It's always the same song and dance. They will try it when MTX must be removed. When that's done, they will try it when cosmetics are removed. When that's done, they will try it when dailyscape is removed. When that's done, they will try it when the early game gets reworked. When that is actively being worked on, they will only try it if the playerbase is split for reasons. If that was done, the goalposts would shift again.

If these people were genuinely interested in Runescape, they would have either tried it already, OR they would still try it come December 2, because nothing of substance actually changed. The early game rework is still happening. The free membership trial is still happening. The only change is that the playerbase is no longer split.

If that's a dealbreaker, they were never interested in the first place.

On the bright side, there are many thousands of prospective new and returning players who don't actually care about the drama. They would try reignited with or without a split, because a new player doesn't think about economy and history. They care that the game is fun and memorable. The split is inconsequential to the success of Reignited in its early days, it only affects the long-term health of the game.

With the split gone, there will still be many thousands of new players and now the future looks good for Runescape. Doomers will say otherwise, but they will always say that regardless of what Jagex does. This game has a dedicated hater base.

Edit because people seem to misunderstand this post: I am not saying that everyone who is disappointed that Reignited is canceled is a troll or something like that. Of course there are people who are disappointed. This post is not targeted toward them. I am specifically calling out the trolls who have wanted Runescape to die since EoC launched, aka the dedicated hater base. If you're not one of those people, my post is not targeted toward you. We still welcome every new player interested in trying out the game, and we are eager to help you.

Another edit because people still don't understand the point of this post: There were trolls who knew that the RS3 community is largely against reignited. With this knowledge, they were trolling and ragebaiting. Those are the people this post calls out. This post is NOT saying that people who genuinely supported Reignited are ragebaiters and trolls. They are not targeted by this post.

So many posts about how everyone was "so ready to play" followed up by "reignited canceled will be the end of rs3 " or whatever. These folks were the same that left for MTX and have been bashing the game for 13 years.

Let Jagex continue to cook and give them a chance if youre really that interested instead of hopping on here and saying crazy things that will actually drive new players away.

SO, this question is for those people-

Why dont you just use your wallet to tell jagex whats up?

I understand some people were interested in reignited. If you were genuinely going to give it a try, I say come play with us during the 10 day trial.

If you wanted to be disconnected with our economy. I genuinely think you should give an ironman account a try. You have the option of playing with your friends as a group ironman, or find other people that were interested in reignited. You can even still interact with players on stuff like pvm.

If you don't care about being separated via the economy. Grow with us on jagex's journey with fixing the game. If they're working with their playerbase now. I'm sure we can figure out how to improve the game. Qol, economy, events.

My brother is a returning player. He came back shortly after mtx was taken out of the game. I've been watching his progress, listening to him play with his friends and clan. He's having a blast. I would have never expected him to get a 99, he's working on number 3! So it's not all bad.

There are still clans that are active and would love to take you in. Groups that chat, do events and make friends. There's still a good community within.

I'm not hating on the cancellation. As a veteran player, I was against it too and the protests was great. But now it's cancelled and finished.

Yet y'all are still creating posts about it. Can we please just talk about the amazing road map instead now? There's a lot of great things there and not nearly enough discussion / hype for those

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm impressed that Jagex walked back the Reignited launch. Even if the vets didn't like it, I still kind of expected them to plough through. Huge shout out for listening and canceling what wasn't working for the community!

That being said, I get that they're trying to bring in new players or bring back old ones and this was the big hail Mary to do so. I'd personally love to see new/returners, too.

Anyway, in wake of making such a drastic change in response to community outrage, I feel like we should help the JMods get some traction with the rebranded "Return to RuneScape." I've personally talked both of my siblings and their spouses into trying RS3 during the 10 day free membership period. Tossing in some goodies to help them out, too. I challenge the rest of you to do the same! Bring back a friend, invite them to your clan, show them around. Let's help grow the game and turn this change into something positive for everyone!

The go-to phrase now is that Veteran players are a "loud minority." If that is the case, why was there nowhere that showed widescale support for it? The majority of posts that are pro-Reignited elsewhere are in the context of its cancellation, with very few that were excited to play.

• "Pro-Reignited posts got downvoted" Why? If Pro-reignited players were too scared to post for some reason in larger numbers, why didn't large amounts upvote those posts? Wouldn't it be equally as likely that Veterans would be shouted down and downvoted?

• "New players were scared away" Did new players even know about this? It seems the only publicity was after it got cancelled.

Occam's razor: People who have no idea about the ecosystem of RS3 who don't play it saw "game revitalization plan cancelled" and are reacting without context. The majority of players both old and new were against it.

