Well it's no secret the F2P Wilderness is "dead". You can still have planned fights whenever you want, it just requires 2 clans to be willing to do so, which at the moment only occurs within the handful of mid-sized clans (Exo/Exotic/TR/Ronin/Downfall). However, back in the day you could go out PKing at almost any time and get a group of people out in deep wilderness/low level wilderness as a lot more people (it seemed) enjoyed the game for the PKing aspect. It seems the majority of players these days only care about PvM and skilling, which is a shame as what makes Runescape such a unique game is the simple and addicting PvP aspect.
Nonetheless, I can't quite fathom why this is. I have a Jagex Mod on Facebook that I've met IRL before and I want to pitch him / get in touch with the OSRS Moderator (Mod Merchant) regarding bringing back F2P PvP activity (for clans). Whilst I have nothing against P2P PvP and it certainly has gotten a lot more active, F2P will always remain close to my heart as I find the clan fights to be a lot more enjoyable. I will only be suggesting minor updates that don't take a lot to implement as they've made it clear in the past that they don't want to stick out their neck for clans and potentially make other players annoyed.
Here are some small changes I feel will help bring back F2P PvP activity and make clan fights as interesting and exciting as they once were:
- Take off the instant world changer when a player is in a PvP area or has recently died in a PvP area (and bring back the 30-45 second timer). Instant returning ruins fights as it doesn't give clans who out-perform their opponent an advantage as they can literally return to the fight in 10 seconds. It also makes clans/people who want to 1 item return & crash fights a lot more destructive and annoying.
- Bring back corrupted F2P armour / weapons. Melee seems a tad under-powered these days and new updates always entice people to obtain them.
- Put some rune rocks or a similar object in the middle of the wilderness which will entice skillers to enter and give PKers someone to kill. E.G Move the rune rocks from their current location to east rocks (beneath members gate) and make them exclusive to F2P worlds.
I think the main issue in general is the lack of new clans being created and thus the clanning player-base constantly shrinking. The Clan World has become so elitist and there are no entry level clans allowing inexperienced players to get a taste of our world. You were either in a clan back in the day or you're not invited, essentially. Whilst Jagex made a lot of mistakes in the past, almost every MMORPG has or is experiencing this and there's no reason why Runescape can't come back from it. In addition to the ideas stated above, I feel like Old School Runescape needs to have a separate URL and be differentiated from RS3. It's by far the superior game, or everyone would still be playing RS3 and it needs to be marketed properly so that new players will be attracted to OSRS rather than only knowing about the game through the RS3 website.
More ideas appreciated, or any comments on the ideas stated above.
EDIT: I created a topic on RSB & will be sending the link to OSRS Moderators.Quick find code: 322-323-231-65872390