History YMMV / RuneScape

** The Death system in ''[=RS3=]'' caused this. In 2015, it was overhauled and several changes were made; on one hand, most items could no longer be looted by other players once the Gravestone timer[[note]]Upon dying, an InstantGravestone is dropped where the player died if they lost any items on death, and the player can recover their stuff for free if they can reach it before the timer expires.[[/note]] runs out, instead being sent to [[RespawnPoint Death's Office]] where they can be reclaimed at a cost for the next 24 hours (though they could instantly be [[TemporaryOnlineContent lost forever]] if the player dies and loses items again before reclaiming them), [[AntiFrustrationFeatures providing players with the ability to not permanently lose their valuables when dying in a place that can't be reached quickly]]. As an added bonus, paying to reclaim degradable loot (which most high-level weapons and armour are) doesn't have the significant degrading penalty that recovering them from a gravestone does. On the other hand, Gravestone timers were reduced from a maximum of an hour to three minutes, ''five percent'' of the original length, and items that used to increase grave timers now increase it by seconds at a time. While you can still pay Death to get your items back, some players called foul, accusing the new system of being a MoneySink and arguing that it doesn't work as it's intended [[UnstableEquilibrium because the players with the most money are the ones least likely to die because they are generally higher-leveled and have access to better equipment]] while also driving away people from learning high-tier content for fear of losing millions of gold. When a similar system was introduced to '"OSRS'', the fees were hard-capped at only 500k gold (roughly 4 million in ''[=RS3=]'' gold), wheras a single mistake at a boss like Raksha, Telos or the Ambassador, where high-level gear is a necessity, could potentially leave an ''[=RS3=]'' player ''tens of millions of gold'' in the hole if they wanted to reclaim all their gea, . An update in 2023 resulted in an average reduction in death costs of, on average, 89%, while a tax was implemented on the Grand Exchange to act as an alterantive gold sink.

* CheeseStrategy: ''Old School'' has a technique known as "flinching", which is attacking a monster while it is out of combat and then running into a safe spot before it can retaliate. This strategy makes fights in some quests much, much easier.

** "Curse of the Empty Lord" (renamed "Curse of Zaros" in later versions) is particularly notorious for requiring you to stand for long amounts of time in high-level Wilderness listening to [=NPCs=] give you a lore dump, hoping some [=PKer=] doesn't show up just to ruin your day. It's better in [=RS3=], where [=PvP=] is opt-in only, but in ''Old School'' [=PvP=] is always on in the Wilderness.

* CheeseStrategy: ''Old School'' has a techinque known as "flinching", which is attacking a monster while it is out of combat and then running into a safe spot before it can retaliate. This strategy makes fights in some quests much, much easier.

** Tuska, the AlmightyIdiot ApocalypseHow-causing boar god. Her arrival on Gilenor was the basis for the third World Event... and it just plain stunk. Tuska was supposed to be this massive apocalyptic threat, but her event was scaled far back from what the original vision was, and it ended up being a repetitive minigame that you had to do for a single faction. Combine that with the LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt factor of the claims that Tuska would destroy Gilenor if she wasn't stopped, it's little wonder that she's been swept under the rug, with nary a mention of her since 2015; what's worse, she may have killed the concept of World Events in Runescape entirely.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: In "Hunt for Red Raktuber", you infiltrate the 'Pengmersible', a rogue penguin submarine, and discover that the captain of the sub, Captain Marlin, has been taken over by the sea slugs, and is planning to join forces with Mother Mallum to take over humanity. This provides a very interesting potential crossover between the sea slug questline and the penguin questline...that never came to fruition. Instead, Pescaling Pax recaptures the sub, "Salt in the Wound" happened, and WordOfGod says that the sea slug was dead and Captain Marlin was just insane.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Playing (the now-defunct) ''[=DarkScape=]''? Odds are you're either using a two-handed sword or air staff. Maybe ranged weapons or armour if you're doing [=PvE=], but almost never when doing [=PvP=] or just walking around.

