There is no player retention. It's just the curse. The runescape curse. Once you start playing, you can only take a break, if you can call a year a break.
Never realized it but he made a good point, a reason why it’s so easy to take a break is your progress hold value. If you have good gear it might not be as valuable but it’s still going to be useful and it could even be worth more depending on what was released since you left.( I’ll never let myself down for not grabbing a scythe last year when they were a damn bargain 😭)
@@mxchump I had to make a new character twice and my knowledge helped so much. Mostly on quests, but I actually have been focused on mining and smithing.
I completely agree. I have deep emotional connections to both WoW and Runescape and I'm happy they're both still doing very well but WoW's slow decline still gives me the sad.
Hah but its old and looks like shit, they should try to upgrade it to Unreal engine 5 at least and try to switch to a realtime action combat that is similiar to BDO's
Best part for me: It can be a second monitor or main monitor game. The older I get, the more I've come to appreciate osrs for being the one game that doesn't demand a specific type of interaction at any given time. It can be absolutely locked in, sweat-inducing, or a chill farm sim that only needs me to click the screen once every 10 minutes.
The only (major) downside on the default client is that you can only stay logged in for two minutes or something, which makes it much harder to feel relaxed.
Great video, agree with all mentioned. I also think the different types of gameplay within OSRS create a game that you can play in most scenarios. There's insanely difficult content you need full concentration for, semi-afk activities where perhaps you watch a film/UA-cam on the side whilst still clicking away, or full afk where you can click and leave for a couple of mins. For me it just creates a game where even if I'm not available to give it my full attention, I'm still making progress and enjoying the game.
Its one of the only MMOs you can make consistent progress in while playing other MMO's. That alone guarantees it's growth as it isn't really in competition with other MMOs
This absolute legend is correct. A vast diversity of content that gives you the freedom to engage in the game in whichever way you're currently feeling makes it something you can essentially *always* play, regardless of what mood you're in.
yea i like that i am trying to find a game that i can play while doing something else .but most games either require your full attention all the time or are full idle games without game play. i think people who dislike runescape don't know you can grind while doing other things in the real world . runescape is the only one that meets my requirements
@@I_hunt_lolis my first day as a member i went and bought a dragon spear and walked around like i was Zeus himself thinking i had the most powerful weapon in existence (i didn't even know about the special attack)
this summer I did monkey madness for the first time, and while it's not an impressive achievement by today's standards, it was still a great challenge for me and the feeling of satisfaction I had after earning the ability to equip the Dragon Scimitar was unmatched
As someone who quit WoW and started playing OSRS early this year as a Group Ironman (and made an analysis cataloguing that experience), OSRS truly stands out among all the MMOs it is competing against. Everything mentioned in this video is correctly pointing out why, and if I had to add anything I'd say it's because it, unlike many sandbox MMOs, utilizes its format so well -- sandbox MMOs in the modern sense are synonymous with games which dump you into a confusing, sparse world then conceptually kick you down the stairs and demand you fight other players to the death for their shit. OSRS takes on a more wholistic approach, designing content with permanence and growth in mind. Upon playing OSRS, I found one of the coolest features to be the way it integrates new content into the preexisting world, such as Varlamore, a new continent, seamlessly connecting (systemically) to everything else. The addition of Varlamore created new and alternative paths for progression rather than replacing or outmoding others. It made the world feel larger, because your time spent in it only grows rather than just shifts to a new region. It's beautiful to log in every two weeks and see the world expand naturally outward (and sometimes inward), rather than just redirect its players to a new hub every few months.
Dude I watched your videos. It's so nice to see a fresh take on the game I fell in love with in 2001. You are a true word smith and welcomed addition to the community.
Yea, hunter rumors were a prime example of this. Instead of making old content obsolete, it made old content worth doing. No one did kebbit hunting until it became a hunter rumor contract.
OSRS is a game that figured out that soul matters more, and that fancy graphics and high octane gameplay, cannot replace a meaningful experience. It's a game that manages to continuedly keep every single minuscule piece of content relevant and poignant, no matter how many new things are added. It's a game made to be a good game, and be the best at what it does. Other MMO's are trying to be an, "MMO!" (exclamation mark included) chasing the shadow of what WoW once was; not even something that Blizzard can do in the today. That's because astonishing and epic game experience mentality died in the advent of AAA over saturation. But soul, soul never dies.
@@CraZeKllutchy I guess he meant it as a roundabout way of saying ''exciting''. Like a synonym of pungent, but in a good way. Something that sticks out.
One big reason not mentioned is OSRS has a lot of players who aren’t MMORPG fans and effectively only play RuneScape. There’s a saying in RuneScape: there are two types of RS players, MMO fans who play RS, and people who ONLY play RS. OSRS has tapped into a large audience that overlaps with MMO fans, but is larger than that.
@UIM_Moose yeah I'm guessing the guy with UIM in his name hasn't put in the amount of hours to seem like a lifeless loser. Point is why call someone else out when almost every rs player plays a lot. A bit hypocritical
@MrRedskindiehard When I maxed, I did so with 1h20m a day average, took me over 8 years... so yeah, it's a bit different from smashing 12h+ a day into a temporary game mode, most of us have jobs, families, mortgages etc.
One underappreciated aspect from the outside is how fantastic it is at addapting to where you are in life. Its great as a second moniter/ idle game. But equally it has some incredibly intense gameplay with difficulty that is honestly nearly unmatched in gaming as a whole. It is incridible that it acheaves both and the whole range inbetween so successfully.
I recommend checking out Madseason's series he just started where he started playing OSRS for the first time as a long time WoW player. He mentions a lot of good reasons why it's so great.
@@TheLazyPeon I also recommend a smaller UA-camr named Karadus. Much like Madseason, he's playing through OSRS completely blind (no Wiki and minimal Runelite) on an iron-man. He just finished all F2P quests. I believe he also had a background in World of Warcraft. The difference between him and Madseason would be that Karadus is focusing more on his progression in OSRS, while Madseason is more directly comparing the two games throughout his playthrough.
@@TheLazyPeonAlienFood has a series a lot further along with a very similar feel. He's a not super experienced player who started over on an iron man and plays the entire game without guides, wikis, or plugins, just to get the true experience of the game. It really encapsulates why the game is so good.
Not a single other game I’ve ever played makes me feel so good about reaching certain achievements. First fire cape, first level 99, first raids, first boss kills et cetera. OSRS has a great way of learning bosses etc and it feels so rewarding to nail your first KC’s.
To add to the list of things that make OSRS good and stand out: All updates are voted on by the community through in game voting booths. This is to ensure that no detrimental updates go through. Similarly, it has an awazing dev team that regularly interacts with the community. The questing is what stands out the most to me. No other mmo has the same level of qualtiy quests with interesting storytelling and unique rewards, and they can be done whenever in whatever order you want (given you have the prerequisites). For me this is why OSRS holds a special place. And to reiterate: Completely open world, where pretty much no area turns irrelevant as you level up. You will see players of all levels all over the map. Visual progression and fashion scape, where at a glance you can tell from the armor a player wears how powerfull they are and what content they have done.
They say all updates are polled but that's a bold faced lie and they make lots of changes to the game without ever polling it or if they know the community won't like it. Like how they butchered the character creator for a small group of cultists. Or a certain holiday event.
@@bobheinjenkins They're talking about the pride event and adding pronouns to the character creator. Idk who those cultists are, but my friends who are LGBTQ were neither happy or upset with the diversity changes. They just want more content in the game. The only diversity change that imo was actually bad was the change to the recruitment drive quest. At one point in the quest you had to change your sex to female in order to defeat an enemy who said "No man can defeat me". But now Sir Leye has been blessed by Saradomin so that no blade may harm him and players have to defeat him with a steel warhammer which is much less subversive.
Probably referring to the fact that they made a change in character creation where you can choose if the NPCs around the game refer to you as he/she or I think something else regardless of your character being created as male or female. It only affects this players dialogs with npcs and nothing else in the game so I dont understand what the big deal is about. And I'm not someone who is very fond of this million genders crap we have going on in the world, but that update literally doesn't change anything ingame for other players than yourself.
