I was thinking about this B0aty video from a few years back that discusses why the Wilderness is dead in OSRS, and he makes very good points about how boss drop tables post-Zulrah were the final nail in the coffin due to their ability to provide a very safe method to get massive gp/hr - this also in turn had a very damning effect on skilling, but that’s another topic.
Before this, bosses were killed for the purpose of getting that big drop. GP/hr from something like Kalphite Queen would be a measly 100k or so, until you get that Dragon Chainbody after hours of killing it. On the other hand, Green Dragons were a very viable option for a lot of players to acquire a consistently higher gp/hr, which naturally created a food chain where players come to the wilderness to kill dragons, PKers come to kill the green dragon killers, and better PVPers come to kill those PKers. And in turn, some of these players who particularly enjoy the aspect of PVP congregate by Edgeville for fair, 1 on 1 fights.
I believe this is how the Wilderness was intended to function, the risk involved from other players is an inherent feature rather than a side effect, but in OSRS’ case the culture and community seems to absolutely despise the Wilderness and its core function, due in part to its being completely devalued by other safer, more lucrative alternatives. PVP as a whole suffers as a result.
So as we’re approaching members release, I wonder if we’ll be able to see a more healthy, vibrant Wilderness in this game. So far it seems like Edge is dead, but this is probably due to the lack of readily available PVP weapons for F2p - Maple shortbows and Addy arrows, Rune 2h, etc. We’ve seen big clan wars but these are mainly organized and not organic. Is anyone else excited for the prospect of a more authentic Wildy experience on this server?
I’ve spent the majority of my time in 2004scape, outside of questing, roaming the wilderness. The pkers are there, and the action is exhilarating.
-Bone yard - ideal spot for training prayer (jk it’s horrible but it’s free).
-Steel platelegs - one of the quicker money makers on a day 1 account
-Steel platebodies + earth staves - only Chads hangout here. The 2 lesser demons are in a good location if you’re waiting for the items to respawn. Muddy chest is also here.
-Couple of good mining spots for coal and ofc rune rocks.
-Chaos dwarves - great for training magic combat spells. They drop muddy keys, runes, mithril items and gold.
-Dark wizards - one of the best moneymaking spots in the game. Pretty hard to PK here but possible to defend your territory if a noob 7 levels lower than you shows up.
-Greater Demons - don’t worry bro, you’ll get a rune full helm drop before a team arrives.
I truthfully just think everyone is GRINDING, so that they’re ready to PK when mems drops. Give it 2-3 months into mems I think wildy will be super active.
Very hopeful for PvP to blow up. I think there’s three criteria that need to be met:
Increase in active player count for economy purposes as well as number of PvPers
As you mentioned, PK gear needs to become widely available and the cost of them will need to level out.
Beyond low-level F2P accounts, there needs to be a willingness to PK on mains instead of pures, special builds, etc. Due to the rules, it’s inconvenient to start a new account specifically for PvP. This isn’t a critique of Lost City as this is how RuneScape was originally intended to be.
I’ll add that not having smite for a year and a half will probably be beneficial in attracting new PvPers, especially in deep wild where there’s always the threat of clans. And with F-keys and clients not being a thing, the skill gap won’t be as large of a barrier, which is also helpful
One thing that’s crazy to think about as well is we don’t have special attacks either. So the closest thing to a “spec” is probably gonna be swapping to a Dragon Battleaxe, basically F2P PKing’s meta but with better weapons. And even then, pures won’t be able to equip it. It’ll be interesting to see what people come up with
The absolute best money maker if you are “good” will be pking. This is that era of Runescape, it’s absolutely going to be chaos which will be fantastic.
The revision of the game is May 18, 2004, so we might see special attacks added sooner than June. I think the developers plan on adding updates one by one as soon as they’ve finish programming them, not by the exact time of year the updates were released historically, but I may be wrong. Either way it’s important to remember that this project is run by a small group of volunteers who contribute their time out of a passion for the game
Hey, it might be fun coming up with unique builds. I’m thinking about sticking with 40 attack and running a Magic shortbow/Rune 2h until specs come out. It might not be great but it’ll be fun trying it out!
