RuneScape

RuneScape
File:Rslogo.gif
Developer(s)	Jagex
Publisher(s)	Jagex
Designer(s)	Jagex
Engine	Java
Platform(s)	OS Independent (Web Based Java Applet)
Release	RuneScape 1 (Classic) - January 4th, 2001 RuneScape 2 (Modern) - March 29, 2004
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

RuneScape is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) implemented in Java, with over two million active players. RuneScape was launched by Jagex Ltd. on January 4, 2001 and offers both pay to play ("P2P") and free to play ("F2P") membership options to players. Being implemented in Java, RuneScape requires no installation and can easily be accessed from the official site.

Overview

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A screenshot of the RuneScape Login Screen

RuneScape is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), similar to Guild Wars and Everquest. The object of the game is to operate in a three-dimensional online "world" by taking the persona of a character, represented visually by an customisable avatar, and develop in abilities. Players may do a variety of quests, "level up" by developing skills, make new friends, interact with them via chat, trading, mutual missions or quests, etc. The max level in a skill is 99, which takes a considerable amount of time to reach. The higher the level number, the better the player's character is in that particular skill. Available skills range from combat to fishing, woodcutting, mining, smithing, etc, which can allow the production of items which can in turn be sold for gold pieces (GP) and used to buy a variety of items, such as better equipment to further the players' skills. The maximum combat level achievable is 126.

During peak hours, it is common to see around 197,000 players online across the 125 international servers located in six different countries, with a peak in excess of 197,000 simultaneous logged-in players reached in March 2006. Up to 2,000 players may be on one server at once, allowing a maximum of 240,000 online players at any one time. These servers are called "worlds" in RuneScape. Servers are located in the United States (79), the United Kingdom (18), Canada (6), the Netherlands (6), Australia (6) and Sweden (5)), making it the most popular online Java based game in the world. RuneScape is usually updated once a week, with the addition of new skills, quests, or items, as well as many other types of updates. In RuneScape Classic there are now only 2 worlds because RuneScape 2 has become so popular.

History and development

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A screenshot of DeviousMUD. The first version of the game, not released to the public.

Version 1: The first version started out as a one man project. The developer (Andrew Gower), started working on the original game in 1998. This version was very different to the RuneScape of today. It had isometric graphics, and was originally titled 'DeviousMUD'. This version was never released to the public, and only a few people ever saw it.

Version 2: The developer scrapped version 1, and started work on a complete rewrite in 1999. Despite being a complete rewrite, this version was very similar to version 1, with the same graphics and name. This version was released as a public beta for about 1 week, and then withdrawn.

Version 3: The developer started yet again with a 3rd attempt in October 1999. This time, Andrew had some help from his brothers Paul and Ian. The isometric view was replaced in favour of 3D graphics and 2D sprites. The game was renamed RuneScape and released to the public on January 4, 2001. This version is still online today but only for limited RuneScape Members. It is currently called RuneScape Classic. On January 12, 2006, 5,000 RuneScape Classic accounts were banned. Additionally, play was restricted to members who had logged in at least once since August 5, 2005. No more accounts for this version can ever be created.

Jagex Ltd formed: In December of 2001 Jagex Limited was founded as a commercial operation to take over the running of RuneScape. Jagex acquired RuneScape and all related technologies, and continued to develop the game further. Andrew Gower joined Jagex as its lead developer.

Members launch: On February 27, 2002, Jagex launched a new optional "members service", allowing players to pay $5 USD a month to obtain access to constant updates on a mostly weekly basis. Paying members had a far greater choice of things to do, but it was still possible to play the game for free, and the amount of free content was also increased. While not a new version as such (the game still ran on the same version 3D engine), this update did significantly change the focus of the game.

Version 4: Jagex went for yet another complete rewrite. Version 4 changed the graphics to full 3D and made many other significant improvements. While in development, this version was called RuneScape 2, but when launched was just called RuneScape (version 3 would later be renamed RuneScape Classic). An incomplete beta of this version was available to members on December 1, 2003. The finished version was launched on March 29, 2004. This is the current version of the game being promoted by Jagex, and is the version most people think of when one says RuneScape.

