Wow thanks jagex for sponsoring (very cool). Are you guys playing leagues? Are you going to play season of discovery? are you going to talk to me? why aren't you talking to me????
IMO one of the main reasons Leagues works is because the base game exists alongside it. If leagues ran all year round, or replaced the main game, then they wouldn't "feel" special anymore and would lose their appeal. I like OSRS left 2 years in between, means they get move development time to breathe and we get to anticipate/enjoy it more. Personally I'd like them to rotate between DMM and Leagues years
Something key about the Path of Exile being league-oriented is that their game is designed, from the ground up, to be experienced in 3 month periods. Or even in 1-2 week periods, as that's often how long people play a given character before making a new build. Games like OSRS and WoW are designed to take years to really complete. The shorter leagues have 2 benefits. First, making a game take years to complete either means a staggering amount of content, or turning the grind on existing content up to 11. OSRS has items that take a full working week of play to grind out, and items that might take a few working *months* to grind out. I get that some people like grinding, but for most people that kind of thing is just unpleasant. The other benefit of shorter leagues is that a new player can pick up the game and get to endgame very quickly. There's no getting stuck in midlevel hell in PoE like there is in OSRS, because there's no need for a midlevel hell to exist. Sure this means any particular character simply can't be a long-term investment, but it actually doesn't mean that the game as a whole can't be an investment. People come back time and time again to PoE because it's always providing interesting and new experiences, and over time they gather a wealth of experience with the game's incredibly complex and deep mechanics. A dedicated PoE player has just as much benefit from their time invested, in terms of really understanding and mastering the game, as a dedicated OSRS player has in benefit from having maxxed gear. So you get the benefit of new players being able to actually play your game in a reasonable time frame, and long-term players still get something out of their time invested so long as you have a game that rewards experience.
I think this really hits the nail on the head. I think you make a very good point about the choice between "Give players more to do" vs "Make the same amount of stuff take 10 times as long", and OSRS definitely seems to be fond of the latter. Like, the core game definitely has a lot of content, to be sure, so there is also genuinely a lot of stuff to do, but they're also fond of taking something that stops being interesting after the first few hours and make it take 100 hours just to keep you playing. There are also counterarguments to this within OSRS, where the content does stay interesting after tens or hundreds of hours, but the content that applies to is the very stuff that is gated by the "midlevel hell". And the stupid part about that midlevel hell is that it makes getting friends to play the game really, really hard. I can't sit down and say "Hey, come play this game with me, the endgame is really fun" and expect them to reach where I am in any palatable amount of time. They can understand that there's a really cool game at the end, but if they have to slog their way through dozens if not hundreds of hours of a far less interesting experience, they're much more prone to quitting after hitting the first couple boring points and doing something else with their time.
Dude, you cannot possibly be serious about this being better than PoE leagues. In PoE leagues characters become permanent after the league ends so nothing is ever lost. In this game ALL is lost after the league ends and the league is even shorter so you get to play it less. And for a LOT of people this is it, they will never play the class again cause they can't stomach not only having to start from scratch but also doing so with vastly slower leveling and vastly lower drop rates and without the other conveniences the league might have added. The contrast between endgame with good gear and lvl 1 with nothing, knowing you will take weeks to get any halfway decent character and months to get back to what you just left behind is simply too jarring for most players. It evidently is popular but that really shows more how the main game needs an overhaul to make creating characters with other classes / builds more accessible than how temporary league that basically play like you use cheat engine are amazing.
i absolutely think leagues in osrs should be every other year, i remember around leagues 3 that ppl, including me, were talking abt how it felt like there was a big content drought going on, right now tho? i think this year has been an amazing balance of good new updates and fun gamemodes
Totally agree. I am loving this league (my first one), but if it were every year then the team would have less time to add new content. Every year would probably make the leagues feel too similar and not worth doing.
@@matte5705 Have you managed a team of people before? You can’t just “double the team”. When working with a limited resource, you must always divide effort across all tasks. Having 2 tasks means splitting effort between those tasks, no matter the amount of effort that can be put into it.
Your channel is extremely underrated, I found you only a couple days ago and I already have hours of watch time. There are youtubers that get hundreds of thousands of views that doesn't come close to your quality. Keep this up and you'll be one of the big ones in no time. Good job man can't wait to see more from you.
we will always grind endlessly on one or two accounts, but short term breaks keep the game fresh and keeps me playing/learning the same game without burnout
Transferring characters from temporary game modes to permanent servers is more detrimental in Runescape because the game is about the grind. In most other MMOs everyone makes it to the highest level, so it doesn't hurt if half the playerbase gets extra xp and half doesn't.
I like watching leagues content, but it's not something I can feasibly participate in. Leagues characters transferring to mains would really discourage me from buying membership for a main account.
Agreed. Back in the day, in Diablo 2, there were ladder and non ladder characters. Think of ladder like leagues or seasonals. Non ladder is the permanent mode, where these characters would all go after their season was over. Non ladder was like…a dumpster fire, absolutely nothing competitive or fun…or even playable about it. If leagues characters transferred to the main game, it would kill the main game.
