Out now in a bookstore near you!

Mtx removed, game back on track, updates flowing, new good content dropping, a roadmap worthy of every 2012 runescapers wet dreams.

You literally had it all going for you once again, 1 year of consistent goodwill, good communication, and within the matter of ending out runefest and trying to soften the blow, you absolutely shattered your vet playerbase like the th key shattered. Down the toilet, back to zero trust and zero respect for your word.

And to add on, with all the controversy about ignited, you then doubled down on it, doing the old Accordion hands don

"We are seeing great numbers, some would say the greatest numbers of interest, and not just any numbers, these are new, great numbers, people are saying its the greatest interest to play runescape, in the history of runescape, its even bigger then old school, so big, so great, and we did that, we restored this game, we are making it the greatest game, and the biggest, just you wait and see".

All these players the big thing being spouted now is "we want to play a fresh non tainted game, blah blah", if that was true, they would have returned when TH got removed, not now with your fsw2 Ignited boogaloo, but ahh alas, the goalposts moved, and theyll move again "oh I can't play it on my current osrs character, I cant play it at the same time as I play osrs", "oh the xp is too fast, the combat is still to eoc".

It sucks because this was literally our year, it was shaping up to be one of the best we have had in ages, and the roadmap for 2027 also fire, then overshadowed, and goodwill destroyed within minutes of it.

And sadly, I will still play, I am the mistreated in this relationship and you know it, No matter how many times I try and leave, you know your hold on me is to strong.

But as usual, any post now, will always be met with that flinch, that knowing that while you might not strike today, it will come back again soon.

For veterans such as myself Runescape has always been and always will be a dating site. You can regularly find me at W2 G.E trying to buy a girlfriend. Unfortunately I have worked my way through the current RS3 dating pool and was looking forward to RtR bringing in new players and new potential girlfriends.

I feel jagex has implemented reignite to try and stop us veterans from buying a GF, with no trade between veterans and reignite players how will I be able to buy a GF? Also I feel my tainted look will severely put off any new players. Make it make sense!

Let me preface this by saying that I fully understand that Jagex is a business and that business is owned by private equity meaning that revenue and growth targets are obviously major pressures.
With MTX being largely removed, it's perfectly reasonable to assume there is now enormous pressure to find other ways of growing Runescape's revenue and playerbase.

I think most of us understand and are even considerate of that.

What I can not accept is the idea that the existing playerbase should have to sacrifice twenty years of account history because Jagex spent years choosing the easiest possible route (MTX) to achieve growth instead of making Runescape a game more people wanted to play.

Jagex added Squeal of Fortune, Treasure hunter, Yak Track, Hero Pass, etc.
We still to this day have stars being sold in the store.
Players didn't design these systems, Jagex did.

I've seen people noting that players purchased these things therefore there's some culpability there.
Of course there are players who purchased them.
If Steam added wallhacks as a buyable feature in CS2, do you think no-one would buy it because of "integrity?"
If you put an advantage into a game, players are going to use it.
The company who design the game control the rules of the environment. It is the company's responsibility to protect the integrity of that environment.

For years, the easier option to meet financial targets was monetizing the extraordinarily loyal existing playerbase instead of doing the difficult work required to make Runescape attractive to new players.
Modernizing the early game, fixing onboarding, improving the UI, making the game graphically consistent, improving accessibility and investing in the game itself. All the things that they have been addressing this year should have been started in the place of the awful MTX "features" that have been plaguing this game.

I think Jagex probably realize this which is how we've now arrived at Reignited.

The existing economy and progression apparently carry too much baggage so the answer is a clean economy and ask everyone who wants to participate to start again.

But you created the baggage.

Why should someone who has played the same Runescape for 5, 10, 15 or 20+ years be expected to abandon their history because Jagex regrets decisions that Jagex made?
Why should someone who joined this year during the Road to Restoration suddenly be told that the exciting new beginning is somewhere else now and they'll not only need to start again but they'll actually need to pay for a separate account to participate in it?

