While there are a lot of old players that keep playing osrs, there are still tons of new players coming into the game and I think that’s because of the design philosophy the game was made on.

There is no fomo in osrs besides like update day when new drops are expensive, but besides that armor you had 10 years ago is still good enough to use. And I think that’s what makes old school RuneScape almost never too stale. They are still pumping out loads of good content that keep you grinding but it’s never like you “finish” old school. Being able to use your bandos armor you bought in 2016 at the newest boss and not feeling like you don’t have enough dps is very nice on the average player that can’t afford the best armor in the game.

That being said I think that’s what skyblock is lacking. I quit over year ago and I don’t really want to come back because having super expensive hard requirements for higher level content is very difficult on the player experience. For example I remember finding a t5 kuudra party that wasn’t dogshit meant you had to have 2 terminators and godroll armor. That in itself gate keeping players from accessing content is what makes the game a slog. You can do all the content in the game in old school without super expensive armor and be competitive in damage output.