
'RuneScape' Can't Escape 2007 - samclemens
http://digg.com/2016/old-school-runescape-history
======
verroq
Botting was actually much more fun the playing the real game.

Back in the golden days, the bot frameworks rsbot/powerbot/rsbuddy gave you a
Java API into the game. Your script gets called every game loop (by the API)
and you can tell your character to walk to places, click on things, pathfind
your way around the game world. The API could access your player's levels and
experience and gave your script (a Java class) an onPaint event to draw a GUI.

Botters were spending their time learning Java, on the forums were people
talking about more in depth programming concepts and ways to improve code
quality. The bot frameworks were open source (with the exception of
"modscripts" \- a series of regexes and what not to remap the bot APIs back
into functions in the obfuscated Jagex client).

Jagex has also implemented turing tests - "random events" where your character
get teleported a special area and has to perform a challenge. The bot
framework has scripts to handle this as well and was generally not a huge
issue.

The best part was that it was all real, if your code misbehaves, people will
report you and you will get banned. If your code works flawlessly, it will run
for days and you'll get rave reviews from fellow botters on the forums.

If anything it was a great environment to develop CS skills. And of course
after you botted up your stats and unlocked new abilities the game becomes
even more fun.

~~~
bojo
Semi-related I suppose, I'm building a game where botting is the whole point:
[http://armoredbits.com/](http://armoredbits.com/)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I saw this yesterday but only now I realise it's (probably) about programming
your mechs to fight.

I think you need some better presentation. I'm reading the main page again but
I still don't have a good idea of how the whole thing is supposed to work. The
FAQ is a bit more clear.

Anyway, if I got it right, it sounds interesting. I'll be keeping an eye out.
Good luck.

~~~
bojo
Thanks for the feedback. I've been having trouble trying to convey exactly
what it is in a clear an concise manner. I'll go through and give it another
update.

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andrepd
Everyone who played MMOs talks with utmost fondness of their unforgettable
time in their first MMO. Be it Everquest, Ultima Online, Runescape or WoW, it
seems no other genre in video gaming elicits such fondness, or reaches
immersion levels so deep as the MMORPG. The immense potential in having a
virtual, persistent world inhabited by tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands or even millions of people, with the virtually inexhaustible
possibilities of gameplay that arise from people inhabiting a shared,
persistent world, make the MMORPG the king in this department: immersion and
fan dedication.

Yet it seems that this doesn't happen anymore, that the cosy world of Ultima
Online or Runescape 2006ish doesn't exist anymore. MMORPGs have found it more
profitable to engage in a variety of design choices that, ultimately,
destroyed what MMOs were about. The open endedness of Ultima Online, the
thoughtfulness and deep worldbuilding of quests in Everquest, the charming
aesthetics that left just the right amount to imagination, just like a book,
of Runescape, all that was replaced by high action, cheap thrills, and a lot
of shiny particle effects everywhere (and of course microtransactions, because
why not). The charming, cosy, vast, deep world people remember from Vanilla
WoW doesn't exist anymore. Now you got a conveyor belt to level cap and cheap
end-game content.

For anyone interested, this is one of the most insightful videos I've seen
lately, and it addresses this issue:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvK8fua6O64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvK8fua6O64)

~~~
pvg
I think your first point might be a much more important one than the one
argued in the video you link. The first MMORPG experience is about as much fun
as you can reasonably have in a video game but a great deal of the fun comes
from it being first: the lack of familiarity, the unexpected, the 'emergent
gameplay', the interactions with everyone from befuddled strangers to helpful
friends.

Once WoW got everyone who was ever likely to try an MMORPG to actually try
one, MMORPGs reached 'peak players'. There is (statistically) no-one left for
whom any MMORPG is a first one and no amount of 'sandbox' or anything else can
change that.

~~~
Altay-
While nothing will compare to the 'first time', the bewilderment need not
diminish to zero.

Ultima Online was my first and still favorite MMORPG back in the late
1990s/early 2000s but when I tried EverQuest for the first, the 3D world and
depth of races/characters/NPCs blew me away.

Then I tried Dark Age of Camelot. The 1-world-but-3-continents/factions
concept amazed me. There was always 'the others' and a sense of citizenship
with the group of players I could actually interact with. Everyone in UO/EQ
was a potential rival/friend. In DAOC I knew where my loyalty lied and the
enemy was always clear.

