boxingodric: Jimmy, as an rs3 player who really does love the game and hates treasure hunter, I greatly appreciate you lending our community your voice. Truly, thank you.

crispyboi3084: This guy looks really similar to that guy J1mmy

TheJaultman: 100% if permanent, fresh start worlds were added with no MTX, I would play. These worlds would also help the developers learn which parts of RS3 as a game can be improved, because more players would be engaging with those systems and comment on any pain points.

123455thatguy: The audacity from the last survey to see how much more people would be willing to pay to remove MTX, only to then raise prices and keep MTX.

The community has no faith.

Oxy80111: "The first hit is free" in regards to being able to earn a few keys through actual gameplay. Common drug dealer tactics being employed here.

MING00P: Honestly, shout out to Mod Pips.

So many people in his position inheriting this mess would've felt the game wasn't salvageable and would've just kept milking the whales until the game collapsed.

Mad respect that he's exploring ways to make things better. Hell of a leader.

-tristan: Personally, I will never trust RS3 corporate ownership to do what is best for the game ever again.

iiamGreed: Jim:How much money do you need to run the game?

Mod: That doesn’t matter? On a different note, how much are you willing to give us?

RockinAfr0: I remember when OSRS came out and I didn't switch over because I didn't want to start over. Fast forward a few years and I started noticing how OSRS was doing and it made me want to try it out, even if I had to start over and it was awesome! People will hessitate starting over, but if done right it can 100% be the right choice and work for the better!

Even so, there is a LOT that would have to be done, also behind the curtains, to make RS3 a compelling modern MMO, mechanically speaking. It is FAR from a uniform game in style, many systems are very dated and it's such a spaghetti-fied game that it often times seems like it will collapse under its own weight. For example, you are wondering why RS3 allows for construction training outside of POH? It's because they've mentioned on live streams that reworking the POH and construction as a skill would be a project that would take a dedicated dev team upwards of 3 years to complete from inventarising all the systems that tie into it up until release. RS3 has potential, but I am not sure it is within the bounds of reason for a company with a profit motive to make the necessary steps to revive it.

sagetmaster4: Bro when the source was a deleted twitch clip... perfection

nullpip: Even though Phil's reply didn't include any insight, answer or counterpoint, I've got to appreciate him acknowledging Jimmy's reply on Twitter with his "Fair points!" post.

isaacr7416: Wow! The construction example is so enlightening. No wonder the game struggles. That's not even a game. Imagine if they reset rs3 without mtx and it became great like osrs?

Zenith-ly7pr: The question Jagex is really asking is "Is RS3 WORTH saving?"

Icycrits: The reason people are so against cosmetic microtransactions in MMOs specifically is because it cannibalizes the entire sense of progression and journey. When you go to the GE in OSRS and you're standing there looking at these some dude in their Inferno Capes and Twisted bows, you know that guy is cracked and you aspire to be like him, setting forth your entire journey and motivation to play the game and be one of them.

Meanwhile, as someone who has played the game since 2004, when I logged into RS3 to give it another chance, I had no idea what anything was and anytime I looked into any cool looking items, it just ended up being an unobtainable microtransaction from some removed Treasure Hunter promotion. In fact, the ultimate irony is that if anything, the only thing that still instilled any sense of awe in me was seeing a blue partyhat on someone. A cosmetic which isn't something you could just buy for 20 dollars from Jagex.

bretthuston4727: It is a really sorry state of the game to need to play ironman for it to feel rewarding. I will say though, after playing both an RS3 maxed main, and OSRS iron, and an RS3 iron, RS3 iron is my favorite RS game to play.

gubzs: It doesn't really matter if they remove it now - the game has been permanently harmed by years of this.

Runescape really needs a true sequel, and it wouldn't even need to be significantly different from RS3. It just needs a completely fresh start with a clean track record of healthy monetization, a new coat of paint, new stories, new quests, removal of all the old jank, revisited skills, etc.

TigerFangRS: Man yeah the email and survey they sent out is actually amazing and gives me so much hope.

One of the questions was

Would you play on a permanate Fresh start world with no mtx, essentially and or just what items would you want removed, in priority such as EXP Lamps vs double exp or proteins vs other items.

Preach it tho, Fresh start world during the competitive weeks was amazing, no mtx, just grind.

jekrs: As an extremely enfranchised OSRS player (snowflake ironman series and all), I would play the SHIT out of fresh RS3 worlds with no MTX and improved progression. I'm the guy you were talking about getting 99s in 2010, and I feel pain for the game we never got because of MTX. Hit the button, Jagex, become the hero of this story.