Combat

Main article: RuneScape combat

Combat is an important aspect of the game, as killing monsters is one of most direct ways of gaining wealth in terms of both cash and items. Combat is also needed to complete many of the quests in RuneScape, and can be used to fight other players.

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A player fighting a Black Knight with one of various methods of combat.

Combat levels are calculated using seven skills: attack, strength, defence, hitpoints, magic, prayer and ranged. The maximum combat level in RuneScape Classic is 123, and the maximum in RuneScape is 126. Other skills, while beneficial, will not increase one's combat level (though it will increase one's total level, or all of one's levels combined).

Combat is subdivided into three primary categories:

• Melee (fighting with swords, scimitars, maces, etc.)
• Magic (fighting with all kinds of spells)
• Ranged (fighting with bows, throwing knives, etc.)

Player vs player combat

Players cannot normally fight with each other in most areas of the map. There are, however, 4 different areas where player vs player combat is allowed in RuneScape - each with different rules and properties. Here, more than anywhere else, the RuneScape combat triangle becomes an important factor in determining who emerges the victor:

• Warriors are strong against Rangers, but weak against Mages
• Mages are strong against Warriors, but weak against Rangers
• Rangers are strong against Mages, but weak against Warriors

Although it is important to know that in F2P (also known as 'free to play') playerkilling, the combat triangle is not always accurate. Usually rangers against mages and warriors against rangers hold true to the combat triangle but mages against warriors usually ends in an even match due to the amount of damage the mage will receive unless he has a high defence level and the amount of damage the mage inflicts on the warrior. But a lot of the combat triangle has a lot to do with the level in that skill. For example a mage with 80 magic and a ranger with 40 range will most likely result in the mage winning. In member's combat, the triangle is tipped a bit more in the mage's favour if they have finished the 'Desert Treasure' quest, enabling them to use Ancient Magicks. These spells are both expensive to cast, and devastating to their targets.

Skills

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A player using the mining skill

Main article: RuneScape skills

Skills are abilities that enable players to perform activities in the game. Some skills are available only to members, such as fletching, and some can only be utilised by completing a specific quest. Many of the high-level abilities in most skills are reserved for members only. Players gain experience in a skill when they perform activities that utilise that skill, for instance mining a rock would raise the mining skill. New skills are added to the game by Jagex periodically, the most recent of which was farming.

As in a number of games, some players choose to focus on improving a small number of skills. These players are called "pures" (eg: a player specialised in mining is called a mining pure).

In RuneScape there is no general level for player as such. Player must train each skill individually. In RuneScape, there are 21 Skills including:

• Primary/extraction (such as mining and woodcutting)
• Secondary/processing skills (such as smithing and cooking)
• Combat skills (such as strength and range)
• Tertiary skills (such as agility and thieving)

The total level of a player partly symbolises the player's status in the game, the maximum total level being 2079.

Quests

Main article: RuneScape quests

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A cut-scene from the quest "Recipe for Disaster."

Quests in RuneScape are one-time adventures which serve a variety of purposes. The novice quests act as tutorials to acquaint new users with the various skills and abilities. All quests include some kind of reward such as money, rare/valuable items, or an increase in skill experience. Some quests are part of an overlapping storyline, the most famous of which is the Plague City story line, which has been in RuneScape for approximately 2 to 3 years. This story line investigates the misfortune of the citizens of West Ardougne, who live in less than favourable conditions. Presently, this storyline contains 7 quests.

Each quest also awards a certain number of "quest points". Thirty-two quest points will grant access to the Champions' Guild. The members-only Hero's (55 quest points required to start) and Legend's (107 quest points required) quests grant access to their respective guilds upon completion, although both the Hero's and Legend's guilds require the player to complete their own quests, appropriately called the Hero's Quest and Legend's Quest, before entrance is allowed.

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 such as Morytania.

On March 15, 2006, Jagex made their hundredth quest, a Recipe for Disaster, which requires a number of skills and membership, but can be done in eight miniquests. This quest is a celebration of all the quests on RuneScape. You must have completed over 15 quests and be able to fight several tough enemies.

