Crowds of players turned out to mark the final hours of RuneScape Classic yesterday, celebrating the impact that this initial version of the popular free-to-play MMORPG had on their lives.
RuneScape Classic — known back then as simply RuneScape — launched back in 2001. This version was overtaken in 2004 by the launch of a much improved RuneScape 2, but Jagex renamed the first version RuneScape Classic and kept its servers running.
Syfy posted a sentimental retrospective covering RuneScape Classic and its affect on both players and the MMO industry over the years that’s highly worth reading.
Jagex announced back in May that it would have to sunset this long-running MMO due to instability and bugs that couldn’t be easily fixed. To pile on the hurts, the studio also shut down Chronicle: RuneScape Legends, a CCG, yesterday as well. The death of Classic is by no means the end of the game franchise, as both Old School RuneScape and RuneScape are still operating.
