NEURONETWORKED

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(I listened to this while writing this!)

After re-familiarizing myself with Old School RuneScape (OSRS for short) this week, I think I can really state why I think the game is so prevalent amongst the people who play it (including myself), to the point where people in the community will often jokingly say that "You don't quit RuneScape, you just take an extended break from it." Sure, some of it is certainly nostalgia from a time gone, especially since OSRS is specifically made to strike that nostalgic chord with how it looks, sounds, and feels; but I think that the true reason lies a bit deeper inside, it's the absolute freedom the game affords you that makes people want to come back.


The most involuntarily hand-holding the game will do for you is on Tutorial Island, which is pretty much just there to help familiarize players with how the game controls, and to plant the seeds of some ideas of what they can do after. Afterwords, you pretty much are unceremoniously dropped into Lumbridge with only the stuff that you brought from the tutorial, rather than being pigeonholed into a questline. I think this last part is what really sets the tone for the long, long journey ahead of you, I personally just can't stand it when an MMORPG just starts dragging you along for its predetermined ride. Even one of my favorite MMORPGs, Final Fantasy 14 does this to you. So, coming back to RuneScape again and just being dropped into the game with a thousand different possibilities being laid out in front of me made me feel truly excited to start playing.

For those who aren’t familiar with the game (I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible to get back on track,) RuneScape (in it’s 2007/Old School form) is not a linear game, there is obviously some continuity between certain quests, but I’d best describe a lot of them as vignettes; fun little adventures that you can stumble into. Questing is probably the most obvious way to approach the game, but some people like to focus on their individual skills instead, usually only engaging with the quests that give them the appropriate XP to help boost their skills. Other players like to focus on Player Killing (Player vs. Player) where they focus on building their character for combat. And lastly, players will often times aim for end-game raids and the rewards from that as a goal. There are even self-imposed rules and challenge runs that one could use on an alternative character. None of these are wrong! The fact that you can derive your enjoyment from the journey that you chart out for yourself is genuinely really cool. I’ve always enjoyed the quests, personally. They’re always just a little bit tongue-in-cheek, and your own character isn’t some super-duper crazy awesome amazing guy that can do no wrong… In fact, you’re always a little bit stupid when it comes to socializing, but you’re pretty good at everything else. Clearing all of the quests available in the game became my personal goal.

So, let’s get back on track here with a story from my current playthrough. I’ve been doing quests all week whenever I’ve had the free time, I’m not super far into the game now but I think it all sorta hit me the other day after I had completed the Tree Gnome Village quest. At the end of the quest, you face off against a Khazard warlord which was a daunting task for my character who admittedly was under leveled for combat. I dropped dead against him in my first go against him and as I respawned, I could hear the clock ticking in my head as the despawn timer on my dropped items went down. I had fifteen minutes to get back there, get my stuff; and then beat him. So I hatched a plan, melee obviously would not work, so I quickly shifted to using magic. I ran up to the top of Lumbridge Castle to use the bank there, grabbed my magic gear, a couple thousand gold pieces, and a teleport to my Player Owned House, which was much closer to my death site, but not close enough… You see, this quest takes place on another end of the map entirely, how was I going to get there in time? Simple, we use the charter ships that are strewn across the world to transport myself close enough to that part of the map. By the time I had gotten back to the site of my previous death, there was only a mere minute left, luckily the Khazard warlord doesn’t aggro until you talk to him. So I grabbed my items and prepared for round two, in which I kept out of his range while lobbing spells at him, I was able to defeat him after what felt like the longest 5 minutes of my life, it was truly a triumphant moment for me.

The point of me telling you this story is to demonstrate a part of what I like about the game, there’s a ton of different ways I could’ve approached that problem and I found the way that felt just right to me. Maybe it wasn’t the most effective way to handle it, but I think it made for an awesome story, hopefully it had you on the edge of your seat! RuneScape feels like it rewards the player for their ability to look at problems and derive a solution that works best for them. Other MMORPGs don’t really give me that feeling, there’s a direct solution for everything in these games, usually. I feel like RuneScape is never truly obvious about things and you’ll often times discover new stuff if you aren’t looking at the games official wiki just by clicking on stuff. Maybe RuneScape is a point-and-click adventure game in spirit? Just kidding. (Unless…)

I think I’ll have a lot more to say about the game as I continue to progress my character through the quests. But for now I wanted to leave it off there. I would absolutely give the game a shot if you’ve never played it, or even if you did back then. It’s a unique feeling game that feels adventurous and mysterious in a time where a lot of games feel more like a theme park ride.


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