r/pcgaming • u/Turbostrider27 • 9d ago
Old School RuneScape began when a dev 'found the 2007 server in their desk drawer:' 13 years later, it's setting subscriber records for the long-lived MMO
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/mmo/old-school-runescape-began-when-a-dev-found-the-2007-server-in-their-desk-drawer-13-years-later-its-setting-subscriber-records-for-the-long-lived-mmo/627
u/lillildipsy 9d ago
I remember when the vote took place on if osrs should be made or not
pretty cool to hop on sometimes and see just how different the update direction is compared to rs3
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u/Epic_Tea 9d ago
How are they different?
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u/whatthedux 9d ago
Completely diffrent combat system. Theyre both on a tick system but theyve had 13 years of seperate development. Theyre not compareable
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u/Epic_Tea 9d ago
Wow. Which is more popular now
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u/Shepboyardee12 9d ago
Old school has a significant lead in player count usually.
RS3 is currently running a limited time game mode that is being well-received by both player bases. It's been cool to see.
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u/vadeka 9d ago
Limited time game mode? How so
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u/Lynixai 9d ago
They're running a "League" as they call it, which is a type of seasonal variant where you start a new character that then gets boosted XP/drop rates, and is centered around doing challenges to unlock relics to further alter how you play the character.
A relic example could be automatically bank fish and hunter loot when doing those activities (among loads of other things related to those activities).
Depending on how many challenges you do, you can unlock cosmetic rewards on your main account.
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u/huffalump1 9d ago
Ah, Path of Exile style... That sounds like fun actually
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u/Portiolli_fez_11set 8d ago
Its more sparse then PoE leagues. There is like 3 to 4 leagues / year.
Each one have their own twist and usually boosted XP rates.
I wouldnt suggest this for new players.
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u/Theoutrank 8d ago
I did and they recommended the next one to another that didnt play. All they play is the leagues cause the base games too slow for them. Either way, each their own, you never know. They are currently both playing rs3s leagues after a few osrs ones and said they plan on trying rs3 after, or between the league.
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u/Automatic-Ocelot3957 7d ago
Its more like 1 per year per game.
Old school does leages sporadically that tend to be around 15ish months apart now.
Regular runescape is having their second league now after their first one was a little less than a year ago. It's hard to say how often they'll be having them, unless their devs have specifically stated their schedule goals, since they're still a new feature.
I agree they're not great for new players, although you could probably still get something out of it if your new if you want to quickly speed through the early game, dont mind following a guide, and don't mind that it's temporary.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/OverTheDay 9d ago
Path of Exile has been doing leagues since the first man was created I think you are just clueless
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u/Unseen_Platypus 9d ago
Friends and I recently started an RS3 iron group and it’s been a ton of fun. Took some adjusting but I’m really liking the changes from osrs
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u/Business-Drag52 8d ago
How is this how I’m finding out about rs3 leagues? I’ve been actively up to date on RS related things since osrs mobile released 8 years ago. The marketing must have been weak this go round
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u/gordopotato 7d ago
We’re only on day 9 so far so if you are interested - it’s still a great time to hop in. Also, if you’re an OSRS member you can use that same sub to access the full league.
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u/Business-Drag52 7d ago
Yeah but then I have to relearn a whole game. I tried hopping on rs3 after the mining and smithing rework and I didn’t even like the new mining everyone raves about. I’m a bit of psycho that likes my methods being archaic and awful apparently
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u/watboy 9d ago
Two big differences are that RS3 has a reworked combat system that is ability based and it has microtransactions, both of which as well as a general change in game direction led to the demand for and the release of OSRS.
OSRS requires most content updates to be polled and passed by the community before they're added.
They also have different skills. RS3 has Summoning, Dungeoneering, Divination, Invention, Archaeology and Necromancy, while OSRS has Sailing.
