RECURSIONS Two decades of betas, renamings, and rereleases
somehow have bones. I level up my
Prayer skill in the process, although I
don’t bother to learn what Prayer
actually does. I’ve never been very
patient with tutorial text.
MEETING DEATH
When EverQuest launched, my
favourite thing to do was explore the
world with low-level characters,
danger be damned. It was about the
adventure, not the grinding, and I’m
happy to discover that RuneScape
offers the same freedom. I quickly
brush aside all of the tutorial work I
was supposed to do, despite barely
understanding the arcane, semi-
automated combat system and spell
rune economy (in those respects,
RuneScape feels very much like a
game that’s been under construction
for 20 years), and just start walking.
Almost immediately, I run into
Death himself, skeletal and floating.He turns out to be a nice guy- clearly hanging out as part of a
Halloween event – and he informs
me that at the beginning of every
hour there’s a chance it’ll become a
‘spooky hour’, which increases XP
earned. I think that could be true of
life, too. Maybe you’re in a spooky
hour right now. Feels like it.
Death also gives me my first real
quest, handing me a crystal that he
says will guide me to lost souls that
need to be defragmented. That’s the
word he uses: ‘defragment’. Like
they’re hard drives. I think that souls
these days really ought to be stored
on SSDs, but I run off to the
Barbarian Village to the north to
defragment my first one. I’m kind of
worried the identical blonde
barbarians will attack me, but they
just mill around with spears while I
chase down a glowing soul dot and
click on it to heal it. As I do, my mind
is “flooded with images of axes,
blood, and fists”. And then, when I’ve
nearly finished defragmenting the
soul, my mind is “filled with pictures
of a burial, fires and a trial”.
Ostensibly, this is a game for kids.
After saving the soul – but not
through Prayer, interestingly – I
January 2001
RuneScape
launches.March 2004
RuneScape 2
becomes
RuneScape. The old
version becomes
RuneScape Classic.April 2013
The RuneScape
3 beta goes live.July 2013
RuneScape 3
becomes
RuneScape.October 2020
RuneScape
releases on
Steam.December
2003
The RuneScape
2 beta begins.February 2013
Old School
RuneScape
launches,
bringing back a
version of the
game from 2007.April 2016
A new game
client is
released.August 2018
RuneScape Classic
closes. Jagex
delays the
shutdown to let one
player finish the
Legends’ Quest.Early 2021
The Steam
release window
for Old School
RuneScape.EXTRA LIFE
NOW PLAYING I UPDATE I MOD SPOTLIGHT I DIARY I HOW TO I WHY I LOVE I REINSTALL (^) I M U S T P L A Y
Learning how to bury bones,
as everyone does in church.
My new friends: Yeti dad and
his daughter Violet.