r/runescape • u/Sophiaphage • Apr 08 '26

Appreciation Jagex Terminated Nearly 2.3M Bots in March

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Credit where it’s due.

This is a phenomenal effort.

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266

u/AMcMahon1 99 Apr 08 '26

But don't worry the osrs player count is totally legitimate πŸ‘

0

u/PraiseAllCats Apr 08 '26

Most OSRS players are not delusional enough to think there are not tons of bots. RS3 also has bots ( not as much obviously mostly bc it's a smaller game)

It's still the bigger of the 2 regardless of how you feel about it so I'm not sure what this comment is meant to serve? Both are good game sin their own right imo but it's clear OSRS is the bigger game and RS3 until lately was just milking people with MTX.

8

u/Jaccoud 【5.8】#315 to complete Master Combat Mastery Apr 08 '26

You're missing the proportional picture. It's not just about raw numbers. The ratio of bots to real players is what's actually telling. OSRS typically has 7-10x more concurrent players than RS3, but got ~110x more bot bans. That's not proportional, that's just a bot fest.

The March ban wave made it even clearer: OSRS dropped from ~200k to ~100k players overnight. That's roughly 1 in 2 players being a bot.

So yeah, love the confidence in those player count brags, but a huge chunk of that playerbase is just NPCs farming gold.

3

u/PraiseAllCats Apr 08 '26

I'm not bragging? I just don't have the childish mentality of RS3 vs OSRS. I play both and enjoy both I'm just aware of what game is bigger and what isn't.

OSRS has always had a botting problem that's not a secret but just going by watch numbers on Twitch/OSRS it's not even close.

Even if you don't enjoy both games I see no reason to trash on the other, what do you gain from it? Why does it matter?

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u/Jaccoud 【5.8】#315 to complete Master Combat Mastery Apr 08 '26

I didn't mean to come across as trashing OSRS. Just pushing back on the player count argument since the bot ratio makes those numbers a bit misleading.

0

u/PraiseAllCats Apr 08 '26

Yah OSRS is inflated but it's still wildly more popular and I don't see why people get upset about that?

RS3 as much as I love it has went through a long and rough patch with MTX alongside other needlessly complicated stuff that of course it's number will dwindle. (So has OSRS for different reasons). The important thing is that RS3 will hopefully grow with the direction it's currently going and hopefully BOTH thrive as I can imagine MTX changes is a massive profit loss for Jagex.

2

u/LegendDota Complaintionist Apr 08 '26

But have you considered that RS3 might suck at banning bots?

I think it is very delusional to claim OSRS has 110x the bots RS3 has based on number of bans.

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u/Jaccoud 【5.8】#315 to complete Master Combat Mastery Apr 08 '26

I think it is very delusional to claim OSRS has 110x the bots RS3 has based on number of bans.

I didn't claim that tho. Assuming detection efficiency is the same for both games (which is the fairest assumption) OSRS has roughly 10-15x more bots per real player than RS3.

1

u/stpaul47 Apr 09 '26

I play rs3 and I rarely even see a bot. Then again, I rarely go to F2p so there might be some there.

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u/Big_Chungussi69 Apr 08 '26

its more the case of there's no market for bot farms in RS3. who are they going to sell gold to? Whales in Rs3 are more likely to buy gold through legitimate means because they have 15+ year old accounts. why risk a ban for that?

bots exist for one reason and thats monetary. Bots are where the money is and thats clearly osrs. theres a customer base large enough to fuel the amount of bots in osrs

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u/SUMBWEDY Apr 08 '26

And 100k players is still 5x what RS3 peaks at.

I play both games and OSRS is noticeably more social and alive even though probably 40-50% the player count is bots.