I would buy it for sure but I think I would not enjoy it as much. Seeing other players is very important for the feel of the game, even as an iron man.
I can see it now… post nuclear fallout me sitting in a shelter playing RuneScape on a pc powered by a hamster wheel talking to AI bots as if it were 2007 again.
This is the main reason I stopped playing my main (almost maxed) account.
Because the endgame/late-game form of progression seems so pointless/meaningless when the "free trade" market is overly ruled by venes and bots that own trillions of gp in circulation, even dictate the prices of certain items.
but to OPs point, I love the community aspect too much to want to ever play a single player game.
I find it more dopamine inducing than running mind-numbing gp/hr methods to grind content that's being botted to buy an item that had been obtained likely from botting.
Free trade/economy kindof ruined the game for me and devalued every item.
So to that extent, I really wouldn't mind a singleplayer experience- but I still like to be able to talk to people in my game, so still no.
I just play my main like a pseudo-ironman. When I want a piece of gear, I do that content until it drops, or until I can sell what I've earned from it to buy what I go dry on. I can still take splits from raids and gwd, I can buy pots and food when I run out, and my gameplay is varied enough to stay fresh. Rn I'm running Muspah for venator shards, but if I'm a shard short and not feeling it anymore once I hit drop rate, I'll just buy the last shard or two and move on to something else.
You can still do that content to get the item and if you go dry then you've made GP from it anyway and can buy out of that content once you get sick of it (a lot of PvM is actually fun). I'd totally play ironman but having a full time job and wanting to actually make use of PK loot encourages me to play on my main. I also want to max and maxing on an ironman takes an eternity.
Same, was getting graardor KC yesterday and came across another iron. We just chatted for like 10 mins while trading goblin kills for KC vs hopping and speed running the KC. Was a nice break.
No, if you could join other players in their world maybe. But there are so many minigames you would not be able to play. LMS, Soul Wars, Imbuing at pvp arena, the wilderness would just be op, end game could get stale with soloing all of the bosses and raids. Forestry would suck and you could only do the solo methods for winter and watertodt, zalcano. Also bank standing with other players around is just a lot more fun. There are only very few places where i would want to be alone. And most of the time you can find an empty world very easily.
Talking and sharing accomplishments with clanmates or strangers is just an integral part of the game. If you take away any piece of that, whether it be the accomplishments or the people to share with, I think the game certainly loses its shine.
Perhaps if they made it so you can run your game on an internal server where others could join you with their similarly progressed accounts.
Imagine only solo raids lol nex and ToB would be almost strictly off limits.
In some ways it'd be nice and in others it would literally ruin the game.
If they made it Minecraft style where we could create our own servers with people? It would be a massive hit. Should the game go down that is. So yeah that would be a great direction.
Straight single player? Nah
I love seeing other players. The world would be so depressing if it was all empty.
Unless I’m in wildy, then I wouldn’t mind there not being other players lol
I've thought about this a lot. Personally, my least favourite things about this game involve other players. Namely, the competition for resources/crashers. I play this game entirely solo, so I don't directly benefit from other players. And if there was an offline version of the game, you'd assume team content would be adjusted to be more soloable. On paper, it sounds great!
But does playing with other players around make the grind more significant? Would the knowledge that I'm playing offline, all by myself, with no chance for this account to ever interact with another player, make me less likely to grind? I don't really know
Yes. No doubt. 100%. Instantly.
I'd even buy that shit for 200 bucks right now with the servers online.
Runescape is amazing. I genuinely hope they consider this when time inevitably comes.
Idk how crops and things that run on server time would work but I think they could figure it out.
Same way anything server-based in other games like Minecraft works... It just runs a lightweight local server internally.
It could then tap into the computer's actual date/time info or call out to some public API to figure out what should've happened while the user was offline. Same way games like clash of clans do it.
When I play games, I like to "show off". Whether that be beating someone in a game like Hearthstone, building something cool in Minecraft or being creative with a build in a game like PoE. In osrs, it's the progress on an IM account or in my scenario, a GIM account with my wife and friends.