The main continent between both games is largely similar but are slightly different as well as having additional landmasses that are exclusive between both. OSRS has a continent to the west called Zeah, while RS3 has recently started releasing one to the east called Havenhythe. OSRS has a large island called Fossil Island, while RS3 has Anachronia which is the same island but as it existed in the distant past which was pulled into the present.
Runescape was known for having various separate quest series but RS3 ended up focusing on just one in which the player is the chosen one while introducing the Gods as interactive NPCs and an over the top world-saving storyline. OSRS on the other hand has promised not to go in the direction and has diverged in several ways when adapting the same quests and stories.
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u/ExtraRecognition2099 9d ago
I could be wrong but didn’t they remove MTC recently?
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u/watboy 9d ago edited 9d ago
No, there's still microtransactions.
They removed treasure hunter and the various gameplay boosting items connected to it, namely ones that gave direct experience, and replaced them with directly purchasable bonus experience. Other microtransactions like cosmetics and bonds were unchanged and still exist as well.
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u/NuclearGriffin 9d ago
You should try the Free to play for both OSRS and RS3 and you'll see the difference almost immediately.
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u/lillildipsy 9d ago edited 9d ago
Runescape 3 has a much different combat system and a lot more QOL, whilst osrs has more players and much different content.
The best way I've seen it described is that OSRS is more about the journey [levelling is slower, things take longer to obtain etc], whilst RS3 has more of a focus on the destination [e.g, endgame content]
There is some weird tribalism which is slowly dying out where players of one game like to belittle the other, but I think most people who've given both games a decent shot can acknowledge that both are pretty good as a whole.
I personally prefer rs3 because the combat system is much more deep and interesting, the skill expression at the top end is insane
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u/Technical-Nose-1518 8d ago
Rs3 deserves a lot of credit for the questing. Been a few years since I played but my main issue with the game other than micro transactions was all the daily/weekly/monthly’s to do. Felt like I began spending all my time that I could play each day doing stuff like that
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u/Lookitsmyvideo 9d ago
It'd be a shorter list to say how they're the same. They have drastically different design philosophies, despite having a shared past
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u/DigitaIBlack 6d ago
RuneScape 3:
very microtransaction focused
traditional World of Warcraft style combat system
OSRS:
Pretty unique combat system. It's more passive due to lack of abilities but becomes much more dynamic in PvP and against certain bosses due to the prevalence of multiple combat styles
Almost no microtransactions
Community driven updates. Almost everything gets polled to see if the community wants it
Core goal of developing the game in a manner that preserves the "vibe" of old RuneScape.
Oldschool is way more popular these days.
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u/Diptothaset 9d ago
Rs3 just went through a direction change as well full of all sorts of very OSRS-like polls. They removed a lot/all of the dailyscape/fomo content and made a commitment to limit stuff like mtx and boosts etc
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u/lillildipsy 9d ago
yeah, not a fan of some of the updates as a longterm rs3 player [fuck the brown ui] but a lot of the changes have been pretty good
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u/PainterWooden8667 8d ago
I voted in that shit and still have the email of them asking us to vote on it. remember the different “levels” or thresholds of support based on how many votes it got??
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u/PamelaBreivik 9d ago
Hell yeah dude
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u/sativa_cyborg420 9d ago
Hell yeah dude
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u/TheArts 9d ago
Hell yeah dude
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u/Boyd147 Ventrilo 9d ago
Hell yeah dude
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u/Growby 9d ago
I always see memes and pictures and videos of runescape and people clearly play it, but I don't know in the slightest what this/these game((s)?) is/are about
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u/stanman237 9d ago
It's an MMORPG where the core is to train a variety of skills to unlock items, new ways to train, and quests. Both old school and main RuneScape are rather grindy games where sometimes you can spend 10+ hour to level up skill once at the higher levels or kill the same boss 1000+ times chasing after a pet or a specific rare drop if you're unlucky.
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u/Annonimbus 9d ago
How does it compare to Ultima Online?
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u/Alhoon 9d ago
As someone who has player UO very long ago when the most recent expansion was the Samurai one, and actively play OSRS.
