I've been playing Runescape for four years now. I remember my sister and her ex discovered it and started playing. Then one day they showed me, which perhaps they shouldn't have done, because I got hooked. Big time.
Before I go any further, perhaps I should explain the nature of Runescape a little bit. Runescape is a very user-friendly online multiplayer adventure game. (It is free to play, though you can pay and have more access, which I will get to later.)
The first thing you do is create a character. This character is kind of like an avatar, so to speak. They are your tool to move about the very expansive virtual world. You can dress your character any way you like and make them look like you (or not). I opted to make mine look like me and so did my sister. Consequently, it made our characters look pretty much the same, though she wore all black and my top was burgundy.
Your character has an "inventory" in which to put their belongings, which might include coins (also known as "gp" for "gold pieces", the currency of Runescape), food, runes (used for casting spells and where "Runescape" got its name), weapons (used for killing the nasty beasties that live in those parts) and all sorts of other things. I haven't counted the exact number of items in the databases, but I estimate it to be in the thousands. It's a very richly woven world. Every little detail is there, including flora and fauna, which you can "examine" by right clicking.
You fight monsters and work on "skills" (such as cooking, crafting, magic, runecrafting, slayer -- even farming) to raise your player level. And to get certain levels you need to do "quests", which for many is the whole fun of Runescape.
potions that you otherwise would not be able to, even though your skill level might be high enough).
The world of Runescape kind of mirrors our own, in a way. It is set in a medieval-like time period, mixed with creatures present in fairy tales, like fairies, elves, etc. The world is completely mapped out, further added to it's concreteness. In the far east, there is the land of Morytania. Morytania is the Runescape equivalent of Dr. Frakenstein, has tried to create a man out of dead body parts). Morytania is a land of evil and gloom and kind of represents the evil god Zammorak.
Due west of Morytania is the kingdom of Misthalin, ruled by King Roald. The capital is Varrock, the largest (and in many opinions the most important) city in Runescape. Varrock is the center of trade and home to the Grand Exchange, which is where players trade each other with exchanges controlled by the game. I remember the days before the Grand Exchange, the bad old days. Back then, users traded through actions with each other. Trading was not controlled and people were often noob), I couldn't use it for a long time. But I could use the money. So, I decided to trade it for coins. But it didn't work out that way. Someone offered me (at the time considered to be the best leg armor) dragon platelegs for it, which was very generous and just a little bit over the asking price. The problem with the old trading system was that if you weren't paying attention, someone -- at the very last minute -- could take away what they were paying with (in this case dragon platelegs) and swap them for something else or even nothing at all. And if you weren't being vigilent, you were getting crap for a very expensive item. In my case, the user swapped the dragon platelegs with red dragonhide chaps (used for the
As previously mentioned, the G.E. (as it's known in the Runescape vernacular) is a controlled form of trade. There is a set price range certain items are worth. The standard price is known as "market price". This is the mid point in the range and considered to be the "safe price". Many people utilize the G.E. to "buy low and sell high", as they would in the stock market. You buy items for as low as you can (some are sold at the minimal price, just because they're so hard to sell at market and higher) and you either wait awhile and then sell them again at a higher price or you turn it into something more expensive and sell it at a higher price. For instance, you might buy a cut emerald at lowest price. Then you would turn it into an emerald ring and sell it for as high as you can. This is a time-consuming way to make money and I wouldn't recommend it as I'm not sure about how much profit one would actually make by doing that. After all, in the world of Runescape, some things are actually worth more in their most basic forms. Supply and demand is a very important part of the Runescape economy (which is very intricate and complex), believe it or not).
For instance: in the herblore skill, there are several herbs which can be bought and sold in the G.E. for various sums of money. Irit and Kwuarm are higher level than Ranarr, but Ranarr is far more vauable, being worth roughly 5.3k at the present. The value of Ranarr went down just the other day, in fact. In my opinion, there are two reasons for this: Everyone suddenly got let in on the secret that Chaos Druids (a type of low-level baddy) drop (meaning that when you kill them, along with their bones, prizes and valuables are left behind) herbs more than anything. Sometimes they will make two drops at once, which is rare in Runescape. They will do this at a higher frequency than any other monster I've fought. Furthermore, they're very easy to kill. They are level 13. I am now a level 70. They only take 20 hits to die (a hit is a measure of how well you are beating your enemy). I can hit them 12 times with just one wack with my scimitar (the swords the guards carried in Aladdin). This means that people are flooding the market with Ranarr, making them less valuable than before.
Another new thing coming up: Jagex, the creators of Runescape have announced they are bringing "PKing" back (which I will explain in due course). Because of this, players are stocking up on things that will be useful for them when that change is brought about.
