 Person fighting a highwayman in Runescape Classic RuneScape is a 3D Java based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), launched by Jagex Ltd. in January 2001 as a free-to-play game.
There are often over seventy thousand players online at once, and on busy weekends, over eighty thousand players, spread across its 70+ servers (new servers are added regularly). These servers are located in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and The Netherlands, making it one of the largest online Java games in the world. There are also a few servers running the "classic" version of the game (split between free servers and member servers). Players represent a wide range of nationalities and ages.
Version overview
- Orginal Runescape - Renamed Runescape Classic with the release of Runescape 2.
- Runescape Beta - a non-public development version. No longer running, ended with public release of runescape.
- Runescape - original game, name now for the series. No longer running under this name.
- included Free and Members-only versions
- Runescape Classic - the first version of the game running with the old engine, not updated anymore but still playable.
- includes Free and Members-only versions, still running as of 2005
- Runescape 2 - The first major overhaul with redone graphics engine.
- Runescape 2 beta - a beta version that ran prior to public release. No longer running.
- Ran as members-only mostly.
- Runescape 2 - the latest version
- includes Free and members only versions, still running as of 2005.
Playing the game
 Knight and archer fighting a lesser demon in a volcano. RuneScape 2 The new player's experience
The new player to Runescape arrives on an island named "Tutorial Island". This island is accessible only once; when players leave they leave for good and may never return. Although some could consider a mandatory tutorial dull and useless, Jagex (and many players) have said that it is vital to understanding the complexities of the game. For the eager learner, the tutorial takes no more than fifteen minutes on a connection without lag. While on the island, players learn about in-game skills such as fighting, communication, cooking, banking, and doing quests. Once a player has completed the tasks assigned on tutorial island, they are transported to the starting city of Lumbridge, and the game truly begins.
A secondary purpose for this island is to serve as an inconvinence to griefers and cheaters who bypass bans by simply creating new characters.
The rest of the game
After completing the tutorial, players are free to play as they choose. They can wander to and from the many cities in the game, fighting and exploring. Of course, fighting and increasing fighting skill is not necesarily mandatory, but it is extremely valuable if one wants to survive in any of the higher-level areas with aggressive monsters. The only available methods of transportation thus far are walking, running, ships, and teleportation, which requires a high level of magic and some hard-to-find runes.
- See also: RuneScape locations
Skills
- Main article: RuneScape skills
RuneScape Skills are abilities that enable players do things in the RuneScape game. Some skills are members-only and some skills are only in newer versions of the game. Many of the higher level abilities in each skill are reserved for members only. Players gain experience in a skill when they use abilities which utilize that skill. A player's amount of experience determines the level of that skill. New abilities are given to the player when they reach certain levels. Higher level abilities in turn give more experience to compensate for the roughly quadratic increase in experience points needed to reach each new level.
Game economy
Runescape has a fairly complex economy for a browser-based game. As the game is generally focused around combat and quests, these two things tend to drive the economy. Often, however, this is in a very indirect manner. An example of this "ripple effect" is fishing. Fish are useful because they provide healing for combatants. High-level fish provide the best healing. High-level free fish can generally only be caught by fly fishing. Fly fishing requires feathers. Despite their commonality (all chickens drop them) feathers are often a waste of time to gather, especially for players of very great power. Feathers, therefore, are unusually easy to sell for a reasonable price. Another example is Nature Runes. Many powerful smiths will train their magic so as to be able to use "High Level Alchemy", allowing them to exchange their items for the top store price without hassle. This requires the often hard-to-find Nature Runes. Consequently, Natures sell for up to 350 gold apiece. The even rarer Law Runes, used for teleportation, can sell for up to 500 gold.
The runescape economy is very dynamic. There is a steady increase in the price of some items, while other items are getting cheaper. Game updates can also cause a sudden increase or reduction in demand for items. It does take a lot of effort to continually track and predict the level of demand on certain items. Some players have become very good at monitoring the economy and consquently have become very rich by clever trading.
