Server blackout

This page documents the various server blackouts that have occured during the history of RuneScape. A server blackout is the unexpected crash of a server, typically resulting in all players being logged out for an extended period of time. Those listed on this page are events which affected most if not all game servers and may have affected other RuneScape facilities such as the forums and main website.

Server blackouts are generally caused by a technical faliure at Jagex and as such players can do nothing but wait until the problem is fixed. In some cases, a roll-back has occured, but that is rare. During a server blackout, worlds on the select screen are listed as having 0 players, rather than being Offline or having a specific number. This occurs because when a server is deliberately taken offline, the game screen is changed to reflect this. However on an unexpected crash, the login server simply knows that nobody is connected to that server.

In the sections below, each blackout is documented, along the reasons given for the blackout. All times are UTC.

First server blackout of 2007
The First Server Blackout of 2007 was a pair of events that happened on 2 and 3 June 2007 in which all RuneScape servers were shut down for several hours. RSC servers remained online however, and received a flood of RS2 players, reaching 1,000 logged in on both RSC worlds combined.

Mod Craddock explained: "'We do apologize. We had experienced a slight server outage which had removed all of the players from the game. This was done as a safeguard to ensure that our players did not lose any game data. We will continue to monitor this throughout the night but we suspect that this will be an isolated incident. Thank you for your patience regarding this matter.'"

Aftermath
When the servers went back online, players were confused and were unsure about why this happened. Since it was the first blackout many players had encountered, rumours that a hacker manipulated the servers were everywhere. A group of players in World 66 in Falador lied that the Kalphite Queen appeared in Falador and when players stormed into Falador, a group of mages attempted to telegroup players to the Ice Plateau in level 50 Wilderness. Many lower leveled players who were unaware that the Ice Plateau was located in deep Wilderness accepted the teleother and were killed. This event was a clear example of luring.

Second server blackout of 2007
The Second server blackout of 2007 occurred on 15 July 2007. It caused players to lose what they had done in the past hour thus causing several rants and riots in game, most notably the riot in World 66, Falador. Jagex moderators stated on the forums that this was due to a Jagex ISP outage, and that they would take steps to decrease the chance of this occurring in the future, as it was the second blackout within two weeks.

Third server blackout of 2007
The Third server blackout of 2007 occurred starting at 01:28 (UTC) and ending at 04:33 on November 19, 2007. It was caused by a hardware failure at Jagex's main hosting facility; for some reason the router/firewall broke and stopped forwarding traffic to the internet. As well as the actual RuneScape 2 game including the German beta version, all other aspects of RuneScape which require logging in such as forums and account management went offline as well, with the exception of RuneScape Classic. The friends list server went down approximately half an hour before the servers blacked out. Shortly after the servers came back on, a riot broke out in World 66. Mod Zach showed up to talk to players.

As with all other riots, players congregated in Falador centre shouting phrases such as, "Shave the whales", "Ice me", "Jagex Failed", along with many other phrases from previous riots. The Retribution prayer was also seen during this riot; players would activate the prayer to show their anger with Jagex. In Frozen Waste Plateau, the riot continued.

Trivia

 * The last person remaining was in world 120, and the runner up to the last person was in world 59.


 * The last 3 servers to have 1,000 players or more remaining were worlds 144, 6, and 2 respectively.


 * Approximately 50 people were being logged out per second.

First server blackout of 2008
The first server blackout of 2008 was the result of RuneScape and all its servers going offline. The official forums and other parts of the website also went offline. It occurred on January 17, 2008, around 1:40 pm (EST), or 6:50pm (UTC). The servers came back on around 2:05 pm (EST). It is not yet known of why this happened.

Second server blackout of 2008
The second server blackout of 2008 occurred at about 05:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC). All players were kicked off the servers, although the login servers were down for some time before. Website features were also offline, like in every other server blackout. This blackout was short-lived, however, as the servers came online again at about 06:00 UTC.

Third server blackout of 2008


The third Server blackout of 2008 occurred at about 15:25 GMT, 13 June 2008 (Friday the 13th). World 119 was the first server offline, and at about 15:34 GMT all players were kicked from the worlds, though the login server was down since 15:25 GMT.

The main page showed for an hour and a half that there were 347 people playing, despite the fact that all servers were down. At 17:00 GMT, the main page showed no people playing.

This server blackout had also affected FunOrb. Less than 150 people were on world 14 during the blackout. None of the games could be played by most people. The players who could still login were possibly using a new login server made for FunOrb. This is the first server blackout to affect FunOrb. Website features and forums were disabled on both sites.

At 17:00 GMT, RuneScape announced the following on its main page:


 * "Telstra, one of our service providers, is currently experiencing technical difficulties. As a result, you will not be able to access the RuneScape game and a number of our website features. We apologise for any inconvenience caused, and we are assured our service provider is working hard to rectify this fault."

By 17:30 GMT, Runescape was back online.