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RuneScape is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by British developer Jagex Limited, programmed in Java. With nearly nine million active free players and 800,000 paying members, RuneScape is one of the top online games in the world. RuneScape offers both free and subscription content and is designed to be accessible from any location with an Internet connection and to run in an ordinary web browser without straining system resources.

RuneScape takes place in the imaginary realm of Gielinor, which is divided into the Kingdoms of Misthalin, Asgarnia, and Kandarin, the tropical island of Karamja, the Kharidian Desert, the Wilderness, and various other realms. Movement throughout RuneScape utilizes three methods: foot travel, vehicle assisted travel, and magical teleportation. Each region offers different types of monsters, materials, and quests.

Players, shown on the screen as customisable characters, can see and interact with each other. They set their own goals and objectives, deciding which of the available activities to pursue; there is no linear path that must be followed. Players can engage in combat with other players or with monsters, complete quests, or increase their experience in any of the available skills. Players can also interact with each other through trading, chatting, or playing combative or co-operative mini-games.

Gameplay

Interaction

Non-player characters populate RuneScape. Many NPC's in RuneScape can be attacked, although some, such as shopkeepers, cannot be engaged in combat by players. Attackable NPCs are generally referred to as monsters, whether they are human, animal, elemental, or demonic. Monsters range from common, low level creatures like chickens and ducks to unique, much more powerful monsters like the King Black Dragon, Chaos Elemental, or Kalphite Queen. Each type of monster has its own strengths and weaknesses. Demons, for example, have low defence against magical attacks while dragons have extremely high defence against magic. Monsters may also be aggressive (attacking any player who comes within range, regardless of level), non-aggressive (not attacking players unless provoked, regardless of levels), or partially aggressive (attacking only those players who are within a predetermined number of levels above or below their own level). This can make certain areas within the game dangerous to players depending upon their own combat levels.

Players can fight against other players in player versus player (PvP) combat in certain areas of RuneScape. The most common place is in the Wilderness, where players risk their lives as well as their items, challenging other players. Players can engage in PvP combat without risking their items in mini-games, such as Castle Wars and the TzHaar Fight Pit or in combat arenas in player's houses. In the Duel Arena, another mini-game, players must agree on the rules of engagement and the stake, before combat begins.

RuneScape features a number of independent mini-games for its players. Mini-games take place in certain areas and normally involve a specific skill. Many mini-games require players to cooperate or to compete with each other. Popular mini-games include Castle Wars, the Duel Arena and pest control.

Random events

Players often encounter random events that require player input. Some random events are simple, requiring a player only to click on an NPC or to leave the area temporarily; others require the player to navigate a labyrinth, answer a question, or imitate another NPCs actions. Players must respond to these events quickly and correctly in order to avoid a negative effect, such as being teleported across the map. Players correctly responding to random events can receive rewards or experience.

Random events deter players from macroing, which is the act of using a program 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 leveling skills for long periods of time (referred to as grinding).

In the event of a broken Internet connection, players can be kicked off the server before they have a chance to remove their character from the game. In the time that the character is still active, random events could occur, killing or otherwise harming an innocent player. For this reason, random events are a controversial part of the game.

Community

Players of RuneScape represent a wide range of nationalities and ages; however, because the game is currently only available in English, almost all players speak English to an extent. Players who speak languages other than English tend to gravitate to worlds that are populated by other players who speak the same language. For example, some worlds have a greater percentage of players who speak Spanish, Dutch, or Lithuanian. It is not uncommon to see different languages on the chat screens throughout RuneScape.

A group of official forums created entirely by Jagex programmers is available to players on the RuneScape website. By accessing the forums, paying members are able to participate in game discussions, make arrangements to buy or sell items, and interact with the community. Free players can read the forums but are unable to post messages. The RuneScape forums are quite diverse, allowing thousands of players to access them at any given time. Each forum has its own specific list of rules enforced by forum moderators. On 10 April 2006, the RuneScape forums underwent major code revisions.

Players can submit questions to any NPC in the game. Selected letters are answered in an update called Postbag from The Hedge at the end of each month. This feature of the site started on 26 September 2005 and has since become one of the most accessed pages of the site. From 24 September 2002 through 9 December 2004, players could submit questions to the RuneScape gods; however, the gods will no longer communicate so directly with mortal beings.

A number of fansites have been established, these sites provided how to guides for all tasks in the game. The sites also provide a price guide though each has a disclaimer of some form explaining that there may be significant variations to prices they provide. Jagex does not support or recognize any of the fansites and has introduced the Knowledge Base to provide players with an alternative, official site to get the information they want or need.