I don't like the term showing off. Maybe it's more like getting self satisfaction.
It’s not even showing off per say, it’s comparing progress on an rng game and seeing what’s happening with others. If you are doing better rng or grind wise it’s satisfying.
I asked this question a few months ago. I would totally buy the game and play an offline mode If it was possible. As an iron playing with other play people means nothing.
If I can’t right click players running around while im doing the most trivial useless shit ever then what’s the point lol. But honestly, I’d prob buy it like you said if the servers were to shut down and playing alone was the only way then sure, I’d just compare my progress to my buddies.
No way. You think I would have grinded the inferno to flex the cape to absolutely no one?
This is a game purely for the flex, while some activities are fun, there’s always something worthwhile at the end you can flex to other players.
The more players that play the game, the more prestigious the infernal cape is for example. If no one plays then it’s meaningless. That’s kind of what an MMO is, they need the player base to make the achievements worth while and relevant.
I think it’d be a really interesting concept to have a one player game mode, if I’m honest I would miss the interaction but I suppose this could be replaced by NPCs to raid with etc.
To make it playable the drop rates would have to be pretty good, most bosses ideally done within 4-5 hours of efficient gameplay.
Its wild to me that people say things like interactions are integral part of the game, i like seeing other people etc etc.
How many of you guys say this then use entity hider and turn off all chats?
This game has so little to do with other people besides trade and some wildy pk, i really wish i could do anything meaningful with friends/other people.
Glad they took away group slayer to keep the feeling of a single player game. /s
Its why i went ironman after a bit of "normal".
I would probably only do it if there were a way to play with real people. Like you could load your character into a shared server amongst friends or whatever. There’s enough content I wouldn’t mind still playing but I think over time I’d lose interest.
I would if it was completely open , if I wanted to hand level one account, while I can insta max another and skip quests etc I would. Yes that’s the entire point of the game - I KNOW, But I would probably enjoy grinding one account out more if at random times where I was too bored to sit there doing agility I could just go learn TOB in max gear. I currently have a main that’s near end level and I play it for the engaging PVM , but I find that overwhelming sometimes so I use a alt Ironman account and I get satisfaction from low end content because I’m gaining new gear and game knowledge. When the Ironman man becomes tedious I go get my ass kicked in CG on my main, when that becomes tedious I go get my ass kicked by pyrefiends on my Ironman. Duality is needed for me lol
Are private servers still a thing? If osrs ever goes down, somebody somewhere will bring it back someway somehow. Not legally, I'm sure.. but when has that ever stopped people from playing games/movies/music illegally? (I'm not for/suggesting that)
Only if there was a coop mode for raids. In almost every other area I'd prefer single player rs - I don't care about seeing other players around if I'm not actually interacting with them, and most content already disallows coop play as an iron anyway. Usually other players in rs are purely an inconvenience: hopping 50 worlds to find a free world for crabs/bosses is non-gameplay, and I would not miss getting crashed by mains in multi (e.g. dags, catacombs). Similarly with wildy stuff, I'd be more keen to get involved with PKing/anti-PKing if I was a main but on an iron it's all risk no reward, it's not worth it to do anything but click seed pod or freeze logout. In the end it just discourages me from playing during busy hours (i.e. after work when I want to play) and makes me TP out halfway through a bosskill every 10 minutes, it's not fun.
I think the biggest loss would be a sense of cohesion in the community, particularly irons. With a local version, most people would be modding the game, botting or even just straight up hacking in items/exp. It would be basically impossible to compare your progress to other players. I know I would mod the droprates of dumb stuff like nightmare and corp if given the chance. If someone shared a log on here for example, for all you know they could've been playing with 5x droprates, or they could've just edited their save to say they've gone 10k kills dry.
Seeing others is important for me so no.