Nope that's absolutely never gonna pass the polls. In leagues you can easily max in no time, which goes completely against the grind of the main game, and is exactly why temporary game modes are fun. Transfering a leagues account in Runescape will devalue the actual grind that gets into and feels kinda like a cheated account because leagues is made to be fun and broken.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "detrimental" happening in these comments. Obviously, Leagues progress transferring to the main game would destroy the Runescape community. That's an awful idea no one would suggest.
Also, on the mount point, as bad as the time gating is, I don't think the fomo of "play now or it's never available to you" is better and I'd argue it's worse. But admittedly, I have the brain worms that make me want to collect everything in an mmo
There's a TL;DR at the end, I promise. I think the popularity of Leagues, at least in my mind, highlights an important thing that I think Jagex is unintentionally tapping into. The short version is, Runescape, and particularly OSRS, has a lot of interesting mechanics that are fun to engage with that are largely unique or at least very rare in the MMO space. In a lot of ways, there aren't many games like Runescape, and that's really appealing to a lot of us folks who are old enough to have played several MMOs, several RPGs in general, and have started to grow tired of the tropes that the genre has started to lean on. What Leagues do, at least for a fair bit of people, is expose those mechanics to people who can't or won't engage with them in the format the main game uses. Some people really love the hundred-hour grinds of OSRS, and will vehemently defend them if given the slightest chance, and some people hate that part of OSRS the most. And yet, both groups love Runescape as a game, at least fundamentally. There's a charming, unique freshness to Runescape that a lot of other games really lack, and I think Leagues allow more people to engage with that in a way that they can't in the main game. Basically, what I'm saying is that I think part of the reason Leagues are so popular is because it gives people more options for how they specifically want to play the game, sort of like they're adding officially-sanctioned mods. The official game, no matter how much dev time is put into it, can only truly cater to the people who really like the exact way it feels at present. However, there are lots of people who like the overall concept, but don't engage with certain aspects of it, which limits how appealing the overall game is. And yet, those same things are crucial to those few people who feel perfectly catered to by the main game. Leagues give more people the chance to play a version of the game that better fits how they'd like to play, where not everything is sacred and even major things can be changed, and they don't have to force everyone else to play that version of the game in order to enjoy the game their way. TL;DR, Jagex seems shocked that people love Leagues, but it's the same reason why Skyrim is such a money printer ten years after release. People can tweak the game to be better suited to how they want to play, and for some reason that's super profitable. Gee, I wonder why. Seriously, though, letting more people tweak how the game works to let them experience their ideal version would be so cool with Runescape. It's got such a great core game.
Something that I don't mind about osrs having cosmetics you can only get by doing leagues is also the fact that you can't buy cosmetics in the game, there is no predatory monetization of cosmetics. Whereas in WoW it's much harder to get any cool cosmetics without either paying or doing time locked content, something about it just feels scummier. Also osrs is really good about making cosmetics from old events available even if you missed them, I just started playing this year so I missed last year's Halloween event but could still get the old costumes from every other Halloween event, it feels more inviting to new players unlike other games where if you didn't play in 2012 you're sol
GGG got their league cycle idea from Diablo 2. Diablo 2 always ran 6(roughly) month long ladders. Each ladder everything went to non ladder and we started fresh on ladder.
I would 100% drop off the high scores just to have elevated exp and drop rates. I don’t have the time to invest to enjoy the game. I play safe on my Ironman so I don’t loose items. The thought of having to grind is not fun but the adventure is what I want
Just fyi bud, diablo 2 was doing temp game modes before poe was probably even a thought, like 10 years before poe was even created. Great example though as they along with D3 have pushed temp game modes in the genre pretty well.
This is a super interesting discussion and very well thought out video. Nice job on it! I can’t help but think I play MMORPGs because of the long term goals and progression I can experience though. It’s really the only way this genre distinguishes it differently from something like LoL or Overwatch. I’ve never been attracted to the thought of putting time in just to have the progress wiped after some arbitrary amount of time. I am glad these game modes exist for people who enjoy them though
Path of exile has been doing temporary gimmick leagues for years, and I keep going back each and every time. Even tho most of the game stays the same, having even slight differences makes it feel fresh. Honestly I am all for this becoming a trend in MMOs too.
I loved when Dofus started Temporis many years ago. They're on their 9th year of what's basically leagues. I always wondered why other games never did it, but then when RuneScape announced leagues a few years back I knew the MMO world would change forever.
The league is only 8x MTA points, so 16x sounds reasonable. It could be kinda cool if the base rate was increased a bit, like 2x, and then MTA had some sort of progression system to further increase its point. Like the more you train there, the more rewarding it becomes.
5:3912:22 this is how I play OSRS now! The game sucks up too much of my life to play it all the time, but I can get my fix once a year, go hardcore in the league and have a lot of fun, then put it down until the next year
With so much high level running back and forth between tiles being added to the game, it feels so nice to experience a grind that rewards you every step of the way without having to focus on just that boring end game content alone! Good video man and keep up the good work.
Uh oh, stinky I kinda wish I could wipe my current character and go again in this league without having to make a new account. I feel like I made a couple bad choices and being stuck is a little lame. In Diablo and PoE it's nice that you can just, delete your character and make it over again and all you lose is your time.
The reason the transfer of characters wasnt a big deal for wow classic, was because having a max character with all the best gear didnt mean much at that point in the main game. By the time their temporary season had ended everyone had already moved on to the next expansion.
