Old School RuneScape, also known as OSRS, OSR, or 2007scape, is Jagex's official term for a previous version of the RuneScape game that was introduced from a backup of the RuneScape source code as it had been on 10 August 2007.
This version of the game was announced in a news post on 13 February 2013, which was followed by the opening of a poll to determine community interest on 15 February 2013. The poll, which ended 1 March 2013, decided, among other things, whether an additional membership fee would be charged for access to the game.[1][2]
The poll ended at 00:00 UTC on Friday 1 March 2013 with the final tally of votes at 449,351.[2] Although 500,000 votes were needed to allow no additional membership fee, Jagex stated that the first six months of Old School RuneScape will not have any additional charge, and it has since remained without any additional charge, however. Currently, Old School RuneScape is running free-to-play and pay-to-play servers, thus meaning that players can create new F2P accounts for free without actively paying for membership.
Despite it having originally been stated that servers would take one to two months to be opened following a successful poll, on 22 February 2013 as part of an Early Access scheme, Jagex opened over 50 Old School RuneScape servers and gave a month of free Old School RuneScape membership credit to it to all of those who had voted in the poll. The game quickly saw player counts equalling those of the live version of the game, which has since been labelled "RuneScape 3" by the community in order to distinguish it.
Old School RuneScape works similarly to RuneScape Classic in that players can use their main accounts to access both games. However, any accomplishments, such as stats, items and quests, are separate and non-transferable. All players, regardless of achievements in other versions of the game, begin Old School RuneScape on Tutorial Island with a new character.
History and release
2007 servers of RuneScape were originally announced in early 2013. Jagex allowed players to vote for Old School RuneScape on a referendum, promising a set of features for every vote mark level reached.
Levels
Old School RuneScape was in four different levels, each with increasing vote requirements. The amount of votes can be seen on the official vote page. Regardless of the outcome, any voter will get a free month of Old School RuneScape game time. Although the vote count only reached 449,351 and not 500,000, Jagex decided not to charge the additional fee of five USD for the first six months (excluding the free month); however, on 7 June 2013, they announced that OSRS is here to stay and there will be no additional fee.[3]
| Features | Number of votes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | |
| 0 - 49,999 | 50,000 - 249,999 | 250,000 - 499,999 | 500,000 - 749,999 | 750,000 + | |
| Server launch? | 
|
|
|
|
|
| Open to free players? |
|
|
|
|
|
| Level of on-going development |
|
|
- Small team
|
- Additional dedicated development team
| |
| Additional membership cost (approx.) |
|
- $15
|
- $5
|
- No extra membership fee
| |
| Level of maintenance |
|
- Critical only
|
- Basic
|
- Weekly
| |
| Anti-bot/Anti-gold farming upgrade |
|
|
Possible |
|
|
| Regular membership polls to decide new content |
|
|
|
|
|
Note: The green shading in the table above only shows the vote mark reached on 1 March 2013 and the features that would have been given according to that vote mark. There have been many changes since the poll ended; click here to view them.
Level 1
The first level requires 50,000 votes, and is the absolute minimum amount of votes required to guarantee the Old School RuneScape release.
- $15 additional membership fee
- No game updates or bug fixes
- Critical maintenance only
Level 2
The second level requires 250,000 votes.
- $5 additional membership fee
- No major updates, only critical bug fixes
- Small development team
- Possibility of modern-day anti-bot technology over time, if needed
Level 3
The third level requires 500,000 votes.
- Free with current membership
- Some content updates, anti-bot technology added if necessary
- Maintenance will be done on a regular basis
Level 4
The fourth level requires 750,000 votes.
- No additional membership fee. Free portion of the game will be open for everyone.
- Content updates will be decided upon by regular polls.