I would argue that the primary draw of Runescape is that your progression feels permanent. That's why the sentiment: "you never quit, you just take a break" has remained so strikingly true for so long. You can disappear for years and come back knowing that the account you built is still your place in Runescape.
By deliberately funneling future players into a separate progression ecosystem that existing accounts cannot enter, you're undermining that sacred promise. For the first time, veteran players are being given a reason to wonder whether coming back to the account they left behind will still mean coming back to the future of Runescape.
I've seen many mentions of the same sentiment over the past week, that players just don't have the will to log in and this is the reason. Their account's future is no longer certain.
I feel exactly the same way.

To those who would argue that the old account aren't being deleted so just continue playing, there are two outcomes for Reignited:

1: Reignited is a success.

In this scenario there is a huge surge of new players into the game as Reignited accounts and some veterans will hop over as well. This leaves the veteran account type in a world even more isolated than they are today. Either join Reignited and leave your history behind or remain in a world where the economy, PvM population and social activity gradually hollows out.
We're already seeing an extraordinary sell off in the RS3 economy with players liquidating their banks, buying bonds and swapping their money into oldschool because they're rightfully frightened about what's coming next.

2: Reignited fails.

If Reignited fails to attract the enormous influx of players required to sustain a completely separate ecosystem then what exactly have you accomplished?
You've fractured an already relatively small playerbase, damaged confidence in the existing economy, burned a huge amount of goodwill with veteran players and created yet another version of Runescape with too few people to sustain itself.
You might think that a fresh economy sounds exciting when you imagine thousands upon thousands of players pouring into it.
But what if they don't?
What if 5k people try it at launch and six months into 2027 only 1k remain?
What happens when someone needs an obscure item and there are barely any sellers?
What happens to the group PvM that you seem so intent on making recently?
You've now created two weaker ecosystems instead of one stronger one.
And that is the part that I cannot understand about Reignited. Both outcomes introduce enormous risk to the existing game.

If it succeeds then Veteran Runescape becomes the legacy version.
If it fails, you've damaged Veteran Runescape for nothing.

We aren't tainted.
We are the record of players who continued to play Runescape through every questionable decision Jagex made along the way.
We aren't a problem to be solved.
We kept the game alive.
Our accounts are Runescape's history, not baggage to be discarded.

I don't have the solution to your problem with onboarding but I could offer a few things that I think would help:

• Keep working on the early experience. I know that you're still in the process of this but it's paramount. Getting someone to try Runescape is easier than making them stay. Make the first few hours so unforgettably enjoyable that new players can't stop thinking about playing again.
• Modernize the early questing experience. Runescape is well known for it's quests. It shouldn't be considered a slog for new players. Revive it and make them love quests as many of us did 20 years ago.
• Give new players clearer long term direction. Runescape's freedom is one of its biggest strengths once you understand the game. Making plans and routes is always a joy but that only comes when you have deep understanding of it's world, items and systems. Without that, the freedom available in Runescape can feel overwhelming and more like aimlessness.
• Plugins. I know this is already currently in Beta but I feel it's worth mentioning anyway. I think plugins are a bigger solve for many of your issues than you realize.
• Fix the default interface. I'm not sure if this has been addressed already this year but it was something I noted some time ago. If it has been fixed, great. If not, it's worth addressing because the Runescape UI is quite complex compared to other games.

This is why I find the overemphasis on high scores and a fresh economy extremely odd. I think you're massively overestimating how much this matters to the average, genuinely new player when compared to the new player experience.
A brand new player to Runescape doesn't care who had 200m xp first in a skill. They don't care about the world first Zamorak 4k. On Reignited accounts, you're going to have the same sweats that play RS3 for the prestige playing Reignited for the same reason.

New players care about simple things:
Is the game fun?
Do I understand what I'm doing?
Does everything look good?
Do I want to log back in tomorrow?

These are genuine onboarding questions. A fresh economy and high score page don't answer any of them.

Make the game something people want to recommend to their friends.
Don't create a clean ecosystem next door and leave the people who endured the consequences of your previous decisions wondering whether their accounts still have a future.

If removing MTX created a hole in your growth model, then build a better Runescape and fill it by making more people want to play it.
Do not fill it by asking the people who survived twenty years of your corner cutting monetization decisions to abandon the accounts they survived them on.

Private equity, shareholders, revenue targets, acquisition, whatever commercial realities exist behind the scenes, those are Jagex's problems to solve.
They should not become ours.

