r/runescape

Bit of a rant…

Honestly who cares if some other fella used MTX or free treasure hunter keys to get some bonus exp or to lamp their least favourite skill over the course of 14 years.
Thats just how the game was during that time.
Get over it.
You don’t get a moral high road because you abandoned the game you apparently love when it went down a path you didn’t like.
It’s a game you play for yourself anyway, and comparison is the thief of joy.

Everyone who actually stuck around through the MTX era knows how much they either abused the free stuff, bought skills or just ignored it.
And everyone who played through MTX knows how predatory it was with a FOMO promotion every 3 days and popups for sales/buy now every time you logged in.

This sentiment of wanting ‘integrity breaking item’ rollbacks or shaming accounts that used any form of MTX item is laughable.

At the end of the day, the game was how it was.
AND YOU WEREN’T THERE.
So shut up and come and play THIS version of the game without MTX, or jog on.

Im tired of whiney tourists that probably aren’t gonna stick around anyway…

EDIT: This isn’t so much about reignited (MTX has been gone all year) it’s more about the behaviour of the community.
EDIT 2: this is a rant. It’s not a well thought out essay to convince you feel some kind of way.

Some common quotes from reignite fans:

1. "In a healthy RS economy, chickens wouldn't be 2k gp!"
2. "The playerbase is all endgame, and has 20 years of buying power, so they overpay for everything, inflating prices"
3. "In a new economy, new players will have a chance to afford things!"

As it stands, the mods have made zero indication that any mobs/droptables in the game will be readjusted for this fresh new economy. Unfortunately for the reignite fans, this crushes your hopes for 'cheaper goods' and double digit GP poultry.

On live right now, 2000% amascut drops 10mil in RAW GP (salvage, coins, alchable items) per hour. We are not talking about rares, supplies and other common stuff on the table right now that effectively has 0 direct gold value.

To repeat: 10 million in pure cash enters the game when a pvmer kills this boss for a single hour.

This means, to an endgame player, on ironman-style cash alone their time is worth, 10 million gp/hr. This is equal to 167k gp/minute. Or coincidentially,

2.7k gp/s.

Yes, it takes 1s to kill a chicken, and funny enough, in the current economy, that raw chicken can be sold for 2.1k on the free market. That's right, chicken is UNDERVALUED from the lens of an endgame PVMer.

In a fresh economy. Of course, there are no endgamers. There wont be for months, and there won't be anyone able to introduce anywhere close to 10m in pure gp/hr for probably close to 6 months if not longer. But, what happens at the 1 year mark? Sweaty players will be in T90 weapons within a week or two, and the first GWD3 kills will be rolling in shortly after. And the economy will already begin 'equalizing' back to where it is from that point.

The first completed FSOA could likely be in the game by day 30, and is there is going to be multiple by day 60.

Within 100 days, hundreds of people will have the ability to bring in AT LEAST 2mil raw gp/hr via nm kerapac or 0-500 AG streaks.

Just like real life, when people get a little cash in their pocket, they will begin to pay someone less fortunate to fetch them their groceries, and just like IRL, the price of those groceries only rises with time.

Chicken will rise again, right back to the value that equates to people's time to get it themselves. And that number? Still 2k.

Can we have a genuine conversation about the ingame economy. I always see a lot of talkwith blanket statements about the economy being "broken", especially recently, usually with very little explanation or justification as to what the issue is.

Bare with me, as I'm no expert on economics but in my own experience as a casual main, the economy seems to be perfectly functional. Sure we have inflation, but inflation works both ways, stuff is more expensive but it's also easier to make money. Most complaints are that stuff is more expensive than it used to be, but forget that it's equally easier to make money compared to how it used to be.

The real currency of RuneScape is time, not gp, the value of an item is dependent on how long it takes to grind it out (with a factor based on how many players have the levels or skill in the case of bosses to grind it) If we reverted inflation an item might be say 1/10 the current price, but your money making methods all make 1/10 the amount they do now, so it still takes the same amount of hours in the end to afford it. Nothing has changed.

I’m not trying to rehash all the Reignited arguments again, and I actually think Jagex listening this week has been a positive step.

But I’ve noticed something about my own reaction that I’m curious if anyone else has felt.

I’ve played both games for a very long time. My RS3 account is maxed with a Quest Cape, and my OSRS account is nearly maxed with a Quest Cape too. I still love both games.

