RuneScape

RuneScape
RuneScape logo
Developer(s)	Jagex Ltd.
Publisher(s)	Jagex Ltd.
Engine	Proprietary engine
Platform(s)	Java Platform: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris
Release	RuneScape Classic: 4 January 2001 RuneScape 2: 29 March 2004
Genre(s)	Fantasy MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

RuneScape is a Java-based MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) operated by Jagex Ltd. It has approximately nine million active free accounts and more than one million paid member accounts.

RuneScape was created by Andrew Gower, the creator of DeviousMUD, the forerunner to RuneScape, in 1998. Rewritten and renamed, the first version of RuneScape was released to the public on 4 January 2001. Since its release, the game has been noted for its free-playing abilities, its simple interface, and its accessibility on most web browsers. RuneScape takes place in the fantasy-themed realm of Gielinor, which is divided into several different kingdoms, regions, and areas. Players can travel throughout Gielinor on foot, by using magical teleportation spells and devices, or mechanical means of transportation. Each region offers different types of monsters, materials, and quests to challenge players.

Like many other MMORPGs, there is no linear path that must be followed. Players are shown on the screen as customizable avatars, setting their own goals and objectives. Players can engage in combat with other players or monsters, complete quests, or increase their experience in any of the available skills. Players interact with each other through trading, chatting, or playing combative or cooperative mini-games. RuneScape has two quality settings, "Low Detail" and "High Detail", which the player chooses between based on the performance of their computer.

History and development

Runescape is a pointless game that takes over children's lives.

File:Devious2.png

A screenshot showing DeviousMUD, the forerunner to RuneScape, which was never released to the public.

DeviousMUD, the forerunner to RuneScape, was created in 1998 by Andrew Gower. The game, which was never publicly released, used isometric graphics. In 1999, Gower completely rewrote the game, albeit with no improvements to the graphics or several other aspects of the game. This version was released as a public beta version for approximately one week before it was withdrawn.

As a Cambridge University undergraduate, Gower worked on a complete rewrite of the game with the assistance of his brother, Paul Gower. The isometric view was replaced by a mixture of both three-dimensional and two-dimensional sprites. The game, renamed RuneScape, was released to the public as a beta version on 4 January 2001 and was originally operated from their parents' house in Nottingham. In December 2001, the Gower brothers and Constant Tedder formed Jagex to take over the business aspects of running RuneScape. Jagex developed a programming language called RuneScript which is used to code the game.

On 27 February 2002, a monthly membership service was made available, allowing access to additional features including new areas, quests, and items.

File:RSClassic.png

A screenshot shows RuneScape Classic.

RuneScape's popularity is partially attributable to being accessible from most web browsers allowing players to play the game in many locations.

As RuneScape gained more users, Jagex began planning major changes. The developers completely rewrote the game engine so that the graphics were entirely three-dimensional producing a version called RuneScape 2. A beta version was made available to paying members on 1 December 2003, and the finished version was launched on 29 March 2004. Upon release, RuneScape 2 was renamed RuneScape, and the older version of the game was kept online as RuneScape Classic. On 12 January 2006, Jagex banned more than 5000 Classic accounts due to cheating and RuneScape Classic was closed to new accounts and restricted to paying members who had played Classic at least once since 3 August 2005, and once every six months after that.

On 16 May 2006, Jagex upgraded RuneScape's game engine, primarily as a back-end upgrade rather than a visible graphical boost. RuneScape's memory requirements were significantly reduced, allowing the game to be expanded and improved without increasing the loading time for most players. The engine was upgraded once again on 26 June 2007 to allow the addition of future complex content.

Servers

RuneScape servers are located in seven countries; USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Finland, and Sweden.

There are more than 150 RuneScape servers located throughout the world, which are numbered and referred to as worlds by players and by Jagex. They are located in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, and Finland. Servers are located in areas where they will, at the given time, provide the best connection for players in the most cost-effective manner. Servers are moved or added as the need arises.

