In the five years of development in the beginning, you were still developing the foundation game. What difficulties were there that you have to overcome when developing the game's content that you knew would one day become mobile-friendly, but wasn't as of yet?
To admit it, the majority of the issues we ran into were with older content. It was simple to modify, as it was designed from the beginning specifically with the mobile user with OSRS Accounts in mind. Furthermore, the teas are being tested on mobile devices, which means they've developed a great knowledge of the best way to create content for desktop and mobile and how to keep up with the times. It's not possible to go through the 20 years of content to fix every single thing, due to obvious reasons, however some of the older content has issues using the right click mechanism on desktops.
It's still there it's just that on mobile devices, you can press and hold to bring the context menu. It's just an extra layer of education we must impart not only to the new players but also to desktop users who have stumbled across the mobile version but had never heard of it before. It's about ensuring that the player who is active and has a history using the desktop version does not feel confused when moving to mobile. They should feel comfortable and are able to make the same choices as they make on the desktop version.
What are the advantages of designing for mobile devices?
One of the issues we noticed earlier when watching games on smaller screen was the difficulty in reading. There are many employees and players and also find the text hard to comprehend. There are also people who have difficulties with accessibility. We didn't do a lot of work in addressing this, so one of the advantages with mobile devices was that it helped us identify these issues and solve these issues. This is why we've made improvements like the aliasing that we use on text fonts in the game. It's also an option to transfer on the desktop. This is going affect all players and improve the overall legibility of the game significantly.
I was very happy to see this issue addressed, and I'm sure it will be was extended to other areas of this. We gained a lot from doing mobile games that we'll likely experiment with, and then apply into the main game, too and to the place where PC and Mac players are.
Which kind of community do believe that the launch of mobile apps will create which wasn't possible in the past? Or, what are you think will be the best way to carry on from the existing community?
For me, it's all about keeping the welcoming spirit and friendliness which made RuneScape's players be different to me from the other MMOs that I've tried. It's a very close-knit community and everybody seemed to be a part of the fun of playing however, they also share its challenges. It is a tangled game in certain places, and everybody is extremely willing to help.
Some will invite you to join groups, and to welcome them into their world of knowledge which is what we witnessed happen during this Steam launch. Users just want to introduce new people into the community and let new members, and I believe this is what we're trying to encourage and grow.
Are there any aspects of the mobile app that could draw back players from the past who have dropped out?
It's all dependent on the length of time they've been available However, that if you've just discovered that the game will be released on mobile devices, and it's an old game with OSRS Fire Cape For Sale that you played earlier in your life it will be a fascinating experience to go and dive back into the game that you enjoyed a few years ago is now and where it's now.