But since the Reignited announcement, I’ve weirdly had very little desire to log into either one.

I think what bothered me more than the specifics of Reignited was that it introduced the idea in my head that RuneScape progression might not always exist in one continuous world. Even if Jagex fixes Reignited perfectly, part of my brain now goes, “What if 10 or 15 years from now OSRS eventually needs its own version of this too?”

I know that’s hypothetical and maybe irrational. Nothing lasts forever, and obviously these are just games. But one of the things I’ve always loved about RuneScape is that you can disappear for years, come back, and your character is still there waiting for you.

I’m hoping the feeling passes, because I genuinely want to play and I’m excited about a lot of the upcoming content. I just didn’t expect this whole situation to affect my motivation toward RuneScape in general rather than only RS3.

Curious if anyone else has felt something similar.

Yes yes, I know for most people "just scrap it" is going to be your immediate response. I'm not really interested in that discussion, it's been had plenty of times elsewhere and isn't relevant here.

If we ignore that for a second and just focus on the idea that Jagex seems to be proposing - that Reignited is the future and it's coming whether we like it or not; I'm confused as to why I would invest time into that.

As it stands, Runescape is a significantly long journey, with thousands/tens of thousands of hours of time investment involved. That's always been ok, because there's always been an unspoken understanding that no matter how long it took, your progress was always there and always relevant.

With Reignited, that promise is forever broken. If Jagex is saying that they'll happily throw existing accounts into the recycling bin in exchange for a new player base when they need new players, how could I ever trust that if I started on Reignited, they wouldn't just do the same again in 5/10 years when they want more players again?

The very premise seemingly kills the entire trusting relationship between Jagex and the players, and I'm not sure how to reconcile that, even in the event that I decide that I've moved into the acceptance stage of grief and begrudgingly accept Reignited's existence.

Normally I'd say I'd want some kind of promise from Jagex that they'd never do it again, but at this point I'm not even sure how much a promise means?

From the veteran‘s perspective, what new players? RS3 won’t be getting any new players, they’re all going to be over on reignited.

So are veterans supposed to be happy for a bunch of new players they will be completely separated from and will never interact with? Who they can’t invite to their clans, trade with, or PvM with?

I don’t see why veterans would be excited about people joining a game that they themselves are excluded from.

If you think about it, reignited players are the ones gatekeeping at this point.

For the people who aren't RS3 veterans - maybe this helps to explain why we feel we will be forced (outside of dwindling player counts in the OG worlds) to make Reignited characters when the time comes. It is a level of FOMO like none other to want to be a part of a growing playerbase (assuming Reignited works) but knowing you have to ditch your veteran character to access it. Even just the idea that most new players will be funneled into Reignited means we will miss out on so much engagement with players.

This same FOMO or MO in this case is what is pushing players to support Reignited because they all missed out on progressing along with the current veteran playerbase because they either quit at EOC to play OSRS or just simply don't want to feel 'behind' in an MMO. Like so many have already said, every single MMO you start playing will give you that feeling and your first thoughts are never about the economy.

There is FOMO on both sides of the aisle but RS3 veterans will feel it more than any timed event, dailyscape or aura timer could ever impose.

Hello,
I used to play RS since RS1 till around 2011, some time after introducing new combat and heavy MTX. After that I dropped RS completely. Then Jagex bring OSRS, interesting thing but not for me, as they did not bring old characters to the game and I didn't want to start from scratch. I get people who like to create character after character, however its not for me. I prefer one till the end. So years were passing, and I was still sad that I had to drop playing game as company made shit decitions.

When I heard that the CEO changed and they are removing MTX from RS3 I was ok, let me monitor this and see if they will do good job finally. Then they announced Reignited... lots of concepts are good, however one is the most problematic... same situation as with OSRS, as Veteran I will not create a new character (and if I remember correctly I wrote that in the poll they send few years ago). I want to play my old character with new players with all game options trading/bossing etc.

I get the point that there is a lot of Veteran characters that did lot of MTX... but there is a lot of people like me who left and never did MTX, and I do not like to be put in the same bag.

There is plenty of ways how they can pull this off in a good way (they track who bought MTX, they have backups, etc)... however I will wait and see... I waited over 13 years, I can wait few more months to see if they will do something for the Veterans or only for new players.

Sorry for grammar, its late and english is not my native language.

