Runescape: A Brief Summary of the Skills and the Game

RuneScape is an MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing game) that has been around for a few years. I found it a couple of years ago and played it for a while. Overall, it was good. I played strictly as a non-member. Although a member can do a lot more things, you can still enjoy RuneScape if you are a non-member. Here is my review of the game.

You start out on Tutorial Island. The guides there show you how to do different aspects of RuneScape and set you up with the basic stuff. Any experience you gain from stuff you do in Tutorial Island you keep. I do not know how if there is a limit to the amount of experience you can gain there.

When you get to the bank on Tutorial Island, withdraw the 25 coins that are in the bank and carry them in your backpack when you leave. You will find 25 more coins in the bank when you reach the mainland. I don't know a lot about Tutorial Island. I'll post more on that later.

On the mainland, there are a lot of different skills that you build up your experience in through repetitively doing things such as mining, cooking, etc. The end result is pretty much to build up your character's sufficiency and strength to the point where it can team up with other "friends" to fight, loot, and conquer either beasts or other players in a special zone called the wilderness. (Players can only fight each other in the wild)

As I played strictly as a non-member, I will focus exclusively on the non-member skills in RuneScape.

There are roughly two types of non-member skills, basically skills that are used in combat and skills that are used to prepare, replenish, or sustain the character's ability to fight, survive, etc.

Combat skills are Attack, Strength, Defense, Hit Points, Ranged, Prayer, and Magic. Skills that are not directly involved in combat yet necessary for successes in combat (unless you want to shell out thousands of coins for the stuff you can otherwise manufacture) are Cooking, Woodcutting, Fishing, Fire Making, Crafting, Smithing, Mining, and Rune Crafting.

Before I get into the combat skills, there are three ways to fight in RuneScape. The warrior uses his attack, strength, and defense skills to fight in close combat with the opponent. Weapons he uses are a sword and shield, and full metal armor. He is vulnerable to the Ranger and the Mage. The Ranger uses a bow an arrow. His best armor is leather; dragon leather in the higher levels. The Mage wears a robe for armor and uses rune stones to cast spells on the opponent. Both the Ranger and the Mage can hit from a distance, avoiding close combat. Their disadvantage is if they are caught in the open, they are vulnerable to the warrior.

The skill of attack allows the warrior to strike his opponent with more accuracy. Strength increases the force of the blow and hence, the amount of damage he inflicts. Defense allows him to be less vulnerable to the attack of his opponent.

Ranged experience allows the Ranger to shoot with greater accuracy.

Magic is a bit more complicated. Magic experience allows the Mage's spells to be more potent, as well as allows for some non-combat skills, such as smelting ore without a furnace, teleporting across the RuneScape map, and grabbing items that are out of reach.

Prayer and Hit Points are important to all three types of combat. Prayer experience allows for the player to, for a limited time, add to his strength, attack, or defense ability, as well as even being able to be immune for a brief time to the attacks of others. Hit Points are basically, the amount of damage you are able to withstand before dying.

Cooking is the first of the other skills I will address. Cooking experience allows the player to cook better food. It also lessens the chance of burning the food. Food restores Hit Points. The better the food, the more Hit Points restored. In a battle, it takes time to eat; enough time for the opponent to get a free blow in. It's better to get 14 Hit Points restored at once than seven at a time.

To cook the food, unless you are near a stove, you will need a fire. Fire making skills allow you to burn not only better types of wood, but also to light the fire faster. However I don't really know if that skill is all that important. However, when cooking valuable food, a stove is recommended because the food has less of a chance of burning.

So where do you get food? Other than making pies and pizzas, most of it is from fishing. Fishing is a separate skill in RuneScape, and fishing experience allows you to catch better fish. A hint-cook every fish, chicken, etc. If a level 45 is needed to cook a rare fish, and you stockpile your raw fish until you are a level 55, you have a far better chance of not burning the fish. Some types of fish use bait, others feathers. So save the bait that drops when you kill stuff and the feathers from the chickens to minimize having to go out to the fishing store to buy it.

Woodcutting is a good skill to have. It allows you to get wood faster for starters. Burn the wood you cut rather than drop it. It takes about the same amount of time. Plus, it makes it easier to light a fire later. Woodcutting is monotonous, but is a good way to make money in RuneScape. Once you reach Oak, start saving the logs. Other players may buy Oak for 10 coins each log, and will definitely shell out between 25-30 coins each for willow logs. I think it is because Members use the wood to make arrows and stuff, and they come to nonmembers' worlds to buy the wood cheaper.

Crafting allows you to make leather armor and Holy Symbols, which enhance prayer. It also allows for other things, such as necklaces, to be made, as well as gems to be cut. Crafting experience is hard to come by. Use clay to get to level 16, and then rely on whatever silver you can manage to mine or buy, gems you find to cut and craft, and leather to make it to Level 40. At Level 40 you can join the Crafter's guild, which has a really good silver and gold mine. Then it's easier to mine the gold and silver necessary to get the crafting experience up.

Mining allows you to mine the metals used in making weapons and in crafting. Rather than focus on Coal, focus on Iron until you reach level 60. Then you can join the miners' guild and mine a ton of coal. Mining experience is easier to get than smithing. Even if you buy a lot of ores and bars your mining experience usually increases faster than your smithing.

Smithing allows you to replace weapons and armor. Unfortunately, you pretty much have to be a level 99 to replace items worn by level 40 characters. Hence, it usually is better to shell out money for armor and weapons.

And Rune Crafting is how players make runes to use for their magic spells. Unfortunately, nonmembers can only make the simple runes. Runes are crafted from Rune Essence, which only can be mined after completing Rune Mysteries quest.

So these are the basic skills in RuneScape, and how players use them to maximize their game playing. However, because the game mirrors real life, only easier, it's easy to get caught up in the game to the point where one is playing it too much. It can be pretty addictive. On the flip side, it can be a good escape from the stresses of life.