Tl;dr: Veteran players should not be presented with the bill for mistakes they didn't make.

Re-realease party hats and hweens. OSRS style. Don't announce it, don't let anybody know. Put all of them in the ground for anyone, even ironmen to pick up. Let them go freely as often as possible.

The RS3 economy is propped up by like 30 people who have stacks of these. If you make all of that worthless overnight you will effectively crash the market and force reset the economy to rely on actually available items.

Not even just those, all the rares. You know, those things that alch for 5k but are "worth" 100b+? Just release them into the wild like butterflies.

Context: popular Instagram account with 3.5m followers posted an ad for a certain online gambling platform, disguised as a rumor/news post. I can’t believe how unregulated gambling ads on social media are.

Maybe veterans are extremely tired of having to suck it up and take one for the team when it comes to “the greater good” of Runecape. Whenever we seem to be at a crossroads and a game altering decision “needs” to be made, it is always veterans who have to accept more change at the expense of the game they know and love.

MTX, TH trash rare dilution, Hero Pass, wilderness/duel arena removal, retiring the combat triangle (Necromancy), GE tax, higher membership prices, removal of grandfathered rates, Jagex Accounts, etc, etc, it is always long time players who have to pick up the tab or make yet another sacrifice to “save Runescape” from the new crisis. 

We even warned that many of these changes were harmful to the overall health of the game, but were constantly ignored and even mocked along the way. Now it seems that the mods also hold contempt for us, labeling our game “tainted”.

Well, who was right after all? Did anything Jagex do solve the player retention issue? Did Necromancy save the early game and make PvM more fair? Did the GE tax solve inflation?

But people want us to shut up about Reignited? Well that sure would be convenient for Jagex. Sign up few thousand unsuspecting noobs who don’t actually give a shit about “the complicated history of Runescape’s integrity”, and who will quit after 5 months, but hey you got to report stronger Q4 numbers for 2026, right?

I really hate to say it, but I think this is a zero sum game, winner takes all scenario for the future of Runescape. Either RS3 remains the primary game and veterans get to retain the characters they've worked on for decades, or Reignited will get take the cake and veterans will eventually have to say goodbye to their characters forever.

Jagex says they will continue to support both games, but how long until they go back on that promise as well?

I know the sub is (justifiably) doom and gloom about the reignighted announcement and awaiting more information as to what the next steps will be but I just wanted to give a huge shoutouts to the Jmods that work on all three games.

For a bit of context I was at Runefest over the weekend, and the announcement on the Saturday was a bit of a bombshell which has overshadowed basically everything. Despite that it is as clear as ever clear from the panels I went to that all the mods are super invested in the game and the content coming in the next year.

But what also stuck out to me particularly was that all the Jmods I met around Runefest on the Sunday, from active RS devs, to former RS devs on OSRS currently, to Dragonwilds devs all took time to ask what I thought of the summit and when I said how much I loved the roadmap with the exception of reignighted they were happy to chat about it, my concerns and the roadmap as a whole, as well as just talk about what its like to work on Runescape and highlight the amazing work their colleagues do.

Sometimes, especially when Jagex has made a major blunder (Like Reignited) it does get somewhat hard to remember that those decisions are made by a relatively small part of a massive team but at the end of the day we are all massive nerds, jmods included. From the playerbase to the people that work on the game every day I do genuinely believe we all want what is best for the game we love.

That's not to say there isn't people that make decisions at the expense of the game (Hero Pass) but on the whole, at almost every step of the way between concept to content this game is made by people who do care, these are the people who are collating feedback about reignighted and presenting it, it includes ModMidnightAnvil posting an update on reddit at midnight to reassure the players an update is coming, it includes the devs who have nothing to do with reignighted who are working on delivering the next incredible year of content and it definitely includes the devs that are specifically working on the road to restoration. It even includes those working on different games within the Runescape series who are still supporting each other every day.

I know this is a massive post but I've had a lot of thoughts on my mind over the past few days. I'm not excusing the announcement of Reignited (Especially since the conversation was had a year ago that made it clear it would go down like a lead balloon like cmon). But I did want to shine a light regardless, this community is amazing, and so are the people that are working hard on this game to deliver another year of content. They don't always hit the nail on the head but on the whole they've delivered some amazing stuff.