Don't really agree that the gameplay loop is top tier unless you're doing high level, high intensity content like TOB or collosuem. Although I really do enjoy the more relaxing parts as well. TOB especially is just... so elegant in its simplicity and yet there's so much room for improvment. It really unravels osrs's identity as a rythym game in an emergent way that few games even approach. Too bad we'll never get anything like it again. However, I do think the sense of progression is seriously good and it keeps me coming back time and time again.
@@DTreatz"Archaic," you say, about the consistently growing MMO that's more popular today than it has ever been, in extremely large part because of its really engaging gameplay loop. You know, it's ok to just say you personally don't like it because it's not to your individual taste.
Old School RuneScape is one of the very few games out there that is TRULY a “do anything you want” type of experience. Where most games specialize in doing one or maybe two things very well, and focus on making that part as deep and engaging as possible, OSRS is concerned with providing the player with as wide of a variety of options as possible, with only the developers’ creativity being the limitation. People view the game’s simplistic mechanics as a drawback, but that’s precisely why they’re able to do so much. Most other games are worried about realistic animations, complex stat systems, sophisticated AI behavior, dynamic soundtrack changes, the “feeling” of the mechanics, on and on and on. And that’s fine, I’m not saying they’re bad games because of that. But there’s a point to be made about how much that restricts gameplay. Put it this way: take another game, and make its world have the same level of interactivity as OSRS. Cut down every tree, fish in every body of water, mine every rock for ore, grow / harvest plants in every patch of soil and field, catch animals in traps all over the map, go inside every building and open every storage area, give every NPC a legitimate purpose (combat, pickpocketing, quest-giver, vendor, bank teller, etc.), use anything that looks like it can be used for something (anvil, furnace, stove, altar, table, etc.), so on and so forth. And don’t forget that on top of that, you need to also have all of the standard content of a video game / MMO, like dozens of unique boss encounters, tons of story and lore, a soundtrack with 700+ music tracks, multiple raids, minigames, PvP, and well over a hundred quests that are all unique and don’t fall into the trap of becoming a “kill X monsters” chore list to level up. Instead, just dedicate an entire skill to assigning players to kill X number of enemies over and over, and then watch it become the most popular piece of content in your whole game. Unless you want to have a game that costs billions of dollars and requires tens of thousands of people to produce, and will 1,000% push microtransactions to make up the cost, the only way you can accomplish this is by making your game look and play like a fossil.
That’s also why it’s hard to get new people into the game. Not a bad thing but it is hard for people to understand you can do anything. If you want to kill cows for lvl 30 combats cool. If you want to rush the waterfall quest awesome! Though you probably won’t do it as easy as others.
OSRS devs never get the credit they deserve IMO they are the #1 reason why OSRS is as great as it is. Many games devs fail horrible at either working with the community or just making content that is generally well accepted. I played many MMOs, many FPS and in general tons of multiplayer games over the last two decades, and not a single one of them competes with the small OSRS dev team - they innovated the voting system, are not afraid to admit failure, always communicating , always trying to improve and even when updates do go south they can swallow their pride and remove said content unlike what other games would do. Gaming industry would be heaven if most game devs just took a page out of OSRS devs team.
Indeed, the dev team is the biggest reason OSRS is here currently and so successful. When OSRS launched, Jagex gave it no money for further content development, only money for support and bug fixing to keep the game functioning. But without new content a game will inevitably die off at one point so in the beginning the development team being actual enthusiasts of the game made most of the updates and new content for free, unpaid from their own personal free time. Without them and their undeniable love for this game, it would not be here today.
Detective Conan mentioned I'd agree with you about the dev team. It's very rare for an update to be unpopular, and when they make mistakes, they often go back and fix them (MA2 rework, fang nerfs, Kourend favour removal).
One thing that I really miss in runescape reviews is the interconnectivity. I almost all gamnes I played every skill, such as fishing is a one way street. You level fishing to catch better fish. Mayber sell them for more money. In runescape all the skill, quests and Unique drops inspire you to get side tracked and try out different content. For example Construction lets you build a player owned house. When you reached the necessary construction level to build a teleport focus you will get better access to bosses, that where not very reachable yet. That motivates you to grind them for items. Maybe you then drop a weaponset that is especially god for prolonged fighting like guthans. This would improve the slayer activity, so you try that out next. And so on so forth
@@MotivationMindset100anyone who says OSRS is 90% bots is salty/delusional. Bots are mostly in f2p and only take up about 5-10% of the playerbase tops, which is likely less than there were back in 07 when it was harder for jagex to combat botting.
I think one big reason that you didn’t mention is that there is a TON of direct dialogue between the dev team and the player base. Players are able to have a lot of say and influence in content that comes into the game, and the dev team is fantastic about communicating not only WHAT they want to make, but WHY they are making it, and what niche it’s meant to fill. The community is able to vote on content before it’s added to the game, and needs a relatively high approval rate to be added. It’s also interesting to note that unlike many other game communities, the OSRS player community doesn’t like power creep. They don’t want content to be invalidated by new arrivals, but would rather introduce content that fits into a previously untapped niche. The last thing I’ll mention that sets it apart from most other MMO games out there is the approach it takes to quests. In so many other MMO titles, quests either boil down to “fetch this item” or “kill X number of monsters”. OSRS relegates “kill X” to a skill, and uses quests as a form of worldbuilding, lore exposition, and narrative storytelling. It feels different because it just IS different
Underrated but a HUGE aspect of popularity... is Devs actually listen to players (even if multiple iterations) and often correct or make things better mostly. Very grindy, good quests, accessible content BUT mechanically difficult about movement with clicks being a big portion of it. Graphics are "bad" but again the gameplay here is much better than most MMOs. Also, not p2w at all (even with bonds, you still need to GRIND the skills on your own). As a player that did not play rs2 or back in the day, this game is honestly great.
Played Runescape back in '07 as a young lad and poured thousands of hours then. I quit around 2010 and picked up OSRS to alleviate pandemic boredom in 2020. The amount of content Jagex added + S tier content creators - shoutout to FlippingOldschool my personal favorite creator - is unreal. And still, Jagex somehow still seems to outdo themselves year after year. The Varlamore expansion was incredible, and the recent Raging Echoes League, the first League I've played, has been a blast.
OSRS has amazing character to it, where small details in even starter regions can matter. The best example of this is two penguins disguised as a sheep in the lumbridge sheep pen. It's a small detail that made me curious and wonder why they were there. Fast forward many quests later and suddenly the moment arrives and I go "Oh THAT'S why!". Little details like this exist all over the game and make all of it feel like it matters.
Im rank 50 iron and going dor 200m all, wow classic is my fav game ever but without breaks its finished too fast.. in osrs i do grinds over a year and i love it❤
@L2ggs it really depends, ive played some months 16h a day ehen i went for 200m firemaking, thieving, crafting but nowadays ita anywhere from 1 to 16, depends if something irl comes up. And i tend to play more and more afk like 5-25min afk sessions. Its a marathon not a sprint, not in a rush. But im idk 10k efficient hours away, do the math
@wildyoda2931 idk how you struggle with combat but yeah if you ever have afk time on mobile just go crabs in str gear with super str pots or a dragon battle axe Spec and go afk 11min at crabs Or drink a super str with preserve on and afk for 25min sessions in NMZ Minimal 50k xp/h doing barely anything during work, showers etc. Do 25mins afk when you shower and thats already giving you like 2-3m str in a month:)
No single game I have ever tried captures me so much as ironman mode in osrs. Just the constant setting and achieving of goals, new content, excellent content creators. Never no goals to achieve and just having great times
One of the greatest features (for me): osrs for mobile. I quit runescape in 2010 or something. in 2023 i found the mobile app and start as an ironman. After some weeks i decided to start an ironman-group account. The possiblity to switch between mobile and pc ist one of the main reasons for me to play osrs very active and much. Depening of my time situation, i can switch between activitys.
I played all popular MMO’s. Mostly Maplestory and later FF14. But I’ve been playing OSRS for about 7 years now and I’m genuinely enjoying myself much more in this game over any other. But I understand it’s not for everyone. And that’s a good thing. Because one of the biggest mistakes all others keep on making: is that they want to appeal to the largest amount of players.
