# RuneScape

35 Hacker News commenters recommended RuneScape and 18 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 20 years (3 owners).

**Verdict:** Long-running free-to-play MMO loved for its deep skill grind, sandbox freedom and community; critics say its monetisation grew predatory.

## Why people recommend it

- Nostalgia from years of play (8 comments): "Runescape had such a massive audience of children playing it because it was so stupidly simple" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46023519)) "it's still the most powerful gaming experience and memories I have" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49517857)) "I've been playing that game since I was eight years old!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49274723))
- Strong community and developer bond (4 comments): "the symbiotic relationship between jagex and the players is what has made the game great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166806)) "the recent success of the game is in large part due to the community itself" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155678)) "Fell in love with the game and had a ton of admiration for the devs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49953956))
- Free, runs on weak hardware (4 comments): "Runescape ran on a potato, was F2P, the P2P was 5$ a month" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49518443)) "WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, all work great on Linux." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799601)) "free to play option and it ran in browser" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49520226))
- Rich skills and midgame content (2 comments): "the game needs to have enough content to have a thriving midgame, which is something that runescape does really well, except RuneScape's issue" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636599)) "RuneScape is an RPG game with over 20+ skills. What make it interesting is that RuneScape bot engines" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709987))

## What people warn about

- Predatory pay-to-progress monetization (3 comments): "the updates became sparse, the artstyle because sanitized and generic, and the game mechanics became predatory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954198)) "Modern RuneScape was a pit of whale hunting mtx pay2progress nonsense." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49526739)) "They financialised the game around 2011, it went down the shitter" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49611451))
- Bots and weak bot detection (2 comments): "their bot detection strictly works off behavioral characteristics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49953486)) "they don't really have an incentive to filter out bots" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958057))
- Economy inflation and gold farming (2 comments): "RS3 inflation of the raw material space makes this self evident. Normal Logs passed 1k ea. Obscene and inexcusable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47789824)) "Gold farming for membership bonds severely stratified the game's economy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48044061))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [World of Warcraft](https://hackerapproved.com/p/world-of-warcraft.md): 67 recommend
- [EVE Online](https://hackerapproved.com/p/eve-online.md): 52 recommend
- [Ultima Online](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ultima-online.md): 44 recommend
- [Old School RuneScape](https://hackerapproved.com/p/old-school-runescape.md): 22 recommend
- [Aardwolf MUD](https://hackerapproved.com/p/aardwolf-mud.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "RuneScape", https://hackerapproved.com/p/runescape/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).