It’s been 23 whole years since Andrew and Paul Gower first created RuneScape, and now the two creators are back with a brand new MMO, Brighter Shores.
And when I say new, I mean new to us because the game has already been in development for ten long years, and from what we’ve seen of it so far, it looks like what RuneScape would look like if it came out in 2024.
However, the one area where RuneScape 2.0 strives to be different from its predecessor is its approach to bots – which has long been legion in the game.
In an interview with PCG, Andrew Gower said:
Obviously, you’re never going to completely eliminate bots, so our approach has been more to make it so that they don’t negatively impact the game.
This means we’ve designed the economy of the game so it’s not gonna be broken if lots of people bot and that the whole way that instancing works means you’re not gonna be standing in a chunk and there’s tonnes and tonnes of bots all around you.
A lot of the reason people, in my opinion, use things like bots is sheer frustration about the grind.
It also means that a legitimate way to bot will be added to the game. For Brighter Shores not to feel overly gritty, a feature will let players set their character to carry on doing activities even while logged out.
This new approach means players won’t need to spend countless hours grinding away just to get their level up, and instead, their character can do the grind while the player is logged off, showering, eating, sleeping and otherwise tackling the real-life grind.
RuneScape is a game notorious for its grind. There have been many news stories over the years of players spending over 2,500 hours just to kill a particular boss to grab that rare loot, so it’s refreshing to see Brighter Shores take a more manageable approach.
At some point, players think I just cannot face chopping down this tree for another 10 hours, and then end up resorting to bots out of desperation.
By providing those players with a legitimate in-game alternative, Brighter Shores hopes to strike at the root of the problem. We’re hoping that massively disincentivizes people from breaking the rules, there’s a safe way that isn’t gonna get you banned.
We’re interested to see how this all plays out, but now we want to know if you’ll be picking up Brighter Shores when it releases. Let us know in the comments.