Server

Servers are computers which host RuneScape. Servers are maintained by Jagex and are distributed across the real world. There are several types of servers used in RuneScape.

Servers

 * The first server players will meet is the hosting server, which runs the main RuneScape website. It is unknown how many individual computers manage the site and as to whether the Grand Exchange Item DB, Forums and Highscores are all on this server.
 * After selecting either free or members, the game first does a loading process which includes connecting to the Update server.
 * The optimal World server for the player is selected upon loading the game, although players may select another server to connect to if they wish. Each world allows 2000 players to be connected at once. There are currently 170 worlds (six are German-speaking and two are Quick Chat only), but more are routinely added.
 * The player is connected to the Login server when the loading process is completed and a world server is selected.
 * After logging in, the Friends list and Ignore list is loaded after connecting to the Friends server.
 * The RuneScape Forums have their own servers which are accessible even when the game servers are down.

Isolation of worlds
Each world server known by the short name world is fairly isolated. A player may be logged in to at most one world server at any given time. To ensure this is the case, a delay is in place between logging out of one and logging into another world.

For the most part, events that occur in one world will not affect any other RuneScape world. For example, buying an item in a shop will only decrease the inventory for the shop in that world. Shop inventory, character and item respawns, and ore regeneration are all managed individually for each server. Additionally, players (along with chat messages) contained in one world will not be visible to players in another world. The only exception to this is the Grand Exchange which trades with players on all worlds.

World switching
Prior to the move to infinitely stocked shops, player would often change worlds rapidly to buy from one store many different times. Now, very few shops have a limited stock, so the practice is less common. However players still switch worlds often in order to find more favourable conditions (e.g. more populated) for minigames, player killing or trading. This technique is known as world switching or world hopping.

Players may switch to less populated worlds for less players, so they can have more monsters, logs, ores (etc.) for themselves. Contrasting this, is the slower respawn time for many objects on less populated worlds - this includes both rocks and trees.

Persistence of character state
When a user logs off of a world, all settings particular to that character are saved to the player's account profile in a global database. Therefore, when logging into a different world, the character's skills, inventory, etc. will be restored to the same state, regardless of which server the character last logged onto. The only exception is that if a player goes from a members'-only world into a free world, his/her statistics will be restored to normal level.

Locations
It is recommended that players connect to the server closest to them, as they will experience more reliable connections and less lag. However, this is not mandatory.


 * {| class="wikitable"

!Continent!!Country!!Free servers!!Members servers ! colspan=4| RuneScape ! colspan=4 | RuneScape German ! colspan=4 | RuneScape France ! colspan=2 |Servers || Free || Members
 * Oceania||[[Image:Australia serv.PNG|Australia]] Australia [[Image:New zealand serv.PNG|New Zealand]] New Zealand || 4 1||4 1
 * Europe||[[Image:Belgium serv.PNG|Belgium]] Belgium [[Image:Denmark serv.PNG|Denmark]] Denmark [[Image:Finland serv.PNG|Finland]] Finland [[Image:Ireland serv.PNG|Ireland]] Ireland [[Image:Netherlands serv.PNG|Netherlands]] Netherlands [[Image:Norway serv.PNG|Norway]] Norway [[Image:Sweden serv.PNG|Sweden]] Sweden [[Image:Uk serv.PNG|United Kingdom]] United Kingdom||1 1 3 1 3 1 3 10||1 1 3 1 6 1 3 10
 * Americas ||[[Image:Canada serv.PNG|Canada]] Canada [[Image:Us serv.PNG|United States]] United States [[Image:Mexico serv.PNG|Mexico]] Mexico [[Image:Brazil serv.PNG|Brazil]] Brazil||8 45 0 0||10 40 1 1
 * Europe||[[Image:Belgium serv.PNG|Belgium]] Belgium [[Image:Denmark serv.PNG|Denmark]] Denmark [[Image:Finland serv.PNG|Finland]] Finland [[Image:Ireland serv.PNG|Ireland]] Ireland [[Image:Netherlands serv.PNG|Netherlands]] Netherlands [[Image:Norway serv.PNG|Norway]] Norway [[Image:Sweden serv.PNG|Sweden]] Sweden [[Image:Uk serv.PNG|United Kingdom]] United Kingdom||1 1 3 1 3 1 3 10||1 1 3 1 6 1 3 10
 * Americas ||[[Image:Canada serv.PNG|Canada]] Canada [[Image:Us serv.PNG|United States]] United States [[Image:Mexico serv.PNG|Mexico]] Mexico [[Image:Brazil serv.PNG|Brazil]] Brazil||8 45 0 0||10 40 1 1
 * Americas ||[[Image:Canada serv.PNG|Canada]] Canada [[Image:Us serv.PNG|United States]] United States [[Image:Mexico serv.PNG|Mexico]] Mexico [[Image:Brazil serv.PNG|Brazil]] Brazil||8 45 0 0||10 40 1 1
 * Europe||[[Image:Germany serv.PNG|Germany]] Germany*||3||3
 * Europe||[[Image:Germany serv.PNG|Germany]] Germany*||3||3
 * Europe||[[Image:France_serv.PNG|France]] France||4||1
 * colspan=4|
 * colspan=4|
 * colspan=4|
 * Totals|| 175 || 88 || 87
 * }
 * }