Mini-games

Main article: RuneScape mini-games

RuneScape has a number of mini-games. Mini-games are fun activities, which are somewhat like quests which may be done as many times as you wish. Located within the overall game of RuneScape, they take place in a certain area, and normally involve a certain skill, such as fishing, agility or combat.

Currently, the most popular mini-game is Castle Wars which is mentioned above. Another very popular minigame is the Barrows, added on May 9, 2005, in which players must kill the ghosts of six legendary brothers in order to receive their extremely effective armour.

In terms of popularity, The Barrows is closely followed by Castle Wars. This is a PvP minigame located north of the Ogre Enclave or south of Ardougne.

The Mage Training Arena was released in January 2006. It challenges players to complete tasks such as turning bones into bananas, enchanting, alchemy and telekinetic grabbing to solve puzzles. The reward for these activities is Pizzaz points. Players must have a certain number of Pizzaz points to get the reward items including the much cherished infinite robes and master wand.

Community

Players of RuneScape represent a wide range of nationalities, and ages. However, the user base is predominantly English speaking, because the game itself is currently only available in English. However, there are also many servers which are mainly Spanish speaking, so people who prefer to speak Spanish can interact with other Spanish speaking players on those servers. Recently there was an increase of Dutch speaking players which in some servers, seem to overwhelm the amount of English speaking players (this mostly happens on Dutch servers).

Language filter

A word filter is used both in the RuneScape game and in the RuneScape forums. The filter is used to block out words and phrases defined by Jagex as "offensive language". Over the history of this word filter, more and more combinations of letters are being censored ("starred out"). This constant evolving can cause many normal phrases to be censored, words and phrases that contain no abusive language are often censored out. For example, Players cannot say the internet slang word pwn, as the "pw" in the word is a common abbreviation for password. Since advertising websites is in violation of RuneScape rules, all URLs are automatically censored as well. Many words in Russian or German are also censored as the game does not allow most symbols or foreign characters. The filter instantly capitalises the first word of a sentence and transforms anything after that into lower-case. Players started resorting to a method of speech they refer to as leetspeak to bypass the filters, and purposeful misspellings; this is actually against Jagex's code of conduct, and can result in a ban if the offense is repeated. However, the filters are updated periodically to include player euphemisms, so this technique is constantly evolving.

Permitted characters: Lower case alphabet, though players are able to take advantage of the sentence start rule by adding a full stop before the letter they want to be capitalised (though long chains of these are often filtered). Backslash, dash, exclamation mark, question mark, at sign, colon, semi colon, comma, apostrophe, quotation marks, addition sign, equals sign, percentage sign, dollar sign, parenthesis, numbers and the full stop.

Characters filtered: The pound sign, Caret (^), Underscore( _ ), { and }, w or v more than once (so players can not advertise websites), tilde(~), ¬, >, /, and <.

In-game slang and terminology

Main article: RuneScape language

RuneScape players have their own "language" which can be incomprehensible to outsiders and difficult for newcomers to learn. This consists mostly of the proliferation of in-game terminology and the abbreviation of commonly used words. Players will also frequently use common Internet slang when allowed by the language filter. The use of slang and abbreviations allows for easier communication between established players despite the small space available in the in-game messaging system.

Fashion

Rare items, such as Santa hats, Halloween masks, various coloured party hats, and other past holiday drops are fashionable because they are somewhat unique and because their scarcity has made them extremely expensive. Their price has also made these a symbol of wealth and status in RuneScape.

Most armour in RuneScape requires that a player meet minimum levels before they can be worn. As players achieve these required levels, the best armour available to them becomes desirable both for combat and to communicate their level. The best armour, only available to members, has the additional appeal of communicating membership when using free servers, even though the combat bonuses they provide only work on member servers. Wearing these also attracts both wanted attention and unwanted attention, i.e., beggars.

