Another Free MMORPG. This time in a Browser. WARNING: INTENSIVE READING! PLEASE DON'T STRAIN YOURSELF Tru
GamePlay: 7 out of 10
Glitchy...Bad movement, lots of clicking, Bots galore (is it really that hard to hack a browser game??? No it isn't). These are only a few terms that describe RuneScape. If you are wondering why I gave it a 7, I'll get to the good stuff first.~looks at fairly short list~ Good skills. Although most are boring, some come with large reward if you sell what you got. Still it is mindless clicking, after clicking, after clicking. Some involve combat, which is still tedious, tedious clicking. Hunting was one of the newest skills released, but when you try and catch birds, BORING! Some of the trapping is fun but it still isn't fun. And here is the award for most fun skill (NOT COMBAT SKILLS) Nominees: Construction, Hey its constructive, fun, and you can build various things to make your house look 1337! Fun parties! Nominee number 2: Thieving. Your not allowed to do it in real-life but its 100% legal in RuneScape (No you can't thieve other players!).
Nominee numero 3: Cooking. Brew, bake, and roast a gourmet meal in under 5 seconds real-time. The winner is obviously Construction. Hell every other skill is mindless clicking (Not Combat Skills) and at times are boring to do unless you are competing for Hi-scores. Those Boring skills tend to get the most money and the most fun, which IMO is Construction makes you lose so much money! Its kind of infuriating because a house that continuously gets upgraded from Level 1 to 99 costs more than 100 million, give or take because of the rapidly changing market. Just leave yourself out of skills unless you got the cash for Construction or don't mind a little *cough* a lot of grind. Most of the skills attract bots because of the easy to hack game and how much gain it would be towards their main-character. Now the bots usually are always there and have an automated system so when there inventory is filled up, they can go back to the bank and deposit and go back for more. Bigger issues surface when actual players are competing against the bots to get whatever it is they are trying to get. Its nearly impossible to compete with them and usually all servers are crammed with them. That does annoy everyone who are just there to try and make a little cash and get some XP. Now do you wonder why it is called RuneScape? Some argue its Run Escape but its named after the Runes which serve as counters for how much magic you can cast. There are many different runes and each spell needs a specific amount and a specific type. There are staffs that serve as replacement but not all runes have them. There are combination Runes which serve as two in one runes. RuneCrafting is the skill where you make Runes.
Mini-Games are really fun, especially Castle Wars, A capture-the-flag variant
where there are two castles, and a middle bridge point. You play for the RuneScape gods which are Saradomin, the good guy, and Zamorak, The bad guy. You can choose to jump through the Neutral Guthix god portal when you join, which automatically puts you on the team with less people. Once the game starts, there is a 20 Minute time frame to try and capture as many flags as possible. Plays well, but really there are no strategies to be discussed during the five-minute wait-time before the game. Ancient Magicks tend to work the best and holding your flag works too. Bad part is, it has crappy rewards. Another mini-game is Barbarian Assault, where you can choose to pick a few classes and do that job. It is very team-oriented and if you don't work as a team, you'll get your a** kicked. You face a some-what difficult A.I and the last round you play, faces a giant boss, which mandatory team play is required because it will kill you fast! Rewards are decent. Now I only want to tell you about one more mini-game. Pest Control. Now is this one ever great? You work to face monsters that come out of 4 portals, which you must kill, and then destroy the portal. Some Portals have lower defence so they are easier to destroy and others have higher defence making them hard to destroy. If the monsters kill the void-knights in the center of the map, you lose. The rewards is easily why anyone plays it. You get Void Points and 1k of cash after you win. Those points can train any of your skills for you so it is helpful to have a fun mini-game that trains you. Sadly it is mostly crammed with newbies so killing the portals will become difficult. And it is members only for almost all of the mini-games.
The Clan system is somewhat good/bad. You can freely quit the clan, and join another as you please. This can spark bad spamming by rival clans. The new clan war system enables Clans to have wars in a specified arena in the PK Zone known simply as "The Wilderness". You usually have 5 minutes to get there before it starts but if you are well informed about it, you can make it there before the war even begins to start the 5 minute count-down. The PK is fun, where pure strategy is involved. You may need mates if you want to survive out in the wilderness. PKing usually involves going to specific servers, and specific points in the Wilderness where Pking is in abundance and there are lots of people moving about. Once killed (and this applies to all death except in specific activities where Jagex states will not make you lose any items) you usually lose all but the three most valuable items in your inventory or you are wearing. They classify your items value by what the General Stores value them. So lets say that you have an item thats valuable in the player-market but is worthless in the eyes of the General Store. If you die, chances are this will be one of your lost items. Some PKING Regions can only be accessed by members.
Many updated quests is certainly a boost for the lone-wolves out there but some are team-oriented. Some are difficult but most are very creative and have little puzzles to do. The stories are okay but I like doing quests. All of them have requirements except for newbie ones. Requirements are usually skill requirements, quest point requirement (Quest points are points you receive after completing a quest) and other quests completed requirements.
Some have steep requirements and some don't. There are continuous sequels to one quest to keep the story rolling. Bad thing is, ALL of the Quest update goes to members.
