RuneScape developer Jagex is reconsidering its plans after one of the biggest announcements at its recent RuneFest event sparked widespread outrage among the game's player base. RuneScape Reignited, a proposed plan to fork the MMO into new worlds with fresh economies and leaderboards, is going back to the drawing board.
"We are re-evaluating RuneScape Reignited," a fresh Jagex blog post begins. "Let’s not mince words here. We have made you, as existing players, feel like you are no longer our focus. That’s entirely on us and of our own making, and it’s only right we open by saying sorry."
RuneScape Reignited would, players rightly feared, split RuneScape (not Old School RuneScape, which is its own game) into two different versions: Reignited and legacy, or Veteran, worlds.
If Veteran players, who've survived years of dire monetization, community exodus, and stringing along from Jagex, wanted to engage with the Reignited worlds being pushed as a relaunch for the game, they'd have to start over completely.
"Treasure Hunter is gone," entreats the Reignited trailer, promising new players a game world never ravaged by horrible pay-to-win slop but leaving current players to twiddle their thumbs.
The idea of saving this long-struggling MMO by soft-resetting everyone, in a game explicitly about long-term account progression, was not received well.
In its post, Jagex reiterates that "an option to play with a fresh economy and progression is a big draw for new and returning players. We’ve seen its potential play out with the reach of the announcement and intent to play comments across social media, which have far exceeded our initial expectations." (I do have to wonder how those sentiments would convert to real Reignited players.)
However, the studio admits, "We missed our mark on making Veterans a clearer part of this idea. Not just in the execution, but how we revere your accomplishments, champion your legacy and ensure you benefit from every player who comes through the door."
Jagex singles out some of the key concerns players have shared in response to the Reignited news. (In a classic form of protest, players also shared a lot of screenshots of canceled memberships.) The list reads:
- "As a Veteran character, you will no longer matter. New players are seen to be more important than existing players.
- Veteran worlds will atrophy if the playerbase shifts to Reignited worlds.
- By splitting the community, what you believe is an already small playerbase will be overly fragmented.
- That Veterans are considered tainted for being part of a previous era of RuneScape through no fault of your own.
- The restrictions placed on how Veterans and Reignited characters can interact with one another do not feel good.
- Untradeable items and cosmetics that are locked to your Veteran account feel cut off
- Reignited is pressuring you to restart your character to keep playing and remain relevant, whether you want to or not.
- Needing to pay for a new character subscription does not feel good."
That first point about sums it up: Reignited is great news for new or extremely lapsed RuneScape players, but it's actively bad for active players who stand only to lose newcomers who could have joined their worlds instead, and who are staring down the barrel of a totally new account.
The cost and benefits of a RuneScape membership have also been scrutinized more seriously in recent years, with Jagex now charging premium prices relative to other MMOs but distinctly not putting multiple characters under that subscription as those other MMOs do.
Without committing to specifics, Jagex says "we're exploring a heavy set of revisions to Reignited based on your feedback," from "more ways for the progress of a Veteran to remain intact and be represented meaningfully" to "ensuring that a hard split in community does not persist." How the studio would thread this needle and still go through with the core pitch of Reignited is a real conundrum.
Additionally, Jagex says it is "exploring possibilities" around membership, and the need to yet again pay for a separate membership sub.
"It all ties together, but we ultimately want to remove friction that our veteran players may have engaging with or co-existing alongside Reignited," it claims. "This is hugely important to us and is something we will keep coming back to."
