Upgrade all of RS to Unreal Engine 5

[tight crane]

Dragonwilds has shown what's possible. It's a lot of content to upgrade all of RS but it would ensure the game survives long-term. It would no longer be "shameful" to play this game, bringing old players back and attracting a swath of new ones.

[rotund pecan]

I support but at the same time, I dont get why this game is shameful. Most players are probably late 20s to 40s now. Whenever I stop playing, its likely irl commitments and has nothing to do with gfx or mtx.

[unreal nymph]

They're not even willing to give us an Avatar refresh because of the herculean effort of retrofitting all the armour and cosmetics etc (which only will get worse the longer they wait), let alone recreate the game in a new engine.
Can't say I've encountered anyone that shames me for playing RS since like 2015 either.

[silk zodiac]

nope, moving from runetek will be a herculean effort, and ue5s built in lighting wouldnt fit with rs

[plush spade]

How is playing rs ‘shameful’??? It’s a game we love, if people are shaming you for doing something you love that’s a problem with them. And yes it would be a lot to take it over to a new engine and it’s fine just the way it is. Play dragonwilds if you want to experience that.

Rs has been around for 20+ years, it’s not going to suddenly die off, not while devoted players like there are in this server still exist.

[tight crane]

People against upgrading:

[crimson kraken]

I wonder how many years it would take them to convert assets while also continuing to release new content.

Also, if the game conjures up feelings of shame while you play it, I would recommend looking inward and figuring out what about the game is bringing you shame while reflecting on why that is happening. Not trying to be mean/sarcastic in any way. There are plenty of people who still enjoy retro style games, which is why osrs exists. I doubt any of them feel shame in any way for playing a game without top of the line graphics. So you have nothing to be ashamed of for playing RS3. Again, not trying to be mean/sarcastic.

[tall field]

Not against upgrading, but the tradeoff in effort over new content would NOT be worth it.

[tight crane]

I say they should divert all resources away from releasing new content and toward upgrading to UE5

[tender hill]

Could easily be possible with the use of artificial intelligence converting 3d models into unreal models. I don't think Jagex is AI savvy though so they would likely manually convert and that would take a lot of time, the game would probably die before they are done manually converting.

[viral gull]

The issue with diverting all resources is that, with no additional content, people get bored and leave. It’s the sad, harsh truth. I would love graphical overhauls, and bigger, better engines, but they’d need to pretty much hire/dedicate a whole team to it. Quite the predicament.

[tight crane]

I think it's a good sign that nearly all of the reasons, including yours, against upgrading the graphics are that it would be "difficult" or something along those lines as opposed to not preferable

[south forge]

i think the game would wither away before they can launch in ure5

[south forge]

i dont think anyone is opposed to the actual idea but yeah realistically its not something thats feasable with how Runescape 3 generates revenue and playerbase

[tight crane]

Didn't know you were the CEO of Jagex to have such knowledge

[south forge]

lol

[plush spade]

New content is vital, if they pause on that then there would be a much higher risk of the game losing players.

[plush spade]

Keep that nasty AI well away from my games thank you very much

Look, it would be an improvement to the graphics, nobody is arguing with that, it’s just that

1. We would lose the distinctive RuneScape style and not everyone would like it, leading to a drop off of players.
2. We’ve got dragonwilds if that’s the experience you want. It’s in early access and suggestions are welcome during this time when they can easily make changes to the plans for the game, why don’t you go over there and help shape that into something you would enjoy rather than trying to change what we already love?
3. Doing that would be far too much effort and stress on the jmods and we want them focused on making new content that everyone is already excited for.

[viral gull]

Well, yeah. That’s the point. Everyone here isn’t opposed to it, but merely discussing the negative consequences that would come with it. There’s a lot of steps that would need to be taken, and if some of those steps forsake the purpose of a video game (the content), it would be in vain.

The only feasible way to do this, at this moment, is to hire a third party or a whole team dedicated to it. I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

[viral gull]

Agreed. I’m not a fan of AI over a human touch.

Don’t take that out of context, I beg you

[quasi field]

There is no “upgrading” it would be redoing the entire game from scratch.

[tight crane]

It was done from RS2 to RS3

[quasi field]

you mean where they upgraded from their tech to their tech?

[tight crane]

From Java to HTML5 which would be a similar rewrite as going from HTML5 to UE5, you didn't know this? Also the problem with RS3 is that its graphics are between bad and good. UE5 graphics are good: RS3 is half-assed and that's why it never took off compared to OSRS, and RS3 could always be kept like OSRS was for enemies of progress

[quasi field]

OSRS was not kept. it was reintroduced after a time. the RS3 OSRS division already hurts the game. you're thinking of classic to OSRS (I'm not even sure if classic was kept or reintroduced.)

[tight crane]

No, RS2 was Java and RS3 is HTML5, you're incorrect

[quasi field]

I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’m saying OSRS was not a continuation of RS before RS3. It was a separate service implemented after a time.

[tight crane]

Actually I just double checked. RS1 was Java, RS2 C++, RS3 HTML5. These are all details though. It's been rewritten twice, it can be rewritten a third time to UE5 to bring it to the 21st century

[tall field]

https://discord.com/channels/303835144073248770/1212588698047086642

friendly reminder this stalled out due to scope of project.

