12 January 2006 - Nearly 5000 RS-classic accounts banned
As regular classic players will know the classic game was being seriously spoilt by players breaking rule 7. We won't let cheats spoil our games, so we are currently permanently banning nearly 5000 accounts which our system has flagged as using macro software in breach of our rules. RS-classic will be brought back online once that operation is complete.
We recommend all players make sure they are aware of our rules, which are there to keep the game enjoyable for our millions of players. We simply won't let a small minority spoil the game for everyone else. If you don't know the rules already then please make sure you Read them here!

As you know our focus these days is on the main RuneScape game which is far more advanced than RS-classic. The main reason we are keeping RS-classic online at all is to support some of our loyal players who have been with us for years and want to play the old version of the game they are used to. We've therefore decided the best way to stop the cheats just creating new accounts to cause trouble in RS-classic all over again, whilst still supporting the loyal players who have been playing RS-classic fairly for years, is to close RS-classic to new accounts. As such only accounts which have played RS-classic at least once in the last 6 months (since it went members only on August 3rd 2005) will be able to do so from now on. This allows the currently active players of RS-classic to continue playing, whilst keeping out the cheats trying to spoil it.

The latest and greatest version of RuneScape - which 99% of our players use - of course remains open to everyone (except rule breakers). It has much better anti-cheat technology and we will also be taking a strong stance against rule-breakers in the current version of the game, but without the need to restrict account signups.