Now instead we have misinformed people thinking we don't want any new players, judging by the wider internet reaction to this.

Not to mention the increased split between us and OSRS (not that there wasn't one to begin with). I mean just look at the responses to Mod Anvil's comment crossposted there.

We WANT new players.

New players would have genuinely been attracted by a fresh start with everyone together at once. A real event of it.

We just didn't want to be ghettoized and the playerbase to be fractured.

A guaranteed merge down the line would have bypassed the whole controversy. (Well, most of it, there would still be some hard feelings about being called 'tainted', I'm sure.

A few posts saying I would have joined with my friends if there were reignited worlds so I don't see or interact with vet players ... You still can join the game don't talk to the vet players. You can still only talk or choose to interact with other low level accounts.

People saying they would have joined RS3 with reignited but now they aren't because of x reason seems odd to me. It seems as if you might have given it a go for the free trial and then left as your heart was not in it.

You are still getting the free membership from December 2nd. If you wanted to give it a go ... you still can.

I completely understand the appeal of RuneScape Reignited. I see how it can attract new and returning players that could benefit the long-term future of the game.

However I know that this cannot come at the expense of the progress veteran players have made over the years or in my case - since 2003 (with a 13 year gap in between). My character is not just the stats which I have poured plenty of time and effort - it is a representation of history that should not be discarded, equally I want to share that history with both veteran and new players moving forward.

My concern with Reignited was never about giving new players opportunities - I would be thrilled to welcome you all and please say hello. My concern was about creating a future where existing players would find themselves increasingly isolated and disenfranchised so their accomplishments/time and history would be disposed of.

This reminds me of a quote "A candle does not lose its flame by lighting another"

There is an important distinction between giving new players a fresh start and making veteran players feel they need to start again to remain relevant.

I appreciate that Jagex has listened to the community and cancelled Reignited. However, I hope the underlying lesson is not that fresh starts are inherently bad, but that growth should not come at the expense of those who have supported the game for years.

I'm interested to hear what others think, particularly those who supported Reignited. Is there a way to deliver the benefits of a fresh start without undermining existing accounts?

Seriously though this was a very good move to make this video, thank you!

This subreddit obviously has players who play the current version of the game already, so any opinion contrary will get massively downvoted and dogpiled.

Most people who have reached out here and said that they would have played, would have actually played. Why would anyone hear news about the change, come join the discussion here and just say that they'll play and not actually play? No reason to.

I personally would have played Reignited because I've already completed most PVM for OSRS and there are no OS Leagues to be seen + fresh worlds with an economy that has full potential + Jagex now being good at banning bots would have been epic.

And well, the reality is that the game is at it's all time lowest player count that is halving every year; and without a drastic change, it's not going to turn around either.

Even if you removed every single bit of bxp, dxp, bought exp, people saying they would play reignited would then find a goal post to move.

I said this before, id take a 40-50% exp penalty and wouldn´t really care PERSONALLY to allow crossplay, but then people would say, well you have prior game knowledge, well this, well that.

Lets be honest if you are gonna play rs3 you are gonna play rs3 if not the goal post will be moved.

People keep bringing up Maplestory, and Wow, Appearantly Maple story has events that let you skip 1-200 in 1 hr so you efectively skip the worst parts that is early game, im not an expert in the game i just did a quick google and reddit search since people keep comparing the two . and WoW lets you max in like a month, dont compare the 2.

OSRSHC makes sense cause its a diferent game mode, not just the same but with a diferent pov.

If you want to play rs3, play it , if you dont , you will always find an excuse to not play.

Most people think for some reason reignited will make bandos 30-40m, when bandos is an AFK mob in rs3 unlike osrs the tier equiv for bandos in rs3 is TORVA and price wise they are in same economic area More effort = more gp.

Ive yet to see OSRS afk bandos for 5 hrs at a time with t70.

That’s it. There’s a lot of arguments for and against reignited I’ve seen but the one I can’t wrap my head around is people in a number of subs saying something along the lines of “I won’t play RS3 because someone paid for their skills”

Can someone with this view explain this to me?

To be clear, the concept of people wanting a group of fresh accounts all starting at once isn’t my confusion. It’s why do you care about others’ stats?

Edit: Feel free to also answer if you think “max” in current day RS3 is of any note. It seems that is also a point of contention

Obviously, Reignited is canceled, and isn't gonna happen in that form, and certainly not any time soon.

And its not really worthwhile relitigating all the arguments for and against it.

So, what can we do? Many of us pitched plenty of compromises, and those that responded more often than not refused any compromise.

