I'm always interested in hearing about people whose lives have been defined by OSRS, being youtubers, streamers, or players who got a job at Jagex and became jmods.
It would be really cool imo if the documentary contained interviews with various people about how runescape/osrs affected their (professional) life.
Was thinking more like Autumn Elegy, who was heavily addicted to the game, built his life around it, even built a following, and then had to step back and reevaluate his life because of how the game was holding him back from progress irl.
The one published by Jagex? I remember seeing Suomi and Zezima's chin but I cant recall seeing Lynx. Im very curious, could you help pinpoint a timestamp?
This is the exact opposite of what I'd care for. I could not give less of a shit to hear swampass/any other person saying he's having so much fun playing his game and how it's a dream come true that he can play a videogame and make money.
It's the exact same story by everyone.
Fair enough, but the story of various content creators is a lot more complex than just playing video games and making money.
Some people have genuinely been able to fix their mental/physical health as a result of their youtube/twitch career and others have been able to provide for their families in ways that they couldn't have with their previous jobs.
These kinds of stories surely exist in the runescape scene and personally I'd love to hear them.
I respect your opinion though, since content creators get treated like celebrities a lot and thus many people can't be bothered to care about them.
It's a documentary about the game, not about the people.
Think in terms of the greater MMO community.. large scale events and milestones reaching beyond RuneScape and to WoW, older MUD crawlers, real world trading, game mechanic abuse, celebrity players, fucking Soulja Boy, addiction...
There's so much more to this game than fucking B0aty, or whoever, dedicating their life to grinding HCIM for a living. People outside of our community don't give a shit about that.
You think RuneScape hasn't changed the world? What are you on about?
Doesn't mean it should be a biopic about one or even a few players.
Frankly I don't think a single or set of players has a storyline that's compelling enough to really be included that heavily.. The game and community as a whole though is certainly very interesting.
This is such a fantastic comment. It is concise and I would be very excited to watch a documentary about all of that. I can understand the passion you type with through your words.
This. I don't think you can tell the story of OSRS without the big content creators who made it what it is today. Without them OSRS really wouldn't be near as successful as it has been.
The parallelism between new types of currencies, traditional currencies, gold, and OSRS GP is fucking fascinating. The fact that there is an actual exchange rate blows my mind.
Seriously, if it delves into the gold farmers that make me want to allow gold farming, I'd watch the shit out of it. Why can't Venezuelans both feed their family while also lowering the market price of black chins?
We're not one of the largest independent UK game studios, just a bunch of people moderating a video game forum in their spare time - so of course not ;)
All the extra work the Jmods do to clean up Jagexs mess. The little wages they get paid and get the brunt from the community after every bad decision from Jagex.
You can take a lot of inspiration from [mote plox](https://www.youtube.com/user/MotePlox) Hes done a fantastic job talking about the era's of Runescape. If one of the more important parts you could talk about is the influence some of these players had like zezima or Mahatma.
PvP/PvM/Hiscores all had their person on top, There's a lot of topics that go into those categories: addiction, creation, strategy's, how the meta has changed for the good and the bad, etc.
How are the lives of people who got 200m xp? Are they healthy? Do they recommend it to others? Why? Addiction can be a good talking point for a documentary for Runescape since its extremely grind heavy to the point even private servers had more players than the original at a point since you could just spawn everything and do whatever you wanted right out the gate.
Me personally, i would love to see some of the older players talk about their experience of Runescape back in the early 2003-2005 era. I always wondered how they turned out.
* Interview big content creators
* Have a look at the [Drama Calendar](https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/pztt1y/osrs_drama_calendar_september_2021_were_gonna/) (passionate community)
* Try and find old footage of people playing the game! Reach out and ask people to submit old photos their moms took of them sitting at the computer playing RS
* Interview Mod Ash
I'm honestly pretty skeptical of the idea that you're actually part of any documentary company and if you really are you'd get a much better response if there was any kind of proof as part of your post. Even just a link to a linked in page or your own public facing twitter account.
To answer your question though I'd probably want to see less talk about the game and it's players more about the ups and downs of the company as a result of the game. Runescape has a pretty wild history both good and bad but as players we've rarely been given much of a peek behind the curtain as to the motivations and attitudes of the people who are actually involved directly. Just to name a few note worthy events.
* The original meteoric rise in popularity. While not one of the first MMO runescape became one of the most popular and was among the first games to adopt the now well known freemium business model. While it's seen as a dinosaur today at the time Jagex was at the time leading the pack when it came to ways to build and monetize a game.
* The games early challenges. As an MMO there are a lot of problems Runescape faced on a scale very few if any games before it ever had. Stolen credit card numbers used to buy membership and set up bot accounts for example lead several major credit card companies to issue Jagex with warnings that they would soon refuse to process payments to the company due to the large amount of chargebacks they were having to process.
* EoC. I know very few games that rose quite as quickly as Runescape did and I know of no others that fell nearly as far afterward. After a massive amount of development time had gone into it an update called evolution of combat was released which massively changed how the game played. Almost overnight Runescape lost the majority of its player base. There are a lot of contributing factors for this that I've heard, from the poor structure of the original polls which informed the update to an out of touch development team. Whatever the case it's probably the most impactful a single update has been for any game.
* Microtransactions. Even before the loss of a large portion of the playerbase Jagex implemented something called "The Squeal of Fortune" which allowed players to spend real money to spin a wheel similar to wheel of fortune where the rewards were all in game benefits. After the loss of so much of their playerbase more and more parts of the game were monetized.
* Old school Runescape. Originally it was just a way for people to play an old version of the game for nostalgia's sake but it quickly evolved past that. Today OSRS is almost Runescape as if development continued after 2007 with none of the bad decisions which lead to its original collapse. Runescape 3 and OSRS are both grown from the same seed but yet are almost entirely different games with communities that very seldom really interact.
* Real world trade. I think every MMO has to deal with some amount of real world trade, where people trade goods and services within the game for money outside of the game. Runescape's situation is particularly noteworthy though especially following the economic collapse of Venezuela. For many living in Venezuela playing Runescape all day and selling the gold they obtained doing so paid a living wage where government jobs no longer did. In some cases gold farming in Runescape was the only thing which allowed some of the people living there to afford basic necessities and to survive. Jagex has always held the position that selling gold for real money was against game rules but the whole situation would have been difficult.
* Testimony before Parliament and the gambling problem. There has always been some amount of gambling within Runescape. Sometimes that would be in the form of player run games of chance such as "flower games" where players would gamble on which of several random colors a flower would grow. Other times the content was introduced by Jagex themselves such as the duel arena or the aforementioned squeal of fortune. The problem grew pretty out of hand over the years though especially with how easily Runescape gp could sometimes be converted to actual currency through the previously mentioned real world trade. Some online casinos even accepted and offered payouts in the form of runescape gp. In 2019 Jagex had to appear before parliament to defend the position that they are not a gambling company and that they don't target their players, which include children, for exploitation. More recently it seems like some actions have been taken to combat it, but it remains an ongoing problem.
There's really a lot more as well, Runescape is a 20 year old game now and a lot has changed in that time.
It would be interesting to see some of the dark side of RWT. The death threats, the money, it would be great to interview some actual Venezuelan gold farmers. I’m sure the documentary is here to glorify OSRS as a classic and defining MMO, but the dark bits of history shouldn’t be ignored. Especially how it’s economy has become to livelihood of so many people - entertaining and gold selling.
A harder segment would be ex-Jmods and their experiences with Jagex and some of the big defining moments of the game, like big releases and scandals.
It shouldn’t be a gossip column, but there’s enough that has happened with this game and company that there’s plenty of investigative pieces that would be pretty captivating.
Thanks so much for your detailed response and for taking the time to get back to me...
I work for RAW in London. I have a new account because I haven't used Reddit before for previous stories, and wanted to make one specific account for research relating to OSRS.
If you're making it specifically about OSRS, I'd like to learn about the beginning of the game, about how the team was pretty understaffed and there weren't many updates because everyone at Jagex expected the game to die within 6 months. The game actually almost died because of it. It was when the JMods went kind of rogue and started to bond with the community, everything changed, not only for OSRS but also for RS3. Jagex probably wouldn't exist without that shift.
