Tip.It Times Presents: I have the answer, Mr. Runescape!

[ponybeat]

...There are also points about Chemistry (Recruit drive quest for example) that are accurate enough to have some educational value. There is some information about Astronomy and Physics too, so it is clear that the writers of the game did their homework well.

 

From this point of view, Runescape is much more educational than most computer games.

 

 

 

The stuff in Recruitment Drive (and Digsite too) is basic chemistry, the sort of stuff you should be learning in 7th-9th grade. Information about Astronomy in Observatory Quest barely even scratches the surfaces and the closest thing to physics in RS might be aiming the catapult in CW (I DEFINITELY don't remember anything about calculating the angle at which light will reflect off of the mirrors in Mournings Ends part 2 :P)

 

 

 

Still, even after going over all this I think we're all missing the point. We shouldn't have to justify playing a game such as this by saying it is educational. It's another game, another passtime. Whether or not it is educational shouldn't matter to anybody :\

[Toxicologist]

Yeah i had noticed this before. i got 3 extra marks in my Design + Technology exam (that i noticed) for knowing about bronz (90%copper 10% tin content) and the blast furnace yay for runescape!!!

 

 

 

(P.S. the Ring of life also works up to lv 30 (for the "did you know" section))

 

 

 

*Sigh*

 

 

 

While mixing copper with tin is certainly one way to make bronze, it is not the only way, and even then you do not simply mix copper with pure tin. It isn't as simple as that, and is barely technically correct. Other minerals are required. And while we are on smithing, did you know that adding COAL in a furnace will turn Iron into Steel??? ZOMGWTHPWNAGE!!! If you wrote that on an exam, guess what you're going to get.

 

 

 

And while we are on education...

 

 

 

Ok, this is what I've learnt from Runescape:

 

 

 

Crossbows are one handed, fast firing weapons capable of being used with a shield, and acts pretty much like a gun.

 

 

 

In fact, crossbows are very heavy, are two handed, and fires about two shots per minute, unless you are considering the Chinese crossbow, which is considerably faster. They are also a pain to load.

 

 

 

Maces are weak weapons not worthy of attention.

 

 

 

In fact, maces are very powerful weapons capable of piercing armour.

 

 

 

Shortbows are more powerful than longbows.

 

 

 

Wrong. Longbows have far more range than shortbows do, and are far more capable of piercing armour. Why do you think English Longbowmen are so feared? And it takes lots of strength and training to wield a longbow.

 

 

 

I can go on and on.

 

 

 

If anyone tries to pull something relating History, Science, Astronomy or any other academic crap and try to prove Runescape educates you in these areas... I agree it improves your practical typing skills, and may broaden your creative horizons, but there are FAR better ways to do these things.

[Sumpta]

I think the author missed the main educational use of runescape: vocabulary. Even native speakers must be expanding their vocabulary by playing Runescape.

 

 

 

I'm probably going to take a German language course next year, so I've been playing RS on the German servers lately to get used to the look and feel of the language. After all, I learned English from television, films and games as well, so... :D

[ben331]

Although it is not educational - much - RuneScape does teach people important life skills. For example, you are playing a game at your computer yet you are still socialising, also you learn to work hard for goals like I am working for a santa, currently I have 11MGP and will soon have 12MGP. Go to this link to find out more:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4774534.stm

 

 

 

I do not think RuneScape it that educational, but I do agree that it stimulates your imagination (though a book would be better) and that it improves your typing skills.

 

 

 

EDIT: By the way, crossbows were made in one-handed versions - they were even harder to load, though, and acted as a single-shot last-resort.

 

 

 

Maces DO NOT pierce armour in most situations - they crush it and the person below.

 

 

 

Longbows I agree on, but I don't think Jagex said that they were weaker...

[dantyboi]

Did You Know...

 

In the Wilderness, you can teleport using an Amulet of Glory up to level 30, and any other teleport up to level 20.

 

 

 

And home-teleport spell up to level 10.

