Is it too late to return to RuneScape?

[fr1gid]

I used to play RuneScape in the mid- to late-2000s. I have fond memories of the game. I've dabbled in Old School RuneScape every so often over the years, but I finally decided to give RS3 a proper go. I was part of the Evolution of Combat exodus back in the day.

To my pleasant surprise, the game seems wonderful. While not starting in Lumbridge feels wrong, and the graphics + UI have drastically changed, the game still feels like the RuneScape that I loved about 15 years ago.

I've seen a lot of doom and gloom around the game, though. I worry it's too late to start a fresh account and eventually max it. What does RS3's longevity look like?

[Mizdefy]

Originally posted by BlindAudelay:

I used to play RuneScape in the mid- to late-2000s. I have fond memories of the game. I've dabbled in Old School RuneScape every so often over the years, but I finally decided to give RS3 a proper go. I was part of the Evolution of Combat exodus back in the day.

To my pleasant surprise, the game seems wonderful. While not starting in Lumbridge feels wrong, and the graphics + UI have drastically changed, the game still feels like the RuneScape that I loved about 15 years ago.

I've seen a lot of doom and gloom around the game, though. I worry it's too late to start a fresh account and eventually max it. What does RS3's longevity look like?

you'll find it is not as busy with players,most players have alt accounts & anyone hardly talks much as a large marjority are in clans & talk via clan chat,as for longevity no idea if jagex keeps increasing membership prices & keep MTX in the game it will push older & newer players to never play again,but that is my opinion on the game

[Varpushaukka]

You don't need to worry about whether you can max or not, exp rates have gone through the roof since EoC was released, and if all else fails, you can just buy Treasure Hunter keys to finish the job. What you should be thinking about is whether there's any meaning left to it, since skills were always a core part of the game, but now it's just a means to sell more MTX.

[Guthix]

Originally posted by BlindAudelay:

I used to play RuneScape in the mid- to late-2000s. I have fond memories of the game. I've dabbled in Old School RuneScape every so often over the years, but I finally decided to give RS3 a proper go. I was part of the Evolution of Combat exodus back in the day.

To my pleasant surprise, the game seems wonderful. While not starting in Lumbridge feels wrong, and the graphics + UI have drastically changed, the game still feels like the RuneScape that I loved about 15 years ago.

I've seen a lot of doom and gloom around the game, though. I worry it's too late to start a fresh account and eventually max it. What does RS3's longevity look like?

I guess it really just depends on what you are looking for.

Do you just want to make sure that you can max before the game eventually is shut down? That won't be a problem and you can do it fairly quickly before the game will eventually die out.

Are you worried about investing a decent amount of time into a game that is essentially dying/on its way out in the next decade? If that's the case then I wouldn't touch this game. I don't want to outright say you'd be wasting your time in the game if you enjoy it, but the game is closer than ever to dying, and that is being compounded upon at alarming rates, especially recently. I personally don't want to spend any meaningful amount of time on a game that is in a constant state of degradation and is probably going into "maintenance mode" in the next five years. The likelihood that during your journey to max you will feel some remorse/regret with regards to taking up the game at this point is fairly high. This is primarily due to poor corporate decisions which compromise your enjoyment as a player and a continual degradation of quality/quantity of content and service being provided (speaking from decades of personal experience as well as historical precedence).

You'll have people tell you that the game is thriving and Jagex always has their player base's best interest at heart, but this simply is not true. Membership is outrageously expensive for what is provided, especially when compared to other games in the same genre. On top of this Jagex is offering services at a premium which should already be provided in the base membership. To add further insult to injury, Jagex has been releasing a bunch of "player value surveys" in the last couple years which have ultimately led to price hikes/increases one of which one was the single greatest price hike on membership in RuneScape's history. These price hikes have also not led to any meaningful benefit to the player base and are primarily a way for the company to increase their profit margins without the need of adding any additional value/service to the player.

At the same time the company is asking you for more money a few things are happening. The company has had record breaking profits every single year for nearly the last decade, the company has had profit margins for that time ranging from 20-50% (5-10% is considered "good" in business), development resources have been cut over the years, budgets are currently (as in right now) being cut, none of the profits made by the game are being reinvested but instead going into the pockets of their new owners (CVC & Haveli), and if all that was not enough they are actively using corporate surveying strategies (conjoint analysis) to figure out the average "quit limit" of their player base to maximize profit. For me I would think a company would be happy with their yearly profit margins especially considering that in some years they are making 50 cents on the dollar.

I do want to state this though, none of what I just said is speculation on my part. The company's financial documents are available to the public online, we've had several devs that work on the game confirm that budgets as well as teams are being gradually cut over time (especially this year), and the outcome of every single "player value survey" has led to Jagex increasing prices or ramping P2W MTX.

I could also go heavily into how any achievements you make in the game, such as being "maxed," mean next to nothing as well. The P2W aspects of the game, as well as microtransactions in general, have gotten progressively worse over time and this is especially the case in the last couple of years as we've seen a sharp increase in Jagex's monetization strategy leading to some of the most insane P2W xp sources the game has ever seen. Now I really hate to say this, but any thing you do in the game short of
any achievement capes, such as comp cape or quest cape, is intrinsically worthless and even then a lot of those achievement capes aren't really all that valuable by today's standard. I say this as a player who has both a Completionist Cape and a Master Quest Cape who has over a year of in-game play time on a singular account.

There is much more to be said/argued as to why this game/company is objectively one of the worst in the industry, but I will restate my two original trains of thought with regards to your question.

Can you max before the game dies? Yes, you can. If I were in your shoes, knowing what I know, would I do it? Absolutely not. I would say that there are multiple other reasons you should take into account aside from just "Can I max before the game is shut down" as I think you would ultimately find yourself in a state of more regret with some of those other reasons than if you were to start playing and not be able to max because the game shuts down sooner than you thought.

Now some may disagree that playing the game is a waste of time, and that is fine if that is their prerogative, but they ultimately cannot refute that the game is getting fewer resources and the quality/quantity of updates is not what it used to be. This is on top of other games offering 10x more content than what Jagex offers on a yearly basis for less than half the price they charge for their "cheapest membership option." RS3 is objectively a bad game by today's standard and they are requiring the consumer to pay an insane amount more while at the same time they are providing less and less.

If you are ok with paying more and getting less, not caring that in the grand scheme of things your achievements are worthless, and constantly being barraged by corporate feeler surveys which try to gauge how much more money they squeeze out of you, then I would say go ahead. Do I think you'll end up regretting doing so? Absolutely, but all I can do is lead the camel to the water, I can't make it drink it.

[redes]

TLDR: no

[ItzaLaggin]

Originally posted by BlindAudelay:

I used to play RuneScape in the mid- to late-2000s. I have fond memories of the game. I've dabbled in Old School RuneScape every so often over the years, but I finally decided to give RS3 a proper go. I was part of the Evolution of Combat exodus back in the day.

To my pleasant surprise, the game seems wonderful. While not starting in Lumbridge feels wrong, and the graphics + UI have drastically changed, the game still feels like the RuneScape that I loved about 15 years ago.

I've seen a lot of doom and gloom around the game, though. I worry it's too late to start a fresh account and eventually max it. What does RS3's longevity look like?

i now only use it on my ipad when traveling to help me fall asleep in hotel rooms....free version only

[ItzaLaggin]

Originally posted by Espionage724:

Originally posted by ItzaLaggin:

i now only use it on my ipad when traveling to help me fall asleep in hotel rooms....free version only

I bought an Apple Pencil for iPad and mainly only used it for RS :p

jeebus i never thought to use the pencil lol...ty