I mean, I know people irl who have ceased, paradoxically, the friend circle from grade that got me in to RuneScape gold has stopped apart from me. So people definitely quit. I think that the reason you hear these"you can not stop" tales is because without a doubt, everyone who has played with RS for a long enough time has TRIED to stop or even had quit briefly, myself included. It's nauseating and exciting all at precisely the same moment. When I'm at the mindset of enjoying RS, I regret taking much needed breaks because I think to myself things like"I would already be Max caped if I did not quit".
That. The entire purpose of RuneScape is for it hold that in your face for a ransom to keep you spent indefinitely and then to document. Guess you feel if you get a max cape and then stop? "I might have had max cash by now","I could have had X pet by today", blah blah blah etc. etc. etc, and all the while you aren't even progressing any kind of ability in RuneScape such as you do in other games (simple examples are FPS games and Fighting games, both of which reward your time investments with you getting better at them). You can't"get better" at RS, it's only a little 3D trophy case with empty slots which goad you into giving it more of your own time.
BBC post from 2007 about RuneScape
They moved from one of the most well-known games away all time, to killing trade off, and carrying out the wildly and almost killing off RuneScape at under a year. Not to mention after EoC came out, killing off it again. The elimination of wildy and free commerce, I'm willing to accept. Nobody knows how bad it was, maybe they really were very close to becoming cut away. I still don't agree with it and I believe it wasn't a descision that is good but I have managed to make peace. EOC on the other hand was a shitshow and should not have occurred. What were they thinking. If people wanted a traditional MMO then they would've been playing that, not RuneScape.
While yes it was justified. It definitely did not address the problem. Gold farms ended. All it did was to botting to get XP, turn buy old school rs gold players. (I may or may not have botted gold at living stone caverns). Honestly I am worried by this part for the durability of osrs. Jagex didn't make EOC cause fuck us. They believed it would help RuneScape longterm. And it might have. With the system in place there's just so much that you can do for pvm. That is the principal focus. And EOC opened doors to pvm up and likely has the pvm between them both. While RuneScape is booming right now. In a couple of years the principal focus of RuneScape may start feeling rancid for alot of people and could tank the people.