** Some people view the Camelot quest series as non-canon, due to the fact that it relies on pre-existing characters from Myth/ArthurianLegend. However, this ignores the fact that Camelot is vitally important to another quest series, [[spoiler:as King Lathas's emnity towards Arthur and his Knights was a large reason why he aligned himself with the Iorwerth clan and faked the plague West Ardougne, kicking off the Plague/Elf Quest Series]].

** "The Chosen Commander" was the finale for the Dorgeshuun quest series, and is generally considered one of the finest quests in the game. "The Mighty Fall", billed as another Dorgeshuun quest, naturally would have some big shoes to fill. However, it fell short in nearly every regard, featuring a HappyEndingOverride for "The Chosen Commander", some of the cheapest boss fights in the game, and possibly the ''ugliest'' graphical update in any game ever. Fortunately, the HappyEndingOverride [[AuthorsSavingThrow was itself overridden]] in "Nomad's Elegy."

** The new death system (exclusive to [=RS3=]) released in June 2015. On one hand, most items can no longer be looted by other players once the Gravestone timer[[note]]Upon dying, an InstantGravestone is dropped where the player died if they lost any items on death, and the player can recover their stuff for free if they can reach it before the timer expires.[[/note]] runs out, instead being sent to [[RespawnPoint Death's Office]] where they can be reclaimed at a cost for the next 24 hours (though they can instantly be [[TemporaryOnlineContent lost forever]] if the player dies and loses items again before reclaiming them), [[AntiFrustrationFeatures providing players with the ability to not permanently lose their valuables when dying in a place that can't be reached quickly]]. As an added bonus, paying to reclaim degradable loot (which most high-level weapons and armour are) doesn't have the significant degrading penalty that recovering them from a gravestone does. On the other hand, Gravestone timers were reduced from a maximum of an hour to three minutes, ''five percent'' of the original length, and items that used to increase grave timers now increase it by seconds at a time. While you can still pay Death to get your items back, some players called foul, accusing the new system of being a MoneySink and arguing that it doesn't work as it's intended [[UnstableEquilibrium because the players with the most money are the ones least likely to die because they are generally higher-leveled and have access to better equipment]].
* CasualCompetitiveConflict: Or more specifically, [=PvE=] and [=PvP=] conflict, at least in ''Old School''. Due to increasing disinterest in [=PvP=] and issues in changing that[[note]]most infamously in Bounty Hunter 2, where the "incentive" to play it amounted to filling the wilderness with people farming BH points because it was incredibly profitable while requiring almost no interaction or skill, and despite this Jagex didn't do anything until popular [=PKing=] Youtuber [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1IRAjRkUIQ Torvesta made a video on it]], and even then their replacement for Bounty Hunter was just miles worse and drove away legitimate players completely[[/note]] Jagex ended up putting a significant amount of interesting things, some shortcuts for non-wilderness content, and some decently profitable bosses. This, in turn, forces players who don't care about it to either put up with [=PKers=] or deliberately avoid benefits, which results in conflict between them. Unsurprisingly, people aren't happy about amounting to kill fodder due to issues with actually fighting back (risking gear and wasting most of your inventory on supplies specifically for this is required to stand a chance 1v1 most of the time, let alone do anything against the groups [=PKers=] are always in)) and buffs to [=PKers=] that are heavily unpopular. Not helping matters is the increasing number of dirty tricks (Dragon Spear Special Attack abuse to stun and push victims from single- to multi-combat zones, skull tricks[[note]]tricking a player to attack someone else (usually someone with a borderline identical name, such as a capital i or lower case L difference) so they lose all their items upon death rather than keeping three[[/note]] and clan ambushes, all of which discourage more honest [=PKers=] and fuel the hostility. Notably, in spite of Jagex's increasingly desperate attempts to revive the Wilderness outside of clans and gold farmers, they still refused to let clans have a say in what it'll become due to, [[https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/wilderness-changes?oldschool=1 as directly stated in an update post]], the large levels of toxicity being a deterrent from allowing them to partake in the discussion. Not helping matters is an increasingly large amount of players deeming the Wilderness revival project a failure from the very start, with the only ways to convince a sufficiently large number of "prey" players to even enter it[[note]]namely, providing incentives to make up for the risk, which is nearly impossible in the game's current state without destroying the game's economy or making a skill's grind effortless[[/note]] having such huge drawbacks that it would greatly cause adverse reactions to the rest of the game. This being increasingly obvious that it's merely a [=JMod=] pet project (particularly Mod Ayiza, [[https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/qa-summary-16062022?oldschool=1 who gets very heated when it's brought up]]) despite consistent feedback that this isn't what the community wants no matter how much voting is restricted to get the desired outcomes[[note]]a mere 10% of voters were allowed to vote in the meaningful choices in poll 206, and that's despite the lower then average headcount than a [=PvE=], skilling, or quest poll gets[[/note]], the failed rewards aren't reworked in any meaningful way and serve as little more than fueling the disdain.

