Pay-to-play

The RuneScape Wiki also has an article on: rsw:MembersThe Old School RuneScape Wiki also has an article on: osrsw:Members

Pay-to-play (also known as P2P; paying players are called members) is the payment-subscribed version of the game. Members pay Jagex a real-world money fee every month in order to access much more content within the game.

The pay-to-play version of the game was first announced on 4 October 2001, and officially released on 27 February 2002. After Free-to-play for Classic was discontinued on 2 August 2005, only pay-to-play servers continued to exist.

RuneScape Classic membership could not be purchased separate of a subscription for RuneScape 2, or later on Old School RuneScape and RuneScape 3. Instead, membership was applied per-account and included membership benefits in all versions of RuneScape.

Differences

The advertising points of membership over the free-to-play version are duelling, sound effects, new content (areas, quests, monsters, skills and items), more bank space as well as the removal of advert banners from the top of the game window.

In the early days of RuneScape Classic, a principle appeal was that the pay-to-play worlds had less users in them, allowing more training areas to be used that would otherwise be full. In December 2002, there were 10 free worlds and 4 members' worlds.

Locations

The following locations are exclusive to pay-to-play:

• Kandarin (including Ardougne, Yanille, Seers Village, Taverley, the Fishing and Legends' guilds, and Catherby, among other points of interest)
• The Tree Gnome Stronghold and Tree Gnome Village
• Most of western and southern Karamja, e.g. Brimhaven, and the jungle surrounding Shilo Village
• The high-level wilderness around the Mage Arena, including the High level wilderness dungeon.
• The King Black Dragon lair.
• The Desert.
• Entrana
• Zanaris
• Feldip Hills
• The Underground Pass.
• The Fishing Trawler.
• The wilderness section of Edgeville Dungeon.

Skills

The following skills are members' only:

• Fletching
• Herblaw
• Thieving
• Agility

Trivia

Day of membership release, manual upgrade

• In March 2003, a month of RuneScape membership cost £3.20. A person who was interested in playing the members version could buy 32 packets of Space Raiders (a snack popular among British children) for the same price. 32 packets of space raiders would cost £9.60 in 2019.
• On free-to-play worlds, pay-to-play locations were non-existent. If a player were to log off in a members location and re-log on a free-to-play server, they would appear in the black void or in the middle of a body of a water, with no way out. The only way out was to move out of the area on a members world. The Sinclair Mansion was mistakenly present in the free-to-play map, meaning it appeared as an island.
• Some players believe that PKing is unbalanced on pay-to-play due to the high hitting capabilities of the multi-way charged god spells.
• On the day of release, Andrew Gower had to manually upgrade players who had bought membership.