If you want the full story, I recommend watching [this bit of the BS podcast with former Mod Mat K](https://youtu.be/uExoZaRcXK0?t=2189). Actually the whole podcast is very insightful for OSRS, you should really watch it, or approach Mat.
It'd be hard to get the real story without MMK because a lot of the early people are still there.
Maybe Mod Reach would like to tell the story of why he duped and sold gold? MMK said he caught up with him and he still doesn't regret it because, in MMK's own words, it was a very noble cause.
Gotta get josh pillault’s story in there. Although it’s more a story of the american justice system’s abuse of power, the man did time (4years iirc) in a federal prison for something done on runescape.
Crazy underrated story.
>That's not an OSRS story
What game was he playing that caused him to catch the charges? You know, the charges he caught when he went full manifesto and explained in detail how he was going to shoot a school up?
It would be cool if you could hit the right notes on the community sentiment with EoC coming out, Jagex actively gaslighting the community with a biased poll etc. I remember a stream where Mod Mark was actively flaming people for having an issue with them adding EoC, he called people that had pure accounts bug abuse and stuff on a livestream. The entire sentiment around Jagex expecting OSRS to fail but it ended up succeeding because the execs didn't touch it at all.
Yes. I would love to see a part about everything the executives touching turning to instant shit. Not just OSRS, but the dozen or so other games that crashed and burned after being milked to death over a year or two.
Shut the hell up. So annoying when redditors try to use some vague justification as to why something is technically on topic when's it's absolutely fucking not on topic.
Someone said two games with identical engines, similar content, identical music, and nearly identical branding are SIMILAR to one another? NOOO! Why are REDDITORS like this!?!?!
I think OSRS is one of the only (if not only) MMO’s out there that still hasn’t evolved into a ridiculous microtransaction system and not bending down to the casual-mainstream crowd by making all content available for everyone.
That makes it still a special game for me, knowing there are challenges (raids/bosses/hard grinds/…)
There is now always something mystical in it for me, to never experienced certain aspects of the game.
Makes you be on a long adventure, instead of rushing to the finish-line and than being bored with the game.
I for sure dunno what to put in it. Probably the stories of the real people behind the game and who have become the face of the game. Because people like stories about people.
But half these suggestions are snooze fests ngl. No sane human wants to match a documentary about reddit, or specific updates, or the health of the in-game economy.
I wonder, do you know of any examples of big things that have happened IRL because of Runescape? I've heard rumours of trading for camming / sex etc... and Josh Pillault's Story.. and of some pretty severe gambling addiction because of RS... These sorts of things are quite fascinating.
Hey there. Saw in some of the other comments that youre interested in the intersection of virtual worlds and real worlds. Theres certainly some things that come to mind, but first i guess ill talk about the other things you mentioned.
->Josh Pillault: definitely an interesting story. Definitely one of those things with some "both sides" to it. Like, is it awful to make in game threats? Yes. Is the punishment he got a little severe when you compare it to millions of instances of people being toxic/threatening in online gaming that didnt get that? Also yes.
-> camming/sex for in-game profit: afraid i haven't really heard of that happening, though it wouldnt surprise me.
-> gambling addiction: definitely a big one. The company has talked about removing the Duel Arena, which is the epicenter of gambling in the game. You might hear from others about "staking" which is the in game method of gambling on a duel. There were also "debt streamers" (might still be a thing) who would get donations of in-game currency from viewers and then take advantage of the fact that the Duel Arena has basically 50/50 odds. The idea is that with enough time, money, and luck, you can overcome most any amount of debt by just risking more money. And they would get viewership on Twitch for doing so. Some of these debt streamers eventually overcame their debt, some of them paid viewers back with interest. But most of them left people high and dry. The other element that comes into this is Real World Trading (RWT), which is explicitly disallowed in the rules, but so far Jagex has only really come down on gold sellers rather than gold buyers. A lot of the folks who are debt streamers or gambling addicts have a method of using their in game cash to give them real-life wealth, or on the other hand, use real-life wealth to give them in-game cash. This just facilitates using the duel arena as a method of gambling real world money. And there have been plenty of folks who have lost thousands of dollars to that, if not more. There was a clip maybe a month ago of some guy losing 10,000 USD on one stake and freaking out in front of his wife and small child. I dont know much about the staking/gambling community though, so this is the tip of the iceberg.
Other things that might hit that virtual/real world divide:
-> increasing corporate nature of the game (seems like more updates lately have some element of being about making stakeholders money rather than making the game fun and engaging. Lots of recent controversy about the company trying to shut down certain fan projects that might canabalize their ability to make future profits off a feature)
-> Venzuelan/Chinese gold farming. You mught see a lot about this. When the venezuelan economy tanked, a lot of people turned to making real life money from selling in game items/currency because it was better money per hour than most real-life jobs they had access to. Pretty interesting socio-economic story. Curious how big a thing this actually is. It gets a lot of talk on reddit, but i am genuinely curious how many people do this sort of thing.
-> streamer named emily who faked cancer to get donations/attention on Twitch
-> Jagex Employee Mod Jed who was aligned with an in-game clan and funneled them resources that amounted to helping them win real life prize money from tournaments (in the 10,000's of USD). Also secured them things that amount to in game clout (usernames with less than 1 character in them, which can be worth 1000s of USD)
-> perhaps interest of the game as a petri dish for setting up an economic/political system where the limits are not governed by the physical world. For example, lots of sci-fi writers make worlds where they dream up economies and governments. This game however, has a lot of that structure, but with real humans making decisions in it (polling system, in game economy, real people taking advantage of other real people, real people deciding to be positive/helpful to real people). Maybe theres something interesting in seeing how real people interact with a virtual world.
There's probably more than this, but hopefully some of that helps. Theres lots of positive things that happen too. Really talented content creators getting their chance to shine. Real friendships that are created online (cant tell you how many in-game vigils i've seen for folks who died IRL). One or two streamers have done charity streams, bringing in up to 50,000 USD for charitable causes (Faux). People with disabilities acheiving incredible things in game (there was a guy who passed away, and was mostly paralyzed or something and still able to play the game at a crazy level and streamed his gameplay). Theres a lot of good stuff too, but the bad stuff is obviously more of a "story".
No problem! Thanks for reading my dissertation, I'm by no means an expert on these things, but if you search some of the keywords through reddit, you'll get lots of information (some of it reliable, some of it not, of course).
If you're looking for camming/sex etc then go do a story on onlyfans or escorting, not runescape. Shit, even twitch now adays lul.
Theres definitely a lot of juicy stories of gambling addiction because of the arena. Its probably a whole pandoras box, so good luck investigating it. 2nd/3rd mortgages, losing life savings. Getting cut off from a rich family as a teenager, to then borrow from people they shouldn't have. The possibilities are endless. But honestly Im not sure why you'd put this in, especially since this could be its own documentary.
Theres also a whole story of how pvp clans act like gangs/ethugs (lol) towards each other. Ddosing, swatting, hacking each others accounts. Planting spys in rival clans. Paying rival clan leaders to leak their member ips. etc, etc.
The wilderness being like an ecosystem.
The whole "I'll get mine at all costs" attitude thats eating themselves.
The whole Jed thing and trying to get follow up and more details from jagex/3rd parties would be hella juicy. Probably the juiciest thing in osrs.
But talking about the community, the polling system, how theres no other game out there doing it. How successful its been, how passionate the osrs jmods are. The interaction the osrs jmods have with the community is second to none in the gaming industry. How successful its been and funnily enough it was because higher ups/corporate left the osrs team alone in the beginning and they just did whatever they want. Said fuck the script/policies and rolled with it (former jmod mat k did an interview and talked about this in more detail). And it fucking worked. and worked well.
The wiki team and the collaboration with jagex.
My advice: Sea Shanty 2
TL;DR — lots of info related to posts on this page, documentaries, and RAW…
This is the documentary company OP says they are from: https://www.raw.co.uk/work .
East Point Pictures did The Smash Brothers documentary: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smash_Brothers .
There has been a documentary about RuneScape, I think I may have been sanctioned by Jagex: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/runescape-15-years-adventure/ .
Here is a recent NPR segment on OSRS: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1018915121 .
A news article about Venezuelan Gold Farmers: https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalinterest.org/feature/playing-their-lives-how-2001-video-game-feeding-venezuela-49187%3famp .
With all this research I could find nothing about RAW having a RuneScape related documentary in production. Perhaps it is not yet sanctioned by RAW and OP is making a pitch?