* Nex's "A Siphon Will Solve This" attack can be seriously tilting. Attacks made against her while she's in this state heal her instead, and are a major wall to anyone wanting to fight Nex solo. Necromancy makes this even worse, as unless you click off of her and onto one of the blood creatures she summons, she's getting healed.

** In ''[=RS3=]'', the introduction of Necromancy as the fourth major combat style caused this, due to being objectively superior to the other three styles; getting high-tier gear for the skill simply required some time investment, as opposed to attempting to grind Tier-90+ weapon parts from bosses with heavily unfavorable RNG. On top of that, Necromancy is far less resource-intensive vs Magic and Ranged while still having a larger range than Melee, and its system of always hitting and having damage scale based off of the player's accuracy meant that it could out-damage the rest of the combat triangle. This accuracy system was later tested out in the other styles, but it's unclear if it'll be implemented in the game outside of a beta server, and as of writing, Necromancy has effectively made Melee, Magic and Ranged completely obsolete.

** Wilderness Flash Events are considered not worth the time investment most of the time. The rarest drop from the event, the Dark Onyx Core (used to upgrade alchemical onyx jewelry) is only a ''0.02%'' drop in ''three out of the thirteen potential events'', which you have to be online for at the top of every hour in order to participate in, and if you fail, no rewards, period. Only one of the upgrades (the Dark Facet of Grace, which gives unlimited prayer points for Seren skilling prayers and upgrades the total porter charges from 500 to 2000) is even worth getting.

* ThatOneSidequest: "Mahjarrat Memories", the followup to a very short and simple miniquest. Kharshai asks you to find lost memories of his fellow Mahjarrat, and gives you a device to do so. The device has to be charged, and doing so requires 500 divine memories of vibrant or better quality. Not divine energy, note, but divine ''memories''. It takes about half an hour to gather enough divine memories to give the device one charge, and you have to charge it ''sixteen times'' to get the full rewards. So you pump up your device...now where do you get said memories? Thankfully, most of them are located in spots related to the Mahjarrat and thus easy enough to find if you remember the lore associated with them...with a few exceptions. Zemouregal's memory is the worst of the bunch, located deep in a dangerous quest dungeon that you've probably forgotten about by the time you're attempting this sidequest, but some of the others are tricky to find as well. On the plus side the total experience rewards are about twice the experience you'd get for converting the 8000 divine memories normally so it's worth doing.

** In ''[=RS3=]'', the introduction of Necromancy as the fourth major combat style caused this, due to being objectively superior to the other three styles; getting high-tier gear for the skill simply required some time investment, as opposed to attempting to grind Tier-90+ weapon parts from bosses with heavily unfavorable RNG. On top of that, NEcromancy is far less resource-intensive vs Magic and Ranged while still having a larger range than Melee, and its system of always hitting and having damage scale based off of the player's accuracy meant that it could out-damage the rest of the combat triangle. This accuracy system was later tested out in the other styles, but it's unclear if it'll be implemented in the game outside of a beta server, and as of writing, Necromancy has effectively made Melee, Magic and Ranged completely obsolete.

