RuneScape is increasing their membership price by 50%, and Reddit is trying to censor it
Runescape is jacking up their subscription prices next month, going from like 12 bucks to 14 bucks a month. The increases range from 20% to 56% in price depending on currency. Players are PISSED about it especially since the company got bought out by some investment firm earlier this year, and they see it as a shameless cash grab.
Here's a mega thread about the price increase on Reddit. Overwhelmingly negative feedback on the price increase
https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/s/samPRjFSCn
So I decided to make a post on Reddit basically asking in a neutral way if it would deter people from playing.... And I was met with the most hostile, toxic keyboard warriors basically telling me "maybe stop working at McDonalds and you can afford it" and defending the company for the price increase. After an hour, my post was removed, and I was banned for a year without any explanation.
I'm honestly in shock that I would get banned just for asking a question, like they are that angry about people talking about the price increase?
A lot of the gaming subs on Reddit suck. Especially /gaming, but not all of them. They’re full of industry shills and “git gud kid” types, and don’t you dare criticize anything the hive mind is softballing like a gaming magazine review.
Wait, is this is a joke? While I agree there is a lot of "get gud," the bulk of the rest of it is dumb memes, and beyond that it's people whining about every little thing. The whiners far out number any shills.
Shout out to the open source Runescape remakes
https://rsc.vet/ - 2003 era remake
https://2009scape.org - 2009 era remake
https://darkan.org/ - 2012 era remake
There are other open source remakes (2004, 2006) but they're not as popular. I've actually contributed upstream to all 3 of the above, it's a very nice community!
https://vidyascape.org/ also anon client
Vidyascape is the best real 07 remake, but is it open source?
I just found an quite old repo https://github.com/Terremer/VidyaScape and issue tracker with website code on https://gitlab.com/vscape
It seems the source is closed, but you can ask on irc.rizon.net OR odelvidyascape@gmail.com.
Not a big surprise on the Huffman Shitshow. A lot of subs over there are insanely toxic. But yeah, a ban for that? That's crazy.
I didn't even know RuneScape had a subscription! I think I briefly played it about 15 years ago. Good game, I just don't have the time to play it, unfortunately. I assume you play? What's the community like over there?
I just looked up their pricing and it makes sense for them to have an optional subscription. $14 a month is in line with other similar games (e.g. wow). Would be nice if they had a couple of tiers of subscription. Maybe a $7 and a $14. But that might complicate things. How much can you do on the free mode?
My brother has been playing for years and has a few paid accounts. Here's how he explained it to me. All paid accounts had their prices locked in until you cancelled them. His first, and main, account had a price of $5 a month because he first bought it 15 years ago.
There are also "ironman" modes that exist in the main game. It's an option at character creation that will restrict your account from trading with other players forcing you to obtain all items on your own instead of just buying them from the trade board. Since you need to make a new character, this is also another payment. My brother has two ironman accounts.
There are "leagues" which are new temporary servers where the rules are different and XP gain is incredibly fast. You're given tasks to complete before the "league" ends and are awarded cosmetic items based on how much you complete. This requires its own paid account to play. My brother has one of these too.
In total he spent about $20 a month on the game for his various accounts. This change to the subscription will set every single one of his subscriptions to $14 a month raising his monthly payment to something like $56 a month which is ridiculous. He plans on ending all of his subscriptions since there is now no incentive to stay subscribed (the price is no longer locked in). So my brother, a long time and devoted customer, will play the game less and give less money because Jagex is hoping most people like him won't go through the hassle of unsubscribing.
He, and lots of other long time players, are hoping that Jagex does what other MMOs do and allow multiple accounts for one subscription price.
You don't need a separate account to play Leagues or any other temporary game modes. You are correct however that you do need to pay a separate membership for each character unless you're okay with that character only being able to do F2P activities.
Which is absolutely wild and I’ve no idea how Jagex (🦀) have gotten away with it for so long
Oh wow, that's a huge monthly increase. Thanks for explaining the pricing system.