Each of the RuneScape servers allows 2,000 players to connect simultaneously, allowing a maximum capacity of more than 300,000 players. The servers are divided into free servers for all players and member's servers. Players can play on any eligible server. Some servers are given activity labels, allowing players performing tasks that require or desire group participation, such as mini-games, to group together.

In addition to the RuneScape servers, there are two members-only servers for RuneScape Classic, both located in the United Kingdom. Each of these is limited to 1,250 players, allowing a total number of 2,500 simultaneous RuneScape Classic players.

Advertising

To support RuneScape's free content, advertisements are displayed through an advertisement banner which is placed above the playing screen on the free-player servers. On 13 July 2006, Jagex signed an exclusive marketing and distribution contract with WildTangent Games, which granted WildTangent the right to handle advertising in and around RuneScape in the United States. The deal also allowed WildTangent to distribute RuneScape through the WildTangent Games Network, a distribution channel, reaching over 20 million consumer PCs. Jagex moderators have stated that there will be no in-game advertisements. Since computer users may use advertisement blockers which may discourage advertisers, Jagex introduced a rule that prohibits players from blocking the advertisements in the free game.

Other languages

On 14 February 2007, Jagex released a German open beta translation of RuneScape. Currently, there are four German language servers online: three of them are free, and one is members only. These servers are presently located within Sweden and Finland. A French version of the game is in the piepline also.

Gameplay

New players begin in a secluded area populated only by other beginners, Tutorial Island. They are led on a set path where they learn most of the non-member skills needed to succeed in RuneScape. After the tutorial, players have access to tutors located in the towns they explore. These non-player characters, or NPCs, can replace some basic equipment items if necessary and can give players appropriate information about their respective skills.

Sound

RuneScape has music, sound effects, and ambient noises throughout Gielinor. The music is designed to define the underlying cultures of the various locations around Gielinor. Sound effects, such as the "sploosh" heard when a lobster trap is submerged in water, are heard as players train their skills. Ambient noises, such as the cry of seagulls flying over the ocean, occur in logical places. As different locations are visited by the player, new music for that area is unlocked and can be played back later. Players can adjust the volumes of the music, sound effects, and ambient noises independently of each other.

Graphics

File:Runescape equipment-equip.gif

A player interchanging some of the equipment available in RuneScape.

RuneScape can be run with high or low-detail graphics; high-detail mode enhances texture and design, whereas low-detail provides a cleaner look and can reduce lag on older or less powerful computers. RuneScape's graphics have gone through two major overhauls, the latter of which has yet to be completed. The first update was the release the of RS2. The second, gradual overhaul began in February 2005, starting with several towns in the free-to-play area. When the engine was updated on May 16, 2006, allowing graphics of higher quality than before, the pace accelerated. So far, most of the free-to-play area has been updated, as well as some member's only areas and a large number of NPC's.

RuneScape features a character-customization system. Player characters are always human; however, players can choose gender and a variety of hairstyles and colours, body types, facial features, skin colour and clothing options. Appearance is further complimented by wearing or wielding items. Standard weapons of the same class, such as swords, use the same set of animations in combat; however, a few special weapons have their own, distinctive animations.

Players can be transformed temporarily into objects, plants or animals, depending on the circumstances. These "morphs" sometimes allow players to avoid negative gameplay effects or access otherwise unreachable areas; however, they restrict certain normal activities.

Players can also express emotions through the use of specialized animations called emotes, some of which are standard and others earned through gameplay or released during holiday events.

Skills

File:Runescape skills-barbarian fishing-withoutaharpoon.gif

A player engaging in the fishing skill.

