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RuneScape

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File:RSthumb.jpg
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 sixty thousand players online at once, spread across its 30 free members' and 15 paid members' worlds (servers are located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada). There are also a few servers running the "classic" version of the game (split between free servers and member servers). There is a wide range of players in the game from across the world and of various 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- orginal game, name now for the series. No longer running under this name.
      • Free and Members-only Versions Runescape version
    • Runescape Classic- the new name for orginal game when 2 was released
    • Free and Memebers-only version running as of 2004
  • 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 memebers-only mostly.
    • Runescape 2- the latest version
      • Free and members only versions still running as of 2004.


Overview

File:Runescape wilderness.jpg
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

File:Rscapethumb.jpg
Screenshot of RuneScape 2

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.

Places

There are many locations in the game including islands, cities, mines, dungeons, castles, etc. The Runescape Classic map land and territory is more limted as it was no longer updated after the release of Runescape 2. Also, many newer places are only available to members, the orginal areas and some even some new places are still for free however.

Skills

Skills are abilities that in both RS1 and 2 enable you do things in the game. Some skills are members-only and some skills are only in newer runescape versions. In alphabetical order (some skills may be missing):

Skills Overview

Fighting

Fighting is a particularly important skill in Runescape, as monsters abound in this world. Many people train their characters in dungeons, castles, and sewers. The monsters in between cities are generally unaggressive. But to find where powerful monsters with valuable treasures flourish in great amounts, to the wilderness you must go. But be careful in the Wilderness, some people are very strong and will kill you.

Mining

Mining is one of the widely used skills as many other skills run into it. Mining is used to get raw materials for making armour, nails, and crafting supplies. As a player's level in this skill increases, he will be able to mine more different types of "ore": including, but not limited to, clay, copper, tin, iron, silver, coal, gold, mithril, adamantite, and runite. Players need a pick in order to use this skill.

Smithing

Smithing is another of the widely used skills in runescape, it can also be the most profitable, by making armour and weapons your levels will increase. As a players level increases he is able to make bronze then iron followed by steel after many levels you can then smith mithril, this is when smithing comes to your advantage, as it starts to get quite profitable. Adamantite follows on from this, becoming increasing more difficult to gain levels and also giving players more of their money's worth, and finally runeite, this is the best free to play armour and weapons in the game, many people have 99 smithing, which gives you some respect amongst others. Here is an example of one of many materials that can be smithed and the result, one copper ore and one tin ore can be smelted into one bronze bar.

Game Economy

Runescape has a complex economy for a browser based game. The main purpose of the game is to accumulate expensive items and money. The supply of these expensive items is mostly dependent on a limited number of high level players, but as the number of players with sufficiently high level increase, so does the supply and amount of rare and expensive items. As a result, these rare and expensive items decrease in their value. To prevent saturation, a supply of new players is necessary.

The supply of money in runescape is not limited, which means there is a general inflationary trend. There is generally more money going into the game than out. Again, this is countered by the supply of new players.

Communities

File:Runescape222.jpg
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; meeting in bloody clashes often 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 another, 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 Lvl 30 wilderness 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 PKing. 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 member's 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 "KBD") the Second most powerful monster in RuneScape. 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 and very hard to train on if there are a lot of PKers.

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 anyway 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  : 5471 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

Developments

On February 27, 2002, Jagex launched a new optional 'members service'. This basically allows players to pay $5 USD a month to get 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 better, and they implemented many macro detection routines and protections to ensure that an actual human was playing.