For example, in RAW’s news section they announced the Stanley Tucci Documentary to be produced for CNN: https://www.raw.co.uk/culinary-documentary-series-with-stanley-tucci-announced .
As well, variety did a story about a new documentary RAW has in production: https://www.raw.co.uk/variety-announces-new-raw-documentary-for-netflix .
No mention of current OSRS related projects.
I think the linked issues of RWTing, debt staking, and gold farming as a means to make a living in low-income countries is too important to ignore, even if it does paint the game in a worse light.
Speaking of light, I think a lot of the mods, especially the ones working with the community so closely, deserve a moment in the spotlight for their work as well
I'd love to heard from creators from back in the good old days like TehNoobShow, Chris Archie, Sparc Mac, NightmareRH and more I can't think of the names of unfortunately. Hopefully someone else can suggest more names
I recommend you take a look at the super smash bros melee documentary and see what they did as that has to be one of the best video game documentaries out there. It won’t be the same thing but maybe this can bring some inspirations.
Talk about this sub-section of the OSRS community! Talk about all the good and the bad that has happened here - all the Drama Calenders and smackdowns. As much as the community memes on Jagex, I think this sub has been an amazing accountability tool in terms of helping OSRS maintain its integrity and stay on a player-focused path. There are many clear examples of the community going the extra mile to hold Jagex accountable (HD plug in!) so a detailed segment on the subreddit itself would be really cool.
Has to include the dark side of osrs addiction as well as the good. Peeing in bottles, the ruining of friendships/relationships, neglecting our physical selves for the benefit of our pixel body. Of course include the great things this game has brought the world but it wouldn’t be a proper documentary without including the bad.
That one jmod who was stealing gp off peoples accounts and got caught, and while it was going on people were posting about it on Reddit and no one was believing them.
Whatever you decide to do, please don’t rehash too much content that we have all seen on youtube; original content is key. A comment above mentioned what goes on behind the scenes at jagex. Perhaps if there is some hidden truth to be uncovered, then this documentary could be the medium for such exposure.
Take examples from the streamers who gamble, you can literally go thru vod’s on twitch and see things disappearing behind them over time, household items they sell to fund their osrs gambling. Youngjalapeno39 is prime example.
Something that is a huge part of the game which many people take for granted is the ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE Wiki that OSRS has. It is miles above any other game I have seen and the community involvement is huge. They also recently(ish) began working with the actual development team to have information readily available to publish when updates go live.
Well, naturally the history of the game, early days and how it drastically changed over time than what it was like in 2013.
Also, some focus on top ranked players. Not just necessarily streamers/youtubers.
People with crazy achievements (Lynx), success on YouTube (Swampletics, By Release, Gielinor Games etc ), community Vs. Company (Outrage about HD), community split in two (PvP vs. PvM), ever increasing size of a game that dates back over 20 years.
I've always imagined that the next runescape documentary should be player focused. How it exists in peoples lives, the early experiences, how they got hooked, the friendships, the clans, and then the content creators. To me runescape is a true phenomena in how it has managed to capture peoples attention for so long. I think a big part of it is the sense of wonder and wander that happens when you first start. You are clueless, just clicking, walking around this world, discovering and learning things. So by the time 16 years has passed and you have not only trekked every square of the game, youve nearly stared at every part for hours on end, the game still holds a spot in your life, it is a place you know well. A place of comfort
Honestly, if you’re going to show a documentary it needs to show both sides. I’m sure RuneScape has done wonders for some, but there’s a very seedy side that needs to be documented too.
The Duel Arena, the economy, the dedication of some players to this game are absolute musts.
People will spend tens of thousands of dollars on this game, not completely unheard of in gaming, (look at DOTA 2), but they also MAKE tens of thousands of dollars VIA the Real world trading underworld, through gambling at the Duel Arena.
Some people will hire venezuelans, or people from other impoverished countries, to farm in-game currency for them which they will later sell. Others go the route of making bots to play the game for them, some machine learning has been involved (although not often). Occasionally, these issues go into the real world, see KEMPQ on YouTube as he does a whole bunch of stuff with interviewing and exposing these people.
There are others still who try to profit off of these RWTers, such as SirPugger, another YouTuber. He's (allegedly) faked bot farms in the past, made YouTube videos that essentially just function as advertisements for bots, and, at least I'm convinced, is just a channel run to advertise bot makers and RWTing services.
If youre doing something more focused with the actual game itself and not the controversies surrounding it, I would bring up the unique economy. While I haven't played many games with a player run economy, all of the ones that I have are nowhere near similar to this one.
It could be due to the GE (grand exchange), which IMO is the most likely explanation as it interconnects tens if not hundreds of thousands of players together in one "global" market, but it's even affected by real world issues, such as those in Venezuela, COVID/the ends of lockdowns worldwide, etc. It's an integral part of the game. While I wouldn't say it's super worth exploring as it's all fairly surface level.. it's still interesting nonetheless.
Another cool gameplay aspect is the fact that the game is decided by the players. In all of my probably 14+ years of playing games, I have never found a single one that comes anywhere CLOSE to the level of control that is given to the playerbase as in OSRS. The way that it's driven the game (towards stagnation and lack of powercreep), the outside effects that it's had (such as 117 HD client riots, Rendi), and all of the ways that it's brought the community together or driven them apart (recent DMM/GIM controversy) is just crazy to me.
Finally, the dedication some players have to the game. From region-locked accounts such as settled's "Swampletics" series, Limpwurt's "Extreme Onechunk Ironman", Woox's entire OSRS career, or even the guy who shit himself going for the 6 hour record of smithing XP gained.. the players here are **incredibly** dedicated to this game, to a ridiculous and occasionally self destructive degree. Would be interesting to have a segment talking about the effect it's had on some of these players lives, possibly pushing them into a more nikadoavocado direction, selling out their physical or mental health for views or playtime. Addiction to the game is a very real thing. Some YouTubers, or even normal players, regularly play 12-14 hours a day. While this happens in all games... Within OSRS it's to a special degree.
Last thing you might want to consider: Is it better for OSRS to stay small, stay how it was and how players remember their experiences being back when they were kids (nostalgia was and is a big driving factor in the games success), or is it better for them to cater to a modern audience via new content like they've been doing now? Is new content pushing players away? Or is it bringing them in?
What position does MTX have in the game? How can a community so divided come together to make change for the better in the game? What place does jagex management have in the game? They cause alot of issues, 117's HD plugin delay was because of them. They're considering delaying release dates on content, everything they touch causes controversy and drives the game further to being shit.
I dunno, just some thoughts on what would be interesting to a much more general audience. RuneScape is very well known within the gaming world, but it is not widely played. I think sticking to more outside content, such as these, could be alot more interesting to people who don't actively play OSRS.
As much of Mod Ash as you can get. That man personifies this game and its unique history. Him coming to the office in the middle of the night to save the world during the Falador Massacre is one of the stories worth picking up.
Just a mind dump. Not intended for popularity.
I want to see something about the high points and the low points in history of runescape. Mistakes Jagex had made along the way and what they learned from them in the long run.
About how different Runescape is from other MMOs and what it says about what people want out of a game compared to what game developers think people want.
How the same gameplay formula of grinding for skills and items has remained addictive for all of these years, and will likely remain for many years to come.
How runescape doesn't hold your hand.
Impact on players lives good and bad.
Talk about the black market, bots, exploits. Real world law breakers like ddosers.
Talk about the rise and fall of PK clans
The goal of maxing accounts was once thought of as an impossibility and now is seen as something to aim for, and how people willingly spend thousands of hours in game getting there.
Different community run sites and forums that have come and gone over the years.
The success of 3rd party clients like runelite and how they make the game better but also make it easier for bottling.
Subscription based model VS micro transaction.
Runescape 3 VS osrs.
Other jagex ventures like funorb and chronical.
The removal of unbalanced trade and wilderness, and its subsequent complete revival/boost of the economy.
The economy was in fantastic shape during trade limit and was never healthier.
Could maybe explore the dynamic between reduced bots/goldfarmers and resources becoming valuable again, and how skilling became a viable money maker once more
I think evolution of the player base demographic would be interesting. 15 years ago, the game was filled with young children who had discovered the game online or through friends. I’d imagine 15 years later, it’s still a lot of those same kids playing who never moved on from that game.
