RuneScape

From Ultimatewiki

Current revision as of 17:10, 8 March 2007

The Runescape logo.

RuneScape is a Java-based MMORPG operated by Jagex Ltd. With over nine million active free players and more than 850,000 paying members, RuneScape is rated among the most popular 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 fantasy-themed 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 areas. Players can travel throughout the game world on foot, by using magical teleportation spells or devices, or on gnome gliders, mine carts, or other mechanical means of transportation. Each region offers different types of monsters, materials, and quests to challenge players.

Players are shown on the screen as customisable avatars. 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 interact with each other through trading, chatting, or playing combative or cooperative mini-games.

History and development

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 This version was released as a public beta version for approximately one week before it was withdrawn.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.

On 27 February 2002, a membership service was made available, allowing players who choose to pay a monthly fee access to a variety of additional features. This service significantly changed the focus of the game.

As technological advances continued to grow throughout the years, Jagex made major changes to the game. Although they had initially planned a graphical update, Jagex developers instead worked to completely rewrite the game engine, introducing a version that consisted entirely of three-dimensional graphics, with other significant improvements. While in development, this version was called RuneScape 2, although it has since become known as RuneScape, with the original version being known as RuneScape Classic to differentiate between the two. A beta version of the game was made available to paying members on 1 December 2003, and the finished version was launched on 29 March 2004. On 12 January 2006, playing RuneScape Classic was restricted to paying members who had recently played the classic version. All other RuneScape Classic accounts were permanently banned and the option to create a new account was removed. On 16 May 2006, Jagex upgraded RuneScape's game engine, primarily as a back-end upgrade rather than a visible graphical boost. In particular, the amount of memory required to run RuneScape was significantly reduced, allowing the game to be expanded and improved without increasing the loading time for most players. This is the current version of RuneScape being promoted by Jagex, and is the version most people now associate with the word RuneScape.

Servers

Around 140 RuneScape servers, numbered and referred to as worlds by players, are located throughout the world. The servers are Unix, Debian GNU/Linux, and Cisco IOS, and they are located in the United Kingdom (including both RuneScape Classic servers), the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden and Finland. Each of the RuneScape servers has a capacity of 2,000 players, allowing a maximum capacity of more than 270,000 simultaneous players online. The two RuneScape Classic servers are each limited to 1,250 players, allowing for 2,500 users playing the game at any given time. Servers are divided into free servers, accessible by all players, and member servers, accessible only by those players who choose to pay a monthly fee for additional content.

Advertising

To support RuneScape's free content, advertisements are displayed 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. WildTangent has stressed that this agreement will not change the way RuneScape is presented, and that they plan to make the presence of the advertisements, vital to RuneScape, as non-invasive as possible. 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.

Foreign Languages

On 14 February 2007, Jagex released a German translation of RuneScape. It is currently in a closed beta stage while errors in the translation of the game and website are corrected. Only a few specially chosen German-speaking players are allowed onto the two beta servers, one for each the free and members versions of RuneScape. A public release of the German version is expected as soon as translation problems are sorted out.

Membership

Membership in RuneScape is an optional service that provides extensive additional content and extra features versus the free version of the game. Most quests and several skills, as well as three-fourths of the world map, are reserved for members. Members can play mini-games with unique rewards, use new items, and have access to improvements for nearly all skills. Members also receive additional storage space for their items, priority customer service, and the ability to post on the official forums and vote in official website polls. Regular game updates are usually reserved for members, save for a few updates each year that affect the free version of the game.

Monthly membership fees are currently set at £3.20, $5.00 US, €4.60, $8.20 Aus$, if paid for with a credit or debit card. Other payment methods are available, such as PayPal, cheque or money order, or through players' telephone providers, generally at a higher price. Players who pay in currencies other than pounds, dollars, or euros pay the dollar price converted into their payment currency.

Members are granted access to exclusive members servers, which have the advertisements which support the game's free version disabled. Due to free players being unable to access members servers, they are often more lightly populated than the free servers. Members features and content are restricted to these servers; however, members can choose to play on free servers if they wish. Members that switch between members and free servers must be standing on the free portion of the map in order to log into the free server. Members features are disabled on free servers, and members items lose any of the benefits that they may provide. Logging back into a members server restores these benefits.