That just leaves the only option for either side, finding new ideas to bring you folks into the fold, and joining the game we all love to play.

The obvious of course is just continuing with the Road to Restoration, and 2027 is going to be an exciting year for the game.

But beyond this, what would capture you? The game isn't in any danger of going anywhere, and new players are always welcome. So how do we get you over the door, now, after all the drama is over?

Now that reignited is not happening, what are your guys ideas to bring in new players?

We have to help jagex, we also help ourselves! :)

"The idea that anyone who was interested in Reignited is a veteran was is at best a tourist a tainted account and at worst a troll an MTX abuser who achieved their stats via lamps and stars, is something that can cause a deeply unhealthy ongoing narrative to develop.

• Such a narrative is based purely on assumption, not reality.
• Such a narrative is based on hyperbole and extremes. Black and White, there is no Grey.
• Such a narrative does not make anyone feel better about the situation. Instead, it only diminishes the viewpoint of other people and reduces them to someone that can just be handwaved away.

This is the kind of attitude that, if it continues to propagate, will turn new players who are genuinely curious about RuneScape away from the game we all know and love."

Mod Anvil,

I had to take your comments in another long thread and make a couple of adjustments to represent the other side of the coin here.

Jagex (a specific Mod who shall not be named) first used the word "tainted" in an announcement concerning RS/MTX/Integrity.

It's an important point that since that time, the 'tainted' label has been allowed application to veterans by and from a large part of the crowd who were supporting Reignited - many of whom were open in their belief and desire to see veteran accounts not just segregated but deleted over time.

Jagex never really addressed that derogatory labeling - that I have seen - in all of this.

The truth: no one playing as a veteran account in RS is tainted. And that needs to be reiterated publicly and prominently by Jagex.

I couldn't be happier with the fact they cancelled reignited. The fact that they continue to listen makes me want to continue playing the game. It's really that simple for me.

I’ll put this at the top so it’s very clear and obvious:

I am not speaking in support of Reignited. I think it was a bad idea that probably would’ve killed the game for good and I’m glad it was cancelled.

And so nobody calls me a fake vet: My current account has 316 days play time, I’ve been playing since 2008 across multiple accounts and playing my current account since 2014.

The way this subreddit has acted makes me ashamed to call myself an RS3 player. The vitriol, anger, and hate towards anybody that dared speak positively about Reignited has been insane. I have been personally called an OSRS troll, Jmod alt, bot, and a fake RS3 player, for EXPLICITLY saying “Reignited is a terrible idea but please think critically about it rather than emotionally”.

You spent 2 weeks telling anyone who liked the idea, or who said it would make them interested in the game, to stay away. You called them trolls, you called them liars, you said “you were never gonna play anyway” or “you were gonna play for a month and never play again”. Now that Reignited is cancelled, the subreddit is flooded with posts saying “New players come join! Everyone is welcome :)” Seriously? The whiplash is insane. How are new players gonna feel welcome when I AS AN 18 YEAR PLAYER don’t even feel welcome?

New players aren’t “welcome”, you’d rather scream at them on the internet than have them in your game. There are so many comments that are actively opposed to OSRS players joining, Reignited or not, despite them being the easiest demographic to bring over to RS3.

Everyone needs to take a step back and look at the situation with a critical mind. Do you really think the reactions here were reasonable and level headed? Is it normal to viscerally hate anyone who disagrees with you about a fucking medieval fantasy game? Is it normal to lash out at attempts to bring new players to your game, even if those attempts are poorly thought out?

We all love this game. We all love the memories and friends we’ve made. We all remember coming home from school and immediately getting on RS with your friends for hours. This game has touched so many lives and means a lot to so many, myself included. But that’s all it is: a game.

Edit: formatting

Our community is too busy celebrating winning this battle that we are failing to consider that we may have just lost the war.

It is in Jagex’s interest to say that the game has declined but can sustain itself for years, it would be suicidal from a business perspective to suggest anything else. They mention the active playerbase being around 200k, but I believe the number of unique players is significantly lower.

In this sub alone we see people with multiple accounts on premier membership, people who only subscribe because of grandfathered rates. When I actively played up until 2024, my entire clan of around 100 active accounts was actually about 40 players and their alts.

At some point people will stop paying multiple subs and existing players will quit, it will snowball quickly. We are in desperate need of new players if we want this game to actually have a future.

Jagex have made some outstanding changes this year, the Road to Restoration should have been enough to draw in a significant number of players. But it didn’t and the simple answer for why is something that players have been telling us for over a decade. They will not join until the game resets to a point of no MTX impact.

