RuneScape

There are 29 skills in RuneScape, 17 skills available to free-to-play players and an additional 12 for members, which enable players to perform various activities allowing for interaction with NPCs, the environment and other players. Players gain experience points in a skill when they use it. For example, mining an ore trains the mining skill, and when the player accumulates enough experience points in the skill, their character will "level up".[19] As a skill level rises, the ability to retrieve better raw materials and produce better products increases, as does the experience awarded if the player uses new abilities. The total skill level of a player partly symbolises the player's status in the game and subscribers with a high total level can appear on the high scores.[20] Upon reaching the highest available level in a skill, members may buy a special cape to symbolise their achievement.[21]

Some skills, such as woodcutting and fishing, enable the player to collect raw materials that can be processed into usable items for other skills, such as fletching and cooking respectively. The items created can be used by the player or sold to shops and other players. Other skills allow players to kill certain NPCs, build their own houses, move around the map with greater ease, steal from various NPCs, market stalls and chests located in-game, light fires, cook their own food, create their own potions, craft runestones and weapons, plant their own plants, hunt NPC animals, raid dungeons, and summon familiars to assist in combat and training skills.[22]

RuneScape features a semi-real-time combat system. Combat is an important aspect of the game, allowing players to defeat monsters to obtain dropped items or to complete quests. A combat level is an indicator of how powerful a player or NPC is in combat. For players, it is determined by applying a mathematical formula to their combat skills.[23] Players engage in combat by clicking on the enemy they want their character to attack and will automatically continue fighting until they kill their opponent, die, or retreat from the fight. Most of the game's weapons are medieval or fantastical in nature, and feature different strengths and weaknesses. Players may summon a familiar to assist with combat,[24] use special attacks called "abilities" to deal additional damage,[25] and use potions and the Prayer skill to boost their combat prowess.

Combat is subdivided into four main categories: melee, magic, ranged and necromancy. Melee attacks are close range,[26] magic attacks focus on using runestones to cast spells,[27] ranged attacks use projectile weapons like arrows, darts or throwing knives,[28] and necromancy combines direct attacks with the summoning of undead combatants to fight alongside the player. The first three combat types make up a "Combat Triangle", which governs effectiveness of styles in a rock-paper-scissors fashion; melee beats ranged, ranged beats magic, magic beats melee, and each style is neutral to itself.[29] Necromancy is a standalone method of combat and is neutral to the other styles. The advantages and disadvantages of the combat triangle apply to both NPCs and player opponents. Players are not required to choose a character class nor are they bound to a specific category of combat. They may freely change between or combine the styles of combat by switching weapons and armour.

Combat is governed by a life points system. Every combatant has a maximum capacity of life points, and dies when their health is depleted to 0. Lost life points can be recovered by consuming certain food or drinks, or casting abilities. Players who die reappear at a respawn point of their choice with their life and skill points restored; however, they drop all but three chosen items, as well as certain common items.[23][30] Dying spawns a gravestone that will hold all of the player's items and will last for an allotted time; however, there are situations in which all items will be lost upon death. If the player does not return in time, the grave will collapse and their items will disappear.[23][30]

In June 2012 players were invited to beta-test a new combat system named "Evolution of Combat",[31] which included fundamental changes such as re-balancing the Combat Triangle to avoid favouring melee attacks,[32] and replacing special weapon attacks with abilities that produce a range of effects when activated. The system was released on the live game on 20 November 2012.[25] Various polls were also added for players to vote on in game that would determine the result of future content development,[33] some of which would dictate the development of the improved combat system.[34][35] A beta for a separate combat system dubbed "Legacy Mode" was opened to players on 16 June 2014,[36] before being introduced to the live game on 14 July. Legacy Mode allows players to switch to the combat system and interface from prior to June 2012 instead of the Evolution of Combat system.[37]

Player versus player combat (PvP) can be performed in specific controlled mini-games and in an area known as the Wilderness. The Duel Arena allows players to stake money and items,[38] while other PvP games offer their own rewards. In the Wilderness, players can engage in combat provided that their combat levels fall within a certain range of each other, and if a player kills their opponent they will be able to claim their opponent's items as a reward.[39]

Before December 2007, players went to the Wilderness to fight other players within a certain combat level range, hoping to kill them and gain their items.[40] In December 2007, the Wilderness was altered to prevent players from transferring in-game items for real-world currency.[41] PvP combat was removed from the Wilderness and temporarily restricted to new mini-games named Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars.[42] Bounty Hunter was replaced by special Bounty Worlds on 6 May 2009 in which players were confined to the Wilderness and could be assigned specific targets to kill.[43] "PvP Worlds" were introduced on 15 October 2008 where players could fight almost anywhere in Gielinor,[44] but these and "Bounty Worlds" were removed when PvP combat in the Wilderness was restored on 1 February 2011.[45]

