I should probably start off by saying, this is completely my just letting off some steam. If all you have to say it to tell me that that's how the game goes or to get over it, save your time. I started playing Runescape in the seventh grade (my high school graduation was this past summer, if anyone actually cares to do the math). I haven't been playing consistently in that time, mostly annual runs of a few months before I'd move onto something else. I almost always began each run with the creation of a new character, usually because in that year I'd forgotten what I had been doing before I left, and this most recent run (which started a month ago) has been no different. Although game play has clearly changed over the course of all this time, my experiences with other players in Runescape have remained very much the same, and they have largely been negative. Ever since I created my first character many moons ago, my all-time favourite skills have been Mining and Smithing. I can't possibly understand why, though, because goodness knows that other players in the game have made a point of trying to outright ruin the Mining skill for me, whether it be intentionally or just as a result of what I consider to be an abysmal game mechanic. I recently gained a high enough Mining level to enter the Mining Guild, which I was very excited about (as small a victory as it may be), because I had only done so on one character previous. The first day went great; for the majority of the day, I was the only person down there, and the couple of times anyone else showed up, they just minded their own business, mining coal on the entire opposite side of where I was mining coal and mithril. It went off without a hitch, and I had hoped such a trend would keep up, but I supposed I should have known better than to think I could ever get anything done in Runescape without someone showing up to ruin it for me. So here I will explain the list of things that royally piss me off about other players, primarily high level players (be it in combat level or in the particular skill level of what we are doing), and primarily in the Mining Skill and where the Mining Guild is concerned. 1. Players (specifically high level ones) who seem to be slighted by what another player, one who is not a part of their clan and they will likely never see in the game again, has equipped. In all of the MMO's that I play, I have always put much greater importance in material/resource skills, and the ability to make my own weapons and armor rather than buy them from a shop or from another player. I have made the choice to only use weapons and armor that I have physically made with my own two little virtual hands, until I get to such a combat level that I will make better use of items that I cannot make myself. This also means that, as a level 62 miner, with level 52 smithing, I continue to use a Steel Pickaxe that I made myself rather than buy a Rune Pickaxe. When I reach level 90 smithing and can create my own Rune Pickaxe, I will personally feel ten times more fulfilled than if I had simply bought it from someone else. This gets really annoying because it means that when someone asks, I cannot tell them what my Mining level without already knowing what their reaction will be. Does that seem ridiculously silly to the majority of players? Absolutely. But they aren't running my account, and they aren't paying my membership fee, so they can back the hell off. What mental issues must someone have that causes them to rage with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns because one person, in a game with significantly more players than just the two of us, chooses to play the game differently than they do? Unless you're going to start sending me checks every month to cover my membership, mind your own business. Personal victory today on this front, however: beat a high level player who had a Rune Pickaxe at three out of five Mithril rocks with my silly old Steel Pickaxe. They threw a little conniption fit and switched worlds. Score. 2. High level players who mine Mithril, successfully preventing me from doing so, just to "alch" it. I can pretty much guarantee you that in the time it takes you to mine that Mithril rock, you could have mined twice as much worth of coal, so why don't you stop being a jackass and actually let people who NEED those ores, use them? 3. This one really bothers me, and so far as I'm concerned, is a perfect example of the way that the majority of players in Runescape simply have no regard for anyone but themselves. People who, while also mining coal in the Mining Guild, will come over to start mining the rock that you've been mining for the last fifteen seconds, as though there aren't 36 other rocks, just because your rock is one step closer to them than the next available rock. I'm very, very close to getting into the habit of reporting all these people as bots, whether they are or aren't. There just simply is no excuse for being that rude, crude, and ignorant to another human being, and assuming that they're bots or using macros is the only way I can keep myself from quitting the game and getting away from such an abhorrent attitude towards other players. 4. This one has less to do with players and more to do with bad luck. Since that first lucky day in the Mining Guild, I have spent the last three entire days, hopping from World to World, trying to find one where the mithril rocks weren't being hoarded by some high level player, with absolutely no success. Way to make the game playable for everyone, Jagex. 5. This, well... It pertains to the entire game, really, but I've found it especially a problem among miners. Why can't people type properly anymore? I don't think I have met a single player in this game, in the years I've been playing, who understood how to put together a sentence. The fact that we, as a community (i.e. the internet as a whole, but also Runescape specifically) accept this mutilation of our language while looking down upon anyone with an education higher than a fruit bat makes me want to puke a little. Any time I show up to start mining, you can be sure that the high level player who is there and sees me mining their rocks will immediately call me a "noob," among other things, in a language I can only assume is what English would be if humans only had two fingers. The ironic part being that they say it as though I'm the one acting like an obnoxious, idiotic eight-year-old with a speech impediment, of course. As soon as I respond to them, usually by asking them how exactly I am the noob compared to how they are behaving, they shield their eyes away like a vampire (a real one) being exposed to the sunlight at the sight of someone who actually understands how many periods are in an ellipse (here's a hint: three, not two or four), and call me any number of terms that all boil down to me supposedly being a nerd and/or middle aged. I've heard just about every excuse under the sun for this, and each one makes me both laugh and rage at the same time, a little more than the last. "I can spell, I'm just too lazy." No, sorry. If you could spell as well as you claim, it would easily take you longer to purposely misspell words than to spell them properly. Try again. "This isn't English class." Is that so? Do you only wipe your [wagon] if you're in a class and forced to do so? "This way is faster." "I'm too busy." "I don't have time to check my grammar." Any variation of those must be my all-time favourite. I'll clue you in on this one, genius. By the time you graduate from middle school, spelling and grammar should be about as natural as breathing and blinking. If you have to make a purposeful, conscious effort to type properly, then you need to consult your family doctor, because you're very likely developmentally disabled. And you know what? I was diagnosed as being mildly developmentally disabled in my senior year of high school, but I can still manage to put together a paragraph with most typos being restricted to mixing up my suffixes, so even that isn't an excuse. Bet you're proud of your moron-speak now.