Some special ornamental armours combine the rare and good appeals. Although not nearly as rare as some holiday drops, these armours are commonly indicated by a (t) for trimmed and a (g) for gold trimmed "gilded" and (h) for heraldic trimmed, especially when players are trading in marketplaces. Trimmed and gold trimmed items can only be obtained by members by doing treasure trails, but can be worn by non-members as well. The trimming of armour bears no combat effect on the armour, as only the appearance of the armour is modified. Trimmed armour is also worth the same as regular armour if alchemy is cast upon it. There are only 3 kinds of armour that can be obtained in trimmed variations: Black, Adamant, and Rune. Rune armour also comes styled to the 3 RuneScape gods, Zamorak, Guthix, and Saradomin. One can also obtain trimmed and gold trimmed ranging armour, as well as trimmed and gold trimmed mage armour. Trimmed armour is also a part of a huge scam problem in RuneScape in which deceitful players will trick gullible players into giving them their armour with promises that they will trim them.

See also: RuneScape armour.

Graphics

RuneScape currently has fully 3D graphics.

Character appearance

A lot of emphasis has been placed on allowing players to customise their character. Players are given a wide choice in creating character models, from hairstyle to facial features and gender. Appearance can be further optimised by wearing or wielding different items, with each different weapon having a unique image.
In addition to these small equipment changes, players may also change their appearance radically with special equipment, or during certain events. All morphs are temporary, and players may not attack while morphed. Some major morphs include:

• Free World morphs
  • Mushroom - Malignius Mortifer may turn you into a mushroom if you follow a specific chat path.
  • Frog - If you do not talk to the frog prince/princess, you will be teleported to the frog homeland, and turned into a frog.
• Members only morphs
  • Stone - Wear a ring of stone. This makes the player immune to any non-combat form of damage. This includes poison, and most hazards. The effect ends if you are in combat, try to move, or remove the ring.
  • Imp, Sheep, or Rabbit - if you enter a castle wars portal wearing certain God items that contradict the God of the team you are on, such as capes, amulets, god trimmed armour, and mage arena god staffs you may be morphed into one of these.
  • Various - Players visiting Zanaris (Lost City) may be temporarily morphed into various creatures like pigs and chickens.
  • Various Primates - During or following the Monkey Madness quest, players may morph into various primates on ape atoll and Ardougne zoo by wielding special greegrees. This also conveys the benefit that no NPCs on Ape Atoll will attack the player.

Character animations

There are many different animations in the game for the variety of things players can do, from combat to the numerous quests. There are also "emotes", which are animations that allow your character express an emotion whenever you choose. A player will start with most of the emotes, but 7 emotes must be earned. The Goblin emotes require completion of the Lost Tribe members quest; the other 6 are from random events that can happen to both free players and members. There is one exeption, however: the 'Scared' emote was from a holiday event (last Halloween), and if a player was unable to aquire that particular emote, they will never be able to get it. RuneScape can be run on high or low detail level. High detail gives different things more texture or design (and has sound); low detail gives everything a cleaner cut look (without sound), and reduces in-game latency. Some monsters will appear less detailed than others in the low detail version of the game.

Area appearance

Since February 2005, Jagex has put a massive effort forward to update the RuneScape free world cities, beginning with Lumbridge and Draynor Village. In September 2005 they announced that Thurgo's Peninsula (Port Sarim and Rimmington areas) had been graphically updated. On the 20th of February, 2006, Falador and the Barbarian Village were graphically updated. The Lost City of Zanaris was updated as well. Jagex plans to ultimately improve the graphics of the whole free world without causing more lag for people using dial-up internet connections. However, as RuneScape is Java-based, its graphics engine will always be limited in capability compared to a lot of modern games.

Random events

Main article: RuneScape random events

A variety of both positive and negative random events can take place in RuneScape. Random events are used to prevent the use of "macros" (automated scripts which play RuneScape with little or no human interaction). Random events 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 they will receive a negative effect such as being teleported across the map, having their inventory emptied onto the ground, or even death. For example, if a random event requires a player to talk to the Mysterious Old Man, that player should respond, or they may receive a negative effect. Another example of a random event is a mime, where a player is teleported to a stage and must mimic the actions of a non-playable character. After completing the challenge the player then receives a reward which can vary from clothing resembling that of a mime, to emotes that resemble mime movements.