EverQuest has been doing this with progression servers and custom servers for a very long time. Welcome to the club other MMO’s continuing to follow this classic that made WoW and most MMOs what they are today. EverQuest = unsung hero
Watching this video after WoW has done both Plunderstorm and WoW: Remix MoP is very fun. I only played a little of Plunderstorm, which was not my style with the battle royal, but I still tried it and enjoyed it for a bit. But WoW: Remix MoP? I love the idea and concept, mostly because I never played that expansion, so I get to experience the story differently. I do hope they do more of those experimental game modes. It doesn't hurt to have fun while the main games are still available. Of course, it doesn't "save" the main game, but it is a more interesting distraction, even with all the FOMO attached to it.
I havent played osrs since 7th grade. Still have my account. Its over 17000 days old. This league has got me back on osrs! They should have atleast 1 league per year if not 2. I can pick it up and frind for a few hours a day and fell like I got alot accomplished! I habe also got to practice my bossing and have seen parts of the game I never would on live. I just dont have the time. Please keep leagues coming back. I don't want it to be another 2 years before league 5. I can see how the top1-5% might not like thia because of all the time they have invested on their main accounts. Lets be real tho. The main games grind is super unhealthy and if your working 40+ hours a week and play other games it's not worth your time. Thank you jagex if you read this!
I don't play the main game that often anymore, came back for a bit and decided to try out leagues for the first time and it has been a lot of fun, feel like I'm gonna go back to not playing the main game after the league is over though
There is an mmo type game called final hope on steam. I hope the president of mmos sees this comment and makes a video about that strange Ragnorok looking ass game.
Not mentioned but in RS you can also just buy any leagues cosmetic with normal ass gp. I'd actually prefer if it was league points only tbh since you can buy any cosmetic with league points from any league but yeah, you can buy any league cosmetic anytime for not much gp.
While I know most would say RS3 is already like OSRS leagues, would love to see some type of league temporary game mode in RS3 that isn't FSW and requires you to create a new account everytime. I think its a refresh that RS3 needs.
To comment on the whole thing about dev time being wasted on temporary game modes, look at it this way for osrs. So much content is in the game, and once the league launches people are going to be more than satisfied with the content that exists for the next 1-2 months. This makes the league from a developer perspective really chill for them, since they dont have to rush their work on new content and even got time to polish some things that they have been waiting on for a long time
The future of MMOs is actually having upwards of 50% of your player base being bots, and allowing it so you can pump your user numbers to make your business look better than it is for potential buyers
@@HughWanztino True, after considering how the company probably plays with funny numbers to lie with statistics to a respective investor, I'd argue that the player base couldn't possibly be that high. It's probably closer to 75% bots or more after factoring in the ban rates of many bots when it comes to the relative number of paying subscriptions jagex uses to pad their numbers to show the investors.
I've played every osrs league. Trailblazer 1 and 2 were the best. Zeah league was boring but xp rates kept me there the whole 3 months. Shattered relics didn't have an restrictions, and had broken powers, it just felt like boring turbo ironman.
Hey, Idyl. I love your videos! Sometimes I think your arguments would be better constructed if you played Diablo 2 back then. I don't really know if the experience of D2R is the same since they started their seasons, but the thing is: ladder (the temporary game mode) resets were a thing. People didn't get anything from doing it, but kept coming back to restart experiencing it. Maybe it was a thing all along and MMOs simply didn't tap into it until POE (which is a descendant from D2). Cheers!
The only thing that would make this leagues even better would be if they added the rifts that they had in Apocalypse. It might be a little wacky and out of place, but I think it would be fun.
This video just screams to me how much I want to play osrs leagues, but also want to play super mario rpg, and balders gate 3, and keep buying groceries. Who has the time and money anymore?!
WoW's Season of Mastery didn't do as well as they had hoped... basically the Streamers pushed it for 3 months and then it died when they got distracted and started playing Hard Core WoW (not the official Hard core that WoW instituted later but one created by a 3rd party as a character add-on for solo self play expert play). Seeing the handwriting on the wall they ended Season of Mastery quietly and made their own official Hard Core Servers, which had the mortality features but none of the limits on group play...
For the most part, wow actually does have a way to obtain unobtainable seasonal rewards. They’re usually recolors of the original that you can go back and grind for
"Fresh Start Worlds, which were just new servers [...] there were no changes to the servers other than just being fresh..." ohhhhh, the RS3 version was all about the changes. Many of the buffs during the 6 month period were ideas borrowed from previous OSRS Leagues, but a large part of the appeal was also from cosmetics like 99 capes with the colours inverted and skilling pets with halos that could be transferred to the main game after.
i have yet to try any of the leagues i just dont get the point of spending hours on a temporary game mode even if there is rewards in the end big whoop, perhaps this game mode is great for people who are maxed and have nothing els to do in the game
Someone please tell me (as someone who hasn’t played much osrs) wtf that kneeling lady in fiery robes looking thing with a split head with a giant flame pinata staff is in that screen cap gif is it’s killing me that I can’t figure what it is
As someone who has played a ton of both Path of Exile and OSRS there's still a huge difference in them. The base permanent game feels very different. If I have the drive to play PoE but don't like the current League then I'll likely not play for 3 months. If I didn't like the OSRS League then I can just play the main game instead. To me OSRS Leagues are an event while PoE Leagues are the main attraction
Think something you should've brought up / thought about is server-based games like Rust, or maybe even minecraft. Rust is effectively an mmo, and has been one of the most popular games ever. I think temporary modes are both the future and the past. Most people I know find the earlygame of MMOs to be the fun part. By resetting with new rulesets, you're effectively recapturing that "new game" feel. Getting some game to be fun for you to nolife forever is basically an impossible challenge. Making a game mode that's fun for a couple months? that's more feasible. It's also better for casual players since they aren't falling massively behind if they don't play for a while -- just play the next season.