As an OSRS player, another reason the game is so great is because of how much impact the players have on the game. Your voice matters and the jmods listen to the community and actively engage with everyone on social media. Every update that comes into the game gets voted on by all players, so if the community thinks an update is bad they have the control to not allow it to come into the game. And the jmods behind the scenes do absolutely amazing work on the game and you can really see the passion they have for this game
Logged in randomly the other week and seen leagues 5. Was already maxed in main game so i gave it a shot. I'm hooked all over again. Was playing throne and liberty and the daily log in requirement of that game was the only reason i played it as long as i did. Once i broke away from it I haven't logged in since and don't care to.
A mmo that grows in popularity overtime rather than shrinking is truely an anomaly in todays mmo landscape, I predict this will be one of the few still standing in 10 years.
The nonlinear progression of the game and how content is implemented additively rather than as part of planned obsolescence of old content stands out in the genre and results in a game you can play at your own pace and everything you do progresses your character. It's mind-boggling how it's the only game in the genre that seems to have this figured out.
OSRS (Runescape 2) was my first MMO - Years (many years) later my friend talked me into buying the WoW Legion expansion - I played it for maybe 6 months before getting bored with it. In which I returned to OSRS.
OSRS is unironically the best mmo ever made. I started playing it because of nostalgia but nostalgia isn't what kept me playing. Within the first couple days of playing I got past the point I was at as a kid and I currently have thousands of hours. There's so much more to OSRS that nostalgia can't hold a candle to. The best way that I could explain OSRS is that it's a lot like Terraria, if you like that game you'll like OSRS.
I recently met my friend that I've been close with on RS since 06 for the first time for his 30th birthday. He flew from CA to NYC for his week trip, and I drove 4 hours from DE to meet him. Was one of the greatest moments in my life. I'm so happy this game defined my childhood. I hope Jagex never pulls another EOC.
I haven’t played RS (old school or RS3) in almost 10 years, but I played the hell out of the game from 2005-2015. It’s a part of who I am at this point even though I don’t play or actively keep up with everything. I find great joy in watching RS UA-camrs.
Community interaction is also a huge appeal of OSRS. As a Classic WoW enjoyer, I hear people long for the days when GMs regularly and timely responded to players and their concerns. I think that description matches what OSRS provides to players. Also, several OSRS moderators have cults of personality and the player base loves it.
I'm currently on my 3rd account being a UIM. Even when you restart on a different ironman, you still can have an entirely different experience. I'm currently working on 99 construction on a UIM, which isn't something I ever expected to do. Even if I take an extended break, my construction level never goes down. It's what appeals me so much to OSRS. Levels are forever, and you always have an opportunity to make progress.
also runescape fits perfectly for that third monitor in your home office, lots of afk skilling methods, working from home has become more and more popular since covid.
Came from WoW, I always remembered how annoyed I felt finally getting the best gear and then having it completely wiped to start the new raid tier. Made me feel like I was on a constant treadmill. The meta for me was just wait a few weeks and the gear was easier to get, so why work hard to get it the first month or two? Nothing ever felt permanent or mattered. I still play it now and then because the raids really are good, but I love that I can just always be progressing my OSRS character and nothing feels like it'll be invalidated
This is a good video to explain it! I'd also add on that the player base and Jagex have a good understanding with one another: If you make a terrible change, the players will leave. They have a voting system to prevent any game crippling changes from being implemented. While content release seems slower, that's totally fine because there's already so much to do in the game. Along with this, you can have confidence that mostly good changes will only come to the game which is something that most MMO players have as a pain point. Too many good MMOs killed by hubris and stubbornness of bad management and publishing. I never played much runescape back in the day, but I can't help but be drawn to it due to it's direction and game philosophy.
Awesome takes on osrs, started playing 3 months ago. I feel one thing you missed talking about it is the TICK system (the osrs heartbeat if you will) I love how the pvm interacts with a timing based system, feels super rewarding to learn the mechanics and know that if I fail it's 20% stats and gear and 80% skill issue
i’ve been playing this game off and on since 2004, there’s no other game where you can take off for a few years and hop back on like you never left in recent years i usually hop on during leagues and then a couple of months after leagues end. i love this game
Runescape has the best wiki of any game ever. Seriously, no other game has anything like it. It's so incredibly useful, and updated regularly so it's always accurate.
Perfect video summarizing up why this game is just so good. To throw in some extra emphasis on the 'it's not just nostalgia' train - I've started playing this game 2yrs ago after retiring from hardcore WoW and I've been enjoying this game WAY more due to some of the points stated by Peon - my progress isn't becoming meaningless every few months, any content in the game can be relevant depending on your goals (filling up collection log, getting all pets, maxing account, you name it) so you don't feel like wasting your time being "inefficient" and last but not least the sheer quantity of content the game has been blessed with. To be fair, if you love MMORPG and you want to try something that will always feel exciting and mesmerizing, just try it out. This might be just the game for you.
As someone who doesn't have a lot of free time OSRS is the only game that has a high skill ceiling with the tick system in pvp that also doesn't devalue my time/gear ever
The fact you can play the game on mobile and your tablet is also a big plus for me. I don’t necessarily have to be at my pc to play it. I can chill on the couch and log in.
Money/bank progression builds with playtime and isn't eaten away from annoying mechanics like gear degradation or bound equipment. Sure, there's risky activities where you lose gear, but at least they're fun and high reward.
I think another thing that contributed to OSRS's success is how the Dev team interacts with the community. They are far more interactive and are much better at listening to their community it seems. Plus all poles require a 70% vote majority in order to pass.
Feel like you nailed it all right on the head. I agree with all of your points here. I feel like another important point to add with how you choose to play it, is how you can also choose how much effort you want to be putting into what you are doing. Most skills will provide both a slow low impact sort of gameplay, or "AFK gameplay" or a much faster but more intense form of training. For example you can just fish for fish, or do something like the Skilling boss Tempoross.
osrs is one of the only games out there that genuinly feels no matter what you are doing, no matter how dumb your goal is. Your account is still improving, you may have just gained 2000xp. but that 2000xp is there forever, you may have just spent an hour trying to figure out a quest, but now that quest is done and you gained rewards that you can use.
I LOVE the pve untradeable rewards, like the fire cape, void armour, fighter torso, barrow gloves... Etc, having those means a Big accomplishment, its a recognition to hours of effort you have put in to the game, and almost all of them are best in slot or near the BEST equipment in the game. Theres no battlepast, no micropayment, no bullshit, just go and complete the challenge to get them
I started in 2010, so after original 2007, and played rs3 on and off for years. Finally gave osrs a shot last year and been hooked. It's honestly magic.
first couple years i was a skiller. then i decided to do all quests and diaries. now im bossing and have played since 2015. there is so much to do if you just want to have fun and do whatever you ever want to do
1:16 "That would be the same as world of warcraft releasing classic servers and beating it's peak sub count record of 12 million during peak wrath back in 2010" Except it's not the same at all because Old School Runescape didn't just re release a classic version of their game. Old School RuneScape has added something quite literally to every aspect of content in the game, New quests, New training Methods, New Raids, New Bosses, New Best In Slot Gear, Etc. To put it in perspective, If Blizzard wanted to Copy OSRS, They'd have to release Wrath of the Lich King again, and they'd have to add with it a new raid tier, a new profession, a new battle ground, several new dungeons, a new pvp season with new pvp gear, and probably an entirely new zone for said raid and dungeons to be placed. Oh wait that's just an expansion? Exactly. So when blizzard does what osrs does it's labeled and expansion and a different version of the game but when runescape does it everyones just like OH! ITS STILL OLD SCHOOL! No it isnt.
Not that runescape did anything wrong it's obviously a successful strategy and one I wish blizzard would copy, But instead of saying "OH IT CLASSIC PLUS" No it should just be an alternate timeline. One where after the events of wrath we dont go into cataclysm we go into a different expansion down a different story line while maintaining all the core elements of gameplay from classic world of warcraft.
I think it's partly because of a very loyal nostalgia player base who keep bringing in new friends. I know I'm one of those. I've brought in atleast 5 people the last couple of years although admittedly all of them had already played Runescape in 2003-2010 at some point.