We can keep suggesting new ideas, keep reworking content, but at the end of the day this is the major roadblocks for new, returning and prospective players. When they say they won’t join unless there is a fresh start believe them. As a former player I have no desire to play outside of Reignited.

I would gladly sacrifice my 5000 hours of accounts to guarantee a future for this game. I had convinced people to join who will not be joining anymore. Look outside of this subreddit, or even in posts since yesterday, we are missing out on a substantial influx of players through our best chance to bring in new players since the release of RS3.

Going back on a bold choice that signalled an intention to fix the game is terrible PR for Jagex. To outsiders it will seem that Jagex cares more about milking its dwindling playerbase rather than trying to breathe life into the game.

I worry for the future of the game because of this, is it worth keeping our 20 year old accounts and capes of accomplishment if Jagex is unable to sustain itself and has to sunset this game in the near future?

Following the debate around Reignited, something that has caught my attention is the sheer number of assumptions being treated as facts, particularly by people who were looking forward to the mode. I've seen plenty of claims that "RS3 is dead" and that the existing playerbase is unwilling to make sacrifices for the long-term health of the game, for example.

Well, is there ANY evidence that Reignited would actually have been successful? Is there any evidence that it would have improved the game's long-term health instead of accelerating its decline?

I'm not saying Reignited was doomed to fail or that it doesn't have appeal. It might have attracted some new players, and I get why some people want it. The problem is treating success as a given while dismissing the potential loss of existing players and the consequences of fracturing the community.

Let's assume that Reignited is a huge success at launch, which is a big if, especially considering the very little engagement it received outside the RS3/OSRS community. MMOs have repeatedly demonstrated that a HUGE launch does not necessarily translate into a healthy, sustainable playerbase.

• New World peaked at over 913,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch in October 2021. By September 2026, it was averaging roughly 450 concurrent Steam players. Amazon has also announced that the game will permanently shut down on January 31, 2027.
• Lost Ark peaked at over 1.32 million concurrent Steam players in February 2022. By September 2026, that figure had fallen to an average of roughly 4,900.

Of course, these examples don't translate directly to RS3, but they demonstrate that launch hype and long-term player retention are two very different things. Even games that attract hundreds of thousands of people at launch, investing millions of dollars in marketing (such as New World), can end up retaining only a small fraction of their initial audience.

So what guarantees that Reignited would have been any different? What evidence suggests that it would have attracted enough new players to justify the risks involved? And, perhaps most importantly, what makes anyone so confident that those players would still be around after the initial excitement wore off? Dude, if Reignited had received even 3% of the attention New World received at announcement, I would have been surprised.

The potential loss of existing players has a much more tangible basis than the projected influx of newcomers. The current playerbase already has established communities, social connections, accumulated progress, routines, and, with the amazing 2027 roadmap, reasons to keep playing. I genuinely believe there's a much healthier and more organic way to revive RS3: rebuilding trust and consistently delivering good updates. Again, there's no evidence that fracturing the community and undermining trust would help. If anything, there's evidence to the contrary: every time Jagex has betrayed the community's trust, the game has suffered for it.

• EDIT 1 - For those asking for evidence that Reignited would hurt RS3, just look at our history. Essentially, EOC was an attempt to attract a new playerbase at the expense of the existing one. Did it work out? Every time Jagex disrespects its players, things go wrong.
• EDIT 2 - For those asking for evidence of Reignited's low engagement: the Reignited trailer received 125K views on IGN's YouTube channel, using today's metrics, which count a view after just one second of playback. The New World trailer, by comparison, received 1.7 million views on the same channel under the old metrics, which required viewers to watch for longer before a view was counted. On Google Trends, "RuneScape Reignited" scores incredibly low compared to "Valheim" or even "Dragonwilds", and that's despite the controversy, which should have given Reignited a boost in search interest. The level of engagement outside the RuneScape bubble is laughable. I'm pretty sure Reignited's retention metrics were a disappointment even for Jagex, which likely contributed to its cancellation.
• EDIT 3 - Guys, even the Reignited trailer flopped. Face the truth: the mode failed to generate hype among a potential new subscriber base. Remember, an OSRS player who might migrate isn't a new customer. There's no evidence to support launching the mode given the TANGIBLE risks.

TL;DR: Claiming that "RS3 is dead" or that its existing playerbase is holding the game back is just speculation. There's no evidence that Reignited would have attracted and retained enough new players to justify the risks, let alone improve the game's long-term health.

I think some players forget what RuneScape 3 actually represents. RS3 is not Old School RuneScape, and it was never meant to be.

RuneScape has always evolved. New skills, quests, combat systems and new ideas have shaped the game over the years. You don’t have to agree with every change Jagex makes, and criticism is important. But RS3 shouldn’t have to stop innovating just because some players prefer the classic experience.