[Beriorn]

Nice article, but I want to say something about the bows. First of all: all players hold the bows with their right hand. This means they use their left hand to pull the string, which means they are right handed. The amount of left-handed bowmen (and women) is in percent equal to the amount of people who write and do other things with their left hand.

 

 

 

Then there's the stance. You see your ranger raise his/her bow in front of her body, pull the string and release. You only get about 60% of the original power out of your bow in this way. The way to get most power out of your bow is to turn to your target, strech your arm out to your arm out, turn your head and THEN pull the string.

 

 

 

Third: the quiver. In Runescape you see the arrows in a upper-leg mounted quiver. Arrows are too long for that. You can't walk very well with 1,5' of metal tied to your leg.

 

 

 

Finally: the arch of the arrows are FAR too inaccurate. That type of arc is more one you get if you toss the arrow very softly. Not to mention arrows are far faster then you see them go...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apologies if this was too rant-like, it's just something that bothers me...

[n64jive]

I can honestly say I have learned a lot from runescape. Everything I learned tho, wasn't on the game itself, but on the clans irc while talking about computers. Because of runescape, I know so much about computers and programming.

[Rebdragon]

I can honestly say I have learned a lot from runescape. Everything I learned tho, wasn't on the game itself, but on the clans irc while talking about computers. Because of runescape, I know so much about computers and programming.

 

:-s

 

 

 

Expound.

[verusius]

I have heard loads of people saying 'RuneScape is sooooo educational...', etc. etc. Sure, it may improve one's typing a bit or teach you about the past, but lets face it - we play RuneScape for fun. Though playing RuneScape may have certain educational advantages, I am sure that I could type much better, and learn more about history, if I were to write an essay about the medieval times (though it would have to be done on the computer #-o). Though that wouldn't be fun.

 

 

 

Instead of going on about how brilliant RuneScape is for education etc, just play it for fun. I don't pretend that RuneScape is educational, I play it for fun, in fact saying RS is educational sounds like an excuse to me - "nah, there's no need to revise - RuneScape is just as good as any revision". Obviously, I know you aren't going that far, but can you see what I'm getting at...?

[9jonathan9]

No practical use for typing???? omgosh!! you obviously have never written an essay.....

 

 

 

Not to mention... FARMING!!! I would know absolutely nothing about hops and barley and such without the farming skill. Very useful. I also wouldn't know that you can make essentially everything out of any wood better than normal wood without nails!!

[RunescapeSucks123]

Runescape is a game, ok. It helps people with pretty much nothing but imagination. I was a fast typer before rune scape, i still am but now when im typing an essay on the computer i start putting things like "u" , or "cuz" without even noticing. There are many more effective ways of learning, like hmm, reading a book?! Runescape actually might give people false information if they think it is teaching them, like rune ores for example. Runescape also is not that good cuz it damages your eyesight, well not runescape, but staring at your computer because your addicted to Runescape does. I'm not saying runescape is all bad, its a fun game i guess if you go on from time to time, but if ur too hooked your social skills will go down, not up. So all you runescape super addicts go out for a change, meet up with friends (if u have any left), and all you lesser addicts just continue to have fun i guess, and dont let Runescape take you over.

[verusius]

No practical use for typing???? omgosh!! you obviously have never written an essay.....

 

 

 

Not to mention... FARMING!!! I would know absolutely nothing about hops and barley and such without the farming skill. Very useful. I also wouldn't know that you can make essentially everything out of any wood better than normal wood without nails!!

 

 

 

Excuse me, i didn't say there was no practical use for typing (i sincerely hope you are talking to me, otherwise i look like an absolute fool), there are lots of uses for typing - i said writing an essay on the computer would be better than playing runescape.

 

 

 

Anyway, farming - the things you might learn from farming are either useless or made up. sorry, i have grown things in the past - my parents have an allotment, and if i had took runescape seriously i would think that every 10 minutes or so, crops need water, it doesn't matter what disease my crops might get - a vial of 'plant cure' will sort it out, it never rains - you must water all your crops repeatedly (except herbs?) and i could write a whole essay ( :mrgreen: ) about it.