Many of the continual price changes are brought about by the constant influx of new players, and the constant growth in skill levels of older players. For example: only a level 99 smith can make the extremely valuable runite plate body armor. A year after launch, there were few of these smiths. Now, there are many more, over double the amount. If all of these accounts are still playing and still making rune plate body armor, the amount of people with rune goes up, unused supply goes up, demand goes down, and prices follow with demand. However, two things tend to keep this deflation in relative check. First of all, there is a constant influx of new players who want said armor. They keep demand up and supply down, or at least even. Also, many high-level players are only out for the coin when making such rare items. They rarely want to bother with spending the extra time to find a buyer (and often, the extra profit isn't enough to waste the time on), and will often use the magic spell 'High Level Alchemy' to "sell" the item for the store price. This saves them the hassle and gives them the coin they need. Supply goes down, demand stays level, and again the price remains relatively stable.
However, some prices do soar steadily over time. On certain holidays, such as Christmas and Halloween, Jagex will arrange a "holiday drop" in which rare items are placed in the game for one day and one day only. (One exception was the Christmas 2004 drop, which lasted 2 weeks after Christmas Day and gave out untradeable toys with no practical use.) For example, the now-legendary party hats ("P-Hats" or "phats") were only dropped on one day and can be sold for millions. Prices can drop or spike sharply depending on the actions of theie oft-unpredictable owners.
Other tradeable holiday drop items include Halloween 2001's pumpkins, Christmas 2001's Christmas crackers (and party hats, which were inside) Easter 2002's Easter eggs, Halloween 2002's masks, and Christmas 2002's Santa hats. In 2003, drops began to be untradeable, with Easter's bunny ears and Halloween's scythes. Christmas 2004's yo-yos were untradeable as well. The older items, especially the edible ones (pumpkins and Easter eggs) are excessively rare and can be sold for millions as well.
Some of the rarer items that are still available are Treasure Trail Items, which can only be obtained by members at the end of a scavenger hunt. The starting clue for the hunt is a rare monster drop. Generally, the tougher the clue monster, the better the reward at the end of the hunt. Mainly the reward is armor, (black, adamant, and rune) and occasionally it comes trimmed. Trimmed armor, especially gold-trimmed, is extremely rare and prices are always at a premium. Some players claim to be able to trim armor (saying that it is a member's only skill) but this is only a scam.
Communities and Wilderness
 Screenshot of the Runescape 2 RuneScape has many communities within it. Many players have grouped together to form groups known as 'clans'. These clans often have alliances, and occasionally go to war with each other; often meeting in bloody clashes with many participants. Sometimes players enter the war zone to pick up leftover items, such as enchanted amulets and armor.
This takes place in the Wilderness area, located in northern RuneScape. The Wilderness has great rewards, but also great risks. This is also where player characters can fight and kill each other, known throughout the game as PKing (Player Killing). As one gets deeper into the Wilderness, they can fight with other players further and further away from their combat level. So a Lvl 60 player in the Lvl 30 wilderness area can attack players Lvl 30-90. When a player attacks another player in the wilderness, that player is given a skull over his head. If a player with a skull over his head dies, then he loses all of his items (Normally a dead person would lose all of his items except for his three most expensive items, but if he has the prayer power "protect items" and uses it, that person will keep his most expensive item). Half of the wilderness only allows 1-on-1 battles, whilst the other half allows multiway combat and the potentially huge team based wars mentioned above. There are many different weapons, spells, and potions available to assist fighting in the wilderness.
However, the Wilderness isn't only for Player Killing. There are some other activities such as killing monsters and collecting items. There are places to mine, smith, cook, train, fish, collect items, and more. The wilderness is abundant with monsters, most of which are more dangerous than monsters outside of the Wilderness. And the deep members-only Wilderness contains the dangerous Mage Arena. Also lurking in the Wilderness is a lever that teleports a character to the King Black Dragon (often known as the "KBD"), the fourth most powerful monster in RuneScape. The most powerful is the second form of the Kalphite Queen, an enourmous wasp, the second most powerful is the Kalphite Queen's first form, an enourmous beetle. This "Kalphite Queen" is so poweful you need a team of players to kill it. When you kill the first form, it splits open and the second form flies out, which you then have to kill to get its treasure. And the third most powerful is Hazeel, an evil wizard from a quest. You cannot attack him, but his combat level makes him the third most powerful. Even deeper in the member's wilderness is a quick escape to a members town, where a person can teleport to Ardougne by pulling a lever. In the northeastern area of the wilderness lurks some of the fabled greater demons. These massive beasts are very strong (some people think they are; but they aren't really) and very hard to train on if there are a lot of PKers.