Progression permanence is definitely understated here. As a FF14 player sometimes I just hate the fact that gearing will be replaced in 6 months with nothing carrying over (plus gearing being freaking time-gated) In OSRS there are different BiS setups depending on the encounter and your combat style.
There's a reason why there's numerous Runescape players that have accumulated over 1,000 Days played, they keep coming back no matter how long their "break" was.
The add will make some people grip for sure :D! I tried OSRS for a week or so not to long ago, it was populated as hell, every world i join and no matter where went
@@luismanuelcolmenares7917 the 20% wasn't specifically referencing only f2p worlds, the sentences were 2 different thoughts hence the period. Great reading comprehension bud. Maybe you're one of those bots?
@@hoodpope1851 Yeah my reading comprehension might not be the best cuz english is not my 1st language. Still, most of this kind of comments always come from people who logged in, chopped a tree for 10 mins and call it a day saying the game sucks. Most content dedicated worlds are always filled with thousands of people that you can interact with and recently most bot farms don't last a single day.
When you talk in game it capitalizes the first letter of your sentence, making everyone seem smarter than they really are. That's why I think it's so popular.
Making a game like OSRS would be tricky. Progression and player agency work together so well due to the complex interaction between skills, quests, minigames, and achievement diaries. Making a small amount of progression towards one minor goal will almost certainly make progress towards other unrealized goals. The level of interoperability that OSRS's systems seems to have come naturally to the game and doesn't feel like it was specifically designed to work that way originally back in the RS Classic and RS2 days. The modern version of OSRS is very much aware of this interaction and actively develops the game further with it in mind.
The osrs team does a very good job at developing revitalizing content at an extremely consistent rate incomparable to probably any other company in its genre. It’s hard to know when this game will actually reach its peak.
RuneScape has been a game I’ve been playing since I was seven I still remember playing all night with friends. I remember the golden age of the wilderness and luring people and also getting lured myself. I remember looting a pair of dragon claws for the first time I still have my gp on the main game from that kill. RuneScape was definitely my childhood and I’ve quit for months to years and always have come back to the game it’s just something about it.
Jagex has some good staff now and they actually listen to the osrs community to improve the game which is more than most companies do it definitely helps the growth
There is one important thing you have missed, and that is the OSRS dev team. They are literally one of the best small group of devs in the mmo circle. If you have survived the WoW devs for years, for example, and then you get to experience the osrs team, you will understand immediately.
I'm not a big RPG guy, my favorite is Elder scrolls 3 morrowind, but out of all RPGs I've played Runescape is the only one where I can take a long break and know EXACTLY what I was doing every time I pick the game back up again, even after years.
ORSR challenge and snowflake accounts are really something unique. Consider a WOW account that was 'quests only' or 'no dailies/weeklies/monthlies' - the player would just have a terrible time including being ousted from groups. in OSRS you can dedicate yourself to a chunk, a skill, a method, and you will have a great time and not be locked out of any content.
It might seem like a simple Point&Click, but believe me, the skill ceiling is HIGH! For a new player; look up Jad / Fire cape and the upgraded version Zuk / Infernal cape. That shit ain't no joke. Best achievement in gaming you'll ever get.
Some of my favorite videos of the game come from the UA-cam channel Karadus, a WoW player. He recently started his first time playing osrs as a hardcore ironman and it has been super enjoyable.
Im level 124 on osrs, been playing since launch and before osrs. back in actual 2007. been on deployments, college etc. always something to come back to. running raids now!
You failed to mention the unique combat system of OSRS. The tick system creates a wide skill barometer, allowing players to be either very bad or exceptionally good at the game. Nowadays, modern MMORPGs typically don't allow much variation in pure skill. I believe this is one of the key factors for the game's popularity.
I think you can add to that list the rather good quality mobile app that allows you to take OSRS with you wherever you go... not only you can do your daily farm/herb runs while on a train to work, but even pvm while on vacation. I don't think a lot of MMOs are offering that kind of mobility from what I've seen.
You missed these- 1. Game is constantly updated. 2. Recent player counts going up is because of introductions like GOTR, Foundry etc which did away with the tedium of slow monotonous grinds. Older players were adamantly against improvement of the game in this aspect since they felt changes would devalue their achievements. I've played RS and OSRS for ~17 years now and I'm so glad OSRS is evolving and shedding that gatekeeping mindset. 3. Mods(devs) listen to us and poll changes and new updates, and they REALLY listen. Also, mods are hands down intelligent and mostly make great new implementations. 4. OSRS (RS3 too) wiki is straight up the best wiki for anything ever. It's straight up too good and comprehensive. You feel like Gutgix incarnate with the kind of power it brings to your fingertips (how much smoother your gameplay becomes). Like the saying, "if only I could travel 15 years back with the knowledge the wiki gives me today..."
Download Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium here: sunborn.onelink.me/fxKG/TheLazyPeon and enjoy all the epic rewards!
#GirlsFrontline2Exilium #gfl2exilium
There is no player retention. It's just the curse. The runescape curse. Once you start playing, you can only take a break, if you can call a year a break.
Don't bring up odablock. Him and his viewers are the bad ones of the game. Toxic, cheats, etc.
We don't quit. We just take breaks
My break's been 5 years so far, but I still love to keep up with the game. Just can't play anymore, idk what it is
Never realized it but he made a good point, a reason why it’s so easy to take a break is your progress hold value. If you have good gear it might not be as valuable but it’s still going to be useful and it could even be worth more depending on what was released since you left.( I’ll never let myself down for not grabbing a scythe last year when they were a damn bargain 😭)
@@AA-wq5sm excuses
Just came back from a 15 yr break lol
@@mxchump I had to make a new character twice and my knowledge helped so much. Mostly on quests, but I actually have been focused on mining and smithing.
Oldschool Runescape will be #1 it's only a matter of time.
I completely agree. I have deep emotional connections to both WoW and Runescape and I'm happy they're both still doing very well but WoW's slow decline still gives me the sad.
even if it doesnt get to ever be the number 1 mmo, it will outlive every single one that is currently operating
the man himself here hello Raikesy happy to be here
Hah but its old and looks like shit, they should try to upgrade it to Unreal engine 5 at least and try to switch to a realtime action combat that is similiar to BDO's
@@MaxMustermann55521 they tried that with RuneScape 3 and everyone hated it and almost no one plays it nowadays
Amazing video.
first
love you big O
Got you odaDap
Tell that hamburger munching donut gagging dommie to add chat overlay to your vids ❤
Sit baldy
Best part for me: It can be a second monitor or main monitor game. The older I get, the more I've come to appreciate osrs for being the one game that doesn't demand a specific type of interaction at any given time. It can be absolutely locked in, sweat-inducing, or a chill farm sim that only needs me to click the screen once every 10 minutes.
yea, that's also it for me. I can decide how much attention I pay while playing...
The only (major) downside on the default client is that you can only stay logged in for two minutes or something, which makes it much harder to feel relaxed.
@@sigurdtheblue so why use default client?
@sigurdtheblue nobody uses default client though(but soon they will once it gets upgraded)
@@ThisIsMyUA-camAccount1 Well I think the client is great outside of the logout timer.
Great video, agree with all mentioned. I also think the different types of gameplay within OSRS create a game that you can play in most scenarios. There's insanely difficult content you need full concentration for, semi-afk activities where perhaps you watch a film/UA-cam on the side whilst still clicking away, or full afk where you can click and leave for a couple of mins. For me it just creates a game where even if I'm not available to give it my full attention, I'm still making progress and enjoying the game.
Its one of the only MMOs you can make consistent progress in while playing other MMO's. That alone guarantees it's growth as it isn't really in competition with other MMOs
This absolute legend is correct. A vast diversity of content that gives you the freedom to engage in the game in whichever way you're currently feeling makes it something you can essentially *always* play, regardless of what mood you're in.
yea i like that i am trying to find a game that i can play while doing something else .but most games either require your full attention all the time or are full idle games without game play. i think people who dislike runescape don't know you can grind while doing other things in the real world . runescape is the only one that meets my requirements
Ayyyy, mah man, Alien Food! Nice to see ya.
