Old School RuneScape is Jagex's official term for a previous version of the RuneScape game that was introduced from the August 2007 Archive of RuneScape, a backup of the RuneScape source code as it had been on 10 August 2007. It is also commonly referred to as OSRS or 2007scape.
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.
The poll ended at 00:00 UTC on Friday 1 March 2013 with the final tally of votes at 449,351. 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. It has since remained open without any additional charge. Currently, Old School RuneScape is running both free-to-play and pay-to-play servers, and players can create new F2P accounts for free without having to pay 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 RuneScape.
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.
Old School RuneScape is rated 16 by the Pan European Game Information committee, and MA15+ by the Australian Classification Board. While Old School RuneScape is not rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the equivalent rating would be Teen.
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. The servers were based on a backup of RuneScape that was created on 10 August 2007.
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.
Gameplay
Old School RuneScape is an MMORPG with adventure elements. It features a persistent world in which players can interact with each other and the environment. The basic mechanics are largely the same as RuneScape on 10 August 2007. The player controls a single (human) character and can interact with NPCs, objects, and entities in the game world by left-clicking or right-clicking and selecting an option from the object's right-click context menu. Users can gain experience points (XP) and level up individual skills, making their playable character more powerful in various ways.
There is a large selection of skills, grouped mainly between three different categories: combat, gathering, and artisan. Combat skills, which are Attack, Strength, Defence, Ranged, Magic, Prayer, and Hitpoints, allow the player to defeat enemy monsters or other players in certain circumstances. The gathering skills, which include Mining, Fishing, and Woodcutting, allow the player to gather in game resources to use or sell. The artisan skills include skills such as Cooking, Crafting, Fletching and Smithing. The input mechanics are primarily point-and-click. The game runs on a tick-based system where the game state refreshes every 600 milliseconds.
Post-release features
Features that were not released until after 2007 that exist in RuneScape have since been released to Old School RuneScape. These include areas such as the God Wars Dungeon and the Soul Wars minigame. One of the more helpful features is a button that allows players to search or look up information about items and entities on the game's wiki.
Content exclusive to Old School RuneScape has also been added, such as the areas of Fossil Island and Great Kourend, minigames such as The Inferno and the Volcanic Mine, quests such as Dragon Slayer II and Song of the Elves, bosses such as the Nightmare of Ashihama, and skilling activities such as Rooftop Agility and Forestry. Players can obtain pets from killing certain bosses or skilling that follow them around the game world. Skilled players can complete difficult raids such as the Chambers of Xeric, the Theatre of Blood, and the Tombs of Amascut. Players can also join clans to socialize with other players.
Old School RuneScape also offers an "Ironman" game mode, where players are restricted to being entirely self-sufficient. Ironman mode players are completely barred from trading with other players, picking up items dropped by other players, picking up items dropped by monsters killed by other players, buying items sold to stores by other players, and picking up items dropped by players they've killed in certain PvP situations. First introduced in October 2014, Ironman Mode is often considered one of the most difficult ways to play the game, as many late-game items are only obtainable as a rare drop from high level bosses. Although these accounts can still use all the game's chat features, the game mode is often touted as a "single-player" experience due to the necessity of solo gathering and exploration for progression. In addition to the normal Ironman mode, two other variants exist: "Ultimate Ironman Mode" that cannot use the in-game banks and a "Hardcore Ironman Mode" that converts into a normal Ironman account after experiencing an "unsafe" death for the first time.
The other mode Old School Runescape offers is Deadman Mode. Released on 29 October 2015, Deadman Mode is a separate incarnation of Old School RuneScape which features open-world player versus player combat and accelerated experience rates. If one player kills another, the victor receives a key to a chest letting them loot valuable items from their victim's bank. Players who engage other players in combat will be marked with a skull icon. "Skulled" players will be attacked by lethal and invulnerable NPCs if they try to enter safe cities, as well as having the number of bank keys they are holding visible to other players, making them a valuable target. Players who die in Deadman Mode will lose a significant portion of their experience points in all but five skills of the player's choice.
Setting
Old School RuneScape largely takes place in the fictional realm of Gielinor, a planet filled with multiple environments and climates. It is divided into kingdoms and is inhabited by humans, vampyres, elves, monkeys, dwarves, fairies, gnomes, goblins, trolls, ogres, giants, and more.
Gielinor's basic history is told in five Ages. In the First Age, Guthix, the god of balance, discovered Gielinor and shaped it as he pleased. In the Second Age, Guthix went into slumber, and many other gods established power on Gielinor. The transition from the Second Age to the Third age was marked by Zamorak, the highest-ranking general of the Zarosian empire, betraying Zaros and apotheosising into the god of chaos.
The Third Age spanned the cataclysmic God Wars, in which the now-deified Zamorak began a world-spanning war involving many other gods of Gielinor. The God Wars lasted for 4,000 years, and finally ended when the region of Forinthry was obliterated by Zamorak, transforming it into the extremely dangerous wasteland known as the Wilderness. This explosion awakened Guthix. Enraged by the destruction, he led his army to Forinthry, ended the war, and established the Edicts of Guthix, which banished all other gods from Gielinor.
Guthix retreated into the depths of Gielinor and wept, then returning to a deep slumber. The end of the God Wars marked the end of the Third Age and the beginning of the Fourth Age. In the Fourth Age, the surviving races began to rebuild. After 2,000 years, human mages rediscovered Runecrafting, the ability to create runestones to use magic, marking the beginning of the Fifth Age. The Fifth Age is the current age of Old School Runescape, in which humans are the dominant race.