Developments
On February 27, 2002, Jagex launched a new optional 'members service'. This allows players to pay $5 USD a month to obtain access to new quests, features and skills. Paying members have a far greater choice of things to do, but it is still possible to play the game for free, and there is in fact still more free content available than ever before.
Over the past three years, players have attempted to develop a variety of RuneScape cheats. When Runescape first opened, cheating was at an all-time high, and was rarely prevented. However when Jagex introduced the pay-to-play members service the additional cash revenue meant they were able to start enforcing the rules more efficiently, and they implemented many macro detection routines and protections to ensure that an actual human was playing. Currently cheats are only prevalent in the less protected RuneScape Classic, as evidenced by the occasional mass banning of "worst offenders".
On December 1, 2003, Jagex released a beta version of an improved version of the game, which had been rewitten from scratch (temporarily called "Runescape 2"). Featuring a new 3D-engine and revisions to gameplay, this beta was initially only available to paying members. Jagex claimed that this will make RuneScape the most advanced java-based game in the world. On March 17, 2004, Jagex released the beta to non-paying players.
Just in time to keep their promise, Jagex took the new game out of beta, and finally released it to everyone on March 29, 2004, which gave everyone playing RuneScape (paying or not) the opportunity to play on the new gaming system.
RuneScape 2 overview
New features
RuneScape 2 includes a whole new player interface, which separates the main-view, game-options, minimap, and chat into four different screen areas, allowing tasks to be performed more efficiently and conveniently. These areas are:
- The main-view - Which now enables players to zoom up and down in order to see the world more clearly.
- A game-options area - A new panel on the side which combines all the gaming functions into one space (Level Status, Attack Style, Prayer, Magic, Quests, Armour page, Inventory page, Friends list, Ignore list, Music player, Player controls, and log out function)
- The minimap - Now permanently visible in its own area and has extra icons indicating the location of important locations such as: shops, dungeons, and quest points. Also, when a player clicks on it, a small red flag will appear and the character will walk in that direction until it reaches the point or the player changes destinations.
- A dedicated chat/message area
Many other new features were implemented in Runescape 2. Shopkeepers and bankers no longer serve customers one at a time, allowing many players at once to use one shop. This was a major problem on crowded servers in the old version. Random events (see below) replaced the controversial "fatigue" system.
Graphics
The graphics of Runescape 2, while not revolutionary on the whole, are a major improvement over those of Runescape Classic, and while they are largely inferior to most MMORPGs available, they are of good quality for a freely-available, Java game. The world is rendered in complete 3D as opposed to the 2D on 3D images of Classic. Similar but different types of weapons, such as longswords and shortswords now have different images. Players are also given much more choice in creating character models, from hairstyle to facial features. Magic, prayer, and ranging, the three possible modes of combat, now include improved, unique animations for each.
Magic
- Main article: Runscape Magic Skill
Magic requires a certain amount of runes. Additionally, some spells may require special staffs such the three different staffs of the three Runescape Gods: Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak, or the "Iban Staff" for "Iban Blast". Newly available in RS2 for both paying and non-paying players is the added ability of runecrafting, which allows players to craft their own runes. Players can still choose to buy their own runes from the witch Betty, Aubury in Varrock, or (the fastest way) to buy from another player who already has thousands of runes. A new feature has been introduced recently from Jagex for mages. Now mages have their own armor made from splitbark. You can acquire it by cutting a hollow tree and presenting the bark to an odd-looking wizard in the Wizards Tower.
Note: For splitbark armor you need to be a member to cut a hollow tree and you also need to bring lots of money (77k for a full set), bark (11 for a full set), and fine cloth (11 for a full set).
Equipment
Screenshot of the equipment page For the melee class, often called "warriors", there are bronze, iron, steel, black, adamantite, runite, and dragon metals for both armor and weapons. Available weapons include: daggers, short swords, scimitars, longswords, two-handed swords, hatchets, pickaxes, battleaxes, maces, throwing knives, arrows, halberds and more. Available armour includes: chain body, plate body, plateskirt, platelegs, medium helmets, full helmets, wooden shields, square shields, kiteshields, etc. Most of these items are available in each kind of metal. Dragon is a metal that has slowly been added to, and all of its items look unlike items of other metals. The dragon medium helmet and chainbody, for example, has a pair of horns. Strangely, the newly added Dragon Platelegs don't have any horns or markings. The Dragon Square Shield has a skull on it.