Keep it up Mr. Food. Looking forward to that quest cape. I have faith in you.
nothing in the world compares to the first time you hold a rune scimitar in your hands
Since I was mostly f2p as a kid for me it was always about getting hands on hose mythical members items: dragon longsword, abyssal whip etc
@@I_hunt_lolis my first day as a member i went and bought a dragon spear and walked around like i was Zeus himself thinking i had the most powerful weapon in existence (i didn't even know about the special attack)
this summer I did monkey madness for the first time, and while it's not an impressive achievement by today's standards, it was still a great challenge for me and the feeling of satisfaction I had after earning the ability to equip the Dragon Scimitar was unmatched
Facts
Facts
As someone who quit WoW and started playing OSRS early this year as a Group Ironman (and made an analysis cataloguing that experience), OSRS truly stands out among all the MMOs it is competing against. Everything mentioned in this video is correctly pointing out why, and if I had to add anything I'd say it's because it, unlike many sandbox MMOs, utilizes its format so well -- sandbox MMOs in the modern sense are synonymous with games which dump you into a confusing, sparse world then conceptually kick you down the stairs and demand you fight other players to the death for their shit.
OSRS takes on a more wholistic approach, designing content with permanence and growth in mind. Upon playing OSRS, I found one of the coolest features to be the way it integrates new content into the preexisting world, such as Varlamore, a new continent, seamlessly connecting (systemically) to everything else. The addition of Varlamore created new and alternative paths for progression rather than replacing or outmoding others. It made the world feel larger, because your time spent in it only grows rather than just shifts to a new region. It's beautiful to log in every two weeks and see the world expand naturally outward (and sometimes inward), rather than just redirect its players to a new hub every few months.
Dude I watched your videos. It's so nice to see a fresh take on the game I fell in love with in 2001. You are a true word smith and welcomed addition to the community.
Your osrs videos are fantastic. It's fun seeing people experience for the first time
Yea, hunter rumors were a prime example of this. Instead of making old content obsolete, it made old content worth doing. No one did kebbit hunting until it became a hunter rumor contract.
@@Idontalwaysfeelgood Thanks so much!
@@geoffshaw2775 Glad you enjoy them! More to come.
It's all I've been playing. The older I've gotten the more chill I want my games to be. RS just fits the bill.
Literally. After a 12 hour shift, sometimes I want to wind down and it fits the bill with fishing or cooking in game lol
I feel the exact same way being a call of duty player my entire life im slowly playing OSRS more and more
OSRS is a game that figured out that soul matters more, and that fancy graphics and high octane gameplay, cannot replace a meaningful experience. It's a game that manages to continuedly keep every single minuscule piece of content relevant and poignant, no matter how many new things are added. It's a game made to be a good game, and be the best at what it does. Other MMO's are trying to be an, "MMO!" (exclamation mark included) chasing the shadow of what WoW once was; not even something that Blizzard can do in the today. That's because astonishing and epic game experience mentality died in the advent of AAA over saturation. But soul, soul never dies.
Sorry, a little confused on the use of "poignant". Doesn't it mean like sad or regretful?
@@CraZeKllutchy I guess he meant it as a roundabout way of saying ''exciting''. Like a synonym of pungent, but in a good way. Something that sticks out.
exactly why EoC failed.
@@TheDinis553 Funnily enough, poignant indeed used to mean something like pungent.
@@TheDinis553 Basically, ye
Don't forget the osrs wiki, constantly updated and is even integrated into the game under the minimap.
This was a huge update
The osrs wiki is the best game wiki in existence.
One big reason not mentioned is OSRS has a lot of players who aren’t MMORPG fans and effectively only play RuneScape. There’s a saying in RuneScape: there are two types of RS players, MMO fans who play RS, and people who ONLY play RS. OSRS has tapped into a large audience that overlaps with MMO fans, but is larger than that.
I feel like many older mmos used to be like that. Even in old WoW most people you would run into typically werent really gamers and only. played WoW.
aka *autism*
I'm this exact example, only playing OSRS for the past 2 years
I have never heard this saying once and I've been playing since 2004
Yeah I don’t play mmos and haven’t played a single mmo other than osrs and I have a maxed main 🤣
We smoking on that Zezima pack
Light up those cigarettes boys, light them up. Let that zezima smoke flow through your body, suck those cigarettes back till your face turns purple
The Echoes league got me speaking Esperanto.
Bro, We smoke packs on people who don’t deserve any respect, so today we all light up a McCune pack
lighting up some ranarr rn in the gnome stronghold
The last guy who ran out on the clan got chocked out by some barrows gloves. The last thing he ever saw was the price tag on them.
"OSRS isn't a game where you feel like you're falling behind"
Unless it's Leagues, then you REALLY feel that.
The number of lifeless losers really shows when you look at the leagues highscores lol
@@UIM_Moose you calling people lifeless losers when you play uim? Hmm
@MrRedskindiehard you don't need to play a lot of hours to play ironman or uim... low iq comment for sure.
@UIM_Moose yeah I'm guessing the guy with UIM in his name hasn't put in the amount of hours to seem like a lifeless loser. Point is why call someone else out when almost every rs player plays a lot. A bit hypocritical
@MrRedskindiehard When I maxed, I did so with 1h20m a day average, took me over 8 years... so yeah, it's a bit different from smashing 12h+ a day into a temporary game mode, most of us have jobs, families, mortgages etc.
been playing this game since 2006, it has a charm to it that no other game has ever came close to touching for me
One underappreciated aspect from the outside is how fantastic it is at addapting to where you are in life. Its great as a second moniter/ idle game. But equally it has some incredibly intense gameplay with difficulty that is honestly nearly unmatched in gaming as a whole. It is incridible that it acheaves both and the whole range inbetween so successfully.
I recommend checking out Madseason's series he just started where he started playing OSRS for the first time as a long time WoW player. He mentions a lot of good reasons why it's so great.
Just started watching it today lol, hope he keeps up the series
@@TheLazyPeon I also recommend a smaller UA-camr named Karadus. Much like Madseason, he's playing through OSRS completely blind (no Wiki and minimal Runelite) on an iron-man. He just finished all F2P quests. I believe he also had a background in World of Warcraft. The difference between him and Madseason would be that Karadus is focusing more on his progression in OSRS, while Madseason is more directly comparing the two games throughout his playthrough.
@@visoth7791 Karadus' videos are amazing!
Also check out karadus . Wow player turned to osrs also.
@@TheLazyPeonAlienFood has a series a lot further along with a very similar feel. He's a not super experienced player who started over on an iron man and plays the entire game without guides, wikis, or plugins, just to get the true experience of the game. It really encapsulates why the game is so good.
Not a single other game I’ve ever played makes me feel so good about reaching certain achievements. First fire cape, first level 99, first raids, first boss kills et cetera. OSRS has a great way of learning bosses etc and it feels so rewarding to nail your first KC’s.
To add to the list of things that make OSRS good and stand out:
All updates are voted on by the community through in game voting booths. This is to ensure that no detrimental updates go through.
Similarly, it has an awazing dev team that regularly interacts with the community.
The questing is what stands out the most to me. No other mmo has the same level of qualtiy quests with interesting storytelling and unique rewards, and they can be done whenever in whatever order you want (given you have the prerequisites). For me this is why OSRS holds a special place.
And to reiterate:
Completely open world, where pretty much no area turns irrelevant as you level up. You will see players of all levels all over the map.
Visual progression and fashion scape, where at a glance you can tell from the armor a player wears how powerfull they are and what content they have done.
They say all updates are polled but that's a bold faced lie and they make lots of changes to the game without ever polling it or if they know the community won't like it. Like how they butchered the character creator for a small group of cultists. Or a certain holiday event.
@@Channel-io4xu What did they do the the character creator? Aren't holiday events good too?
@@bobheinjenkins They're talking about the pride event and adding pronouns to the character creator. Idk who those cultists are, but my friends who are LGBTQ were neither happy or upset with the diversity changes. They just want more content in the game.
The only diversity change that imo was actually bad was the change to the recruitment drive quest. At one point in the quest you had to change your sex to female in order to defeat an enemy who said "No man can defeat me". But now Sir Leye has been blessed by Saradomin so that no blade may harm him and players have to defeat him with a steel warhammer which is much less subversive.
