Runescape Classic shuts down in an epic way after 17 years

[Dancso]

Runescape is one of the oldest MMORPGs around, and though often overlooked for its poor graphics and clunky, grindy gameplay mechanics, it is a key part of gaming history, especially as far as MMOs and in-browser games are concerned.

Started originally as "Devious MUD", created by the British Gower-brothers of Cambridge, RuneScape first saw its public release in early 2001 and has been online ever since.
RuneScape Classic, a version meant to preserve the original state of the game, was left running in parallel when the game was upgraded in 2004 (often dubbed "RS2").
RSC (short for RuneScape Classic) has been online ever since... that is, until today, 6th of August 2018, when Jagex (the company behind the game) has decided to shut it down due to the hassle of maintaining it, and due to the incredibly low amount of players that frequented it.

That is not to say that the game was bad. A significant amount of players have migrated to private servers that altered or extended upon the original content, not to mention a few crucial bug fixes and improvements to the game client. At its low point the game was barely pulling a few dozen online players, and the closing event has reached a peak online count of over 400. Which, considering it was at 8 AM BST on a monday, is actually kind of incredible.

The highlight of the closing event came when a player by the name of "Titus Furius" was revealed to be on the verge of completing the final, most challenging quest of the game, called "Legends' Quest". Shortly after 8AM, the servers started the final countdown which meant he would not make it before the end. At the last moment, Jagex moderators were informed of this, and have decided to keep the servers live until this player could fulfill his (childhood) dream. He livestreamed his last hours on the game (which has been going for ~10 hours at the time), working towards that final moment, with a bunch of help from the game's community. He even died to the final boss and was allowed to try one more time, knowing that it would take a while because of how slow and grindy the game is (and especially this quest). Imagine the pressure. But he made it! After an extension of about 2 and a half hours, with lot of farewell spam in the chat, the game finally went offline.

The legacy of RuneScape lives on through the main version (referred to as "RS3"), and its second nostalgia-inducing version, Oldschool Runescape (a modern RS2). Although there has been no mention of a source code release of RSC, the community has been hard at work to preserve as much of it as possible. Private servers and open source emulation is available, although the legitimacy of which is unclear. (to me at least)

Rest in peace, RSC.

For those curious, here's the VOD while it's still available.
TL;DR: 17 year old version of MMO goes offline, admins keep it on while a player finishes their childhood dream. No source code released (*Ross W Scott glares angrily*), but the community has reverse-engineered most of it.

[Wiw]

Oh no! RuneScape Classic was a staple of my childhood!

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

That's really sad. My only contact with MMO was Ragnarok, but even then, some of the servers where i've played had to be shut and it was kinda strange, like some time of my life just swept away in a matter of minutes.

But i believe it had to be done, given the hassle as you said yourself.