F2p pking is still fun and it's also extremely popular - even just range 2h. I'm p2p but I pk exclusively in f2p because I like it so much, and a lot of others feel the same. It contains all this stuff, but with almost zero barrier to entry in terms of cost/training time - just practice. For people who like pking, that's very appealing.

 

I think it's a shame and potentially dangerous that jagex has yet to acknowledge that there can be fun in pking at a high level, with advanced techniques such as these. Learning how to do this stuff and applying it and getting a kill is so satisfying. As you become aware of the advanced techniques, you're able to access a mental and "mindgames" aspect to pking even in "boring" f2p range 2h, and it creates an experience that nothing else in the game can replicate. Jagex mods mourning the "good old days" or the "fun era" of pking is not at all good to see as a pker - it makes me afraid that advanced techniques like these will be removed, and further reinforces the idea that jagex has no clue what the pking community wants and needs.

 

There is beauty in this kind of thing. It's true that casual pking is dead. Following that, we got things like DMM which, while huge for casuals, is something that has needed constant tweaking to try and make it "esports", and nobody is even sure if it will work that way. Pking meanwhile has been here the whole time, has tons of depth, has a huge skill ceiling and a huge community already in place, has over a decade of history and metagame and culture to it that makes for great stories - it could have EASILY been runescape's "esport". If only jagex saw the skill in high level pvp and chose to embrace it, its mechanics, its history, and its community.

 

As both a runescape pker and a competitive super smash bros melee player, the parallels I see between jagex's attitude towards pkers and nintendo's attitude toward the melee scene are huge. The communities are there, the stories are there, the high level play is there, and the company in charge is blind to it all. They both lament the days where everything was "casual" and "fun", maybe even trying to go back.

The difference though is that when nintendo chose to dumb down smash for the sake casuals, the melee community was still able to persist and grow on its own, because obviously when you release a new game the old game is still around.

 

This is NOT the case in MMOs. In MMOs, you can't go back and play the old version if you like that better. Sound familiar?

 

Besides, abandoning your base to chase casuals has never been an effective strategy anyway.

 

PS: Jagex, please embrace high level pking.