OSRS & VPN - Suggestion to lift IP blocks from major providers

VPN
1

It looks like OSRS has a large pool of premium VPN servers IP blocked from being able to access to their website and log-in to the game servers. I’d guess the free ones would be all blocked due to bot abuse, but it’s quite surprising for the paid ones to share the fate as well.

One good example is ProtonVPN, most of the premium servers are IP blocked on OSRS. I’m quite sure this isn’t only related to ProtonVPN, however. This is at least the case for WireGuard connections. Now around 1/4 of the servers remain unblocked, but it’s still an annoyance to find & pick the “right” one.

Now why is this an issue? Well some countries have restrictions on various content, and in some other countries there are ISPs not respecting net neutrality and throttling “unimportant” traffic (such as gaming). VPNs get around both of these cases.
Last, but not least, they protect the traffic (& passwords) from being intercepted if your PC is part of a larger network and they can be customised for malware & tracker blocking across all content the PC receives from the Internet (when browsing, etc.). They can boost your system’s security if used correctly.

All in all, I think these are solid arguments as to why somebody might opt for a VPN. Now the question is, can something be done about it from Jagex side to be less strict on VPNs?

2

Dude, when the routing was messed up and I had to use a VPN, like 90% of the NordVPN paid ips were blocked. I had to shell out even more for a private ip. Even then, the connection was spotty at best.

What made it so much worse is that every time you tried logging into the blocked IP it’d make you sign back into the Jagex Launcher. Was so annoying but honestly what can you do when allowing those ips to be unbanned just creates a lot more bots.

3

I’m all for VPNs being usable, but

Last, but not least, they protect the traffic (& passwords) from being intercepted if your PC is part of a larger network

Is a bit of a non-issue nowadays that I always see repeated in Youtuber/Streamer advertisements of VPNs that kind of annoys me. At most DNS could be intercepted to see what sites you visit(not what you do on those sites though), but that’s also less of an issue with DNS over HTTPS.

4

It’s certainly a tough case to address. For other MMOs that don’t have the infamous bot problem that we’ve got here they’re all unblocked and I’m not surprised, but we still have the bot horde.

5

I’ll agree with that, because it’s something of a relic from the times of HTTP connections. It’s overadvertised nowadays, although I think it’s still a valid benefit in some (uncommon) scenarios.