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Players excited for Fresh Start Worlds to come to RuneScape will have to wait a bit longer.
Jagex recently revealed their plans to add Fresh Start Worlds servers to RuneScape and Old School RuneScape. The community didn’t like the idea for the most part, with most of their concerns about how the mode would negatively impact game integrity and the value of RS3 gold. Because of the mixed reactions (and backlash), the RuneScape developer said they’d be changing the necessary adjustments. In doing so, Jagex has had to push back the release of Fresh Start Worlds.
The Gist of How Fresh Start Worlds Work
Jagex initially planned to release Fresh Start Worlds on September 12. The all-new game mode would allow players to experience RuneScape with a “fresh” economy. Everyone would start with a clean slate where they have to play the game without having the Runescape items and RuneScape gold they’ve accumulated from their RS3 account. They’ll have to work their way from the ground up.
You might think it will take a long time to grind all those items and levels back, but Jagex has you covered. Jagex has dramatically enhanced the unique progression rewards and experience rates to speed up the process. If you’re one of those people eager to play in Fresh Start Worlds, you can also earn alternative skill cape overrides, a new (and tradable!) ultra-rare halo, a pet, and a scalable weapon and armor set.
The Caveat
On paper, Fresh Start Worlds sounds like a great time—until you read the fine print. If you look closely at the bottom of the announcement blog, you’ll see that RuneScape players that want to try out Fresh Start Worlds will have to create a new account and purchase a new membership subscription. This means long-term members with an ongoing subscription will have to spend extra money to play on the soon-to-be-released servers. To make matters worse, microtransactions will be present despite Fresh Start Worlds being advertised as a competitive game mode.
Bonds and RuneCoins will also be available from day one. This might sound like a good thing, but we’d argue that being able to buy bonds defeats the purpose of Fresh Start Worlds. RuneScape players purchase bonds mainly because you can sell them for RS3 gold. A bond in RuneScape is worth around 55 million RS gold—give or take. Even if Jagex plans to make them worth less in the upcoming servers, players who choose to buy them will still have an “unfair” advantage.
Jagex’s Plans for the Revision
After hearing the community’s claims that Fresh Start Worlds was a “money-hungry concept,” Jagex will make changes to relieve fans’ concerns.
The developer will revise the experience rates that were initially on offer. Previously, you’d be able to take advantage of a four-time multiplier XP rate; many considered this a problem when it’s finally time for you to transfer your account from the Fresh Start Worlds to the official servers. That’s because offering such high experience rates runs the risk of depreciating an account’s stats when they enter the main game.
Players also had worries about the boons. As previously stated, boons will be available as an optional purchase in Fresh Start Worlds. Some boons are overpowered—they can double your pet drop chance and award you instant levels without effort. Thankfully, Jagex plans to remove these types of boons.
As for the issue about players needing to have a new RuneScape account and membership to access Fresh Start Worlds, Jagex has somewhat alleviated the concern by promising that all the rewards would also be available to regular Runescape accounts in the future. They haven’t spilled any specifics about how they’ll distribute the said rewards, but the developer confirmed it wouldn’t be through Treasure Hunter. Treasure Hunter is a daily activity where you can use keys to unlock chests and win prizes; it will be accessible eight weeks after Fresh Start Worlds’ launch.
The New Release Date
The Fresh Start Worlds update was originally supposed to release on September 12, but now the date has been pushed back to September 26 due to the alternations Jagex will be doing. Players itching to farm RuneScape gold will have to wait a bit longer, but we think the delay would be worth it—considering that Jagex will address most of the people’s concerns about Fresh Start Worlds in the adjustments.
Meanwhile, Fresh Start Worlds for Old School RuneScape remains unchanged and is scheduled to begin in October. OSRS’ Fresh Start Worlds won’t have unique rewards, increased XP rates, and microtransactions.
