u/AnimaLepton

Dunk is a classic wandering martial hero. It's a story of one wandering knight travels from place to place, learning from every fight, earning respect one deed at a time, and slowly becoming worthy of the legends he grew up admiring. He starts with enough skill to get by, but every famous knight he meets is on another level because they've spent decades honing their craft. People don't just respect them because of their titles. They respect them because of their reputation, the stories told about them, and what they've proven with a sword.

The world has parallels. Kings and lords exist, but the story spends most of its time following hedge knights, tournaments, sworn oaths, rivalries, and personal honor. You have less 'court politics' than GoT and jianghu-like emphasis on your reputation, your teacher, and your backing as much or more than ability.

The conflicts mirror common wuxia tropes. The powerful constantly use the law, custom, or technicalities as an excuse to bully people beneath them, while those without status or backing have little protection. Half of Dunk's problems come from accidentally offending someone important, then having to stand his ground because backing down would mean giving up his honor. There are face-slapping moments where arrogant nobles or famous knights underestimate the hedge knight, then are embarrassed when he refuses to bend or proves himself in combat, then continue to lash out.

Ignoring OSRS and RS3, e.g. $15/month is a non-starter. I never got into OSRS, but it looks to be a very different game from 2007-era Runescape regardless

I was initially exposed to and attracted to the free, open-source preservation projects, and was interested in the quest content and faster progression. They hit the nostalgia factor for me. Lost City for 2004, 2009Scape, 2011Scape, Darkan, etc. I'm not interested in the RS Classic projects, but there are a couple of those too. All fantastic projects with various levels of in-progress work. If they ever get shut down, you can run them yourself and get a copy of your save. VScape isn't open-source but is in a similar vein, basically quest-complete for 2007 and focused on the preservation aspect. Most of those projects offer some type of boosted exp and minor QoL changes. But there's a clear vision for all of them, mostly as preservation projects with the goal of being realistic to what the game was like in the past, even if that means there are frustrating aspects of the game that are purposefully included. There are endgame bosses and PVM, but it's limited enough in scope that I can wrap my head around the expected stats, gear, and boss progression.

But there are a lot of other projects out there, which seem to be paid. I get that a lot depends on the community. But I tried out a couple of them and basically feel like I was immediately flung into the game with limited direction on what to do and what people actually enjoy doing in them. I'm not actually sure what e.g. the goal and vision is for these popular projects, and what the appeal is for people who play them, other than for whoever made the server to make money. I do see they mostly have unchanged or minorly boosted drop rates, e.g. with drop rate boosts tied to paying money, or the many servers that do multiple relaunches, get shut down, don't have saves transfer. There's a lot going on that I maybe don't have familiarity with due to just how much OSRS has added. But just generally curious as to 'why' people play whatever they do.