Touring Old School RuneScape, where 2007 never stopped
Posted by Skyblue on April 12th, 2021
I'm doing sit-ups for a demonic drill instructor who would like to RS Gold get me in tip-top shape so that I can join his military corps. Quite a long time back, this was one of several random events concocted as a way to manage the multitude of bots that set up shop in Old School RuneScape, back when it was just plain RuneScape. They stopped being successful after a month or two. 14 years when they stopped being useful, they persist.
"We kept them since the players enjoyed them," says Mark Ogilvie, RuneScape design director. "They're part of the fabric of the world." It's a familiar story in a game which exists because players voted for its resurrection. Old School RuneScape was initially created to be a copy of the game as it was at 2007--an exact replica designed to lure nostalgic adventurers. It is not a snapshot of the universe as it had been, however, as it's still a living match with updates, additional quests and even a new continent emerging. It's in a visually odd position, growing together with its successor, RuneScape 3.
"I always call it the 'RuneScape comfort blanket'," Ogilvie says. "These players, even when they log in the game, it is muscle memory. Everything is where they expect it to be, and the game plays the way that they remember. While all that nostalgia is still there in the brand new RuneScape, it is hidden behind this veil of upgrades. This seems like a different game." You may remember there are rats in the kitchen basement (obviously there are), together with a pursuit from the Duke's chef that will send you all over the surrounding region to find ingredients for a cake.
These ancient quests go all the way back to 2001, when the very first iteration of RuneScape was born. Generally, Jagex generates content aimed at the typical player level, so most of the low level quests were considered outdated in 2007. They are also the most completed quests in the game, being the very first things new players encounter, so it is even more important that they fit players' memories of these.
As I run about, searching down eggs and bread, Ogilvie points out some goblins lurking behind a weapon, menacing farmers. The tiny ne'er-do-wells are getting a bit of trouble getting beyond the obstacle. They do not seem happy about it, but from where I'm standing, they can't get me. "That is where quite a lot of players begin their early ranging livelihood, by sitting behind these small fences and shooting on the goblins with their bow and arrow," he explains. "The route-finding has always been quite strange in RuneScape, but once we attempt to change it that the players always beg us not to, therefore we haven't."
Old School RuneScape (OSRS), an MMORPG name that started nearly two years ago, has closed a community poll that was voting on the implementation of"Partnerships." In essence, Partnerships revolve around the concept that some new things and attributes would become available to"Partners" of Old School RuneScape, prior to being released to the general populace.
That really is nothing new, as last year that the developers of RuneScape"partnered" with Twitch to allow Prime members early access to a new purple skin color. When the promotional event had finished, they then allowed all players to buy RuneScape gold use the pigment. The RuneScape community did not like the notion back then, and they don't like it now. A subreddit devoted to OSRS has contested the notion repeatedly over the past week. Many users are claiming that this brings the game one step closer to having full blown microtransactions. Others see this as"microtransactions by means of a third party," since players that have paid to become partners with another firm are rewarded with exclusive items.