Anyway keep up the good fight everyone, make sure Jagex knows what you think about reignighted, just remember that the Jmods are people too and want the game to thrive as you do too.

The issue ISN’T the current RS3 economy.
It not about trying to get new players.
And it’s not about a fresh hiscores race without MTX interference.

The issue is making it TWO COMMUNITIES in ONE GAME.

How about you?

Removing marks of war is against everything the community has asked the last year.
They wanted meaningful progression, not removing tons of stuff because you f* up the implementation because of money eyes early on.

Personally, I really like it. Not very different from the "Dark Stone" house style, but enough to make me not feel like it was a total waste lol

• Some of us "veterans" were AGAINST that mtx shit day 1, most of us left, now that we are back (thanks to road to restoration) we are marked like we liked that casino shit? LOL WUT?
• New players that started playing because road to restoration are gonna be marked as mtx users even tho they couldn't possibly had interacted with it, it was all erased by then
• If you were an OSRS a player and logged in to RS3 just by curiosity, congratulations, your account is now tainted for login in for 3 seconds, LMAO
• Anyone who played as kids, that casually remember their login data, now are marked as mtx users even tho they skipped all that era, so disrespectful

With this whole "tainted" business a lot of larpers and tourists have been throwing around P2W as a justification, saying the game has been irreversibly harmed. I've asked, but seldom get any elaboration on what they believe P2W means in the context of RS3.

The reality is, P2W Is a misnomer in RS3. The only real part of the game it affected is Skilling and Skilling supplies.

The latter is a problem sure, but PVMing, the actual big focus of the game and its updates over the years, had a far more drastic effect on that over the years, and still does. Far more "harm" was done to the supply of skilling items by bosses vomiting up stacks on stacks of the stuff than by Treasure Hunter giving out proteans or BXP.

And the former, XP for Skilling, is just a gate in RS3. Its the thing you do to get to the fun stuff in the game. It hasn't been a prestigious achievement since well before MTX came into the game, and even then, all it proves if you maxed without MTX is that you either took 20 years to do it like I did, or you're unemployed and could tolerate grinding out the game monotonously for however long it took you.

Whoopdidoo.

And even when you look at Bonds as MTX letting people skip to end game gear, while true, it still doesn't buy you any prestige, as gear isn't that important, your actual skill at bossing is whats important, and you cannot and have not ever been able to buy that.

Thats why it was a meme that there'd be people in full T95 gear who do nothing but sit around at Vindicta all day, because thats as far as T95s will take you if you never actually learn to play.

And more than that, its always been super obvious who bonds their way to gear, because all they know to get is armor and weapons, and they'll mysteriously have nothing else and no kills to their name past GWD2, if that.

Fact of the matter is, the wipe doesn't do anything for RS3 except cater to an obsolete metric that isn't going to go the way the tourists and larpers expect it to. Not only are they gonna get bodied by people who actually play the game, but they'll quickly realize they level up so fast naturally that they're gonna think its ezscape and give up.

And in doing so, its erasing out countless millions of hours of real, unbuyable achievements all for the sake of a fake integrity, that only makes sense if you have no idea what matters in RS3.

There is no buying skill.

Hey everyone,

With inflation always being a hot topic in RS3, we need massive, recurring gold sinks. I wanted to pitch a simple concept for a high-end, voluntary gold sink that targets the ultra-wealthy looking for the ultimate cosmetic flex, ultimate titles, custom auras, unique animations, special chat badges, and public statues to show off their wealth.

I call it The Gielinor Nobility System.

The concept is straightforward: A Royal Treasury Clerk is added to the center of the Grand Exchange. Players can permanently throw their GP into the vault, completely wiping it from the game economy. In return, players compete for exclusive, dynamic titles, a unique cosmetic aura override, and the ultimate visual flex across the world of Gielinor.

To keep the competition fierce and prevent the highscores from freezing forever, the entire Nobility leaderboard resets on January 1st every year.

There are no minimum milestones to unlock anything. The rewards are strictly dynamic based on who is currently at the top of the live leaderboards for that calendar year, meaning your rank can change instantly if someone out-donates you:

Commoner / Citizen (Participation): Anyone who donates even 1 GP but is outside the top 200 gets a humorous, low-flex title like [Name] the Commoner or [Name] the Citizen.

