[2019] Reminder: accessibility at any cost is what killed WoW.

The tutorial indeed is not effective - a ton of players quit as soon as they leave the tutorial. That problem goes beyond just the tutorial, it's both sides, you leave a very scripted linear thing, which has arrows to everything you need to do, to a vast expanse offering an insane amount of choice.

We need to help players prepare for how to play OSRS, and what it is all about.

There's many improvements to look at, and some of the ideas in the blog, are just that, ideas. Any suggestions from the community, and especially players who've recently played the game for the first time would be amazing. Even more useful... is feedback from those who've tried to play the game, and didn't stick around - we won't find those on this reddit generally, or our other social channels, that takes proper research and is something we are doing.

I completely agree with you, except on the point of popular MMO - you achieve popular MMO BY making it the best MMO :P.

This isn't about adding accessibility to everything, this is about making sure in the first few hours of playing, we equip you with the tools to ensure you're ready for that lack of accessibility. We know it's part of the game, that its a steep learning curve, that's never going to change. Right now, our tutorial, anything you do straight away in Lumbridge, etc does not prepare you for this, or explain why that's good.

This is OSRS, intentionally and unapologetically a tough steep learning curve MMO, otherwise it wouldn't be authentic to its time period - a new player doesn't necessarily know that, or expect it, and it's helping to them to get to grips with that.