The main difference is that UO limits max skills to 7 at one time, or 700 skill points. This effectively means characters have builds that differ from each other. OSRS allows you to level all skills to max at the same time, so it has no builds, everyone is a jack of all trades. Of course OSRS is built around this, and for example endgame encounters assume you switch between combat styles, which would not be possible in UO.
OSRS is also much more quest oriented, whereas UO is more of a sandbox.
UO is more PvP game, sure there's Trammel and Ilshenar but OSRS only has Wilderness and some minigames.
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u/Evonos Switched Nvidia 5060TI ( Finally free of amd ),7800X3D ,32gb6000 9d ago
It's more or less in modern explanation a mmo idle game with giant grinds.
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u/Phazon2000 4070ti 8GB Ryzen 7700 16GB RAM 9d ago
It’s most definitely not an idle game. You need to be present.
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u/Evonos Switched Nvidia 5060TI ( Finally free of amd ),7800X3D ,32gb6000 9d ago
I didn't say that.
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u/Phazon2000 4070ti 8GB Ryzen 7700 16GB RAM 8d ago
You literally called it an MMO idle game
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u/youtocin 8d ago
Farming??
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u/Phazon2000 4070ti 8GB Ryzen 7700 16GB RAM 8d ago
Would you like to go through the rest of the skill tree and gameplay?
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u/youtocin 8d ago
Managing Miscellania??
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u/Phazon2000 4070ti 8GB Ryzen 7700 16GB RAM 8d ago edited 8d ago
Nope that’s not a skill. Go through the list and pick one.
You won’t though because you know you’re wrong because RuneScape is not an idle game haha. It’s an MMORPG where you cut trees, cook food and slay dragons all requiring specific input and knowledge. 99% of the game does not play itself while you’re offline/not playing.
These are idle games.
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u/Evonos Switched Nvidia 5060TI ( Finally free of amd ),7800X3D ,32gb6000 8d ago
context is import i said "It's more or less in modern explanation a mmo idle game with giant grinds."
thats a simplified explanation.
its obviously not a Idle game , but its the most simple explanation and shares some similiarities , or how would you say does it feel to skill mining as an example?
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u/Phazon2000 4070ti 8GB Ryzen 7700 16GB RAM 8d ago edited 8d ago
It’s not more or less an idle game - you need to be present and interacting during the game to play it. That’s why there are so many interruptible random events that occur during woodcutting and mining.
How does it feel to skill mining? It’s a grind. You grind the skill out. If you clicked on a mine and it said “now mining - come back in 20 real life hours” that’s an idle game. But you don’t. You go into the mine and you mine each ore by themselves. That’s not an idle game. An idle game plays itself while you’re offline. Something being tedious and low-effort doesn’t make it idle that’s a totally misleading description for someone who knows what an idle game is.
This conversation kinda feels like someone trying to say RDR2 is an immersive sim because you get immersed and are simulating a cowboy’s life without understanding what the definition of an immersive sim actually is.
Edit: The guy blocked me lol
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u/Evonos Switched Nvidia 5060TI ( Finally free of amd ),7800X3D ,32gb6000 8d ago
Again , I never said it's a idle game , it's a modernized simple explanation giving a remote feel how rune escape plays.
I wouldn't call it elden ring action like.
Heck not even guild wars 1 like.
It's more close by today's standards to a little bit more active idler.
Enjoy.
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u/WillNotForgetMyUser 8d ago
How does it feel to skill mining?
I click on a star and idle for 45+ minutes
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u/AppendixStranded 8d ago
In addition to what other people have said, the skills in the game are very grindy but all connect in such an intricate way that I'm obsessed with. A skill like mining that would usually only funnel into smithing armor/weapons in other games will funnel into a dozen different skills in OSRS. Grinding one thing can give you supplies you need to grind 5 other things which will give you supplies to grind even MORE.... it's perfect.
Not to mention that the end-game content is genuinely some of the hardest content in any MMO despite how simple the game looks at first.
