Do you think the playerbase for runescape is constantly decreasing?

I feel like people are playing runescape less and less nowadays due to the fact that it could be repetitive, no motivation, membership is too pricey, etc.

Will runescape ever thrive again and return to its glorious self?

 

Old School Runescape has actually seen steady growth which is pretty incredible. Things like DMM especially cater to kind of a different user base and those cash prize tournaments Jagex has run with DMM have been incredibly successful. I think Old School Runescape does still get new players, but I also think every day there are groups of people finding out that Old School Runescape exists and come right back to it.

I think Runescape Chronicle being so successful on a platform Jagex has largely been absent on (Steam) will remind a lot of people of their days playing Runescape and might encourage them to come back to the game or for people who have never played before to try the game.

Runescape 3 it's a little harder to get new players. PVP is all but dead, though they're trying to rehash it right now. But people either stuck with the game or quit when EoC came out and are too stubborn to return. I feel like it's actually a lot harder to get new Runescape 3 players because the game is a lot more intimidating from the exterior (when in reality it's 100 times "easier" than OSRS in terms of stat building and wealth collection).

I honestly think Runescape is the healthiest it has been in half a decade though. To still be raking in 100k+ members on weekends and for most of the bots to be eradicated which artificially ballooned the number in the past, I think Runescape is doing really well.

 

I have to say that I agree with you. Seems that the community has been decreasing slowly and Jagex has been massively changing Rs3 in a desperate attempt to attract new players. From what I can tell, a vast majority of players are people like myself who played the game as a kid and it's nostalgia instilled. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem to bring a lot of "new players".

 

There are 2 game modes and there are coming more so there always be low people online.

 

I was personally one of the players who quit EoC and never returned (i am prob too stubborn lol), so I always see RS3 as baggage that splits the playerbase in half. If RS was to find a sweet spot where there is only 1 gamemode (just ol' Runescape), I feel like the playerbase would increase a lot more and the community would be revived again. But I never knew how well OSRS is doing, I just assumed that a majority of those online (maybe not a majority but a good amount) are bots. Im glad to hear OSRS is steadily growing though, i hope it goes that way.

 

Yeah, I hate how runescape is divided into multiple gamemodes. It honestly makes ZERO sense to me why they put themselves in this position in the first place.

 

Treu, they fucked it up.

 

i dont think that it will increase at all

 

the playerbase is going down imo.

i usually pk only and pvp is nearly dead.

only tryhard ballista pures ruining the pk experience.

 

I haven't read anyone else's reply to this simply because I just want to file my opinion.

I think that JaGex is simply doing too much. I feel that over the past few years that Oldschool has been released, they saved themselves from being buried in a pit that would be impossible to recover from. BUT! They are doing what they did to Runescape 2.... They just add and add and add and add to something that is already perfectly fine. Just like the saying... Dont try to fix something that isn't broken.

I personally think that as the updates and additions come flooding in, the player base is almost becoming over whelmed.. For example: Someone spends countless hours building a unique account, and then Jagex updates the game to make things easier for someone to build that type of account and then the player has then wasted all that time to soon be counted out due to not being unique anymore. OR for example, all there new content is for EVERYONE. Making the beggining of the game extremely huge for people who are just beginning. Back in the day, you could just make an account and train before having anything extra/fun to do. Now you can be level 3 and have the whole world to explore making it extremely hard to focus on one simple goal.

I am probably rambling and not making any sense but maybe someone will understand where I am coming from. The gist is that there is too much going on and not a whole lot of focus on what is already established. Maybe instead of countless new places and things to do, make the ones that already exist more meaningful. Like the firemaking cape.

 

The new content in OSRS sounds great but honestly I haven't gotten the time to even read into it much less play it. I think the playerbase for OSRS is older now, so they probably have less time to participate in the Runescape community and less time to play over-all. A lot of them are in college or just starting a new job... sooner or later they'll get over the game or lose their free time to play it.

 

Jagex needs to find a way to lure younger kids

 

Not sure about RS3 (looks like its playerbase has been fairly stable if not decreasing slightly as of late), but like IBDB said, the playerbase for OSRS has actually been increasing pretty steadily. The game has been gaining a lot of traction on Twitch in particular and I wouldn't be surprised if the next DMM tournament pulls 100k total viewers.

Here's a website that has been tracking the number of online RS players for anyone that's interested: Runescape Population Avg by Qtr Hour

I definitely agree with what you are saying about Jagex needing to take a step back and re-evaluate some of the existing content before pushing for new content. The current Zeah continent is a good example of something that should really be redesigned before the next phases are released. I do feel that for the most part though, the devs are taking the game in a good direction, and it's great to see how receptive they are to community feedback.

 

Zeah definitely has a lot of potential, however i feel like it doesnt hit the main niche resources of runescape and therefore is overlooked by a majority of the community