RuneScape is a massively-multiplayer online game, set in a fantasy world of warring races, ravaged landscapes and sinister powers. The game is updated twice a months with new content, quests, skills or challenges.

Launched in 2001, RuneScape has been played by over 100 million players worldwide, making it the world’s largest Free-to-play Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), as recognized by the Guinness Book of Records. The game is set in the medieval fantasy realm of Gielinor, an open-world landscape of kingdoms, regions and cities that are home to a myriad of monsters and magicks, and propel players into a multitude of quests and adventures.

Developer Jagex Games Studio has launched an unprecedented petition for players to decide whether to reintroduce unrestricted Free Trade and the Wilderness to RuneScape.

Jagex has launched an online petition to offer the RuneScape community the unique chance to directly influence and shape the future of the game as the studio gears up for RuneScape’s 10th Anniversary celebrations in January 2011.

“We want to celebrate RuneScape’s 10th anniversary by offering our loyal community the chance to decide, once and for all, the future of Free Trade and the Wilderness,” said Christoph Vietzke, Head of RuneScape. “Never before has an MMO developer given their community the platform to decide on an update as game changing as this and we are confident that our players will make the right call – whatever it may be. We will only make the changes if the community really supports it, so if you are in favour of bringing back the Wildy, pledge your support straightaway.”

 “When considering game changing decisions such as this we always hold our players’ ultimate game experience firmly in mind,” said Mark Gerhard, Jagex CEO. “We have released a host of new content which provides a comparable PvP experience to the old Wilderness and mechanics to allow increased trade limits with long term friends but we are still regularly told by players that they want more. We want to find out whether the passionate voices we hear on this topic are truly representative of entire community or just a vocal minority. If the vast majority of our players support of the campaign then we will restore these features to the game as quickly as possible.”

Should the players vote in favour of the update, unrestricted trade will be reintroduced to the game granting all players the freedom to gift their wealth to their friends or trade items, without restrictions, with the wider RuneScape community. The Wilderness would also once again become the most dangerous area in RuneScape, where players fight to the death for wealth and glory. The Wilderness represents one of the most extreme risk-versus-reward combat systems of any MMO with players staking their armour, weapons and resources to defeat others and loot their remains. With numerous new features added to RuneScape over recent years including: summoning creatures, new curses, more powerful weaponry and armour, the new Wilderness would offer players even greater levels of variety and excitement to the fast paced, kill-or-be-killed environment.

The community petition, which will run until the 14th January 2011, is just the start of a series of celebration events and updates designed to mark RuneScape’s 10th birthday and to thank the community for making RuneScape the global success story it is today. To find out more and to support of the campaign please visit the official website.