RuneScape initiates emergency patch rollback for the most ironic reason possible: Giving players so many runes it would cause 'irreparable economic damage'

RuneScape developer Jagex was forced to do a "general rollback" of the game earlier today and return all player progression to the point immediately prior to the game's most recent update. The reason? Well, you see, there were too many runes.

That's right, too many runes in RuneScape. As explained by DualShockers, a quality of life update went live today featuring a number of "game jam projects," one of which massively increased the capacity of rune pouches.

"Ever since the addition of the Necromancy Nexus, players have asked for the same rune capacity to be added to the existing Rune Pouches and Mod Desert has done just that!" Jagex announced in the patch notes. "Took a little elbow grease but you should now be able to store up to 2,147,483,647 of a type in your pouches!"

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That's a pretty roomy pouch, alright. The problem is that after the patch rolled out, it wasn't just the rune pouch capacity that had expanded, but the number of runes in them, which in some cases exceeded a trillion runes. That's the sort of unthinkable influx of currency that has the potential to absolutely demolish a game's economy, and Jagex, faced with the need to halt the spreading damage immediately, pulled the plug on the whole thing.

Logged back in after the update to all four of my rune pouches filled with an asburd amount of runes. from r/runescape

"The amount of Runes that could flow into RuneScape's economy as a result of this bug would cause irreparable economic damage and challenge the economic integrity of the game," Jagex explained in a Reddit post. "The bug meant that it was possible for players to duplicate billions of runes per person.

"The spread of this bug occurred too fast and its repercussions are too severe for us to have been able to determine any other action than to issue a rollback, especially as our time to make a decision on this matter was extremely limited. To not address it immediately would let the issue spread while exacerbating the pain of other players that comes from a rollback should it have been determined that one was required anyway at a later stage."

Jagex said rolling the game back was a "method of last resort," and acknowledged that "it sucks" for players who lose progress as a result of the rollback. "But we hope that you will agree with us that this step was necessary to maintain the overall health of the game."

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The general consensus, at least on Reddit, does in fact seem to be agreement with the move: There's some disappointment and frustration, yes, but also acknowledgement that steps had to be taken quickly, because this really had the potential to do damage. Some players actually predicted the rollback before it happened—and in at least one case, pre-bemoaning their losses.

(Image credit: Reddit)

"Damn all my arch progress of the day is gone," redditor Robinvw24 wrote. "I totally understand it is needed, but damn it's demotivating to see my lvl back at where i started today :( Time to log off for today and touch some grass."

But there was good humor to be seen too—probably cold comfort to RuneScape players who suffered meaningful losses, but you have to admit, this is pretty good.

(Image credit: AbsurdBee (Reddt))