TBH, the xp-as-your-achievement ship has already sunken. I doubt many modern time gamers still look at xp/levels as any meaningful accomplishments/achievements at all.
I was once in the top 100 overall skill Hiscores (way back in the early 2000's when there were only a few millions registered players though), Hiscores were only about XP and levels back then. But today, there are many other categories in the Highscores, and most of them are not even remotely XP related. Obviously, XP and levels are getting less and less important by the day, even for players who care about comparing themselves to the others.
Besides, players nowadays care more about game features than "achievements". For instance, there was a new Hiscores update this week but look at how many players are talking about it in this forums and elsewhere? Almost nobody, but most of the players are talking about last week's PoF updates. Obviously, players are showing more interest in game content instead of some mere "achievements".
That said, who care about Jagex monetizing their games through XP selling when XP doesn't directly contribute to any meaningful "achievements" to gamers? Modern gamers only take advantage of the XP that's either through paying or playing to get to the point that they can enjoy the content of the game. XP selling is actually a good thing on Jagex's part because it helps players to get to the point that the game content is enjoyable fasterr.
14-Sep-2018 22:12:22