Non-player characters (NPCs) populate the realm of Gielinor. Some NPCs, such as shopkeepers and some characters in quests, are unavailable for combat. However, most NPCs can be attacked and these are generally referred to as monsters. Monsters range from common, low-level creatures, such as chickens and goblins, to unique and often much more powerful monsters, such as the Queen Black Dragon, Telos, and Vorago.[46]

Most monsters have their own strengths and weaknesses, notable exceptions being certain bosses, which have no specific weaknesses. Demons, for example, have a weak defence against ranged attacks, while metal dragons have extremely high defence against ranged. The weakness of an individual monster is displayed in an interface above its model, along with its combat level and lifepoints.

Monsters may either be aggressive or non-aggressive. Non-aggressive monsters ignore players unless attacked, while 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.[46]

Players can interact with each other through trading, chatting, or by participating in mini-games and activities, some of which are competitive or combative in nature, while others require cooperative or collaborative play. Players can trade items and gold coins with each other, either through a face-to-face trade,[47] or by using a large automated marketplace known as the Grand Exchange.[48]

The chat system enables players to communicate with each other. Public Chat broadcasts text to players in the local area on one server, both by text appearing above the speaker's head and in the message box. Friends Chat broadcasts text in the message box only to certain players tuned into a specific channel, who can be available on any RuneScape world. Each Friends Chat channel has an owner, who can assign different ranks to individual players; players' ranks dictate their ability to perform administrative tasks within the channel. Clan Chat allows members of a clan to communicate with each other through a separate channel.[49] Quick Chat allows players to choose from a list of predetermined messages to send as Public Chat, Clan Chat, or Friends Chat.[50]

RuneScape features independent mini-games, although most are only available to paying members. Mini-games take place in certain areas and normally involve specific in-game skills, and usually require players to cooperate or to compete with each other. Examples of these mini-games include Castle Wars, which is similar to the real-life game Capture the Flag, Pest Control, a highly combat-focused mini-game, and Fist of Guthix, where one player (the hunter) tries to stop another player (the hunted) from collecting charges into a magical stone.[51]

Quests are series of tasks with a storyline that players can choose to complete. These often have requirements including minimum levels in certain skills, combat levels, quest points and/or the completion of other quests. Players receive various rewards for completion of quests, including money, unique items, access to new areas, quest points and/or increases in skill experience. Some quests require players to work together, and many require players to engage in challenging combat. Quests are grouped into categories based on requirements and difficulty.[52] Once a player completes all quests in the game, an achievement item known as the "Quest Point Cape" can be claimed.[21] New quests are released periodically.

RuneScape can be run with varying levels of graphical detail. High-detail graphics enhance texture and design, while low-detail graphics provide a cleaner look and can reduce lag on less powerful computers. RuneScape uses a graphics engine called "RuneTek 5", which provides support for multiple graphics platforms such as DirectX, OpenGL and video game consoles, as well as graphical effects such as sky boxes, bloom lighting[94][95] and Z-buffering.[96] The high-detail version incorporates hardware acceleration and can be rendered using either Java OpenGL or DirectX.[97][98]

RuneScape features a character-customisation system. Player characters are human; however, players may choose the gender, hairstyle, facial hair, skin colour, and clothing options.[15] Appearance is further complemented by wearing or wielding items. Players can express emotions through the use of specialised animations called emotes, some of which are standard and others earned through gameplay or released during holiday events.[99]

RuneScape has original music and ambient soundscapes. The music was designed to define the underlying cultures of the various locations accessible, and ambient sounds, such as the cry of seagulls flying over the ocean, occur in logical places.[100] The game also incorporates voice acting in certain areas and situations.[58] The RuneScape 3 update included orchestral music recorded in Bratislava, Slovakia, and was scored by James Hannigan.[86]

As of November 2011, there were 139 English RuneScape servers located throughout the world, which are numbered and referred to as "worlds" by players and by Jagex.[101] They are located in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Mexico, France, Lithuania, and India.[102][103] Servers are moved or added as the need arises.[104]

Each RuneScape server allows up to 2,000 players to log in simultaneously,[105] allowing a maximum capacity of more than 278,000 players. The servers are divided into free servers which are available for all players, and servers which are reserved for paying members. Some servers are given activity labels, allowing players performing tasks that require or desire group participation to group together.[106]