There loads of weapons and armour that are all unique in there own way but there aren't upgrades and weapon qualities. Some weapons do better than others depending on their stats and material type. All weapons need a specific Attack skill level to be wielded and all Armour types have Defence Skill level to be met before worn. Now some Robes and armour look quite fashionable, making for trends in RuneScape. Some people wear good looking, expensive stuff when out skill to make themselves 1337. Who wouldn't mind a little bling? Some skills enable you to make certain Armours and Weapons but it is still boring to do that.
Everything is done with clicking. Wait you move the camera with the arrow keys and you can hold CTRL to sprint. Wow what a difference...
Graphics: 6 out of 10
First of all, lets get one thing out of the way before we proceed. RuneScape's Technical requirements meet even the lowest of the low computers. It also runs on a browser so Graphics aren't really going to look "1337". They are quite bad, no wait I'm kidding myself. They freaking suck. Now lets start with the person you play as. Easily, the player Avatar can look awful without anything on. When you aren't in dialogue with NPCs and you zoom to your head. You see a triangle with 2 specs and a 2 lines. Not 1337. The armour usually covers it up but only helmets can cover your face. The rest of the default clothes look okay. When you are in dialogue with NPCs you can actually see that those 2 black specs were your eyes, and those 2 lines were your nose and mouth. Lets move on to the Weapons/Armour. Most look great or else there wouldn't be any fashion trends. Some look down-right ugly but those are usually the weaker armours and weapons. Lets proceed to NPCs and monsters. All the Npcs you talk to have the same face design as you, the specs and lines. The monsters are more detailed. The smaller ones are still specs but the big ones get real eyes and mouth. The design of the monsters were horrible to begin with, but then came all those updates. Slightly better. They also updated the special effects, but you know what? Still horrible. The maps aren't that ugly after the new updates but the elven places do look the best. Theres not much you can put on little squares but the terrain isn't half bad. The animations have been horrible and 3/4 of them still are. You used to not hit the trees in woodcutting and the rocks in mining. Now the animation updates made them move the tiniest bit closer and have given them the new animations. Still not enough for my liking but maybe for yours...yeah didn't think so.
Now the RuneScape Graphics Engine altogether has improved from RuneScape 1 a lot, but that was because RuneScape 1s graphics looked like it was slapped together crudely. Eyesight has been lost with both engines and glasses have been given.
Sound: 8 out of 10
One of the parts that really shines about RuneScape. All music and sound were custom created with simulation. It really does capture that medieval atmosphere. The combat sounds need definite improvement but everything else is good. I would still play something else when playing RuneScape but that sound. The animation sound have been updated to match with the new animations and sync up pretty nicely. Good job Jagex on your sound.
Value: 6 out of 10
Save up for something better like WOW or Guild Wars because those 5 dollars US of monthly fees aren't being used up to the best that they can. You get a lot of stuff with that money but it isn't enough. Yet there is constant update, very little of those updates are actually relevant to help the game. Most of it is new content in stories and player drawn images. They do give you a monthly preview so you know what updates are coming your way. Now I'm going to talk about those different populations of RuneScape. The RuneScape population is divided into somewhat 2 Categories. They are known as Free-to-play and Pay-to-play. These are abbreviated into F2P for free to play and P2P for pay to play. It's totally optional which one you choose because Jagex isn't insanely money and power hungry to force you to pick P2P. In a way, Jagex might "favour" the P2P community. Hell they do favour the P2P. They usually get 90% of the updates and get to access every single inch of land in the land of RuneScape, get advanced support, get to vote and use forums and have access to mini-games, and some skills. Sadly Construction is among them. But I don't blame Jagex for making it this way. 10% or less of updates are given to F2P players but mostly its Holiday stuff. Jagex needs the money to hire more people because they are a small team of developers with around 20 developers in the team. Sure more updates would be great for the F2P community and would bring in more F2P players who WOULD consider going P2P, but would this be plausible? Certainly. Does Jagex want it that way? Well the way I described it would certainly make it a heavy investment because it would cost a hefty amount. If it worked, BIG PAYOFF. If it didn't work, big loss. Now in the end it is Jagex's decision but I would re-join RuneScape if that Happened. The value would sky-rocket for this game but I know that isn't happening.
Tilt: 7 out of 10
We used to like RuneScape. We really did. Now we try to like it but it just didn't happen. The fanboys/girls my god! Lots, lots. Hell I KNOW THAT THERE ARE LOTS ON GAMESPOT. HERE IS MY MESSAGE TO THEM. I don't care if you want to reject the truth, but your game isn't the best. I know you want it to be the best, and I do too but it isn't that good yet. Go ahead and give this review the Thumbs-down but in reality RuneScape is still in heavy need of improvement. Go ahead, give the thumbs-down to a some-what truthful review. Oh and, I'm not trying to attack you RuneScape or your fan-people.
I used to be a RuneScape fanboy myself. I fought and fought to say that this game was good. People laughed. I tried other mmos and looked at RuneScape. SPARK. I realized that this isn't the best game so I just didn't defend it any more. I try not to defend any games that are good IMO anymore because new and more innovative are going to come out. Thats why RuneScape gets a needs improvement 6.8 out of 10. Its good for kids, with low-end PCs but people with better PCs just have something better to spend 5 bucks on and their time.