20 years ago it was $5 and maybe like 10% of skills were locked behind it. I noticed very little impact from it. But I'm pretty sure end game stuff was locked. IIRC, dragon armor was locked and may have been the best armor.
I'd be surprised if that general model changed significantly.
The model hasn't changed, but as development of new content has continued, 95% of new content is subscription only.
That said, I can't speak for Runescape "proper" aka Runescape 3, the current "main" version. I've heard a lot of concerning things about all sorts of mobile game style predatory shit going on there.
I've only played Runescape 2, now called "Old School Runescape", which is a fork of the game from (I think) 2006.
Essentially, right around that time they completely overhauled combat, stat progression, and a bunch of other stuff, and called it Runescape 3. A lot of people didn't like the changes and started hosting custom servers from before the changes.
Eventually they made an official version, called it Old School Runescape, and have been developing it side by side with "normal" Runescape since.
Old School isn't predatory in my opinion. Outside of occasional "leagues" on special servers with specific challenges applied, there's no FOMO. The f2p game has plenty of content enjoyable on its own. The subscription just unlocks a mountain of more content, including alternative ways to level up through early game. Technically you can advance faster with a subscription, but that's due to having more options to turn into an over optimized plan, not some shit exp multiplier or something.
Look up YouTube videos on fastest max level on RS3. You can get all your levels to max level with micro transaction loot boxes in a very very short time for a very very large amount of money.
Wow this is really bad ...I'm waiting for the PR saving face "we MiSsEd tHe MaRK" statement In a week
Yeah then they "only" increase it to 13.89 instead of 14
Might have been banned for talking about the new pricing outside the mega thread tbh
For 1y though? Mod defo has microscopic pp
It's just RuneScape. Don't like it? Quit. Vote with your wallet.
Dude, I feel like if you're still playing RuneScape in the year of our lord 2024, it's more than just RuneScape for you at this point.
Then if they're gonna whine about it, but pay anyway, they're basically saying the company can do whatever they like and they (the players) will just suck it up. So what's the use of whining then?
I don't give a shit about RuneScape. But being vocal is how people give their feedback. For the players, it's better to give feedback before the price changes, in hopes of making a difference.
If you whine about the pay increase, but pay it anyway (or continue to pay it now)...the feedback you're giving is that it's actually worth that price to you, and your words are effectively meaningless.
You're not wrong. But voting with your wallet has a much bigger effect, I'd say.
Were you banned from reddit or from that subreddit?
Honestly for an MMO it's still a good price. MMOs in particular people sink a tonne of hours into, so it's pennies per hour which (like gaming in general) is a pretty good rate for entertainment. That doesn't mean huge mark ups like these are anything but infuriating.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Runescape should have tiered membership for multiple characters. For example, one character for $10, three for $20, ten for $50, etc. This would make it easier on player's wallets, and frankly it would encourage people to play the other game modes.
Having said that, I think the larger problem is that the people that develop the game get peanuts for pay. Most of them are fans of the game and just want to work on it, but doing so shouldn't trap them to a low income. It's not a good sign when developers can leave the company and earn a higher salary streaming Runescape content.
What can you expect when the company is owned by an investment group.
I would point more to the massive bot ban wave and banning of a large clan
That’s a lot of memberships taken out of the game
I see what you're saying, it is a lot of memberships taken out of the game, but I would argue no one running a bot farm is paying for membership with Earthly currency. They wouldn't want to tie legitimate credit information to any of those accounts, and so they obtain membership through bonds purchased with in game gold.
It's in part what has driven the cost of bonds from 5 million gold to 15 million. As a result, I'm of the opinion that bots aren't a revenue source for Jagex.
The Reddit community is part of the reason I stopped playing RuneScape a few years ago. The in-game community was fine for the most part, as players would mostly keep to themselves or just talk with their own groups. But the subreddit would get super offended/aggressive towards each other for the stupidest things and the mods always seemed to make things worse.
I've always been of the believe that all online games with subscription services should always be $60 a year at most. If you do the math, $60 a year per player is way more than what single-player games make and maintaining/updating online games doesn't require as much work as making brand new games either.
