RuneScape reinstates the Wilderness and Free Trade

Over the past few weeks, RuneScape has run a campaign, asking players to vote if they’d like the Wilderness and Free Trade to return to the game. After weeks of tallying votes, over 90% of players asked for these features to be restored – and so they will return on February 1st.

Players will be able to gift to friends or trade items with the community, and will also be able to reenter the Wilderness, taking a calculated risk to earn greater rewards.

RuneScape is published by Jagex.

RuneScape Gameplay Screenshot

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MORE THAN ONE MILLION RUNESCAPE PLAYERS VOTE TO REINSTATE THE WILDERNESS – “THE ULTIMATE RISK VERSUS REWARD MMO EXPERIENCE”

1.2 Million Players vote in the first RuneScape referendum with over 91% supporting the campaign to reinstate Free Trade and an enhanced Wilderness experience

Cambridge, UK –17^th January 2011 – Jagex Games Studio, developer of RuneScape, the world’s most popular free-to-play MMORPG, today announced that the RuneScape community has voted overwhelmingly in favour of restoring the Wilderness and Free Trade to RuneScape. As a result of the phenomenal level of support Jagex has announced that both features will be added to RuneScape on the 1^st February.

Jagex launched the online referendum on 24th December as part of their 10^th anniversary celebrations for RuneScape, giving players the unique chance to directly influence and shape the future of the game. Over 1.2 million votes were cast in just under three weeks, with more than 91% of players voting in favour of bringing back the Wilderness and Free Trade demonstrating how passionate the community are and how quickly they can mobilise support for their cause.

“We have the most incredible community of gamers and we wanted to demonstrate how much we value them by handing this game changing decision over to them,” said Mark Gerhard, Jagex CEO. “I firmly believe that the Wilderness represents the ultimate risk versus reward experience in any MMO and the incredible support for the campaign demonstrates that our players agree. It has been fantastic to watch the community mobilise in support of the update and we can now introduce these features certain in the knowledge that they are what our community want.”

Christoph Vietzke, Head of RuneScape followed by saying: “The RuneScape community have sent us a very clear message and the development team has started work this morning. The entire Jagex team have been glued to their screens watching the votes fly in and it has been great to see the community vote with such enthusiasm.”

As a result of the referendum unrestricted trade will be released into the game on the 1^st February, meaning that players will once again be given the freedom to gift their wealth to their friends or trade items with the wider RuneScape community.

The Wilderness will also reclaim its place as the most dangerous area in RuneScape, offering players the chance to stake their armour, weapons and resources to defeat others and loot their remains once victorious. With numerous new features added to RuneScape over recent years including: summoning creatures, new curses, more powerful weaponry and armour, making the new Wilderness the deadliest place in RuneScape.

To create a free RuneScape account and prepare for the return of the Wilderness please visit: www.RuneScape.com.