Nostalgia is very important, but it doesn't make a successful game that can last 13 years or more. It needs to have more than that. Like you said, we all remember standing around and shouting glowing text, trying to shout the loudest to get people to buy your Abyssal Whip but not that person's. But when you play it for a year, you quickly realize you don't really want to spend hour after hour just buying and selling items, you want to be killing monsters or training skills. Players wanted the freedom to trade more easily, and it came down to a pretty big vote from the players.
We asked the players, "Do you want us to bring in the Grand Exchange?" and it narrowly passed. There was a lot of debate about it on both sides, but I think if you asked players now about it, it wouldn't be nearly as close. It's too fundamental a feature.
RPG Site: I know you joined long after this happened, but I wanted to pick your brain over it still. Even to this day, I think the thing RuneScape is most notorious for is the Evolution of Combat update for RuneScape 3. [Editor's Note: RuneScape 3 is the version of RuneScape that isn't Old School, launched in 2013, which overhauled internal game systems, engine and more, and is the bedrock of the game today.] It was a very divisive update that, unfortunately, caused a lot of players to quit. Every day I play in Old School or read some discords, I see returning players who "quit when Evolution of Combat launched" and are only just now returning to the game. Has there been any internal discussions about trying to revisit EoC for Old School, or is that so taboo that the team has thrown it in the closet with a "Do Not Touch" sign attached?
Kieren: We're always making additions to combat, such as new weapons or weapons with different behaviors, new armor sets, and so on. We love to experiment with different types of special attacks, also. But the combat system in Old School has to remain familiar. In Old School, I should be able to equip a weapon, click on a target, take my hands off and watch my character fire attacks off. That is the core basic ingredient and it has to remain that way, because, well, it's "Old School". It has to evoke that feeling of playing it in 2007. So we can't, or won't, fundamentally rip anything up or change it.
However, like I said, we do experiment often, we try new things, but we bring those in at the top via new equipment or new boss encounters that challenge players in different ways. I very, very much doubt we'd ever do something like a full combat rework for Old School, but we can pick at some element that we like. For example, elemental weaknesses like using fire spells against an ice creature for bonus damage. That fundamentally changed magic because prior to that, elemental spells were kind of worthless. So addressing combat at the ingredient level and not the system level is an objectively good thing, I feel. It builds out the horizontal landscape of options available to players in Old School.
Also, from a RuneScape perspective, Evolution of Combat of today versus launch in 2012/2013 is radically different, too. The team has been adding some really cool features and it's developed in a very strong way, I think it's found its own footing even. Nowadays, I think if you tried to change RuneScape's EoC combat to be more like Old School, those players would get equally annoyed because they love what it's become, especially with Necromancy, the new combat style that launched a few years ago.
Kieren: We're always making additions to combat, such as new weapons or weapons with different behaviors, new armor sets, and so on. We love to experiment with different types of special attacks, also. But the combat system in Old School has to remain familiar. In Old School, I should be able to equip a weapon, click on a target, take my hands off and watch my character fire attacks off. That is the core basic ingredient and it has to remain that way, because, well, it's "Old School". It has to evoke that feeling of playing it in 2007. So we can't, or won't, fundamentally rip anything up or change it.
However, like I said, we do experiment often, we try new things, but we bring those in at the top via new equipment or new boss encounters that challenge players in different ways. I very, very much doubt we'd ever do something like a full combat rework for Old School, but we can pick at some element that we like. For example, elemental weaknesses like using fire spells against an ice creature for bonus damage. That fundamentally changed magic because prior to that, elemental spells were kind of worthless. So addressing combat at the ingredient level and not the system level is an objectively good thing, I feel. It builds out the horizontal landscape of options available to players in Old School.
Also, from a RuneScape perspective, Evolution of Combat of today versus launch in 2012/2013 is radically different, too. The team has been adding some really cool features and it's developed in a very strong way, I think it's found its own footing even. Nowadays, I think if you tried to change RuneScape's EoC combat to be more like Old School, those players would get equally annoyed because they love what it's become, especially with Necromancy, the new combat style that launched a few years ago.