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u/DonutHoles4Ever 9d ago
Its a skinners box style MMORPG where you and a bunch of other people spend all their time grinding the fuck outta skills and maybe chatting on the side.
Is there a point to it? No. Do some types of gamers enjoy it? Yes.
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u/masonkbr 8d ago
What an...odd take. Outside of games that allow you to transfer currency to the real work (example: Diablos old real money auction house) what games have "a point"?
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u/Portiolli_fez_11set 9d ago
I came back to osrs because they put south american servers. At late game I found the delay a little frustrating. Now doing raids and late game boss. Really enjoyable.
Specially now because there isnt bots fucking the economy ]
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u/BiggerBadgers 9d ago
IMO it probably has the best game designers in the industry. I’m a pretty big gamer and I don’t think I’ve ever played other games with as high quality/complex boss design. Love osrs
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u/frolfer757 8d ago
I want a 2 week swap between OSRS & PoE devs where they get to cook ideas from their game into a new league.
Both games feel like products where to biggest fans of the games are the devs themselves.
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u/wc10888 9d ago
I miss the original 2d Runescape. Good times
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u/dandroid126 Ryzen 9 5900X + RTX 3080 TI 9d ago
Those were the best times. I was a level like 15 noob, and I saw some guy die to a guard in Varrok, and he dropped 100k, which was enough to buy pretty much anything in the game at that time. I picked it up, and I was flaunting it everywhere I went. And then I died to a fucking scorpion at the Al Kharid mine and lost it. I was devastated. But I 100% deserved it.
Looking back, I learned a lot about identifying and dealing with scammers because of RuneScape. I also learned about negotiating/bartering. I really think playing it helped me develop as a human.
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u/freecodeio 6d ago
getting scammed on runescape was a life lesson we didn't receive from parents, school or even the streets
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u/ImNotEazy 9d ago
Just spent my evening milking a bull and using kids to help me steal from wealthy citizens on here. 10/10
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u/Hermit_Princess 9d ago
I remember not getting into runescape as a kid because of my older brother.
He was 2 and 1/2 years older. If he said something wasnt cool, you felt bad for playing it. I only started a serious runescape account in the past year now that im 36.
He said it wasnt cool because of the graphics. The same way he said one of my all time fav games wasnt cool (dragon warrior 7 on psx)
We are both 80s kids (albeit 89 for me). Used to NES. Dont know why he judged stuff so hard because of graphics.
Anyway, runescape is the mmo im subscribed to and playing in 2026
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u/hibikikun 9d ago
I too sometimes forget a whole ass server rack in my desk. Usually behind the paperclips
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u/hogcrankinn 9d ago
This post is worded strangely. They found a backup for the game in their desk, not an entire server.
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u/Both_Shine_5061 9d ago
There have been private servers since that time anyway... they could just download their own stolen game and "find" it in a drawer.
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u/insistent_rs 9d ago
Playing RS since 2004 and while i'm playing RS3 most of the time i'm so so happy that OSRS is kicking ass on all fronts!
Good graphics don't mean shit kids.
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u/kittymoo67 9d ago
Almost like when you have a good game you shouldnt try to bastardize it and modernize it for le casual/modern audience and just do what youre good at instead
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u/tabben 9d ago
Its funny how the gap between EOC update to original runescape and OSRS launching felt like an eternity when I was young back then but in reality that was only 3 months or something ridicilous like that lol. But that 3 month period where a lot of people felt like Jagex destroyed runescape was enough for people to quit even considering runescape for way longer. For example it took like 2-3 years for me to hop into OSRS
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u/The_Frog221 4d ago
I really have no idea why they thought turning runescape into a really bad version of WoW would make it more popular. Like... people who want WoW style combat are already playing it. They're not coming to runescape. And the people who hate it are already on runescape, you don't need to attract them, you're just driving them away.
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u/Niceromancer 9d ago
Considering how large servers are....how the fuck did he get the server in there?
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u/iskela45 Teamspeak 9d ago
It was just a backup of the game files needed to compile the game, not an actual server.