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 skills needed to succeed in Gielinor. After completing the tutorial, players can access information from tutors located in the towns they explore. These non-player characters, or NPCs, can replace some basic equipment items if necessary. 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 addictive, and some people play RuneScape more than they do anything else.

RuneScape has music, sound effects, and ambient noises throughout Gielinor to enhance gameplay. The music, while often a simple tune, is designed to enhance mood and help 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. Players can adjust the volumes of the music, sound effects, and ambient noises independently of each other. Players can also turn each type of sound off if they prefer.

Graphics

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. In February 2005, Jagex began the process of updating the graphical images in the RuneScape cities and the wilderness, planning ultimately to improve the graphics of the entire free area of RuneScape without causing more lag for people using dial-up Internet connections.

RuneScape places emphasis on granting players the ability to customise their characters by supplying a wide choice in character models. Unlike many games in the genre, player characters must be human; however, players can choose their appearance from a wide range of hairstyles, body types, facial features, clothing options, and gender. On-screen appearance is further optimised by wearing or wielding items, with each different item having a unique image. Standard weapons of the same class, such as swords, use the same set of animations in combat; however, some special weapons have their own, distinctive animations that differ completely from those of other weapons in their category.

A player's appearance can be radically changed with special equipment and during particular events. Players can be transformed by game characters or their surroundings into frogs, mushrooms, or small animals. Players using certain items can transform themselves into piles of stone, eggs, penguins or monkeys, allowing them to avoid negative effects or gaining them access to otherwise unreachable places. Such "morphs" are temporary, and players cannot perform certain activities that normally can be done in human form.

Each activity performed by a player, from walking down a city street to planting a seed in a farming plot, has its own distinctive animation. Players can also express emotions whenever they choose through the use of emotes. New players start with most of the available emotes, but others must be earned from quests, random events, or holiday events.

Skills

A player collects coal using the mining skill.

Skills in RuneScape are the abilities that enable players to perform activities in the game. Players gain experience in a skill when they perform activities that utilise that skill, such as mining ore from a rock to increase the mining skill. In general, the higher the level required to perform a task, the more experience points the player receives, and the more desirable the result. The total skill level of a player partly symbolises 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 known within the RuneScape community. Upon reaching the highest available level in a skill, players may obtain a special cape, which can be used to perform an emote related to that skill.

RuneScape has twenty-three trainable skills in four categories. Combat consists of attack, strength, defence, magic, ranged, prayer, and hitpoints. The extraction skills, which allow players to gather resources, include mining, fishing, woodcutting, thieving, and farming. The processing skills, which allow players to process resources into usable items, include smithing, cooking, crafting, runecrafting, fletching, and herblore. The independent skills include firemaking, agility, construction, slayer, and hunter.

Combat

A player and an NPC engage in combat.

Combat is an important aspect of the gameplay in RuneScape, as it is one of the most direct ways of gaining wealth and is needed to start and complete many quests. Combat level, determined by applying a formula to the seven combat skills, is usually referred to simply as "level". Combat level is the only information about the player that is visible to other players while in game. Other skill levels increase total levels and overall rankings for players, but not their combat levels.

Combat is subdivided into melee, magic, and ranged categories. Melee attacks are close range with or without weapons, magic attacks focus on using runestones to cast spells, and ranged moves use projectile weapons. Most of the game's weapons are medieval or fantastical in nature and feature different strengths and weaknesses.

Players die when they receive enough damage from combat, poison, or obstacles to cause their hitpoints to fall to zero. Players who die reappear at one of two respawn points (the town of Lumbridge by default, though members may change to the city of Falador upon completion of a quest) with all their skills, including hitpoints, restored to normal levels; however, they lose most or all of the items they were carrying.

Unlike most games in the MMORPG genre, RuneScape does not require players to choose a character class. Players are not bound to a specific category of combat, and they may freely change between the three styles of combat at any time simply by switching weapons, armours, or the form and focus of attack. Players can carry the weapons and armours of the three combat categories in their inventories, switching between or even combining the styles at will.

