I've always imagined my last few days on earth as being in a nursing home playing Runescape Classic (2001-2003 runescape) with just me and a bunch of bots, recreating the glory days.
I used to play on the regular world (RSC Preservation, non-bot). There's not enough people. And probably won't be hardly anyone there when I'm old enough to be in a nursing home.
I could join the bot worlds, but I'm fairly certain that they don't talk much or behave like a normal player in general (stumble through quests, make friends, trade with other random players, etc.). They probably just grind skills in some optimal way.
It's definitely sort of that. You can run your own server, as well, though this comes with its own limitations (and inherently takes away from the want for more players). Most of the developers have varying goals with the project. When I was working on the project, my care was primarily for making the game as close to the original as possible using "replays" by dedicated players before the original shut down. It was fun to write code for something that felt like it would give some folks a nostalgia hit.
I think optimally, you'd do something more akin to a "group ironman" with some friends. This guarantees you've got others around.
Does AutoRune still work on there with auto catcher when PKing? The concept of "having catch" on another player based on player ID was just crazy. All these weird bugs that ended up being core mechanics of PKing.