Old School Runescape is getting a new skill. Well, hopefully. In a landmark poll, nearly 200,000 OSRS players recently voted on three potential skills pitched by developer Jagex. The monster-raising skill Taming and spirit-harnessing skill Shamanism both had their fans, but the winner, barely coming out ahead of Shamanism, was Sailing, a seafaring skill that would let players explore the game's untapped oceans. Sailing is still just a raw idea in need of refinement and a lot of design legwork, but even the possibility of a new skill is huge news for OSRS, already one of the best MMORPGs you can play today. Players are equal parts excited and cautious, eager to have a 24th skill but hesitant to make fundamental changes to a game that was revived by nostalgia. As a longtime fan of OSRS, I was eager to dig into this storm of ideas and emotions.
I spoke to associate design director Kieren Charles (Mod Kieren) and senior content developer Elena Nordmark (Mod Elena) about the studio's goals with Sailing, their ideas for how the skill will work, their thoughts on player suggestions for the skill, and the timeline for getting this thing in the game if it all goes well – or if it doesn't. Ahead of the interview, I also read and watched a lot of player-made content about the promises and risks of Sailing, and it's remarkable how closely Jagex's thoughts mirror the community's. Everyone seems to agree that if we're going to do this, we've got to do this right. So here we go: the big Sailing interview.