Weapons

Main article: RuneScape weaponry

Weapon types

• Melee-related weaponry
  
• Ranger-related weaponry
  
• Magic-Related Weapons
  

Materials

The following materials are commonly used to make weapons and armour, although some cannot be used by players to make weapons and armour. Listed from weakest to strongest:

• Bronze (Armour all new players are able to wield)
• Iron (Also wieldable by new players, but must be purchased from others)
• Steel (need Defence of 5 to use)
• Black (Unsmithable – must be bought or can be received as drop from a slain monster, need Defence of 10 to use)
• Initiate (Members only, reward from recruitment drive quest)
• White (Members only, achieved by gaining ranks in the white knight ranks after doing "Wanted!")
• Mithril (need Defence of 20 to use)
• Adamantite (need Defence of 30 to use)
• Runite (Best free world armour, need Defence of 40 to use the armour types, runite plate body able to be wielded after completion of dragon slayer quest, need level 40 Attack to use the weapons)
• Dragon (Members only – armour can only be obtained from drops, but most weapons can be purchased. Dragon is the best regular weapon type available, need Attack of 60 to use)

Special materials

Examples of unique or rarer materials include:

• Wood (Comes in a shield for new players in Tutorial Island or can be bought in the shield shop in Falador, also can be found as a re-spawning drop near the Varrock entrance to the Wilderness)
• Anti-Dragon (Only available in form of a shield; obtainable after starting the "Dragon Slayer" quest or from a player who is willing to sell you one)
• Barrows (Members only, Ancient armour and weaponry found in the tombs of long-dead heroes. Can be obtained by playing the Barrows Mini-game. Needs level 70 Attack to use the weapons and 70 Defence to use the armour, decays after 15 hours of solid combat, is repairable by certain NPC's for money)
• Crystal (Members only, decays after 2500 shots/hits, is repairable for a large fee. This fee deminishes after a few recharges.)
• Elemental (Members only, only available in form of a Shield; obtainable after completing the "Elemental workshop quest")
• Granite (Members only, available as a shield, legs, and maul)
• Obsidian (Members only, only obtainable in Tzhaar, available as multiple weapons, a shield, a sword, a maul, and a cape)

Weapon specials

Many weapons in RuneScape have bonus special attacks which are known as "specials". Originally only Dragon weapons, Magic bows, and Rune throwing axes offered a special attack. But more and more weapons gained special attacks as time went on. An example of this is Rune Claws. Weapons that have special attacks are:

• Dragon weapons
  • Battle axes (20% more Strength to wielder, but Attack, Defence, Magic, and Range are all lowered by around 10-12%)
  • Daggers (poisoned, extra-strongly poisoned and super poisoned, 2 attacks per special)
  • Halberds (2 attacks on monsters larger than a single square, strengthened attack on single square monsters and other players)
  • Hatchets (lowers enemy's Defence and Magic by 5%)
  • LongSwords (55% more damage to enemy)
  • Maces (100% more damage to enemy, but lower accuracy)
  • Scimitars (prevents enemy from using Protection Prayers for 5 seconds)
  • Spears (poisoned, extra-strongly poisoned, super poisoned and Karambwan poisoned, stuns enemy while knocking them back one square)
  • Two handed Swords (produces an area attack, dealing damage to nearby enemies)
• Barrow Set Effects
  • Dharok: Wretched Strength (As your hitpoints decrease, your strength greatly increases.)
  • Verac: Defiler (Attacks may hit through armour; greatly increased accuracy)
  • Guthan: Infestation (Attacks may restore health equal to the damage dealt)
  • Torag: Corruption (Attacks may drain the enemy's energy by 20% of maximum)
  • Ahrim: Blighted Aura (Damaging spells may reduce the enemy's strength)
  • Karil: Tainted Shot (Attacks may reduce agility)
• Abyssal Whip (Transfer 10% of opponent's energy to wielder)
• Darklight (reduces opponents Attack, Strength and Defence by 5-10% and increases damage to Demons)
• Excalibur (adds 11.8% to Defence)
• Granite Maul (instant attack in a form of a single hit; there was at one point a glitch that made this a triple hit, low accuracy)
• Magic Shortbow (two powerful shots that are less accurate)
• Magic Longbow – (highly accurate shot)
• Rune Throwing Axes (in a multiway combat area this attack bounces the projectile between several targets, dealing damage to each of them)
• Seercull (reduces opponent's Magic level by the amount of damage inflicted)
• Rod of Ivandis, once a vampyre is at 50% HP the special can be used which stuns the Vampyre, a potion named Balance of Guthix can then be used on the Vampyre to; cure it, kill it or anger it.

