Players Chose First New Skill in MMO Game in 17 Years; Competition was Fierce
The RuneScape community has selected a new skill that will soon appear in the game. This is the first such case in years. The developers are not saying no to further development of the game.
RuneScape is one of the most famous MMOs, which has once again returned to the good graces of fans after heated battles between developers and players. A new skill is expected to appear in the near future in the Old School variant, which was selected through a vote.
The players decided
Jagex, the studio responsible for Old School RuneScape has announced its intention to introduce a new, 24th skill.
Wanting to please as many players as possible, the developers prepared several skill proposals, which, after being presented, were subjected to a voting. Here are the results:
Question 1: Which concepts for a new skills in Old School RuneScape would you be happy to see refined further?
Sailing | 105,799 votes | 59,1% |
Shamanism | 105 208 | 58,8% |
Taming | 71 290 | 39,9% |
I don't like any of them | 22 209 | 12,4% |
The first question gave the opportunity to select more than one answer.
Question 2: Which new skill pitch is your favorite?
Sailing | 64,248 votes | 36,4% |
Shamanism | 58 926 | 33,4% |
Taming | 31 631 | 17,9% |
I don't like any of them | 21 841 | 12,4% |
In total, more than 178,000 players participated in the vote, which will have a direct impact on changes to the game.
This is a monumental event for Old School RuneScape, considering that the skill, which until now held the title of newest, was added to the game in 2006. After the implementation of Hunting, players had to wait 17 years for another such update, which as we now know will introduce Sailing.
The developers' response
In both cases the Sailing skill has minimally bested Shamanism.. On the occasion of the publication of the results, members of Jagex announced how they will use the suggestions of fans of the game.
"Taming was pretty popular, but didn’t receive nearly as much support as the other two skills – so we won’t look to pursue this idea further.
Shamanism, came very close to taking the crown, with just a 3% difference in the votes. At times, Shamanism and Sailing were just 100 votes apart!
While Sailing will of course be our primary focus, we want to reassure you all that we’re open to exploring more skills in the future.
Because Shamanism has already proved so popular, it will be going into our backlog for refinement at some point after Sailing is complete – assuming the community still wants it by then!"
The developers also explained that despite the small difference in votes between the two most popular skills, they decided not to hold a second round. This is because they feared that the results would again be very close.
Old School RuneScape now and in the future
The first version of RuneScape was created in 2001 and has undergone colossal changes since then. The biggest of these was the splitting of the game into two separate versions: the modernized RuneScape 2, later RuneScape 3, and the fan-favorite Old School RuneScape, bringing the original vision back to life.
OSRS has consistently attracted thousands of players and tens of thousands of viewers on Twitch.TV (via SteamDB). After dedicated fans almost turned their backs on Jagex after temporarily abandoning the classic version of the game, the developers seem to be building an extraordinary bond with the community.
It is thanks to the developer-player relationship that in the near future Old School RuneScape will see Sailing, giving you the opportunity to explore the oceans with your own boat. This will maintain a balance between a breath of fresh air and the desire to maintain the gameplay that has been nurtured over the years.