The focus on seasons makes me concerned. For me MMORGPS are about the journey and long grinds, but seasons seem like quick and temporary game modes that are there for rinse and repeat.
Is POE the father of temporary game modes? 10-100x EXP full PVP one-month-long bootleg servers for Lineage 2 and WoW with random mods making every skill looking like acidic ultimates and adding random races that are just random mob but controllable and with 10 skills instead of 1 were a thing since bootleg servers started to appear. I probably played them more than the actual MMOs they are pirating (shotout to L2 modded servers for being fun unlike the official game)
It's not the end of mmos it's just the end of monotonous grinding. PoE has been so successful because the reset lets you try new builds, items and content and they last long enough that you can start 1 month after start and catch up. Standard Osrs requires more grinding to level different skills so you burn out faster when it takes longer than 12 hours to get 1 level unless you use high cpm techniques that can cripple your fingers for a few days.
It's a great game mode for those who have reached mid to end game. It also is a great way to test different mechanics without having a permanent effect on the game.
Oh nooooooo uh ohhh I only play osrs during leagues. The relics add a layer of complexity and planning that just isn't there in the main game. I hope jagex continues to support the leagues devs and their wacky ideas
I would continue playing if there was a perma world with each leagues - bonus points: with the ability to reset your various leagues characters whenever you wanted to.
IMO leagues should transfer over some xp and give opportunities for new players to skip the early grind which is hard if you have no idea what is best. Early game osrs is basically google chrome simulator and osrs wiki crawling. They could give thresholds 500k xp main game for every 30lvls in that skill m
the problem with trailblazer mode (atleast for me) is that i know already now that i might play my "old" account for a week and then get totally demotivated i will return, i always do lol but i already know NOW im gonna be so damn demotivated when the exp multiplier brain has to re-adjust
Hey, you didn't mention Crowfall, which is what you've just described, but that's basically all there is. This is a whole game. Servers that last for a limited amount of time and after that time someone wins the game, and than a new server starts. According to their website, the game went offline a year ago and it was pretty new at the time so maybe this idea has it's flaws.
I think temporary game modes are popular because more and more people in MMOs want to rush to max level, quit the game, and move on to the next one. Temporary game modes appeal to this. I think that if MMOs could be made fast enough players would want them to be a disposable yearly release like FIFA.
Wow thanks jagex for sponsoring (very cool). Are you guys playing leagues? Are you going to play season of discovery? are you going to talk to me? why aren't you talking to me????
im in ur walls
watch your back at all times.
Talk to the hand. It's clicked my mouse about 1 000 000 time since leagues started
Hiiii
No :( Cause my responsibilities lined up with it rip
Ohhhhh Noooo!!!
UH-OH
It's the XP IRS and they're here to audit you for all that extra xp you've earned but never reported on
Love it when j2mmy uploads a video
oh nooooooooooooo uh oh
Congrats on making it big mr sponsored man!
I'm not personally interested in this league, but I'm very happy about the buzz and discussion it is bringing to the game in general!
A very fair and refreshing point of view!
@@lol33380 I'm too fixated on getting drops from raids 1 and 3 in the main game! Lol
Gz on the jagex sponsorship! you may not have the most subscribers or the most hair but im glad you're starting to get the recognition you deserve!!
"or the most hair" lmfao why is this so fucking funny
IMO one of the main reasons Leagues works is because the base game exists alongside it. If leagues ran all year round, or replaced the main game, then they wouldn't "feel" special anymore and would lose their appeal. I like OSRS left 2 years in between, means they get move development time to breathe and we get to anticipate/enjoy it more. Personally I'd like them to rotate between DMM and Leagues years
In the first trailblazer league, the desert was hot asss. Now its easily the best reigon. I love that the dev time made the reigon do a 180
Something key about the Path of Exile being league-oriented is that their game is designed, from the ground up, to be experienced in 3 month periods. Or even in 1-2 week periods, as that's often how long people play a given character before making a new build. Games like OSRS and WoW are designed to take years to really complete.
The shorter leagues have 2 benefits. First, making a game take years to complete either means a staggering amount of content, or turning the grind on existing content up to 11. OSRS has items that take a full working week of play to grind out, and items that might take a few working *months* to grind out. I get that some people like grinding, but for most people that kind of thing is just unpleasant.
The other benefit of shorter leagues is that a new player can pick up the game and get to endgame very quickly. There's no getting stuck in midlevel hell in PoE like there is in OSRS, because there's no need for a midlevel hell to exist. Sure this means any particular character simply can't be a long-term investment, but it actually doesn't mean that the game as a whole can't be an investment. People come back time and time again to PoE because it's always providing interesting and new experiences, and over time they gather a wealth of experience with the game's incredibly complex and deep mechanics. A dedicated PoE player has just as much benefit from their time invested, in terms of really understanding and mastering the game, as a dedicated OSRS player has in benefit from having maxxed gear. So you get the benefit of new players being able to actually play your game in a reasonable time frame, and long-term players still get something out of their time invested so long as you have a game that rewards experience.