Yltimate_: Funny enough, while osrs was down last night, i started a rs3 hcim

Ngl its pretty fun

It gets alot of hate but as someome who only plays osrs, no other games its pretty neat that its semi familar and yet different

I understand the mainscape mtx is dogshit

RNGLuck: OK LISTEN

the problem with these surveys is a thing called survivor's bias:

the people they're being sent to are people who are STILL playing the game despite the fact that the mtx is so predatory. the result of it is going to be leaning more towards favoring the transactions than would be the case in a larger sample size and if you were going to be accurate you would want to include the people who also QUIT the game because of them

in world war 2 the planes were coming back covered in holes so someone suggested that because of the holes being confined to certain areas of the planes they should add more armour to those specific areas when in fact its the opposite because the planes being shot down were the ones being hit where the ones returning were not.

Gilsworth: i maxed a character in RS3 before they added archaeology and necromancy, if only because my character was created in 2003 and is old enough to get married, drink booze, and go to war and die (in that order), and the experience just progressively got worse and worse and worse.

The final straw for me was after I got 200mil firemaking xp, on a double xp weekend, just to say that I had gotten 200mil in something at least once. After I did that I felt completely hollow... what was the point? What did it amount to? What enjoyment or pride could I derive from this account? Literally the only thing that made me happy about that account was its longevity and untradable scythe drop from the 2003 halloween event.

I was reluctant to start over from scratch on OSRS, but there was no other option left. I made an ironman on OSRS, got it to base 80s and then figured I might as well just use my OG account and level that one up as well, unrestricted. I'm almost base 70s on that account, with a couple 99s.

The grind has been real, but it has also been rewarding. I find myself giving a shit and wanting to log on, to get the herb sack, to imbue my slayer helmet, to go down a wild chain of seemingly random tasks that makes my overarching goal easier, because gaining xp requires actual effort - and in taking this journey I am exposed to so much of the game, even the shitty parts like Fishing Trawler means something because now that I have my Angler Outfit I can be satisfied in knowing that I don't have to do that crap minigame ever again.

Can't see RS3 ever recovering unless they do a hard reset, delete MTX, make basic features like xp/hour free for everyone, and allow players to influence the game in a meaningful and healthy way.

But because of the lack of transparency, I'm also wondering if they can even do this and not go bankrupt, or have to fire half of their staff. Will be interesting to see how this progresses.

BlueCarloz: I play rs3 ironman and osrs. Rs3 ironman is nice bc no mtx there.

MrBytorr: Tbh I don't WANT the players influencing the game updates on RS3. Not to the extent of OSRS anyway, because the flaws in that system are readily apparent. I'd rather have Necromancy and Archaeology rather than Sailing and... Nothing.

senoka4638: I know the biggest issue is treasure hunter but I have to mention something else that I absolutely hate. Limited time content. Imagine you're a new player. You're a teenager who wasn't around for the glory days. I mean really, you didn't exist yet. And you are starting to get into the game and considering a membership. You see a cool pet/weapon/armor/etc. You ask them how can I get that? Do I earn it? Do I pay for it? Is it a cool yearly/monthly event I can play to get? They say no. You simply cannot have it because you didn't play the game when it came out. You didn't even exist and you are locked out of content. I know for some this is super minor. But it's the principal of it. You are playing a game that, no matter how much you spend or support, has content you simply can never have due to reasons potentially out of your control. If you are a completionist. Screw you I guess. If you are simply a collector of a specific type of content. Out of luck there bud.

FOMO is bad because it stresses you into spending time and money to get something. But this? It's simply a no. A no straight to your face. One of the best parts of Runescape, and many other great games, is earning rewards through challenges. But seeing something that you want but can never have it just a purely negative experience with no real value. I get it, some people have a weird ego trip when they can show off that old item newer players can't have. But that's not making Runescape any money. So, I don't see any reason to not let newer players earn older content. It's more to do and it's more incentive to stay a member as it would probably take years to earn everything. Anyway, that's my rant.

If you can't tell I'm bitter I didn't get the Corgi pet in 2012.

meue3387: The problem is, RS3 for myself and a lot of other players is so much more than just grinding skills. I personally care much more about completion of Boss logs and other PVM related accolades for example.

While I think the MTX thing is a huge issue, if they were to do a full server wipe and have everyone start over it would cause a lot of players like myself to just not even bother and quit. Not because I want mtx (I hardly even use it), but because I probably only have 5 hours of non AFK time a week to play games, and I do not want to spend 500 getting my account to the point where I can actually feel good about grinding bosses with it again, not to mention all of the time going for those achievments once I'm there.

