RuneScape Boasts Most Players of Any MMO

[kitsuta]

RuneScape Boasts Most Players of Any MMO

Jagex celebrates 200 million users with a new boss and a look back at RuneScape's past.

Quick, off the top of your head, what's the most popular MMO? There are a couple contenders - World of Warcraft has, of course, held the top spot for some time, and it's still the standard-bearer other games refer to. Then there's League of Legends, which recently outpaced [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118411-League-of-Legends-Topples-World-of-Warcraft-as-Most-Played-PC-Game] World of Warcraft in terms of sheer playtime. Now there's another, dark horse candidate: RuneScape. The browser MMO is celebrating a milestone of 200 million lifetime registered users, which is more than any other game of its type.

Registered users aren't necessarily active users, but it's still an impressive feat for the ten-year-old game. Developer Jagex is celebrating with a infographic [http://www.runescape.com/200million/index.ws] listing a variety of statistics for the game. The infographic boasts, among other things, more than 443 billion total minutes of playtime, 150 dragons killed per day, and 27 player deaths per second.

Released in early 2001, RuneScape is one of the longest-running MMOs in the business. While smaller titles may boast a longer official uptime, like the earning the Guinness World Record's Award [http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/9000/longest-running-social-mmorpg] for "Most Prolifically Updated MMORPG." The interactive timeline on the celebration website gives an interesting picture of just how far the game has come from its inception.

Jagex is also celebrating the milestone in-game with a new special boss that has, you guessed it, 200 million hitpoints. That's going to take a lot of clicking.

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[Carnagath]

199 millions of those are bots, but still, 1 million is a pretty impressive number.

 

[Fappy]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

 

[FogHornG36]

*raises hand*

Back in grade school some ten years ago...

I don't remember it looking like that game on the screen shot...

 

[Psychemaster]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Still do, actually.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

*hand up* Tried it once, fucking awful. Quit the next day.

 

[cidbahamut]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Played it over a dial up connection. I remember it fondly, but I don't think I'd ever go back.

 

[Fappy]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Still do, actually.

Have they changed significantly in anyway? The screenshot looks higher quality than what I remember. Granted, I haven't played the game in like 7 years.

 

[PureIrony]

*raises hand*

I wouldn't go so far as to call if awful, but I wasted way more time on this game then it warranted.

 

[Rainboq]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Still do, actually.

Have they changed significantly in anyway? The screenshot looks higher quality than what I remember. Granted, I haven't played the game in like 7 years.

I occasionally pop back whenever Steam is on the fritz, and they've been updating it, still can't stand it. Its the reason I never got into wow, the whole idea of it just doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Gardenia]

*Hello, my name is Gardenia, and I'm a Runescape player*
Was, anyway. Back in 2004. It taught me valuable lessons. Most of them about avoiding scams.

 

[tetron]

Proud to be one of these users. This game was terrible but god did I love playing it when I was a kid.

 

[Daymo]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Still do, actually.

Have they changed significantly in anyway? The screenshot looks higher quality than what I remember. Granted, I haven't played the game in like 7 years.

A bit, mostly for members though, in the time I played back around 2008 or so they introduced a couple of new skills and were working on a huge quest line to do with the Dragons. The game looks nicer and for good or bad, many of the tasks are more automated with do X becoming more common. Then my friends quit and I realised how much of grind exponetial leveling becomes.

 

[DEAD34345]

I don't get the hate for this game. It was a fun little time waster, in fact I enjoyed it enough to complete every single quest you can without being a paying member. I still occasionally go back, just to see how things have changed. Sadly, almost all of these updates are for members only, and I don't quite enjoy the game enough to pay real money for it. The only thing left for me in that game is skill grinding, and I doubt anything could ever convince me to mine 364,413 more chunks of iron ore.

 

[Erttheking]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

I'm not going to raise my hand...oh I played the game it's just that I'm not ashamed. I have a lot of nostalgia memories of this game.

 

[Justank]

Raise your shameful hand if you have ever played this game.



*Raises hand*

Hand raised here, though the only time I played it was in comp lab in high school. I hated that game so much, but it was one of the only things I could do to avoid being productive so it was certainly time well spent! Or something like that...

 

[Austichar]

I used to play it quite a lot, but stopped a little while ago. Ever since Jagex got bought out by that IVP investment company and the original creators left the game has gone wayy downhill.

 

[ThePS1Fan]

*Raises hand* Although I'll never no why. I could just make a .swf of a guy swinging an axe at a tree and watch it for 3 hours a day to simulate the experience

 

[Charli]

Had an account... for about a day.

Hooray I'm a meaningless statistic. (I'm sorry I lived in South East Asia and was used to far prettier Korean F2P MMO's even if they were less in depth so I was just so put off by the ugly)


...What are these articles for again?