I really wish the 2010 version of RS was back. That, to me, was where the game hit perfection, everything was just right (just before Dungeoneering came along, really). They undid all their good work when they completely retooled it, in my opinion. The cartoony charm and beautiful style was lost. They've brought back the 2007 version, but it looks very dated now. I hope they allow RuneScape 2010 to be played again at some point.
In fact, i think the game was at it's top on 2010, it started to slightly tumble starting 2011 started going bad with salt in the wound and it was all downhill from there until hitting the microtransaction fest...
I agree. I think Dungeoneering was what killed the game, actually. Dungeoneering was such a derivative and tiresome and yet highly popular skill that it made the developers think "Hmmm. The players like minigames. Let's add more!" Then came a bunch of updates mainly focusing on mini-games and clans, plus loads of re-designs to make previously beautiful areas of the RuneScape world look darker and drearier; then they added a lot of unnecessary melancholic ambient music, and then retooled the combat system before finally releasing RuneScape 3 with even more updates. To me, it's the ultimate example of "don't fix what isn't broke". RuneScape was beautiful before (and for a while, after) Dungeoneering came along. The game had charm, looking like a colourful CGI cartoon, before they decided they wanted everything to be ultra-realistic and dark. I was one of those rare players that actually enjoyed the updates that made the graphics better. And, in my opinion, they truly perfected it. Throughout 2008 and 2009 the game just got better and better, finally reaching MMORPG perfection, but then Jagex went crazy from mid-2010 onwards and screwed with everything they could, as if it wasn't already fantastic. Oh well. All good things come to an end. That is, until they finally re-release the 2010 version of the game. If they ever do.
To be fair, dungeoneering had one things that made it good and justified: even if the whole place, it's creatures, it's substances, and much more was completely alien to the rest of the game, at least it is explained in the fact that 1.- Whatever it was before, it was changed by whatever it was at the bottom, as discussed in some journals, before, those "rare" materials were only at the lowest floors until whatever was at the bottom expanded it's influence and altered the rest, 2.- it was enclosed to a single place and nothing in the "main" game enters daemonheim and nothing from daemonheim(except very specific rewards) leave the place, it was no different on how stealing creation works seeing how the armours there are also completely alien in design to the rest of RS. Now, i think that the way in which it actually ruined RS slightly, is that it was NOT worth a skill slot and was still handed one just so highscore-fanboys can feel like they are doing anything "new".
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It's still kind of good, but not excellent
Now, this review isn't exactly about the game overall as it's how the changes have come across:
Well, while it's not exactly awful, the combat was changed around a lot, but u can see the developers trying to re-balance the games, as opposed to the melee dominated "Runescape 2"; but the attempts of re-balance the game just make the combat triangle like a cosmetic change, most armor of the same level but different type have the same stats as each other, but with the change in the weaponry and what other style hits better. The change on how the level affects combat also makes it weird, something in your same level makes your defense nearly non-existing. The weakness of certain creatures to a certain style takes away the variety of having more than one weakness(and sometimes, something is weak to the attacks of the style that it hits harder)and finally, the implementing of "action commands" makes inflicting damage too easy in most of the already existing creatures, in short, the biggest problem with the " evolution of combat" isn't that it is different to what most people are accustomed, but that it doesn't works with pretty much, everything that already existed.
The next thing that happens, is the change of context, while it's good to bring in new environments and places to the game that differ with each other, but nowadays the problem with "newer" places is that they aren't exactly "different" places on a context or time period, but it seems the developers want to bring other time periods or contexts into something that is a "medieval fantasy" game, it's normal to have the quests and places that reveal an ancient lost civilization with weaponry and stuff that seems quite ornate and elaborate and that it's quite strong and something u will want to use, but it's not exactly a good move to try to make the whole game look like an ancient lost civilization.
All in all, the biggest problem Runescape it's facing isn't trying to do something new, but doing things that don't fit with the already existing game, all the while without trying to bring a lot of the content up to date, IT IS NOT an awful game, but it has seen better days, and as time goes on, it falls more and more into the realms of the typical MMO that tries to impress with HD and a "deep" plot with "epic" battles and fighting moves.