I think this really hits the nail on the head. I think you make a very good point about the choice between "Give players more to do" vs "Make the same amount of stuff take 10 times as long", and OSRS definitely seems to be fond of the latter. Like, the core game definitely has a lot of content, to be sure, so there is also genuinely a lot of stuff to do, but they're also fond of taking something that stops being interesting after the first few hours and make it take 100 hours just to keep you playing.
There are also counterarguments to this within OSRS, where the content does stay interesting after tens or hundreds of hours, but the content that applies to is the very stuff that is gated by the "midlevel hell". And the stupid part about that midlevel hell is that it makes getting friends to play the game really, really hard. I can't sit down and say "Hey, come play this game with me, the endgame is really fun" and expect them to reach where I am in any palatable amount of time. They can understand that there's a really cool game at the end, but if they have to slog their way through dozens if not hundreds of hours of a far less interesting experience, they're much more prone to quitting after hitting the first couple boring points and doing something else with their time.
Dude, you cannot possibly be serious about this being better than PoE leagues.
In PoE leagues characters become permanent after the league ends so nothing is ever lost.
In this game ALL is lost after the league ends and the league is even shorter so you get to play it less.
And for a LOT of people this is it, they will never play the class again cause they can't stomach not only having to start from scratch but also doing so with vastly slower leveling and vastly lower drop rates and without the other conveniences the league might have added.
The contrast between endgame with good gear and lvl 1 with nothing, knowing you will take weeks to get any halfway decent character and months to get back to what you just left behind is simply too jarring for most players.
It evidently is popular but that really shows more how the main game needs an overhaul to make creating characters with other classes / builds more accessible than how temporary league that basically play like you use cheat engine are amazing.
i absolutely think leagues in osrs should be every other year, i remember around leagues 3 that ppl, including me, were talking abt how it felt like there was a big content drought going on, right now tho? i think this year has been an amazing balance of good new updates and fun gamemodes
Totally agree. I am loving this league (my first one), but if it were every year then the team would have less time to add new content. Every year would probably make the leagues feel too similar and not worth doing.
Or... They should hire enough people to do both :)
@@matte5705 Have you managed a team of people before? You can’t just “double the team”. When working with a limited resource, you must always divide effort across all tasks. Having 2 tasks means splitting effort between those tasks, no matter the amount of effort that can be put into it.
Your channel is extremely underrated, I found you only a couple days ago and I already have hours of watch time. There are youtubers that get hundreds of thousands of views that doesn't come close to your quality. Keep this up and you'll be one of the big ones in no time. Good job man can't wait to see more from you.
oh nooo uh oh. 😮
Been having a blast this league wish it would happen more often.. 😔
we will always grind endlessly on one or two accounts, but short term breaks keep the game fresh and keeps me playing/learning the same game without burnout
Transferring characters from temporary game modes to permanent servers is more detrimental in Runescape because the game is about the grind. In most other MMOs everyone makes it to the highest level, so it doesn't hurt if half the playerbase gets extra xp and half doesn't.
I like watching leagues content, but it's not something I can feasibly participate in. Leagues characters transferring to mains would really discourage me from buying membership for a main account.
horrible take, thad would never pass a poll
Agreed. Back in the day, in Diablo 2, there were ladder and non ladder characters. Think of ladder like leagues or seasonals. Non ladder is the permanent mode, where these characters would all go after their season was over. Non ladder was like…a dumpster fire, absolutely nothing competitive or fun…or even playable about it. If leagues characters transferred to the main game, it would kill the main game.
Nope that's absolutely never gonna pass the polls. In leagues you can easily max in no time, which goes completely against the grind of the main game, and is exactly why temporary game modes are fun.
Transfering a leagues account in Runescape will devalue the actual grind that gets into and feels kinda like a cheated account because leagues is made to be fun and broken.
I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "detrimental" happening in these comments.
Obviously, Leagues progress transferring to the main game would destroy the Runescape community. That's an awful idea no one would suggest.
Also, on the mount point, as bad as the time gating is, I don't think the fomo of "play now or it's never available to you" is better and I'd argue it's worse. But admittedly, I have the brain worms that make me want to collect everything in an mmo
if its time gated I just don’t bother and consider it non content
There's a TL;DR at the end, I promise.
I think the popularity of Leagues, at least in my mind, highlights an important thing that I think Jagex is unintentionally tapping into. The short version is, Runescape, and particularly OSRS, has a lot of interesting mechanics that are fun to engage with that are largely unique or at least very rare in the MMO space. In a lot of ways, there aren't many games like Runescape, and that's really appealing to a lot of us folks who are old enough to have played several MMOs, several RPGs in general, and have started to grow tired of the tropes that the genre has started to lean on.
What Leagues do, at least for a fair bit of people, is expose those mechanics to people who can't or won't engage with them in the format the main game uses. Some people really love the hundred-hour grinds of OSRS, and will vehemently defend them if given the slightest chance, and some people hate that part of OSRS the most. And yet, both groups love Runescape as a game, at least fundamentally. There's a charming, unique freshness to Runescape that a lot of other games really lack, and I think Leagues allow more people to engage with that in a way that they can't in the main game.
