The botting problem is one that's been hashed and rehashed time and time again, but I do not think it's even the real difficulty in free-to-play. No, I believe the basic issue is that to get a huge multiplayer online game, a genre that cries when it focuses on community and immersion, RuneScape is unexpectedly isolating. The resources that OSRS Gold designers relied on in its own infancy have been left entirely obsolete by new resources players have available to them. Confused on where to proceed next in a pursuit? Look this up for a detailed guide. Want a sword that you're too low leveled to craft? Then go to the Grand Exchange, buy it from a faceless seller.
As we all know, Jagex has been looking to make changes to free-to-play lately. In the typical free-to-play world, there are generally 200-300 individuals, of that half or so are bots. You do not see others too often unless you are in Varrock or Lumbridge, and you can't even be certain a person you see is really a man; those in themselves are problems that push players apart from each other, and Jagex is aware of them, and they're attempting to fix them.
None of these improvements aren't the faults of RuneScape designers. Arguably, all these things were inevitable. However, there's not anything that has been added to suppliment those reductions. RuneScape is unique in that every character has the exact same potential capabilities as any other character. Most MMORPGs have a class system--some classes cure, some do harm, and some absorb damage. While this is limiting to a individual's potential, in addition, it forces people to act as groups more frequently.
Cheap OSRS Gold doesn't have a class system, and while I think that's a huge part of RuneScape's allure, it has the detrimental effect of meaning that players simply don't require each other. This is not as true in higher-level content, but it absolutely holds true during almost the whole mid and early game. Hell, RuneScape's core combat system compels you to 1v1 most competitions. There's never any reason to invest funds into someone else besides yourself. I have absolutely no reason to do anything alongside another person, and another person doesn't have any reason to do anything.