Its definitely a really tough situation.

Knooterino: Honestly, RS3 has some great content. The progression is fun, stories are good, and it's different enough from OSRS that it's totally worth trying. New player experience sucks. MTX sucks. Both of those things just kills so much of the game, that most main players probably don't even know half the content exists, because you can just Protean/lamp/bonus xp without interacting with any skills. I've been playing an RS3 ironman for like, 2-3 years now. I don't play all the time. But I keep coming back to it. I've got like 13 99s, and each one felt great to achieve. You can do bossing and dungeoneering with other irons, so some of the social aspects are still there and you can do things with your friends unlike OSRS irons. Necro has been a fun skill to level and was a great addition to get new people into the action bar system and how an MMO class would work, building up resources and spending them on strong abilities. Archaeology might be one of the best RS skills ever developed, with a meaningful gathering skill that also has completionist aspects to it, that also link into cool and expansive lore for the rest of the game. It's such a shame you can't experience the fun parts of the game just because you have access to spending real world money to skip it all.

RSNathan911: I got the email, I've never bought MTX, play RS3 on the regular, slammed MTX into the dirt as the biggest trash ever.

zepwafels: The future should have been RS4, and I have been saying that for many years. Get rid of all the legacy stuff, clean up the spaghetti code, abandon RuneScript and RuneTek7 (it is 10 year old now ffs), reduce the .6s ticks, update the tile grid system, rework and expand the map size, get rid of the dead content, update the world with a consistent graphics style in mind etc. In short, clean up the trash of the past 25 years RS accumulated. Learn from the mistakes of the past while still keeping what works.

If Jigglyflex started working on RS4 when the cracks started to seriously appear in RS3 (this what somewhere near 2016-17ish) we would have a modern, smooth running RS4 now. But no, they choose to be the meme dog in the burning house saying "this is fine".

The harsh reality is that unlike OSRS, RS3 did not age well. The game is so outdated on nearly all fronts, that it is unsalvageable for the new generation of gamers, little to no new blood enters the game, while the veteran players who make up the overwhelming majority of RS3 player slowly but surely shrink as the years creep by.This is what I call a 'zombie' game at this state, and these games never truly 'die', they just exist in a near-perpetual state of undead. It may be many years, if not decades when RS3 truly dies.

So my advice for Jamflex is the same: Keep supporting RS3 while working on RS4, and when it is out, put RS3 on life support or leave it with a skeleton crew. There is no future for RS3.

marky701: Prefacing this with that I'm not disagreeing with your view on this, I fucking hate MTX as a concept and would much rather just pay a higher monthly sub, but...

The problem with a big reset is the other thousands of hours worth of accomplishments that people have gone through that aren't related to MTX. Collection logs, Completionist capes etc, some of the grinds here are immensely long and have taken years to do. To me it's a case of Remove TH, and it's just gone, and people then have to deal with it and go back to other skilling methods for XP gains. Lets face it, the whales who spam keys and max out probably don't/wont' play anymore as they have no real connection to their account since it's just MTX'ed (like with your FSW account where you don't want to play it) the people who abused TH would just die off leaving people who actually want to play the game for what it is.

The argument of devaluing accomplishments by leaving the gained xp from TH in there isn't really there imo, since you would devalue a heck of a lot more dedicated players by wiping the other non MTX related achievements from them if you were to hit a big reset button. This is coming from someone who has gone through trimmed completionism, has 99% of the achievements in game done, is working on the Golden reaper title (all boss collection logs) and has a fair number of clues under his belt too. Having that taken away would be soul destroying and I certainly wouldn't play RS again if it were to happen. I tried OSRS when it launched and have popped on to leagues a couple of times but starting over is just not an option for me, I've done all the stuff before, I don't want to spend thousands of hours grinding it again.

Having another split in the RS community wouldn't go well either. RS3 needs to be kept as 1 or it will just die, it can't split again like it did with OSRS as there would be the inevitable "oh you pay that version....eww" fights that still to this day go on between RS3 and OSRS communities.

GrimmDesires: I would 1,000% play a fresh start no MTX rs3 account.

