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 Classic - January 4th, 2001 RuneScape - March 29, 2004 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
RuneScape is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) implemented using Java, with over two million active players and over 100 servers to play in[1]. RuneScape was launched by Jagex Limited on January 4, 2001 and offers both pay to play ("P2P") and free to play ("F2P") membership options to players. RuneScape is designed to be accessible from any location with an internet connection.
Overview
RuneScape is a MMORPG comparable to Guild Wars and Everquest. There is no real object to the game, other than to operate in a three-dimensional online "world" by taking the persona of a character, represented visually by a customisable avatar. Players may engage in a variety of activities, including completing quests, developing skills, and "hanging out" with friends and other players by interacting with chat, trading, mutual missions, and mini games. Available skills range from combat (melee-, ranged-, or magic-based) to activities designed to allow the character to support him- or herself, such as fishing, woodcutting, mining, smithing, thieving, and others. Participating in these activities produces various items (e.g. lobsters in the Fishing skill) that can in turn be sold for coins to be used to purchase a variety of items. The higher the skill level number, the better the player's character is in that particular skill, which in turn allows the player to produce better and more valuable items. Each skill is capped at Level 99 which takes a considerable amount of time devoted to that activity to achieve. The player's combat level is determined by all the combat skills, allowing a maximum combat level of 126.
During peak hours, it is common to see 170,000 players online simultaneously across the 125 international servers located in six countries. The record number of players to date, 197,000 simultaneous players, was reached in March, 2006[2]. Each server is limited to 2,000 simultaneous players, allowing a maximum of 250,000 players online at any one time. The servers, or "worlds", are located in the United States (79), the United Kingdom (18), Canada (6), the Netherlands (6), Australia (6) and Sweden (5)[3], making it the most popular online Java based game in the world. RuneScape is usually updated each week on Monday, with the common addition of new quests and items. Other, even larger updates include additions of new locations, skills, mini-games, and a variety of other things.
History and Development
Version One: The first version started out as a one man project. Andrew Gower, the developer, started working on the original game in 1998. This version was very different from 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 this version.
Version Two: The developer scrapped version one, and started work on a complete rewrite in 1999. Despite being a complete rewrite, this version was very similar to the first, with the same graphics as the first, and some name changes. This version was released as a public beta for about one week, and then withdrawn.
Version Three: The developer started yet again with a third attempt in October 1999. This time, Andrew had some help from his brother Paul. 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, 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.[4]
Jagex Limited is 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 became its lead developer.
Members Launch: On February 27, 2002, Jagex launched a new optional "members service", allowing players to pay around $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, since the game still ran on the same version 3D engine, this update did significantly change the focus of the game.
Version Four: Jagex went for yet another complete rewrite. Version four 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 three 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.
Version Five: On 16th May, 2006, Jagex upgraded RuneScape's game engine, improving aspects of it, such as the chat filter. It is still the same RuneScape, and the upgrades are much more low key than the previous ones. This is barely its own version, but alters the memory the game uses up, so it can expand and improve in many ways. 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
Combat is an important aspect of the game, as killing monsters is one of the 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 in the Wilderness or, on member servers, in the Duel Arena and Castle Wars. 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 the current RuneScape is 126. Other skills, while beneficial, will increase one's total level but not one's combat level.
Combat is subdivided into three primary categories:
- Melee - fighting with weapons
- Magic - fighting with magic spells
- Ranged - fighting with projectiles
Weapons
There are many types of weapons in RuneScape, including long swords, scimitars, short swords, daggers, staffs, battleaxes, maces, 2 handed swords, whips, knifes, mauls, darts, and bows. For players who simply wish to be different, pickaxes and hatchets can be wielded, but are weak in comparison to the other weaponry available. There are also members-only weapons, such as halberds, darts, javelins, claws, throwing knives, and dragon weapons. Members can also use joke weapons, such as a bunch of flowers or a rubber chicken, which are only for show because they do very little if any damage. Strong players generally use more powerful weapons — such as the rune scimitar for free players or the abyssal whip for paying members — than weaker players. Weapons are generally ranked by attack bonus and speed, but consideration is also given to special attacks and the ability to be covered with poison. There are many classes of each type of weapon, based upon the material from which it is crafted. Ranged weapons typically require ammunition, such as arrows for bows, bolts for crossbows, and runes for magic attacks with staffs.