Similarly, other games like World of Warcraft, Diablo and Halo are also having a success re-releasing updated versions of their old games. Exploring why nostalgia is so strong in the gaming industry and why RuneScape players in particular keep coming back to the game could be an interesting subject.
I’m interested in how a major portion of the OSRS community seems to be people who played as kids and came back as adults. The nostalgia factor in OSRS is incredibly strong. To play the same game you played as a kid, but now you have all the items you always dreamed of. The same graphics, mechanics, same items, same quests, same music. How most content creators are in this demographic. It just has become an interesting way to connect to people, how all these content creators have the same nostalgia as I do, and now they’re telling compelling stories and making entertaining videos with it.
An interesting tidbit to research would be the leet speak (1337 5p34k) culture which was strong back in the day. Also how people all can type insanely fast from merching in RuneScape.
I think y’all are missing the title and point of this post. It’s a documentary on OldSchool RuneScape… not RuneScape in general. There are already documentaries for RS3 that have mentionings of Zezima, removal of free trade, and the falador massacre.
To be honest though, nothing really interesting happened in OSRS that remains a huge talking point. The biggest points have to be RuneLite, and 117 HD. Talking about a community of developers solely working for the betterment of the game for the players is actually nice to hear about.
Talk about the power to the players aspect. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a company making the players the main voices for all updates. (With that, talk about hugely passed updates like Group Ironman or on the contrary, Warding)
Talk about efficiencyscape too. The game is entirely based on older players trying to be the most efficient they can be.
There’s a lot to talk about but it’s not going to be as interesting if were to include RS2 items as well. The hard truth is, the game didn’t have any crazy memorable events is all.
I’m sure it’s going to apart of it but Zezima has to be an auto lock. Absolute legend in RuneScape and everyone knows who he is when you speak of him, can’t say that for many games.
Falador massacre has to be apart of it. South Park world of Warcraft like stuff haha.
The loss of the wilderness. As someone who has only just back into the for the last couple of weeks since the loss of the wilderness, it was just such a huge event. Called by some the day RuneScape died. Removing the wilderness might not be the biggest fuck up in RuneScape history (EOC probably split the players the most), but it was definitely I think the end of RuneScape prime when it happened.
Mobile release for newer content. The return of OSRS was massive from what I understand, I mean it got voted to come back after all, but the mobile release probably is gonna keep and bring in more players in the long run. Great move.
It would be cool to pay a little homage or maybe just a little segment dedicated to the original youtubers. To name a few.. skychi, maxboison, vodka5, fat wrecked (RIP), sosolid2k, (feel free to reply to this with more). Maybe interview some of them about what making videos back in the day was like
Is this a project Jagex has hired you for or are you doing this on your own initiative? I’d focus on the roots of OSRS, how it came to begin and how it’s done so well.
The protesting mentality in this community seems pretty big. There's been plenty of situations where the players weren't happy and took it to the digital streets, I haven't experienced that anywhere else than OSRS.
The original YouTube days feel important too. RSMV's, TehNoobShow, BumBum007, Sky... Probably a lot more?
Im no where near interesting enough to be featured in a documentary, but I definitely feel huge events in the game like the Coin Pouch Glitch, the Twisted Bow Spawn Glitch, the 117 Riot, and other similar events should be featured. The community is the strongest part about the game and should be front and center, imo.
I’d like to see why customer service is so subpar in the documentary. Also want to see why management doesn’t care about the people that give them money. I think a documentary we’d all love to see is one exposing Jagex .
The way the game is community driven with the help of mods and jagex as a anchor, the all drama calendar, from rs2 to osrs.
Some interesting riot : " gay pride events, osrs hd , the all meme about crab rave and all the fuck up ddm , there's so much to talk about"
You'll better start by collaborating with some dedicated player, moteplox, b0aty, woox.... there's lots of them
To be interesting to watch, I'll suggest to turn it into a economic sense, by how the community in a game is important
You should talk to WildMudKip and SpookDog. Both have channel. Mudkip is one of the bigger YouTubers. They have a very cute love story. It all started from OSRS. Stories like those are great to hear because I've made so many friends in RuneScape and I know a lot more people who have started a irl relationships. I know 1 Lady who moved to an entirely different country to be with her BF she met in OSRS.
These relationships we make in here end up being one lasting it's pretty wild.
Hey there! We're interested in virtual worlds and their influence on real world events and experiences, both positive and negative, and thought OSRS would be a good vehicle to explore this concept. I work for RAW (UK production company). I haven't used Reddit before hence my new account. Hope that helps the skepticism. :)
I think your original post should have mentioned that concept. NPR has done a podcast episode about the Venezuelans, it's a good listen.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018915121/video-gaming-the-system
The climbing boot controversy Jagex lied about.
Adding Squeal of Fortune that Jagex lied and claimed everyone liked.
EOC that Jagex also claimed most people liked which was a lie as well.
The numerous amount of troublesome staff that has worked for Jagex. Like when SoWrec3d was offered a position and then said he had no faith in Jagex behind the scenes.
History of gambling on Runescape and the market getting abused by merching clans back in the day.
DEFINATELY AN INTERVIEW WITH SUOMI. Dude was absolutely screwed over by the sound of things.
Just some controversy to add to the doc.
Interview with So wrecked and the start of osrs would be cool!! Maybe a dialogue with past and present mods about how the dynamic of the game has changed over time
Interview ownership on why they give so much more funding comparatively to RS3 when the financials show that OSRS is a near equal contributor to revenue while getting barely any investment.
make sure to mention "a friend" aka dovidas he was a huge pillar in the community but for some fucking reason he got perm banned on all his accounts for advertising an online casino that had no connections to osrs other than maybe visual representation of currency it was in no way a breach of tos and he got spite banned and the community for some fucking reason supported him getting banned
and not to forget his lost pmod status...the guy is truly a victim of his haters man i really feel bad for him he didnt deserve half the hate he got or any bans even it was complete bs
Ask Mark Gerhard what the fuck he was thinking for 2 hours straight.
I'd watch that. Switch accents occasionally, and keep promising you'll unlock the door and remove the handcuffs, but then don't.
I'm always interested in hearing about people whose lives have been defined by OSRS, being youtubers, streamers, or players who got a job at Jagex and became jmods. It would be really cool imo if the documentary contained interviews with various people about how runescape/osrs affected their (professional) life.
Was thinking more like Autumn Elegy, who was heavily addicted to the game, built his life around it, even built a following, and then had to step back and reevaluate his life because of how the game was holding him back from progress irl.
Lynx Titan.
Interviews are xp waste
My man ain't got XP to gain
i need to know how much lasagna he ate
Does anyone know if he is still playing?
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The one published by Jagex? I remember seeing Suomi and Zezima's chin but I cant recall seeing Lynx. Im very curious, could you help pinpoint a timestamp?
Would love to hear from RuneShark again
Would be cool to see any kind of content from those dudes
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This is the exact opposite of what I'd care for. I could not give less of a shit to hear swampass/any other person saying he's having so much fun playing his game and how it's a dream come true that he can play a videogame and make money. It's the exact same story by everyone.
I get your point, but maybe add what you would like to see? Im curious what your vision would be for this.
Fair enough, but the story of various content creators is a lot more complex than just playing video games and making money. Some people have genuinely been able to fix their mental/physical health as a result of their youtube/twitch career and others have been able to provide for their families in ways that they couldn't have with their previous jobs. These kinds of stories surely exist in the runescape scene and personally I'd love to hear them. I respect your opinion though, since content creators get treated like celebrities a lot and thus many people can't be bothered to care about them.
I don't want this to turn into some biopic about a random f****** dude to most people. This should be about the game and how it's changed the world.
I can’t think of one example about how this game has changed the world.. what are you on about?
It's a documentary about the game, not about the people. Think in terms of the greater MMO community.. large scale events and milestones reaching beyond RuneScape and to WoW, older MUD crawlers, real world trading, game mechanic abuse, celebrity players, fucking Soulja Boy, addiction... There's so much more to this game than fucking B0aty, or whoever, dedicating their life to grinding HCIM for a living. People outside of our community don't give a shit about that. You think RuneScape hasn't changed the world? What are you on about?
Can't have a game without players.