Capopoi: I started playing RS3 again after a few years break, trying to get my master quest cape back. Over 3.2k virtual level, approaching 2b total xp, handful 120 and 200m skills, etc. I don't like mtx. I've tried playing OSRS so many times and I never last longer than a week. I've tried rs3 ironmen and they never get far. The point is that I'm attached to the the character I've made and built almost 20 years ago and what I've done along the way. I just can't get myself to care about a fresh start. This entire situation just hurts because even if there's some perma fresh start and it gains traction, those of us who don't want to leave these characters we put so much time into will just have to deal with the population of our side of RS3's further dwindling population. Just trying to conceptualize how to dig out of the hole RS3's dug itself makes me feel like I'll be one of those MMO players without a home game sooner than I thought.

death2hope: I would pay 15 or 20 if it let us get membership on all are accounts.. but i cant have more then 1 account at the moment idk how people have 20 accounts with members atm

tomvanramshorst2146: Just want to point out to appreciate the passion that turns this into a 52 minute video. I hope Jagex will listen to this. And wether they do or not, I appreciate what you do for the community by releasing this video.

sterisbeast4127: I just want dungeoneering in osrs (it can be a mini game and not a skill)

Soundwave218: EDIT: I should add for context, I am 36 years old, I don't have the time or really, the years to do this all over again at this point.

The main problems I have with a reset button option is I have spent literal decades doing stuff in this game, and if I have to do it all over again, I won't.

I don't want to spend countless hours collecting resources I already collected or doing long and difficult quests I've already completed. I also have stuff I'm afraid won't move over like cosmetic items, or for example, the capes that represent how long I've been playing or my Classic Runescape cape (a cape given to you if you logged into the original version of Runescape) or the old holiday items I got for being there all those years ago.

I'm not interested in slowly grinding out skills again. That doesn't mean I want to buy my way back to 99's it just means I won't participate ever again.

Even if they include a legacy RS3 server, why would I continue to play? That version will most likely never receive another update and slowly wither away anyway.

At that point, the game might as well be dead to me.

If it was a softer reset, sure, I could deal with that. Kinda like the RS1 to RS2 transition, or if my skills HAVE to reset, then I would want the exp rates to be better, and I could just claim rewards from all the quests I've previously done instantly when logging in.

But if I lost everything? Nah, I'm good. I don't want to invest another 20 years on and off.

All that being said. This was a wonderful video. I love your content and keep up the good work.

WingsofAbsurdity: Hi, thank you for sharing & lending your voice to the RS3 community. You made a lot of great points about the game that I agree with especially when it comes to MTX. However, I would like to give my own perspective as a RS3 player myself that has played Runescape for almost 19 years now. To get straight to the point, TH is a plague to the game and I think it needs to be removed because of its lootbox/gambling reasons.

Just to give my perspective what type of player I am. When I started Runescape, I never once cared about the leaderboards because whoever started the game first or has more time to play will imo always have the advantage no matter what. I paid 0 attention to it, the value of it don't matter because it was always just about who has more time or started before me. I did quit just before the release of EOC(I had no idea it was even planned or existed) because the RS2 got extremely boring. Then RS3 came with cosmetics, MTX, the ability bar, lots of drastic changes. All of it was overwhelming at first but eventually I found enjoyment in the game. Especially the cosmetics.

With this out the of the way, I want to touch on my own experiences with Treasure Hunter. Since its existence all the way until late 2022, the only thing I did with it is use my daily 1-3 keys that I get for free. Then Jagex started adding cosmetic overrides to them which caused me to engage in Treasure Hunter more and more in late 2022. I relied on using ingame GP to buy bonds or using oddments for keys and started doing the saving keys method in order to save for their next predatory FOMO cosmetic promo. As a fashionscaper, this is when I felt TH was at its worst state than it ever has been. It only slow down a tiny bit after the reveal of the roadmap this year. My biggest issue with this is the gambling/lootbox shenanigans. It felt like I was playing those Korean MMO with atrocious RNG rates. 40% to get a star instead of an outfit piece is very annoying. My opinion on what they can do at least is, delete TH, spend more time making cosmetics and sell them for runecoins in the Marketplace/Solomon's Store.

With my opinion on MTX stated, I would like to touch on some of the points you have made.

--> Sense of accomplishment of XP devalued by MTX

Now granted I never had valued xp even before MTX, my opinion is going to be skewed here. I think the concept of sense of accomplishment XP is overvalued.

Let's say $$ is removed then. If I was to visit an old MMO game where I spent months grinding to get level 30. Then in the future due to power creep, change, and state of the game, you can get to level 30 in 20 minutes now. Time already devalues XP IMO and Runescape is no exception to this. Whether that be wasting too much time(I've got responsibilities now, I don't see anything interesting about clicking the same thing again to gain xp) or the rates are too high. Actually given my state on TH, my levels were done more from afking too hard from one click skilling than anything TH has offered me. Either way, I don't level up for others, I do it for myself and that has more value than anything else. Even if MTX didn't exist in a perfect world, I could care less that you got 200M this way or that because again.. TIME. Bringing me to the next thing I will bring up.

