Many MMO fans will remember the that struck RuneScape in June 2006. A bug with player housing gave some users the ability to attack other players in non-PvP zones, including the go-to market section of the city of Falador where players would go to sell expensive items. Cue the rampant looting.
Old School RuneScape, a 2007-inspired branch of the MMO operated in parallel to mainline RuneScape, recently dodged another PvP bug with ties to player-owned housing – and while it was no massacre, it could have been a disaster. Old School RuneScape sleuth Gudi, who hadn't been since about a different PvP strategy, recently released a lengthy deep-dive on the discovery, testing, and long-delayed patching of this game-breaking bug. I'm going to distill it down as best I can, .
The short version is this: a bug with delayed damage, which was seemingly months old even at the time of discovery, could cause players to die to another player in a safe area, respawn in an unsafe area, and then take damage from an attack that was registered before their death. If this delayed damage was enough to kill you again, your second death would be treated as a PvP kill. And as Gudi observed, the ramifications of this are .
When you die in an unsafe zone in OSRS, which is most of the map, you're supposed to get a grave that lets you retrieve your lost items, unless you were killed by a player. This delayed damage bug could effectively enforce PvP death rules, meaning your on-hand valuables would be award.