Again not discouraging this idea, it would be awesome but get in line bud 😂

[tight crane]

I'm a leader, you're a follower

[tall field]

Ah, great ratio on this by the way.

I’ll support the avatar refresh since it’s a bit more rooted in reality of the situation. Thanks!

[silk zodiac]

ye the game can look rough, but thats only due to unupdated models, what would moving engines do?

like as long as we keep getting the gamejam graphical improvements the game is gonna keep looking better and better

[tight crane]

Monkey see, monkey do

[versed plover]

Just as a clarification, the HTML5 stuff was for one of the older in-test-phase game clients and for now defunct companion app. The NXT client itself is C++ but the engine is still based off of Jagex's proprietary Runescript which is derived from Java

[viral gull]

To say the reason RS3 is the lesser played game due to its graphics and art style just is not correct. PvP has been dead since EoC, MTX dissuades a good chunk of people, and the game isn’t particularly the most “beginner friendly”. Most OSRS players who put sincere thought and criticism into RS3 will give you one of these responses, I feel.

Also, can we stop retaliating with insults? Please? It’s not in good faith.

[quasi field]

Likely lead to far more bugs, to say the least.

[tight crane]

MTX is indeed bad. So are the graphics. Your logic is: because there are multiple things bad with this game, let's not fix one of the worst things about it

[viral gull]

Imagine taking things out of context

Anywho, good luck, I’d love to see graphical updates, but you’re not doing the best job garnering support

[tight crane]

It's not my responsibility. Also, you and others don't have the best interest of the game long-term in mind. That's not my problem

[viral gull]

It quite literally is, seeing as YOU posted this. No use in arguing anymore, you aren’t acting in good faith. Farewell, good luck.

[tight crane]

I suggest the idea and that's it. This wasn't an argument by the way, but you're seeing it this way. You'd prefer to make it one and score points justifying your defeatist attitude as opposed to contributing to the game's progress

[plush spade]

You’re definitely right and I’d recommend that we all just stop trying to convince this person of anything because it obviously isn’t working. We know what we think, we know what they think, nobody is going to change their mind about it so we’re best off just avoiding further passive aggressive discussion and let this play out through the because this isn’t getting us anywhere

[tall field]

@junior rampart

[tight crane]

😆

[spiral dust]

what makes you think alienating the small remaining player base by converting the graphics to some AI slop is the saving grace for RS?

Would like to see some data to back that up

every single UE5 game just looks like a carbon copy of each other, half of the charm of osrs/rs is the unique art style

[tight crane]

We need new graphics and we need a new player base, that's my conclusion

[spiral dust]

we 100% need an avatar refresh, UE5 is not the play though. can't really support it.

the graphical reworks of the areas that are happening currently in gamejam satiate my thirst for new graphics.

I would probably feel the same way if someone told me minecraft or WoW should be remade in UE5 too, the aesthetic just feels too samey

[tender hill]

https://www.hunyuan-3d.com/ if they took thier artwork and used a image to 3d generator like Hunyan 3d then imported that 3d model into the unreal engine they could make rs3 into rs4 fairly quickly. The unreal system could be a huge upgrade, no tick based system would be incredible. This process could be a very simple one, but effective. But it's all a moot point because mtx is killing the game anyways. We could have tick based actions(character motion would differ when not limited to a tick based system. It would be more like dragon wilds. Wouldn't it be interesting if they implemented an AI companion which gathers data from the wiki and then answers any questions that the player might have?) if we wanted to stay true to the eoc.

[tall field]

I have a feeling companies aren’t going to want to upload proprietary model data to some online converter.

It’s a good idea but it’s the same issue you’d find with manufacturers with CAD data that wouldn’t upload their stuff to a file type converter. Protect the IP and model data any way you can.

[tulip patrol]

rs has a perfectly fine art style that is a pull for remaining on the game and also attracting new players - there's thousands of video games out in the market, but only a small amount for games in the style of runescape

a new engine isn't gonna resolve any player concerns, and this suggestion feels very much like it's springboarding off recent conversation in the avatar refresh thread to shove forward AI/a fashionable game engine out of what I'm inferring as impatience

this game has been around for decades, and prioritizing content over looks (who is it we're supposed to be competing with? people who don't like rs in the first place? ??) is going to be what keeps the game going

[severe crow]

Please stay respectful. Others are allowed to disagree with your suggestion, that does not warrant insults.

[empty scroll]

your response however, is uncalled for. if you have an issue with his moderation, you are welcome to send a DM to @junior rampart and ask for a review

[fleet garnet]

i think the general sentiment of the community is that everything in the game aside from the player character looks perfectly wonderful as is, i would direct people to support https://discord.com/channels/303835144073248770/1212588698047086642 if they wanna see the player character reach the same level of visual fidelity as the rest of the game

there's way easier ways of updating our character than converting the game to UE5, many of which jagex have explored and others which they are continuing to explore as player survey data keeps indicating it is something players highly desire.

there are also graphical outliers aside from the player character of course, but these are slowly getting updated to be in line with the modern game's aethestic
2 in-progress examples are the dark wizard tower and melzar's maze, if you see anywhere else in need of that sort of touch up, definitely make a new suggestion about that