On December 1, 2003, Jagex released a beta version of an improved version of the game, which had been rewitten from the 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 Q1 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

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:

  1. The main-view - Which now enables players to zoom up and down in order to see the world more clearly.
  2. 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)
  3. The minimap - Now permanently visible in its own area and has extra icons indicating the location of important locations, such as: shops, quest-points, ranges, furnaces, dungeon-entrances, etc..
  4. A dedicated chat / message area
  5. Lots more updates, often weekly

Graphics

Much improved graphics have been included, the new graphics are now competitive to other popular role playing games, such as Diablo. Shopkeepers and Bankers are no longer jammed when another player is dealing with them. Instead, players can now even trade with them straight away without any conversation at all. Navigation is improved, since clicking on a location now displays a tiny red flag on the minimap indicating the destination, until the player arrives or changes their mind. Magic, prayer and ranging now all include much improved animations alongside with different animations for each kind of action too. Weapon attacks now each have different styles, although these still correspond to the three familiar combat styles from before: Accurate (+Attack lvl), Aggressive (+Strength lvl) and Defensive (+Defense lvl).

Magic

Magic requires a certain amount of Runes (Air, Mind, Water, Fire, Earth, Body, Chaos, Cosmic, Nature, Death, Blood and Soul; or requires optional staffs such the three different staffs of the three Runescape Gods: Saradomin, Guthix and Zamorak, or "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 also still choose to buy their own runes from the witch Betty or from Aubury in Varrock, or, (the fastest way), to buy from another player who already has thousands of runes.

Equipment

For armour, the nine materials of weapons and armours are still kept (Leather, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamantite, Rune and Dragon), but the rare Black and Rune items are no longer as valuable as before, since new items were added - especially to the Dragon family. Available weapons include: daggers, short swords, scimitars, long swords, two-handed swords, hatchets, battle axes, maces, throwing knives, arrow-heads, halberd's etc. Available armour includes: chain-mail body, plate-mail body, skirt armours, medium-helmets, large helmets, etc. Most of these items are available in each kind of metal.

Combat Mechanics

Players in Runescape generally fall into three major classes: warrior, ranger, and mage. There is no actual definition of those classes; people generally level up their statistics in the statistics respective to these classes. 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.

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.

Warriors will usually wear armor such as platebodies or chainmail. Common warrior weapons include scimitars (which some players call "scimmys"), battleaxes, longswords, and the infamous 2h sword (2h is short for two-handed.) Also, leather gloves and boots are a must.

Wizards will wear wizard's robes, wizard's hats, and anything else that has the word "wizard" in it.Recently JaGeX released a new mage armour, this is obtained by completing one of the many quests throughout the game, which one, you'll have to find out. Also, some wear preist's or monk's robes, for the religous look. Staffs are a must-have, magical or not (but more likely magical.)

And last, but not least, rangers. Of course, they'll have a bow with them. Oak, willow, long, short, any kind. Leather, and dragonhide armour gives you ranging attack bonuses, so don't be surprised to see a ranger with a coif or cowl, gloves or vambraces. There are lots of types of dragonhide armour, including green dragonhide, red dragonhide and black dragonhide, only obtainable from the colour of the dragon.

Real world economics

Their are many players who will play mainly to train characters and then sell them on auction sites (ebay). Some high level accounts go for up to $300+ in U.S. currency. However, such transcations are prohibited by game rules, and both parties involved can be banned from the game.

Quests

These are some of the quest available in the Runescape 2, although many of these were orginally for and are still available in Runescape Classic

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 in the orginal Runescape starting with the guild for if you completed enough quests, the next was the mining guild. This feature was continued in Runescape 2 and now there are many guilds some which are not in runescape classic. Also, some guilds are memeber-only since not all skills are avaible to free/standard play.

Mini-Games

There are some some other task besides from quests and skill leveling, which are essentially a games within a game. These include:

Random Events

Random events can happen in the game, these are mostly bad things that happen randomly. While most people like the few postive random things, the unlucky one's are largely hated. They can have some benfit but can also do annoying things and harm the player (such as telporting across the map). Whether future versions will continue to have the annoying negative random events is a matter of debate, given the amount of hate that exists for having unlucky things happen.

Game Credits

And abridged list of some of higher ranked development and managment team of RuneScape. The Jagex Team:

Development Team

Publishing Team

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