After running for two straight weeks, the Old School RuneScape poll has now closed, finishing with 449,351 supporting votes in total. Although, sadly, the final tally has fallen short of the 500,000 and 750,000 targets, the incredible passion from the Old School RuneScape community and their supportive friends has inspired us to offer something special to kick off this new service.

We’ve been overjoyed by the enthusiasm and goodwill amongst the community since the start of the poll. There is clearly a super passionate group of RuneScapers who have shown that they are nostalgic for some Old School gameplay.

As a gesture of our own goodwill and an aspiration for this newly established community to flourish and hopefully grow I’ve decided that we will NOT be charging the additional $5 membership fee for at least the next 6 months!

The enthusiasm for the service and positive early start has been great to witness, with many people voting just to help out their friends which is truly awesome show of camaraderie and possibly unique to our great community. Now that Old School RuneScape has been launched we need to see how many players will actually use the service on a regular basis, should the community continue to grow and players remain engaged then the service will remain as a free benefit to our cherished members. Obviously, should player activity decline over the next 6 months rather than grow we would have to introduce an additional $5 membership fee to fund the on going service.

A small development team will remain dedicated to Old School RuneScape, both fixing any issues that crop up and being available to work on tweaks and changes to the game over time. We remain committed to making Old School RuneScape an exclusively community driven service. You can be sure we will not make any design changes to the game without the community voting on it first.

Starting in a few weeks, we’ll have regular polls for the Old School community to decide which changes they do or don’t want made, short listed from your discussions on the Old School Feedback forum.

We’ll also be adding in more of the latest anti-bot technology into Old School RuneScape so that we can uphold our stance of zero tolerance on cheating, botters and gold farmers.

If you're a RuneScape member hungry for some 2007 nostalgia, wait no longer! Click here to visit the homepage, where you can log in with your existing account. You can also see the latest old school news, where we'll keep you posted on all of the above, and access both the forums and the wiki.

If not, then RuneScape membership just became even better value than ever. Not only do you get access to the thousands of hours of exclusive members' content and additional skills in the main game, but you will also get separate access to Old School RuneScape on the same account. Click here for full details.

Finally, congratulations! Old School RuneScape servers would not have been brought back without your noticeable support and enthusiasm. With that in mind, be sure to keep posting on the Old School Feedback forum to let us know your thoughts.

Any other questions? Take a look at our FAQ here.

Mark Gerhard

CEO

Discuss this here.