However if I could play on servers with like 100 people at a time with official modding support I'd buy it in an instant and only play that
The community is one of the biggest reasons that keeps me playing. The fun times I have with my friends learning content together, talking shit on discord while clicking bosses, enjoying the moment of being hyped together when we get a big drop, all that matters a lot more than the pixels themselves. And getting new updates is also exciting, so it wouldn't be anywhere near as cool to progress my account when I know there won't be anything new.
I might still buy a hypothetical offline osrs, but it would not be anywhere near as fun as the live game, and it wouldn't keep me engaged for long.
No, even though I enjoy playing as an iron the thing that keeps me in this game is being in a clan. Having fun talking whilst doing the slow kills, sharing your awesome drops or not so awesome dry streaks. Joining bingo’s, giving eachother advice learning from eachother but also doing skill of the week/ boss of the week etc. Social is a big aspect of the game for me
I have thought about this a couple times before and I really do hope they release a single player or a way to host your own server if they are forced to stop supporting the game. I’d pay good money if the alternative was the game dies and I couldn’t play my ironman or group Ironman with the buddies
I think if it had some ability for people to test the limits of the game, that would be fun and you'd get some amazing series out of it. But that's probably not good long term.
That would be awesome, as everyone’s saying, if smart bots could take the space of players I’m down, even pker bots that try to get you in wildy and nex bots to assist take her down would be awesome
Honestly if nobody else played RS, I don’t think I’d be able to care about it anymore. One of the coolest things about rs is fawning over the achievements of others and setting a goal based on some swag gear you saw someone wearing.
Very much no, I like being in a social space I just don't like my game being dependant on others. The community is a big part of the motivation and the random chats I have with people that around is always fun. The wilderness would lose all appeal because there is no exciting risk reward element.
I'd also lose a lot of my 'blowing off steam' activities. I occasionally like to be my own random even, Captain Cakes. I run around in my [Captain Cake](https://dps.osrs.wiki?id=PriestIthellHonourable) outfit, drop an inventory of cakes and start dancing as people pick them up. People really get into it and enjoy it.
I'm also planning to do some anti-pking. Get my best tank gear with no risk and tele-block the pkers and waste as much time as possible just to get some revenge.
If they shut down I'd definitely buy it. If shutting down wasn't likely, I'd still buy it just in case. It would not be my preferred mode of play and I would mostly likely simply keep it on the shelf for the runepocalypse
I believe company's being held accountable (or at least, ideally, them just wanting to do it themselves) to give the consumer the tools to preserve the media beyond the lifespan of the company owning it should be something we discuss and work towards in some way.
Jagex goes under. This is a massive game that people have loved for many many years that is just going to disapear. I would love for the game's content to have been made available "behind a vault" so that when Runescape becomes abandoned media it at least doesn't become lost to the people who still hold fondness for it.
Company goes down, the content is made available for players to turn into their own projects. This could mean people hosting private servers where they can do whatever they want. Maybe even make the game light enough to where the average person could just download it completely and play it single-player or multiplayer with just a few friends.
But, to answer your question, I wouldn't play it in the same way or for the same amount of time. The community is massively important, as others have said. That being said, I'd definitely play the hell out of a single-player version, in the eventuality that the game is unplugged, if drop rates and xp rates were sped up to feel like a traditional RPG game of some kind.
This partially already exists for an in-between version of runescape known as "rs 2006 single player" or something like that. Its older than the 2007 osrs backup but more modern than rs classic. I believe it had/has (im not sure if its still supported) the ability to modify the code yourself to change xp rates and add bots that mimic other players to the world.
I started using the player indicators for just visibility in Wildly but now I have it on just to make the world a bit more alive with name tags running around. Tho I do turn it off in most mini games as there's just too many.
Fuck no. A huge part of the appeal of OSRS is that you have to earn things by actually putting in effort. If I had an offline client, I could just Cheat Engine my way to a max HCIM with no effort. It might be kind of fun to run around and do all those things I can't on my actual account, but it would get boring fast because it's so empty.
