This game is super GAS, but you don't want to play it from Steam.

You wanna play OSRS from Runelite, a supremely better launcher for the game that improves it in every way and is supported by the developers (No, this is not a hyperbole, its literally a whole different experience trust me).

Old School Runescape is one of my favorite games ever. It has an amazing and huge open world with countless activities to do with your friends or otherwise. There is so much to do that I'll just be skimming this game. When you start you're just a blank slate that has limitless potential, you can go fight dragons and monsters for items and gold, you can be a carpenter and build and an amazing house that acts like a hub to travel across the world and as a meetup point for your friends, you can be a magician that has loads of useful and powerful spells at your disposal, you can raid tombs as a thief, or literally just fish all day. This game IS freedom. It doesn't matter if you want to play as a sweatlord killing people in the PVP area and ganking all their loot, or just AFK on a second monitor while watching Youtube or listening to music while making money, the thing about OSRS is that there is stuff for literally every type of player. Like the story? Good. Skip all the dialogue? Good, take the rewards and move on, it doesn't make a difference.
This game comes directly out of an older time for gaming and it shows, in a GOOD way, where gameplay is somewhat simple with a point and click adventure system, but still really fleshed out and satisfying. With 23 different and unique skills to choose from, countless bosses to kill and a strong playerbase of ~200k people Old School Runescape is an example of how people today can still truly appreciate the basic successes in game design.

When it comes to the Community / Developers? Amazing, this is the only game I know where the players literally democratically vote for updates (through in-game poll booths around the world), and the devs are really responsive to the playbase as-well, stepping back when they make a mistake and advancing on what most the players REALLY want, and that's RARE nowadays.

It's such a shame that so many people don't give it a shot because of how intimidating it can seem.