Then I played Ragnarok Online -- my first Korean MMORPG. Again, blown away for
totally different reasons. The music, the colors, the sprites, and GIRLS!!
Lots of girls played Ragnarok. I didn't meet any girls on UO/EQ/DAOC -- 95%
boys, 5% house wives.

Next up was Star Wars Galaxies. No more 'levels', back to skills ala Ultima
Online but in a totally different and more complicated way! 3D persistent
housing! Crafting! Dancing at the local cantina as a totally legit profession!
Multiple PLANETS!! OMG!

Then came World of Warcraft -- nothing I hadn't seen before this time. But it
was presented in the most streamlined manner and was the first MAINSTREAM
MMORPG. Everyone my age was playing. I felt like the grizzled veteran of the
genre/ I knew the mechanics. I taught my friends how to tank. How to heal. How
to lead a raid, etc. Again, amazing for totally different reasons.

Sad to say, I haven't felt anything new since WoW. But I honestly don't think
its because the genre is played out. Its just we haven't been shown anything
different. That might change this year with plenty of promising games in the
pipeline -- Shards Online, Albion Online, Camelot Unchained, etc.

If you still think the genre has hope, check out my ~1yr old website,
[http://mmos.com](http://mmos.com) I hope to see you on my next adventure.

~~~
zippoxer
Hey Omer?

I used to watch your channel (previously MMOHut) a few years back. This was my
favorite ;-)

~~~
Altay-
This is his brother Erhan, but I'll pass on the kind words! Omer is back
making first looks on the new MMOS.com YouTube Channel, check it out!

------
timemachine
The irony that this article, about how RuneScape is an anachronism of the mid
2000's, is hosted on digg.com is not lost on me.

~~~
bdcravens
Digg isn't much older than Reddit. (Nov 2004 / June 2005)

~~~
icpmacdo
How much different is this version of digg from the original? I have only
browse'd through this iteration of the website.

Being 21 years old this article hit quite a point of nostalgia remembering the
days of summertime '04-07 RuneScape.

~~~
JTxt
See for yourself:

[https://web.archive.org/web/*/Digg.com](https://web.archive.org/web/*/Digg.com)

------
rcconf
RuneScape was a giant reason I got into programming and has a special place in
my heart.

I was about 13 years old at the time. I recall reverse engineering the client,
modifying existing Java private servers and interacting with a range of
hackers that have taught me lessons that I still remember until this day. The
race to see who could reverse engineer the client and implement a feature the
fastest was amazingly exciting.

I remember the day I was messaging someone to send me the packets for spells
in the game. They sent me the packet id, how to supply x,y,z coordinates for
the opposite player, and I was suddenly shooting fireballs in my private
server. Amazing!

I'm now working at a game development company and teaching at a local college
(I did not finish high school.) and I'm thankful for the entire RuneScape
botting and private server community

~~~
arianvanp
Exactly the same for me. This is how I got interested in programming. The fun
part is that many of the people I met on the runescape private server forums
10 years ago I still talk to daily. Complaining about college and our day jobs
in IRC. We all have the same history and all sort of ended up in the same
place.

Big chance that I still know you as well if I know your old nickname.
Especially the programmer community was pretty cozy.

------
diffraction
It's a problem of economic inflation. The games start out easy at release, but
developers see the need to tighten their belts to prevent game
currency/abilities/skill from being worthless. So the template has been in MMO
land for developers to let a few early adopters climb the ladder to the top
until they patch the ladder away. Or the opposite, like WoW, just keep it easy
and let everyone into the top.

Runescape has a good place to see this with holiday items:
[http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Holiday_rewards](http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Holiday_rewards)

The right way to solve this problem is to keep the game as easy as it was at
release, but to implement economic atrophy and redistribution of outcomes. I'm
not aware of any game that does this other than Eve Online. I do not play
these games but I like thinking about their economics.

~~~
0xCMP
And boy does Eve bring the redistribution of outcome-hammer down hard.

The incredible effort of groups to build up military strength as well as
economic factories that also require skills to be able to do any of those
things makes sure you never think Eve is too easy, but also not too hard.
Thats why I quit. I learned from Runescape how horrible a well made game can
be to your productivity and sanity. Better to obsess over algorithms and
programming than MMORPGs

------
throwaway13337
A similar phenomenon is happening with Everquest.

The current owners of the franchise are pushing "progression" servers -
servers that start with only the original game and move on from there. Though
their numbers are hidden, most of the interest in the game as it is now seems
to be in these kinds of servers.

These legacy servers come about - runescape included - because owners
recognize the success of emulators that try to recall the original game
whatever that may be. All the popular MMOs have these emulator servers - world
of warcraft, star wars galaxies, etc. Some have very large populations.

The question I have is whether it's all nostalgia or did MMO game designers
collectively lose something as they tried to modernize?

