What You Told Us
In early March many of you took the time to fill out our latest player survey. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts with us!
We heard from a wide range of players, including many who have been with us for over a decade, as well as those who have joined more recently. These surveys are hugely valuable as they allow us to see perspectives from across the player base in one place.
Today's post is about looking at what some of the results tell us as a whole. Not just the individual points, but the bigger picture they build and how that feeds into the work we're doing.
Who We Heard From
One of the most interesting places to start is who we're actually hearing from. Perhaps you might even recognise yourself in these numbers...
The overwhelming majority (71%) of responses came from players ages 26-35, while a strong number of responses (59%) indicated that the age of their RuneScape account was over 11 years old. The biggest group here (37%) indicated an account age between 16 and 20 years, while a good number of respondents (26%) indicated that they had started playing RuneScape within the last 3 years (with 16% of those alone being this year).
So why is this worth mentioning?
The age of respondents is a strong indicator of the likely demographic make-up of our community of players that engage with us (Remember that these are Survey results, rather than account data pulled from our analytics).
A significant number of our community (players and our team members) have grown up with RuneScape. We started playing over 10 years ago, likely when we were in our adolescent years, and we have stuck with the game right through and into our late twenties and thirties.
At a time where many gamer demographics are skewing younger, RuneScape is maintaining a core community and remains relevant for those players who started with it many years ago.
All that being said, it is greatly encouraging to see the upswing in account age of players starting out with RuneScape this year. That is, to us, a strong indication that the integrity-led changes we are making for RuneScape are attracting either a new playerbase, or a playerbase that played previously but is returning to the game as part of this year of restoration.
Very importantly to us is, however, the notion that the Road to Restoration is something the existing community joins us on. While we may have needed to make changes to certain aspects of the game for longer-term health (such as the removal of DailyScape), we want to find the balance of having these changes serve the interests of the greatest number of new and existing players.
Surveys also give us a way to hear from players who dont always speak up in other spaces!
We found that a large portion of respondents preferred reading or following conversations over actively contributing on our various spaces and platforms. While 63% of respondents enjoyed actively contributing to RuneScape community discussions, the answers here did highlight for us that we still have work to do to make the RuneScape global community a place that truly everyone feels they can participate.
Surveys give us an opportunity to capture these quieter voices as a part of the bigger pictures, as it is unlikely that everyone is able to share their thoughts on traditionally core community platforms like Reddit or Discord.
Creating more opportunities to hear from those players who are interested in participating in feedback opportunities for RuneScape's development is hugely important to us and is something we want to continually explore in the time ahead. Ultimately, surveys should just be one of the many avenues of approach we can offer such players, not the only one. Developing more such avenues will take time, but it is something we are very keen to do.
Finally, looking at what types of games players spend time on outside of RuneScape adds some colourful context. MMORPGs play a big part, but it is far from being the only contender as we also see players spending time across single-player RPGs, action-adventure, sandbox, and survival games. This reinforces that you value and enjoy progression, identity and investment in the worlds you spend time in.
What Were Hearing
RuneScape's Direction and upcoming updates
RuneScape has undergone a huge change in direction, which was initially announced last year, with the first steps towards that being taken in January this year with the removal of Treasure Hunter and the kick off of the Road to Restoration.
This latest survey was an important check-in moment for us to understand how much that about-turn resonated with our players and what they are most interested in.
If we review what players are most excited about what's coming up in the months ahead, we can share the following highlights:
Top Three Most Anticipated Content Updates:
- Havenhythe Part 2
- Remastered Content Updates
- Player Avatar JOINT WITH Player-Owned Housing: 120 Construction
Top Three Most Anticipated Road to Restoration Updates:
- API Plugin Support JOINT WITH Grand Exchange Improvements
- Visual Updates (Decluttering)
- End-Game Balancing JOINT WITH Mid-Game Balancing
Double XP Events
The results around Double XP (DXP) Events details were quite interesting!
Going a little back in time, with our move towards a more integrity-led design direction as part of the Road to Restoration, we had questioned whether the current play patterns that Double XP events invite are still compatible with the game (resource hoarding and disengaging with certain content until a Double XP event arrives).
As mentioned in November, we did intend to keep Double XP as part of the RuneScape experience, though with a reduction in overall Double XP availability. That is also why we skipped the Winter Double XP event in February and instead focused on our Spring Double XP as the next touchpoint.
