Wc'ing levels?

Nostalgia and a very, very, very long grind.

You're awful, Murray.

Interestingly enough a game being low engagement can actually be a selling point. People today have a lot of media on hand, but some of that media is very stressful. Some people, when they come home from work, just want to relax. High engagement games like, say, Devil May Cry, aren't exactly relaxing. So an aging population combined with nostalgia leads people back to Runescape. Probably with a podcast or some show on in the background.

I actually used to listen to audiobooks while playing Animal Crossing. It's a nice way to occupy the hindbrain and the forebrain at the same time.

But the game lies to you
You think you are making progress and getting better while in reality you aren't, the numbers go up but the game never gets any harder nor there was a challenge to begin with

It's fucking poisonous

Yeah in the same way that something like cookie clicker is poisonous. Also for what it's worth, while the skilling in Runescape is typically very low engagement, there are other aspects of the game that are high engagement. PVP and high level PVM for instance. There, the levels tend to actually matter. The whole game isn't just cutting trees to get a better axe to cut bigger trees at the same rate.

There are challenges though. I'm not going to defend the grindy, repetitive nature of the game but some of the most fun I have is getting good at PvM challenges, the annoying part is some of it is locked behind hundreds and hundreds of mindless grinding

That main appeal of runescape to me is managing my money. Making sure the money coming in matches the money going out. Seeing the big cash stack feels good. It's just like playing something like animal crossing.

I enjoy doing the Runescape quests. Doing the Ardougne quests last week blew my fucking mind after discovering the mourner's secret.

nice

That's true for every RPG. At least Runescape is a multiplayer game, so you can show off the fruits of your "labour".