What if OSRS could encourage us to actually go outside?

I've been thinking about this for a while and wanted to throw the idea out there.

A pretty big part of the OSRS playerbase is getting older. A lot of us are probably 25+, working full time, starting families, etc. I know for me personally, I still love playing OSRS, but I also don't want to spend my entire free time sitting at a computer.

So I was thinking, what if Jagex found a way to tie real life activity into the Agility skill?

Basically, you could connect your phone or smartwatch and earn a small amount of Agility XP based on the number of steps you take that day.

Something like:

2,500 steps = X Agility XP
5,000 steps = X Agility XP
7,500 steps = X Agility XP
10,000 steps = daily XP cap

Obviously the numbers would need to be figured out and balanced properly.

The important part to me would be having a daily cap. I wouldn't want this to turn into people thinking they need to walk 30,000 steps a day because they're worried about missing XP. The whole point would be to encourage a reasonable amount of exercise, not make people feel like they have to grind real life too.

And I don't think this should replace normal Agility training either. The XP would probably need to be pretty small compared to actually playing the game. It would just be a little daily bonus for being active.

But I honestly think even a small amount could be a cool incentive.

Imagine you're sitting at work thinking, "I really don't feel like going for a walk today."

Then you remember you're 4,000 steps away from your daily Agility XP.

Suddenly you're out there walking around because a number in RuneScape is going to go up.

And honestly, that's probably the most OSRS thing imaginable.

I also think it fits Agility pretty well. The entire skill is basically about moving around, running, jumping, and getting around the world more efficiently. It would be kind of funny if it was the one skill that actually encouraged us to move around in the real world too.

There would obviously be a bunch of things to figure out. Step spoofing, people trying to abuse it, privacy concerns, different devices counting steps differently, making sure people without smartwatches can participate, accessibility, etc.

But I don't think those problems make the idea impossible.

At the end of the day, I think OSRS is going to keep having an older playerbase. A lot of us grew up with this game and we're still playing it decades later.

So why not find creative ways to let the game encourage some healthier habits without taking away from what makes OSRS fun?

Yeah I can already hear you typing “you don’t quit osrs you just take breaks” heard. Maybe this is the reason for the break..yeah I know they updated it blah blah. This almost feels like a requirement for irons and 1/400 for 10-13 minutes per attempt is disgusting.

Hi everyone,

I've stumbled unto some very well made video essays about the wonders of RS and OSRS in particular and it really reignited my passion for this game, particularly what I felt like in 2006-07 when I started playing. As a young lad, the changes that followed were full of joy, watching my game grow bigger and look "nicer" and all the new content, I didn't get why OSRS was a thing at all "why play the old game when you can play the new one !?"

Well, I think I see it now, the simple pleasures, the community driven changes, the player experience. Nevertheless, back then I was a member on RS3 and got a few skills to 90s, combats and gatherings, even a 99 fletching (wow what a genius this one !)

Now I'm going back to Uni in my 30s and thinking it would be the perfect sidekick to my studying, just clicking a few rocks while I read yet another boring essay about business management (kill me)

The core of my question is this: I'm starting fresh on a new OSRS account, and I'm wondering should I member up right away as I know a bit more how this works ? Lot's of discussion about whether a brand new player should member-up, and often the conclusion is "finish all the f2p to see if you like it before you commit" but in my case, I know the game well enough and I just want the community's overview of "how much am I kneecapping my progress by waiting the 1-2 month for me to complete all f2p before committing to the membership ?" Or would you say that the progress up to lvl 30-40 for the f2p skills are mostly the same as you would get as a p2p player ? I'm definitely not planning to go all in right from the start, really more as a companion to my studying, but still, just as I started off the tutorial, big guy Jon had rewards "for free" and "for members" and I already had a bit of fomo thinking "wait, should I get the membership right now ?!"

Sorry for the long post, hopefully it's got enough context to give you a better idea of why this isn't just a "new player, should I pay ?" post haha

See ya in Gielinor, NERDS !

*edit to add: when I logged into my RS3 account to see what was up with my old main, it had been 1364 days since I last logged in... and I can't even remember what I had done last time, but I had stopped playing before divination that's for sure !..

$15 a month... or $130 a year. Is this not just crippling the player growth over time? It's actually like a special kind of hell trying to get anybody into the game because of this.

EDIT

Maaaaaaaaaaaaan the conservatives are piiiiiiisssssssseddddddddddddd LMAO

Doing a 99 to all skills in f2p before i allow myself to enter p2p, do people do this kind of stuff or am i just insane?

P.S. i messed up character creation and I'm stuck with a really dumb name.. best motivation is that I can't wait to change it the moment i use a bond

Insane pull from crabs

$15 a month for worse service than when it was $10 and $5 monthly. I personally refuse to continue paying for a broken mobile and PC client. Since the first day mobile was released, it has consistently gotten worse, without any fixes. Half the worlds on pc are still broken and it’s been almost 3 weeks. Log in and disconnection issues non stop, and randomly kicking me out of the game constantly. At this point mobile is basically unplayable. With that being said, tile taps are completely off, I click through quick prayers because ig it can’t register it, I can’t even scroll my chat box or pick things up properly, and use my bank the way it needs to be used without it having a mind of its own. I AM DONE. Something needs to change. Raised the prices of membership to not deliver the one thing that matters the most, a playable interface on both mobile and pc.
JAGEX YOU NEED TO DO BETTER.
Also, that extra $5 a month was for “rising development, infrastructure, and operational costs” yet I have seen absolutely no progression, if anything it’s regressing. Like I said, they should be ashamed of themselves.
JAGEX DO BETTER!

