Person fighting a highwayman in Runescape Classic

Screenshot of the Runescape 2

RuneScape is 3D Java based massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), launched by Jagex Ltd. in January 2001 as a free-to-play game, and after February 2002 as both a free and pay game. In March 2004 RuneScape 2 was released with both free and pay (or member) versions. The orginal RuneScape was renamed RuneScape Classic. The game itself has a unique done medieval fantasy theme probably most similair to games such as Warcraft III or Everquest but with often with a less serious tone and extensive original content ideas. One of the more unique aspects of the game is to do more mundane and non-violent tasks, such as being able to cook a variety of types of pizzas.

The game is one of the largest online game rivaling games such as CounterStrike in terms of the number of people playing at given moment. There are often over eighty thousand players online at once, and on busy weekends, over a hundred 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, genders and ages.

Overview

Screenshot of Runescape 2

The game is set in a fantasy world, where players control their own avatars representing one's self. There is no overall objective or end to the game, aside from a general goal of increasing the characters abilities and passing benchmarks. However, there are plenty of tasks that people can perform in the game. For example, players can interact with each other, by talking, trading, and even fighting (though fighting is restricted to the wilderness, and the duel arena in Al-Kharid; that is a members only feature). There are several instances in which a player found his/her soulmate in the game. Quests can also be undertaken, such as the Dragon slayer quest. However quests are not compulsory and players have the option of not completing any of the in-game quests if they so desire. There are many other activities such as fishing, crafting, mining, woodcutting, and smithing. As these activities are performed, a character will become more skilled at the activity. It is not uncommon for a dedicated player to spend in excess of four hours a day training his character; there are even a few rare cases of players regularly spending over ten hours a day online.

Playing the game

The new player to Runescape comes to a tutorial island. Although initially coming to a tutorial island may seem boring to some, Jagex has determined this action to be imperative to understanding future gameplay. For those stuck, moving around is executed by left-clicking on a piece of land. While on tutorial island, players learn about fighting, communication, cooking, banking, doing quests, and other skills. Once a player has completed the tasks assigned on tutorial island, he is transported to the city of Lumbridge. From then on, players can upgrade their characters in the fashion that they want. They could travel around the "real-life" player's world between cities such as Varrock, Falador, Port Sarim etc. Players could also travel around by raising their magic level to a level high enough to perform a teleport to some of these major cities.

Combat

In Runescape the most direct way of gaining wealth and streanth is killing monsters. The combat system is composed of three skills. Attack, Strenth and Defence. Your attack level determines the chance of being hit, strenth the likely damage, and defence the chance of stopping the enemy's attack

Skills

Mining in Runescape 2

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.

Sometimes armor enchanted by the gods Saradomin, Zamorak or Guthix is given for level 3 clues , this will only be Runite plate armor, and kite shields, and has colored trimming, white for Saradomin, red for Zamorak, and green for Guthix.

Communities and Wilderness

Screenshot of RuneScape 2 of players fighting NPCs in the game area known as the 'The Wilderness'

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.

When Runescape was starting, in the early days, the enite map was player versus player, and it was unsafe to go anywhere without armor and a weapon, for gangs of PKers roamed the land looking for unwary players.

History and Development

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 nearly from scratch (temporarily called "Runescape 2 Beta"). 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.

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 in 2001.
  • Runescape - original game ran as Free ([[2001) and Pay (2002). No longer running under that name name.
  • Runescape Classic - the first version of the game running with the old engine, but no longer updated.
    • Free and Members-only version running as of 2005. (6 severs)
• Runescape 2 - At major overhaul with redone graphics engine and new features.
  • Runescape 2 Beta - a beta version internal and then Members only version that ran prior to public release. No longer running.
  • Runescape 2 - the latest version
    • Free and Members-only versions still running as of 2004.(80+ servers)

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. Quests can be found all over the map, in the game's three kingdoms of Misthalin, Asgarnia and Kandarin, as well as some even more distant lands.

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).

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

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. The game can be run on high or low detail level. The advisory for high detail level is 128mg of ram and 600mhz processor and for low detail, 32mg and 300mhz.

Random events

Tree Spirit random event in RuneScape 2

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 spirits and Rock Golems may rise when woodcutting or mining, you may even be hit 3 times in a day by a rock golem if you are unlucky. 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 (only escapable by running away otherwise keep attacking till the player hits 0hp and dies), tree changing into an Ent (causes hatchet to break), Whirlpool in water (only high levelers can fish in these), Smoking Rock (mining will cause an explosion which makes your character lose hp and breaks your pickaxe.Broken pickaxes may be fixed in dwarvian mine), Poison Gas,Moving Fishing Spots,Big fish (steal your fishing equipment).
• 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. Pickaxes can be fixed by an NPC in dwarvian mines, and "Bob" at Bobs axes can repair your hatchet that was broken by trying to chop down an Ent. A small cost is incured (usually 30gp) when fixing your broken item. Split hatchet and pickaxe heads can be fixed by using the shaft with the head.
• 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). When A lamp is rubbed, you can choose what skill you want to gain experience on.(ex. you want to gain experience on mining, you click the mining icon on the box that pops up). 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 and uncut gem, uncut diamond if lucky but a small sum of money when unlucky.

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External links

• Official Runescape Links
  • Official site (http://runescape.com)
  • Jagex Software (http://jagex.com)
• Runescape 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)