Probably referring to the fact that they made a change in character creation where you can choose if the NPCs around the game refer to you as he/she or I think something else regardless of your character being created as male or female. It only affects this players dialogs with npcs and nothing else in the game so I dont understand what the big deal is about. And I'm not someone who is very fond of this million genders crap we have going on in the world, but that update literally doesn't change anything ingame for other players than yourself.
@@HardRockFinland Oh. Basically all games nowadays have that so yeah thats pretty normal
The gameplay loop is the absolute top tier of any MMORPG, that's why.
eh, it's pretty archaic now.
Don't really agree that the gameplay loop is top tier unless you're doing high level, high intensity content like TOB or collosuem. Although I really do enjoy the more relaxing parts as well.
TOB especially is just... so elegant in its simplicity and yet there's so much room for improvment. It really unravels osrs's identity as a rythym game in an emergent way that few games even approach. Too bad we'll never get anything like it again.
However, I do think the sense of progression is seriously good and it keeps me coming back time and time again.
@@DTreatz"Archaic," you say, about the consistently growing MMO that's more popular today than it has ever been, in extremely large part because of its really engaging gameplay loop.
You know, it's ok to just say you personally don't like it because it's not to your individual taste.
Old School RuneScape is one of the very few games out there that is TRULY a “do anything you want” type of experience. Where most games specialize in doing one or maybe two things very well, and focus on making that part as deep and engaging as possible, OSRS is concerned with providing the player with as wide of a variety of options as possible, with only the developers’ creativity being the limitation.
People view the game’s simplistic mechanics as a drawback, but that’s precisely why they’re able to do so much. Most other games are worried about realistic animations, complex stat systems, sophisticated AI behavior, dynamic soundtrack changes, the “feeling” of the mechanics, on and on and on. And that’s fine, I’m not saying they’re bad games because of that. But there’s a point to be made about how much that restricts gameplay.
Put it this way: take another game, and make its world have the same level of interactivity as OSRS. Cut down every tree, fish in every body of water, mine every rock for ore, grow / harvest plants in every patch of soil and field, catch animals in traps all over the map, go inside every building and open every storage area, give every NPC a legitimate purpose (combat, pickpocketing, quest-giver, vendor, bank teller, etc.), use anything that looks like it can be used for something (anvil, furnace, stove, altar, table, etc.), so on and so forth.
And don’t forget that on top of that, you need to also have all of the standard content of a video game / MMO, like dozens of unique boss encounters, tons of story and lore, a soundtrack with 700+ music tracks, multiple raids, minigames, PvP, and well over a hundred quests that are all unique and don’t fall into the trap of becoming a “kill X monsters” chore list to level up. Instead, just dedicate an entire skill to assigning players to kill X number of enemies over and over, and then watch it become the most popular piece of content in your whole game.
Unless you want to have a game that costs billions of dollars and requires tens of thousands of people to produce, and will 1,000% push microtransactions to make up the cost, the only way you can accomplish this is by making your game look and play like a fossil.
That’s also why it’s hard to get new people into the game. Not a bad thing but it is hard for people to understand you can do anything. If you want to kill cows for lvl 30 combats cool. If you want to rush the waterfall quest awesome! Though you probably won’t do it as easy as others.
OSRS devs never get the credit they deserve IMO they are the #1 reason why OSRS is as great as it is. Many games devs fail horrible at either working with the community or just making content that is generally well accepted. I played many MMOs, many FPS and in general tons of multiplayer games over the last two decades, and not a single one of them competes with the small OSRS dev team - they innovated the voting system, are not afraid to admit failure, always communicating , always trying to improve and even when updates do go south they can swallow their pride and remove said content unlike what other games would do. Gaming industry would be heaven if most game devs just took a page out of OSRS devs team.
Indeed, the dev team is the biggest reason OSRS is here currently and so successful. When OSRS launched, Jagex gave it no money for further content development, only money for support and bug fixing to keep the game functioning. But without new content a game will inevitably die off at one point so in the beginning the development team being actual enthusiasts of the game made most of the updates and new content for free, unpaid from their own personal free time. Without them and their undeniable love for this game, it would not be here today.
Detective Conan mentioned
I'd agree with you about the dev team. It's very rare for an update to be unpopular, and when they make mistakes, they often go back and fix them (MA2 rework, fang nerfs, Kourend favour removal).
One thing that I really miss in runescape reviews is the interconnectivity. I almost all gamnes I played every skill, such as fishing is a one way street. You level fishing to catch better fish. Mayber sell them for more money. In runescape all the skill, quests and Unique drops inspire you to get side tracked and try out different content. For example Construction lets you build a player owned house. When you reached the necessary construction level to build a teleport focus you will get better access to bosses, that where not very reachable yet. That motivates you to grind them for items. Maybe you then drop a weaponset that is especially god for prolonged fighting like guthans. This would improve the slayer activity, so you try that out next. And so on so forth
There is no game like OS RuneScape. That's why im sticking to this game for almost 20 years
i feel old thinking I started this game in 06 and now I'm turning 32 this upcoming may.
That's so crazy that it's has more players than peak times in 07
No it doesn't.
@@toffeelatte6042 90% bots? lol
@@MotivationMindset100anyone who says OSRS is 90% bots is salty/delusional. Bots are mostly in f2p and only take up about 5-10% of the playerbase tops, which is likely less than there were back in 07 when it was harder for jagex to combat botting.
more bots*
@@rieiid5867 majority of bots are members
I think one big reason that you didn’t mention is that there is a TON of direct dialogue between the dev team and the player base. Players are able to have a lot of say and influence in content that comes into the game, and the dev team is fantastic about communicating not only WHAT they want to make, but WHY they are making it, and what niche it’s meant to fill.
The community is able to vote on content before it’s added to the game, and needs a relatively high approval rate to be added. It’s also interesting to note that unlike many other game communities, the OSRS player community doesn’t like power creep. They don’t want content to be invalidated by new arrivals, but would rather introduce content that fits into a previously untapped niche.
The last thing I’ll mention that sets it apart from most other MMO games out there is the approach it takes to quests. In so many other MMO titles, quests either boil down to “fetch this item” or “kill X number of monsters”. OSRS relegates “kill X” to a skill, and uses quests as a form of worldbuilding, lore exposition, and narrative storytelling. It feels different because it just IS different
Underrated but a HUGE aspect of popularity... is Devs actually listen to players (even if multiple iterations) and often correct or make things better mostly. Very grindy, good quests, accessible content BUT mechanically difficult about movement with clicks being a big portion of it. Graphics are "bad" but again the gameplay here is much better than most MMOs. Also, not p2w at all (even with bonds, you still need to GRIND the skills on your own). As a player that did not play rs2 or back in the day, this game is honestly great.
Played Runescape back in '07 as a young lad and poured thousands of hours then. I quit around 2010 and picked up OSRS to alleviate pandemic boredom in 2020. The amount of content Jagex added + S tier content creators - shoutout to FlippingOldschool my personal favorite creator - is unreal. And still, Jagex somehow still seems to outdo themselves year after year. The Varlamore expansion was incredible, and the recent Raging Echoes League, the first League I've played, has been a blast.
OSRS has amazing character to it, where small details in even starter regions can matter. The best example of this is two penguins disguised as a sheep in the lumbridge sheep pen. It's a small detail that made me curious and wonder why they were there. Fast forward many quests later and suddenly the moment arrives and I go "Oh THAT'S why!". Little details like this exist all over the game and make all of it feel like it matters.
Im rank 50 iron and going dor 200m all, wow classic is my fav game ever but without breaks its finished too fast.. in osrs i do grinds over a year and i love it❤
how much would you say you play per day on average?
@L2ggs it really depends, ive played some months 16h a day ehen i went for 200m firemaking, thieving, crafting but nowadays ita anywhere from 1 to 16, depends if something irl comes up. And i tend to play more and more afk like 5-25min afk sessions. Its a marathon not a sprint, not in a rush. But im idk 10k efficient hours away, do the math
@@Reporting_U gl!:))
Dang and I’m struggling to get 99 str
@wildyoda2931 idk how you struggle with combat but yeah if you ever have afk time on mobile just go crabs in str gear with super str pots or a dragon battle axe
Spec and go afk 11min at crabs
Or drink a super str with preserve on and afk for 25min sessions in NMZ
Minimal 50k xp/h doing barely anything during work, showers etc. Do 25mins afk when you shower and thats already giving you like 2-3m str in a month:)
i saw player count up to 232k on sunday december 1, 2024
no wonder the market is going wild rn
200k bots lol
@@pvprangergod4024 Didnt know people were botting leagues
@@pvprangergod4024 found the WOW player....
