Runescape: Part 2

Today we'll be taking a look at the second Runescape community, the paid (Members) servers.

These servers are very much like the free ones, in that they are servers, and on these servers, you play Runescape. What's different are the other things. There is about 8 times more paid content than free. Runescape free play is like playing the free trial to a game over and over. Members get a lot of benefits, one, being the most important to the community, is the forum. Members are the only ones who can post on the official forums, and so they are normally more organized. Members tend to be less likely to fight over something, specifically territory, because of the abundance of servers available to them.

Another important thing about the Member's game is that teamwork is more stressed. Several bosses scattered around the would can't be fought with less than five people with much chance of success. Clans are formed, often exclusively, for that purpose. Another thing that clans do is participate in the many team based minigames, such as Clan Wars, Castle Wars, Pest Control, and more. Each of these is a different type of play that usually involves 25 or more players working towards a common goal, with some reward for winning. Players, as a result, are more reasonable in these contexts, and some of that spills out into the open world. Of course, even here you are going to find the occasional degenerate/imbecile, screaming on about how much he pwnz0rz, or how dumb you are for wearing a rare item, or training a certain skill.

There is one skill in particular that I feel is good for social players, my personal favorite, Construction. Construction is a skill that allows any member with enough gold to creat theif own house, one you can invite your friends into, and eventually cook food, play games, fight duels, and eventually face a dungeon of the player's design. Of course, it take a long time and millions of gold pieces to level construction to any respectable level (My own is level 60 out of 99, and it's become far too expensive to power level.) This is usually a deterrent for hardcore players, and so make anyone with a high level seem more special, and you're quickly everyone's friend.

In conclusion, and as I've said before, the Member's side is where you find everyone who can spare five dollars, and that raises the bar surprisingly significantly as far as player quality goes. Members players don't play the same game that makes most gamers shudder when they hear the word "Runescape," but most outsiders never seem to differentiate it from the rest.

That wraps up the Runescape segment. Next time, we'll be looking at Travian, a free-to-play empire building strategy game.

This is me, in my house.

Runescape: Part 1

Runescape is a curious game, socially, in that it has two completely separate major communities: a free-to-play one, and a paid one. In this edition of Plumbing the Depths, we'll be looking at the free community.

First and foremost, it must be said: Runescape is popular. When you google "Online adventure," or, "Online adventure game," it's the first result. It's featured often on high-traffic gaming site Miniclip, and as such, has a lot of traffic. they boast "over 120 million unique users," not including the millions of multi-accounts that so many keep. This is critical to understanding the free community: it is so incredibly loose. Jagex, the company behind the game, does not allow free users to post on the forums. They can browse and read them, but all other communication is solely ingame. With more than 75 free servers, you're lucky to see the same person twice. This is not helped by some of the chat restrictions put in place by Jagex: the letters "irc," even inside another word, (e.g. zirconium,) are filtered to asterisks. Posting a URL in chat is both difficult ( \/\/w\/\/.myclanf0r\/m.c0'm ,) and reportable.

But an MMO is really nothing without at least some sort of community, and so free players are often seen forming huge clans, which are sort of like a communal friends list. When a player logs in, they press the "Join Clan Chat" button and input a player's name. Anyone who is in the same player's channel will see what that channel's occupants are saying, and on which server. These clans can grow to include over 100 players, though it's rare. Most free players play alone, or with a few real-life friends.

But the most obvious, and also important thing to know about these groups is how they interact with one another. Being the free version, it's going to attract a lot of people who don't want to pay for the full version. More often than not, these are young kids, usually 15 years old at the oldest. The free servers act as a holding place for anyone without five bucks on the internet. That's kids, usually. You may imagine a lot of bickering goes on. You would be right. Players can often be seen arguing about whether or not to use a two handed sword or a much less powerful sword and shield, in the name of "looking cooler." Groups can be seen spitefully hogging resource gathering areas for hours at a time. Swearing is, of course, near-impossible, so usually it's not even attempted.

After a few hours of solo play, I joined a decent sized clan and started chatting. People were so nice in there! I joined the server where a group of three: An archer, a warrior, and a mage, were killing Hill Giants and allowed me to join them. We turned on the Loot Sharing system and I started to cast spells for a while. Now, a quick word on the lootshare system: Stuff is distriubuted randomly. I wasn't out for items or money, but the warrior and archer seemed to be getting an awful lot of runes (The fuel for magic spells.) The mage had only been getting one or two every once in a while, as well as a few coins and food and bones. The mage started to bicker about how they should give him the runes because he deserved them more, and did not offer to give up any of his loot. This let to infighting, which I stayed out of. Eventually, everyone split up, and so I was alone again.

I decided to go to the Grand Exchange, the center of all trading, on a more populous server, and I noticed something curious: there were a lot of people standing off to the side offering to buy items directly, as opposed to through the exchange, for "good prices." I checked on the exchange prices, and the offered ones were considerably higher. Also of note: other players had noticed, and were continuosly spamming it in chat. "86 G Unit98 is a scammer! He is buying at lo prices!" People were horrendously upset that someone was trying to get a better deal on an item! I am not defending the greed of 86 G Unit98, but it's nothing to clamor about.

So there you have it: Runescape Free Players are juvenile, petty, and clique-y. My, that's a long post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. *Shudder*

Next time, we'll be looking at what goes on in the member's worlds! Expect a post by Wednesday!

The Grand Exchange. I'm the witch in black.

F1R5T P0S7!

Hi, you readers. This is my blog, where I'll be regaling you with wondrous tales of the communities I find in various MMOs. This will include MMORPGs, as well as various shooters and fighters. I reserve the right to do other genres too (I've been ithching to try out the new Mario Kart.)
We'll, here's to a fun ride. Our first game will be an interesting, albeit basic one: Runescape. Expect a post within a few days!

-The Mango Vendor