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(Last updated: 05 October 2011)
The Beginning
Runescape Classic was first introduced to the public on
the 4th January 2001. It was made by Andrew and Paul Gower. A few months after the launch, a premium version of the game,
called members, was created and with this, they employed more people to form the company, Jagex. The forerunner to runescape
was Devious Mud, which was released for a week-long beta to the public in 1998 but was later abandoned. More about Devious
Mud can be found here. Runescape Classic constantly had a peak number of 35,000 players. This was largely due to it being a relatively
unknown game (and the internet still relatively new technology for the average home user). The servers were quiet and often
empty, but when you did meet someone, they were very polite and helpful. The "classic" community was completely different
from the more open and diverse community of today. After the launch of RS2, classic was kept open for everyone to keep enjoying,
but all your items were either left on classic or transferred to RS2 depending on your decision. No duplicate items were formed.
Jagex held about three "transfer sessions" so people could change their mind if they so wished.
Eventually classic
became run down with botting and sometime during the summer 2005, it was closed to free players. Only members were allowed
to play it. During a short time frame, players who kept logging into RSC at least once every six months, kept their classic
"status" and were allowed to keep playing provided they had a runescape subscription. These players would soon become known
as veterans. Any free player or member who did not log in once lost the ability to play classic.
During 2009, for two weeks Jagex re-opened classic and let people play classic on their characters.
The new classic players of 2009 were not veterans and could not log onto the veteran classic worlds, but were allowed to play
classic at any time thereafter, so long as they logged in once during this period (thus acitvating their classic status)
and had a membership subscription.
There were two more, two-week grace periods to enable your character to play classic, before classic
was finally closed on 29th September 2011, with no more grace periods.
Now, only players who have enabled their characters and also have an active subscription can play
classic. There are three worlds, two are for any classic player and one which is only for veterans and commonly has fewer
than ten players online.
Any player who enabled classic status on a character can get a classic cape on that character in
RS2, regardless if they are veterans or not.
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