damn wrote more than I expected to. tl;dr nothing is wrong with rs or the community.
the player base is more efficient than compared to 07 but I still think majority of players don't focus on efficiency or are efficient. players are definitely pvm focused and pvm is mostly extremely inefficient to do. only pvm that's efficient to do is zulrah and slayer. although majority of players still don't slay efficiently ie no piety/cannon lol. so idk how you can say that.
the player base is also very smalled compared to 07 so naturally they'll be less people playing cw/pc. pc is pretty popular right now tho and cw usually has a game running.
mostly everyone is a rs vet so they are more knowledgeable and less nooby so ye that's y no one is doing stuff like picking flax or mining ess. doesn't help that they're fkin 10 gp ea. not even bots are doing that anymore lol.
m8 basically only the front page is actually competitive and no 60% of posts are not about xp rates. there's typically like no posts about efficiency or xp rates on this sub. unless you want to count posts that are asking for advice. it's basically 99% dank memes.
there's a good reason for prioritizing high lvl content over low/mid lvl content. mid levels only last for a shot period. high levels is end game so it lasts forever. better time spent making high lvl content specially considering the lack of devs. rs isn't dying because of the lack of low/mid lvl content anyways. could argue high lvl content is what keeps players in the game. it gives lower lvls something to play for and it keeps high lvls in the game. high lvl content should always be prioritized but I guess I wouldn't mind lower lvl stuff. also, those efficient players prob won't be quitting because they achieved their goals. 200m all would be the ultimate end game goal and as you can imagine that takes fkin forever. those players would prob quit because they burned out or got bored.
Are streamers youtubers like alkane and autumn elegy to 'blame' for the state of the current community?
you phrase it like the current state of the community is bad. that's subjective and I personally don't think it is bad. but no, they aren't to blame lol. autumn elegy isn't even a big person in the community so idk y you mention him. not sure what alkan has done since he's rs3 and I don't play that so can't say anything about him.
Can there actually be a comeback for runescape?
player base is growing. osrs hit it's low at like 15k-18k day peaks 1.5 years ago and now days are peaking at 50k-55k. so it is making a comback. prob will never reach 200k+ peaks tho.
Runescape probably has an ageing community mostly consisting of players who played it when younger c9ming back if so foes this need to be addressed to bring in younger players too?
rs prob won't be as attractive as lol or dota for younger/new players. idk what they can do to make it more attractive to new/younger players. rs3 sort of has tried that haven't they and they aren't looking too good.
Are they advertising old school enough to bring in new players?
prob not lol.
Are EoC's stupidly high XP rates contributing to old schools negative community?
again, subjective. I don't think it's negative.
obv they should keep updating it regardless if it's going to die or not. again tho, right now it's growing.