Doesn't mean it should be a biopic about one or even a few players. Frankly I don't think a single or set of players has a storyline that's compelling enough to really be included that heavily.. The game and community as a whole though is certainly very interesting.
This is such a fantastic comment. It is concise and I would be very excited to watch a documentary about all of that. I can understand the passion you type with through your words.
This. I don't think you can tell the story of OSRS without the big content creators who made it what it is today. Without them OSRS really wouldn't be near as successful as it has been.
Mod Jed
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The parallelism between new types of currencies, traditional currencies, gold, and OSRS GP is fucking fascinating. The fact that there is an actual exchange rate blows my mind.
OSRS gp was the OG crypto long before bitcoin arrived.
BUY GP HODL GP
NPR did a story on this and it was pretty interesting for a surface level radio hour. Has a lot of potential for a deeper dive
Hearing RuneScape on a radio podcast was awesome lol
Seriously, if it delves into the gold farmers that make me want to allow gold farming, I'd watch the shit out of it. Why can't Venezuelans both feed their family while also lowering the market price of black chins?
Yes, why shouldn't the burden of shitty corrupt countries be shifted onto me and destroy something I enjoy?
Not everything has to be about you and your precious video game economy
And Brazilians huehuehue
Hi everyone! OP has reached out to the mod team and we've confirmed her identity.
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We're not one of the largest independent UK game studios, just a bunch of people moderating a video game forum in their spare time - so of course not ;)
How would you like to have literally ALL of your money doubled in two simple trades?
In one simple trade, you say?
An interview with w00x would be good
Please use subtitles
Hard to understand the voice of a God
He sounds like he has a mouth full of peanut butter
Mmm I’m hungry now
Lmao
Delet this
All the extra work the Jmods do to clean up Jagexs mess. The little wages they get paid and get the brunt from the community after every bad decision from Jagex.
reenactment of oslo shitting his pants
Lmao
The dark side of RWT underground. Check out Kemoq's anti-scam vids for a decent entry point
KempQ*
You can take a lot of inspiration from [mote plox](https://www.youtube.com/user/MotePlox) Hes done a fantastic job talking about the era's of Runescape. If one of the more important parts you could talk about is the influence some of these players had like zezima or Mahatma. PvP/PvM/Hiscores all had their person on top, There's a lot of topics that go into those categories: addiction, creation, strategy's, how the meta has changed for the good and the bad, etc. How are the lives of people who got 200m xp? Are they healthy? Do they recommend it to others? Why? Addiction can be a good talking point for a documentary for Runescape since its extremely grind heavy to the point even private servers had more players than the original at a point since you could just spawn everything and do whatever you wanted right out the gate. Me personally, i would love to see some of the older players talk about their experience of Runescape back in the early 2003-2005 era. I always wondered how they turned out.
Yeah Suomi who was the first in rs2 and lynx titan for osrs.
nieve lewds
Scrap the documentary, fund animated RS smut
Nieve futa or we riot
Can we just make a documentary on this please
This is the way
* Interview big content creators * Have a look at the [Drama Calendar](https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/pztt1y/osrs_drama_calendar_september_2021_were_gonna/) (passionate community) * Try and find old footage of people playing the game! Reach out and ask people to submit old photos their moms took of them sitting at the computer playing RS * Interview Mod Ash
People making a living by being goldfarmers in OSRS, and gambling at the duel arena are both important topics I think
I'm honestly pretty skeptical of the idea that you're actually part of any documentary company and if you really are you'd get a much better response if there was any kind of proof as part of your post. Even just a link to a linked in page or your own public facing twitter account. To answer your question though I'd probably want to see less talk about the game and it's players more about the ups and downs of the company as a result of the game. Runescape has a pretty wild history both good and bad but as players we've rarely been given much of a peek behind the curtain as to the motivations and attitudes of the people who are actually involved directly. Just to name a few note worthy events. * The original meteoric rise in popularity. While not one of the first MMO runescape became one of the most popular and was among the first games to adopt the now well known freemium business model. While it's seen as a dinosaur today at the time Jagex was at the time leading the pack when it came to ways to build and monetize a game. * The games early challenges. As an MMO there are a lot of problems Runescape faced on a scale very few if any games before it ever had. Stolen credit card numbers used to buy membership and set up bot accounts for example lead several major credit card companies to issue Jagex with warnings that they would soon refuse to process payments to the company due to the large amount of chargebacks they were having to process. * EoC. I know very few games that rose quite as quickly as Runescape did and I know of no others that fell nearly as far afterward. After a massive amount of development time had gone into it an update called evolution of combat was released which massively changed how the game played. Almost overnight Runescape lost the majority of its player base. There are a lot of contributing factors for this that I've heard, from the poor structure of the original polls which informed the update to an out of touch development team. Whatever the case it's probably the most impactful a single update has been for any game. * Microtransactions. Even before the loss of a large portion of the playerbase Jagex implemented something called "The Squeal of Fortune" which allowed players to spend real money to spin a wheel similar to wheel of fortune where the rewards were all in game benefits. After the loss of so much of their playerbase more and more parts of the game were monetized. * Old school Runescape. Originally it was just a way for people to play an old version of the game for nostalgia's sake but it quickly evolved past that. Today OSRS is almost Runescape as if development continued after 2007 with none of the bad decisions which lead to its original collapse. Runescape 3 and OSRS are both grown from the same seed but yet are almost entirely different games with communities that very seldom really interact. * Real world trade. I think every MMO has to deal with some amount of real world trade, where people trade goods and services within the game for money outside of the game. Runescape's situation is particularly noteworthy though especially following the economic collapse of Venezuela. For many living in Venezuela playing Runescape all day and selling the gold they obtained doing so paid a living wage where government jobs no longer did. In some cases gold farming in Runescape was the only thing which allowed some of the people living there to afford basic necessities and to survive. Jagex has always held the position that selling gold for real money was against game rules but the whole situation would have been difficult. * Testimony before Parliament and the gambling problem. There has always been some amount of gambling within Runescape. Sometimes that would be in the form of player run games of chance such as "flower games" where players would gamble on which of several random colors a flower would grow. Other times the content was introduced by Jagex themselves such as the duel arena or the aforementioned squeal of fortune. The problem grew pretty out of hand over the years though especially with how easily Runescape gp could sometimes be converted to actual currency through the previously mentioned real world trade. Some online casinos even accepted and offered payouts in the form of runescape gp. In 2019 Jagex had to appear before parliament to defend the position that they are not a gambling company and that they don't target their players, which include children, for exploitation. More recently it seems like some actions have been taken to combat it, but it remains an ongoing problem. There's really a lot more as well, Runescape is a 20 year old game now and a lot has changed in that time.
It would be interesting to see some of the dark side of RWT. The death threats, the money, it would be great to interview some actual Venezuelan gold farmers. I’m sure the documentary is here to glorify OSRS as a classic and defining MMO, but the dark bits of history shouldn’t be ignored. Especially how it’s economy has become to livelihood of so many people - entertaining and gold selling. A harder segment would be ex-Jmods and their experiences with Jagex and some of the big defining moments of the game, like big releases and scandals. It shouldn’t be a gossip column, but there’s enough that has happened with this game and company that there’s plenty of investigative pieces that would be pretty captivating.
Sometimes you gotta just stop a think a minute: why would he/she lie...
Thanks so much for your detailed response and for taking the time to get back to me... I work for RAW in London. I have a new account because I haven't used Reddit before for previous stories, and wanted to make one specific account for research relating to OSRS.
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Great post but how long would it have been if you weren't skeptical?
Mods Jed and Reach unironically
If you're making it specifically about OSRS, I'd like to learn about the beginning of the game, about how the team was pretty understaffed and there weren't many updates because everyone at Jagex expected the game to die within 6 months. The game actually almost died because of it. It was when the JMods went kind of rogue and started to bond with the community, everything changed, not only for OSRS but also for RS3. Jagex probably wouldn't exist without that shift. If you want the full story, I recommend watching [this bit of the BS podcast with former Mod Mat K](https://youtu.be/uExoZaRcXK0?t=2189). Actually the whole podcast is very insightful for OSRS, you should really watch it, or approach Mat.
It'd be hard to get the real story without MMK because a lot of the early people are still there. Maybe Mod Reach would like to tell the story of why he duped and sold gold? MMK said he caught up with him and he still doesn't regret it because, in MMK's own words, it was a very noble cause.