Monsters
Monsters in RuneScape range from easy, common monsters like the chicken or the man to rare, powerful monsters like the King Black Dragon. Monsters are Non-player characters (NPCs for short) that can be attacked. Not all NPCs are monsters, though, as many are special characters that cannot be attacked, especially among the human NPCs. There are many monsters throughout RuneScape, with major groups including humans, arachnids, goblins, elementals, gnomes, elves, dwarves, giants, trolls, ogres, undead, dragons, mammals, insects, wolfmen, and demons. Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, demons have bad defence against magic attacks while dragons have extremely high magic defence.
Player versus Player Combat
Players often like to fight against other players rather than NPC's. RuneScape offers several areas where player versus player, or pvp, combat may occur. The most common place is in the Wilderness; here, players risk their lives and, more importantly, their items, challenging other players. Another common area for pvp combat is Castle Wars, where players may simply have fun fighting others, risking no items. Other areas for pvp combat include the Duel Arena and the TzHaar Fight Pit.
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, such as herblore. Many of the high-level abilities in most skills are reserved for members. Players gain experience in a skill when they perform activities that utilise that skill, for instance mining a rock would increase the mining skill. In general, the higher level it requires to perform a task, the more experience points the performer receives. The combined skill level of a player partly symbolises the player's status in the game. The RuneScape hiscores list confirms this, as all the player's skill levels are added together to determine his or her Overall ranking in the game. In RuneScape, there are currently 21 skills including:
- Primary/extraction
- Secondary/processing skills
- Combat skills
- Tertiary skills
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", which are automated scripts that 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. For example, if a random event requires a player to talk to the Mysterious Old Man, the player must respond within a limited amount of time or suffer the prescribed negative effect. Another example of a random event is the mime, where a player is teleported to a stage and must mimic the actions of an NPC. After completing the challenge, the player receives a reward, which can vary from mime clothing to new emotes that resemble mime movements, and is teleported back to where he or she started.
Quests
Quests in RuneScape are one-time adventures that serve a variety of purposes. The novice quests act as tutorials to acquaint new users with the various skills and abilities and are usually linear in nature. The harder quests are designed to challenge the skills of experienced players to resolve a world conflict of some kind, which might just open up a new area to be explared and exploited for fun and profit. Quests may be started in several places around the RuneScape world. All quests include some kind of reward, such as money, rare or valuable items, or an increase in skill experience. Most quests also give the player a number of "quest points", usually dependent on the difficulty of the quest. A certain number of quest points is required to start some quests, as a demonstration of ability. 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 several years and currently contains seven separate quests. On March 15, 2006, Jagex made their hundredth quest, Recipe for Disaster, which is a sequel to the first quest, Cook's Assistant.
Mini-Games
RuneScape has a number of mini-games, which are fun activities somewhat like quests that can be done as many times as the player wishes. 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. Many mini-games involve cooperative efforts or allow players to compete with each other. Mini-games can be very rewarding—for example, the Barrows mini-game rewards players' success with powerful and expensive armour. Some minigames include the Duel Arena, Castle Wars, Burthorpe Games Rooms, Pest Control, Fight Pits, TzHaar Fight Caves, Gnome Ball, Mage Arena, and Agility games.
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. There are servers that 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 and Lithuanian speaking players, which on some servers seem to outnumber the English speaking players.
Language
RuneScape players have developed 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. For example, an established player might say "i trade u ur pl8 (g) for r2h and 100k ardy world2" While this would be incomprehensible to new players, established players would know it means - "I will trade you your gold-trimmed rune platebody for a rune two-handed sword and 100,000 gold pieces in Ardougne, in world two."
A word filter is used both in the RuneScape game and in the RuneScape forums. The filter is used to censor words and phrases defined by Jagex as "offensive language" such as swear words. Over the history of this word filter, more and more combinations of letters are being censored. When a string of characters is censored, it is replaced by a series of asterisks. This constant evolving can cause many normal phrases to be censored. For example, players cannot say the internet slang word pwn, as the "pw" in the word is a common abbreviation for password. However, this was fixed by the update on the 15th May, 2006. Since advertising websites is in violation of RuneScape rules, all URLs are automatically censored as well. In order to combat this, players may resort to a modified version of leetspeak, although deliberate avoidance of the censorship mechanism is considered a serious violation of Jagex' rules of conduct. Also on 16 May 2006, the chat interface was greatly improved to facilitate symbols such as vowels with accents, allowed all previously forbidden symbols, and new symbols including §, £, and °. Non-Latin based letter characters, such as Cyrillic, are rendered as question marks.
