Did EOC Actually Kill RS?

[Bobby 84]

This might have already been discussed at some time, but I was talking to some friends about RS the other day and this topic came up.

 

Is EOC responsible for the massive disparity in player base between what is currently OSRS and RS3?

 

My thoughts on the topic are the EOC played a large part and at the end of the day is what killed the game for a lot of people. But I think it's a little more nuanced than that. Personally, I think I would have quit around that time anyway. I was starting college and was convinced I wouldn't have time for anything. I was maxed and was really out of content other than comping which sounded miserable, and I was just kind a growing out of my RuneScape phase (or so I thought.) I think that had EOC never happened, I would have probably quit because of the introduction of Squeal of Fortune and Solomon's Store (MTX) that same year just a few months earlier - Or at least blamed that as we do EOC now. 

 

I think that the timing of OSRS was perfect, a lot of the player base was kind of aging out and numbers were on the fall. Had EOC never happened then OSRS would (likely) not have happened and the game as we know it today would be much different. I always thought that eventually you would run out of content and that xp rates would catch up to people's accounts and people would just run out of things to do. OSRS has proven me wrong about that, it's now been out longer than RS2 was and is seemingly in a much better position than RS2. If the EOC hadn't come out and effectively killed off the game to the point where Jagex was desperate enough to consider the release of OSRS, I think that the game would just have tapered off. OSRS brought about fresh team members that have continuously had good ideas that have not only kept the game alive, but brought in millions of new players over the years.

 

After a couple years in college, I realized that I actually had tons of free time I didn't know what to do with and wanted to try RS3 again. I hated it, it felt like I could just buy anything I wanted and all xp rates were just outrageous - like the game was designed now for 120 skills rather than 99s so maxing felt meaningless. EOC wasn't my favorite, but at the end of the day I also think OSRS combat is pretty dull (difficult in some ways, but very boring and monotonous compared to action combat in many other games.) What really turned me off was the MTX and how the game just felt polluted with time gated content and "distractions and diversions." So I turned to OSRS pretty early in it's life, especially once I heard that clans were moving there and starting fights again.

 

The new ideas, game modes (dmm, gim, etc), and encounters that have been introduced just add a ton of replay ability to the game for a lot of people (not me) and it seems like there is a lot of life left in OSRS. I think that what the game needed back in 2012 was a fresh start due to a lot of the updates leading up to EOC, it needed a new team to instill confidence back to the player base after decisions like the handling of the wilderness in 2007 and that would never have happened without Mod Mark pushing for EOC. 

Edited August 2 by Bobby

[Kai 354]

I am formulating a response and will get back to you once ready.

[Adam_ 1,106]

Yes

[Megaman 26]

Yes. Played a bit more after EOC eventhough they added like an afk version of the combat style. That style still is afk but at a disadvantage compared to doing all the attack options. 

[@Brian 2,930]

I think the game was in terminal decline a long time prior to EoC. The removal of free trade (and wilderness) when the game was at it's absolute peak of popularity is what started that decline.

 

That said, as you said, it's a lot more nuanced than just a single update. One factor that I always thought was a big part of Runescapes decline was the fact that as a game it just fell so far behind other games of the era in terms of technology (graphics mainly). When everyone was using their parents computers with a bad internet back in the day, Runescape was the perfect game. You needed a super computer to run any game with half decent graphics, that kids themselves couldn't afford. Eventually these became cheaper to the point everyone could have them and play games "better" than Runescape.

[€Alorus 222]

I remember Eoc like it was yesterday, most players didnt want the update and there were riots and people voting againts it in all the available platforms

 

After all I think it was best it happened since the osrs team is much better and the guys that bought jagex were gonna do something just as bad with the game anyways

 

I like the rs3 feel and graphics and would be fun to play with the current system, hopefully the hdos client keeps getting better

 

For the clan world it meant the end of the 2012 crashwar that involved all major clans except rsd and df and with osrs came the reopening of rot and di

[@Brian 2,930]

To answer your question:

 

The reason people play OSRS is because they enjoy a "simple" game. OSRS is kind of in a niche in that sense. I can't really think of any game that OSRS is directly competing with (there probably is some I'm sure). RS3 is not a simple game and doesn't stack up well against other MMORPGs that it's competing with.

 

I'm sure a lot of current OSRS players never even played pre-osrs at this stage.

[Pietru 1,251]

Didn't kill RS, but it did make a huge dent; I feel like the remaining player base kind of adapted to what RS3 is now. What I feel like is that the player base got halved, and eventually quartered rather than completely dying out.

EoC may be the main reason of disparity, but Squeal of Fortune/Solomon's Store giving in-game benefits definitely is up there. It should have never become a thing..

 

I'm one person who kind of kept through EoC for a while, almost getting 2.1k from a fresh account but once OSRS came out I stopped playing RS3 completely.

Edited August 2 by Pietru

[Bobby 84]

I thought about it some more and decided to google it a little and found this video actually posted 2 days ago that was pretty interesting. I had no idea that Jagex had such a problem with credit card fraud that they almost had to stop taking credit cards lmao. That was actually a big reason behind the removal of free trade apparently.

 

 

[Dr3ambash3r 287]

I believe so

[Kody 57]

Game still seems to be living, I think if OSRS didn't release the game would still have many more players and people would've just coped and gotten familiar with the EOC system. Especially with the later changes, you can play the game without the EOC form of combat, though at an XP/HR sacrifice. I think the MTX system hurt that game more than EOC - so much so that they are now polling players on the potential removal of it in a last ditch effort to revive the playerbase.

[Robin 423]

it was a factor 

[Mohd 186]

120%

[MILAD 209]

Runescape was at its peak during the fall of 2007, at least most players registered and that was because of its simplicity. With EoC came the introduction of a new meta and new mechanics that would be reminiscent of WoW, which we all know wasn't that appealing to players like us, and honestly the majority of the player base. 

 

I don't recall who still had the hard drive of Rs2007 from Jagex, but that guy was a big save and is a major reason to OSRS major success. I mean for God's sakes, people are full time streamers playing this game and making a good buck from it, that should tell you something about it

[Hatebreeder 103]

100%, if your core activity was PKing. I quit when wildy was removed and came back for single BH. Quit again later for a little and came back when wildy was restored. Logged in 1 day to EoC and immediately quit, never to play RS3 again. Thought I was done with RS until OSRS was announced.

 

The amount of people I know who quit because of EoC and never returned because they didn't want to start again leads me to believe that had EoC not happened, we'd potentially have a higher player count. Though that depends on MTX bullshit happening or not; as of now, RS3 is a containment zone for that shit, and we don't know how it would have played out if RS2 never became RS3.