Worlds

A world is an instance of Old School RuneScape that can be joined in order to play the game. These are sometimes referred to as servers (though multiple worlds can be hosted on the same physical server), or shortened to W (e.g. "Hop to W301"). Each members world allows 2000 players to be connected at once while free-to-play worlds have a limit of 1400 players at once.^[1]

This is the list of worlds and their respective activities. There are currently 258 normal members worlds and 54 free-to-play worlds.

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 respawns, item respawns, and resource regeneration (e.g. ores, trees) are all managed individually for each world. Additionally, players (along with chat messages) contained in one world will not be visible to players in another world.

One exception to this rule is that multiple worlds hosted on the same physical server may share timings for certain events. For example, when tackling organised crime, each world will consistently spawn and despawn the gang meetings at the same times and locations as the other worlds on that server.

Because each world has its own shop inventory, players will often change worlds rapidly to buy from one store many different times. Also, players often switch worlds to find more favourable conditions (e.g. more populated) for minigames, player killing, or trading. This is known as world hopping.

The only possible ways of interaction between RuneScape worlds is private chat using the Friends List or through Clan Chat.

Additionally, offers placed on the Grand Exchange can be fulfilled across any world.

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, dropped untradeable items such as clue scrolls, etc. will be restored to the same state, regardless of which world the character last logged onto.

In August 2007, Jagex added a new column to the world select screen highlighting those worlds with associated activities, especially those team-based events like Trouble Brewing, to make it easier to find people with similar ideas. Some of these worlds have special mechanics.

Skill total worlds are worlds that are locked to accounts that do not meet the required Total level to enter. Free-to-play skill total worlds calculate total levels from free-to-play skills alone and do not acknowledge members skills, meaning players require a cumulative total of 500 or 750 in free-to-play skills (total level of 509 or 759 respectively if all member's skills are 1) to enter those worlds. Members skill total worlds were added on 20 August 2015. The free-to-play skill total worlds were added on 22 September 2016.

High Risk worlds (worlds 365, 474, 533, PvP worlds 548 and 579) are worlds where players will lose all items on PvP death due to having a special skull status over the head () at all times. The Protect Item prayer does not work on these worlds. Going into these worlds can be a risk, but good way to make money if you have a high Combat level with good armour and weapons and are proficient in player-versus-player combat. It is strongly recommended that you only take items that you are willing to lose! Also, note that World 365, 474, and 533 are safe worlds unless you go into the Wilderness as they are not PvP worlds.

A warning is shown on attempting to login to a high-risk world from the login screen. If using the World Switcher instead, a confirmation will appear.

There are many worlds that exist for various PvP related activities. Some of these worlds are always active. Others are affected by a rotation, changing when they are available in one week intervals. This is to reduce the number of worlds to make each more active, while changing locations to provide fairer lag to players across the world.

Note: The rotation displayed may not update immediately following game updates. Click here to clear the cache and force an update.

• 308 — Wilderness PK - Free
• 316 — Wilderness PK - Free
• 365 — High Risk World
• 369 — Wilderness PK - Members
• 392 — PvP World
• 474 — High Risk World
• 533 — High Risk World

This rotation is currently active and will change to B in 4 days.

• 318 – Bounty Hunter world
• 390 – LMS Competitive
  • This world is online at all times, but it can only be used to play LMS competitive during rotation A
• 539 — PvP World
• 548 — PvP World - High Risk
• 559 — LMS Competitive
• 569 — Bounty Hunter World
  • This world is online at all times, but it can only be used to play Bounty Hunter during rotation A
• 577 — PvP World - Free

This rotation is currently inactive.

• 319 — Bounty Hunter World
• 560 — PvP World
• 561 — PvP World - Free
• 579 — PvP World - High Risk
• 580 — LMS Competitive

On these worlds, players may attack each other almost everywhere and are prevented from teleporting for a few seconds after using a special attack in PvP combat, similarly to PvP combat in within the Wilderness on regular worlds. This is done to prevent players from using their special attack on a player and immediately teleporting away without consequence. Players are also prevented from teleporting while their special attack bar is activated on these worlds.

Upon logging into a PvP world while in a safe area, a chat message will appear saying This is a PvP World. Players may attack you once you leave this safe area. Logging in while in a PvP-enabled area instead gives the chat message This is a PvP world. Players may attack you almost anywhere.

These worlds are meant to facilitate finding fights in the Wilderness, but otherwise have no additional mechanics compared to a regular world.

