Entertainment

RuneScape Fresh Start Worlds – New beginnings, new opportunities and new challenges

Written by ABC AUDIO on November 7, 2022

RuneScape Fresh Start Worlds – New beginnings, new opportunities and new challenges

By Richard Verweij on Monday November 7, 2022 at 6:00 PM

Perhaps the biggest challenge when starting a new MMORPG is knowing that just about everyone around you in the game world already knows everything by heart. How can you as a beginner ever match that? With RuneScape Fresh Start Worlds, studio Jagex wants to level the playing field again, but that comes with the necessary hurdles to overcome.

What is Fresh Start Worlds?

Gamers who make the name RuneScape ring a bell somewhere in the distance: it was the game that was immensely popular just after the turn of the millennium and is still ‘up and running’ today. Meanwhile divided into RuneScape (with more modern graphics, combat system and the like) and Old School RuneScape (with a lot frozen in the 2007 style), but still with tens of thousands of players. The main challenge for studio Jagex is to attract new players, or gamers who dropped the MMORPG years ago. Fresh Start Worlds is yet another attempt to make that happen.

Fresh Start Worlds were recently announced for World of Warcraft and New World, Jagex introduced the option for RuneScape at the end of September. The idea is simple: everyone starts on the new server from the ground up like all those years ago. On the main branch of the game you can just access your dressed up character(s), but Fresh Start Worlds wants to give everyone an equal chance. That means no economy that has been running for decades and therefore not an easy way to quickly buy a mountain of stuff to train your skills. Money is hardly in circulation and barter is once again alive and kicking!

The high scores for the Fresh Start Worlds are also tracked separately, so the initial weeks of the server are all about showing your worth. In the closing phase, microtransactions can be used to make certain things just a little faster, but the high scores must remain ‘pure’ according to Jagex. When the half year is over, your Fresh Start Worlds character will be neatly transferred to the main branch of RuneScape and you can continue where you left off.

Two games, two different interpretations

Old School Runescape has a significant advantage over the more modern RuneScape: learn from mistakes and avoid them yourself. In addition, the more classic edition of the MMORPG has a significantly different player base, which means that, according to developers Kieran Charles and Elena Nordmark, drastically different choices have to be made in order not to scare everyone away.

“Both games have chosen their own direction and are completely different games in my view. Old School came out in 2013 and has its own problems and its own community. RuneScape is more modern, we want to stay true to that old feeling. The ‘free to play’ part of the player world is incredibly iconic and we want to keep it that way. For new players as well as returning players.”

If you want to start over in the (temporary) world of RuneScape, you will have to dig deep into your wallet: for a whopping 11 euros per month (unless you become a subscriber for a longer period of time) you in fact start from scratch. That while you can already dive into newer, nicer and more popular MMORPGs for a fraction of that money. A conscious choice, according to devs Tim Fletcher and Frances Keatley of the RuneScape team.

“One of the feedback parts was that players wanted to keep it exclusive to prevent everyone from creating new accounts en masse to help themselves. Since we wanted to create a new economy, we asked our players for their opinion. As for competing, ten years ago we wanted to completely modernize RuneScape in terms of graphics. Old School RuneScape has shown that you can keep a traditional style and make it your own. We have learned from that.”

Recurring phenomenon or a ‘one-off’?

Jagex’s developers are clearly going in different directions, based on what they think best suits their game. It is a test for both RuneScapes; According to the devs, depending on the results, it is possible that it will get a sequel. Old School RuneScape has more experience with that with leagues, it is completely new for RuneScape. It is quite logical that the concept will be tinkered with in the future. After all, the feedback from existing players was initially not tender.

RuneScape’s main branch has been around for several decades and players weren’t expecting an ‘easymode’ on a branch that would then join the normal branch later. Especially not when that comes with all the items and piles of gold being dumped into the economy overnight. According to the developers, this offers the opportunity to look over the shoulder of players and see what could be done differently in the game.

“We’re not surprised at how quickly players get things done, but it does give us ideas on how we can change things. In addition, it is expected that players will really actively go for a goal for a number of weeks, but will have less with the ‘fresh’ of Fresh Start Worlds in the later phase. That’s a good time to move it to the main branch so that the interaction between players continues.”

RuneScape Fresh Start Worlds also started at Old School

The high scores of the Fresh Start Worlds of RuneScape are already pretty filled with players who have reached the maximum number of experience points, with Old School RuneScape things are getting underway. For the latter, the intensive ‘push’ phase will take a while, while the RuneScape devs will soon be able to look at the data to see if the concept can be replicated.

RuneScape Old School Runescape Jagex MMORPG Fresh Start Worlds