Quests

Quests are tasks that players may complete in order to receive rewards, often including access to new items and areas. Specific skill and combat levels are required to begin or complete most quests. Quests are grouped into four categories based on requirements and difficulty. Novice quests function as an extended tutorial for new players. Intermediate quests are designed for players who seek harder obstacles, while experienced and master quests are designed to challenge the game's most experienced players. Many master quests open up new areas of Gielinor for players to explore. Once a player completes all quests in the game, a quest cape can be purchased from an NPC. Wearing this cape allows the player to perform a special emote.

Upon completing quests, players receive rewards that vary depending on the difficulty of the quest. Rewards often include coins, items, access to an area, or an increase in skill experience. Quest points are also awarded for completing quests. Some quests require players to have a specified number of quest points or to have completed specific quests as a demonstration of their prior accomplishments or ability. Many quests are part of overlapping storylines, the most famous of which contains seven quests and has been in RuneScape for several years.

Interaction

Many NPCs populate the realm of Gielinor. Although some NPCs, such as shopkeepers, have game functions that require them to be unavailable for combat, most NPCs can be attacked. Attackable NPCs are generally referred to as monsters, regardless of their race. Monsters range from common, low level creatures like chickens and bears 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 (the exception being metal dragons). Monsters may also be aggressive (attacking any player who comes within range, regardless of combat level), non-aggressive (not attacking players unless provoked, regardless of combat levels), or partially aggressive (attacking only those players with combat levels in specified ranges). This can make certain areas throughout Gielinor dangerous or inconvenient to players depending upon their combat levels.

RuneScape 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.

Players can fight against other players in player versus player (PvP) combat in certain areas of Gielinor. The most common place is in the Wilderness, where players risk their lives, but more importantly their items, challenging other players. Players can engage in PvP combat without risking their items in mini-games such as the Duel Arena, Castle Wars, and the TzHaar Fight Pits, and in combat arenas or dungeons in player owned houses. Players engaging in PvP combat in the Duel Arena must agree on the rules of engagement (eg. if allowed food or not) and the stake before combat between them begins.

Random events

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 or bots, to play the game with no human interaction. The use of such macros is forbidden and can result in the permanent ban of accounts found to be using them. 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.

Two random events have been removed from the game by Jagex. The tangle vine was removed almost immediately after being introduced as it was deemed too dangerous to players, but was reintroduced as part of the construction skill for POH's. The Dr. Ford event was removed for causing graphical problems within the game program.

Community

Players of RuneScape represent a wide range of nationalities and ages. Most players speak English to some extent. Players who speak languages other than English tend to gravitate to worlds populated by other players who speak the same language; some worlds have a greater percentage of players who speak Spanish, Dutch, French, German, or other languages. It is not uncommon, however, to see many languages on the chat screens throughout RuneScape. On 14 February 2007, the company released a closed beta of the German language version.

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, play player-made forum games, 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.

Players can submit questions to any non-player character 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.

Players can submit their own original Runescape related artwork, a select few of which are displayed in a gallery on the RuneScape website. Media featured have included sculpture, comics, drawings, and paintings.

Many fansites have been established for RuneScape, 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 as well as the rules of RuneScape and account security.

Reception

A study by Brunel University claims that playing RuneScape, in some ways, can be beneficial to players. It can instruct players about working hard to achieve goals and that the nature of most games, including RuneScape, can teach teenagers vital skills as they enter the labour market. As of December 2003, RuneScape was one of the fastest growing out of all of the MMORPGs, having a userbase fifty percent larger than that of EverQuest." 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 in December 2003; states 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."

Criticism and response

To combat cheating and the use of macros, Jagex has taken measures such as introducing random events that require immediate human response and providing safety warnings in the player trading system. In response to automated scripts, Jagex has banned over 20,000 accounts through a macro detection system. RuneScape chat filters have the ability to censor words and letter combinations that may be offensive to players. Players are often able to use intentional misspellings, also known as Leet (1337), or symbols to bypass the filter. To combat this, changes are continually being made by Jagex to the filters to block offensive language and to prevent non-offensive words from being accidentally blocked.

Business aspects of the RuneScape organization have fallen under criticism. 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. Jagex increased the size of the customer support team and expanded the online Knowledge Base to alleviate customer service problems.

As with many similar games, RuneScape has been criticised for its repetitive nature, particularly in regards to building experience points. Jagex has since introduced random events to help combat this.