Runescape. Everyone's heard of Runescape. Or at least, everyone who reads about the business side of the gaming industry. Runescape boasts six million registered players and one million paying subscribers. An MMOG with one of the largest player bases. So what exactly is Runescape? Not much has been written about it here on mmorpg.com since 2004. So I spoke with Henrique Olifiers, Head of Games Content at Jagex to get a quick run down of the game and where it is going.
The original Runescape launched in 2001 was little more than a 2-D interface for a MUD (Multi-User Dungeons) game. Remember those text based MUD games? The precursors to MMORPGs? Maybe not. Not if you are under 35. What this basically means is that Runescape is story and quest heavy. It is a high fantasy world populated by knights, wizards and dragons. It is not fast paced by any means, but the underlying storyline is quite involved and important. Several gods in this world are striving for supremacy and your actions in game can tilt the scale towards any of them.
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