We are the team who brought back Old School RuneScape - Ask us anything!

Hello! We are the Old School RuneScape team.

Following a referendum and poll asking the players if they would like to see a retro version of RuneScape, back in 2013 we launched a version of RuneScape from way back in 2007. Old graphics, old gameplay, old everything.

We have been actively developing this version of the game, implementing quality of life and content updates which are approved by over 75% of the community. In fact, we are just about to release our first ever quest - Monkey Madness II - a sequel to a quest line started over 11 years ago.

We are a bit of an anomaly in the games industry, and the concept of Old School RuneScape can often boggle the minds of onlookers, so we wanted to answer any questions you may have.

Answering your questions today are:

  • Mod Mat K, product manager
  • Mod Ash, principal content developer
  • Mod John C, QA analyst
  • Mod Weath, brand protection specialist
  • Mod Ronan, community manager
  • Mod Archie, video journalist
  • Mod Maz, training and developer lead
  • Mod Kieren, QA analyst
  • Mod Jed, junior content developer

Proof: https://twitter.com/OldSchoolRS/status/720998933468721152

EDIT:

Thank you for all of the questions! We're all out of beer and pizza so we are going to head home for now. This was a great experience and we'll be sure to make a return trip at some point in the future.

If you guys have any questions, you can always find us on Twitter or over in /r/2007scape.

Comments: 4381 • Responses: 8  • Date: 

Brinsor385 karma

What arm thing, homie?

Mod_Ronan511 karma

Listen, dood.

WadeeRS143 karma

What's the reason our community manager hasn't tweeted for almost 3 weeks?

Mod_Ronan198 karma

I've been taking on some different/new responsibilities in recent weeks (the marketing side of things) and I've dropped off on Twitter because of this. I'll be back tweeting from today!

mallocer43 karma

Hi team! I have three questions, the first two for anyone, and the last mainly for MMK.

  • All: Roughly three years into OSRS, how do you feel the poll system is working? Are you getting a better feel for which balancing/tweaks should be polled? Are you optimistic that a good new skill could eventually pass a poll? It's pretty unique to have such a player-driven game. :)

  • All: After three years, the playerbase has leveled up substantially, especially with NMZ. As of this post, there are 36k players with 99 hitpoints (indicating very high/maxed combats) and 179k players with 80 hitpoints (indicating a "high" combat level around 100+). Combined with better gear and a bunch of solo bosses released in the last couple years, high stats now mean teams are unnecessary for most content. If we look at all the pet-granting bosses, for example, only a few like corp and BA are typically done in teams by very high levels. Do you plan to introduce more group content with endgame replay value? Will raids help fill this niche?

  • MMK: Another cool thing about OSRS is a bigger focus on data-driven decisions. How is the data warehouse coming along? In the past, you've referred to a drop log in the data warehouse that will count "how many of each item is dropped from each monster" to help with drop table balancing. For monsters that have recorded kill counts (in either the boss or slayer logs), can't you simply aggregate total kills and compare those counts to the drop rates to see a monster's impact (recording total kills once a day to see rate)? What of trends would a data warehouse drop log allow you to see that you can't see now?

Mod_Ronan40 karma

1) I think that it is, as a whole, working well. Combined with the priority polls, we are able to create content which appeals to a majority of the player base quite frequently. There are, of course, downsides - but I think that as a whole the benefits we've seen so far outweigh them.

A new skill will pass a poll when it is the right skill for the community. Will that day come? I imagine it will.

2) We're going to be releasing raids later on this year which should satisfy groups of players looking for a fresh PvM challenge.

Surgeboy9924 karma

I haven't played runescape since back in 2003 or so. Can i still waste ample amounts of time fishing for lobsters?

Mod_Ronan23 karma

Of course you can!

Buuloki7 karma

Any information on Australian servers/worlds? There is a lot of us in the OSRS community!

Mod_Ronan12 karma

Unfortunately, we are still very much in the same situation as when we last addressed it. Australian servers are expensive and can't easily be made a part of our existing infrastructure. We are always looking for ways to better service the region but we don't have any news just yet.

Lieden5 karma

Are you guys happy with the current state of the game? If there was one thing you could change instantly, what would it be, and why?

Mod_Ronan21 karma

As a player I am very happy with the current state of the game. The very start of Old School was one of the best gaming experiences of my life and since then there have been so many changes which make the game much more playable for day-to-day gaming.

If I could change one thing it would be Vet'ion. I'd love to see him get a revamp to be a more interesting boss.

Heggins4 karma

How do you plan to stop jagex from stopping your servers, just like blizzard did with WoW private servers?

I love original runescape, and am very interested in joining your site. I am just worried about how long this can last before jagex comes after their IP

Mod_Ronan19 karma

Old School RuneScape is an official Jagex product - we are in the clear!

Heggins3 karma

Really?? As in your team is actually associated with Jagex?

Mod_Ronan13 karma

We are all Jagex employees. Some of our team members have worked here for over 10 years. In fact, Ian Gower is on the Old School team!