** In ''[=RS3=]'', the introduction of Necromancy as the fourth major combat style caused this, due to being objectively superior to the other three styles; getting high-tier gear for the skill simply required some time investment, it's far less resource-intensive vs Magic and Ranged while still having a larger range than Melee, and its system of always hitting and having damage scale based off of the player's accuracy meant that it could out-damage those styles. This accuracy system was later tested out in the other styles, but it's unclear if it'll be implemented in the game outside of a beta server.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Where would the {{MMORPG}} be without games like this and ''VideoGame/EverQuest''? This isn't counting the fact that it started off as a {{MUD}}.

** The Signature Heroes were designed to be popular, invoking classic fantasy archetypes, starring in some well-designed quests to sell the game to new players. They were featured heavily both inside and outside the game, however they have arguably failed to serve their purpose as adventures on par with the PlayerCharacter, seeming more like [[GuestStarPartyMember random one-offs]] instead. For players who were around before the Signature Heroes were added, there is the added insult of the heroes treating the PlayerCharacter like a newbie despite [[RememberTheNewGuy the player predating the heroes]]. What's more, even Jagex seems to be [[ShrugOfGod unsure about what to do]] with them since the [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore Sixth Age]] began, with [[spoiler:''three'' of them being killed off]] and the rest more or less sidelined.

** The six Signature Heroes were billed as NPC adventurers whose own journeys would frequently intersect with the player's, developing the world of Gielinor from more perspectives than the player's alone. The Raptor, Sir Owen and now Linza only have one quest each, and both Sir Owen and Linza's featured quests see them [[spoiler:killed off and returned as either partially or fully undead]]. Only Ariane, Ozan, and Xenia have any significant amount of development -- and still not nearly as much as most quest [=NPCs=] -- and even ''then'' Xenia gets [[spoiler:killed off in "Heart of Stone" and only briefly reappears in "Nomad's Elegy" before returning to the afterlife once again]].

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: The supposed penalty for losing the third World Event, "Tuska Comes", was [[ApocalypseHow the destruction of Gielinor]]. Literally ''no one'' thought that Jagex would actually [[LetThePastBurn go through with it]], and some players even [[RootingForTheEmpire advocated for]] deliberately [[TheBadGuyWins losing the event]] just to see what would happen. To their disappointment, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen we never found out]].

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNOvb32t0BQ Tuska's theme]] is very, very similar to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg1ElmVQ2pw Leaving Earth from Mass Effect 3]].

** Sneakerpeepers, a pet based on the Stalkers of Daemonheim. They're giant living eyeballs with little stumpy legs, and their examine text is "Isn't it [[JustForPun abhorable]]?"

*** You get a choice of paths when going through Kruk's Dungeon, either tanking or agility. The tanking path requires you to run through hordes of hard-hitting maniacal monkeys, while the agility path makes you go through a maze of obstacles. Both of them engage heavily in TrialAndErrorGameplay; the correct path through is randomized, and the only way to tell is to attempt to advance is to try and fail. Unfortunately, failure often involves running through the aforementioned maniacal monkey hordes. Even worse, there's a boss fight at the end of the dungeon, and the checkpoint is hidden in an inconspicuous wall nearby - meaning that unless you find it, you'll have to run through the dungeon every time the boss kills you.
*** The goddamn airship platform is a StealthBasedMission from hell. You have a series of narrow hallways patrolled by monkey guards, and you have to find six satchels, fill them with gunpowder, and set them at different points on the platforms to blow them up. ''The game does not tell you any of this,'' just saying you need to find something to blow it up with. Even when you figure this out, it's still a very long stealth level, with nothing else to break it up - and every time you get caught, your gunpowder gets ruined, meaning that you have to go back to the gunpowder barrel to refill your satchels. It's better than the Ratcatchers stealth level, but not by much.

*** The goddamn airship platform is a forced stealth level from hell. You have a series of narrow hallways patrolled by monkey guards, and you have to find six satchels, fill them with gunpowder, and set them at different points on the platforms to blow them up. ''The game does not tell you this.'' Even when you figure this out, it's still a very long stealth level, with nothing else to break it up - and every time you get caught, your gunpowder gets ruined, meaning that you have to go to the gunpowder barrel to refill your satchels. It's better than the Ratcatchers stealth level, but not by much.