And yes, I'm aware of the whole thing with the bonds and how they technically allow you to play the game for free but, at least compared to the old prices, they aren't as efficient as just buying a member and Jagex makes more money off of them. So, I still think that Jagex shouldn't change the membership prices.
I mean this with all the love in the world, but you're surprised that mods, in a gaming subreddit, are complete assholes?
This last year reddit has just been fucking trash all around, and I just... quit going, even though I still have things that the Fediverse just plain can't provide any useful content for.
Not because of anything spez did, or whatever stupid-ass money seeking bullshit they're trying next, but just that the content is crap and has gone from interesting and useful to trash. For example, the selfhosted subreddits went from cool software to being stuffed full of people who do NOTHING but argue about hosting email, and marketers telling you how easy it is to host something you can use to spam people. Just a degradation from good to shit.
And, even when it's not immediately obviously worse, it's still full of shitty bots, and the mods run around like they're fucking royalty and we should lick their boots.
I barely browse there anymore cuz well, I'm banned from the site as a whole for apparently being racist by pointing out racist behaviour of some black users to white people.
Reddit is so shite nowadays, there's barely any nuance or context consideration when it comes to mods'/admins' decision making process in doling out bans. Something as little as making a joke without adding a '/s' to indicate sarcasm can get you PERMANENTLY banned from a subreddit as a whole. Efforts to appeal only lead to one being muted from the mod mail. I honestly don't know how some people can have such a big power trip over being a fucking moderator of all things. Absolutely horrendous.
"Invest Firms" are doing this all over. My company as well as several other prominent southwest construction companies just got bought out, too.
This is the end game of capitalism. Firms buying other firms to squeeze every dime out of them. Its about to get fucken bumpy.
Small note. This is only for new members. From their email to existing members:
"If you’re already a paying Member via a monthly or 6 monthly subscription, then nothing will change, as long as your subscription remains active, we will continue to honour the same price you’re paying now as part of our “Grandfather Rate” which is explained in more detail in the FAQ below."
Doesn't apply to the yearly rate.
Incorrect. You should reread what you included.
So you're locked in basically to that rate until you cancel. It's not for new members specifically. But there's not always going to be content that you enjoy playing. People who stay subscribed to an MMO forever are people who have tons of money to just throw away. I play World of Warcraft, and I have never just subscribed for a year at a time. Sometimes I get busy and I don't have time to play, or there's nothing I enjoy in the current patch.
Runescape almost als expensive as WoW was 20 year ago
...
Pick one
Or learn to read.
Wait hold on, how does an across the board increase from $12 USD to $14 USD result in 50% increase in price, "depending on currency"?
Isn't currency conversion just a scalar multiplier that applies to both the $12 starting cost and the $14 new cost?
No, not sure if other industries do this, but buying a game in a weak currency usually turns out cheaper (by alot) because Devs will usually offer the game for a lower price in the weaker economy
So OP wrote a misleading description when saying the increase was from $12 to $14?
I don't play RuneScape and I'm just going off of their description, which is inconsistent and the derogatory "just read lol" has so far shown to be wrong.
Well OP does say the price increase ranges from 20% to 50%
In other currencies the price change is over 50%, for example Euro price going from 8 to 12.50
Ah, that would've been much better for OP to include as an example...
Because they quoted the dollar price, and how it affects other countries. The prices are featured in the link, SEK is particularly egregious.
I feel like I'm missing something completely - maybe I do need to learn how to read. The only thing I'm seeing on the jagex page is new prices for a handful of currencies under "pricing table", SEK is not one of them.
There's no mention of past prices at all? Is there another link I'm not seeing?
EDIT: I think my main point is that as far as I can tell, you need to be an active member of the RuneScape community to know what the prices actually increased from, so "learn to read" wasn't very helpful to casual passerbys, and OPs post could have some more clarity and examples of increased prices for those not already in the know. It was especially confusing that the only example they provided wasn't an example of the 50% increase mentioned in the title.
