Jagex goes "Oldschool"

[Hidi]

I confirmed a recent release by Jagex.

 

After a few years of the same requests to bring back the game in its peak era, Jagex released what it calls "Oldschool RuneScape". The servers have the game as it was in 2007, however they require a subscription to play. Wish I knew about this earlier as I would've cast a vote.

 

Old School RuneScape is here to stay! In the poll run during February 2013, RuneScape members voted for the re-introduction of a version of the game from August 2007. Although the poll didn’t reach the 500,000 target needed to offer the service free to members, we have decided that for an initial six month period, starting from the 1st of March 2013, Old School RuneScape is open to all RuneScape members at no extra charge!

It’s our aspiration that this newfound community will flourish and continue to grow, and so far you’re off to a fantastic start. Once September rolls around, we'll review the level of support in Old School Servers. If they're still high, we'll maintain the level of service and keep it at no extra cost for RuneScape members.

A small dedicated development team will stay working on Old School RuneScape to provide maintenance, guided by regular community polls to decide any changes to the game. We’ll also be adding in more of the modern game’s anti-bot technology so we can maintain our zero tolerance stance against cheating, botters and gold farmers across both services.

If you're a RuneScape veteran hungry for nostalgia, get stuck right in! As long as you're a RuneScape member you'll have access, and while you'll start afresh on the 2007 servers, it won't affect your progress in the main game.

Enjoy!

- The RuneScape Team

 

Along with that, they've still got three RuneScape Classic servers running, which have the game as it was in 2003, however despite releasing this, they have not opened up RSC to all members.

 

How many of you played RuneScape back in the day? Would this be reason for you to return and play again? Is it worth their upped subscription cost simply because of the extra release? (It's now 7.95 CAD.)

 

I have always liked this game because like TF2, it is easy to pick up and play whenever. The dialogue and writing in the game is rich and humorous, but I guess one can't be to surprised for a British game. I may buy a month or so just to check it out and play some RSC which I haven't done in a while.

[Dr. Orange]

The /b/tars have been on this subject like flies on a corpse.

 

I joined in '08 and simply it was the greatest. Then next think you know, the f***ed it all up. And I can say as a veteran from the game. DO NOT STEP IN 2011 WATERS OR ELSE THE GAME BITES!

 

Now if this was FREE it would be way better. Memberships are expensive and one can easily get lost. I speak from experience. Plus once you go member you can't leave. What I mean is that unless you remove the items that are member only... they're stuck there until you memberize again.

[Sarita]

Apparently when I played Runescape it was what they're now calling "classic". Though I don't know why anyone would want to play it when there are so many better games. (Classic that is, I only played for a week or so before I moved on to something else, it just wan't for me.)

[Cage Blackpaw]

As I was reading this, I thought, "Oh boy, I finally get to go back and experience what it was like when I started playing years ago!"

 

But then I read the whole membership bit, and that blew a hole in my sail.  I can't afford that, and even if I could, I'm not sure it's worth paying to try it out again.

[Arashikage]

Definitely not worth paying to play a game just to relive nostalgia.  I got a PS1 for that shit.  

 

If it were free, I'd play it, hell I'd play it all day like I used to back in 2005.  But seeing as how it's not, I'll be elsewhere.  Hopefully Jagex will stop trying to pull more money out of our pockets and open it to everyone for free.  Hopefully.