After reading the article "Scale", I thought back to some of my earlier memories of Runescape, even a bit before the article mentioned.
When I started playing, seeing a level 126 player was extremely rare, as was even seeing a 100 or higher. The best weapon was a dragon long, at least for fighting monsters, best armor was rune legs, dragon chain, dragon shield and a dragon medium helm. Even those items were rare, a dragon chain cost upwards of 30 million, a medium helm was several million and the shield was actually worth a few millions as well. Back then, the strongest poison only poisoned for a few points of damage rather than today's six.
It's sort of incredible, seeing how in the past few years the power of gear has increased along with monsters, and I think, would it even be possible for a level 126 with the best gear for that time to kill TzTok-Jad? He was not even released yet, and neither were whips, slayer and barrows. A funny note about whips were, since at one time only one person could get them a lot of people didn't believe that whips were real, and someone had just made them up.
Ranged was almost useless, the best weapon was a magic shortbow, and that could only hit about 19 at max. Magic was also pretty useless for fighting, the best spell did 25, and 30 if it was charged, but it cost several thousand to charge the spell, and cast it. If I remember right, blood runes were 700 or so each, so it was illogical to use them.
Anyways, it's interesting how the gear in RuneScape has been increasing in strength with the monsters. TzTok-Jad came out, and not too long before him barrows and slayer had come out, giving players whips and barrows. The God Wars Dungeon came out last year, and with it came God swords, which are a full 60+ strength bonus higher than the Dragon long, the formerly best weapon.
There's a theory about computers, that every year (or two years, I forget) the strength of new computers will double, and the price of the computer from the previous year will halve. Could there be a similar law for Runescape gear?
doomsavenger
It's odd to me that Ts_Stormrage's article "Scale" (on July 13th) would come out just at this time in my career. I had finally gotten out of RuneScape, cancelled membership, and basically stopped playing. I had been on and off for the past year or so, a week here, a week there, 180 days without logging in, a couple days there...you get the idea. But the article is odd to have come out at this time, because it caught my attention.
See, the previous night a longtime friend of mine (We'll call him "Pk", as that's part of his RS character's name) messaged me via MSN (Now Windows Live Messenger, but is it really all that different?) and started an innocent conversation. "You owe Jman 500k" he said. (Jman being a friend of ours via a clan I used to run - Dark Angels Army, or our short-lived rebirth, Dark Angels.) "you have for like...2 years now" he said. (It's true too. Sorry Jman ): ) "Are you going to pay him back?"
Me: "I don't know if I can rofl, I probably don't even have 500k in my account" (That's true too, sadly!)
Pk: "Lol, TWO YEARS"
Me: "I know :/"
Pk: "DAA pk trip world 30 10 min"
Pk: "lol, you better be there"
Me: "I'm not even p2p anymore"
Pk: "World 30 is f2p"
Me: "Baha, whatever rofl"
Me: "You can't even pk anymore, it'd be a bh trip"
Pk: "lol, come on. We're actually going to clan wars"
Me: "not happening man. You don't even play anymore rofl"
Pk: "Yes I do. I got pk back two days ago"
Pk: "Eggo is on"
Me: "Dude he doesn't even like me lol"
And the conversation ensued for a bit. He pleaded with me to get on "just for 15 minutes", and even though he lied to me about a couple people being logged on, I did it anyway. (I didn't find that part out until logging in anyway.) Logging in, I had seen my younger brother playing on HD (not in full screen though) and checked it out for a couple seconds. I dismissed it as nothing special, but his settings must have been awfully low to attempt to rid himself of lag.
...Wow, was I wrong. What was going to be 15 minutes of visiting time with two guys turned into two hours of a conversation in the middle of world 30 Varrock with about 5 of us, decked out in members gear (except for pk), and a whole lot of randoms for me. Jagex figured "He hasn't logged in in twenty days, he must be autoing!" even though autoing is pointless with the trade system now. Needless to say, I think I racked up 5 over the course of said two hours.
But back to the game - wow! The textures are impressive, right on par if not above most games today - and trust me, I've seen a lot, I had been trying to find a new MMO to play. CABAL Online, Xiah Rebirth, Anarchy Online, RF Online, Dreamlords: The Reawakening, Dungeon Runners and a couple more. If it's free to play to start with, you can bet I've probably tried it.
Jagex has most certainly outdone themselves in the graphics department, with the improved animations, the texture mapping technology they've come up with, and they certainly pulled me out of retirement. I know it's recent as I'm writing this, but we have organized banks. Organized banks! How long has this community been clamoring for a feature like that? I think there was a movement for it before I was even playing! I know after I piled a ton of stuff into my members bank I was on that bandwagon too, but it's here! It's here now and we can use it!
Not to mention, I don't know how most players feel on this (I am very out of touch with the community, coming back into the game so abruptly) but the trade limit system is genius. And so is the Grand Exchange. I don't have to sit around in world 2 Falador typing the same thing over until the carpal tunnel in my wrists eats through my skin (joking) in order to make 60k from a black dragonhide body. Now, I just put it on the Grand Exchange and leave it, even though it's usually done in about 2.5 seconds. The only hole with the trade system is lending items, which they're fixing with a forced return lend system later in July.
With the cutting edge graphics (We're on Java and looking better than some games made with C/C++/Visual Basic/etc.), the improved and new features and new look (The main website is gorgeous, I didn't mention that) Jagex has definitely done well, and I much praise what they've done. They've earned their $5 a month from me back (soon to be $5.95, but I won't let it lapse :D) now that they finally seem to be listening to the players. Even though there was outrageous opposition to the trade system and such at first, it all worked out really well. I'm impressed, and look forward to getting a jump on my stalled career.
Tidus22340
Did You Know...
...that in the RuneScape song "Norse Code", the high pitched flute alternates between long and short tones are actually spelling out RuneScape in morse code? If you'd like to try and see if you can hear it, here it is: .-. ..- -. . ... -.-. .- .--. . (Thanks to the Tal Shiar Alliance!)
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