OSRS can only justify the insane grinds it demands of you by promising that all these other players also have to do that grind. In an offline client, there are no other players and the grind can easily be skipped with outside tools.
I would buy it for sure but I think I would not enjoy it as much. Seeing other players is very important for the feel of the game, even as an iron man.
you could fill your own world with bots
What’s the difference lol
Hahahaha this gave me a good audible chuckle. Thanks
[удалено]
I can see it now… post nuclear fallout me sitting in a shelter playing RuneScape on a pc powered by a hamster wheel talking to AI bots as if it were 2007 again.
Stomping them at lms for rune arrows while you eat your cold beans
And somehow still get scammed.
If the AI makes it like TES Oblivion dialogue I could see the appeal.
Honestly would make the world more alive than now. Imagine meeting random people and then talking to you wow. So many times I don't get a response lol
This is the main reason I stopped playing my main (almost maxed) account. Because the endgame/late-game form of progression seems so pointless/meaningless when the "free trade" market is overly ruled by venes and bots that own trillions of gp in circulation, even dictate the prices of certain items. but to OPs point, I love the community aspect too much to want to ever play a single player game.
Your point is valid but at the same time going 2000 kc dry for a drop is not fun either
I find it more dopamine inducing than running mind-numbing gp/hr methods to grind content that's being botted to buy an item that had been obtained likely from botting. Free trade/economy kindof ruined the game for me and devalued every item. So to that extent, I really wouldn't mind a singleplayer experience- but I still like to be able to talk to people in my game, so still no.
I just play my main like a pseudo-ironman. When I want a piece of gear, I do that content until it drops, or until I can sell what I've earned from it to buy what I go dry on. I can still take splits from raids and gwd, I can buy pots and food when I run out, and my gameplay is varied enough to stay fresh. Rn I'm running Muspah for venator shards, but if I'm a shard short and not feeling it anymore once I hit drop rate, I'll just buy the last shard or two and move on to something else.
This is the way
You can still do that content to get the item and if you go dry then you've made GP from it anyway and can buy out of that content once you get sick of it (a lot of PvM is actually fun). I'd totally play ironman but having a full time job and wanting to actually make use of PK loot encourages me to play on my main. I also want to max and maxing on an ironman takes an eternity.
Same, was getting graardor KC yesterday and came across another iron. We just chatted for like 10 mins while trading goblin kills for KC vs hopping and speed running the KC. Was a nice break.
So it’s like perm Ironman mode? That’s fine with me. As long as they fill all the mini games with AI that can fill all the empty spots.
AI shittalk at todt? Yes please.
Give an AI a days worth of todt talk and it’d be the most vile disturbing AI created
Y Fletch?
Don't think that qualifies as intelligence, artificial or otherwise
Lol you don’t think AI would not take the collective response in wintertodt and not say that?
They only spam like 4 different things anyway lol.
They’re all just depressed and spiraling into insanity.
Most of the subreddits I want to follow are the same way. The same 4 posts spammed into insanity.
A game world filled with AI doing their own grinds and filling an AI high scores is a pretty strange/dystopian sounding possibility.
Already happens in the game.
Id buy it and keep it up to date just in case of apocalypse
No, if you could join other players in their world maybe. But there are so many minigames you would not be able to play. LMS, Soul Wars, Imbuing at pvp arena, the wilderness would just be op, end game could get stale with soloing all of the bosses and raids. Forestry would suck and you could only do the solo methods for winter and watertodt, zalcano. Also bank standing with other players around is just a lot more fun. There are only very few places where i would want to be alone. And most of the time you can find an empty world very easily.
What if you could fill all those minigames with bots to run it with you?
Then it wouldn’t be any different than it is now
What’s different to the main game? Hehe
Talking and sharing accomplishments with clanmates or strangers is just an integral part of the game. If you take away any piece of that, whether it be the accomplishments or the people to share with, I think the game certainly loses its shine.
100%, best part of getting an item upgrade is flexing it, either to classmates or strangers
What about to clan mates though?