RPG Site: With regards to the two versions of RuneScape, I'd like to focus on legacy a bit. There's a pretty fair amount of people who played RuneScape back in the day but haven't really kept up with current events, and may not have any idea there's two versions or what the differences are. Growing up, RuneScape was always thought of as a "third" MMO, like you had World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 11 or 14, and when you got bored of those, RuneScape was always there. But nowadays I think that isn't the case, because just delving slightly into the Old School community, I've seen some absolutely bonkers content, both official and unofficial.
Full disclosure, I only started an OSRS account a few months ago, and I only started playing because I saw a video on YouTube that stunned me. What do you mean there's a guy who is locked to a single tile and has to grind, like, pickpocketing a low-level NPC to unlock more tiles to be able to progress through the game world? From there I started watching other videos and quickly realized that Old School was so much more robust and developed than I thought. Do you think the legacy of Old School is going to be "we took a second shot at the older style of RuneScape, but now we're developing it in a new path" or do you think RuneScape should be that "third game" — not a big box theme park MMO but something smaller by intention?
Kieren: It's a really wide open topic to be honest, and there's a million different routes we could go with that, but ultimately, I think Old School and RuneScape share a core history from 2001 to 2007 that is really the backbone of the game. That backbone is a pretty stark contrast to modern MMOs, and we want to keep Old School in line with that contrast. I use the word "familiar" again because the core of the game must remain familiar to that era. For example, really early on, we might have asked ourselves "would the design team from 2007 have implemented this?" We don't necessarily do that much anymore, but we will never change the game in too big a way that it becomes unfamiliar from the 2007 version.
As you said earlier, the internet isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Players want something very different from games now than they did back then. A lot of people, for example, used RuneScape as a chat room that you could occasionally do stuff in — fishing lobsters or go do castle wars for a few hours. A lot of these things have become much less of a focus because people are a little more efficiency minded nowadays, they're smarter about the game's meta and what good progression looks like. But even then, that's why these games work still: they're not content treadmills. The goals you set are yours to define. You might end up in the same space as others, you might want to match achievements or complete high tier goals like quest cape. But the path you weave through the game, which skill you train first, which quest you want to aim for, these are wide open decisions for each and every player. The game is all about the journey, not the destination.
Other games might rush you to the endgame, and most players in those games spend their time at that endgame level, but Old School isn't like that. 95% of the time you are progressing towards something that may or may not be endgame related. So our focus is always on how to add to that journey, how to make it smoother, more varied, more diverse. And if you achieve a goal, that goal sticks with you. If you achieved 99 agility last year, that sticks with you and is constantly useful even moving forward into new content — we don't take that away from you. We really lean on the horizontal space in particular. For example, it's not "this is the best sword" its "this is the best sword for a specific activity, but you may need this other sword for another activity, or maybe a bow instead".
I think that's how players stick around, to be honest. We do create new content and new things constantly, but it's not a push to get new endgame stuff out on a schedule. A lot of other games could take inspiration from that kind of thinking, I think, because with Old School, there's not really a trend of "new update comes out, people play it, people take a break". Some people might do that, but our core audience doesn't really stop playing on a schedule.
Full disclosure, I only started an OSRS account a few months ago, and I only started playing because I saw a video on YouTube that stunned me. What do you mean there's a guy who is locked to a single tile and has to grind, like, pickpocketing a low-level NPC to unlock more tiles to be able to progress through the game world? From there I started watching other videos and quickly realized that Old School was so much more robust and developed than I thought. Do you think the legacy of Old School is going to be "we took a second shot at the older style of RuneScape, but now we're developing it in a new path" or do you think RuneScape should be that "third game" — not a big box theme park MMO but something smaller by intention?