Skills in RuneScape are the abilities that enable players to perform activities in the game. Players gain experience in a skill when they utilize the skill, e.g. mining ore increases the mining skill. As a player gains experience in a skill, their level increases up to 99. As the skill level rises, the ability to retrieve better raw materials and produce better products increases, as does the experience awarded, e.g. a player can mine only tin and copper initially and then gold on up to runite as their mining level increases and the player is awarded much more experience for mining runite vs. tin. The total skill level of a player partly symbolizes the player's status in the game. The RuneScape hiscore tables can be viewed by all players, and players with higher overall levels are well regarded within the RuneScape community. Upon reaching the highest available level in a skill (99), members may obtain a special cape, referred to as a "Cape of Achievement" or a "Skill Cape", which gives a +1 bonus giving the wearer 100 in the skill and can be used to perform an emoticon related to that skill. The prayer and hitpoints bonuses only last one minute because of the advantage a player would have in combat.

The skills available for all players are Attack, Defence, Strength, Hitpoints, Ranged, Magic, Prayer, Mining, Smithing, Fishing, Cooking, Firemaking, Woodcutting, Crafting and Runecrafting. The additional skills available only for members are Agility, Herblore, Thieving, Fletching, Slayer, Farming, Construction, Hunter, and Summoning. Certain skills, such as strength and hitpoints, increase the player's prowess in combat. Some skills, such as woodcutting and fishing, enable the player to collect raw materials that can be processed into usable items using other skills, such as fletching and cooking. The items created can be used by the player or sold to other players in game for a profit. Other skills allow players to kill certain non-player characters, build their own houses, move around the map with greater ease, steal from NPCs and various stalls and chests located in-game, cook their own food, create their own potions, create runestones and weapons, grow their own plants, and hunt NPC animals. The new summoning skill allows players to summon a monster to fight for them and help them in non-combat related skills.

Combat

File:Runescape weapons specialattacks darklight-weaken.gif

A player using a very high-level special attack.

RuneScape features a real-time combat system. Combat is an important aspect of the gameplay in RuneScape, as retrieving items or gold dropped by dead monsters is one of the best ways to gain wealth. Combat is also necessary to complete many quests. Combat level is a rating on how powerful a player or NPC is in combat. For players, it is determined by applying a formula to the seven combat skills. Players engage in combat by right-clicking on an NPC or player and selecting the "attack" option. A player will automatically continue fighting until they have killed their opponent, die, or leave the fight by running away or teleporting.

Combat is subdivided into melee, mage and ranged categories. Melee attacks are close range with or without weapons, magic attacks focus on using runestones to cast spells, and ranged attacks use projectile weapons.. These combat types make up the "Combat Triangle." Melee attacks are most effective against ranged opponents, ranged attacks are most effective against magic opponents and magic attacks are most effective against melee opponents. Most of the game's weapons are medieval or fantastical in nature and feature different strengths and weaknesses. Other ways to fight include summoning a monster.

Unlike most games in the MMORPG genre, RuneScape does not require players to choose a character class nor are players bound to a specific category of combat. They may freely change between the three styles of combat at any time by switching weapons and armour. Players can even carry the weapons and armour of the three combat categories in their inventories and switch between or combine the styles. Many player killers use "pure" characters, which are min-max characters designed to have as low a combat level as possible by not training certain combat skills. This allows them to more easily kill other non-pure players at their level. Unfortunately, "pures" do not fare well in multi-combat environments.

Players die when they sustain enough damage from combat, poison, or obstacles to reduce their hitpoints to zero. Hitpoints lost during battle can be recovered by eating or drinking. Players can use potions and prayers to boost their combat ability and defences. Players who die reappear at one of three respawn points with their hitpoints, and any other reduced skill levels, restored; however, they drop all but their three most valuable items. A special prayer allows the retention of one more item. However, if a player is "skulled" as a result of visiting the abyss (a labyrinth used for the runecrafting skill) he will retain no items upon death, or just one with the prayer. The items dropped form a gravestone, and they can be retrieved if the player can return to the gravestone before it dissipates. Players can purchase longer lasting gravestones and fellow players can repair or bless a gravestone to make it last slightly longer.

PvP Combat

File:RuneScape Great War.png

A PvP event in the original RuneScape Classic game.

Player versus player combat can now only be performed in certain "minigames" wherein until late 2007 it could be performed in a vast area called the Wilderness. With the removal of the PvP aspect of the Wilderness, there were new creatures implemented, called Revenants, designed to have the same effect as being attacked by players.