~~~
dfischer
Yeah I played recently on the new EQ phinny launch. I loved EQ back in
99-2004.

I would always reminisce about how EQ was the best game. I have so many fond
memories.

Needless to say, playing again kinda sucked. It wasn't fun. It was a grind.
Life is different.

Nostalgia is sweeter in the end.

P.s loved classic SWG too.

~~~
sbov
Yeah, I loved Everquest. But it was a different time. I was in college, had no
job, had no wife, had no kid, and had no social life. I had the time to spend
most of my waking hours in the game.

Edit: actually, it sort of was my social life. I played with a group of
friends I met online that I had been playing video games with for 4 or so
years.

------
diegorbaquero
I was there at the launch of RS 2 @ 2004 then making the first bots and
scripts' APIs in rsbot.org @ 2006. I learned to code and chose the CS career
thanks to RS. Great times.

~~~
Elv13
The first bots were based on the "autominer" shareware, if you could get your
hands on it. That was in 2002 or so. It was a simple macro based bot system.
It was before they made anything to stop people from doing that (beside
occasional baning). At first they added a "sleeping" mode to the game where
played had to sleep after too much work and there was a CAPTCHA to wake up. It
worked, but played hated that as it made some things hopelessly long to do and
gave massive advantage to players who had done them before the sleeping
concept was introduced. It actually had the interesting effect of shifting the
in-game economy from the normal "gold coins" to a bond like system that
handled inflation much better. At the end of RS1, most transactions were done
in coal and lobster (really!) certificates, worth about 1500 and 1200 cold
coins each.

I lost too much time to this game (mostly RSC / RuneScape1) and liked it very
much. I have fond memories of it, but as time passed it changed and I quited.
The clans and forums were quite lively. I never (and will never, ever) played
another MMORPG, but still, nice memories. I dropped my party hat long ago
(only RS player can get that one) ;)

------
nickpsecurity
I lost too much time to the original RuneScape. Liked its depth of skills,
community, and access from anyone's browser. Quit playing after my account was
deleted during release of new game. I was like, "what a waste of a lot of
time..." Briefly played WoW to realize it, like many, were endless variations
of the same basic stuff. So, quit that genre in general.

I'd have actually used the bots I made if I knew that my account would be
deleted anyway. Get adamantite everything with max spells and stockpiled
lobsters haha.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that the situation in this article is pretty
retarded and maybe I didn't miss anything. I did meet a friend who was one of
original to game the trading market and ponzi'd others gaming the market.
Eventually got bored then started learning game for women. Smart, devious kid
haha.

------
jonesb6
When I was 16/17 years old I was clearing 500/1000 a week goldfarming for this
game. Failed AP Calculus and stunted my social life.. and the money didn't
last long.. but it sparked an interest in software engineering and
entrepreneurship that continues to this day.

The margins for large scale botting operations on this game were absolutely
ludicrous if you knew what you were doing. Gold coins were going for
$5/million and a good bot could churn in about 7.2 million/day. The bot
clients were a pretty un-optimized pile of java and could eat up about half a
gig of ram each, but once you hit any sort of scale the vps's became a drop in
the hat to the amount you were raking in.

That hardest part was actually managing the cash flow. Gold was usually sold
through paypal transactions and charge backs were egregiously common. Paypal
would basically tell you to go fuck yourself because they were "virtual
transactions" regardless of how much evidence was provided. I had a partner
from New Zealand (now working in finance) who would negotiate bulk rates, as
well as purchase accounts in order to optimize our workflow.

Every now and then I look back and imagine how much I vould've made if I knew
then what I knew now regarding scaling, coding, business, etc. I knew kids
buying hundred thousand dollar sports cars with the money they earned. _Sigh_
to be young again..

------
voltagex_
I'm not sure why, but I loved the mining/crafting part of RuneScape. It was so
repetitive, I guess part of me really likes those numbers going up. I've never
really found a game with a similar crafting system, although Minecraft comes
close - any ideas?

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hmate9
Selling rune scimi 30k

~~~
an_ko
@ran@ lol nub

------
vortico
wc lvls?