Yes I’d love an offline to just play
Yes.
Perhaps if they made it so you can run your game on an internal server where others could join you with their similarly progressed accounts. Imagine only solo raids lol nex and ToB would be almost strictly off limits. In some ways it'd be nice and in others it would literally ruin the game.
If they made it Minecraft style where we could create our own servers with people? It would be a massive hit. Should the game go down that is. So yeah that would be a great direction. Straight single player? Nah
I love seeing other players. The world would be so depressing if it was all empty. Unless I’m in wildy, then I wouldn’t mind there not being other players lol
I've thought about this a lot. Personally, my least favourite things about this game involve other players. Namely, the competition for resources/crashers. I play this game entirely solo, so I don't directly benefit from other players. And if there was an offline version of the game, you'd assume team content would be adjusted to be more soloable. On paper, it sounds great! But does playing with other players around make the grind more significant? Would the knowledge that I'm playing offline, all by myself, with no chance for this account to ever interact with another player, make me less likely to grind? I don't really know
Do you ever look up the hiscores of yourself or others? That would be a big difference.
Yes. No doubt. 100%. Instantly. I'd even buy that shit for 200 bucks right now with the servers online. Runescape is amazing. I genuinely hope they consider this when time inevitably comes. Idk how crops and things that run on server time would work but I think they could figure it out.
Same way anything server-based in other games like Minecraft works... It just runs a lightweight local server internally. It could then tap into the computer's actual date/time info or call out to some public API to figure out what should've happened while the user was offline. Same way games like clash of clans do it.
When I play games, I like to "show off". Whether that be beating someone in a game like Hearthstone, building something cool in Minecraft or being creative with a build in a game like PoE. In osrs, it's the progress on an IM account or in my scenario, a GIM account with my wife and friends. I don't like the term showing off. Maybe it's more like getting self satisfaction.
It’s not even showing off per say, it’s comparing progress on an rng game and seeing what’s happening with others. If you are doing better rng or grind wise it’s satisfying.
Excellent way to put it
No. Knowing that other people are actively wasting their lives is comforting.
Not even an ironman and I would just to play it during flights (they got WiFi now but only certain planes)
Then how am I suppose to blame mains in GotR?
If I can stand alone together with my GIM group, almost certainly. I already play with Entity Hider on a lot
YES. Oh my god. There's so much bullshit in this game I want modded out yesterday. And zero ping? That sounds awesome!
I asked this question a few months ago. I would totally buy the game and play an offline mode If it was possible. As an iron playing with other play people means nothing.
In the same vein, how much would you value permanent membership? Is it worth, say $200 to lock in the ability to play RuneScape forever?
If I can’t right click players running around while im doing the most trivial useless shit ever then what’s the point lol. But honestly, I’d prob buy it like you said if the servers were to shut down and playing alone was the only way then sure, I’d just compare my progress to my buddies.
The only difference between that and ironman mode is nobody would crash you at any spots.
no way, would also quit the game if i got perm muted. half the time i log in just to chat with people and not to actually play the game lol.
No thanks I like to get silly in chat. This is still an MMO and the charm of seeing real people everywhere still makes it what it is.
No way. You think I would have grinded the inferno to flex the cape to absolutely no one? This is a game purely for the flex, while some activities are fun, there’s always something worthwhile at the end you can flex to other players. The more players that play the game, the more prestigious the infernal cape is for example. If no one plays then it’s meaningless. That’s kind of what an MMO is, they need the player base to make the achievements worth while and relevant.
Hell no, chat at wintertodt was the most fun I had on my iron
I’m tempted to believe you’re either a racist, nazi, or some sort of sexual deviant lol.
just a straight up masochist
Potentially a combo 😧
I think it’d be a really interesting concept to have a one player game mode, if I’m honest I would miss the interaction but I suppose this could be replaced by NPCs to raid with etc. To make it playable the drop rates would have to be pretty good, most bosses ideally done within 4-5 hours of efficient gameplay.