Bounty Hunter allows players to kill other players and collect items they drop. Players are marked with a skull upon entering, which is colored according to the market value of the items held. Players are assigned a target to kill. If players kill players other than their assigned target and pick up the items, they are given a three-minute penalty, during which the player can not leave the arena or log out. The change was designed to prevent Real world traders using the Wilderness as a covert way of exchanging items or money.

The Duel Arena allows players to fight each other in duels. A second, related minigame, known as Duel Tournaments, allows up to sixty-four players to set up tournaments, with large amounts of gold as a prize for the winner. Duelling is available to all players, though tournaments are members-only. Duels can either be for fun or staked. In a friendly duel, no items are risked. In staked duels, players can stake up to 3,000 gold, or equivalent items, which goes to the duel winner. The limit is increased in proportion to the amount of quest points a player has up to a limit of 30,000. Dying in a duel does not result in loss of any items other than those staked, and players simply reappear outside the arena. There are options to regulate what is allowed in the duel or tournament, such as disallowing potions, certain combat styles, skills, movement or adding obstacles. Tournaments have a variable entry fee dependent on the number of and previous tournament success of players. Players can also engage in PvP combat without risking their items in combat arenas or dungeons in player owned houses.

Clan Wars is another minigame with player-versus-player capabilities, except that only clan members (groups of united players who behave like an organization) may battle each other. Each member of the clan must work together to kill every member of the other clan. The battle ends when every member of the opposing clan is defeated. No items are lost when a player dies. Similarly, another PvP minigame is Castle Wars, which involves group rather than individual combat to seize the opponent team's flag as many times as possible which has rewards.

Quests

Quests are story lines that players can choose to complete. Quests often have prerequisites including minimum levels in certain skills, combat levels, quest points and/or the completion of other quests. A few quests require players to work together. Quests are grouped into four categories based on requirements and difficulty. Novice quests act as extended tutorials for new players. Intermediate quests challenge players on a basic level, while experienced and master quests challenge the more experienced players and open up new areas of Gielinor. Once a player completes all quests in the game, another achievement cape, commonly referred to as the "quest cape", can be purchased from an NPC. The cape comes with a a special emote peculiar to the skill. Many quests require players to kill particularly powerful monsters. A new quest is released each month.

Players receive various rewards for completing a quest. Rewards depend on the quest's difficulty and include gold, unique items, access to new areas, increases in skill experience and/or quest points. Quests form the storyline of RuneScape, and many are part of a series of quests that become increasingly difficult. The longest and oldest of these is an incomplete seven-part series known as "Plague City", after the first quest in the series which was released in 2002. The storyline takes players through a massive conspiracy and unlocks areas inhabited by elves. Jagex has stated that it is the closest thing RuneScape has to a central storyline.

Interaction

File:Runescape monsters tztokjad.gif

One of the NPCs available for players to engage in combat.

Many NPCs populate the realm of Gielinor. Some NPCs, such as shopkeepers and characters in quests, are unavailable for combat. However, most NPCs can be attacked and these are generally referred to as monsters, regardless of their race. Monsters range from common, low-level creatures, such as chickens and bears to unique, and often much more powerful monsters such as the King Black Dragon or Tz-Tok-Jad. Each type of monster has its own strengths and weaknesses. Demons, for example, have a weak defence against magical attacks, while most dragons have extremely high defence against magic. Monsters may either be aggressive or non-aggressive. Non-aggressive monsters simply ignore players unless they are attacked. Aggressive monsters may attack all players or may only attack players with combat levels below a specified level, depending on the circumstances or location. This can make certain areas throughout Gielinor dangerous or inconvenient to players with lower combat levels.

RuneScape also features independent mini-games for its players. Mini-games take place in certain areas and normally involve a specific skill. Mini-games usually require players to cooperate or to compete with each other. Popular mini-games include Castle Wars, which is similar to the real-life game Capture the Flag, and Pest Control, a highly combat-focused mini-game.