Kieren: It's a really wide open topic to be honest, and there's a million different routes we could go with that, but ultimately, I think Old School and RuneScape share a core history from 2001 to 2007 that is really the backbone of the game. That backbone is a pretty stark contrast to modern MMOs, and we want to keep Old School in line with that contrast. I use the word "familiar" again because the core of the game must remain familiar to that era. For example, really early on, we might have asked ourselves "would the design team from 2007 have implemented this?" We don't necessarily do that much anymore, but we will never change the game in too big a way that it becomes unfamiliar from the 2007 version.
As you said earlier, the internet isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Players want something very different from games now than they did back then. A lot of people, for example, used RuneScape as a chat room that you could occasionally do stuff in — fishing lobsters or go do castle wars for a few hours. A lot of these things have become much less of a focus because people are a little more efficiency minded nowadays, they're smarter about the game's meta and what good progression looks like. But even then, that's why these games work still: they're not content treadmills. The goals you set are yours to define. You might end up in the same space as others, you might want to match achievements or complete high tier goals like quest cape. But the path you weave through the game, which skill you train first, which quest you want to aim for, these are wide open decisions for each and every player. The game is all about the journey, not the destination.
Other games might rush you to the endgame, and most players in those games spend their time at that endgame level, but Old School isn't like that. 95% of the time you are progressing towards something that may or may not be endgame related. So our focus is always on how to add to that journey, how to make it smoother, more varied, more diverse. And if you achieve a goal, that goal sticks with you. If you achieved 99 agility last year, that sticks with you and is constantly useful even moving forward into new content — we don't take that away from you. We really lean on the horizontal space in particular. For example, it's not "this is the best sword" its "this is the best sword for a specific activity, but you may need this other sword for another activity, or maybe a bow instead".
I think that's how players stick around, to be honest. We do create new content and new things constantly, but it's not a push to get new endgame stuff out on a schedule. A lot of other games could take inspiration from that kind of thinking, I think, because with Old School, there's not really a trend of "new update comes out, people play it, people take a break". Some people might do that, but our core audience doesn't really stop playing on a schedule.
RPG Site: Right, like, for me when I loaded in, I decided "Ok, I'm gonna level farming, which means I'm going to do Tithe Farm." After starting Tithe Farm, I noticed there was a collection log of items, and so I set a goal of "I'm going to get every collection log item from Tithe Farm because I hate Tithe Farm and never want to come back here." But then I finished it, set a new goal, and headed off in that direction. It's very freeform, there's no "you must complete the previous five expansions to get where all the other players are", and I can't really think of an MMO on the market that does that nowadays.
Kieren: Absolutely. It's a game defined by progression, but there's no actual pressure on you to progress any one specific thing. That lack of pressure is almost respecting your time, in that regard. Like, farming in Old School is time-gated right? You plant the seeds and have to wait real world hours for results. But that's a rare instance, the game doesn't really have a lot of time-gated stuff like that. There's no incentives to log in daily or weekly, and we avoid these types of things intentionally. In essence, you can play RuneScape any time you want, as frequently as you want. It does demand a lot of your time if you want to set high goals, like Max Cape or Collection Logs, but I think it's only fair that we respect the time you decide to put in and not artifically demand it.
RPG Site: Which has led to some incredibly cool unofficial content, to be honest. The game is so open and malleable in general that content creators are making up entirely new game modes — the ones that stood out to me the most were OneChunkMan, a game mode where the player must complete every task possible within a certain "chunk", or area of the game world, no matter how high the skill requirement; or Nightmare Mode where if you take a single point of damage anywhere, your account gets locked and deleted. Did you ever imagine anything like these game modes would ever happen? RuneScape is wide open, you create your own fun, but...some of these are a little extreme, right?
Kieren: *laughs* Yeah, I think we are wonderfully gifted and grateful for the creators we have in our ecosystem. People like Settled and B0aty and so many more who have all been involved in creating different concepts of challenge accounts. The incentive for them, obviously, is to create an awesome series to get people to watch that. Like, playing RuneScape with only one hitpoint? That's fascinating! I will never do it myself because that is extreme, but you're damn right I'm gonna watch somebody else beat it.
