RuneScape

"Not bad, but not good. The updates killed the game."

I used to play Runescape, I played it for 3 years ('05-'08) and I must say, before some of the newer updates, the game was a favorite. But I am writing a review with the new updates that the game's company, Jagex, has made to it. These updates include changes to the "Wilderness" (a once popular place for everything goes PvP), and the entire free-market (which was controlled once by the players). But let me get into the review.

Gameplay- 5/10 (free version); 7/10 (members version)
OK, I'll admit, the gameplay itself is fun. Your can customize your character with many different styles of default clothes and facial appearances. Once you have made your character, you are dumped on an island called "Tutorial Island" where you are taught minor basics, whereas many others are left unexplained. After you leave Tutorial Island, you are given a number of skills you can level up on your own, and 7 combat skills, Attack, Strength, Hitpoints, Prayer, Magic, Ranged (skill with a bow), and the newest skill, "summoning," which has several new uses (which is also members only). All other skills are non-combat related, but however raising those particular skills can help you get a bit of money, or it can help you gather materials that can assist you in combat, such as using the fletching skill to make yourself arrows for the ranging skills. The only bad part to this is that some skills can either take too long to level up or are too easy to level up, especially if you mass-produce some raw materials needed to level up a particular skill. In which some cases, if you have a trash-load of money, you may find yourself able to BUY your way to a 99 stat (the highest level for any stat). Once you max out a stat that you have spent a long time leveling up, you have to travel to a particular NPC to get your "skillcape" which shows your prowess in that skill. Each skillcape comes with an "emote" that you can perform that people constantly harass skillcape users to use.

There is also a free-and members edition of the game which costs $5 a month to play (a bargain!). The member's version of the game is much wider and more of the skills are more available (such as fletching = members skill). The free-version of the game is small, giving you a small portion of the world to explore along with a few "free quests" that you can do, none of them being particularly interesting. However when you get into the member's quests, things get a lot more interesting (I'll save the quests for the storyline review). New weapons are also available to you as a member that weren't available as a free player. Some of these members weapons are rather wild, including an anchor and an axe like you saw maybe in Fire Emblem 7 (Hector's animation as a Great Lord). The only problem is, the enemies are rather weak. When I was level 63 or so, I was beating the tar out of level 83 demons while wearing low-grade armor and a medium-grade weapon.

Now a huge, HUGE flaw that has fallen into the gameplay that has caused me to give it a lower review is the REMOVAL of everything-goes PvP combat, the Wilderness. The only way to do PvP combat now is to go to the "Duel Arena" which is safe, where you must stake your valuables if you're gonna lose anything. Which is the sad part, because it took the excitement out of PvP combat. But why was the Wilderness removed? Well the game's company, Jagex, decided that "real world traders" should not be tolerated under any circumstances which are in EVERY MMORPG known out there I'm sure. Now these people aren't lax with RWT unlike most other MMOs, they totally sacrificed the most popular part of the game to get rid of one thing. Whats that? Destroying the world to knock out one small country? This is why I gave the Free Version a lower score, because that doesn't leave much for PvP. However in the wilderness there is "Bounty Hunter" which only set levels can fight each other and has a few complicated mechanics which are a bit hard to explain.

But it doesn't end there either. Changes made to the economy were also made. The economy was originally controlled by the players and Jagex quote "We will not control the economy of RuneScape" until they decided that RWT was just a big issue. Now everyone is unable to give out free stuff, or even make money the good ol' way (buying something and selling it for a tad more). There is also a "Grand Exchange" which Jagex totally controls, for every item has a set price that Jagex meddles with it every few weeks. Now if you're a member and have a lot of Quest Points (points you get from completing quests), you may sell something for 30000gp more rather than 3000gp more from the standard player who may have a lower amount of QP.

In conclusion, if parts of the community weren't ruined, then the gameplay itself is really not that shabby.

Storyline- 9/10
Now RuneScape itself has no storyline, but there are a lot of quests (as a member) that you can do. Several hundred as a matter of fact. While some of them may be rather simplistic and easy, others can be quite interesting. And even some of those simplistic quests can lead to long, complicated quests with a more in-depth story to them. While you may need some advanced levels for some of these quests, sometimes its worth a good little activity. Some quests can lead you to get some very nice items after completion, like an anchor or a way to make a new potion which can aid you in combat. In conclusion, RuneScape has a nice number of quests to keep you occupied along with most of them handing you some decent rewards.