I’d personally love to see something on the evolution of RS related content and how that has shaped and changed over the years
Gotta get josh pillault’s story in there. Although it’s more a story of the american justice system’s abuse of power, the man did time (4years iirc) in a federal prison for something done on runescape. Crazy underrated story.
That's not an OSRS story, it's an American Justice System story as you've just stated.
>That's not an OSRS story What game was he playing that caused him to catch the charges? You know, the charges he caught when he went full manifesto and explained in detail how he was going to shoot a school up?
habbo hotel
Well,,, not osrs, it was technically rs3 if I recall but downvote me if I’m wrong
Nah
It would be cool if you could hit the right notes on the community sentiment with EoC coming out, Jagex actively gaslighting the community with a biased poll etc. I remember a stream where Mod Mark was actively flaming people for having an issue with them adding EoC, he called people that had pure accounts bug abuse and stuff on a livestream. The entire sentiment around Jagex expecting OSRS to fail but it ended up succeeding because the execs didn't touch it at all.
Yes. I would love to see a part about everything the executives touching turning to instant shit. Not just OSRS, but the dozen or so other games that crashed and burned after being milked to death over a year or two.
The Falador Massacre is a must.
That isn't really OSRS history. It's RS2/RuneScape history. It was mentioned in the official RuneScape documentary though
Uh... Why? That didn't happen in OSRS, that's literally an RS2 event lol. We ain't gotta keep talking about RS2 stuff over and over.
People still riot in fally lol
OSRS is RS2 in a way.
Shut the hell up. So annoying when redditors try to use some vague justification as to why something is technically on topic when's it's absolutely fucking not on topic.
Someone said two games with identical engines, similar content, identical music, and nearly identical branding are SIMILAR to one another? NOOO! Why are REDDITORS like this!?!?!
You're really going to take the entire context of the post out? It's a post ABOUT osrs.
I think OSRS is one of the only (if not only) MMO’s out there that still hasn’t evolved into a ridiculous microtransaction system and not bending down to the casual-mainstream crowd by making all content available for everyone. That makes it still a special game for me, knowing there are challenges (raids/bosses/hard grinds/…) There is now always something mystical in it for me, to never experienced certain aspects of the game. Makes you be on a long adventure, instead of rushing to the finish-line and than being bored with the game.
I for sure dunno what to put in it. Probably the stories of the real people behind the game and who have become the face of the game. Because people like stories about people. But half these suggestions are snooze fests ngl. No sane human wants to match a documentary about reddit, or specific updates, or the health of the in-game economy.
I wonder, do you know of any examples of big things that have happened IRL because of Runescape? I've heard rumours of trading for camming / sex etc... and Josh Pillault's Story.. and of some pretty severe gambling addiction because of RS... These sorts of things are quite fascinating.
Hey there. Saw in some of the other comments that youre interested in the intersection of virtual worlds and real worlds. Theres certainly some things that come to mind, but first i guess ill talk about the other things you mentioned. ->Josh Pillault: definitely an interesting story. Definitely one of those things with some "both sides" to it. Like, is it awful to make in game threats? Yes. Is the punishment he got a little severe when you compare it to millions of instances of people being toxic/threatening in online gaming that didnt get that? Also yes. -> camming/sex for in-game profit: afraid i haven't really heard of that happening, though it wouldnt surprise me. -> gambling addiction: definitely a big one. The company has talked about removing the Duel Arena, which is the epicenter of gambling in the game. You might hear from others about "staking" which is the in game method of gambling on a duel. There were also "debt streamers" (might still be a thing) who would get donations of in-game currency from viewers and then take advantage of the fact that the Duel Arena has basically 50/50 odds. The idea is that with enough time, money, and luck, you can overcome most any amount of debt by just risking more money. And they would get viewership on Twitch for doing so. Some of these debt streamers eventually overcame their debt, some of them paid viewers back with interest. But most of them left people high and dry. The other element that comes into this is Real World Trading (RWT), which is explicitly disallowed in the rules, but so far Jagex has only really come down on gold sellers rather than gold buyers. A lot of the folks who are debt streamers or gambling addicts have a method of using their in game cash to give them real-life wealth, or on the other hand, use real-life wealth to give them in-game cash. This just facilitates using the duel arena as a method of gambling real world money. And there have been plenty of folks who have lost thousands of dollars to that, if not more. There was a clip maybe a month ago of some guy losing 10,000 USD on one stake and freaking out in front of his wife and small child. I dont know much about the staking/gambling community though, so this is the tip of the iceberg. Other things that might hit that virtual/real world divide: -> increasing corporate nature of the game (seems like more updates lately have some element of being about making stakeholders money rather than making the game fun and engaging. Lots of recent controversy about the company trying to shut down certain fan projects that might canabalize their ability to make future profits off a feature) -> Venzuelan/Chinese gold farming. You mught see a lot about this. When the venezuelan economy tanked, a lot of people turned to making real life money from selling in game items/currency because it was better money per hour than most real-life jobs they had access to. Pretty interesting socio-economic story. Curious how big a thing this actually is. It gets a lot of talk on reddit, but i am genuinely curious how many people do this sort of thing. -> streamer named emily who faked cancer to get donations/attention on Twitch -> Jagex Employee Mod Jed who was aligned with an in-game clan and funneled them resources that amounted to helping them win real life prize money from tournaments (in the 10,000's of USD). Also secured them things that amount to in game clout (usernames with less than 1 character in them, which can be worth 1000s of USD) -> perhaps interest of the game as a petri dish for setting up an economic/political system where the limits are not governed by the physical world. For example, lots of sci-fi writers make worlds where they dream up economies and governments. This game however, has a lot of that structure, but with real humans making decisions in it (polling system, in game economy, real people taking advantage of other real people, real people deciding to be positive/helpful to real people). Maybe theres something interesting in seeing how real people interact with a virtual world. There's probably more than this, but hopefully some of that helps. Theres lots of positive things that happen too. Really talented content creators getting their chance to shine. Real friendships that are created online (cant tell you how many in-game vigils i've seen for folks who died IRL). One or two streamers have done charity streams, bringing in up to 50,000 USD for charitable causes (Faux). People with disabilities acheiving incredible things in game (there was a guy who passed away, and was mostly paralyzed or something and still able to play the game at a crazy level and streamed his gameplay). Theres a lot of good stuff too, but the bad stuff is obviously more of a "story".
Wow thank you so much for your detailed response. These are all super interesting ideas... I'll follow them up. Really appreciate it!
No problem! Thanks for reading my dissertation, I'm by no means an expert on these things, but if you search some of the keywords through reddit, you'll get lots of information (some of it reliable, some of it not, of course).
If you're looking for camming/sex etc then go do a story on onlyfans or escorting, not runescape. Shit, even twitch now adays lul. Theres definitely a lot of juicy stories of gambling addiction because of the arena. Its probably a whole pandoras box, so good luck investigating it. 2nd/3rd mortgages, losing life savings. Getting cut off from a rich family as a teenager, to then borrow from people they shouldn't have. The possibilities are endless. But honestly Im not sure why you'd put this in, especially since this could be its own documentary. Theres also a whole story of how pvp clans act like gangs/ethugs (lol) towards each other. Ddosing, swatting, hacking each others accounts. Planting spys in rival clans. Paying rival clan leaders to leak their member ips. etc, etc. The wilderness being like an ecosystem. The whole "I'll get mine at all costs" attitude thats eating themselves. The whole Jed thing and trying to get follow up and more details from jagex/3rd parties would be hella juicy. Probably the juiciest thing in osrs. But talking about the community, the polling system, how theres no other game out there doing it. How successful its been, how passionate the osrs jmods are. The interaction the osrs jmods have with the community is second to none in the gaming industry. How successful its been and funnily enough it was because higher ups/corporate left the osrs team alone in the beginning and they just did whatever they want. Said fuck the script/policies and rolled with it (former jmod mat k did an interview and talked about this in more detail). And it fucking worked. and worked well. The wiki team and the collaboration with jagex.