Rangers typically use long and shortbows made of 'regular' logs, oak, willow, maple, yew, or magic wood, as well as arrows and throwing weapons made of all the metals bronze-runite; except for black. Armor for them includes leather, hard leather, studded leather, green dragon hide, blue dragon hide, red dragon hide, and black dragon hide. Vambraces, the most powerful handwear not obtained in a quest, are made of the above listed items and require ranging experience to use.
Mages typically use robes as armor, and staffs for weapons. Not much variety, but spells require mystical Runestones to be cast, and there are many types of runestones. Elemental staffs can provide unlimited runes of their element when wielded, but otherwise runes are expensive. Mages also have access to splitbark armor, but this armor is very expensive and cheaper alternatives often give better magical bonuses.
Aside from this basic equipment, many other weapons and armor are obtained by way of quests, but the sheer variety of these items makes it a very difficult task to list them all.
Combat mechanics
Players in Runescape generally fall into three major classes: warrior, ranger, and mage. There is no actual definition of these classes; people generally level up their statistics respective to these classes. However, all of these classes use Prayer. Warriors are possibly the most common class; fighting in melee mode increases Strength, Attack, and Defense. Wizards are the second most common class and emphasize magical spells. In RS2, magic use has greatly proliferated due to significantly increased damage. Lastly, there is the Ranger, which emphasizes skill in archery and projectile throwing. All of these styles increases hitpoints (HP).
RS2 has a class triangle, whereby a Warrior defeats Ranger, Ranger defeats Wizard and Wizard defeats Warrior (analogous to the rock, paper and scissors triangle).
Some people have chosen to train each of their combat skills to the same level. There is no way of defining their exact class, although it is suggested by the armor they wear. If they have a significant level of each of the three class's skills or none then there is no way of making a definitive classification.
Warrior or melee class players usually use smithed armor and weapons made from resources which can be mined. They must tend to attack, strength, and defense levels. Attack levels increases the chance of doing damage. Strength increases the amount of damage that can be done. Defense decreases the chance of recieving damage from a melee attack.
Range class players usually use some type of leather armor. This can be normal, hardened, studded, or a dragon type of armor. They also use a bow which can be made from types of wood that are cut from trees. Range offense is determined by range level, and defense from range attacks is also determined by range level.
Mage class players use runes, often accompanied with a staff that increases magic or allow that player to go without a certain type of rune. Their runes are crafted from rune essence or found. Some types of rune can't be crafted. Armor is generally not worn by mage class players, because it lowers damage that spells can do. Magical offense and defense to magic attacks is determined by mage level.
Player demographics
In March of 2004 a poll of the age and gender was done on the official website. The poll was only open to members, so it is potenially not as indicative of the total player base. Also, since it was not controlled in any way, people could put false answers. People who are unable to become members would be under-represented and the potential making up an answer does exist. Either way it is one of sources of information on the player base, whether it is correct or not.
The poll results:
- The poll question: "Which of the following Age/Gender group do you belong to?", and the results
- Male under 15 years of age : 5492 votes
- Male between 15 and 25 : 3918 votes
- Male between 26 and 40 : 533 votes
- Male over 40 : 264 votes
- Female under 15 years of age : 237 votes
- Female between 15 and 25 : 357 votes
- Female between 26 and 40 : 302 votes
- Female over 40 : 270 votes
Quests
Quests in RuneScape are one time adventures which serve a variety of purposes. The novice quest quests act as tutorials to get new users acquainted with the various skills and abilities as well as giving them some extra money. More difficult quests serve as a rite of passage which tests the player's and their character's abilities. All quests include some kind of reward such as money, rare/valuable items, and increases in stats. Some quests are part of an overarching storyline. Each quest also awards a certain number of quest points. 32 quest points will grant access to the champions guild. The members-only Heros' and Legends' quests grant access to their respective guilds upon completion.
For a list of the quests in RuneScape, see RuneScape quests.
Guilds
If players attain a high enough experience level in a skill (or done enough quests) they can often gain access to a guild. A guild in the game is simply a building the player can enter into, which offers some game items and features. They were first present in the original Runescape starting with the guild for if you completed enough quests, followed by the mining guild. This feature was continued in Runescape 2 and now there are many guilds - some of which are not in runescape classic. Also, some guilds are member-only since not all skills are avaible to free/standard play.