Players can fight against other players in player versus player (PvP) combat in certain areas of Gielinor as detailed earlier above.

Random events

File:Runescape randomevents mime.gif

A player participating in a random event designed to deter macros.

Random events are short interludes that occur during the game, requiring some form of player input. They were introduced to deter players from using automated programs, known as macros, autoers, or bots, to play the game with no human interaction. Postings in the RuneScape forums by Andrew Gower suggest that random events were designed not only to hinder macroers but to alleviate the monotony that can occur while levelling skills for long periods of time (referred to as grinding).

Some random events are simple, requiring a player only to click on an NPC or to leave the area temporarily; others require more sophisticated actions from players, who must respond to these events quickly and correctly to avoid a negative effect, such as being teleported across the map or taking damage. Players are usually rewarded for responding correctly to random events.

Holiday Events

Every Easter, Halloween, and Christmas, Jagex hosts a holiday event somewhere in Gielinor. Players who successfully complete the required tasks during the event receive an exclusive reward. Holiday items released after Christmas 2002 can be retrieved if lost. Earlier holiday items, known as rares, can be traded between players, and sell for large amounts of gold on the player market. Most holiday events also reward the player with access to a new emote that allows the player to perform a gesture designed to show emotion or action.

Economy

RuneScape's economy is based around items produced using skills or the collection of raw materials. Raw materials collected with extracting skills, such as fishing or mining, are refined using other skills, such as cooking or smithing, or are sold as is to other players or stores. The refined products, such as armour or food, are used by players in combat. Some players engage in arbitrage, commonly referred to as merchanting, in order to turn a profit by buying and re-selling items. However, the recent restrictions on unbalanced trades and the institution of the Grand Exchange, with its price stabilizers and its ability to match sellers and buyers across the entire spectrum of Runescape, have made merchanting much less profitable by making prices fluctuate less. Killing certain monsters for the items they drop can also be profitable. Historically, inflation and deflation have caused some instability in the game economy. Inflation is caused by the large number of resources put into the game by macroing. While deflation occurs as the more expensive items, such as certain weapons and armour, lose value over time because they become more prevalent and because newer items start being used. This has a huge impact on the day these items are released, with their prices being in the tens of millions for the first few hours, and then decreasing to a few million by the end of the day. The prices of rare items (items that were released in RuneScape Classic for holidays and can no longer be attained by any means other than buying from another player) tend to increase over time. For example, party hats were very inexpensive when they were released and are now worth hundreds of millions. Construction had temporarily stabilized the inflation in the prices of discontinued items because the skill was very expensive and popular with high level players, but the popularity of construction has declined, and discontinued items are continuing to rise. However, due to the Grand Exchange, prices have sharply dropped for some discontinued items.

Community

Most RuneScape players speak English. Players who speak languages other than English tend to gravitate to servers populated by other players who speak the same language. Some worlds have larger numbers of players who speak Spanish, Dutch, French, German, or other languages. It is not uncommon, however, to see many languages on the chat screen throughout RuneScape. A German translation of RuneScape has also been released, while a French version of the game is in production.

A set of official forums created entirely by Jagex programmers is available to players on the RuneScape website. On the forums, players are able to participate in game discussions, play player-made forum games, arrange to buy or sell items, post suggestions for further game improvements, vote in polls and otherwise interact with the community. Free players can read the forums, but posting is reserved for paying members.

Players can submit email questions to any non-player character in the game. Selected letters are answered in an monthly update called Postbag from the Hedge. This feature began on 26 September 2005 and has since become one of the most accessed pages of the site. Beginning 24 September 2002, players could submit questions to the RuneScape gods; however, this feature was discontinued on 9 December 2004. Players can also submit original RuneScape related artwork, some of which is displayed in a gallery on the RuneScape website. Media featured have included sculpture, comics, drawings, and paintings.