However, to say that the game was designed with the intention that people would create these restrictions would be incorrect. We've embraced it, obviously, stuff like Ironman Mode started out the same way. B0aty, for example, was one of the original founders of Ironman Mode, a self-sufficient account where you couldn't trade with other players. That self-restriction is now an offiical game mode and is a major part of our audience. That one restriction changed everything, like, you have to source your own materials, you have to gather your own supplies. Now, a piece of content that maybe wasn't as important on a main account is now very important. The significance of needing to go to God Wars Dungeon and fighting General Graardor to get a Bando's Chestplate, for example. You cannot get that Chestplate any other way, so you have to participate in the content, and creates an incredible moment when you put in all that work and finally get it. So we embraced that game mode and made it official in 2014, and added features like Group Ironman later on. So with new game modes, if we see something popular we'll look to experiment, but probably not the crazy extreme ones, like one hit point.
It has been amazing seeing all of this take off, to be honest. It's exciting seeing all this energy in the community, and it really shows how special everything is. Like, it's a game, but it's more than that too, you know? There's people who aren't playing that are watching videos about it, they stay in touch with friends who are still playing, and then we've had events take place in real life, like the Deadman's Event in Chicago not too long ago. People who have stayed friends over 20 years from playing long ago, people who have met partners and had kids because of RuneScape...it sounds cliche, but it has impacted a lot of lives in very meaningful ways that aren't just the hours spent sitting at the computer.
Kieren: Absolutely. It's a game defined by progression, but there's no actual pressure on you to progress any one specific thing. That lack of pressure is almost respecting your time, in that regard. Like, farming in Old School is time-gated right? You plant the seeds and have to wait real world hours for results. But that's a rare instance, the game doesn't really have a lot of time-gated stuff like that. There's no incentives to log in daily or weekly, and we avoid these types of things intentionally. In essence, you can play RuneScape any time you want, as frequently as you want. It does demand a lot of your time if you want to set high goals, like Max Cape or Collection Logs, but I think it's only fair that we respect the time you decide to put in and not artifically demand it.
RPG Site: Which has led to some incredibly cool unofficial content, to be honest. The game is so open and malleable in general that content creators are making up entirely new game modes — the ones that stood out to me the most were OneChunkMan, a game mode where the player must complete every task possible within a certain "chunk", or area of the game world, no matter how high the skill requirement; or Nightmare Mode where if you take a single point of damage anywhere, your account gets locked and deleted. Did you ever imagine anything like these game modes would ever happen? RuneScape is wide open, you create your own fun, but...some of these are a little extreme, right?
Kieren: *laughs* Yeah, I think we are wonderfully gifted and grateful for the creators we have in our ecosystem. People like Settled and B0aty and so many more who have all been involved in creating different concepts of challenge accounts. The incentive for them, obviously, is to create an awesome series to get people to watch that. Like, playing RuneScape with only one hitpoint? That's fascinating! I will never do it myself because that is extreme, but you're damn right I'm gonna watch somebody else beat it.
However, to say that the game was designed with the intention that people would create these restrictions would be incorrect. We've embraced it, obviously, stuff like Ironman Mode started out the same way. B0aty, for example, was one of the original founders of Ironman Mode, a self-sufficient account where you couldn't trade with other players. That self-restriction is now an offiical game mode and is a major part of our audience. That one restriction changed everything, like, you have to source your own materials, you have to gather your own supplies. Now, a piece of content that maybe wasn't as important on a main account is now very important. The significance of needing to go to God Wars Dungeon and fighting General Graardor to get a Bando's Chestplate, for example. You cannot get that Chestplate any other way, so you have to participate in the content, and creates an incredible moment when you put in all that work and finally get it. So we embraced that game mode and made it official in 2014, and added features like Group Ironman later on. So with new game modes, if we see something popular we'll look to experiment, but probably not the crazy extreme ones, like one hit point.