Not specific to reignited, but definitely includes it, but we need to have a say in rs3 like they do in osrs. We need the same voting poll sytstem that osrs has, in rs3. I get that they would never poll reignited, as it would obviously fail, and they seem committed to it happening. But we could poll these supposed amendments that they put in their "sorry" post, that are supposed to make veterans feel a bit better towards reignited. And reignited aside, just bring voting in so that we can make decisions as a community on how rs3, our game, is played out. Why should we have less of a voice over decisions in a game we are paying for than they do in osrs. It's time we stand up ,and jagex allows our voices to be heard as well. I think this could vastly help with player retention as well, if people actually had a voice and could vote on things in a game they pay for. Intstead of just having updates forced upon them good or bad. And since they already introduced this in osrs, seems only fair to have the same system in both your mmos.

Tl;DR it's time rs3 players had the same rights as osrs players and our voices heard with a true voting poll system as well.

I almost never do this. I generally don't bother making accounts to participate in online discussions or post comments. I'm usually just a chronic online lurker lol. But after everything that's happened with Reignited, the End of Week Update and now reading some of the reactions to it, I honestly can't just sit back anymore. I'm genuinely fed up.

I've played RuneScape since around 2006. Almost TWENTY years. I've been through EoC, the ridiculous MTX, the declining playerbase and god knows how many questionable decisions from Jagex over the years. And despite all of that I stuck around. Because I genuinely love RuneScape. The world, the lore, the quests and of course the character I've spent almost two decades developing. It's been a constant in my life since childhood.

When Road to Restoration was announced I actually felt hopeful for once. Finally finally it seemed like Jagex was taking the problems with RS3 seriously and actually trying to repair the damage they've done to the game and its reputation.

And then they announced Reignited...

I've read the original announcement, their apology and now the End of Week Update. And I'm honestly baffled by how determined Jagex seems to be to push this through. They acknowledge the backlash, apologise, tell us they're listening and then come back with a bunch of revisions while keeping what I consider one of the biggest problems with the whole idea. The permanently separate economies.

And before someone jumps in to tell me that we're sharing worlds, yes I KNOW. Reignited is a separate character type within RS3, not another game. I know they're now looking into shared membership and potentially allowing Veteran and Reignited characters to boss together. I've read the update.

But what difference does any of that make to the GE if the economies are still permanently separated? You're dividing the economy of an MMO that's ALREADY struggling with its population. How is this supposed to be a good idea?

The GE runs on supply and demand. You need people actively buying and selling items for it to function. Now imagine Reignited takes off and becomes the more popular character type. New players gravitate towards it, returning players might prefer starting fresh and existing Veterans start spending more and more time on Reignited too. It's new, it's fresh, streamers might flock to it and suddenly everyone's talking about it. What happens to the Veteran GE then?

Less supply, less demand, fewer transactions. Items that previously sold within minutes might start taking hours or days. Other items become increasingly difficult to buy because hardly anyone is supplying them anymore. Prices become unreliable or completely skewed and the market gradually atrophies.

And the worse the Veteran market gets, the less appealing it becomes to play on a Veteran account. Which then encourages even more people to focus on Reignited. Do people *seriously* not see the problem here?

And here's the part that REALLY bothers me. If the GE atrophies enough, ordinary Veteran accounts will essentially be forced to play more and more like Ironmen. Need some obscure material? Equipment? Potions, ingredients, supplies for whatever you're doing? Well good luck buying them if nobody is selling them anymore. Go farm it yourself.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not trying to critizise ironmen at all. However, I didn't choose to play Ironman. Neither did plenty of other people. Not everyone has the time or patience to grind absolutely everything themselves. Some people enjoy bossing, others enjoy skilling. Bossers earn GP and buy supplies from skillers, skillers sell their resources and use their GP for other things. That's the entire point of having different playstyles and a player-driven economy!

I don't want my nearly 20-year-old regular account to slowly become a pseudo-Ironman because Jagex decided splitting the economy was somehow a brilliant idea.

And no, potentially being able to boss together doesn't fix that. If the loot still enters two separate economies then we're still dealing with two separate markets. You could have a Veteran and Reignited character standing right next to each other at the GE and they still wouldn't be able to trade.

Now in the End of Week Update Jagex says they believe many former players will return to their existing Veteran characters rather than choosing Reignited.

