Yesterday I got home from school with little to do. So I logged on for the first time in a month and a half and realized that I’d been playing RuneScape for at least 6 years. Why?
I started my time playing RuneScape at a relatively early age, when I heard about how cool a game it was from friends. I first heard about it in a comment regarding a person dieing and dropping a mithril mace. My friend was extremely excited. He has since quit, but this is what got me started. I played on and off for a while. I went to the Dark Warrior's Fortress in the wilderness and got a black medium helm and a black mace. I remember training on goblins to obtain the levels for these items, and being excited to be able to kill farmers. (until I realized they didn't have any good drops) I did many quests, some as they came out. Honestly I cannot remember which quests, but I did a couple on the release date. It was a great feeling working with other people to figure out what the heck needed to be done. The fatigue mechanic was strange to me, but made fundamental sense: people need to rest. RS2 was then released, which I was excited about. I expected much better graphics, along the lines of the new RSHD. This of course didn't come for many years, but I was satisfied nonetheless.
I am dissapointed by Jagexs' decision to only allow members to play RSC, as I let my account lapse and was F2P at the time.
Back on topic, when RS2 came along, my dial-up wasn’t sufficient. I accumulated about 5000gp, which at that time wouldn't really buy any equipment. Even steel armor was out of my price range. Then I came across what I saw to be an excellent source of money: chopping regular trees. I met a person in draynor bank who would meeI quit for a decent period of time, resigned to the fact I would never play it again, satisfied with my accomplishments at the time. Finally we got DSL, and I occasionally started to play. Why? I wanted to level up and finish all the f2p quests. But even after doing this I felt like I needed to do more. I realized the kind of time commitment it would take to make the money to train skills. (at the time it took a long time to sell anything, because of the lack of a GE)
Finally, I stumbled upon the tip it IRC channel where I won a piece of barrows that was worth 600k. (This was before trade limits) I immediately became absorbed in the game again, and got to level 62.
Realize, I probably only gained about 300000 experience at the time, but it seemed like a huge amount. After smelting what seemed like millions of steel bars I continued. Then I stopped playing, and said it was repetitive and stupid.
Then, I was diagnosed with scoliosis and had to have back surgery. I was unable to move around for a good couple months, and gained a huge amount of experience, as well as became p2p. It was a good way to kill time, but I never really found it very fun. Even after doing tons of slayer tasks, getting my summoning to 59, and completing Swan Song, Lunar Diplomacy, Monkey Madness, the Hero's quest and quite a few others, I felt like I had an infinite way to go. However throughout this time I have gained a huge amount of knowledge which at my current levels cannot utilize, but is of huge usefulness to other players out there. I only played because of the community, the promise of higher levels, and Tip it. Additionally I began to doubt the principle that time is 'skill' is exponentially proportional to time.
But thinking about it today, none of the reasons but the community seem valid to me. I really don’t care what some little faceless man on a screen has in terms of skills: I care about the people behind the other faces. Secondly, I find the content interesting, strangely. It’s real life applications, and theory-crafting are not unique to RuneScape, but maintain my interest. I don’t plan to play much after this, but rest assured I will.
This makes me wonder about higher leveled players who spend huge amounts of time gaining maximum experience levels. Though I do not look down upon them, I am unable to guess their motivation for playing.
Here are a few thoughts of players with much higher levels than mine:
Nyosuht: For a while, I played with friends and family... we had like eight computers set up and just had a bi-wheneverly game night. It's cheaper than drinks, easier to remember(sometimes), and arguably less dangerous.
Taraka: I've been playing RS since before RSC was RSC, before sleeping bags existed, Draynor was the hotspot for the economy trading certs, and Elvarg was the meanest son of a [bleep] to kill. Playing it back then had me curious about what could come from RS. How far could the graphics go, how many new quests would be around to do, how many more new friends would I make. I still play because of that curiosity.
Why do you play RuneScape?
