"I would love to see more studios do that, break down those walls and bring players into the development cycle."

Image credit: Jagex

One of the UK’s home-grown video games is turning 25-years-old, and anybody who ever had to sit through a boring IT lesson at school likely already knows what it is. It’s RuneScape, the point-and-click MMORPG that not only has remained popular over the years, but has seen a surprising amount of growth recently. The big question is: why?

It’s no secret that MMORPGs are tricky to make and trickier still to keep live and bustling with eager players, and only a select few have managed to do so through the rise and current stagnation of live service game development. Still, RuneScape has managed to weather the storm, alongside a select few other legacy MMOs.

To learn what allowed Old School RuneScape in particular to remain as big a part of the MMO ecosystem as it has, Eurogamer sat down to speak to design director Kieran Charles and senior game designer Elena Nordmark to learn more.

Old School RuneScape recently got a new skill with Sailing.Watch on YouTube

EG: Why do you think this version of RuneScape has persevered for so long, especially given how perilous the MMO-landscape has been over the years?

Charles: I think honestly the core of it is how carefully we’ve cared about the game, but most importantly putting the community first. OSRS community polls all its content, so the community gets a say in what comes into the game. An addition needs 70 percent yes’ otherwise we simply won’t do it.

The poll is important as it gives players some influence on the direction of the game, a type of game that you could spend thousands of hours on - years and years - so you need to feel secure before you give that sort of time to a game. So, it gives you that automatic trust and faith in where it’s going.

The cause and effect it has on us, the way we work, is it encourages us to talk to our players. We talk to them all the time! Take the sailing project, our first skill in years, that’s been three years of talking to players before we got to that point. It would have been very easy for us to stay behind the scenes and just develop something then release it, but we had to take our players through that same journey. We do that with all of our content - we tell players what we’re going to build and get feedback on it that genuinely helps shape it in the form of a poll.

So we’ve got a relationship built. It’s amazing the impact you see on how our players talk about us, not just as developers but the product itself. It stands out, it’s refreshing in the industry I think. Personally, I would love to see more studios do that, break down those walls and bring players into the development cycle.

The community recently opted for a new combined item, called the Holy Moleys. Brilliant. | Image credit: Jagex

Nordmark: What resonates with me is the topic of respecting players’ time as well. That’s something the community keeps us accountable for, making sure we do it through the polls. But that’s a design principle that we’ve really stuck to throughout OSRS’ history - making sure we don’t invalidate their grinds. It is quite a time-consuming game, and we’ve stuck to that! The reason that’s fine is because we don’t immediately invalidate that grind. If you spend 100 hours trying to get a sword, that sword will be useful next month. You take a break from RuneScape and come back in a year? That sword will still be good. That mentality means that players stick around.

They say you never leave, you just take really long breaks from RuneScape? I think part of the reason why is that it comes down to that. We respect their time, and in turn they stick around.

Charles: We release content every week, but we don’t release something tomorrow that invalidates things that came before it. One of the most iconic points in your progression is getting your fire cape, beating Jad in the Fight Caves. That content came out 20 years ago, but it’s still a fixture that’s important in your player journey. The game has just gotten bigger, and better, without taking things away.

We’ve got an advantage, we’re hitting our 25th anniversary right now, so that means we’ve got so much content. It’s all additive, the game is more alive, it’s more full. There’s more to do, and all of it is important.

EG: We’ve seen some interesting industry trends when it comes to older MMO’s in particular, where newer releases have struggled to retain an audience while older MMOs like OSRS, but also World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Eve Online, have not only remained popular but also grown in some cases. Why do you think that is, is it just down to community-engagement and evergreen content?

Nordmark: To some extent, sure. I always think of Old School as nostalgic to most people, but the truth is we got a lot of new players as well. Especially in the last year, we’ve seen a lot of players try the game out for the first time. So, to me, it means while nostalgia might tempt people back, it’s those design principles and dedicated to adding new content that keeps them around. The idea of re-experiencing something back in the day is really cool, but it won’t keep you around. New experiences that give that similar feeling might.

There are still reasons to go kill Lesser Demons all these years later, like in an early Slayer task. | Image credit: Jagex

EG: Can you say how many new players did start playing last year?

(PR stepped in, said that the game saw a 30 percent increase in players last year, though no specific figure on how many of those were new players, rather than returning ones.)

EG: I looked ahead to this interview and have seen there’s over 200,000 players in Old School RuneScape right now, during work hours over multiple time zones. What percentage of players play OSRS while at work?

Charles: (laughs) I don’t even know the answer but it’s certainly a lot!

**Nordmark: **I don’t think we’ve ever asked!

Charles: You could probably have a guess based on employment rates and hours played sort of things, but we’ve not actually looked at it. But if this is anything to go by, it’s a good proportion of our staff who are AFKing something like fishing or gemstone crab whilst at work.

EG: Or salvaging right? That’s a new one! I mean, if you look at the average age of MMORPG players, there must be a really sizable number of players who do have full-time jobs who are playing OSRS on their phone, or those like me who are fishing in the background right now, it must be a significant portion.

Charles: I’d imagine so. Putting the game on mobile has enabled more people to do something. I’ve seen people escape social situations, going to the pub and not really wanting to socialise, then doing agility laps on their phone to keep themselves entertained. It’s great the game can offer that, and I think for RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, this is a thing pretty unique to the game.

Shout out to weekday Motherlode Mine! | Image credit: Eurogamer

If you’re keen to learn what the future of Old School RuneScape is looking like, you can watch the Old School RuneScape Winter Summit, which is set to take place on the 25th January on the official RuneScape Twitch stream for some insight into major content updates coming to the game.