Sailing skill wins OSRS community poll 15 years after being teased

An Old School RuneScape community poll has seen the Sailing skill coast to the top, 15 years after it was first teased. This poll passing means that Jagex will now spend time refining what could become OSRS’s first new skill.

As announced on Twitter, the Sailing skill has won the Skill Pitches community poll. This poll asked RuneScape players to vote on which of the three proposed skills they would like to “see refined further”. These skills were Sailing, Shamanism, and Taming.

Both Sailing and Shamanism proved to be popular proposals, with less than a percent splitting the two. Whilst Sailing secured 34.7% of the community vote Shamanism fell just short with 34.5% of votes. This 0.2% difference worked out at just 591 players making this one of the closest community polls to date.

However, whilst the Sailing skill has won the community poll that doesn’t guarantee it will be added to OSRS. Lead community manager Mod Ayiza confirmed this: “This doesn’t mean Sailing is being added to the game. It means the dev team will now spend time refining what the skill will actually look like.”

OSRS could be adding its first new skill

OSRS was created as a re-release of the August 2007 version of RuneScape in response to the community’s displeasure at some of the main game’s updates. Due to this, large updates like adding a new skill are often controversial.

That’s why updates in OSRS are only added if at least 70% of the community votes yes. There have been three previous failed polls proposing a new skill for the game with Artisan, Warding, and Sailing’s first attempts all falling short.

Twitter: OldSchoolRS

This is arguably the closest OSRS has gotten to having a new skill introduced. Not just any skill either – it’s one that was first hinted at fifteen years ago and has been referenced by Jagex many times since. That lingering promise could finally become a reality.

In 2008, a video surfaced that showed Sailing as one of the skills on RuneScape’s leaderboards. This video turned out to be a hoax but its legacy was strong enough to have ripple effects to this day. Now, what started out as a joke looks likely to become something very real.