 * The German servers are actually located in [[Image:Finland serv.PNG|Finland]] Finland.

Themed worlds
After the Themed world update on 13 August 2007, a new column on the far right of the world select screen was added by Jagex. This column highlights worlds associated with certain activities and servers Jagex have designated as the worlds that should be used for certain activities (due to certain servers not being able to cope with high levels of activity).

This makes it easier to find people who wish to do the same thing, like Trouble Brewing or Castle Wars.

These worlds are recommended by Jagex as the best place to perform these activities. However, they are only recommendations; players may still use any world they want to perform these activities, with the exception of LootShare, Bounty Hunter and Duel Tournaments, which are only available on the appropriate themed worlds.

Trade
Worlds where players gather in the large cities (such as, Falador, Varrock or Seers Village) to trade items.

Rune running
Worlds where players can run runes for money or craft runes to raise their Runecrafting skill.

Player killing
Worlds where players kill others on PvP Worlds, Bounty Hunter, the Duel Arena and others.

Role-playing
On these worlds, it is intended that players will get together with either friends or others they meet on the roleplaying forums and act out their roleplays (commonly called igrp or In-Game Role-Plays) as if they were in another setting (including new names for places/characters/items and a group of people going from one place to another). This actually does not happen that often.

Group questing
These worlds are where players gather together and do quests.

Party room
On a party room world there will be many people in the Falador party room waiting for balloons to drop so they can get the items in them.

Player worlds
Certain worlds have become specialised by the player-base for particular activities, usually for socialisation with similar players which share common attributes like language, or to participate in events which require many people, such as parties and games. These worlds are...

World themes
The list of worlds may change at any time, this is the current world list as of 2 September 2008.

Technical issues
Sometimes a technical issue will occur which may cause every game world to crash and log out players in the middle of the game; it may or may not also affect the RuneScape Forums. Players may not be able to log back in if the login server is also affected. The problem is usually resolved in a short time. A server rollback may or may not occur which will reset players back to status before the crash occurred. (This rollback is different from an edit rollback or revert.)

Occasionally only a single world will crash/experience a glitch and depending on the problem, the other worlds may be purposefully taken offline, or not.

Information about this will appear in the forums Technical Support section. Other fan sites may also have information if the forums are down.

Recent events

 * In mid April 2008, Jagex removed all eight servers from Eastern Canada to the United States.
 * On 23 April 2008, World 36 had a glitch where non-members were allowed to enter the world, but could only access free-to-play actions.
 * On Friday, 13 June 2008, all of the servers experienced downtime due to problems with one of the game's internet service providers, Telstra.
 * On Thursday, 23 October 2008, an error with the login servers showed up. At 19.15 GMT all servers were down. The runescape forums were offline as well.

Trivia

 * Before the 22 new worlds update, World 156 had not existed. However, players were once able to access this world using easy-to-decipher URLs.