On the 22nd February, 2010, a mid-to-high-levelled update was made to a rather dead activity – Impetuous Impulses. If you don’t already know, the update saw 3 new Implings – each with generous rewards, called the ‘Spirit Impling’, the ‘Zombie Impling’ and the ‘Kingly Impling’. The Spirit Impling is a gift to Summoners, giving either charms or useful secondary rewards. The Zombie Impling gives, as can probably be guessed, bones! However, it opened up a new opportunity for a brand new Greegree as one of the rewards is the elusive Monkey Skull (which has been underneath the Ape Atoll palace). The new greegree allows for you to turn into an ape with a blue face (could this be Marimbo?)! But then there’s the Kingly Impling...
The Kingly Impling is the rarest, most valuable Impling to date. Requiring a high level of 91 in Hunter, it is an extremely valuable commodity. But it’s the rewards people want. No, not the Dragon Equipment, Weapons or actually useful things, but it’s the Royal Set. You read right – the Royal Set. The Royal Set consists of: Royal Crown, Royal Amulet, Royal Shirt, Royal Leggings and the Royal Sceptre. Let’s just take a look at the stats for the Royal Set… Ah, 0 in everything for the crown… 0 in everything for the amulet… 0 in everything for the top… wait. Is anyone else here noticing a pattern? It appears that the royal set is entirely useless!
So why, I ask, do people spend millions – sometime billions, for useless armour or weaponry? Is it for the ‘praise’ they get for owning such high end works of art? Maybe it’s to show off – we all know the Partyhats. They’re worth 100M+ and too, are completely useless – but you see these high levels wearing them… Maybe it’s just because the players like the aesthetics of the item? I personally think that it’s all of the reasons mentioned. But before I give my conclusion, it’s better to go into detail.
Another instance of this is both flowers and the elegant set. Firstly, I’ll start with the Elegant set. We all know the elegant set – a useless piece of virtual fabric that is awarded randomly from a level 1 or 2 clue scroll. The White and Black sets are considerably higher in price than the rest, due to its rarity and colour scheme. There is a certain kind of flower, which is no better than any other kind of flower, but is harder to obtain than the rest of the flowers: the white flower. At the moment, these white flowers are going for a whoppingly large 276K – 276,070 coins more than the other flowers. Why? Personally I think that some people are vain and are only interested in how they look rather than having useful equipment. Also as mentioned before: people may like the sense of ‘accomplishment’ the Million-GP items bring, as it usually takes someone quite a bit effort to make enough money to buy these rare items. But I haven't mentioned prestige. Obviously some players feel that these clothes gives them some sort of prestige - a 'street reputation' if you will. By having these extremely expensive clothes maybe the players feel 'prestige' and liked by their fellow players, a sense of accomplishment even.
My main point against items like this has been mentioned before: its usefulness/uselessness. Whatever happened to function over fashion? It is very common to see many players wearing useless armour and weapons now – more so than ever before – what with the Royal Set, Party Hats, Santa Hats and many other rare and ultra rare items. Could it possibly be that people don’t like to wear armour while they ‘socialize?’ But why, then, does a player need to have clothing to ‘socialize’ and clothing to ‘fight’ – why not just have one set of clothes to wear all the time?
But of course, there is always a positive side to the story. Let’s take it from the hunter’s point of view. You log in to RuneScape after hearing about the elusive ‘Kingly Implings’ and by supreme luck (and a bit of world hopping!) you catch 5 Kingly Implings. Excellent! Now to loot them… Wow! You get the entire Royal set! What do you do? Wear them? Show off your extreme luck and prowess in Hunter? Sell them? It’s an instant 100m+ – you’re overjoyed! But obviously this is just hypothetical as, as most people know, looting imps can make a loss and getting the entire royal set in go is just... impossible.
So, hopefully you’re a bit enlightened into the Function over Fashion argument. I, for one, would never touch something like Elegant or Royal set. But selling them after luckily receiving them? Now that’s a different story!
Obviously this article may seem… sour to some people. Not everyone wears clothes like the ones mentioned in this article and certainly everyone who wears clothes like that is not a money-spending idiot. Some people wear these clothes for ‘relaxing’. Even I wear Void Knight Mage armour when I’m not in combat or skilling! – But please remember that this is only one side of the argument.