Many RuneScape fansites have been established by players, none of which are supported or recognized by Jagex. In order to provide players with an alternative, official site to get the information they want or need, Jagex introduced the Knowledge Base, which offers information on gameplay, the main RuneScape rules, and account security. However, at least one major fansite has criticised Jagex for not recognising fansites' contributions to the development of its game.

Rules and cheating

Jagex has put in place a number of rules for player conduct, such as rules against offensive language, scamming, and bug abuse. To enforce the rules, RuneScape uses three types of moderators: Jagex moderators, abbreviated as "J-mods" by players, who are actual Jagex employees; player moderators, simply abbreviated as "mods" or "pmods", who are trusted ordinary players who enforce the rules in the game; and forum moderators, abbreviated as "Forum-Mods", who are trusted players who police the game forums. On the forums, Jagex moderators are identified by gold crowns and backgrounds on their posts while forum moderators have green crowns and backgrounds; in game, Jagex moderators have gold crowns next to their names in chat while player moderators have silver crowns. In addition, any player has the ability to report rule-breaking using a "report abuse" feature; misuse of this feature can result in action being taken against the reporter. The effectiveness of Jagex's pursuit of abusers has been debated in an article posted on Twitchguru.

There are also rules prohibiting the use of third-party software to play the game, known as macroing, and the sale of game items for real money, known as real-world or real-money trading. In the early days of the game, most cheaters were individual players using special programs that exploited weaknesses in the game's client-server communications by sending false data to the server. In response, Jagex made direct interaction with the client very difficult. Players then began using macro programs to automate mouse clicks for repetitive tasks. Random events, requiring human reaction and decision making, are one method Jagex employs to attempt to disrupt such programs. According to Jagex, many cheaters are now based in game sweatshops in East Asia, making gold to sell to players for real-world money, an issue in many other MMORPGs. In response, Jagex issued a statement condemning real-world trading. In the statement, they also claimed that they were seizing billions of gold and banning thousands of accounts every week for cheating. Nevertheless, real-world trading and macroing activities still continued.

From October 2007 to December 2007, Jagex released a series of drastic updates which restricted unbalanced trades, established the Grand Exchange, limited the amount staked in duels, removed player killing from the Wilderness, made valuable player drops invisible to other players, instituted gravestones for dead players' items, the loot share and player assist systems. These were designed to make it extremely difficult for real-world traders to distribute gold to players. Jagex hopes that this will help solve the game's real world trading problem. Jagex issued a Customer Support News article explaining that the updates were a tough decision, admitting that the updates may not have been an ideal replacement for what was removed, requesting patience and promising to remedy potential problems with the updates in the future.

Reception

A study by Brunel University claims that playing RuneScape can be beneficial to players. The study concluded that the nature of games like RuneScape can teach teenagers vital skills that they will need as they enter the labour market, including working hard to achieve goals. An article on Twitchguru claims the opposite, that the skills and lessons learned in RuneScape are not suitable for children. The game is praised for its free play abilities. JustRPG summarised the game with "In short, the game of RuneScape is a fun, addictive game, and while the graphics may not be perfect, for a game written in Java, they aren't bad. The skills are varied, the community is alright, and it'll eat up your time if you aren't careful," giving it a score of 83%. The Yahoo! Buzz Log states that "while it may not be as easy on the eyes as some other popular online RPG games, like World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, or EverQuest, RuneScape is still a lot better way to kill time than pushing around cells in a spreadsheet." PC Gamer UK stated in December 2003 that while the "traditional RPG values of questing, slaying monsters and developing your character in a familiar medieval setting" won't "have the big boys trembling in their +2 Boots of Subscriber Gathering," this is offset by the game's accessibility through a web browser, "compounded by a version of the game that allows free adventuring before players upgrade to a members' account," describing the game as "an unsurprising success."

External links

Official sites

• RuneScape – The official RuneScape website
• RuneScape German – The official German translation of the RuneScape website and game
• Jagex site – The official Jagex site

Wikis

• RuneScape Wiki - Provides detailed information

Major fansites

• Rune HQ
• Rune Tips
• Zybez Runescape Help