This is a general games community so I think it's fair to ask for some more context and leniency for such a niche game. If you want folks to care, don't make it hard for them to do so.
Read the Reddit posts.
Oh.
I don't think I care enough about drama in a niche game to do a deep dive on all of the reddit comments to learn about something....
It would be helpful if you or OP could provide links, or at least quote things. Most passerbys simply have better things to do than to find better context of what OP is saying about a game from 20 years ago. I think it's only natural for people to be confused when OP didn't provide enough context, or the only way to get context is to apparently read an entire Reddit threads worth of comments.
The price increase percentage is in the OP. Specific prices are in the linked Reddit post. The context was enough for everyone else.
"why can't you be like everyone else?"
Idk guess I just like to verify shit before picking up the pitchfork. My b.
Choose one. I told you where I found the specific prices. I mentioned which currency was particularly egregious so you could find the price yourself independently but you didn't care to.
Or change the title to up to 50%
I was literally looking at playing again with the Sailing announcement
Now it's... No. I remember $5 back in the day and that was awesome.
It's not a popular opinion, and I'm sure I'll get downvoted for the reminder, but what is $5 then in 2024 dollars? Just to keep a perspective that inflation does happen, and $5 is not a lot of money now.
However, if you're getting less of a product with a lot of eye candy to hide that fact, then get the pitchforks back out. In the end it's a matter of if it's worth the cost, no matter what the amount is.
I looked up an inflation calculator and it said $8.33 Cumulative inflation from 2004 to now is 66.5%
So with the enhancements since then $10 is probably a fair price. I just figure being okay to pay $12 but bailing for a few more dollars for a "luxury" product seems overblown, but again...it's up to the buyer on if they feel they are getting a good buy.
I never was a Runescape player, but I was hardcore Ultima Online in the early days. Looking at the newest versions out there, it's intriguing, but also so much more complex now that I think I'd enjoy watching gameplay more than playing it now. Age catches up to you.
I think the worst thing about their subscription price is that it is very close to the same price as WoW or FF14, but with runescape you can only have 1 character. If you enjoyed a quest or lower level content, you have to create a new account with its own subscription. If you want to try an Ironman or hardcore character, that's a whole other account and subscription.
You should try the other subreddit, RS3 players are more than happy to pull out the pitchforks.
We've been through a lot.
This was the final straw for me. Asking for feedback about MTX and then leveraging that to raise prices. Even if that's not what they did, their timing is beyond stupid.
Not to mention how bad the last 2 years of content have been.
The new roadmap looks great but I want to see it implemented before I believe any of it is real, especially after how unfinished the newest boss is.
As you should, they've let players down many many times before (myself included) making promises for things to come that never happen. A prime example is the player owned house rework that was promised in one of the original Rune Fests.
The tick rate improvements and client side prediction they demoed ... they said they may never happen; however, let's face it, they could happen they're just unwilling to commit to hiring the developers that would be needed to make that happen.
The player avatar rework!
OSRS players are too busy trying to optimize everything down to the game tick.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, and I preface this by saying I do not fully understand the ins and outs of game development, though I am a software engineer (just not a game dev).
OSRS has made some absolutely amazing improvements in the last couple years. Almost every single update has hit perfectly with nothing but minor errors or complaints. New expansions and regions, new quests, new raid, weapon and damage rebalances, new bosses, new community events and special game modes, new updates to their clients both mobile and desktop, and most importantly a significantly better bot-busting system over the last few months.
This shit isn't cheap. That's a LOT of parallel systems and work, and OSRS continues to have 0 micro transactions outside of membership. True, RS3 and its cesspool of mtx helps fund OSRS, but I don't know how far that goes.
I'm OK with OSRS costing $2 more per month if it means that this current cadence of content of QOL updates marches on. Jagex has been absolutely nailing it and I'm very happy with them, and that's worth money to me.
Keep in mind Jagex reported record profits last year, so this isn't about covering increasing costs.
Reddit mods being reddit mods is not reddit censoring you.
it kind of is