As you may have noticed, Old School RuneScape's having some technical problems today. The engine team's been working hard to resolve them, with various reboots during the afternoon to patch aspects of the problem, but it's still not sorted yet.
We know this is frustrating when you're trying to get on and play, and the engine team is going to keep working to get your game back up and running as it should be.
Stuck in the blackness
The most common effect of the bug is that you find yourself standing in a half-loaded bit of map, often stuck in a wall, completely unable to move.
This is mostly encountered in busy places such as the Grand Exchange, Void Knight Island or other minigame lobbies, especially when you log in or arrive by teleport.
Players have found that by switching to a quieter world, the game sometimes loads its map correctly, and they can move again. You may need to hop several times to find a sufficiently quiet world.
Game crash on login
A worse form of the bug is when the game actually crashes as it tries to load the map.
Again, by trying quieter worlds, it may be possible to find one where you can load the map successfully.
Walk through walls
The engine bugs mostly affect the way the game worlds transmit player details to your computers, and the way your computers draw players in the 3D view.
This means that it can make your computer show you standing in the scenery, walking through walls, floating on the sea and skidding sideways into restricted areas.
The good news is that your character isn't actually going to these places. It just gets drawn in the wrong place.
So even if someone's computer draws them in - say - the Draynor Village bank robbery cutscene's bank, the game won't let them take the blue party hat from the cutscene because it knows they're not really there. (Also, that's not a real party hat.)
The game world knows where you "really" are, and once the bug's fixed your computer will show you in your true position, able to move around correctly again.
Broke dancing
One of the earlier effects of the bug affected players in Run mode who were walking 1 tile. Normally, the game shows you walking if you're only moving 1 tile, even in Run mode. However, after today's first update, the game showed you moving at Run speed.
This could be awkward for intense skilling activities such as Mining or Pyramid Plunder, where players often need to walk 1 tile at a time, and are accustomed to the game showing them walk smoothly when they do it.
It also broke the "dancing" trick where players Follow each other, since Following involves a lot of 1-tile movements.
However, the engine team released a patch for this bug in one of the updates earlier, so it should be working correctly now.
Zulrah's facing direction
Another effect of the engine bugs was to make Zulrah look like it was facing in a different direction to normal while it was doing some of its attacks.
Again, the engine team released a patch for this bug in one of the updates earlier, so it should be working correctly now.
Next steps
The engine team is continuing to work on the remaining problems tonight. They may even release a further patch during the evening, although they are more likely to do so in the morning when more testing can take place.
In the meantime, we are very sorry for the inconvenience, and we hope you'll be able to play again properly very soon.
Mods Alfred, Archie, Ash, Day, Ghost, Ian, John C, Kieren, Krista, Mat K, Maz, Ronan, Weath
The Old School Team