 

 

 

Enjoy RuneScape, its really fun - i spend about an hour a day on it. But people, don't try and kid yourself that it is good for anything but for relaxing. It's not.

[xpeimingx]

Like Ginger_Warrior said before... this article is "pretty flawed"... yes, the argument has as many holes as swiss cheese has (metaphor).

 

 

 

1. Typing has largely replaced handwriting in the commercial and industrial world the last few decades. Enough said...

 

2. Skills with basic operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, exponetiating), even when done mentally, will not get you very far beyond high school algebra. Ivy League doesn't really accept many students who graduate below algebra and geometry...

 

3. All I have to say about the history section of the article is "LOL." I hope College Board doesn't replace World History AP with courses about scimitars and battle axes.

 

4. Yes, I suppose the people at Jagex have a lot of imagination... but the real world is a better source for imagination, as long as you have good eyesight. RS's graphics are... .... ....

 

 

 

Edit: oops.. .

[verusius]

Like Ginger_Warrior said before... this article is "pretty flawed"... yes, the argument has as many holes as swiss chess has (metaphor).

 

 

 

Sorry, no really, I am truly sorry but...

 

 

 

1. How many holes does swiss chess have? Swiss cheese has quite a few, I guess but chess?

 

 

 

2. Even if you did say cheese, it's not a metaphor - it's a saying. A metaphor is usually used in a poem (e.g. 'The road was a purple ribbon') where it says something is something else (not a simile, that is 'the cat was as hungry as a lion').

 

 

 

Seriously, I'm truly sorry, I just had to mention these points! And also, I ENTIRELY agree with you! CHEESE not CHESS though. Sorry!

 

[baron8000]

^

 

 

 

 

 

[baron8000]

goddamn lag

[mrph3r]

First off, I want to say that I am a tried-and-true Grammar Nazi. Nobody who uses "plz" sees skillcape emotes from me. :twisted:

 

 

 

 

 

But in any case, the article does somewhat miss the point. Sure, there are many basic educational aspects of the entire game, but there are several other benefits (whether directly related to most traditional education systems or not) that I can find in the game, some of which I've seen mentioned already here (only read the first and last page of topic though):

 

 

 

1. There's no denying the economic model of RS, if you take the time to learn from it. Since there are no bugaboos brought around by the government (Jagex) such as subsidies or transaction taxes, the economic principles are straight out of chapter 1 of your standard econ textbook - supply and demand. Construction skill is released - immediately, the demand drops for rare items as people turn to this money-consuming skill. On the other side, supply increases somewhat, as people try to jettison money to start training and adding new things to their houses. (This probably has a lesser impact on the prices, as many people, sensing the inevitable, will hold on to their santas and such until the construction craze is over.) Therefore, with a dramatic crash in supply and, at the very least, nowhere close of a drop in demand, whoosh go the prices.

 

 

 

On a different economic note, one which I don't think anybody has brought up, it's very interesting to study the socioeconomic levels of the haves and the have-nots in the game. For those of you who recognize Lorentz and Gini, the upper fifth of the population, even excluding the members' worlds, still holds well over 90% of the money. There is definitely upward mobility in the game, which usually comes only by hard work (or lots of boring skills, depending on who you ask). There's also the chance upward mobility (z0mg my frend quit rs and gev me pee hat (read: I might be a hacker!)), mostly balanced by the chance downward mobility (waaaah i hackd and quit rs now bai). Take anything from a macroeconomics textbook and see if there's an analogue to major (and even minor) concepts discussed, and you'll find that the concepts mirror each other quite closely.

 

On a side note, notice which types of people seem to always earn the most money or have the highest skills as compared to those people who brag about playing since 2001, yet still have 301 total and 39 combat.