@@pvprangergod4024 This is legit the worst excuse at this point, just because your mmo you like is dead, dosen't mean others are aswell.
No single game I have ever tried captures me so much as ironman mode in osrs. Just the constant setting and achieving of goals, new content, excellent content creators. Never no goals to achieve and just having great times
One of the greatest features (for me): osrs for mobile.
I quit runescape in 2010 or something. in 2023 i found the mobile app and start as an ironman. After some weeks i decided to start an ironman-group account.
The possiblity to switch between mobile and pc ist one of the main reasons for me to play osrs very active and much. Depening of my time situation, i can switch between activitys.
I played all popular MMO’s. Mostly Maplestory and later FF14. But I’ve been playing OSRS for about 7 years now and I’m genuinely enjoying myself much more in this game over any other. But I understand it’s not for everyone. And that’s a good thing. Because one of the biggest mistakes all others keep on making: is that they want to appeal to the largest amount of players.
This is the MMORPG everyone is waiting for and it always has been here.
As an OSRS player, another reason the game is so great is because of how much impact the players have on the game. Your voice matters and the jmods listen to the community and actively engage with everyone on social media. Every update that comes into the game gets voted on by all players, so if the community thinks an update is bad they have the control to not allow it to come into the game. And the jmods behind the scenes do absolutely amazing work on the game and you can really see the passion they have for this game
Logged in randomly the other week and seen leagues 5. Was already maxed in main game so i gave it a shot. I'm hooked all over again. Was playing throne and liberty and the daily log in requirement of that game was the only reason i played it as long as i did. Once i broke away from it I haven't logged in since and don't care to.
A mmo that grows in popularity overtime rather than shrinking is truely an anomaly in todays mmo landscape, I predict this will be one of the few still standing in 10 years.
Marstead has a great video on runescape. Called something like why runescape isn't an mmo. Really detailed and in depth video
I like osrs cause of its simplicity, and you can always take breaks and come back to it later on
The nonlinear progression of the game and how content is implemented additively rather than as part of planned obsolescence of old content stands out in the genre and results in a game you can play at your own pace and everything you do progresses your character. It's mind-boggling how it's the only game in the genre that seems to have this figured out.
OSRS (Runescape 2) was my first MMO -
Years (many years) later my friend talked me into buying the WoW Legion expansion - I played it for maybe 6 months before getting bored with it.
In which I returned to OSRS.
same, except I played legion for just one month lmao
Osrs also has one of the best, if not the best gaming wikis. Everything you’d want to know is on there
OSRS is unironically the best mmo ever made. I started playing it because of nostalgia but nostalgia isn't what kept me playing. Within the first couple days of playing I got past the point I was at as a kid and I currently have thousands of hours. There's so much more to OSRS that nostalgia can't hold a candle to. The best way that I could explain OSRS is that it's a lot like Terraria, if you like that game you'll like OSRS.
I recently met my friend that I've been close with on RS since 06 for the first time for his 30th birthday. He flew from CA to NYC for his week trip, and I drove 4 hours from DE to meet him. Was one of the greatest moments in my life. I'm so happy this game defined my childhood. I hope Jagex never pulls another EOC.
I haven’t played RS (old school or RS3) in almost 10 years, but I played the hell out of the game from 2005-2015. It’s a part of who I am at this point even though I don’t play or actively keep up with everything. I find great joy in watching RS UA-camrs.
Community interaction is also a huge appeal of OSRS. As a Classic WoW enjoyer, I hear people long for the days when GMs regularly and timely responded to players and their concerns. I think that description matches what OSRS provides to players. Also, several OSRS moderators have cults of personality and the player base loves it.
I'm currently on my 3rd account being a UIM. Even when you restart on a different ironman, you still can have an entirely different experience. I'm currently working on 99 construction on a UIM, which isn't something I ever expected to do. Even if I take an extended break, my construction level never goes down. It's what appeals me so much to OSRS. Levels are forever, and you always have an opportunity to make progress.
also runescape fits perfectly for that third monitor in your home office, lots of afk skilling methods, working from home has become more and more popular since covid.
Came from WoW, I always remembered how annoyed I felt finally getting the best gear and then having it completely wiped to start the new raid tier. Made me feel like I was on a constant treadmill. The meta for me was just wait a few weeks and the gear was easier to get, so why work hard to get it the first month or two? Nothing ever felt permanent or mattered.
I still play it now and then because the raids really are good, but I love that I can just always be progressing my OSRS character and nothing feels like it'll be invalidated
This is a good video to explain it! I'd also add on that the player base and Jagex have a good understanding with one another: If you make a terrible change, the players will leave. They have a voting system to prevent any game crippling changes from being implemented. While content release seems slower, that's totally fine because there's already so much to do in the game. Along with this, you can have confidence that mostly good changes will only come to the game which is something that most MMO players have as a pain point. Too many good MMOs killed by hubris and stubbornness of bad management and publishing. I never played much runescape back in the day, but I can't help but be drawn to it due to it's direction and game philosophy.
Awesome takes on osrs, started playing 3 months ago. I feel one thing you missed talking about it is the TICK system (the osrs heartbeat if you will) I love how the pvm interacts with a timing based system, feels super rewarding to learn the mechanics and know that if I fail it's 20% stats and gear and 80% skill issue
I think you missed a big point in the polling system. Huge reason players stick around imo
i’ve been playing this game off and on since 2004, there’s no other game where you can take off for a few years and hop back on like you never left
in recent years i usually hop on during leagues and then a couple of months after leagues end. i love this game
Runescape has the best wiki of any game ever. Seriously, no other game has anything like it. It's so incredibly useful, and updated regularly so it's always accurate.
so happy to see osrs still around and thriving! such a unique mmo
Perfect video summarizing up why this game is just so good.
To throw in some extra emphasis on the 'it's not just nostalgia' train - I've started playing this game 2yrs ago after retiring from hardcore WoW and I've been enjoying this game WAY more due to some of the points stated by Peon - my progress isn't becoming meaningless every few months, any content in the game can be relevant depending on your goals (filling up collection log, getting all pets, maxing account, you name it) so you don't feel like wasting your time being "inefficient" and last but not least the sheer quantity of content the game has been blessed with.
To be fair, if you love MMORPG and you want to try something that will always feel exciting and mesmerizing, just try it out. This might be just the game for you.
OSRS has a solid foundation and a community that deeply cares for it, and for those reasons alone it's a solid MMORPG.
As someone who doesn't have a lot of free time OSRS is the only game that has a high skill ceiling with the tick system in pvp that also doesn't devalue my time/gear ever
Old school RuneScape is the GOAT of mmorpg's,it's no wonder....
wow is the goat osrs is great but not goat
Thanks, I'm about to try it out!
The fact you can play the game on mobile and your tablet is also a big plus for me. I don’t necessarily have to be at my pc to play it. I can chill on the couch and log in.
Money/bank progression builds with playtime and isn't eaten away from annoying mechanics like gear degradation or bound equipment. Sure, there's risky activities where you lose gear, but at least they're fun and high reward.
100%. My gains and loses of gear are my fault. Not because they are on some timer that wipes my progress.
Wow great video. Concise, informative, great editing etc
Osrs excels at making you feel like you are on an adventure. The quests are whacky and have so much character.
Crazy about them penguins lol. Didn't think Sheep Herder would come up again.
I think another thing that contributed to OSRS's success is how the Dev team interacts with the community. They are far more interactive and are much better at listening to their community it seems. Plus all poles require a 70% vote majority in order to pass.
The music guys.. the music. The soundtracks incredible and its extremely nostalgic for me.
