RuneScape, a long-running fantasy world people play online together, launched plugins in the live game on 19 October. Plugins are tools that players build to change how the game plays. The RuneScape team's launch post says all five plugins from the beta are in, and submissions for new plugins are now open.

What are RuneScape plugins?

A plugin is "a tool created by a community developer", in the beta post's words. Players make them, and the RuneScape team checks and approves every one for safety and security. They're built on the RS API, the part of the game that decides what a plugin can see and do.

You find and install them in the Plugin Hub, a part of the game's own screen, and a plugin can't run in a window outside the game.

If you've played Old School RuneScape, a separate version of the game, you might already know what plugins can do. The team says this isn't a one-to-one copy of RuneLite, a plugin project for Old School RuneScape. Some things work differently, and some have different limits.

Which plugins are live now?

The plugin beta opened on separate beta worlds on 6 October. Everything in it is now in the normal game. The descriptions below are the beta post's:

Plugin	Made by	What it does
Quest Helper	Zoinkwiz, Techpure and JosTheFarmer	Guides you through quests and tracks where you are. It covers 69 quests for now, focused on early-game ones
Menu Entry Swapper	SereSelene	Reorders the right-click options for items, NPCs (computer-controlled characters), objects and more, so your favourite becomes the left-click
Tilemarkers	J3	Marks tiles on the ground with a colour and a label, and turns a set of marks into a preset you can share
Entity Hider	Rcm37	Hides things from view, with toggles for other players, your own character, familiars, spiders and more
Job Gauges	Nyu	Gathers your combat style's resources and cooldowns into overlays in one central spot during a fight

Familiars are creatures a player can summon, and a cooldown is the wait before you can use an ability again. The beta post says Quest Helper supports the quests marked with a * in your quest list, and it expected more quests to come "when they're ready rather than on a fixed schedule".

During the beta, players gave feedback on Menu Entry Swapper's limits, and the launch post names two. It can't use "Buy All" in shops, and it can't make Teleport or Drop the left-click for an item. The post says that's a limit of the RS API, not the plugin's developer. The team is exploring whether it can fix limits like this, with no set date.

If you came here from Old School, it has a Menu Entry Swapper of its own, and we've written up how that one works. The RuneScape plugin is a separate thing. Its developer, SereSelene, says in the beta post that a lot of players know the name from RuneLite and already "have a clear idea of what it should do". Being "honest about what's possible today and what's coming later has mattered just as much as the code itself", the developer adds.

How do you get RuneScape plugins?

Log in to the game as normal and look for a toolbox icon on the Ribbon, the game's bar of menu buttons in the bottom-right corner of the screen. That opens the Plugin Hub, where you can browse, install, manage and uninstall plugins, and report problems.

• Classic interface: the toolbox is on the Ribbon by default.
• Modern interface, default Ribbon: hover over the Settings button to find it.
• Modern interface, custom Ribbon: the game adds it to the end of the Ribbon if there's room. If there isn't, edit the Ribbon to add it.

You need a verified email address. Plugins are hosted on mod.io, an outside site that hosts game add-ons, and mod.io asks for one. The team suggests the email linked to your Jagex Account, the studio's own account system, because it plans to check that link automatically later. Any email works, though.

A plugin you install should switch itself on. If it needs a permission from you first, accept it, then turn the plugin on in the Plugin Hub's Manage tab.

What are plugins not allowed to do?

The beta post listed the rules every plugin must follow, and the launch post repeats the main one: a plugin should only ever support and improve your play, and must never replace it or do things for you automatically. Plugins may make the game clearer and easier to use, and help you track, plan and sort information that's visible, public or already known to players. They must not:

• Do things for you automatically.
• Replace your own decisions, skill, timing or reactions in any big way.
• Make a challenge trivial, or solve a game mechanic outright.
• Show you hidden or future information.
• Undermine fair play or competition.
• Mislead you or hide what they do.

The beta post adds that a plugin has to ask your permission before it connects to the internet.

What happens next?

New plugins will come out in batches, around every two weeks alongside game updates. The team says the first few weeks will be busy, so submissions may take a while to review. Clue Trainer and Ground Items are among the plugins waiting for review, and the beta post also named Runic Attuner, Bank Evaluator, Agility Helper and Anti-Drag as on the way.

Want to make one? Submissions opened on 19 October, and developer.runescape.com has the guidelines, the review process, the team's policy on AI and test worlds for developers. The team will look at popular plugins first, so it suggests joining an existing project over building a copy.

Jagex doesn't handle bugs or ideas for a plugin itself. They go to the plugin's developer, and the plugin's mod.io page says how that developer wants to hear them. Problems with the Plugin Hub itself go through the game's normal bug report. mod.io ratings and subscriptions are planned for later. There's also a new title, Luanatic, for players and developers who help the plugin project a lot. Jagex picks who gets it, and the first ones should go out in about a month.

Our take: helpers, not robots

Our reading: the "must not" list is still the important part, and the launch post repeats its core: support the player, never replace them. The beta list's first three rules keep the player's hands on the game.

A plugin can point at the right tile, but it can't stand on it for you. That's the line between a helper and a bot, and we're glad it was written down before the doors opened rather than after.

We also like who gets the credit. The beta post named the developers behind each of the five plugins, and the launch post adds a title for anyone, player or developer, who helps the plugin project a lot. Neither of the two 19 October posts mentions paying for a plugin. Tools that make a game easier to read, built by players for players, are about as old school as it gets, in our book.