Basically, what I'm saying is that I think part of the reason Leagues are so popular is because it gives people more options for how they specifically want to play the game, sort of like they're adding officially-sanctioned mods.
The official game, no matter how much dev time is put into it, can only truly cater to the people who really like the exact way it feels at present. However, there are lots of people who like the overall concept, but don't engage with certain aspects of it, which limits how appealing the overall game is. And yet, those same things are crucial to those few people who feel perfectly catered to by the main game. Leagues give more people the chance to play a version of the game that better fits how they'd like to play, where not everything is sacred and even major things can be changed, and they don't have to force everyone else to play that version of the game in order to enjoy the game their way.
TL;DR, Jagex seems shocked that people love Leagues, but it's the same reason why Skyrim is such a money printer ten years after release. People can tweak the game to be better suited to how they want to play, and for some reason that's super profitable. Gee, I wonder why.
Seriously, though, letting more people tweak how the game works to let them experience their ideal version would be so cool with Runescape. It's got such a great core game.
Something that I don't mind about osrs having cosmetics you can only get by doing leagues is also the fact that you can't buy cosmetics in the game, there is no predatory monetization of cosmetics. Whereas in WoW it's much harder to get any cool cosmetics without either paying or doing time locked content, something about it just feels scummier. Also osrs is really good about making cosmetics from old events available even if you missed them, I just started playing this year so I missed last year's Halloween event but could still get the old costumes from every other Halloween event, it feels more inviting to new players unlike other games where if you didn't play in 2012 you're sol
Fuckin awesome Collide With the Sky vinyl Idyl
My man made the Lego Yoda death noise at the end of the video.
It's only natural that Jagex came to the President of MMORPGS to make a video like this
GGG got their league cycle idea from Diablo 2. Diablo 2 always ran 6(roughly) month long ladders. Each ladder everything went to non ladder and we started fresh on ladder.
I would 100% drop off the high scores just to have elevated exp and drop rates. I don’t have the time to invest to enjoy the game. I play safe on my Ironman so I don’t loose items. The thought of having to grind is not fun but the adventure is what I want
Just fyi bud, diablo 2 was doing temp game modes before poe was probably even a thought, like 10 years before poe was even created. Great example though as they along with D3 have pushed temp game modes in the genre pretty well.
Leagues IV got me back into actually playing OSRS after years. I liked the idea of playing the content faster, because I have a busy life
This is a super interesting discussion and very well thought out video. Nice job on it! I can’t help but think I play MMORPGs because of the long term goals and progression I can experience though. It’s really the only way this genre distinguishes it differently from something like LoL or Overwatch. I’ve never been attracted to the thought of putting time in just to have the progress wiped after some arbitrary amount of time. I am glad these game modes exist for people who enjoy them though
Anyone else catch the same little tune that Why Files uses?? I love it
I really felt you when you said (repeatedly) I AM SO ADDICTED!
Path of exile has been doing temporary gimmick leagues for years, and I keep going back each and every time. Even tho most of the game stays the same, having even slight differences makes it feel fresh. Honestly I am all for this becoming a trend in MMOs too.
I loved when Dofus started Temporis many years ago. They're on their 9th year of what's basically leagues. I always wondered why other games never did it, but then when RuneScape announced leagues a few years back I knew the MMO world would change forever.
Oh noooooo! Uh oh...
You didn't mention Temporis
Okay, 16x xp is bad, but what about 16x mage training arena points?
The league is only 8x MTA points, so 16x sounds reasonable. It could be kinda cool if the base rate was increased a bit, like 2x, and then MTA had some sort of progression system to further increase its point. Like the more you train there, the more rewarding it becomes.
Definitely, I did 5 minutes of the telekinetic thingy, checked how many points I needed to get. Then left with no regrets
@@BioMasterZap Yeah, it seems like a much older idea of how training works compared to now
5:39 12:22 this is how I play OSRS now! The game sucks up too much of my life to play it all the time, but I can get my fix once a year, go hardcore in the league and have a lot of fun, then put it down until the next year
Number go up faster, game good again
With so much high level running back and forth between tiles being added to the game, it feels so nice to experience a grind that rewards you every step of the way without having to focus on just that boring end game content alone! Good video man and keep up the good work.
Uh oh, stinky
I kinda wish I could wipe my current character and go again in this league without having to make a new account. I feel like I made a couple bad choices and being stuck is a little lame. In Diablo and PoE it's nice that you can just, delete your character and make it over again and all you lose is your time.
9:28 although this is mostly correct there is the league specific equipable cups that you cannot get anymore
OH NO, UH-OH!
The reason the transfer of characters wasnt a big deal for wow classic, was because having a max character with all the best gear didnt mean much at that point in the main game. By the time their temporary season had ended everyone had already moved on to the next expansion.
EverQuest has been doing this with progression servers and custom servers for a very long time. Welcome to the club other MMO’s continuing to follow this classic that made WoW and most MMOs what they are today. EverQuest = unsung hero
Watching this video after WoW has done both Plunderstorm and WoW: Remix MoP is very fun.
I only played a little of Plunderstorm, which was not my style with the battle royal, but I still tried it and enjoyed it for a bit.