In February 2013, a poll was opened allowing players to decide whether Jagex should open a separate incarnation of RuneScape from August 2007.[107] Old School RuneScape was opened to paying subscribers on 22 February 2013 after the poll received 50,000 votes,[108] and a free-to-play version was later released on 19 February 2015.[109] It was originally created as an exact copy of RuneScape from August 2007 and receives regular content additions. Old School RuneScape is entirely community based; for any proposed update or idea to pass into the game, it needs at least 75% of the community to vote 'Yes' for it, and if it does not pass it will either be dropped or reconstructed and re-polled so that the players may find the update more acceptable.[110] On 17 July 2017, Jagex announced a mobile port of Old School RuneScape, which was released in 2018.[111]

On 16 September 2015 Jagex released DarkScape, a separate version of RuneScape which featured open-world player versus player combat. DarkScape was originally released with most of RuneScape's content, but received separate content updates. DarkScape was completely free to play, with some additional benefits reserved for paying subscribers.[112] DarkScape closed on 28 March 2016 due to lack of interest.[113]

Jagex has employed rules for player conduct, such as rules against offensive language, scamming, and bug abuse.[127] To enforce the rules, an in-game feature exists that allows a player to send a report to Jagex if they notice another player breaking a rule.[128] RuneScape also uses four types of moderators: Jagex Moderators, who are Jagex employees; Local Moderators, who are employees of Jagex's partners in certain territories; Player Moderators, who are trusted players that enforce the rules within the game; and Forum Moderators, who are trusted players who monitor the game forums.[129] Players who repeatedly break the rules may be temporarily or permanently banned from playing the game.[128]

There are also rules prohibiting the use of third-party software to play the game, known as "macroing" or "botting", and the sale of game items for real money through real-world trading. In an attempt to stop cheating, Jagex made direct interaction with the client difficult, established rules against the practice,[130] and introduced random events that required player input to complete.[131] In response to continued gold farming, Jagex issued a statement condemning real-world trading, stating that they were seizing billions of gold and banning thousands of accounts every week for cheating, and promising to increase their efforts to prevent real-world trading in the game.[132]

From October 2007 to December 2007, Jagex began releasing a series of updates to restrict unbalanced trades. The updates limited the value of items staked in duels, removed player-versus-player combat from the Wilderness, made valuable player drops invisible to other players, introduced gravestones for the items of dead players, instituted systems for assisting players with skills and sharing loot among groups of players, and established the Grand Exchange, a sharemarket-like trade system for RuneScape goods. Collectively, these changes were designed to make it extremely difficult for real-world traders to distribute gold and items to players.[41] These features were restored on 1 February 2011 following a referendum among players in December 2010 on whether or not to do so.[45][133]

On 25 October 2011, Jagex released an anti-bot system[134] code-named the 'ClusterFlutterer', as part of a game update intended to permanently prevent "reflection" bots from working. The release of this was nicknamed the "Bot Nuke", and was estimated to have banned 98% of the accounts that were using bots, eventually resulting in 7.7 million account bans.[58] From 26 September 2012 until its removal on 20 August 2018,[135] accounts that were banned for using bots were sent to an isolated area named "Botany Bay" to be given an ultimate punishment as decided by players.[136]

On 25 September 2013, Jagex introduced bonds to the game, in-game items that can be purchased using real currency then traded with other players or exchanged for membership, RuneCoins or additional spins on the game's Squeal of Fortune. Bonds were introduced to allow players to exchange real currency for in-game benefits legitimately, a move described by CEO Mark Gerhard as "essential for the future of RuneScape".[137] One week later, Jagex reported that the amount of in-game coins brought in by gold farmers was down by 81%; real-world trading was down by 61% and the wealth of those trades was down by 63%.[138]

The Falador Massacre was a historic bug that occurred on 6 June 2006.[139] The bug caused several players to retain the ability to attack other players after leaving a designated PvP location.[140] Ordinarily, players are only allowed to attack other players in player-owned houses, minigames, or in the Wilderness. According to a statement made by a Jagex employee, the bug was caused by insufficient testing of an update that saw the release of a new game skill, Construction, wherein players could create their own houses in which PvP combat could take place.

Although the bug was considered quite negative at the time of occurrence, Jagex has since recognized it as a historic event in the franchise, and has created in-game reenactments in both RuneScape[141] and Old School RuneScape.[142][143] On 6 June 2016, Jagex created two unique and isolated game servers (worlds 111 for RS3 and 666 for OSRS, commemorating 6/6/06)[144][145] wherein PvP was enabled and players could attack an NPC named after "Durial321", one of the more well known players to have been affected by the bug.[146] World 666 also played an in-game cover of the song "Planet Hell" by Nightwish, which was the song used in the original video of the event. The track was removed from the game when the event was over.[147] The bug's reception has become part of internet culture.[148] PC Gamer called the bug "One of the best all-time MMO bugs".[149]

In 2018, it was reported that RuneScape had generated over US$1 billion in lifetime revenue since its original launch.[165] RuneScape annually generates over £100 million in revenue and over £50 million in profit.[166]