Criticism

RuneScape has been criticized for several of its primary components, such as graphics and gameplay. Some paying members of the RuneScape community argue that RuneScape's graphics are substandard. Because RuneScape is designed to run in a web browser and download quickly, its graphics will never compare particularly well with desktop PC games. Some disagree with this compromise, whereas others argue that the quality of a game does not depend solely on its graphics, and point out that the graphics actually compare quite well with other browser based games. Tasks in RuneScape are frequently criticised for being repetitive, requiring users to click repeatedly in the same pattern to train skills.Jagex designed the farming skill with this criticism in mind, but their efforts to make it less repetitive were criticised for making the process of leveling-up too complicated. However, the game is generally considered fairly easy to learn for new players. Player avatars begin in a secluded area populated only by other beginners and are led on a set path where they learn the skills needed to succeed in Gielinor. Moreover, since it takes many hours to develop a character, many players regard playing RuneScape as a lifestyle, not a side activity. Playing RuneScape can be addicting, and some people play RuneScape more than they do anything else.

The community as a whole has also been criticized. Attempted scamming is common in RuneScape, although this exists throughout the MMORPG genre. Scammers use diverse methods to trick players into trading items for much less than they are worth or into revealing their passwords. Players attempting to take advantage of the game use automated bots or scripts to play the game for them, which is against the game rules.Jagex has taken various measures to prevent cheating. They introduced random events that require immediate human response and provided safety warnings in the player trading system. In response, Jagex has banned over 15,000 accounts through a macro detection system. RuneScape's chat filters have the ability to censor obscene words and letters though players are often able to use intentional misspellings, leetspeak, or symbols to bypass the filter. To combat this, Jagex made changes to the filter on 16 May 2006 that were successful in alleviating some of the problems, although other problems remain. The chat filters can occasionally block legitimate words; words that innocent players often type in for can be blocked just because of these problems. One of the legitimate words that has been blocked for unknown reasons was the word "fletching" , a commonly used word referring to a trainable skill, although, this has been fixed as of August 22, 2006.

Business aspects of the RuneScape franchise have fallen under criticism, as well. RuneScape has been criticised for not having enough free content or not updating the free content often enough. While RuneScape does have a considerable amount of free content, most updates and features for high-level players are limited to paying members. Additionally, due to the limited customer support team employees and the ever-growing number of registered users, some players have expressed dissatisfaction with Jagex's customer support. Jagex has attempted efforts to increase the size of their customer support team and has expanded their online Knowledge Base in order to alleviate some stress off the staff.

Most of the time the background music is a very simple tune that changes with region on the RuneScape world map. Music in the game enhances feelings and emotions to go with the scenery and the mood, but many find the music annoying and prefer to turn it off.There are sound effects included in the game as the player practices a skill, which can become annoying after a while.

Footnotes

1. "WildTangent Explores RuneScape" - GameDaily BIZ, 17 July 2006. Retrieved 30 July 2006.
2. "Virtual gamers reveal themselves" - BBC News, 7 October 2004. Retrieved 15 June 2006.
3. RuneScape world map - RuneScape.com, retrieved 15 June 2006
4. Letter Archives - RuneScape.com. Retrieved 31 July 2006.
5. Zybez price guide disclaimer
6. RuneHQ price disclaimer
7. Knowledge base release March 2006
8. ^ Archae The Great (2002-03-19). "RuneScape: "It could be ALOT better but it's still fun"". Gamespot GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)
9. Mihalick (2006-01-17). "Runescape". ONRPG. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)
10. ciruiz88 (2002-06-14). "RuneScape:"Addicting as hell... but with room for improvements"". Gamespot GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
11. "Over 15000 RuneScape accounts banned for cheating" - RuneScape Customer Support News 19 January 2006. Retrieved 30 July 2006.
12. Game Engine update - RuneScape Customer Support News 16 May 2006. Retrieved 31 July 2006
13. Jagex (2006). "RuneScape:Benefits for Members". Jagex. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)
14. "New Improved Game Guide Released" - RuneScape.com, 13 March 2006. Retrieved 24 July 2006.
15. Black_Cheese (2006-02-27). "RuneScape: "It's fun for a while, but it gets old pretty quickly"". Gamespot GameFAQs. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)
16. Cloud8976 (2005-03-30). "RuneScape". GamersInfo. Retrieved 2006-08-10. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |month=, |accessmonthday=, and |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

External links

• RuneScape - The official RuneScape website
• Jagex site - The official Jagex site
• Knowledge Base - The official RuneScape guide
• Forums - The official RuneScape forums

Wiki

• RuneScape Wiki

Official affiliates

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

Fansite

• Rune HQ - Fansite with the most traffic

• Browser-based games
• Java platform games
• Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
• Miniclip games
• RuneScape