The player population is low, but I also feel like slowly Jagex without realizing it has narrowed runescape's population smaller and smaller until now you see this culture of players who for the most part have played Runescape through most game shattering/changing updates. And who are xp/skill centric. I've been a career pker from 02-2k11 but as I myself have gotten older and the pking community and rs community in general has changed and grown up with me I have become more and more skill/friend's chat, centric. I've played for 11+ years now, and although if you add up all of my breaks together i'm sure it would add up to 3 maybe 4 years of not playing in that time, however, when life slows down one thing remains true. I return to Runescape as my game of choice. Through my own eyes I see the current population as very similar to the early population in 01-02 where players more or less play very balanced. You don't have the extremes where some people play only to pk or stake or w/e floats their boat. The population I see today for the most part seems to be a relatively loyal, skiller population. The population that has always been the more stable backbone of runescape's subscription base is the player I just described. *disclaimer* random ramblings from a veteran who just started playing regularly again within the last 2 months, not proof-read. I'm not arguing or trying to debate anything, these are just some general observations i've made on my most recent return to RS3.