But WoW: Remix MoP? I love the idea and concept, mostly because I never played that expansion, so I get to experience the story differently.
I do hope they do more of those experimental game modes. It doesn't hurt to have fun while the main games are still available.
Of course, it doesn't "save" the main game, but it is a more interesting distraction, even with all the FOMO attached to it.
I havent played osrs since 7th grade. Still have my account. Its over 17000 days old. This league has got me back on osrs! They should have atleast 1 league per year if not 2. I can pick it up and frind for a few hours a day and fell like I got alot accomplished! I habe also got to practice my bossing and have seen parts of the game I never would on live. I just dont have the time. Please keep leagues coming back. I don't want it to be another 2 years before league 5. I can see how the top1-5% might not like thia because of all the time they have invested on their main accounts. Lets be real tho. The main games grind is super unhealthy and if your working 40+ hours a week and play other games it's not worth your time. Thank you jagex if you read this!
I've really enjoyed my time in Path of Exile, but it's been a while
This singlehandedly convinced me to get back onto OSRS and play leagues. Missed out on the last 3 😬
I don't play the main game that often anymore, came back for a bit and decided to try out leagues for the first time and it has been a lot of fun, feel like I'm gonna go back to not playing the main game after the league is over though
There is an mmo type game called final hope on steam. I hope the president of mmos sees this comment and makes a video about that strange Ragnorok looking ass game.
Not mentioned but in RS you can also just buy any leagues cosmetic with normal ass gp. I'd actually prefer if it was league points only tbh since you can buy any cosmetic with league points from any league but yeah, you can buy any league cosmetic anytime for not much gp.
Oh noooooooooo, uh oh!
While I know most would say RS3 is already like OSRS leagues, would love to see some type of league temporary game mode in RS3 that isn't FSW and requires you to create a new account everytime. I think its a refresh that RS3 needs.
I'd check out a nsfw league
To comment on the whole thing about dev time being wasted on temporary game modes, look at it this way for osrs. So much content is in the game, and once the league launches people are going to be more than satisfied with the content that exists for the next 1-2 months. This makes the league from a developer perspective really chill for them, since they dont have to rush their work on new content and even got time to polish some things that they have been waiting on for a long time
I'm not playing the league as it's not really my sort of thing, however seeing big player number go up is amazing
ooh no, oh-oh. now i said it. but im really exited for season of discovery in WoW. it hypes me more then the newest expansion.
The future of MMOs is actually having upwards of 50% of your player base being bots, and allowing it so you can pump your user numbers to make your business look better than it is for potential buyers
if you're talking about osrs, that number is extremely exaggerated.
@@HughWanztino True, after considering how the company probably plays with funny numbers to lie with statistics to a respective investor, I'd argue that the player base couldn't possibly be that high. It's probably closer to 75% bots or more after factoring in the ban rates of many bots when it comes to the relative number of paying subscriptions jagex uses to pad their numbers to show the investors.
I like it when Idyl calls me stupid, neg me harder zaddy
This brings hype to the game like expansions would. I love it.
Most consistently funny and relevant content producer! Thank man
I've played every osrs league. Trailblazer 1 and 2 were the best. Zeah league was boring but xp rates kept me there the whole 3 months. Shattered relics didn't have an restrictions, and had broken powers, it just felt like boring turbo ironman.
0:04-0:20 hits jojo pose.
the butthole bit GOT me.
Hey, Idyl. I love your videos! Sometimes I think your arguments would be better constructed if you played Diablo 2 back then. I don't really know if the experience of D2R is the same since they started their seasons, but the thing is: ladder (the temporary game mode) resets were a thing. People didn't get anything from doing it, but kept coming back to restart experiencing it. Maybe it was a thing all along and MMOs simply didn't tap into it until POE (which is a descendant from D2). Cheers!
Oh noooooo! Uh-oh!
The only thing that would make this leagues even better would be if they added the rifts that they had in Apocalypse. It might be a little wacky and out of place, but I think it would be fun.
Dude yes!!! Those were so fun. I’d love to see them do more stuff like that
This video just screams to me how much I want to play osrs leagues, but also want to play super mario rpg, and balders gate 3, and keep buying groceries. Who has the time and money anymore?!
If Jagex made OSRS but with the xp rates of RS3 and no other changes or MTX. I’d be in for life.
WoW's Season of Mastery didn't do as well as they had hoped... basically the Streamers pushed it for 3 months and then it died when they got distracted and started playing Hard Core WoW (not the official Hard core that WoW instituted later but one created by a 3rd party as a character add-on for solo self play expert play).
Seeing the handwriting on the wall they ended Season of Mastery quietly and made their own official Hard Core Servers, which had the mortality features but none of the limits on group play...
Right now the Streamers are the tail wagging the dog...
@@josephteller9715 Well that's just the modern online gaming landscape in a nutshell. Streamers control a huge audience.
For the most part, wow actually does have a way to obtain unobtainable seasonal rewards. They’re usually recolors of the original that you can go back and grind for
"Fresh Start Worlds, which were just new servers [...] there were no changes to the servers other than just being fresh..." ohhhhh, the RS3 version was all about the changes. Many of the buffs during the 6 month period were ideas borrowed from previous OSRS Leagues, but a large part of the appeal was also from cosmetics like 99 capes with the colours inverted and skilling pets with halos that could be transferred to the main game after.
i have yet to try any of the leagues i just dont get the point of spending hours on a temporary game mode even if there is rewards in the end big whoop, perhaps this game mode is great for people who are maxed and have nothing els to do in the game
We're looking at different MMOs. I'm seeing them go in the casual, less combat-oriented direction of Palia.
