2009scape

Contributors: Ceikry

2009scape is an unofficial recreation of RuneScape as it existed around 2009, a period many players feel gets overlooked. The aim is to rebuild that era as completely and accurately as possible so people can experience the RS2HD days again. The team is a non-profit group trying to do something unusual within open source: keeping the engine and core systems open, while protecting certain content privately. In the past, the project has faced repeated problems with people attempting to sell leaked code or abuse vulnerabilities for in-game profit. One major wave of exploiters was removed in a mass ban that drained over 100 million from the game economy. Because of issues like these, the project maintains an open-source foundation but keeps some content closed to reduce abuse and preserve stability. The project has changed a lot over time. What exists today started years ago under the name Arios498, a popular server that ran daily but was closed source and operated for profit. It later evolved into Arios530, targeting RuneScape build 530 with content roughly matching early 2009. Development eventually collapsed when someone inside the closed-source team released the code publicly. After that leak, the original creators moved on and launched Kratos 530 in 2015. 2009scape itself was revived because the developers loved the 530 revision and didn’t want it to disappear. A small team spent hundreds of hours cleaning up and improving the abandoned codebase. Over the last year especially, many contributors have come and gone, fixing issues they discovered either in their own testing environments or by comparing behavior against the live version that has been hosted for players. By mid-2021, the team decided to split the experience into two separate directions: Legacy and Preservation. Legacy was the original base world, at one point known as World 2. The earlier Legacy World 1 was removed at the request of its players to make room for a different kind of server. Preservation was originally planned as a single replacement build, but the team chose a new path: keep Legacy open source as a flexible foundation, and run one Preservation world that stays loyal to the 2009 era even when that era included unpopular changes from Jagex, such as trade restrictions or the absence of Wilderness activity. Preservation is meant to be a historical snapshot of late 2009, built around revision 578 from December 22, 2009. Legacy, on the other hand, may move forward only as far as revision 531 to support Soul Wars, but it is not intended to follow Preservation into 578. As of August 2021, Legacy remained the only world being actively hosted and developed, with ongoing work driven by the core team and community contributors.