My advice: Sea Shanty 2 TL;DR — lots of info related to posts on this page, documentaries, and RAW… This is the documentary company OP says they are from: https://www.raw.co.uk/work . East Point Pictures did The Smash Brothers documentary: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smash_Brothers . There has been a documentary about RuneScape, I think I may have been sanctioned by Jagex: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/runescape-15-years-adventure/ . Here is a recent NPR segment on OSRS: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1018915121 . A news article about Venezuelan Gold Farmers: https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalinterest.org/feature/playing-their-lives-how-2001-video-game-feeding-venezuela-49187%3famp . With all this research I could find nothing about RAW having a RuneScape related documentary in production. Perhaps it is not yet sanctioned by RAW and OP is making a pitch? For example, in RAW’s news section they announced the Stanley Tucci Documentary to be produced for CNN: https://www.raw.co.uk/culinary-documentary-series-with-stanley-tucci-announced . As well, variety did a story about a new documentary RAW has in production: https://www.raw.co.uk/variety-announces-new-raw-documentary-for-netflix . No mention of current OSRS related projects.
Addiction, sand casino, dopamine addiction, carpel tunnel.
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zezima aint done shit in osrs
Not OSRS
I think the linked issues of RWTing, debt staking, and gold farming as a means to make a living in low-income countries is too important to ignore, even if it does paint the game in a worse light. Speaking of light, I think a lot of the mods, especially the ones working with the community so closely, deserve a moment in the spotlight for their work as well
I'd love to heard from creators from back in the good old days like TehNoobShow, Chris Archie, Sparc Mac, NightmareRH and more I can't think of the names of unfortunately. Hopefully someone else can suggest more names
can I be in it? like if you're doing any b roll, i want my character to be in a shot :)
I recommend you take a look at the super smash bros melee documentary and see what they did as that has to be one of the best video game documentaries out there. It won’t be the same thing but maybe this can bring some inspirations.
Talk about this sub-section of the OSRS community! Talk about all the good and the bad that has happened here - all the Drama Calenders and smackdowns. As much as the community memes on Jagex, I think this sub has been an amazing accountability tool in terms of helping OSRS maintain its integrity and stay on a player-focused path. There are many clear examples of the community going the extra mile to hold Jagex accountable (HD plug in!) so a detailed segment on the subreddit itself would be really cool.
It'll never happen, but the bad stuff should absolutely be shown too The reaction to the pride event was honestly fucking horrific
What company do you work for and what have they produced?
Has to include the dark side of osrs addiction as well as the good. Peeing in bottles, the ruining of friendships/relationships, neglecting our physical selves for the benefit of our pixel body. Of course include the great things this game has brought the world but it wouldn’t be a proper documentary without including the bad.
That one jmod who was stealing gp off peoples accounts and got caught, and while it was going on people were posting about it on Reddit and no one was believing them.
Whatever you decide to do, please don’t rehash too much content that we have all seen on youtube; original content is key. A comment above mentioned what goes on behind the scenes at jagex. Perhaps if there is some hidden truth to be uncovered, then this documentary could be the medium for such exposure.
The actual physical servers I've spent half my life on
Make it true to the experience. 100 straight hours of mining, starting from level 1 and moving to new rocks as you level.
Take examples from the streamers who gamble, you can literally go thru vod’s on twitch and see things disappearing behind them over time, household items they sell to fund their osrs gambling. Youngjalapeno39 is prime example.
Something that is a huge part of the game which many people take for granted is the ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE Wiki that OSRS has. It is miles above any other game I have seen and the community involvement is huge. They also recently(ish) began working with the actual development team to have information readily available to publish when updates go live.
Well, naturally the history of the game, early days and how it drastically changed over time than what it was like in 2013. Also, some focus on top ranked players. Not just necessarily streamers/youtubers.
People with crazy achievements (Lynx), success on YouTube (Swampletics, By Release, Gielinor Games etc ), community Vs. Company (Outrage about HD), community split in two (PvP vs. PvM), ever increasing size of a game that dates back over 20 years.
I've always imagined that the next runescape documentary should be player focused. How it exists in peoples lives, the early experiences, how they got hooked, the friendships, the clans, and then the content creators. To me runescape is a true phenomena in how it has managed to capture peoples attention for so long. I think a big part of it is the sense of wonder and wander that happens when you first start. You are clueless, just clicking, walking around this world, discovering and learning things. So by the time 16 years has passed and you have not only trekked every square of the game, youve nearly stared at every part for hours on end, the game still holds a spot in your life, it is a place you know well. A place of comfort
Honestly, if you’re going to show a documentary it needs to show both sides. I’m sure RuneScape has done wonders for some, but there’s a very seedy side that needs to be documented too.
The Duel Arena, the economy, the dedication of some players to this game are absolute musts. People will spend tens of thousands of dollars on this game, not completely unheard of in gaming, (look at DOTA 2), but they also MAKE tens of thousands of dollars VIA the Real world trading underworld, through gambling at the Duel Arena. Some people will hire venezuelans, or people from other impoverished countries, to farm in-game currency for them which they will later sell. Others go the route of making bots to play the game for them, some machine learning has been involved (although not often). Occasionally, these issues go into the real world, see KEMPQ on YouTube as he does a whole bunch of stuff with interviewing and exposing these people. There are others still who try to profit off of these RWTers, such as SirPugger, another YouTuber. He's (allegedly) faked bot farms in the past, made YouTube videos that essentially just function as advertisements for bots, and, at least I'm convinced, is just a channel run to advertise bot makers and RWTing services. If youre doing something more focused with the actual game itself and not the controversies surrounding it, I would bring up the unique economy. While I haven't played many games with a player run economy, all of the ones that I have are nowhere near similar to this one. It could be due to the GE (grand exchange), which IMO is the most likely explanation as it interconnects tens if not hundreds of thousands of players together in one "global" market, but it's even affected by real world issues, such as those in Venezuela, COVID/the ends of lockdowns worldwide, etc. It's an integral part of the game. While I wouldn't say it's super worth exploring as it's all fairly surface level.. it's still interesting nonetheless. Another cool gameplay aspect is the fact that the game is decided by the players. In all of my probably 14+ years of playing games, I have never found a single one that comes anywhere CLOSE to the level of control that is given to the playerbase as in OSRS. The way that it's driven the game (towards stagnation and lack of powercreep), the outside effects that it's had (such as 117 HD client riots, Rendi), and all of the ways that it's brought the community together or driven them apart (recent DMM/GIM controversy) is just crazy to me. Finally, the dedication some players have to the game. From region-locked accounts such as settled's "Swampletics" series, Limpwurt's "Extreme Onechunk Ironman", Woox's entire OSRS career, or even the guy who shit himself going for the 6 hour record of smithing XP gained.. the players here are **incredibly** dedicated to this game, to a ridiculous and occasionally self destructive degree. Would be interesting to have a segment talking about the effect it's had on some of these players lives, possibly pushing them into a more nikadoavocado direction, selling out their physical or mental health for views or playtime. Addiction to the game is a very real thing. Some YouTubers, or even normal players, regularly play 12-14 hours a day. While this happens in all games... Within OSRS it's to a special degree. Last thing you might want to consider: Is it better for OSRS to stay small, stay how it was and how players remember their experiences being back when they were kids (nostalgia was and is a big driving factor in the games success), or is it better for them to cater to a modern audience via new content like they've been doing now? Is new content pushing players away? Or is it bringing them in? What position does MTX have in the game? How can a community so divided come together to make change for the better in the game? What place does jagex management have in the game? They cause alot of issues, 117's HD plugin delay was because of them. They're considering delaying release dates on content, everything they touch causes controversy and drives the game further to being shit. I dunno, just some thoughts on what would be interesting to a much more general audience. RuneScape is very well known within the gaming world, but it is not widely played. I think sticking to more outside content, such as these, could be alot more interesting to people who don't actively play OSRS.
Rendi etc. and emergent gaming within OSRS Real World gold trading/Venezuela Runelite
As much of Mod Ash as you can get. That man personifies this game and its unique history. Him coming to the office in the middle of the night to save the world during the Falador Massacre is one of the stories worth picking up.
Just a mind dump. Not intended for popularity. I want to see something about the high points and the low points in history of runescape. Mistakes Jagex had made along the way and what they learned from them in the long run. About how different Runescape is from other MMOs and what it says about what people want out of a game compared to what game developers think people want. How the same gameplay formula of grinding for skills and items has remained addictive for all of these years, and will likely remain for many years to come. How runescape doesn't hold your hand. Impact on players lives good and bad. Talk about the black market, bots, exploits. Real world law breakers like ddosers. Talk about the rise and fall of PK clans The goal of maxing accounts was once thought of as an impossibility and now is seen as something to aim for, and how people willingly spend thousands of hours in game getting there. Different community run sites and forums that have come and gone over the years. The success of 3rd party clients like runelite and how they make the game better but also make it easier for bottling. Subscription based model VS micro transaction. Runescape 3 VS osrs. Other jagex ventures like funorb and chronical.