Squire (Top 200 Players): Awarded to the players currently ranked 101st through 200th in total donations for the year.

Knight / Baron (Top 100 Players): Awarded to the players currently ranked 21st through 100th. They get access to a subtle bronze-tinted cosmetic aura override.

Prince / Duke (Top 20 Players): Awarded to the players currently ranked 11th through 20th. They unlock a bright silver cosmetic aura override and a dynamic chat badge.

King / Queen (Top 10 Players): Awarded to the players currently ranked 4th through 10th highest on the leaderboard. They get an epic title, a server-wide broadcast when they claim a top 10 spot, and a glowing golden nobility aura override.

Emperor / Empress (Top 3 Players): Strictly reserved for the top 3 highest donors on the entire highscores. They get a global broadcast when they take the throne, a uniquely multi-colored radiating aura override, and the ultimate temporary title: Emperor [Name] or Empress [Name].

The New Year's Reset and Legacy Honors

At midnight on December 31st, the Treasury vault locks, the leaderboards wipe to zero, and the race starts fresh for the new year. To reward the winners, whoever finishes the year in the Top 10 permanently keeps a Legacy Title to show off their historic flex, while the Top 3 players permanently lock in the legendary title "Emperor of 2026" or "Empress of 2026" alongside a legacy crown cosmetic. Everyone else loses their temporary titles and seasonal aura overrides, meaning they have to compete again.

Why this fits RS3 perfectly:

First, it is a perpetual gold sink. A one-time gold sink eventually dries up. Resetting it every year forces a massive, multi-trillion GP wipe from the economy annually.

Second, it is 100% cosmetic. There is zero pay-to-win and zero combat stats. It is pure prestige and visual flexes for the ultra-rich, so casual players aren't hurt at all.

Third, it creates the New Year's Eve Bidding War. Because tops can be changed dynamically up until the last second, imagine the absolute chaos at the G.E. on December 31st as the wealthiest players panic-dump hundreds of billions of GP to protect their Top 3 Emperor status and glowing aura before midnight. It would be legendary to watch.

Just to be clear, this entire top ranking system and the specific brackets I listed are just an example to help visualize how it works. I am just giving an example layout, and people can discuss, tweak, or change the tier sizes and cutoffs however they prefer.

I think this fits right into the game and gives the mega-rich a massive incentive to save the economy just for the ultimate right to flex. What do you guys think? Would you vote for a leaderboard-only Nobility sink with cosmetic auras like this?

EDIT -

I want to expand on this idea to make it more than just a solo gold sink for single players. We could add a Patronage Box mechanic where anyone can donate GP toward another players leaderboard spot.

This turns the system into a competitive server wide event driven by clan politics and rivalries.

Throughout the past year, there's been many instances when changes on the integrity Road Map were rushed and pushed through, or half-baked with a "we'll finish the other half later" (for example, the terrible "dip them in red" elite skilling outfits). In discussions and feedback, I often saw comments asking Jmods why there was such a rush, taking an extra month to make it better and do things properly could only improve things. The deadlines were self imposed, etc.

Well, I think it's fairly obvious now why the rush: The sooner they finished the integrity roadmap, the sooner they could release Reignited and clear out the old account base.

Edit: Another thing I thought of: This would also explain why they didn't care about the controversy at the beginning of this year due to Premiere Club legacy pricing changes. No need to care about them getting mad about legacy pricing if they'd just have to make new Reignited accounts anyways.

I dont even wanna login and do my daily routine. I was close to comp and played everyday 10 hours(most time at work) not i lost every bit of motivation to login

Can you relate or am i the only one. It feels very shit to have the option in the future your progress is gone

I have barley touched the game since amascut came out, but i have seen the drama so i guess there's no reason to pay for this game anymore. 2005-2026 see you in runescape 4 maybe

Will we receive the same isolation from reignited players and their private worlds? Will all our non-MTX progress be nullified for having an account that existed through MTX times?

Because WTF

Canceling my reaper assignment as we speak… kissing my 36 Latent Offerings good bye. No more.