Looking back at 2013, it really struck me what a massive year it’s been for RuneScape. It’s hard to believe that in the space of a year there’s been two epic scale world events; a new age in RuneScape’s story; a brand new skill; several high-end bosses; an overhaul to the game’s interfaces; and some truly superb quests.
I think the game’s health has improved too. Flower game "hot/cold" spam is a thing of the past, bots are almost non-existent.
We've made your investment in the game worth more than ever, too. There’s now more than double the number of items available with Loyalty Points, the community helped real people via the Well of Goodwill; and Bonds made all our paid services available for in-game effort, while knocking real-world trading and gold farming to its lowest point for many years. Let’s not forget the vote and launch of Old School RuneScape, which was spurred into life by community willpower!
We’ve had a few disappointments too. I’m particularly frustrated that our promise of HTML5 as a successor to the Java-based client couldn’t be realised in the current generation of web browsers.
I also feel the community’s frustration at quest quantity - while the production values of quests have never been higher, we didn’t deliver enough of them. Also, while I think we’ve significantly refined PvM combat, the updated system needs more improvement for PvP.
We can be idealistic and over-ambitious at times, and while we produced a lot of great content, I think we over-estimated what we could achieve this year and didn't deliver in certain areas. This is something we need to improve, we resolve to make amends in 2014. We’ve got some very big news on this front coming next week.
As a player, I’ve got some great memories from this year: valiantly battling Armadyleans in World Event 2; diving back into Dungeoneering to get my Daemonheim auras; and completing each of the Super Challenges in Super September. I've run the cannon gauntlet in Birthright of the Dwarves; made tough choices while face-to-face with Guthix; and added Sinkholes, Player-Owned Ports, Warbands and God Statues into my gameplay routine.
As a JMod, I look back fondly on meeting players at RuneFest: watching the community’s reaction to the big reveals from World Wakes and the Battle of Lumbridge, tracking the race to 99 Divination, and seeing the competitive spirit of livestreamers when Vorago launched. I've also got more in touch with players via the forums, Twitter and Reddit. This is a really special time to be part of the RuneScape community, and I can’t wait to talk to you about what’s coming next.
But in the meantime, join me and the other JMods in sharing your highlights from RuneScape in 2013 over on the forums.
Mod Pips
Executive Producer