That’s exactly why I believe RuneScape Reignited deserved a chance.

Reignited could have offered a fresh start, a separate economy and its own leaderboards, giving players the opportunity to experience RuneScape in a different way. It didn’t have to replace RS3 or OSRS. It could have existed alongside them.

I understand the concerns about splitting the player base and making existing achievements feel less meaningful. But why should a new game mode automatically be seen as a threat? Players could have kept their main accounts while exploring something new.

We already have OSRS for those who want the classic experience. RS3 should be allowed to continue evolving, experimenting and finding new ways to attract players.

Jagex has made mistakes, especially with MTX, and those problems need to be addressed. But cancelling new ideas isn’t necessarily the answer to those problems.

RuneScape 3 doesn’t need to become Old School. It needs to become the best version of itself.

If RuneScape is supposed to keep evolving, why reject an opportunity to explore a new direction?

Let OSRS preserve the classic experience, and let RS3 continue to innovate. Both games should be able to grow without having to become the same thing.

I haven’t played Rs3 in a few years and I thought Reignited would be there perfect opportunity to get back into it because it was giving me the itch to play again. But now that it’s cancelled I have no desire to play regular RS3.. like I just don’t understand the outrage? Player count isn’t going to increase in its current state. I don’t see how cancelling this is a “win” for RuneScape in the short or long term. Im just disappointed because I was really looking forward to the restart .

There were many unfortunate circumstances that doomed Reignited since before its announcement, the ones that stood out to me were:

• Not easing the community into what the big push into the mainstream was going to entail, instead just teasing its intention until the bombshell dropped and caught many off guard.
• Hyping up the existing community for a something that would offer a higher player population, without letting us know that concessions had to be made from our part.
• The potentially permanent segregation of communities, implicitly validating the attitude some outsiders have that the game's "tainted era" also extended to whoever is currently playing.
• The Road to Restoration is still underway, with remaining pain points still due for fixing. This cast doubt on the game's ability to retain enough of the new/returning players that would come in december.

Still, I think that there's still value in exploring some mass player onboarding to give new players a feel of an early game rush at a level playing field (with an eventual merge), but you have to work with the community on this instead of keeping it in the dark to allay negative sentiment. Only when that proposal is finalized should the game mode be announced to the media.

Many of the proposed concessions you offered in last week's blog had potential, but they were given too late, when the outrage had already hit critical mass and confidence hit rock bottom. If you had laid out a proper groundwork before the announcement, the community could have been given more time to catch up with the proposals and given constructive feedback before discussion had the chance to degrade into fingerpointing and mudflinging.

What I'm getting at is, don't throw everything into the shredder and give up on a breakout moment for the game. I'm convinced a consensus can be reached that doesn't alienate anyone with the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes.

I think it's important that you can share with us the lessons learned from your perspective and what the way forward will be. You were aiming for something big and it would be demoralizing to assume that you've given up on looking for it.

I will be looking for new players and spreading some of my little wealth to welcome new comers, those who are rich join meee!! Im giving 1m to each noobie i meet🙂‍↕️.

We dont need new economy when we can all help eachother out and welcome new folk. See you all around!!🖤

I was one of the people against Reignited. I still am, just moreso in the way that it was presented. I read through tons of posts and comments yesterday and even more this morning. I debated with people on both sides, and I have tried to gain an understanding of each one.

The real issue here was the way Jagex presented it. They presented a game mode that would indefinitely split the community. Veterans would be unable to interact and group with the new players. Whether it was successful or a flop, players on one server or the other would feel like that one spongebob meme where squidward is inside looking out the window at the other server. Veteran worlds would feel even more empty than they already do with some moving over to the new server.

But the idea also had pros. There would be no MTX accounts for purchasing keys. Starting areas would be full of life. More people would likely be playing the game, at least for some time, which would increase profits and then hopefully development of new content. We would also get tons of new player feedback that would help in fixing the new player experience.

I think that last point is really the most important take from this entire event. The new player experience… frankly just sucks. Adventure path is on the way, R2R is in development, but why would we want to use this new influx of players as guinea pigs to test these out? If the updates didn’t resonate then the outcome would have been catastrophic for trying to bring new players into the game.

I’m sorry to anyone that truly was looking forward to Reignited to get into RS3. The arguments and insults thrown around have likely pushed away a large chunk of possible new players, and Jagex really shot themselves in the foot here. Once it was announced, there was no winning. I really hope that Jagex and the community can come together and use this experience to find the best possible solution after the new players experience had been fixed for the better.