Yea i can say Rs is dying.
I started playing runescape i think 2005? maybe 2006. When i started playing there were so many people playing they had to keep creating worlds as the worlds were so packed people couldnt log in. Now the game at this time had spread by only really word of mouth no advertisements. At this time they had like roughly 250k people on every day and on weekends almost hitting 400k (maybe they did im not even sure)
Also back then bots were not very popular or widely used as they are today. The best bots they had was like mining ess lol so yea those 300k~ people were legit people playing.
Considering we peak at like 180k players on a weekend and a HUGE portion of those people are bots. There are not alot of players anymore.
Now recent updates can show u how badly the game is really doing.
- Recently they updated it so if u start a lvl 3 u get 15 days of free members to push for u to buy members.
- Squeal of Fortune, you can now buy spins giving u the ability to buy experience. First time ever jagex has allowed the use of irl money to influence ur character in a lvl based way.
- Pushing for u to get free spins if u buy members in a certain time period
- 2x weekends, these were made to bring back older players to get them motivated again.
- Mad may, bascially if u were a member throughout may u got a 250k 2x xp necklace, which they advertised before so f2p players would buy members.
- The hp update, changing it from 2 digit hits to 3 digits to make the 12 year olds think this games AMAZING!
- And of course the new combat update, pushing for the game to look and play more like WOW. To draw in new players
These are just some examples im sure there are more. But it just shows they are getting desperate for money and for members. So they are pushing to get more people to buy members.