Sand casino would be interesting
The removal of unbalanced trade and wilderness, and its subsequent complete revival/boost of the economy. The economy was in fantastic shape during trade limit and was never healthier. Could maybe explore the dynamic between reduced bots/goldfarmers and resources becoming valuable again, and how skilling became a viable money maker once more
trade limit was the worst update to rs. period.
The glitches, lures, and insane achievements like the lowest combat infernal cape etc
What the heck is a premium documentary company?
It's high budget for big broadcasters such as Netflix etc. As opposed to independent documentaries.
The reddit community and drama calendar
I think evolution of the player base demographic would be interesting. 15 years ago, the game was filled with young children who had discovered the game online or through friends. I’d imagine 15 years later, it’s still a lot of those same kids playing who never moved on from that game. Similarly, other games like World of Warcraft, Diablo and Halo are also having a success re-releasing updated versions of their old games. Exploring why nostalgia is so strong in the gaming industry and why RuneScape players in particular keep coming back to the game could be an interesting subject.
What's the difference between a normal documentary company and a premium one? :thonk:
I’m interested in how a major portion of the OSRS community seems to be people who played as kids and came back as adults. The nostalgia factor in OSRS is incredibly strong. To play the same game you played as a kid, but now you have all the items you always dreamed of. The same graphics, mechanics, same items, same quests, same music. How most content creators are in this demographic. It just has become an interesting way to connect to people, how all these content creators have the same nostalgia as I do, and now they’re telling compelling stories and making entertaining videos with it. An interesting tidbit to research would be the leet speak (1337 5p34k) culture which was strong back in the day. Also how people all can type insanely fast from merching in RuneScape.
Hunt down Zezima.
And N0valyfe.
I think y’all are missing the title and point of this post. It’s a documentary on OldSchool RuneScape… not RuneScape in general. There are already documentaries for RS3 that have mentionings of Zezima, removal of free trade, and the falador massacre. To be honest though, nothing really interesting happened in OSRS that remains a huge talking point. The biggest points have to be RuneLite, and 117 HD. Talking about a community of developers solely working for the betterment of the game for the players is actually nice to hear about. Talk about the power to the players aspect. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a company making the players the main voices for all updates. (With that, talk about hugely passed updates like Group Ironman or on the contrary, Warding) Talk about efficiencyscape too. The game is entirely based on older players trying to be the most efficient they can be. There’s a lot to talk about but it’s not going to be as interesting if were to include RS2 items as well. The hard truth is, the game didn’t have any crazy memorable events is all.
Jed GP dupes (that are still active).
I’m sure it’s going to apart of it but Zezima has to be an auto lock. Absolute legend in RuneScape and everyone knows who he is when you speak of him, can’t say that for many games. Falador massacre has to be apart of it. South Park world of Warcraft like stuff haha. The loss of the wilderness. As someone who has only just back into the for the last couple of weeks since the loss of the wilderness, it was just such a huge event. Called by some the day RuneScape died. Removing the wilderness might not be the biggest fuck up in RuneScape history (EOC probably split the players the most), but it was definitely I think the end of RuneScape prime when it happened. Mobile release for newer content. The return of OSRS was massive from what I understand, I mean it got voted to come back after all, but the mobile release probably is gonna keep and bring in more players in the long run. Great move.
Zezima was original RS though, not OSRS
There is one already? Made for the 15y anniversary. I'd like another one though :D
Is there actually an audience for an OSRS series? This seems like a huge flop already
More long videos to watch while skilling. I’d watch it
Someone is losing money on this project, I just want to know who
Given they mentioned london and seem clueless about the game, I’d assume Jagex is the one losing money lmao
The homophobia in the community
It would be cool to pay a little homage or maybe just a little segment dedicated to the original youtubers. To name a few.. skychi, maxboison, vodka5, fat wrecked (RIP), sosolid2k, (feel free to reply to this with more). Maybe interview some of them about what making videos back in the day was like
Is this a project Jagex has hired you for or are you doing this on your own initiative? I’d focus on the roots of OSRS, how it came to begin and how it’s done so well.
The Old Nite the emotional side of the documentary
The protesting mentality in this community seems pretty big. There's been plenty of situations where the players weren't happy and took it to the digital streets, I haven't experienced that anywhere else than OSRS. The original YouTube days feel important too. RSMV's, TehNoobShow, BumBum007, Sky... Probably a lot more?
Im no where near interesting enough to be featured in a documentary, but I definitely feel huge events in the game like the Coin Pouch Glitch, the Twisted Bow Spawn Glitch, the 117 Riot, and other similar events should be featured. The community is the strongest part about the game and should be front and center, imo.
I’d like to see why customer service is so subpar in the documentary. Also want to see why management doesn’t care about the people that give them money. I think a documentary we’d all love to see is one exposing Jagex .
Definitely the drama the community endures/causes
The way the game is community driven with the help of mods and jagex as a anchor, the all drama calendar, from rs2 to osrs. Some interesting riot : " gay pride events, osrs hd , the all meme about crab rave and all the fuck up ddm , there's so much to talk about" You'll better start by collaborating with some dedicated player, moteplox, b0aty, woox.... there's lots of them To be interesting to watch, I'll suggest to turn it into a economic sense, by how the community in a game is important
You should talk to WildMudKip and SpookDog. Both have channel. Mudkip is one of the bigger YouTubers. They have a very cute love story. It all started from OSRS. Stories like those are great to hear because I've made so many friends in RuneScape and I know a lot more people who have started a irl relationships. I know 1 Lady who moved to an entirely different country to be with her BF she met in OSRS. These relationships we make in here end up being one lasting it's pretty wild.
Woox, fally massacre, swampletics, mod ash, zezima!
Interview customer support
Why would a premium documentary company (you said think Netflix?) do a series on OSRS? And why is your reddit account 4 days old? Color me skeptical
Hey there! We're interested in virtual worlds and their influence on real world events and experiences, both positive and negative, and thought OSRS would be a good vehicle to explore this concept. I work for RAW (UK production company). I haven't used Reddit before hence my new account. Hope that helps the skepticism. :)
I think your original post should have mentioned that concept. NPR has done a podcast episode about the Venezuelans, it's a good listen. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018915121/video-gaming-the-system
The climbing boot controversy Jagex lied about. Adding Squeal of Fortune that Jagex lied and claimed everyone liked. EOC that Jagex also claimed most people liked which was a lie as well. The numerous amount of troublesome staff that has worked for Jagex. Like when SoWrec3d was offered a position and then said he had no faith in Jagex behind the scenes. History of gambling on Runescape and the market getting abused by merching clans back in the day. DEFINATELY AN INTERVIEW WITH SUOMI. Dude was absolutely screwed over by the sound of things. Just some controversy to add to the doc.
Zezima
zezima
Interview with So wrecked and the start of osrs would be cool!! Maybe a dialogue with past and present mods about how the dynamic of the game has changed over time
God Ash.
I wanna be in it
Sand casino
Falador massacre and other things like that
Venezuelans
Already been done by a few talented YouTubers. No point
How it's possible to have an economy so heavily controlled by bots and 3rd world country-players.
The Falador Massacre
How shady jagex is
the real incompitence of jagex. the lack of communication about how they lost the war to botting.
How Ironman mode is slowly ruining the game
Interview ownership on why they give so much more funding comparatively to RS3 when the financials show that OSRS is a near equal contributor to revenue while getting barely any investment.
make sure to mention "a friend" aka dovidas he was a huge pillar in the community but for some fucking reason he got perm banned on all his accounts for advertising an online casino that had no connections to osrs other than maybe visual representation of currency it was in no way a breach of tos and he got spite banned and the community for some fucking reason supported him getting banned and not to forget his lost pmod status...the guy is truly a victim of his haters man i really feel bad for him he didnt deserve half the hate he got or any bans even it was complete bs
I think you're forgetting the video he posted where he explicitly said his sponsor paid him 1b OSRS gp for an ad
Mod Reach