Part of the motive Old School Runescape is really bad at describing itself boils to its own heritage. A decade ago, there wasn't any Old School Runescape. There was just Runescape. But after a major update totally overhauled Runescape gold and turned it into what is now colloquially called Runescape 3, Jagex ran a survey to determine if players desired independent servers where they might play Runescape as it was back in the day. So, the threadbare tutorial is much more than enough for people who've played Runescape earlier (such as myself). Nevertheless, Old School could still stand to guide new players somewhat better, because it's totally unlike other MMOs.

For starters, there are no classes, only abilities. Everyone has the exact same 23 skills, which could be grouped into Cheap OSRS gold combat abilities like Power and Ranged, crafting abilities like Herblore and Fletching, and gathering skills such as Fishing and Mining. All skills start at level one and go around 99 as you get experience by dealing damage, crafting potions, catching fish and so forth. In other words, you're not a mage, you have high Magic. You're not a warrior, but you've got high Attack, Power, and Defence. Your abilities reflect your playstyle, but there is not a hard division between personality types. Everybody is encouraged to level all of their skills, and the end goal for most players is to get all of them to 99.

Old School Runescape additionally does not play like most MMOs. It lacks the customary array of skill pubs, hotkeys and cooldowns. It seems more like a classic cRPG. The world is set out on a grid, and to move your character, you click on the square that you want to move to. To talk to an NPC, you click their"Talk to" alternative. To strike a monster, you click its"Strike" option. You can do virtually everything without touching your keyboard, though it's a lot easier to play once you set up a couple of shortcuts.