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. Party Hats are the rarest of the holiday drops and some cost in excess of two hundred million GP. These items can not be obtained except by purchasing them from another player as they have been 'discontinued'. As these items are dropped, lost, or hoarded by players, they increase in price and become even more rare.
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.
Some armours are ornamentally trimmed with colour. Rune, Adamantite, and Black melee armours, leather, blue, and green dragon range armour, and blue magic robes may be trimmed in gold or a colour similar to the armour. Rune may also be trimmed in the colours of the three main RuneScape gods. Kiteshields may also be trimmed with heraldic designs in opposite quadrants. Trimmed armour combines the communication of wealth with the functionality of armour. These trimmed armours are not in any way stronger or better than the normal but are only a sign of wealth and to look "cool". Armour cannot be trimmed by players; it can only be traded from others or obtained from the treasure trail mini-game.
Moderators
Jagex Moderator
Jagex Moderators (J-mods) are employees of Jagex. Each employee of Jagex has an in-game counterpart. In RuneScape, they are identified by a gold crown beside their name, visible during public chat. On RuneScape's official forums, the gold crown is shown under their name, and their posts appear highlighted yellow. In a previous version of RuneScape's official forums, their posts were highlighted green, with the addition of the words "Jagex Mod" beneath their name.
It is confirmed that J-mods may change their skill levels at whim and may generate items within their inventory. They are also known to possess a special "J-mod teleportation ability" that enables them to appear anywhere on RuneScape. However, their accounts do not engage in either combat or trade, and do not appear in the high score tables.
Player Moderator
Player Moderators (P-mods) are a team consisting of regular players who have been carefully selected and invited by Jagex to help maintain the good order of the RuneScape environment, keeping it safe and free from rule-breaking.
In addition to the normal account features, player moderators have the option to mute a player - i.e. curtail their ability to communicate with other players in-game - when reporting certain allegations of abuse. P-Mods are not employees of Jagex, they receive no tangible benefits, and they are selected solely for their conduct and experience of playing the game not their progress within it. Although, due to the degree of playing experience required, most P-mods encountered will tend to be moderately advanced in their chosen skills - which may include combat - it does not always follow that this will be the case. P-mods are not expected to spend greater periods of time playing RuneScape than a normal player, and are not even obliged 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 retains moderator status. Player moderators also have use of a Player Moderator Centre, which contains tools and information that allow the Player Moderators to perform their role more effectively in the game.
Two common misconceptions are that player moderators have a duty to provide other players with direct playing assistance within the game or that they have easy access to superior or infinite reserves of in-game materials, when in fact neither is true. Furthermore, player moderators are subject to all the same rules and limitations as any other player, and any found guilty of infringement of the rules - including failure to respect the confidentiality of information provided to them in their capacity as a moderator - may lose their moderator status or face temporary or permanent bans.
Forum Moderator
Forum moderators (F-mods) 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 monetary 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. Like player moderators, they are also given a set of forums that are primarily used to help perform their role more effectively. Forum moderators have a green crown beside their name, as well as a green background when they post on the forums. Forum moderators are not identified by a crown beside their name in the game area of RuneScape.
Graphics
RuneScape currently has fully 3D graphics. Although some people argue that RuneScape has bad graphics, the game is developed using Java, which focuses on having graphics compact enough to be loaded quickly in a browser, and as such, there comes a point where the graphics can be improved no longer. The game does not sport Next-Gen graphics, as many online games do not, but players are quick to point out that "graphics aren't everything". Since the game does not require a download or a CD to play, and it is played entirely on the desktop explorer, the game's graphics will never be the same standard as modern PC games.
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 a player's character into a mushroom if they follow a specific chat path asking about his robes.
- Frog - If a player does not talk to the frog prince/princess, the character will be teleported to the frog homeland, and turned into a frog. You are also teleported to a swamp until you help the prince or princess.
- Egg - As of April 10, 2006, completing an Easter "Holiday Mini-Quest" can give a character the ability to turn into an Easter egg with the help of a "Easter Ring" given to them by the Easter Bunny. When you are an egg in member's worlds, the poison and disease effects will be paused until you unmorph, buying you some time if someone is bringing you an antipoison or disease cure. It also will pause many other effects around the game, such as desert heat damage, Trollheim ice path ice damage, and more. Also the task required to receive the "Easter Ring" temporarily changed the player into a large bunny.