So, if you're still reading, you're probably wondering what PKing is. Pking means "player killing". When I first started playing, players could kill other players in the area named "The Wilderness". The Wilderness is the area to the north, even further north than Varrock and Edgeville. It is the most dangerous place in Runescape, and the danger of the Wilderness increases the further north you head. Back in the day, higher level players would lure lower levels (aka "noobs") into the Wilderness, kill them and claim all their belongings. This happened to me once.
I had just become a member (which, as previously stated, grants more access to various parts of the map and certain items and quests). I was only about a level thirty. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I made "friends" (in Runescape, you have a buddy list much like AIM or MSN where you can talk to your "friends" and they can help you out, keep you company, etc). This friend asked me if I wanted to see something cool and I said, "okay". We were in Ardougne and I followed them for a moment. Next thing I know, we're in an entirely different place, which must've been the Wilderness, because he was killing me. He was a level 76. It was easy for him. The place was pitch black and I had no clue where I was, so I couldn't really run. I had full rune armour (the level down from dragon), which would be worth a couple hundred thousand gp. And next thing I know, I'm in Lumbridge, the place in southern Misthalin where everyone respawns (or is reborn, if you prefer) when they die. I had no armor. No money, no nothing. And I had to start all over from scratch.
I must've been tele-othered (a type of teleportation) to have been in the Wilderness so quickly. Not entirely sure how he did it to this day, even though I've become much more savvy.
As I said, Jagex is talking about bring PKing back sometime in the not-so-distant future. The article I read on the Runescape site mentions that they will have special "PKing worlds", as previous incarnations of PKing haven't gone very well. According to the article, before I started playing, people used to control territories of the game through might. I'm glad not every world (meaning gaming serving) is going to be PKing. I'm just not a fan of it. PKing cheapens the game. And I'm not just saying that because of what happened to me. I just know how players are. They'll go nuts with it.
That brings me to how vile people can be in Runescape. Even though PKing is non-existant at present (even in the Wilderness), people are very mean. The average Runescape player, in my estimation, is probably a 15 or 16 year old boy. The game attracts a lot of women and girls too, and there are a lot of adults who play (I am by no means anywhere close to being the eldest Runescape player), but the average player is definitely a teenager. And being someone who was fifteen five years ago, I remember quite well how mean kids that age are.
Not every player is rude. Some of them are cool. But most, however, like to call everyone lower level than them a "noob" (meaning you're new and an idiot), which is a huge insult in the world of Runescape. A person could lack 300 experience points (known as "xp") from being the same level as the other person and still be called such. Of course it's due to immaturity, but still. It's a huge annoyance. I'm rarely called a noob these days (level 70 is finally starting to get in the big leagues, though there are people who are level 135).
The reason such importance is placed on levels is because it takes a lot of work to reach the next level. Say you are working on your fishing skill. You start off fishing shrimp at level 1. When you reach level five, you can catch sardines, which is your first fishing milestone. 53 fishing levels later, I am now able to fish the likes of swordfish and lava eel. Each fish you catch, gives you a certain amount of xp. Currently, the most prestegious catch you can catch is the manta ray, when you reach level 81 in fishing. I have been fishing for four years in Runescape and I'm only at level 53. It takes a lot of dedication and tediousness, for fishing is quite tedious. Out of all the skills, it is the least involved. You sit there while your player fishes. I am acctually fishing as I write this.
Since it takes so long to level up, every new level I reach feels like an accomplishment of sorts. And it unlocks more fun things to do in Runescape. I like quests a lot. I'm trying to level up so I can do more. I've done all the ones I can do at my level. For the most part, I have high skill levels for a level 70. So, in many cases, I have all the required skills needed for a lot of quests. However, many of those quest require that I fight monsters that are way stronger than I (in one case level 194). So, I have to bulk up and enhance my combat levels. It's definitely possible to beat a monster higher level than you. You just have to get to a level where you're in a close enough range to beat them (and carry good weapons and a lot of food).
My three least favorite skills to work on are ranging, magic, and runecrafting. Out of the three, I prefer magic and have recently started trying to level up. For someone of my combat level, my magic level is very low. I'm more of a fan of melee.
Ranging is even more boring than magic. My level is even lower in that, thus it takes forever to even kill guards (which are roughly 50 levels lower than me, give or take). And I don't enjoy killing guards anymore. Because my level is so much higher, I need a bigger income than I did previously. Now, the 100 gp worth of stuff I might get from a guard on a good day is essentially chump change. It's not the kind of money I need to be making in order to buy dragon armor, which is my current goal (so far, I have a scimitar, plateskirt, and boots). But I will keep working at it. It is pretty pitiful my ranged is so low. I see everyone at my level carrying around magic long bows and here I am with my humble willow long bow.