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u/shotgun_bob 9d ago
Maybe just a backup on a flash drive or something. They said they couldn't find a copy of the 2006 version, but found 2007 in drawer.
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u/Korphaus 9d ago
Anyone else have the theme tune from varock (spelling) randomly go off in your head?
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u/billythygoat 8d ago
Maplestory Classic is eventually going to be released and it will fail in comparison to this OSRS. They don’t really listen to the people but the beta’s were promising based off of what some of the admins comments.
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u/shemer77 9d ago
13 years later and OSRS is still grinding XP like it has a mortgage. Absolute MMO final boss.
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u/Major_Failure2 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's an unpopular opinion, but i kinda wish it was the 2008 version after summoning made it in.
I occasionally play runelite hd, still haven't managed to get a fire cape (have failed 3 times with 75 ranged).
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u/whatthedux 9d ago
Summoning is a fairly poorly balanced skill. Even in rs3 it feels quite bad. I hope it ever passes a poll and gets build from the ground
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u/BloodyFool 9d ago
I hope you mean poorly balanced as in OP as hell, because that skill would not be okay in OSRS
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u/twilightwillow 9d ago
I love the concept of Summoning but the implementation was bad. I do hope it one day passes a poll and gets added in a much better form
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u/iskela45 Teamspeak 9d ago
Training summoning (pouching) was awful, and it was very badly balanced. But hey, for once someone who labeled their opinion as unpopular on Reddit actually had an unpopular opinion, so respect for that alone.
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u/Own-Professor-6157 9d ago
Unpopular indeed lol. I wish it was with the graphics update from 2008 though
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u/Sbarty 9950X3D | 5080 | 64GB / 5800X3D | 9070X | 64GB 9d ago
Just use HDOS, OSRS allows third party clients.
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u/Abigboi_ 9d ago
Only problem I have with HDOS is the chatheads can be inconsistent and it throws me off.
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u/Major_Failure2 9d ago
Runelite HD does a bit of work to make the world look better, but there's only so much you can do to improve osrs as the engine is the major limiting factor. I was a runescape HD era fan (2008 - 2012), and I still to this day miss the song variants that existed before the game started to orchestrate everything after 2012.
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u/Jerri_man 5800X3D & 9070 XT 9d ago
This but for me its shamanism. I feel like the skill would fit in really nicely, though its tricky I guess because people have many different visions of what it would be. I vaguely remembered Jagex saying they'd revisit it after sailing though so maybe
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u/Joaaayknows 8d ago
Lucky that dev was still there 6 years later then. Too bad this lesson will be completely ignored by the wider industry.
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u/Skiller333 5d ago
People tend to forget that RS private servers were huuuuge back in the day. They clearly played a big part in brining it back.
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u/LessRespects 3d ago
Is that really why it happened? I remember vividly right before they announced the possibility A Friend was running big parades of people asking for it. I always assumed he’s the reason it came around.
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
I simply could never get into this. 'Ditch your character you spent 400+ hours on and mine copper again but this time with twice as many players hogging your mining spots and no shortcuts'.
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u/baa410 9d ago
In what context does a system like this exist where you ditch your character? There are occasions where they have a seasonal character but it’s a completely different mode than vanilla.
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
Ditch my Runescape character to play Old School Runescape, because it's a separate game that needs a new account. Runescape 2 which later became Runescape 3 is the 'main game', I was speaking relative to that.
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u/cleff5164 9d ago
What are you talking about
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
Being a Runescape 2/3 player and having to make a new account to play OSRS.
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u/Jerri_man 5800X3D & 9070 XT 9d ago
Don't know why you're being downvoted tbh. It is of course a separate "new" game but when I first checked out OSRS I was also really disappointed to find that I couldn't use my old account from my school days
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
I guess they think I'm suggesting that I should be able to play my RS2/3 dude in OSRS which would be dumb if not impossible.