-> POH being useless because people just bankstand now for better xp rates

RS3 is vastly different on how useful POH is compared to OSRS. Lodestones, run energy being less of a problem, faster xp rates to get teleport spells all contribute to this factor.

If MTX is removed, POH would still be dead for construction XP. Construction is now more tied to what we now call Fort Forinthry which has more uses than POH as it provides benefits to enhance skilling's QOL. Construction from what I heard is mostly trained at the fort rather than breaking the same chair to build again. Only notable use for POH is Aquarium, statue, and repairing items.

Do I wish POH had a more use? I wish.. it looked better and less clunky to work with. I would love a homestead replacing POH entirely rather than working on old spaghetti code.

--> Bankstanding for XP Rates

POH example out of the way, portables are extremely good because the alternatives suck. Either they make it so you can earn it ingame or add something alternative that doesn't suck. Most people will go for best xp rates or resource saving methods whenever they can. Disassociate MTX with this and you'd probably get people bankstanding at the same portable if portables were earnable without MTX. This is more of the nature of the game/side effect.

--> MTX, PAY 2 WIN

Even let's say you buy all your XP and max out, it's only going to get you so far. I already mentioned XP being devalued feels more like time than MTX. Unlike certain mobile korean mmo games, no matter how much you spend, you aren't having infinite incremental stat boosts. You aren't going to be stronger than player has the same gear. MTX can't buy collection logs, quest, comp cape, speedrun times, kill times, your actual skill in the game such as PVM(not levels). The game feels more like Pay to Skip than Pay to Win when it comes to the XP part.

--> Fresh start NO MTX

TBH, the damage is already done. It's a very risky thing to do. What you're doing is throwing away all the accomplishments not done by MTX of all the players that have worked their way there without any MTX? There's also the limited cosmetics people have unlocked since the very beginning of the game. You anger the existing players for potential new players/returning players? Except.. there's also a big problem. The new player experience with the terrible starting UI and being overwhelmed by too many things. Oh, slap MTX on top of it too. I logged into my very old pure str pvping account, and even as a Veteran player, my own UI still confused me.

I tried to get back into some old MMOs but being overwhelmed by so many popups does way more damage. If this happens, I will not play it, I do not wish to spend time rebuilding from scratch because time is valuable resource. I don't think it will save the game if the starting player experience remains the way it is. It's a 20 year old game now, there isn't really a clear cut solution to this. If anything, the best way is to delete TH and focus more on cosmetics will at least be a good starting point. If they want to bring new players, they need to solve some of the problems with the new player experience. How will they do it? I don't know..

These all the critical points I wanted to touch on that you mentioned. Again, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the surveys from the outside POV. I really wanted to add how they all come together as a RS3 player.

0ctoburr: As someone that plays both, I think the notion of RS3 being bad because "previous players that haven't logged in for years having their achievements diminished because 120 is the new 99" is a bad argument. You stopped playing for years, and the game grew. There was powercreep, xp creep, and actual expansions to skills. Your account is always more impressive for having done something earlier when the game was harder, but wishing your 99s from 2012 were still peak gaming is not the way.

That said, the FSW accounts should not have ported to the main game, and MTX is always poison, but to sum it up: The game doesn't owe it to the world to stay the same. They made us a version for that.

Eli_Fishes850: I was pretty upset finding out my childhood account was looked to eoc after it's release. I got about half the skills maxed from keys and double exp weekend before I started an old school account. I've never played rs3 since. Super happy to see the old school population is so much more higher.

MK_ULTRA420: Jagex won't remove Treasure Hunter, they'll just release a version of RS3 that has it removed. They can't afford to outright remove it, and it's easy money that doesn't go to botters.

znipez6469: As an ex RS3 player a full reboot would be the only thing that would get me to play again. I did partake in the problem by utilising the squeal of fortune to finish off maxing my main account (skills that i did not care for). But doing so made it all feel so pointless. I did create an ironman account following this to make the achievements feel more deserved, but even then, the game just felt empty and pointless.

I was very tempted to create another character for the fresh start world, but decided against it knowing it would ultimately be joining into the main game and would once again feel pointless.

RS3 has a lot more problems, but this would be a huge step in the right direction for me.

Would probably play both games at the same time if this fresh start came to fruition.

Love the vid btw, and huge getting Mod Pips to interact, hope that this will help them to see the player mindset and how new life can be pumped back into this game

Oct 08 2024

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