The guilds as of 2004 include The Champions Guild (32 quest points), The Cooks Guild (32 cooking), The Crafting Guild (40 crafting), The Fishing Guild (68 fishing), The Heros Guild (completed the heros quest), The Legends Guild (completed the legends quest), The Magicians Guild (66 magic), The Mining Guild (60 mining), The Prayer Guild (The second floor of the Monastery) (31 prayer) and The Ranging Guild (40 ranged).
Mini-games
There are some other things to do besides the usual quests and skill leveling, which are essentially games within a game. These include for example Fishing Trawler, Treasure Trails, Mage Arena, Agility Arena, Gnomeball, Games Room, and Castle Wars. A pseudo minigame is the kingdom management from the quest Throne of Miscellania. All of the these mini-games, however, are only for member players.
Random events
A variety of random events can take place in the game.
Jagex maintains that this is to help prevent macro programs. They can also add variety to some of the more repetitive activities in the game.
Players must respond to most of these in the correct manner or will receive a negative effect (such as being teleported across the map)
Some of these negative effects can be quite annoying, but most can be easily avoided if players are paying attention.
Some random events will also give players a reward if they react appropriately. The random events which give rewards are generally far more popular.
Some players dislike random events which can give penalties but no rewards and consider them annoying hindrances.
The following is a list of the different random events in the game at the time of writing.
- Guardians: Being quite dangerous and annoying, they include River Troll, Rock Golem, Watchman, Zombie, Tree Spirit, and Shade. River Trolls generally attack you when you have been fishing in the same place for a long time. Tree Spirit and Rock Golem appear during woodcutting and mining, respectively. Zombies and Shades may rise when you have buried a lot of bones. Guardian monsters are always considerably tougher compared to player they are attacking, but their loot might be worth fighting for.
- Annoying: Swarm of Insects, tree changing into an Ent, Whirlpool in water, Smoking Rock, Poison Gas, and Moving Fishing Spots.
- Inconveniences: random breakage of equipment such as pickaxes when mining and hatchets when woodcutting. You can generally avoid these by not mining a smoking rock, not trying to cut down an Ent, or not fishing where there is a Whirlpool or Big Fish. Damaged equipment is easily repaired though, either by player himself or by visiting certain NPC's with required skill.
- Teleporting: Mysterious Old Man will sometimes appear, and teleport a player to a special location. In order to return a player must accomplish a given task, such as mimicing a mime or navigating through a maze as fast as possible. A generous gift or special ability is granted for the accomplishment.
- Gift Givers: Drunk Dwarf with beer and kebab, Genie with magic lamp, Mysterious Old Man with a strange box, and Strange Plant. If ignored, even gift givers can hurt a player (Dwarves and Plants), or teleport him to a random location on a map (Genies and Mysterious Men). Lamp, when rubbed, gives a small number of experience points to any one skill. Strange box is a special item, since it can multiply when unattended. Unless a player opens the box and solves the riddle inside, entire inventory might fill up with them. Once all boxes have been cleared, a small gift is given, usually an uncut gem but sometimes a small sum of money.
Game credits
A abridged list of some of higher ranked development and managment team of RuneScape.
Development Team
- Lead Designer/Programmer: Andrew Gower
- Head of Content and Quests: Paul Gower
- Mini Games: Ben D, Tom de R
- Head of Graphics and Maps: Anthony A
- Music and Sounds: Ian T
- Head of Website and Databases: Chris S
- Head of Quality Assurance: Andrew C
Publishing Team
- Commercial Director: Constant T
- Operations Manager: Daniel C
- Billing Support: Rob S
External links
- Official Runescape Links
- Runescape Fan Websites
- Rune Universe (http://www.geocities.com/rune_universe/)
- Runescapia (http://www.RuneScapia.com/)
- Runevillage (http://www.runevillage.com) (fan site, guides, forums)
- Rune Headquarters (http://www.runehq.com) (fan site)
- RS Inn forum (http://rsinn.com/forum/) (fan site)
- Runescape Tips (http://tip.it/runescape)(fan site, forums)
- Fields of RuneScape (http://www.fieldsofrune.com) (fan site, guides, forums)
- Clan DareDevils (http://www.clandaredevils.dk/) (Fan Site, Information Site, Clan, Guides, Calculators etc.)
- Industrial Goth Clan (http://www.industrialgothclan.com/) (Clan Site for Goths and others, and much more coming, stay tuned!)
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