The old school version of Runescape will be released on February 24:

Old School is RuneScape

The best retro fantasy MMORPG on the planet. Old School is RuneScape but… older! This is the open world you know and love, but as it was in 2007. Saying that, it’s even better than that – Old School is shaped by you, its players, with regular new content, fixes and expansions voted for by the fans!

Thank henriquejr!

The classic MMORPG RuneScape will be released on Steam on October 14:

RuneScape

RuneScape is a high fantasy open world MMORPG. Explore an ever changing and evolving living world where new challenges, skills, and quests await. Featuring unprecedented player freedom, you choose how to play, adventure, and grow. 

From ProtoxxGaming:

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If you remember old school Runescape you probably remember the Falador Massacre. In remembrance the Old School Runescape team have set up a tournament server-World 666.

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Old School Runescape is marking the 10-year anniversary of one of the all-time best MMO bugs: the Falador Massacre.

The Falador Massacre started with a house party. Player Cursed You had become the first person in Runescape to max their Construction skill and invited a few dozen friends round to mark the occasion. Things got rowdy, as such events tend to, and people took to the combat ring for some sparring, which flagged them for PvP as intended.

However, when Cursed You kicked them from the house, the PvP flag remained. The horde of revellers marauded through Falador, killing everyone in their path. Plaintive cries of "Bank your items" echo to this day.

In remembrance, the Old School Runescape team have set up a tournament server-World 666-that makes Falador a battleground once more.

Runescape have released a new game client NXT.

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NXT - New Game Client | Now Live for Everyone

NXT - RuneScape's all-new game client - is here!

This means better RuneScape performance than ever before, and it looks great too - vast viewing distances, dynamic shadows and beautiful lighting effects.

To celebrate, embark on Benedict's World Tour: a globe-trotting mini-adventure that's perfect for taking in the sights.

NXT is available to download now - for everyone. Enjoy!

GamerHub.tv interviewed Phil Mantell  of Jagex about the new Runescape expansion.

If you played RuneScape in the past and haven't logged on to your account in a while you may be out of luck. The developer has deleted millions of account names.

RuneScape frees up tens of millions of dormant account names: Who will become the new ‘King_Elf’?

29^th August 2014:   The multi-award winning fantasy MMORPG, RuneScape, has announced that it is to free up millions of long-term dormant account names for use in the game. Sixty-six million character names, out of the 220 million player accounts created since its 2001 launch, will again become available for use. For the first time in over a decade, someone can give themselves such ‘illustrious’ names as, Lord_Mage, King_Elf, Fonz, and even … GaryBarlow.

Approximately 20 percent of the dormant accounts – around 13 million – will be released ready for new owners this week alone. The first batch of character names were made available to the RuneScape community on 5^th and 13^th August, with such ‘desirable’ titles as Banksy, ElloEllo, and C akelord up for grabs. Further character names will be released in the weeks ahead.

For the first 24 hours after the release of each batch, players who want to change their name will require a minimum total level of 1,000 to do so. This allows those who have invested their time in RuneScape to grab the name they want ahead of newer account holders. Once the 24 hours have passed, all members will be eligible.

The release of millions of dormant names comes after RuneScape celebrated strong growth of 20 percent in both subscribers and active players in July this year alone.

About RuneScape

Venture forth into the rich and immersive medieval fantasy world of Gielinor, where even the smallest of actions affect the vast world around you. Recognised repeatedly by Guinness World Records as the world’s most popular free-to-play MMORPG, RuneScape offers unparalleled levels of choice to its players, where they can be anyone, go anywhere or slay anything in their own unique open world adventure alongside millions of other players. Start the world’s most rewarding adventure today at www.RuneScape.com.

If any of you still play RuneScape the developers Jagex have released a new dungeon to celerabte reaching one million players.

RUNESCAPE OLD SCHOOL CELEBRATES REACHING ONE MILLION PLAYERS BY UNLEASHING THE GOD WARS DUNGEON

Wednesday 23^rd October, Cambridge, UK - More than one million retro gaming fans have flocked to RuneScape Old School since Jagex, the UK-based developer, launched a 2007 version of the multi-award winning RuneScape in February this year. Having been released following the mobilisation of over 450,000 players who voted for the launch of Old School, Jagex have continued to empower the community to take control of the developmental direction by allowing them to vote on every update that goes into game.