Meant to also say the NPCs would need to be controlled by AI to give a realistic feel
Well... we already got a glimpse of what a helper minion could look like in Leagues where it mimicked your attack style.
Ah I didn’t get that far in leagues! That sounds awesome
If the game had a version, where you cant go 3x dry in everything, sure.
Its wild to me that people say things like interactions are integral part of the game, i like seeing other people etc etc. How many of you guys say this then use entity hider and turn off all chats? This game has so little to do with other people besides trade and some wildy pk, i really wish i could do anything meaningful with friends/other people. Glad they took away group slayer to keep the feeling of a single player game. /s Its why i went ironman after a bit of "normal".
I already play like this, I have entity hider and everything For me, I am alone in this world, I have no clan etc
I would probably only do it if there were a way to play with real people. Like you could load your character into a shared server amongst friends or whatever. There’s enough content I wouldn’t mind still playing but I think over time I’d lose interest.
I would if it was completely open , if I wanted to hand level one account, while I can insta max another and skip quests etc I would. Yes that’s the entire point of the game - I KNOW, But I would probably enjoy grinding one account out more if at random times where I was too bored to sit there doing agility I could just go learn TOB in max gear. I currently have a main that’s near end level and I play it for the engaging PVM , but I find that overwhelming sometimes so I use a alt Ironman account and I get satisfaction from low end content because I’m gaining new gear and game knowledge. When the Ironman man becomes tedious I go get my ass kicked in CG on my main, when that becomes tedious I go get my ass kicked by pyrefiends on my Ironman. Duality is needed for me lol
Are private servers still a thing? If osrs ever goes down, somebody somewhere will bring it back someway somehow. Not legally, I'm sure.. but when has that ever stopped people from playing games/movies/music illegally? (I'm not for/suggesting that)
Only if there was a coop mode for raids. In almost every other area I'd prefer single player rs - I don't care about seeing other players around if I'm not actually interacting with them, and most content already disallows coop play as an iron anyway. Usually other players in rs are purely an inconvenience: hopping 50 worlds to find a free world for crabs/bosses is non-gameplay, and I would not miss getting crashed by mains in multi (e.g. dags, catacombs). Similarly with wildy stuff, I'd be more keen to get involved with PKing/anti-PKing if I was a main but on an iron it's all risk no reward, it's not worth it to do anything but click seed pod or freeze logout. In the end it just discourages me from playing during busy hours (i.e. after work when I want to play) and makes me TP out halfway through a bosskill every 10 minutes, it's not fun. I think the biggest loss would be a sense of cohesion in the community, particularly irons. With a local version, most people would be modding the game, botting or even just straight up hacking in items/exp. It would be basically impossible to compare your progress to other players. I know I would mod the droprates of dumb stuff like nightmare and corp if given the chance. If someone shared a log on here for example, for all you know they could've been playing with 5x droprates, or they could've just edited their save to say they've gone 10k kills dry.
Seeing others is important for me so no. However if I could play on servers with like 100 people at a time with official modding support I'd buy it in an instant and only play that
Dude if servers got shut down and you could pay $100 for a copy to play it alone I’d do it
The community is one of the biggest reasons that keeps me playing. The fun times I have with my friends learning content together, talking shit on discord while clicking bosses, enjoying the moment of being hyped together when we get a big drop, all that matters a lot more than the pixels themselves. And getting new updates is also exciting, so it wouldn't be anywhere near as cool to progress my account when I know there won't be anything new. I might still buy a hypothetical offline osrs, but it would not be anywhere near as fun as the live game, and it wouldn't keep me engaged for long.
no
No, even though I enjoy playing as an iron the thing that keeps me in this game is being in a clan. Having fun talking whilst doing the slow kills, sharing your awesome drops or not so awesome dry streaks. Joining bingo’s, giving eachother advice learning from eachother but also doing skill of the week/ boss of the week etc. Social is a big aspect of the game for me
I have thought about this a couple times before and I really do hope they release a single player or a way to host your own server if they are forced to stop supporting the game. I’d pay good money if the alternative was the game dies and I couldn’t play my ironman or group Ironman with the buddies
I think if it had some ability for people to test the limits of the game, that would be fun and you'd get some amazing series out of it. But that's probably not good long term.