 

 

 

2. One skill that can't be learned overnight is time management. How many people have friends who say "omg man i want full set of this armr" and then follow you around, doing nothing but talking to you for hours on end? If you know exactly what you want, then you can set your mind on getting it - and it's a lot easier to figure out for the first time when you're going for a dragon chain as opposed to a quota of, say, 40 carpets sold in a day. (Not that everybody in the game is going to grow up to be carpet salesmen...that would be just a slight bit odd.) Productivity is the buzzword when it comes to economic success in the global market, it seems; although it might not seem like a lot, it really does help a lot later in life.

 

 

 

There are some things with value in the article, definitely. I've more than doubled my typing speed from 51 to 107 words per minute (which has been absolutely critical for both my studies in music and chemistry), and kept my mental math skills at a level that is relatively good for personal use. (For what it's worth, I avoid using calculators as much as possible, although perhaps the most ironically, I was having trouble with gem crafting experience amounts with the number of gems I have now, and only found this article on my way to the crafting skill planner.)

 

 

 

Anyway, having said all that, I still do believe that the internet is quite directly contributing to the decline of modern society, mostly stemming from the fact that an entire generation of Americans (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the world) have become completely addicted and (myself included) cannot bear to part with any part of it, even its sometimes harsh idiosyncrasies.

 

 

 

dump>

 

 

 

Sorry about that. Continue.

[LordoftheSquishies]

Runescape has made me a decent typist, but as far as education goes, it has stolen away countless hours that could be better spent with my nose in a book. Honestly, I could've memorized all the classics if I spent as much time reading as I did playing Runescape. As for math, I do those in my head when I wake up in the morning and try to get all my clocks numbers to end up as the final digit by putting them through any number of phases. Runescape is in no way good for kids... I just hit 80 mining today though! :thumbsup:

[rho421]

Firstly, don't complain about the rate of grammar and then say that there can be such thing as a mathematic. It's maths.

 

 

 

 

...Not everyone here is from the United Kingdom. In America we just say "math."

 

 

 

The textbook might say ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅBattle Axes were used by the Mongols in their raids throughout Asia and Europe.ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

[Toxicologist]

I found a dead grammar on the street. Is it yours?

 

 

 

Sorry, I had to say that no matter what.

[rho421]

I found a dead grammar on the street. Is it yours?

 

 

 

Sorry, I had to say that no matter what.

 

 

 

on whose street?

[antiaverage]

I thought the whole goal of those typing things was to let you learn fingering, you need to know where the P and L are to type ppl and I donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t think anyone, when in a hurry, wants to spell out P E O P L E.

 

 

 

Actually, a good typist doesn't think of each letter they're typing. You learn patterns for each word. So when it comes time to type "people" your fingers do the little dance that will create that word. If you typed everything by just remembering one letter at a time you'd be really slow... So it's important to practice typing the full word.

 

 

 

However, I do agree that it's not a school's job to test you on typing or make you a better typist... If you want to type slow, it's your business. If you want to be fast, go nuts. You're not all training to be secretaries, much agreed.

 

 

 

Who (besides a Lord of the Rings fan) would know what a scimitar was without Runescape?

 

 

 

Yes, but it would be nice if people knew it was NOT pronounced "skimitar" but "simitar"... the 'c' is silent...

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scimitar

 

 

 

 

 

Books can be one thing, but actually having what you are trying to imagine put into perspective on an intractable screen really helps.

 

 

 

inÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâ÷tracÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâ÷taÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâ÷ble

 

1. not easily controlled or directed; not docile or manageable; stubborn; obstinate: an intractable disposition.

 

2. (of things) hard to shape or work with: an intractable metal.

 

3. hard to treat, relieve, or cure: the intractable pain in his leg.

 

 

 

I really hope that your screen isn't intractable...

[neonihilist]

RuneScape does teach you a lot of stuff, the SCA, which is like real life runescape, teaches you a lot more.

[PastyGangsta]

The german worlds have helped me out in German 4 a lot... Ive still never had to say Dragon Longsword in german class but... :)

[anish00b]

FANTASTIC! =D> =D> truly one of the only reasons i still play runescape