Following a landslide vote where over 89% of the community voted for the introduction of the God Wars Dungeon to Old School RuneScape, this release heralds in a new era of boss hunting and group gameplay. Featuring four new bosses, K’ril Tsutsaroth, Commander Zilyana, General Graardor and Kree’arra, players have a chance of obtaining a legendary Godsword, the most powerful weapon known to Old School. In addition, new sets of high level melee and range armours and high level weapons including the Staff of the Dead and the Armadyl Crossbow have also been added to the game.

“Seeing RuneScape Old School hit the million player mark so soon after launch is a great milestone for the game and our players have joined the celebration by voting for the game’s most epic update to date,” commented Phil Mansell, RuneScape’s Executive Producer. “Players will need to be steadfast and defiant in order to win through and defeat the gods, but if successful, players will be rewarded beyond their wildest imagination. It is the ultimate game of seeking treasure or die trying – something RuneScape has grown famous for.”

A post on the official website for Runescape 3 has announced the release date for the game is July 22nd.

We are thrilled to announce that RuneScape 3 has an official launch date: Monday 22nd July.

We can also finally reveal the centrepiece content for RuneScape 3: the Battle of Lumbridge. This will be a world event of epic scale where your decisions and actions will forever shape the story of Gielinor. The future of RuneScape is in your hands.

This is a brave new age for RuneScape in technology, story and gameplay.

Technology:

• HTML5 game client: The next generation of browser technology. It brings a big step up in visual quality with improved lighting, draw distance and colour, loading into your browser in moments, without the need for plug-ins or Java.
• New audio engine: High-fidelity audio and music, featuring full orchestral pieces written by BAFTA Award winner James Hannigan and played by the Slovak Symphony Orchestra.
• Seasonal high scores: Compete against your friends and the rest of the RuneScape community to rank on weekly and monthly leaderboards.

Story:

• Dawn of the Sixth Age: The gods of RuneScape are returning. Entrusted as World Guardians, players have the power to decide which gods will win and lose in their struggles for supremacy.
• The Battle of Lumbridge: An epic-scale world event which will shake the foundations of Gielinor, and one which is driven entirely by your actions. Week by week, your choices will shape the flow of battle and the fate of characters, locations and stories, and the ultimate outcome will set the course for RuneScape’s future.

Gameplay:

• New Interface System: Designed for ease of use and massive depth of customisation, the NIS lets you quickly change RuneScape’s UI according to your play style at any given moment. It also includes feature upgrades such as key binding and a resizable minimap to put even more choice at your fingertips.
• Upgraded camera: Overhauled and updated, a new in-game camera gives you the freedom to view Gielinor like never before.
• New community website: Customise your community experience to your specifications, with a new easy-to-navigate website focused on your needs.

Something you don't see everyday, two teens get 360 hours of community service for theft of Runescape itamz (sorry). Eurogamer have the story.

The 15 and 14-year-old culprits forced a 13-year-old boy into a transferring a "virtual amulet and a virtual mask" to their accounts in RuneScape.

The Yahoo report is light on detail, but we understand from our friends at Eurogamer.nl, who read about it in the paper this morning, that the errant teens beat up and kicked the victim, and threatened him with a knife.

Julian Murdoch previews the, in beta, graphic update for RS.

In updating the engine, the challenge for Jagex was to keep the game as accessible as possible. Despite the "HD" moniker, the system specifications are still so ridiculously minimal that most cell phones could hit the mark. Think specs like "1.5GHz processor or higher", or "256MB RAM or more", or a GeForce3 level (and higher, of course) graphics card with just 64MB of RAM. Modern computers are on Java 6, while Runescape merely requires Java 1.4.

While these specifications might seem laughably low, they ensure that the game can be run on the aging Windows 98 machines that have been sitting in school libraries since the turn of the century, devoid of driver updates, or even Java upgrades. While the client uses OpenGL to drive the new graphics, the code is just Java, and takes less than 10 seconds to load on a fast connection. Considering these specifications, the engine itself is surprisingly pretty. The most notable changes are the use of real, discernable textures for all surfaces and a rudimentary lighting model which brings dynamic shadows to the game for the first time. All of the changes are subtle but positive -- a flag that now looks like cloth waves in the breeze, casting a hazy shadow on water which now actually looks like water, and ripples with transparency. It's not Age of Conan, but to be blunt, it's not half-bad either.

