RuneScape

The Good
- Very interesting quests and mini-quests.

• Combat and controls are easy to understand

• Lots to discover in the big world

• Lots of skills
  
  The Bad
  - Constant disconnections and long loading screens

• Lacking graphics

• No more PvP the way I loved it

• Slow leveling

• Membership is forced on you
  
  The Bottom Line
  I remember playing this game when I was eleven years old, it was pretty sweet at the time, but I was even more surprised when I heard some kids in town talk about this game. After a very enjoyable year with this game I thanked it for its hospitality and continued further into the video game industry, so I wondered how much had changed in five years time. When I went to www.runescape.com I was treated on a very nice trailer that showed me amazing graphics (for a browser game that is), epic cinematic action and adventurers working side by side in order to survive an onslaught of enemies.

Hyped as hell I instantly logged in using Facebook (sweet!) and I encountered my first foe in this game: a loading screen. I sat there for a few minutes staring at the screen like it would hurry stuff up before going down to make a cup of coffee, when I got back the loading screen was just getting finished. After that delightful bit of torture the very next thing the game threw at me was a disconnection which send me straight back to the homepage. This is not what you'd call a good start.

After several minutes of disconnections and loading screens I finally got to a character creation tool which allowed me to pick between roughly two dozen classes. I went with the thief because that sounded like an interesting gameplay experience (plus it's the only thing I ever do in Elder Scrolls games) and after another freaking disconnection (this was not my internet by the way, it was working just fine and I was listening to music on youtube while "playing") I also got to pick between some clothes and hair styles.

The first thing I had to do when the game started working was starting out on a list with mini-quests that had me do little tasks that were not really worth basing a whole quest around. They started out pretty mandatory, but they became much more interesting as I got further into the game and nicely stimulated me to try a few things I normally wouldn't have done. What I also noticed the instance the game started working was that it took my preference for setting games on low graphics a little too serious and made it look like I was playing World of Warcraft on an Atari 2600. However after changing the graphics to their highest setting it still looked like ass and I gave up on trying to improve it somehow.

At this point it's also important to mention that you could control the entire game by just clicking on the screen, clicking did everything from moving to attacking. The only time you ever need to touch the keyboard is when typing in your password and moving the camera which I liked a lot. I also really enjoyed the huge amount of skills that were at my disposal, but what made me lose my temper was the fact that most of them (MOST!!!) were only available to members (the people who pay to play) including pick-pocketing which was the class I assigned to my character. What the hell is that about, I can pick a class, but not use it's skill? Why was this not mentioned on the character creation?! Becoming a "member" is pretty much required in this game; 70% of the quests are exclusive to them, half the world is also theirs and a lot of items can only be used by them as well as the skills mentioned before.

The world is still pretty big though and there are lots of interesting quests to do, which for some reason are much better then any quests in World of Warcraft because they all involve plot twists, cinematic moments and a certain amount of brain-power from the player. That does not mean the game is entirely grind free, in fact it's even more grind-happy then World of Warcraft because you need to level up your combat skills to level up your own level and once you get to around level fifty one combat level can take up to eight hours of constant grinding. Also don't forget that you'd need better food in order to help you while fighting, which means a higher cooking and fishing skill, but you also need armor, so be sure to keep training your forging and mining skills and I am sure there is some other stuff you'd like to grind yourself silly for because at the age of eleven you ain't got nothing better to do anyways.

Something I missed a lot was the wilderness which was a zone a long time ago where players could fight each other. It worked like this: The deeper you go, the higher your wilderness level gets, which meant could attack higher and lower level players (if you were level 30 and you were in level 5 wilderness you could attack level 25 players for example). This made for some very sensational adventures in the wilderness where you and some friends went inside the wilderness looking for lower level people to slaughter while simultaneously hoping nobody with a higher level would show up or optionally a dragon. This was awesome, but now you got arenas and special PvP games that cut out all the adventure because you always know when and when not you can be attacked by someone else.

At the end of the day, I do have to admit that I have grown too old for this game which probably means I am not longer its target audience, the people who this is intended for are little kids aged somewhere between eight and eleven and unless your some kind of Lucas (obscure movie reference), you are probably not going to know much about flawed game design and you probably never played a real big MMO to use as comparison when playing this game at that age. Runescape is a pretty sweet ladder that allows one to ease himself into the big world of video games with something simple that still offers a lot of depth for those who care to discover the story and secrets of the world (or pay ten euros a month).

The Good
The whole idea of Runescape is very original, as it combines the ideas of real-time action, RPG and multiplayer games into a very basic program. What fascinates me the most is that your character is part of a diverse trade community, where every item, depending on its rarity, has an accepted "market value." It's basically very similar to real life: improve your skills and make money off a particular trade, which will allow you to finance skills such as magic and ranged fighting that require a constant supply or runes and arrows respectively. You really get a sense of community in this game, because part of the gaming experience depends on the other players. When selling a commodity, a player can log on to a room that has a large amount of players, while those who want to train by fighting creatures without other people taking the kills may prefer to chose empty rooms. Although i'm not a member myself, it is possible to pay $5 a month and unlock tons of member benefits, including many new places to travel to, more items... etc.

The Bad
There's very little i don't like about Runescape... actually the only disadvantage is for people that don't have a permanent connection to the internet. Improving your skills takes forever! It's really discouraging to see level people smithing runite bars right next to you while you're still smithing steel daggers... therefore, with a limited amount of time you can spend online, reaching the higher levels in a particular skill will take weeks, if not months.

The Bottom Line
Although it may seem too basic at first, the thousands of possiblities in Runescape along with its captivating ambience accounts for the hundreds of hours players spend online!

The Good
Well, it's huge. Tons of stuff to do, equipment, abilities, quests, you name it! This game offers alot for the simple-minded gamer, and the best part is that it's free.

The Bad
Everything else that can be hated. This game takes NO skill, no thought, no tact, no anything to play. Just alot of free time, and if you feel like getting a couple of cheap perks, 5$ a month. This game is a mockery to the MMORPG name.

The Bottom Line
A no-brained java game that's simply a waste of time.