Based on WHAT exactly?

Have they surveyed these people? Do they have actual data supporting this? Have they considered how many existing Veterans might shift most of their playtime to Reignited instead? And how many of those returning players will even stick around?

Because simply saying you believe people will return doesn't mean they will. Even if thousands come back, what happens if even more existing players move their activity to Reignited?

They also say they'll monitor the health of both economies and intervene if necessary.

Okay. HOW??

What exactly are they going to do if the Veteran GE starts atrophying? How are they going to restore supply and demand when the underlying problem is that fewer people are participating in that market? You can't just fiddle with some numbers and magically create buyers and sellers.

I'm not saying the Veteran economy is guaranteed to collapse overnight. But this is a VERY real risk and Jagex's answer so far basically amounts to 'we believe it'll be fine and we'll keep an eye on it'.

Sorry but after everything that's happened over the years, that doesn't reassure me in the slightest.

And then there's this whole Veteran recognition nonsense. A special Veteran Max Cape? Exclusive cosmetics? Seriously Jagex? I find that incredibly condescending. What am I, a kid who needs a participation badge for being a good boy and playing RuneScape for nearly TWENTY YEARS??

I don't need Jagex to pat me on the back. I don't need some special cape or cosmetic to remind everyone how long I've been playing. I want the character I've spent thousands upon thousands of hours developing to remain relevant in a healthy game with an active economy.

How on earth is a Veteran Max Cape supposed to compensate for the possibility of the Veteran GE slowly shrivelling up and dying? It's almost insulting that this is being presented as an answer to Veteran concerns.

And another thing that bothers me is this whole clean economy narrative. It's already creating this idea that Veteran accomplishments are somehow tainted by MTX.

I've earned my progression legitimately. I haven't been buying my way through the game with Treasure Hunter and XP promotions. Yet I've already seen people assuming that high-level Veteran accounts must have bought their progress.

Jagex are the ones who introduced and pushed those systems for YEARS. Why should the players who actually earned their achievements now have to deal with their accomplishments being treated as less legitimate because of Jagex's own decisions?

I'm not interested in starting over just to prove anything. I've already played the game and earned my progression.

And now I'm seeing people praising the End of Week Update as though Jagex has suddenly fixed everything. I also read that post about how disappointing this subreddit apparently is for continuing to be negative.

Are we seriously at the point where we're supposed to be grateful because Jagex has "graciously decided" the possibility of not having us pay TWO subscriptions? Or because we might be allowed to boss together after all?

These are concessions to restrictions Jagex THEMSELVES came up with in the first place. And the permanent separation of the economies is STILL there.

What exactly am I supposed to be celebrating here?

Look, harassing developers or attacking people just because they're excited for Reignited is stupid. Nobody deserves that. But don't lump legitimate criticism together with harassment and then act like everyone who still opposes this idea is being unreasonable.

If the proposed revisions resolve your concerns then fine. But they don't resolve mine, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Jagex hasn't abandoned the idea. They've just made it more palatable. And somehow the discussion is shifting towards how much we should appreciate them for listening instead of whether this was even a good idea to begin with.

I don't see why that deserves applause. And what makes all of this even more frustrating is the timing.

For years Jagex has been responsible for damaging RS3's reputation. EoC drove away a huge portion of the playerbase when it was introduced, and then came years of increasingly aggressive MTX. Yak Track on repeat, Hero Pass, broken promises, Treasure Hunter and god knows what else.

Then Road to Restoration came along and it finally seemed like they were serious about fixing things.

So WHY are we suddenly pursuing a permanent fresh-economy character type before that work is even finished?

What happened to Player Avatar Update Part 2 that was listed for Autumn 2026 on the roadmap? There's still outdated visuals, clipping issues, interface problems and plenty of other things that need fixing.

And here's something else I find completely backwards. Jagex already has early-game and new-player improvements planned for 2027 as part of Road to Restoration. So why on earth are we launching Reignited BEFORE those improvements have even been implemented?

You're trying to attract all these new and returning players with a fresh economy while the actual early-game experience they're going to encounter hasn't even received the improvements you've already acknowledged it needs. How does that even make sense?