As noted before: Even if a new direction is popular, we may shift to a final and consistent approach relatively slowly to ensure our Integrity Roadmap fixes have put the game into the right place.
With the upcoming May Double XP event we looked at tweaking the format and length and our Survey results helped guide some of our decision making here.
81% of players responded saying that they participated in at least some Double XP events. 28% of respondents reported participating in every Double XP event.
The results we were looking at therefore indicated that we were listening to players who had strong affinity for participating in these events.
When we looked at the player satisfaction with regards to these events, 64% of respondents were largely satisfied. That indicates to us that while satisfaction is in a decent place, there is opportunity to tweak the event as we gradually move it to a place that better meets RuneScape's new integrity oriented identity.
With that in mind, we looked to balance the evolving Double XP event design both with a move towards integrity while also retaining the satisfying elements of the event.
So here's where we've landed!
- The length of the upcoming Double XP event will remain as before - 10 days covering two weekends.
- You will have a total of 48 hours of Double XP that can be used during these 10 days. You can pause this time so that you can still engage in content where pumping out XP is not the primary aim.
- We will remove the Daily login incentives to reduce FOMO and bring the event in line with our move away from DailyScape.
- Double XP Tokens can be earned, but this will be the final event during which such tokens can be obtained. Future events will not offer Double XP Tokens. This move is linked to our general shift away from the Double XP store (explained in the following points) and towards a more integrity based identity.
- The Double XP Token Store will be reactivated but with a smaller number of available items. The key shift here is to remove integrity breaking items that the store previously offered.
- The Double XP Token store will be retired and closed forevermore at the end of the event, so please make sure to use up your tokens before it does! The store and associated tokens created play patterns that we feel are not positive for the long term health of the game - for example, we don't want players to feel like they need to wait for Double XP events in order to obtain certain items through the store.
- Items such as the Skilling Outfits (that can be bought via the store) will be available in the store until it closes for good. These outfits are also available in the game, but we are aware that acquiring some of them through those normal means has been considered more of a chore than it needs to be by players. Please join today's discussion and let us know which specific Skilling Outfits you believe have so much unnecessary friction to be acquired that you would really only consider the Double XP store for obtaining them. We'd love to hear from you and make sure we can ease that friction in a sensible way.
- At the end of the event, Double XP Tokens will be converted into GP. If you currently have Double XP Tokens that you would like to make use of, we recommend making sure you use this event as a final opportunity to collect enough of them to acquire what you're after!
Of course, you'll be wondering when the Spring Double XP event will actually be taking place...
We're therefore very pleased to announce that the next Double XP event will be kicking off on May the 1st and will run through till May 10th!
Player Avatar Feedback
The questions in the survey focused around the Player Avatar invited open-ended responses rather than hard data, so we aren't able to share a graph here.
However, we were able to glean that theres strong support for improving the player avatar, and that you recognise the scale of whats being worked on! At the same time, there was an expectation that this should lead to better customisation and more consistency across the game.
Some of the most common themes were seeing that players in the survey mention:
- Making the Player Avatar more coherent and consistent with itself and the world around it.
- A stronger sense of identity and consistency across different cosmetics.
- Better interaction between hair, headgear and outfits.
We'll be sharing another update on the Player Avatar tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Still in Progress
The survey covered a wide range of questions and we're excited to show how your feedback has helped contribute to developments on a number of our projects as those projects mature. How exactly those insights are helping shape RuneScape's development is something that will be better talked to when we reveal more of those exciting projects, such as the Player Owned House.
Closing
A lot of whats come through in the survey lines up well with the areas were already focusing on! There is a lot of excitement for Havenhythe, remastered content, the Player-Owned Housing and 120 Construction update, as well as Restoration projects like the API Plugin Support and the Grand Exchange improvements (just to name a few of the leaders).
Readability and visual clarity also had strong responses and are a big part of the ongoing work around UI and decluttering the visuals of RuneScape. This work is part of a number of chances that will have a direct impact on how the game feels moment to moment.
Surveys like this are a way for us to hear from a broad range of players, including those who may not be as active in our other community spaces. We do of course continue to listen to conversations across places like Reddit and Discord, but are equally keen to ensure that everyone who wants to can make their voices heard!
Our next survey is planned for early June, and wed love to one again hear from as many of you as possible. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts!