- Members only morphs
- Stone - Wear a ring of stone. This form actually does have some use, like the Easter ring. When you are a stone, the poison and disease effects will be paused until you unmorph, buying you some time if someone is bringing you an antipoison or disease cure. It also will pause many other effects around the game, such as desert heat damage, Trollheim ice path ice damage, and more. The effect ends if the player enters combat, tries to move, or removes the ring.
- Imp, Sheep, or Rabbit - if the character enters a castle wars portal wearing certain god items that contradict the god of the team the player is on, such as amulets, god trimmed armour, and Mage Arena god staffs the character may be morphed into one of these.
- Various - Players visiting Zanaris 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 a player's character express an emotion whenever they choose. A player will start with most of the emotes, but some of the emotes must be earned, either through quests or from random events. Some emotes, namely the "Scared" and "Bunny hop" emotes, were only obtainable during passed holiday events. If you did not unlock them during those events, you will never be able to obtain them.
Detail Levels
RuneScape can be run on high or low detail level. Choosing to run it on the high detail mode gives different things a more graphically intense texture and design. Choosing low detail gives everything a cleaner cut look and reduces in-game latency, commonly called 'lag'. Some monsters and landmarks will also appear less detailed than in the low detail version of the game. Some objects that contain moving parts on high detail do not move on low detail, including the water spraying from fountains. Originally, the low detail version of the game was designed not to play sounds (for slower computers), but with a recent update,[5] players using the low detail version of the game can now access sounds and music.
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, which includes the Port Sarim and Rimmington areas, had been graphically updated. On the 20th of February, 2006, Falador and the Barbarian Village were graphically updated, along with the Lost City of Zanaris. The change to Falador was criticised heavily, as many players complained there was too much white in the buildings. As of April 2006, Jagex has added wilderness graphics. There are also occasional, unannounced graphical changes to some places such as West Ardougne, the sewer underneath it, and many items. 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.
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 and alchemy. Conversely, many valuable items decline in price gradually as more of them appear from NPC drops (recently, an upsurge in the number of players in 'members' has seen prices stabilise through greater demand and in some cases, as with the legendary robin hood hat and ranger boots set, prices have actually risen).
Criticisms
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 filtered words to bypass the filter, though this can result in a ban in extreme or repeated cases.
- Some tasks in RuneScape are very repetitive. Certain skills can only be levelled by repeatedly clicking in the same pattern, and various other skills can only be levelled efficiently by doing so. This nature of gameplay is often referred to as "grinding".
Membership
Some players may choose to pay for extra content. The monthly fee, by credit card, is £3.20, $5.00, or €4.60. Players who pay to play RuneScape are given special status on their account. This "member's status" gains them many more advantages both in and out of the game, such as:
- Over five times as much of the map to explore.
- Over five times as many quests.
- Exclusive worlds.
- Transportation advantages, i.e., may take short cuts when travelling and canoe down rivers.
- Hundreds of additional items, such as the Dragon and Barrows weapons and armour + much more.
- 352 bank spaces — quadruple the bank space given to free players.
- 200 spaces on friend list—double the space allowed to free players.
- Six new skills—herblore, fletching, thieving, agility, slayer, farming.
- Additions to the original skills.
- Regular updates.
- Access to posting on the official forums.
- Better customer support.
- Access to voting in polls.
- More in-game music.
- Mini-games, such as Pest Control and the TzHaar Fight Cave.
- More Random Events.
- More player vs. player features including Duel Arena, Games Room, Castle Wars.
- More team-based interactions including Dagannoth Kings, Kalphite Queen, Chaos Elemental , Blast Furnace, etc.
- Access to the first RuneScape game, commonly known as RuneScape Classic if they have played at least once in the last 6 months..
Footnotes
- ^ RuneScape new concurrent and active player records - (article is dated 22 December, 2004) accessed March 5, 2006.
- ^ "5 new worlds in Stockholm, Sweden" - RuneScape Technical News, access March 4, 2006.
- ^ "6 new Australian servers online!" - RuneScape Technical News, accessed March 4, 2006.
- ^ "Nearly 5000 RS-classic accounts banned" - RuneScape Customer Support News, accessed March 4, 2006.
- ^ "Game engine upgraded!" - RuneScape Game Updates News, accessed May 16, 2006.
External links
- RuneScape – The official RuneScape website.
- Jagex site – The official Jagex site.
- Knowledge Base – The official RuneScape guide