On these worlds, players cannot operate the mechanics of the Blast Furnace. Instead, five dwarves operate the Blast Furnace for a fee of 72,000 coins per hour, allowing for players to purely focus on placing ores and collecting bars.

Players can play the Bounty Hunter minigame at Daimon's Crater only on these worlds. Additionally, old PJ timer mechanics apply in Single-way combat zones of the Wilderness; upon logging into a Bounty Hunter world, a chat message will appear saying In these worlds, attacking a player will not increase your PJ timer. Vesta's longsword (bh) and Vesta's blighted longsword can be used in the Wilderness and Ancient artefacts can be exchanged for coins by speaking to the Emblem Trader in the Revenant Caves on Bounty Hunter worlds.

On these worlds, the first player to tag the currently marked dispenser gets their name displayed as a chat message for everyone in the arena. There are no additional rewards.

Players will receive one extra Castle Wars ticket per game on these worlds, regardless of outcome. Plaudits are awarded, equal to the number of tickets won. Various mechanics are different for these worlds:

• The Saradomin and Zamorak portals cannot be entered, only the Guthix portal is available.
• Games start 5 minutes after the previous round has ended, as opposed to 2 minutes on regular worlds.
• Placing barricades requires a total level of 500, and a maximum of 17 barricades (7 outside the base and 10 inside) can be set up.
• On non-dedicated worlds, the usual 6-tick immunity after being stunned with the dragon spear or Zamorakian hasta special attacks is not applied inside Castle Wars.

On regular worlds, players can speak to Apprentice Tamara to lock the barrier, preventing other players from entering after the rift opens. This cannot be done on the dedicated Guardians of the Rift worlds.

Players can earn Last Man Standing points and ranks only on these worlds. There are no additional mechanics in the Wilderness.

• World 302 is the official members world for trading with other players. Along with world 330, it is usually the most populated world in the game during North American daytime and evening hours. Before the removal of the Duel Arena, it was the de facto themed world for the minigame.
• World 330 is the American world for house parties and player-owned gilded altars. Along with world 302, it is usually the most populated world in the game during North American daytime and evening hours.
• World 331 is the unofficial US West world for house parties and player-owned gilded altars.
• World 400 is very unique as it is the only world hosted on the United States (South) server near Miami. This world is inaccessible during normal gameplay as it is reserved for special event use by Jagex. Examples include A Cold One's speedrun of Chambers of Xeric: Challenge Mode as part of Summer Games Done Quick 2024, various "bot busting" livestreams (where Jagex Moderators kill accounts confirmed to have macroed live, showing the contents of their bank to the stream before permanently banning them), and Deadman: All Stars. It is usually repurposed into a Leagues world whenever a League is ongoing. It has been suggested to Jagex that they should open up normal worlds under this location, as it would provide better ping to some people in the United States and, most notably, to the South American Community. However, Mod Ash has responded that the stability of this server isn't as good, and thus the ticks would lag more, creating a worse experience for unknowing players.^[2]
• World 401 is a world often used for creator events, such as the Gielinor Games, Deadman: Factions, and PvP Bootcamp.
• World 420 is a 1500 skill total world noted for its cannabis subculture (due to the world number).

Each world is a containerised virtual machine running the Java-based world application.^[3] Though worlds used to run on dedicated physical machines, virtualisation was sought to minimise hardware-related downtime and thus offline maintenance. At this time, world server containers run on a co-scheduled CPU scheduling platform known as ESXi. That said, Jagex has made plans to migrate to an asynchronous scheduler (Linux CFS/PreemptRT tuning under KVM) sometime in the future in order to further improve tick performance.

• There are many additional flag icons present in the game files which might suggest additional servers in certain countries, although Jagex has stated that they currently have no plans to add new servers in those locations.

Flag
Bahrain	Canada (west)	China	France	Hong Kong	India
Ireland	Israel	Italy	Malaysia	Mexico	New Zealand
South Korea	Spain	Switzerland	Taiwan	Thailand	United Arab Emirates

• Despite not being used in the world switcher, icons for free-to-play Deadman worlds, no save game worlds, Leagues worlds, Quest Speedrunning worlds, and beta worlds are present in the game's cache. These icons were revealed in an update on 17 May 2023 and added in an update on 24 May 2023 following an update to the world switcher interface.

• The beta world switcher icons were temporarily replaced in the game's cache with the update on 19 March 2025 with Sailing variants in preparation for the March 2025 Sailing Alpha. The replacement included a free-to-play Sailing alpha icon, despite the alpha and beta only being accessible to members.