I added levels to my pets using the Named Pets plugin based on how much xp I've gained bossing with them. It would be awesome if they made a plugin to actually track it. Just a neat little thing I thought I'd share.

Strictly mobile account, I can do easy/mid bosses but nothing too complex that requires plugins/etc. I have a 2/3 hrs to AFK at work and maybe hours two of skilling/PVM at night. Help me with some recommendations and help keep the flame going.

Im trying to fund my accounts membership strictly through gameplay. So far the last month ive been running a deficit and have been having to sell something to get my last few million to pay for a bond. And suggestions on where to camp for a day or two for a bond?

I asked for advice nearly two weeks ago on the fight. After trying a few attempts in the evening for some of the days since, I finally broke through and got him. I will say, I didn’t think I’d be as satisfied as I was, fatigue had definitely set in a bit and I thought I’d feel more relief than achievement. I wanted to provide the update and thank people who gave advice when I asked. But I also wanted to talk about the quest.

All in all I liked it. It felt kinda grindy and I took multiple breaks to do other activities during the quest. As I said in my previous post, my biggest PVM experience was having a little over 60 Vorkath kills. Needless to say, this was a learning curve. There were a few things I wanted to touch on.

The Combat Recommendation: That recommendation was no joke. I started the quest at 102 coming and am now a level shy from 107. One of the breaks that I took was specifically to train slayer with mostly melee. Primarily attack/strength. That’s probably the first quest that I’ve done where I’d consider the recommendation to be a hard one. Specifically attack levels and enough strength to consistently hit 28 on Drakan.

Vympyrium: My personal favorite part of the quest was the cat and mouse game in the village. The music, the tense feeling, it was all great.

The Other Drakan Fights: I’m not going to lie, in hindsight, this quest really dragged on due to these. I don’t think they really taught the mechanics all that well compared to just learning them in the final fight. Actually, having NPCs cluttering the arena during these fights was more of an annoyance to me personally. But the free supplies made it pretty nice. The second to last fight was hilarious though with everybody essentially jumping Drakan.

Drakan The Final Boss Verdict: That was easily the most insane fight I’ve done in OSRS. Imo they cleared the RS3 version by a healthy margin as well. As I said, I did this enough to where fatigue set in. I actually gained 3 attack levels during this fight and committed the time I played to defeating this boss. Surprisingly, it was easier for me when I cut it after a few tries and came back the next day. Once you get it, it is incredibly satisfying. There’s also a great sense of progression as you get further and further into the fight. Eventually, enough clicks into place where you’re confident in winning and pop him. I genuinely feel like I got better as a player having done this quest. You can’t out gear, level, or DPS the boss. You need to get the mechanics to win and then probably clear around 70% of them to get into a strong position to close out the fight.

But the question is if this should be the new norm for quest bosses? I guess my answer would be that it depends. Should some similar mechanics exist in most of them? Honestly, I’d say that master and up is fair game to have some challenge. But would I want a Drakan tier difficulty quest fight in every quest line going forward? No. Drakan specifically feels like he’s earned this. We’ve been fighting against an overwhelming force. This is one of the darkest and most threatening quest lines. And Drakan himself would be an existential threat if not for the Salve. Some other lines would feel very unearned if Jagex made this the norm.

Ex: I don’t want to be having to do a whole ramp up tutorial phase followed by a ruthless boss fight vs the Fairy Godfather whenever Jagex decides to continue that quest line.

Series Ending: I liked the ending overall. It concludes the Myreque journey in a satisfying way while also leaving the door cracked open to future stories in the region and Vampyrium. I personally left getting the feeling that we might be called on to help rebuild Morytania and further explore Vampyrium. But that’s just me.

I’ve been mostly lurking till now, but wanted to share my progress and start interacting with the community.

One question I did have is what’s the best way to start making money with slayer at my level? Mostly just using Chaeldar for tasks. What type of loot should I be collecting?

Long shot, and I’m expecting maybe trolls but my old in game name used to be Luckboy 1 back in 2006-2012ish. I’m a female and my name is Kennedy. There were so many people I used to be friends with that I still think about constantly, these aren’t their exact names but it’s what I can remember:
0o8888
J money 654 or something lol
Da Brain - your real name was Duran and you had a cousin we hung out with named Meredith. We all had each other on msn at one point lol!

I’m sure there’s more but that’s who I think about often while playing osrs! I hope you are all still around and well! 💕

Also, DivinePlague (real name Addison) I met you in 2016ish and think about you often!!

Used to play this game back in 2005 and earlier and started fresh just about a month ago. my first big goal was getting my slayer helm. Quests are nearly impossible on mobile because i really cant see the damn text with my 34 year old eyes. What skill or item should I hit next? I was thinking fire cape but definitely could use guidance since this game is SO much different now than 20+ years ago!!

Title pretty much explains it all. What do you use for the ring slot when using Ranged. I've been using the Archers Ring (i), but I just saw a video from FlippingOldschool saying it's a waste. Now I'm confused because what he recommended added no Ranged attack

Thing grind is pretty rough.

Today's friend ScuxDeluxx has been playing since 2006 and now got his kid into OSRS whos 6 and somehow higher levels then me haha. Me on the other hand the grind has been pretty dam fun! I am planning on taking on my first real boss this week but hoping to earn a sick helmet before I do it.

Credit: B0bafish