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MTX Bonus Experiment : Cosmetic-Free Worlds
This MTX Experiment arrives in late July as we enable a selection of Cosmetic-Free Worlds!
Not sure what this is all about? This Experiment is part of a series of Experiments, running from July to September, which will help lead us to big changes on our approach to monetisation.
Learn more about what we're doing and what to expect in our full blog here.
What Are We Doing
Cosmetic-Free Worlds will be available from July 28 - September 30th.
On these Worlds various cosmetic overrides, animation overrides and other visuals will not be visible, check below for a more comprehensive list.
What Are We Trying To Learn
We've had feedback from players that cosmetics in their current implementation can impact some players' sense of immersion or personal gameplay experience.
This Bonus Experiment will help us directly gauge how the game feels without cosmetics that exist today and help us consider our future direction for cosmetics.
Here's a summary of what we're primarily looking at during this test:
- Player Feedback:
- How the game feels without the cosmetics that exist today
- Which cosmetics are missed or valued to be visible
- Thoughts on the visual identity and style of the game with only the more 'grounded' look of items that exist through gameplay
- Data:
- How many players use Cosmetic-Free Worlds, return to Cosmetic-Free Worlds and their playtime within them
It's important to stress that our final implementation is likely to be vastly different from this test. If there's clear desire and interest in addressing the identity of cosmetics within RuneScape, the final outcome could take many forms - from the possibility of toggling visibility of certain or all cosmetics, to the visual style of any cosmetics introduced in the future and more beyond. It could even be a combination of all these things.
This implementation is the simplest way to get a tangible read on potential change with no impact to our content development - one of our key commitments for any Experiments.
What To Expect
We will launch with 4 Cosmetic-Free Worlds*:
- US: World 97 / 252 (Members) and 249 (F2P)
- EU: World 139 (Members)
*Note: We will closely monitor the demand for Cosmetic-Free Worlds and convert more Worlds as required.
Cosmetic-Free Worlds will be marked in the World Selection screen under the 'Activity' section. Cosmetic-Free Worlds will be at the top of the Worlds list when world hopping and in the Lobby.
When you launch the game for the first time after we release Cosmetic-Free Worlds, you'll get a popup with details on the Experiment and what to expect.
After that, any time you log into a Cosmetic-Free World, you'll see a message box letting you know you're in a Cosmetic-Free World.
List of Cosmetics not available on these worlds.
- Wardrobe overrides
- Walk overrides
- Rest overrides
- Tool overrides
- Skilling icons (overhead)
- Teleport animations
- Hitsplats
- Overhead emotes
- Pets (including legendary)
- Ability overrides (combat + spells: e.g. High Alch, Death animations)
How To Give Feedback
Your voice is critical to every Experiment. We need to know directly how these changes impact you, whatever your perspective, and what you think is right - or wrong - about what we are trying.
The best way to give us your thoughts is through our Survey. For this test, we'll open the survey a little later on August 11th to allow for some time to get a feel for Cosmetic-Free Worlds.
Not the Survey type? All good. Head on over to our official Reddit thread and Discord channel on July 28th to share your thoughts and participate in discussions with the community.
Whether you are watching from the sidelines or actively playing, please do let us know what you think. Thanks for helping us find a better future for the game, together!
FAQs
Are you intending to stop offering purchasable cosmetics?
No. However, we do want to take the opportunity to test the feedback about the current visual style of our cosmetics and get a read from all players on how the game feels without them. As we mentioned above, this could help inform our future visual identity for cosmetics if popular, as well as more control for players to find the visual experience they want through Toggles or other alternatives.
Would you ever take my purchased cosmetics away?
Definitely not. We respect anyone who has purchased cosmetics in our game and any final approach would take this into account. We ultimately want to do what is best for the game, but we will also ensure your character can look how you want with what you own today in any final implementation.
How do I show I really like the game with or without existing cosmetics?
We highly encourage you to give Cosmetic-Free Worlds a try, and then let us know how you feel through the Survey. Player Feedback is crucial for us and we'd love to understand who you are as a player and your views through the Survey.
Why are Keepsaked Items and non MTX cosmetics also not visible on Cosmetic-Free Worlds?
As with all our Experiments, the key is to ensure we're not disrupting our core content development. For the purposes of this test, disabling all cosmetics provided the most direct route to bringing this to life without any additional development involvement.
What if I want to play on these Worlds but they are full?
We will be carefully monitoring usage of the Worlds throughout the Experiment. If demand is high, we'll convert more Worlds as needed to support demand.
Are Cosmetic-Free Worlds going to be a thing in the future?
We currently feel this is unlikely. Cosmetic-Free Worlds are the best way for us to test against this feedback without disrupting development, but we don't think this is the ideal approach regardless of outcome. This is more a vessel for learning to identify what we could do, rather than how we think this feedback is best solved for.