Great video budget J1mmy!
Ohhh noooo! Uh Oh! Yeah, I am so stoked for the Season of Discovery in WoW.
Someone please tell me (as someone who hasn’t played much osrs) wtf that kneeling lady in fiery robes looking thing with a split head with a giant flame pinata staff is in that screen cap gif is it’s killing me that I can’t figure what it is
Trickster! Great video man, keep it up!🎉 ❤
As someone who has played a ton of both Path of Exile and OSRS there's still a huge difference in them. The base permanent game feels very different. If I have the drive to play PoE but don't like the current League then I'll likely not play for 3 months. If I didn't like the OSRS League then I can just play the main game instead. To me OSRS Leagues are an event while PoE Leagues are the main attraction
Think something you should've brought up / thought about is server-based games like Rust, or maybe even minecraft.
Rust is effectively an mmo, and has been one of the most popular games ever. I think temporary modes are both the future and the past.
Most people I know find the earlygame of MMOs to be the fun part. By resetting with new rulesets, you're effectively recapturing that "new game" feel.
Getting some game to be fun for you to nolife forever is basically an impossible challenge. Making a game mode that's fun for a couple months? that's more feasible.
It's also better for casual players since they aren't falling massively behind if they don't play for a while -- just play the next season.
Season of Discovery in World of Warcraft has done the impossible, it has made me come back from my Warlords of Draenor departure.
Damn you missed out on legion?
I like your hoodie
The focus on seasons makes me concerned. For me MMORGPS are about the journey and long grinds, but seasons seem like quick and temporary game modes that are there for rinse and repeat.
Is POE the father of temporary game modes?
10-100x EXP full PVP one-month-long bootleg servers for Lineage 2 and WoW with random mods making every skill looking like acidic ultimates and adding random races that are just random mob but controllable and with 10 skills instead of 1 were a thing since bootleg servers started to appear.
I probably played them more than the actual MMOs they are pirating (shotout to L2 modded servers for being fun unlike the official game)
I only play osrs during leagues now. After 10 years of grinding, unless there's a big update for me there's no point in coming back.
It's not the end of mmos it's just the end of monotonous grinding. PoE has been so successful because the reset lets you try new builds, items and content and they last long enough that you can start 1 month after start and catch up. Standard Osrs requires more grinding to level different skills so you burn out faster when it takes longer than 12 hours to get 1 level unless you use high cpm techniques that can cripple your fingers for a few days.
Seasonal servers make the game so much more fun. Increased XP rates and unique things to do and achieve are great.
It's the future.
Man I won't lie, I totally thought at the start of the vid. "This is exp waste. he's afking"
omg it's the return of the one and only Mr. Will Idyl
It's a great game mode for those who have reached mid to end game. It also is a great way to test different mechanics without having a permanent effect on the game.
Oh nooooooo uh ohhh
I only play osrs during leagues. The relics add a layer of complexity and planning that just isn't there in the main game. I hope jagex continues to support the leagues devs and their wacky ideas
I would continue playing if there was a perma world with each leagues - bonus points: with the ability to reset your various leagues characters whenever you wanted to.
IMO leagues should transfer over some xp and give opportunities for new players to skip the early grind which is hard if you have no idea what is best. Early game osrs is basically google chrome simulator and osrs wiki crawling.
They could give thresholds 500k xp main game for every 30lvls in that skill m
Ohhh noooooo, uh ohhh, I don't know just do it. You thought I wouldn't, but here I am doing it.
the problem with trailblazer mode (atleast for me) is that i know already now that i might play my "old" account for a week and then get totally demotivated
i will return, i always do lol but i already know NOW im gonna be so damn demotivated when the exp multiplier brain has to re-adjust
Hey, you didn't mention Crowfall, which is what you've just described, but that's basically all there is. This is a whole game. Servers that last for a limited amount of time and after that time someone wins the game, and than a new server starts. According to their website, the game went offline a year ago and it was pretty new at the time so maybe this idea has it's flaws.
My favorite temporary game mode is not showering, also known as Trailblazer League.
I think temporary game modes are popular because more and more people in MMOs want to rush to max level, quit the game, and move on to the next one. Temporary game modes appeal to this. I think that if MMOs could be made fast enough players would want them to be a disposable yearly release like FIFA.
Me: Mom, I want to watch J1mmy!!
Mom: We have J1mmy at home..
The father of seasonal play is Diablo 2. It had seasons before PoE existed. It's so old it's called ladders there.
1:44 twitch identity shining trough
This video got me to reinstall runelite, the grind never ends
RS3 had FSW with boosted XP and transferred to main.
Someone should put a ring on that guy
Love it. Playing pest control on leagues right now. :)
Oh nooooo! Uh oh!
The only reason I'm playing this league is because I currently have a Kraken task on my main iron :')
oohhhhhh noooooooooooooooooo uh ohhhhhh, great video Idyl :)
Me: Can we watch J1mmy?
Mom: We have J1mmy at home.
The J1mmy at home: