WoW Classic currently manages to captivate thousands of people, even though the game itself is already 15 years old. A completely different MMORPG is also holding its ground in 2019 and is even older than the world of warcraft.
Which MMORPG is it? It is the popular and famous MMORPG Runescape, which is still playable in its original form as OldSchool Runescape.
Runescape was released in January 2001 and is now over 18 years old. It has been continuously developed since then, but fans insisted on an “Oldschool” version to play like in the past, similar to what is now happening with WoW Classic.
Runescape – The magic of nostalgia
Runescape’s popularity: The number of players in Runescape is still impressive. Regularly, over 80,000 players log into the old MMORPG at the same time and play together.
For comparison, a user on reddit matched these player numbers with the top games on Steam. Runescape would rank 4th among the games with the most concurrent players, ahead of hits like Rust and GTA V.
This comparison is not entirely accurate, as for example in GTA V, players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are not included, the numbers fluctuate over time, and other factors are missing. Nevertheless, it gives a pretty good assessment of the popularity of Runescape.
Runescape is still popular in the MMORPG community. In March, a user released some videos of a tough challenge he undertook. Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of viewers watched this videos of the 18-year-old game.
What do players love about Runescape? One of the biggest factors why OldSchool Runescape works, and which surely also applies to WoW Classic, is nostalgia. Players simply feel comfortable in the game that has accompanied them for so long.
However, what plays a really significant role is that Runescape is being continuously developed. Although the game is in an old state, new content is being added, specifically designed for the old version.
Runescape has also been developed since 2001, but it has also received graphical updates and features that veterans did not like and that had to be partly shut down. The solution in OldSchool is now that everything remains as it was and yet gets expanded.
There are other reasons, such as the relaxation players experience while playing. What exactly makes Runescape fascinating, we also asked in an interview with Senior Product Manager Mathew Kemp: Why the 17-year-old MMORPG RuneScape still fascinates.
The formula for success?
This means Runescape’s popularity: The success of OldSchool Runescape has also made the community of WoW Classic sit up and take notice for some time now. Because many ask themselves the question: What happens when WoW Classic is “completed”?
In principle, WoW Classic stops after Naxxramas, as there was no more content afterward. After Naxxramas, the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, came out. Blizzard is considering setting up BC and WotLK servers, but that is still uncertain.
Many fans therefore wish for the “Runescape solution” for Classic, meaning that Classic will receive new content after Naxxramas that is specifically tailored for Classic and does not represent a new expansion.
What exactly the future holds, we will only find out later. Maybe already at Blizzcon:
