It’s the early 2000s and your friends are begging you to join them on a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. They say it’s possible to do anything; you can smith armor, slay dragons or even wield a magic staff. You rush home after school, hop on your parents’ cinderblock of a computer, and boot up RuneScape.
The charming melodies of Lumbridge Castle flood your ears as the amazing for its time graphics astound you. You feel adrenaline rush through your veins as you excitedly begin on your first adventure. This is what it felt like to play the original RuneScape almost two decades ago.
The game that was so popular in the early 2000s is now commonly referred to as Old School RuneScape (OSRS). The 2013 rerelease brought old fans down memory lane while serving as a piece of history for those who had only played RuneScape 3 up until such time.
Jagex, the developers and publishers of the game, released a mobile version of the game to android and iOS in 2018. Though updates have consistently made their way to the game, and they’re even polling for a new skill for the first time since it’s rerelease ten years ago.
OSRS is free-to-play at its front. With 22 quests to complete and fifteen skills to level, the game has enough content for a focused player to get hundreds of hours of quality grind time. Much of the game is barred behind a subscription wall, including 134 quests for members only and eight additional skills to add to the grind, not to mention much of the game’s world.
For players determined to save their money, there’s the option of purchasing a membership through a bond: an in-game item that can be used on a player (by another player or by themselves) to grant them a temporary fourteen-day membership.
Even if it’s not enough time to defeat the pay-to-play portion of the game, it’s at least a reasonable time span to begin experiencing the full game for what it’s worth, without committing to a pricey subscription service with the shortest plan being that of three-months.
Although, if one is to try Old School RuneScape at all, it’s recommended to skip the headache and start out with the RuneLite modified client right off the bat. Both long term and newer players recommend the client and is a constant in the game’s community. It enables a modification interface and user interface that improves much of the base game, allowing customization for anyone who is searching to spice up their gameplay.
Some quality-of-life adjustments, such as enabling WASD key bindings and higher definition graphics, are at the tip of the iceberg that is the argument for much of the community pleading Jagex to make RuneLite the new official client.
Looking past the areas that can be altered by the alternative client, the base game has its own ups, downs, and little quirks as well. The aforementioned paywall is the obvious frustration much of the community finds with the game, though the developers offered a compromise to those willing to work for it.
Another grueling point of the game, at times, could be considered the random number generation. This can put the player at the mercy of the luck they’re having that day. Of course, good players plan for the worst, hope for the best, but there have been many times players have been caught off guard when all odds were in their favor, but for whatever reason, they’d lost the fight anyway.
What makes the rough parts of the game all worthwhile to much of the community is the story. If there’s one thing that Jagex seemed to have done right from the start, it was the precision of hitting emotional beats and creating nonplayer characters for the gamers to interact with and love or hate, depending on the person.
Is the game good? I’d give the game a solid eight out of ten. I’ve been using the RuneLite client and playing with a friend, which has made much of the experience more lighthearted, but I can see myself playing it on my own as well. If you’re into games for a story, for the grind, or for the community, Old School RuneScape is definitely one to check out.
Brooke Holben
Brooke Holbenis a fourth-year student at Lock Haven University dual majoring in Communication (Electronic Media) and English (Writing with a minor in art). She served as a staff writer and photographer off-and-on for the Eagle Eye staff and now currently works as the Online Editor. Brooke is also the president of the campus's chapter of national honorary band fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi (Eta Alpha, HA). After Lock Haven, she plans to continue her education with a masters degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment and furthermore use the combination of degrees to become a script/narrative writer for video games, comics, and other forms of entertainment media.