Feel like you nailed it all right on the head. I agree with all of your points here. I feel like another important point to add with how you choose to play it, is how you can also choose how much effort you want to be putting into what you are doing. Most skills will provide both a slow low impact sort of gameplay, or "AFK gameplay" or a much faster but more intense form of training. For example you can just fish for fish, or do something like the Skilling boss Tempoross.
osrs is one of the only games out there that genuinly feels no matter what you are doing, no matter how dumb your goal is. Your account is still improving, you may have just gained 2000xp. but that 2000xp is there forever, you may have just spent an hour trying to figure out a quest, but now that quest is done and you gained rewards that you can use.
Man the login music hits my heart, first heard it so long ago
I LOVE the pve untradeable rewards, like the fire cape, void armour, fighter torso, barrow gloves... Etc, having those means a Big accomplishment, its a recognition to hours of effort you have put in to the game, and almost all of them are best in slot or near the BEST equipment in the game. Theres no battlepast, no micropayment, no bullshit, just go and complete the challenge to get them
I started in 2010, so after original 2007, and played rs3 on and off for years. Finally gave osrs a shot last year and been hooked. It's honestly magic.
first couple years i was a skiller. then i decided to do all quests and diaries. now im bossing and have played since 2015. there is so much to do if you just want to have fun and do whatever you ever want to do
New Runescape player here. I've been looking for a game like Runescape for like a decade, not even knowing it actually already existed.
1:16 "That would be the same as world of warcraft releasing classic servers and beating it's peak sub count record of 12 million during peak wrath back in 2010" Except it's not the same at all because Old School Runescape didn't just re release a classic version of their game. Old School RuneScape has added something quite literally to every aspect of content in the game, New quests, New training Methods, New Raids, New Bosses, New Best In Slot Gear, Etc. To put it in perspective, If Blizzard wanted to Copy OSRS, They'd have to release Wrath of the Lich King again, and they'd have to add with it a new raid tier, a new profession, a new battle ground, several new dungeons, a new pvp season with new pvp gear, and probably an entirely new zone for said raid and dungeons to be placed. Oh wait that's just an expansion? Exactly. So when blizzard does what osrs does it's labeled and expansion and a different version of the game but when runescape does it everyones just like OH! ITS STILL OLD SCHOOL! No it isnt.
Not that runescape did anything wrong it's obviously a successful strategy and one I wish blizzard would copy, But instead of saying "OH IT CLASSIC PLUS" No it should just be an alternate timeline. One where after the events of wrath we dont go into cataclysm we go into a different expansion down a different story line while maintaining all the core elements of gameplay from classic world of warcraft.
I think it's partly because of a very loyal nostalgia player base who keep bringing in new friends. I know I'm one of those. I've brought in atleast 5 people the last couple of years although admittedly all of them had already played Runescape in 2003-2010 at some point.
Progression permanence is definitely understated here. As a FF14 player sometimes I just hate the fact that gearing will be replaced in 6 months with nothing carrying over (plus gearing being freaking time-gated) In OSRS there are different BiS setups depending on the encounter and your combat style.
Probably the best analysis on the reasons for OSRS's success that I've seen. Well done
There's a reason why there's numerous Runescape players that have accumulated over 1,000 Days played, they keep coming back no matter how long their "break" was.
The add will make some people grip for sure :D!
I tried OSRS for a week or so not to long ago, it was populated as hell, every world i join and no matter where went
Osrs is botted like crazy especially in f2p worlds. I think old leadership has said somewhere around 20% of the game are just bots lol
@@hoodpope1851 yeah idk why you think f2p worlds are the bulk of the player base. Another clueless genius here
@@luismanuelcolmenares7917 the 20% wasn't specifically referencing only f2p worlds, the sentences were 2 different thoughts hence the period. Great reading comprehension bud. Maybe you're one of those bots?
@@hoodpope1851 Yeah my reading comprehension might not be the best cuz english is not my 1st language. Still, most of this kind of comments always come from people who logged in, chopped a tree for 10 mins and call it a day saying the game sucks. Most content dedicated worlds are always filled with thousands of people that you can interact with and recently most bot farms don't last a single day.
I don’t even play anymore since they switched to EoC but I still watch content creators consistently
When you talk in game it capitalizes the first letter of your sentence, making everyone seem smarter than they really are. That's why I think it's so popular.
Your comment about "Progression Treadmill" is probably the most accurate statement.
Making a game like OSRS would be tricky. Progression and player agency work together so well due to the complex interaction between skills, quests, minigames, and achievement diaries. Making a small amount of progression towards one minor goal will almost certainly make progress towards other unrealized goals. The level of interoperability that OSRS's systems seems to have come naturally to the game and doesn't feel like it was specifically designed to work that way originally back in the RS Classic and RS2 days. The modern version of OSRS is very much aware of this interaction and actively develops the game further with it in mind.
The osrs team does a very good job at developing revitalizing content at an extremely consistent rate incomparable to probably any other company in its genre. It’s hard to know when this game will actually reach its peak.
RuneScape has been a game I’ve been playing since I was seven I still remember playing all night with friends. I remember the golden age of the wilderness and luring people and also getting lured myself. I remember looting a pair of dragon claws for the first time I still have my gp on the main game from that kill. RuneScape was definitely my childhood and I’ve quit for months to years and always have come back to the game it’s just something about it.
Also it was Settled's Tileman series that got me back into playing the game after having not played in quite a while.
It never fails, you don't quit, you only take breaks
Jagex has some good staff now and they actually listen to the osrs community to improve the game which is more than most companies do it definitely helps the growth
There is one important thing you have missed, and that is the OSRS dev team. They are literally one of the best small group of devs in the mmo circle. If you have survived the WoW devs for years, for example, and then you get to experience the osrs team, you will understand immediately.
I'm not a big RPG guy, my favorite is Elder scrolls 3 morrowind, but out of all RPGs I've played Runescape is the only one where I can take a long break and know EXACTLY what I was doing every time I pick the game back up again, even after years.
ORSR challenge and snowflake accounts are really something unique. Consider a WOW account that was 'quests only' or 'no dailies/weeklies/monthlies' - the player would just have a terrible time including being ousted from groups. in OSRS you can dedicate yourself to a chunk, a skill, a method, and you will have a great time and not be locked out of any content.
It might seem like a simple Point&Click, but believe me, the skill ceiling is HIGH!
For a new player; look up Jad / Fire cape and the upgraded version Zuk / Infernal cape.
That shit ain't no joke. Best achievement in gaming you'll ever get.
Some of my favorite videos of the game come from the UA-cam channel Karadus, a WoW player. He recently started his first time playing osrs as a hardcore ironman and it has been super enjoyable.
Im level 124 on osrs, been playing since launch and before osrs. back in actual 2007. been on deployments, college etc. always something to come back to. running raids now!
You failed to mention the unique combat system of OSRS. The tick system creates a wide skill barometer, allowing players to be either very bad or exceptionally good at the game. Nowadays, modern MMORPGs typically don't allow much variation in pure skill. I believe this is one of the key factors for the game's popularity.
The only reason I am still playing oldschool rs IS nostalgia
No microtransactions being a close second reason
I think runelite with the HD plugin makes OSRS look SOOOOOOOOOOOO good.
I think you can add to that list the rather good quality mobile app that allows you to take OSRS with you wherever you go... not only you can do your daily farm/herb runs while on a train to work, but even pvm while on vacation. I don't think a lot of MMOs are offering that kind of mobility from what I've seen.
You missed these-
1. Game is constantly updated.
2. Recent player counts going up is because of introductions like GOTR, Foundry etc which did away with the tedium of slow monotonous grinds. Older players were adamantly against improvement of the game in this aspect since they felt changes would devalue their achievements. I've played RS and OSRS for ~17 years now and I'm so glad OSRS is evolving and shedding that gatekeeping mindset.
3. Mods(devs) listen to us and poll changes and new updates, and they REALLY listen. Also, mods are hands down intelligent and mostly make great new implementations.
4. OSRS (RS3 too) wiki is straight up the best wiki for anything ever. It's straight up too good and comprehensive. You feel like Gutgix incarnate with the kind of power it brings to your fingertips (how much smoother your gameplay becomes). Like the saying, "if only I could travel 15 years back with the knowledge the wiki gives me today..."
You think guardians of the rift and giant's foundy are the reasons for the game's growth 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
i think you should also note that we are not afraid of having our stats reset "again" as they did this when EOC released