Graphics- 6/10
So the graphics are slightly lacking in some respects. While the battle scenes aren't exactly epic, for a game run on Java programming, you have to realize the graphics aren't too bad. And just recently announced by Jagex there is going to be a huge re-vamping to the graphics in which pictures were taken (nice ones too). But I'm not going to rate what isn't part of the game [yet] heheheh. Other actions aren't exactly exciting either, though some newer things are a bit more interesting.

Sound- 0/10
Yeah, THIS sucks. Now there was an update to the music a year or two ago, and it ruined the whole aspect of the music (as it was any good to begin with). Now Jagex has made the music a bit more "instrumental" but its with classical instruments such as the ones you'll see in your band class at school. So if you're a headbanger like me and prefer blast beats and scorching guitar solos, then get your iPod out and listen to it instead. Or better yet if you have an iTunes library, play it while you're playing the game and it makes it sound a bit like The Sex Pistols is actually part of the gameplay.

Of course I didn't really directly say how good or bad the game's music was, did I? Well before the "instrumental" update that I mentioned, it sounded a bit more classic, I even took a listen every now and then. But with this new instrumental update, everything sounds cheesy and unfitting in today's modern-music-society. Of course even though I mentioned that I took a listen to some the music from time to time, there were only a select few, a lot of the music was terrible and wasn't even worth traveling across the land to the particular area where the new track started playing.

Now as far as sound effects, they're pretty cheesy too. Rather uninteresting and just sorta fake sounding. Jagex has released sound effects for surrounding areas a few years back and the sound effects can include birds chirping, cave sounds, etc. Thing is; if they had enough time to make that kind of update to surrounding areas, then why can't they add a more interesting sound effect to battle animations, magic, melee, ranged, and all?

In conclusion, whip out your MP3 players, and turn the sound on the game off. Enough said.

Community- 3/10
The community is mostly inhabited by young pre-teens. Now we all know how a pre-teen will act, always trying to make sexual references, "your mother" jokes, and of course, name calling. Now in the members worlds, you don't see as many of those people, but a fair amount still lurk out there. Now if you're just starting out, you'll find that even if you ask someone "where can I get some iron armor?" you may find that you'll be called a stupid noob and ignored. Really, if being called a "noob" offends you, please, get off these online games. Half of the people playing the game don't even know what "noob" means and is often used as an insult.

A lot of higher leveled people are a little nicer, while the other half of those higher leveled people will ignore you or insult you by calling you a noob. But some of those people are a little more mature and will help you out if you need a little assistance. So remember- just because MOST of the community sucks, there are still some people out there that are actually nice people.

Administrative assistance- crap/10
Yeah. Its pretty crappy. Jagex ruins the gameplay by knocking out the most popular attraction, and hardly do much to help the community. Now if someone in the community is harassing you, you can report them. However, none of those offense reports do much, as they are seldom looked at. "Player Moderators" are "hand picked by Jagex" to moderate the player community, but in the game, they have very, very little power and while they can control some player reports, the reports are still processed by the system, so they don't have to do anything. So in that case, whats the point of the moderators?

However, for Jagex's forums, there are "Forum Moderators" who take a closer eye over the forums and usually nail offensive posts within a few minutes of its posting. So not all is lost.

Play time and replayability- 5/10
OK, this is actually pretty good. You'll spend hours and hours trying to constantly make your character near invincible and you'll find that you'll keep yourself busy with quests. You can also create a new profile and make a "pure" file out of it, rather it be pure combat stat (IE: mage only), or a "skiller" account (where only non-combat levels are raised). Of course with these new updates that Jagex released that effect PvP combat and the economy, making a pure may be just a waste of your time depending on how you look at it.

SUMMARY:

Pros:
#Lots of quests
#Lots of skills to work with
#Freedom to customize your character
#Interesting quests
#Extended options with membership
#Cheap membership

Cons:
#Poor PvP combat system
#Poor sound quality
#Poor community
#Poor administrative assistance
#Shifty replay value
#Choppy graphics
#Membership required for decent gameplay


In short, to get decent gameplay, membership is required. If you're like me and want to save all your money for guitar equipment and gas money, then don't bother getting membership. If you don't, then be prepared for a short-lived gaming session. I hope you found this review helpful, thank you for reading. :)

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/08

Game Release: RuneScape (US, 03/29/04)