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Earlier this week, we've been giving you a ton of news related to Jagex's Runescape and the newly-announced Mechscape. In a recent blog post by Relmstein, he gives us his impressions of this news, and why he takes them seriously.

Despite anyone's opinion on Jagex and their work with Runescape so far, the facts are overwhelmingly in their favor for being a serious company. As Relmstein points out, this company started out from a couple brothers working out of their home, "but it has the potential to become as big as SOE or NCsoft in a very short period of time." Anything is possible, in fact, but how great would it be to see them actually get that big with these new projects and new ideas they have.

We sat down Tuesday morning to talk with the people at Jagex, the US-based company that develops the wildly popular Runescape MMO. They're a company in the midst of growing from a one-game studio to a multi-game mini-empire. Alongside the casual game service FunOrb and the newly announced in-development title Mechscape, these titles combine to portend a unique future for this Korean-inspired American company.

The company sees itself as offering a real alternative to the client-based high-end graphics experience we're used to in massive games. Join us as we chat with Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison and developer Henrique Olifiers about the newest update to the game and the future of Jagex as an organization.

Recently, Runescape sent along a chat with their Lead Developer and Co-founder Andrew Gower. In this chat, Gower explains the history of the game, what he does for the team and what he sees for the future.

One of the major highlights of this chat is the fact that Runescape is said to be right on target with their initial plan with the game. Gower says that it was always meant to be a graphically-advanced social game, and it has not only exceeded in achieving this, but their plans for the future of Runescape HD is even greater. Check out the complete chat just after the jump.

If you weren't aware, the free-to-play browser-based MMORPG Runescape is being reborn as Runescape HD. That means players with computers capable of handling the graphics (and at this point that's probably all of them) will be able to enjoy Runescape with both improved visuals and at a full-screen setting. The visual upgrades consist of a new lighting system and procedural texturing system. According to Jagex, the game still runs at below 256mb of RAM on most machines and is very much an efficient title even with the upgrade. We have to admit it's a pretty impressive upgrade for a browser game. The official FAQ on the Runescape HD experience upgrade can be found after the cut.

Massively will have more information for you from our hands on time with the HD experience and new tutorial; expect details on that later today!

Today's the day for Runescape fans across the globe: the high details version of the game is now officially in Beta testing. Subscribers can jump into the full-screen, widescreen supporting, actually-pretty-darn-good-looking version of Runescape at will. Free players will be able to get the pretty after the Beta test is over. Full details on the new version are available in the official FAQ. If you're looking to get subscriber benefits, now's the time to do it. Folks signing up for the pay-version of the game will be paying about a buck more every month for the priveleage after the 4th of the August. All of these details are on the game's shiny new website, which they've rolled out for this special occassion.

If it seems like Jagex and Runescape have been in the news lately, you'd be right. The runaway success of this game is amazing to see, and the folks at Next Generation have a several-page exploration of the web-based game's history. The site talks with Paul and Andrew Gower, founders of the company, about their ambitions to take the accessibility and fun of a MUD and bring it to the web.

Make sure to click through below the cut for a full video presentation on the brand new HD experience.