Develop take a look at the commercial success of RS: Jagex - a 'poster boy' for a world without publishers?

The article, written by analyst Nick Gibson adds: "As an online games business, Jagex’s business model is very dissimilar to traditional computer and video games developers.

Its principal business partners are not games publishers but hosting and bandwidth companies, payment service providers, advertisers and distribution companies. Jagex operates with the sort of creative and commercial autonomy that most other developers could only dream of. It remains one of the quietest and least publicised developers in the UK (a stance taken deliberately by its management team).

"In addition to being one of the most profitable, Jagex is also the UK’s largest independent developer by staff level, and one of the biggest employers. Its commercial model should make it a poster boy for the disintermediation of publishers and the ‘direct to consumer’ distribution channel in which so many developers place their hopes."

Read the full profile here.

Jagex's popular MMO to get graphical rework within a few months.

In last week's Image of the Future newspost, we revealed our secret plan for RuneScape: a complete graphical rework. We were sneaky and held back a little information, however: namely, when you can expect these updates.

Drum-roll, please... You will have access to all of these updates within a couple of months! There really isn't much time to wait. If you can't wait for more details on the update, a new Development Diary is coming later this month.

We plan to keep improving RuneScape's graphics in the future, so we would encourage you to 'Send us your Specs', if you have not already.

Finally, we can reveal another image of the future...

Gamasutra talks to Andrew Gower about RuneScape and the recent announcement that its subscriber base has surpassed 1 million.

What do you feel has been the biggest differentiating factor behind RuneScape's popularity in making it to the one million subscriber milestone?

AG: I think one of the biggest things is the game's continual updates. We're constantly adding to the game, bringing new stuff in and improving it. It's interesting, but with each addition, we see surges of growth.

We saw a huge surge with our recent addition of player houses, and again with our recent graphics update. The fact that we keep updating it, adding more to the experience, I think is key. Plus, people like having things to look forward to.

readingeagle.com has just published a short article about RuneScape by Nick Wingfield of The Wallstreet Journal. The article centers on the game's considerable popularity and financial success, despite its simplicity and being free to play.

RuneScape isn’t the most sophisticated or original online game, and its graphics pale in comparison with those in better-known titles like Vivendi Universal SA’s World of Warcraft.

But because the game is free and easy to download, it has become a big hit, especially among teenagers, for whom the game is something like a three-dimensional version of the social-networking Web site MySpace.com. This week, for example, “RuneScape” is the fourth most searched-for term on the Lycos search engine, after “poker,” “Pamela Anderson” and “Paris Hilton.”

A new gameplay element to RuneScape has been added called Treasure Trails which involves gathering clues to find treasures in the form of new items:

 RuneScape players, dust off your spades, gather up your items and practice your emotes: new treasure trails are here! Emote-based treasure trails have been added to the types of trail available by the shifty-looking Uri and his team of agents. These will be dropped from now on amongst the existing clues you have grown to know and love. Uri's clues will tell you where to go, what to wear and which emote he wants to see you perform in order to advance the treasure trail.

If you're lucky, your reward may include some of the new items, such as elegant clothing, new versions of old amulets, shirts featuring Bob the cat, full helmets bearing the heraldry that adorns the kiteshields already available and composite bows. The luckiest players will be given items from the 3rd Age sets, which cover all combat styles and consist of level 65 armors whose stats justify the rarity of their appearance.

This week sees the release of our biggest and most anticipated update this year: player-owned houses. No longer must RuneScape members wander the world endlessly, never being able to sit down or have a place to call their own. Members can build their houses and make furniture using the new Construction skill. Start by building a cottage with a few chairs around a fire, and add rooms and gain levels until you have your own palace. Some pieces of furniture will unlock new abilities, magic spell tablets, and even chairs you can sit down in.

This incredible update features over 20 rooms, 330 pieces of furniture, 11 new NPCs, 12 dungeon monsters, craftable toys, new armour and shields, trophy rooms, tool racks, different architectural styles, butlers and a whole host of new games to play with your house guests!