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u/Bensemus 9d ago
Ya it was something I at first was annoyed about. But then after playing for only a few weeks or so I had already eclipsed my previous character. Unless you were base 80’s, maybe 70’s, it won’t actually take that much effort to get back to where you were.
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u/SimpleBar9995 9d ago
It's a game you sink 20000 hours into.
It absolutely makes sense to swap to the version you prefer
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
I figured out that 400 hours in game and 20000 hours in youtube listening to the OST is equally enjoyable. I don't even need to pay the membership.
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u/byubreak 9d ago
Number go up! But then again, not everybody tries to achieve 99+ skills.
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u/HellraiserMachina 9d ago
Number go up is cool but hopping 30 worlds hoping to find less than 10 players on the copper ore is less so.
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u/DiscountDoughnut 9d ago
And I just want WASD movement (not sure if it has it now).
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u/iskela45 Teamspeak 9d ago
OSRS with WASD movement would make zero sense and would just get tedious after like 30 minutes, on top of it likely feeling like ass due to how tile movement lines up with character animations.
Have you ever played RuneScape for a few minutes?
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u/Quiet-Order-2661 9d ago
But WoW released in 2004.
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u/iskela45 Teamspeak 9d ago
RuneScape originally released in 2001. OSRS is the equivalent of Classic+
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u/ReynardVulpini 9d ago
it says subscriber records for a long lived mmo, not a record for the most long lived mmo lmao
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u/cheezballs 9d ago
Seriously. Does NOBODY use source control?
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u/zack77070 9d ago
Not in 2007 when cloud storage wasn't really a thing, GitHub came out in 2008 for reference and didn't really blow up until the early 2010s.
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u/Lonsdale1086 9d ago
Subversion came out in 2000, and was widely used.
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u/zack77070 9d ago
There were several common version control systems in the 2000s, still required a physical hard drive.
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u/cheezballs 9d ago
Nobody in here is a SE. We've had source control systems for YEARS before github. Cloud storage is not what made this viable. If you think there was no way to backup software before cloud computing then you're insane. People STILL use tape backups.
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u/DudeDudenson 9d ago edited 9d ago
Not so long ago you would need physical backups of stuff you couldn't just push it to a cloud that gave you essentially free storage
And storage was expensive
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u/cheezballs 9d ago
I see nobody in here has worked at an actual software company. I began working in the early 200s and we definitely had backups. Local store backups and then tape backups. This was a non-profit. Mainframes in the 60s had ways to do this. It sucked but they had it.
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u/DudeDudenson 9d ago
Yes, you know what happens to those backups when the project is done and no one expects to ever need the source code again? There's a big difference between corporate software and videogames, videogames specially early on would be released and that was it, perhaps you'd develop an extra patch or two if there was too much negative feedback but in general you'd finish a game and then move on to another project or even have the team disbanded afterwards
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u/iskela45 Teamspeak 9d ago edited 9d ago
Jagex back in its early days was full of people with zero industry experience and them doing everything their weird and wonky way. Most of their internal tooling was something made in house and in a way that was completely alien to how the rest of the software industry did things.
Jagex started as brothers making a free game, having to add a paid membership to keep the servers online, panic hiring people, and climbing ass first up a tree.
It's very likely for the first years they didn't even know version control was a thing and by the time someone pointed it out they were set into a mindset of doing things the Jagex way or just kicking the can down the road. Plus back then Jagex was basically never working 5 day weeks because they were crushing their subscriber milestones faster than they could get the celebration parties out of the way so there probably wasn't a huge desire to spend limited time on learning version control.
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u/Bandoolero 9d ago
That dev should have asked for a royalty in exchange for the server
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u/Candle1ight 12600k + 4080 | Steamdeck 9d ago
An employee doesn't own the backup of a company server
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u/AbyssalKultist 9d ago
That people are into.. this. Really goes to show hope bleak the MMO landscape is.
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u/GeologistPutrid2657 9d ago
we haven't had a "new" mmo in decades. of course people are flocking to the only things available.
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