Poison

Weapon poison can also be applied to certain weapons, like daggers, spears and arrows. Weapon poison is only available to paying members. There is a normal poison (p), extra strong poison (+), a super strong poison (s) and karambwan paste (kp). These different types are suffixed onto the weapon name as single letters, for example: Dragon spear (p), Dragon spear (+), Dragon spear (s) and dragon spear (kp).

When a player or monster is hit with a poisoned weapon, there is a chance they will become poisoned, meaning they will lose additional health to the basic hits (indicated by a green splash number on the character). The poison effect can be cured with antipoison or super-antipoison. Regular poison does 4 damage every few seconds, extra strong poison does 6, karambwan poison does 10 damage and super strong poison does 6 damage at a faster rate. (These numbers can vary slightly depending on what item the poison is on.)

Monsters

Main article: RuneScape monsters

File:Tztokjad.jpg

The highest level monster in game, the TzTok-Jad. Level 702.

Monsters in RuneScape are Non-playable characters (NPCs) that can be attacked. Typically, they can be attacked and will attack players less than twice their level. Thus, monster level (n), 2n+1 and you won't be attacked by the monster. The few exceptions to this rule are random event monsters (which will attack the player that triggered them and cannot be attacked by anyone else), civil monsters (like town guards, who will not attack unless provoked), and the wilderness (where all monsters will attack, regardless of the player's level).

Most monsters have a set area in which they roam around, and in which they will re-spawn shortly after being killed. Sometimes, their territory is strategic, encouraging players to work on their combat levels, such as the giant scorpions that roam some mining areas. More commonly, however, the monsters merely add character to the region.

There are many monsters throughout RuneScape, with major groups including human, goblin, elemental, gnome, elf, dwarf, giant, troll, ogre, undead, dragon, mammal, arachnid, beetle, and demon. Not all NPCs are monsters, though, as many are special characters that cannot be attacked, especially among the humanoid NPCs.

As Non-playable characters, monsters have a set of items that might appear when they are killed. These items vary by type and level, more valuable items tending to be obtained from higher level monsters. Most have certain items that will always appear, such as bones from vertebrates and ash from demons.

The highest level monster is the TzTok-Jad, a level 702 who is the final boss of the mini-game "Tzhaar Fight Cave". This monster can kill everyone who hasn't got above level 90 hitpoints with one attack. Other exceptionally tough monsters are the King Black Dragon, Kalphite Queen, the three Daggannoth Kings and the relatively new Chaos Elemental.

Moderators

There are three types of moderators in RuneScape, each given different abilities.

Jagex Moderator (J-Mod, JM)

File:Mod Spax.jpg

A player talking to a J-Mod.

Jagex Moderators are employees of Jagex. There's one for every staff member, which consist of coders, script writers, graphic designers, and customer service members. In RuneScape, they are identified by a gold crown beside their name, visible during public chat (J-mods lack a friends list, and ultimately, a private chat). On RuneScape's official forums, their posts appear highlighted green (as with Forum Moderators) with the addition of the words "Jagex Mod" beneath their name. This applies to all staff members with the exceptions of the founders, Andrew, Paul, and Ian Gower. Jagex Moderators also have a number of additional abilities for playtesting purposes. It is confirmed that J-mods may change their stats as they like and generate items within their inventory. They are also known to possess a special "J-mod teleportation ability" which enables them to appear anywhere on RuneScape. They may not engage in combat nor trade, however, and their accounts do not appear in the high score tables.