It has been amazing seeing all of this take off, to be honest. It's exciting seeing all this energy in the community, and it really shows how special everything is. Like, it's a game, but it's more than that too, you know? There's people who aren't playing that are watching videos about it, they stay in touch with friends who are still playing, and then we've had events take place in real life, like the Deadman's Event in Chicago not too long ago. People who have stayed friends over 20 years from playing long ago, people who have met partners and had kids because of RuneScape...it sounds cliche, but it has impacted a lot of lives in very meaningful ways that aren't just the hours spent sitting at the computer.
RPG Site: With regards to Old School, the team has taken the story and lore in a radically different direction from RuneScape proper. For example, Forestry and Sailing do not exist in RuneScape, and the recent conclusion to the Vampyre storyline is very different to RuneScape's Vampyre conclusion. Is there a specific ethos in the office of Old School that says something like "We Will Not Cross-Pollinate Between Games", go off and do our own thing, or is it something that just occured naturally?
Kieren: Hmm...truly, I think we do a bit of both, yeah? There's no crystal rule, like, never put a specific quest or anything. We have backported several bits of content and quests where we're like "actually, what the main dev team was great and suits Old School perfectly, let's just do that." When we do something new, however, it's because the team is excited by an idea we have, or how we could take it in a different direction. Sometimes it's just having the benefit of hindsight, right? We can go ahead and say "We can do this differently."
But also, it's important that we surprise players. If every single quest line that exists is shared by both games, ends the same way, and does the same content/rewards, what's the point? Some people will play both, and it's nice to be able to surprise people and bring them something different. There's so many old storylines that we're going to progress at some point, but for a lot of them, especially with the finale quests, we're going to really want to surprise people.
Kieren: Hmm...truly, I think we do a bit of both, yeah? There's no crystal rule, like, never put a specific quest or anything. We have backported several bits of content and quests where we're like "actually, what the main dev team was great and suits Old School perfectly, let's just do that." When we do something new, however, it's because the team is excited by an idea we have, or how we could take it in a different direction. Sometimes it's just having the benefit of hindsight, right? We can go ahead and say "We can do this differently."
But also, it's important that we surprise players. If every single quest line that exists is shared by both games, ends the same way, and does the same content/rewards, what's the point? Some people will play both, and it's nice to be able to surprise people and bring them something different. There's so many old storylines that we're going to progress at some point, but for a lot of them, especially with the finale quests, we're going to really want to surprise people.
RPG Site: I've asked a few people I know about which quest they'd like to see resolved next, and a lot of people seem to land on "Fairy Tale". In RuneScape, the reward for the finale was being able to use Fairy Rings freely without the Dramen Staff. Would that reward remain the same, do you think, or is the extra inventory restriction too important?
Kieren: Well, if you get the Lumbridge Elite Diaries done, you can use Fairy Rings without the staff already, so the reward is already in the game (albeit a much more difficult requirement). If we do a Fairy Tale finale one day, I think we'd look at where the rewards were positioned and I think it could work, the inventory slot restriction is a fairly minor perk, a nice convenience. But there are so many unfinished storylines, and like, we survey players too, and there were a lot of different responses to what quests they'd like to see progressed. Mahjarrat has been progressed a bit, Dwarves, Penguins, Cave Goblins, Fairies, there's so many. What we do want to do is start making a bit more concerted effort to finish these quest series off as we don't want to be stuck here for another 20 years talking about these storylines being unfinished. But who knows?
Kieren: Well, if you get the Lumbridge Elite Diaries done, you can use Fairy Rings without the staff already, so the reward is already in the game (albeit a much more difficult requirement). If we do a Fairy Tale finale one day, I think we'd look at where the rewards were positioned and I think it could work, the inventory slot restriction is a fairly minor perk, a nice convenience. But there are so many unfinished storylines, and like, we survey players too, and there were a lot of different responses to what quests they'd like to see progressed. Mahjarrat has been progressed a bit, Dwarves, Penguins, Cave Goblins, Fairies, there's so many. What we do want to do is start making a bit more concerted effort to finish these quest series off as we don't want to be stuck here for another 20 years talking about these storylines being unfinished. But who knows?