- Modern anti-bot technology added if necessary
- Large development team for continuous maintenance
Features introduced
The following table shows the features that were introduced into OSRS. Jagex allowed other features from the 500,000 vote mark to be introduced in the game.
| Features | Number of votes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 0 | Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | |
| 0 - 49,999 | 50,000 - 249,999 | 250,000 - 499,999 | 500,000 - 749,999 | 750,000 + | |
| Server launch? |
|
|
|
|
|
| Open to free players? |
|
|
|
|
|
| Level of on-going development |
|
|
- Small team
|
- Additional dedicated development team | |
| Additional membership cost (approx) |
|
- $15
|
- $5
|
- No extra membership fee[nb 1] | |
| Level of maintenance |
|
- Critical only
|
- Basic
|
- Weekly
| |
| Anti-bot/Anti-gold farming upgrade |
|
|
Possible |
|
|
| Regular membership polls to decide new content |
|
|
|
|
|
Footnotes
- ^ a Jagex has previously stated that they will review this in September 2013, and if the server is still active and growing then it will remain free. However, on 7 June 2013, they announced that OSRS will remain free of extra charge.[3]
- On 25 January 2015, it was announced a poll would be coming to decide if full F2P should be introduced alongside membership bonds. The poll passed, and full Free to Play was introduced on 19 February 2015.
Core differences between OSRS and RS3
- Players must be aged 13 or over to play Old School RuneScape.
- Old School has turn-based combat that is mediated exclusively with weapons, armours, and prayers rather than Evolution of Combat, which makes use of abilities.
- Graphics are basic, with no texture packs to enhance models.
- The latest quest from the original game is King's Ransom. Later quests are developed separately.
- Aside from membership bonds, there are no Jagex microtransactions, such as Squeal of Fortune, Treasure Hunter, or Solomon's General Store.
- There is no Summoning, Dungeoneering, Divination, or Invention skill.
- Distractions and Diversions do not exist officially; however, some that were later given this title exist.
- A number of minigames do not exist; however, there are some minigames unique to Old School.
- Items that have been previously discontinued still exist. There also exist items that were never available before, such as beach boxing gloves and black partyhats.
Content
Most new content in the game is decided by Jagex-run polls based on player feedback obtained from social media such as the RuneScape Forums, Twitter, and Reddit. Players must have at a total level of at least 280 in Old School RuneScape to be eligible to vote in these polls. In order for a poll to be successful, it must be supported by 75% of the votes. Players could vote on the Old School RuneScape's poll page, or in-game via poll booths that are located in every bank.
Additions to the game include the God Wars Dungeon (which was not completed on 10 August 2007), although it was not the same as it was when it was released into the main game. There is content that exist that has never been seen before in the live game's history, and thus is exclusive to Old School RuneScape. For example, the Wilderness Rejuvenation introduced six new bosses in the Wilderness that drop the dragon pickaxe (which was nonexistent in 2007), components for Magic and Ranged equivalents to the obsidian shield.
Holiday items
Holiday items were first introduced into the game via random drop similar to the original holiday item drops. Each world only had one item spawned at a time in location chosen randomly from a predetermined list. Items stayed visible for 30 minutes or until they were picked up, at which point they would randomly respawn again. The first drop was held in the first week of June. Players could also obtain holiday items by killing a Jagex Moderator.
Later on, all holiday items from previous events were rewarded in bulk for completion of the corresponding holiday events (players completing an Easter event would receive all holiday items from previous Easter holiday events). This also included newly added holiday items unique to Old School—e.g. the rainbow partyhat.
Trivia
- When Old School RuneScape was initially released, uncleaned herbs were grimy even though on the 10th of August 2007, uncleaned herbs were still unidentified. This was intentionally done by Jagex to prevent players from scamming. Unidentified herbs were reinstated on the 25 February 2013. However, with the introduction of the Grand Exchange in Old School RuneScape, grimy herbs were reinstated to allow previously unidentified herbs to be listed on the Grand Exchange.
- On Day 1, the Old School Servers hit 50,000 online players after being up for only four (4) hours. During peak times, player count has been seen to rise up to 66,708. However, during offpeak, the count has dwindled to as low as 3,566. The current highest peak player number was obtained on 17 March 2013. The current lowest players was on 8 August 2013. (See this graph for player count.)[4]
- On January 25th, Mod Mat K held a "special discussion" about F2P for OSRS, and it was announced that permanent free-to-play would come to the game if membership bonds were introduced. It was polled the following week, and passed by 85.9%. F2P worlds were made available on February 19th, in celebration of Old School's 2nd Birthday.[5]