Player Moderator (P-Mod, PM)

File:Db165.jpg

A player talking to a P-Mod on private-chat.

Player Moderators are a team consisting of regular players who are handpicked by Jagex. They are run by a different department than the J-mods and serve to help maintain RuneScape, keeping it safe and free from rule-breaking. They are given the ability to mute players for a short amount of time, and to send priority abuse reports. P-Mods are not employees of Jagex and they receive no tangible benefits and are not expected to spend anymore time playing RuneScape than a normal player would nor even expected to make use of their special abilities. P-Mods are identified by a silver crown beside their name in both public and private in-game chat systems, but are not identified on RuneScape's official forums. The silver crown of a Player Moderator cannot be removed for as long as the player is still entitled to moderator abilities.

Forum Moderator (F-Mod)

Forum Moderators are also a volunteer team consisting of regular players that work to carry out the tasks of managing RuneScape's official forums. Like Player Moderators, Forum Moderators are handpicked by Jagex staff, and are not employees of Jagex, so they receive no tangible benefits. Forum moderators are given the ability to move and lock threads, hide posts or entire threads, edit titles, and temporarily ban players from posting. Their posts appear in green with the addition of the words "Forum Mod" beneath their name. Forum moderators are not identified by a crown beside their name in RuneScape, however, their names are searchable on a public list on the official forums. This can be found under the link: "Forum Moderators" on the Official RuneScape Forums.

Economy and money

Main article: RuneScape economy

The RuneScape economy is similar in many ways to real-world economies, as supply and demand play an important role in determining the price of items. The currency used in RuneScape is Gold Pieces, mostly referred to as "GP" or "Coins". Unfortunately, the RuneScape economy is plagued by inflation, as the number of Gold Pieces in circulation is unlimited, and ever-increasing due to NPC drops. Conversely, many rare and valuable items continue to drop in price as more of them appear from NPC drops. Other in-game currencies include: Trading sticks, Tokkul, Pizazz points and various types of tickets, obtained through a number of mini-games and activities such as Castle Wars and the Agility Arena in Brimhaven.

The Smithing skill in RuneScape has played a pivotal role in RuneScape economic history. Within the first year of RuneScape's launch, players had not yet reached high levels in Smithing. Therefore, when players first reached high levels in Smithing, a cartel consisting of all players who had reached those levels set up a monopoly. They sustained high prices by keeping a large proportion of the total supply of weapons and armour in the game, allowing them to determine prices. The smithing monopoly was broken once more players began flooding the RuneScape market with armour and weapons only smithable by players with high Smithing. Cartels for other rare and expensive items often form, although they do not hold the same weight as original cartels did because of the increased number of active players.

Criticism

RuneScape is criticised for a number of reasons:

• The game's graphics are limited by the fact that RuneScape is designed to be downloaded quickly and run in a web browser.
• RuneScape has a mandatory chat filter, which often blocks things with no relevancy to swearing or bad language. In addition, it is easy to use misspellings of swear words to get around the filter, so swear words like "fauck" and "gai" are still commonly used in RuneScape . Higher-level players calling lower-level players "n00bs" is also common, even if the difference in levels is relatively small.
• Like many other MMORPGs, some players of RuneScape attempt to cheat using automated scripts or bots to perform actions such as mining, without human interaction. Despite Jagex banning tens of thousands of accounts, and a very advanced Macro Detection system, a few players still find ways to cheat.
• Some players are also dissatisfied with Jagex's Customer Support. Jagex claims to be making efforts to increase the size of their Customer Support team and the effect of these efforts is beginning to be seen. The new Knowledge Base is already taking some stress off the Customer Support team.
• Some tasks in RuneScape are very repetitive. Certain skills can be leveled by repeatedly clicking in the same pattern. Jagex has responded by designing recent skills such as farming with this criticism in mind.
• Efforts to make skills less repetitive have been criticised for making the process of leveling, especially in the farming skill, too complicated.
• Announcing trade in-game between players is usually done by going to a major city in the game and repeating offers to buy or sell in the chat window. The number of people choosing this method of trade leads to highly congested chat channels and difficulty selecting trade offers. A marketplace forum is available to members in the RuneScape forums.
• Some players criticise the game for not having enough free content. Although RuneScape offers a lot of free content, there are rarely any free updates, and few features for high-level free players. Some players have thus resorted to creating, training and selling high-level free accounts, which is against RuneScape rules. However, this can be understood as Jagex's ultimate goal is to make a profit - this is harder to achieve in the free game due to the relatively small revenue brought in by the advertisements.
• Many players criticise RuneScape for stopping the rare item holiday drops from being tradeable .
• Item scamming is common among players. For example, in the middle of a trade, scammers can remove or replace items they are trading, hoping that the victim will click Accept without noticing the change. Another common scam is offering to trim armour for free (armour cannot be trimmed and trimmed armour can only be obtained from members-only treasure trails) or to cut gems, smith bars, cook food, etc. for free (while it is possible for well-meaning players to do so, scammers will usually run away with the items). Other scams include trust scams (the scammer requests that the victim join the scammer's clan but first asks for an item as a display of trust) and the ALT+F4 scam (the scammer asks the victim to go to a desolate place, drop all items and press ALT+F4, which closes the window).
• The speed of RuneScape depends on the user's internet connection which can cause it to lag for people with slow connections or older computers.
• The so-called "PK triangle" is always unbalanced, in a sense, as players can have all three classes highly developed within in one character.
• Quests require certain levels in skills to complete, which some people do not have. (Jagex responded to this with the quote "If you don't have the patience of training your character to a high enough level to get rewards from quests, you're probably too impatient to see why it has to be like this.")
• The maximum combat level achievable in RuneScape is 126, and users cannot get this high by being 'pure' (no ranged or magic skill as a warrior, etc) so they must be a hybrid class (train in all three types of combat), which is another issue altogether.
• The prayer system is somewhat unruly as it rewards players with abilities such as protect from magic, ranged, and melee, which makes players invulnerable to those attack types for a period of time against NPCs; however, against other players the prayer system only protects from half the damage.

Pricing information

RuneScape is a Java browser-based game, so no software purchase is required and gameplay is free (excluding any fees incurred by an Internet Service Provider to access the internet).

Additional game content can be unlocked by upgrading to a members account. The subscription base price is currently:

• GBP£3.20 a month in the UK
• USD$5 a month in the US
• CAD$7.30 a month in Canada
• EUR€4.60 a month in Euros

If not paying by credit/debit card an additional 'convenience fee' is also charged to cover the extra cost of processing the payment. Paying by credit card works out as the cheapest method, whereas paying by phone/sms works out the most expensive. Other currencies and more detailed information can be found on RuneScape's website .

Member benefits

Players who pay to play RuneScape are given special status on their account. This "member's status" gains them many advantages both in and out of the game, such as:

• Over three times as much of the map to explore
• Over four times as many quests
• Exclusive worlds
• Transportation advantages, i.e., may take short cuts when traveling and canoe down rivers
• Hundreds of additional items, such as the Dragon and Barrows weapons and armour
• 200 bankspaces (More than double the bankspace allowed to free players)
• 200 spaces on friend's list (More than double the space allowed to free players)
• Six new skills (herblore, fletching, thieving, agility, slayer, farming)
• Huge amounts of additions to the original skills (e.g.: Dragonhide in crafting, Baked Potatoes in cooking, Sharks in fishing)
• Mostly weekly updates
• Access to posting on the official forums
• Better customer support
• Access to voting in polls
• More in-game music (high-detail only)
• Several mini-games, such as Castle Wars and Barrows.
• More Random Events
• More player vs. player features (e.g. Duel Arena, Games Room, Castle Wars)
• More team-based interactions (e.g. Dagannoth Kings, Kalphite Queen, Blast Furnace)

External links

• Jagex site – The official Jagex site.
• RuneScape – The official RuneScape website.

Official affiliates

• Miniclip(runescape.com)
• Mofunzone(runescape.com)

Selected fansites

• Rune HQ
• Sal's Realm of RuneScape
• RuneVillage
• Rune Tips
• Zybez