For several years,Old School RuneScapeplayers have had the ability to up the difficulty of the online MMORPG by making “Ironman” account unable to trade with other players. Many love this added difficulty despiteOld School RuneScape’s iconic base difficulty, as it offers a fresh experience for the game where everything has to be earned by the player’s own hands. This experience is rewarding and offers bragging rights for dedicated players, although can be a considerably lonely one.
Old School RuneScapeis a revival of the MMORPG released in 2007, brought back due to such a heavy population of the current game favoring the older version over the newestRuneScape 3. Despite the revival of the outdatedRuneScapebeing extremely true to its original form,Jagex continues to add fan-favorite featuresto be accomodating for modern players. On October 6, one of the latest additions was a long-anticipated “Group Ironman” mode.
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A Nostalgic Game with Modern Updates
Old School RuneScapehas added a significant amount of content since February 2013. In addition toJagex adding additonal challenges to bosses, the developer has been working in tandem with the community to shape new features. Since the conception of Ironman mode, players have been asking for even more flexible ways to play. Since then Hardcore Ironman mode was released, in which a player is bestowed the title of “Hardcore” until dying. Adding these additional layers has madeOld School RuneScapevery unique compared to its original incarnation.
While the community appreciated the addition of Hardcore Ironman mode, many participating players found this to be a lonely experience. With apotentialRuneScaperelease on Switchand the ability to play on mobile devices, the MMORPG experience has grown considerably, so it can feel isolating being unable to trade with others. To break this cycle, the community began to suggest some sort of “team” mode.
This was originally shot down, as the requirements of revamping such old code from 2007 appeared too difficult at first. ButOld School RuneScapecontinued to grow and break concurrent player records, and in October 2019 Jagex announced it had begun working on a gamemode referred to as Group Ironman. The community celebrated the potential futureOld School RuneScape, but Jagex never gave a hard release date.
RuneScape’s history is filled with seemingly endless possible additions thanks to moderator comments and community suggestions. The developer regularly runs polls within the game for players to vote on possible updates. One recent example of this was a poll surrounding the implementation oftheRuneScapeHD mod, which has since passed the voting stages. Even when these polls pass, the public is never guarenteed a release date, as concurrently developing ongoing and future content can be difficult.
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The Wait for News on Group Ironman
There are manytips online for Ironman mode players, but the ability to play with a group can entirely change the game. As Jagex originally teased, one player can be the potionmaster of the group while another cooks the food, making for a plethora of combinations never seen before. As time passed without Jagex providing news on the update though, many in the community began to lose hope. People continually begged for updates, but the developer had gone silent.
The game’s subreddit began creating memes on the topic of Group Ironman, treating the mode as though it was a dream and had never truly been announced. Content creators turned their sights to alternative ideas, and when the popularRuneScapeYouTuber “Settled” began his region-locked Ultimate Ironman run in 2019, much of the community had already moved past the hype for Group Ironman. Other creators returned tolosing billions at the duel arena, meanwhile Jagex remained silent.
Then, asRunescapecelebrated its 20th Anniversarythis year, players were provided a Group Ironman release date, planned for only a month after the announcement. The vote for its implementation passed with a massive majority in favor. In fact, the vote for adding Group Ironman became the most voted-on poll inRuneScape’s history, far surpassing the addition of Warding as a skill by twenty thousand votes. After two years from the original mention of the concept, Group Ironman released, andOld School RuneScapehas seen higher player counts than ever.
This is satisfying for manyOld School RuneScapeplayers, as the developer has always closely monitored its fanbase to improve as much as possible. This request took some time to come to fruition, but new modes such as these bring groups of friends together around a nostalgic game that has had passionate fans across multiple decades. Hopefully now thatRuneScapelaunched on Steam, the community will continue to see it supported through incoming players falling head-over-heels for the MMORPG.
Old School RuneScapeis available now on Mobile and PC.