Runecrafting is my least favorite. I liked it at first when I was a low level player. It brought in a small but steady income when I sold the runes to the runeshop. Also, in mining for the "rune essence" (the base with which to make the runes), I gained some considerable mining xp. Now, however, my runecrafting is a meager level 27. That is extremely low for a level 70 player. The main reason for it being so low is that rune crafting involves a lot of walking around the world which I hate doing. That means, I do all that walking for only 28 runes and then have to find the closet bank to the rune alter (which pretty much always looks like stone henge combined with the theme of whatever rune you are crafting, for instance the inside of the body alter kinda looks like the insides of a person). The walking is time consuming and, as with real life, time in Runescape is money.
Being a level 27, I can craft Cosmic Runes. Frankly, I don't feel like going to the Cosmic Alter like that. I know I should build my level up, but it's just a ridiculous ammount of travel, when my time could be so employed as working on my slayer task or killing Chaos Druids and making a good chunk of change.
As I write, I just advanced to level 57 cooking. I can now make mushroom and onion toppings (for potatoes, I believe). Cooking is a very important part of runescape. When you fight, your hit points recieve damage. Essentially, you are injured. Instead of applying bandaids and taking oxycontin, Runescape players eat food to heal their health. The better the food, the more you heal. When I'm fighting a high level enemy, I take some sword fish with me. It'll cure what ails ya and better still, I can fish it, so it's no cost to me. It's a win-win.
Right this very moment, as I was fishing, I was attacked by an level onehundred-and-something-very-high Evil Chicken and stupid me wasn't paying attention and got hitpoints knocked down from 57 to 27, which is practically death. Luckily, I had two swordfish in my inventory and ran off to cook them, healing myself. The Evil Chicken is a random event. Runescape is full of them. At any given time a random event can pop up. There are several, each with its own theme. The Evil Chicken is a minor one. It merely attacks you for no reason. Some random events take you away from your setting and place you in a sort of minigame (which it's technically a random event and NOT a minigame, which is entirely different). Yesterday, I was taken away from the Grand Exchange by Molly. She wanted me to capture her evil twin, using a claw like device and place her in a cage. I did it. I don't think I got rewarded, because my inventory was full (only holds 28 items, though some items are stackable). Usually, however, you get some rewards from a random event.
Later yesterday, I was taken away by Evil Bob (Good Bob, meaning just "Bob" is the Runescape Cat -- Evil Bob is his counter part) to Scaperune, which is the mirror world of Runscape. The object of the event was to help the other prisoner, Pete, find the three keys to unlock the portal, which were hidden in various balloon animals. You have to find the right ones, or else you get a "life sentence" of 23 hours and something odd minutes. I got the right ones and recieved uncut diamonds from Prison Pete in thanks.
Ignoring random events is a big no-no. There are consequences. If you ignore Dr. Jeckell and don't give him the herb he so desperately needs, he will feel the "change" coming on and turn into Mr. Hyde and start attacking you. Other random events will teleport you to some far away place or possibly even scatter your inventory.
I'm a definite fan of random events. Not only are the rewards a plus, but it's a nice retreat from dredging on in working on my skills.
My lowest skill is hunting. It's a member skill that came out during a time when I briefly lost my membership. I have no xp in that skill whatsoever. I intend to start working on it, as it is needed for certain quests. I just don't have much interests in it. It seems like it'll be boring.
My second lowest level skill is Summoning, which is actually quite useful. I have all the materials needed for it, I just haven't been working on it. It's level four, due to the fact I did the quest which unlocks it. So, that's on my to-do list as well.
After I'm done writing this, I'm going to go kill Cockatrices. They are my slayer task. I must kill 78 in order to get a new one, which is kinda blah. My last task was killing Cockatrices. I had been hoping for something more interesting and with better drops. The most common thing they drop is Limpwurt Root, which is used in potion making. I currently am not making potions involving that ingredient, so I pretty much just sell them in the G.E.
Looking back, this is a very long blog about Runescape. That's mainly due to the fact I've never written about it before. Any future blogs written about it will be much shorter -- I promise. But look for updates on my progress. They're more for me than for any readers I have. I'm interested to see at what rate I'm progressing. This month has been a month of growth for my character in the game. This is mainly due to unemployment and illness preventing me from making it to school on several occasions. But hey -- it works. I've gone from a level 62 to a level 70, which is the fastest I've advanced since I was low level. As you advance, you need more and more xp to reach each new level. Even though I criticized the over-killing of Chaos Druids, I do owe them my advancement in this respect. They're so quick and easy, it triples the time of leveling up.
And with that thought, I will quit writing. For now.
Au revoir, mon amie -- et bon chance!
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