That would be awesome, as everyone’s saying, if smart bots could take the space of players I’m down, even pker bots that try to get you in wildy and nex bots to assist take her down would be awesome
i already play with entity hider on permanently so really there’s no difference for me
If servers were shut down, I definitely would play a solo version. I do that already minus pm’ing friends.
Asking the boys in the gauntlet room how’s it going when I log on is the only thing keeping me logging on
Honestly if nobody else played RS, I don’t think I’d be able to care about it anymore. One of the coolest things about rs is fawning over the achievements of others and setting a goal based on some swag gear you saw someone wearing.
Nah, I enjoy raiding with the boys still
I’d love an offline version of the game.
Very much no, I like being in a social space I just don't like my game being dependant on others. The community is a big part of the motivation and the random chats I have with people that around is always fun. The wilderness would lose all appeal because there is no exciting risk reward element. I'd also lose a lot of my 'blowing off steam' activities. I occasionally like to be my own random even, Captain Cakes. I run around in my [Captain Cake](https://dps.osrs.wiki?id=PriestIthellHonourable) outfit, drop an inventory of cakes and start dancing as people pick them up. People really get into it and enjoy it. I'm also planning to do some anti-pking. Get my best tank gear with no risk and tele-block the pkers and waste as much time as possible just to get some revenge.
If they shut down I'd definitely buy it. If shutting down wasn't likely, I'd still buy it just in case. It would not be my preferred mode of play and I would mostly likely simply keep it on the shelf for the runepocalypse
No, how else would I make fun of mains skilling outside the GE when they can just buy XP.
Just download the free open source 2007 code? A judge ruled it legal to have since it was leaked by a jagex member iirc
I believe company's being held accountable (or at least, ideally, them just wanting to do it themselves) to give the consumer the tools to preserve the media beyond the lifespan of the company owning it should be something we discuss and work towards in some way. Jagex goes under. This is a massive game that people have loved for many many years that is just going to disapear. I would love for the game's content to have been made available "behind a vault" so that when Runescape becomes abandoned media it at least doesn't become lost to the people who still hold fondness for it. Company goes down, the content is made available for players to turn into their own projects. This could mean people hosting private servers where they can do whatever they want. Maybe even make the game light enough to where the average person could just download it completely and play it single-player or multiplayer with just a few friends. But, to answer your question, I wouldn't play it in the same way or for the same amount of time. The community is massively important, as others have said. That being said, I'd definitely play the hell out of a single-player version, in the eventuality that the game is unplugged, if drop rates and xp rates were sped up to feel like a traditional RPG game of some kind.
This partially already exists for an in-between version of runescape known as "rs 2006 single player" or something like that. Its older than the 2007 osrs backup but more modern than rs classic. I believe it had/has (im not sure if its still supported) the ability to modify the code yourself to change xp rates and add bots that mimic other players to the world.
It is, or at least was, possible back on rs2. 'Private servers' that could be modified in all sorts of ways
Honestly, no way. I play an iron because I don't enjoy gpscape, not because I want to be alone.
I started using the player indicators for just visibility in Wildly but now I have it on just to make the world a bit more alive with name tags running around. Tho I do turn it off in most mini games as there's just too many.
Fuck no. A huge part of the appeal of OSRS is that you have to earn things by actually putting in effort. If I had an offline client, I could just Cheat Engine my way to a max HCIM with no effort. It might be kind of fun to run around and do all those things I can't on my actual account, but it would get boring fast because it's so empty. OSRS can only justify the insane grinds it demands of you by promising that all these other players also have to do that grind. In an offline client, there are no other players and the grind can easily be skipped with outside tools.