RuneScape was my favorite game of all time when I was a kid. I’d play it for at least 8 hours a day every day, and never get bored. Now, RuneScape is RuneScape 3, terribly infested gambling microtransaction mess that looks like a really bad early access game, or Oldschool RuneScape, which is really fun, but is infested with bots. It’s honestly so bad. I tried to play it and it feels so… good, but also low effort. The worst part, however, is the corporate greed. Jagex, the company that developes Runescape, has been sold numerous times. This time, it’s owned by some Venture Capital or investment firm, the kind that kills games off to gain their IP and then sell them for huge amounts of money (CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments). The first thing they’ve done is raise the subscription of Runescape to nearly $15, which is truly nuts. This game used to be like $8 a month previously, some are still paying that much…
It’s sad to see corporate greed kill such a great game. Idk what to even play now…
If you’re not excited about Brighter shores then I really don’t know, for some reason no one else has ever tried to make the same type of game (aside from Genfanad and Titanreach, both of which have shut down quickly after release)
You could check out Project: Gorgon, it’s something of a mix between Runescape’s multitude of slow-to-level, interconnected skills on one character and a more typical MMO with distinct classes, buildcrafting and group content. It has a free demo on Steam. All of that said it’s only vaguely similar, and I wouldn’t mention it if there was anything closer to OSRS.