I've personally helped several newcomers get into RuneScape. Spent hours showing them around, explaining mechanics, helping them figure out what they should be doing and generally getting them started. The majority stuck around and a few even reached endgame. Ofc that's just my own experience, but it really made me realise how overwhelming RS3 can be for someone who's new. There's so many systems, the interface can be a nightmare and the game doesn't exactly do a great job of explaining everything. Which is precisely why I'm glad Jagex is planning to address these things. But shouldn't that happen BEFORE trying to bring in a whole wave of new players?

Why not also introduce something like a proper mentoring system where Veterans can help newcomers? Make it easier to find clans and experienced players willing to show people around. There's an enormous amount of knowledge within the existing community that could be put to good use.

And once Restoration has actually delivered on its promises, why not give RS3 a proper marketing push? Ask former players why they quit and what would bring them back. Ask OSRS players why they don't want to try RS3. Ask completely new players what puts them off. Actually find out what these people want instead of deciding that a permanent fresh economy is the answer.

I even have an OSRS-only friend who became interested in trying RS3 after I told him about some of the improvements being made. It makes me wonder how many others might give the game another chance if Jagex actually finished restoring it and showed people what had changed.

Isn't that supposed to be the entire point of Road to Restoration?

And look, I'm not even fundamentally against the idea of a fresh-start experience. I've thought about this quite a bit and I genuinely think there's a way Reignited could work without permanently dividing the economy.

Why not make it an introductory experience? Let new and returning players start fresh together, learn the game and enjoy that early progression alongside others doing the same. Then after reaching a certain milestone, have those characters graduate into the existing Veteran economy with their progression intact.

Obviously there would need to be safeguards and balancing to prevent abuse or economic disruption. I'm not pretending this would be trivial to implement.

But at least that way Reignited would actually feed players into the existing game rather than permanently dividing players into two separate classes. The more successful Reignited becomes, the more players eventually join the existing economy. More supply, more demand, more activity.

Instead we have a proposal where Reignited becoming MORE successful could potentially come at the expense of the Veteran economy.

Does nobody at Jagex see the contradiction here? You're trying to grow RuneScape by introducing something that could end up weakening the very playerbase that's kept RS3 alive all these years.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. I know not everyone will agree with me and that's fine. But I'm genuinely worried about where this is heading and I couldn't just sit back and say nothing anymore.

I've stuck with RuneScape for nigh two decades. Through EoC, through MTX and through years of watching the game struggle. And for a while, with Road to Restoration, I actually thought things were finally looking up.

Now I'm back to wondering whether Jagex has learned anything from the past.

I'm not interested in playing a Reignited character. I don't want to start over. Not everybody wants to repeat the enormous effort and grind that is RuneScape, especially after spending years upon years developing their existing characters.

And I certainly don't want to watch the economy my character belongs to slowly shrivel up and die while Jagex hands me some participation badge and tells me how much my journey matters.

If Jagex goes ahead with permanently separate economies despite all these concerns, then I'm DONE. Finito. Not just with RS3 but with Jagex altogether. I have no interest in supporting any of their other products either. It is then clear that they do not care about their loyal players and customers that have supported them for years on end.

I've put up with a ridiculous amount of nonsense over the years because I love this game. But even I have my limits.

Just finish fixing the game we already have and give it a proper chance to recover before gambling with its future.

Is that *really* too much to ask?

that's my 2 cents as an osrs player that's surprised to see it's still a dumpster fire over here.

Even if there was a world I could migrate all my XP to the new server I wouldn’t do it.

My achievements aren’t the XP I have my achievements are my collection logs.

Some of my logs and titles took more time then a level 1-99 takes.
There’s a reason POH trophies didn’t have collection log slots no one wants to do all their boss logs again reignited is doing all that and then some again.

The XP becomes a side goal the collection logs are the main goal.

QOL Update to include the broadcasts of people you have on the ignore list. That is all.

The rest of the content looks fantastic.

Reignited.... Jagex you have missed the mark here massively.

What does everyone that has spent 1000s of hours gain by making a new account? Does this make all previous progress worthless?

Its already very hard to find enough players to do group content, this is just going to fragment the player base even more.

Edit: OSRS get hardcore worlds, which allows them to transfer their character if they die, and we get this shite?

Edit 2: I think a lot of people are missing the point. If the majority of new players decide to use a reignited account (whom we cant pvm with), the current variant of the game will eventually die. As someone with grandmaster CA, Trimmed Comp, Ultimate Slayer and nearly Golden Reaper, I will certainly not make a new account.

Yikes