RuneScape just celebrated its 10-year anniversary and is bringing back the Wilderness and Free Trade due to an overwhelming response from players. We talked with Mark Ogilvie about these topics and more!

Ten years. Many MMOs are lucky to last half that, but RuneScape has been chugging along since 2001. In addition to reaching this impressive anniversary milestone, Jagex recently held a referendum asking players if they want to see the Wilderness and Free Trade return to the free-to-play game. More than 1.2 million votes were cast in just under three weeks, and an overwhelming 91% of players said they wanted these features back in RuneScape. Jagex listened, and they'll be implemented on Feb. 1.

We got the chance to sit down with Lead Designer Mark Ogilvie to reflect on the past decade and the response to the referendum. Keep reading after the jump for his thoughts on the past, present and future of RuneScape!

ZAM: How does it feel to celebrate RuneScape's 10th anniversary?

Mark Ogilvie: Fantastic!

ZAM: Reflecting upon the past decade, what are your favorite moments in RuneScape, both from a gameplay standpoint and a development standpoint?

Ogilvie: It would have to be Dungeoneering, without a shadow of a doubt. Dungeoneering in a sentence, for those that don’t know, is a massive, personalized dungeon bash for you and up to four friends where you can define exactly the kind of experience you want. There’s nothing else out there in the MMO space which is remotely like it. I think it suits the demand of the modern MMO gamer who just wants to log in and play something new and exciting that doesn’t have to take a whole evening. Genuinely, I’m massively proud of it.

ZAM: For a new player entering RuneScape today, how would the game itself differ from 10 years ago? How about the community?

Ogilvie: That’s one hell of a question! So much has happened to the game over the past 10 years, it’s really hard to give an answer in a nutshell. Since we launched we’ve had 10 years worth of regular content updates varying from brand new skills to quests (over 170 now), activities, dungeons and huge expansions to the game world. We’ve also had a multitude of graphical overhauls which have turned the game from the quite limited 2D game it was 10 years ago to the 3D immersive environment it is today.

Naturally after 10 years the community has grown and evolved substantially, but I love the fact that I can still talk to players today who I first met eight years ago on my first day at JAGEX. We’re always getting new players in as well, which keeps the whole community feeling fresh. It’s a real mix!

ZAM: For the 10-year anniversary there are balloons, cake and candles. How are players celebrating this year? What other events have you set up to celebrate past anniversaries?

Ogilvie: For our 10-year anniversary we held loads of events, but with a community as varied as ours we’re rarely the only ones with something to celebrate. So, alongside our own in parties, we encouraged people to celebrate the big day in their own way and we’d bring the party to them. Whether that event involved dragon slaying in the wilderness or a skilling party in the middle of town we sent Jagex mods along with a party chest filled with items, balloons and cake. We also held a few competitions that involved hunting down J-mods and cake for prizes, and thanks to one competition winner we now have a pretty sweet 10th anniversary T-shirt available in our store.

ZAM: Why did you decide to hold the return of Wilderness and Free Trade referendum now?

Ogilvie: We’ve now gotten to a stage where we know that our technology has improved to a point where we are not as worried about the influence of RWT on the game. We know that our own software and bot recognition capabilities have improved and we are confident that we can reintroduce the wilderness to the players and maintain a solid hold over the reasons we removed it in the first place. Were committed to the fight!

The technology that we have available to us has improved to such an extent that we feel we can take on that war again against the cheaters and we can win. If I wasn’t confidant that were capable of dealing with the influence of real world trading or botters then I wouldn’t support bringing back the wilderness, because my user base is very important to me and I’m not going to increase any risks that they have to their accounts.

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