RPG Site: Two more quick questions, if you don't mind. One reason content creators, especially for Old School, have been able to gather such large audiences, is the use of plug-ins to create interesting or new game restrictions. I don't know if you remember, but back in the old days, if you ran so much as a screen scraper, you were at risk of getting your account banned. What led to the acceptance of tools like RuneLite for modern gameplay?
Kieren: Community. Community is so important to us, and to the RuneScape team as a whole. Obviously, we go to great lengths to ask the community via polling, but if the community wants to build awesome stuff that makes the game a better experience, that's a win for everyone. Players often know best what's going to be the most meaningfully impactful things for them, such as Quest Helper or other similar plug-ings, that make a tremendous difference in the experience. With Quest Helper, for example, if you were doing something like the Underground Pass quest, if you weren't using the plug-in, you were checking the quest via a wiki tab for solutions and steps. It's a slightly more inconvenient way to approach the quest, so it makes sense to embrace Quest Helper as a tool for players.
It sounds weird, like, "we want the solution to be able to be presented to players easily and automatically", but what I care about most is players having a great time. If that's happening, that's a win, so long as it's not coming at the cost of unfairness or cheating, like automation. We work very closely with the folks behind RuneLite, along with other plug-in developers from our community, to ensure that things are smooth in that regard.
Kieren: Community. Community is so important to us, and to the RuneScape team as a whole. Obviously, we go to great lengths to ask the community via polling, but if the community wants to build awesome stuff that makes the game a better experience, that's a win for everyone. Players often know best what's going to be the most meaningfully impactful things for them, such as Quest Helper or other similar plug-ings, that make a tremendous difference in the experience. With Quest Helper, for example, if you were doing something like the Underground Pass quest, if you weren't using the plug-in, you were checking the quest via a wiki tab for solutions and steps. It's a slightly more inconvenient way to approach the quest, so it makes sense to embrace Quest Helper as a tool for players.
It sounds weird, like, "we want the solution to be able to be presented to players easily and automatically", but what I care about most is players having a great time. If that's happening, that's a win, so long as it's not coming at the cost of unfairness or cheating, like automation. We work very closely with the folks behind RuneLite, along with other plug-in developers from our community, to ensure that things are smooth in that regard.
RPG Site: Last question: is there anything you can share safely with us as far as future updates without getting sniped by Jagex assassins? Hints towards upcoming changes, anything on the horizon?
Kieren: *chuckles* Well...I can't give anything too much directly. I would say the most important thing is to keep an eye on RuneFest right at the start of October. We'll have a huge keynote, a new roadmap, and so much more in terms of reveals that players will be heavily interested in.
RPG Site: Thank you again for your time, and good luck with RuneFest.
Kieren: *chuckles* Well...I can't give anything too much directly. I would say the most important thing is to keep an eye on RuneFest right at the start of October. We'll have a huge keynote, a new roadmap, and so much more in terms of reveals that players will be heavily interested in.
RPG Site: Thank you again for your time, and good luck with RuneFest.
It may sound strange after 25 years, but RuneScape (and Old School) has, to me at least, never felt like it's been in better hands. RuneScape has recently pushed out a blog post about "removing MTX" (microtransactions) from the game. This means addressing a massive power imbalance that came over the past decade or so in terms of items that players could pay for via (now removed) functions like Treasure Hunter. Old School RuneScape recently released an entirely new area, just following their recently released skill, Sailing, which allows players to build and customize ships to live the pirate life, and travel across a vast ocean in the name of exploration.
You can check out RuneScape and Old School for free on Steam, mobile devices, or via the Jagex Launcher.