MMOs and private servers go together like peanut butter and legally questionable jelly, and few MMOs can match RuneScape, now the resurrected and retrofitted Old School RuneScape, for the sheer volume and variety of unofficial fan-made variants. These "private servers" usually boiled down to a much faster way to obtain rare items and high levels compared to the actual game, but they came in all shapes and sizes, from imbalanced PvP badlands that had worse economies than the 1930s, to serious role-playing and quest hubs that were legitimately thoughtfully designed.
The most iconic RuneScape private server may be Moparscape, its 2000s-tinged black-and-white launch screen ingrained in the minds of countless OSRS players. If I shut my eyes, I can still see the car. But we may see a new server claim the throne in the years ahead, because OSRS developer Jagex has just revealed official "community servers" under the banner of Project Zanaris, which would give the MMO's player base "full control" over the rules of the game.
