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Runescape Classic: An Insight. Share your experiences!


Poopingman

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logo_trails.gifRunescape Classic: An Insightlogo_trails.gif

 

 

 

By: Poopingman

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

 

 

  • Prologue
     
    DeviousMUD
     
    Public Release
     
    Character Creation
     
    Early Hindrances
     
    Equipment
     
    Fatigue
     
    Skills
     
    PKing/Dueling
     

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this thread is to shed some light on the history of Runescape. Understanding and respecting the history of the game is a valuable tool to help round out your knowledge of it. I encourage everybody to share their experiences with Runescape Classic so we can help dispel some of the mysteries still enshrouding the early days. Adding your knowledge can help this topic become a more thorough resource for all RSC information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DeviousMUD

 

 

 

Runescape's long-forgotten older brother, DeviousMUD was one of Andrew Gower's earliest endeavors; clearly boasting numerous programming conjectures that would ultimately rear their communal heads in the first form of our beloved Runescape. Conceived in mid '98 and mired with glitches, DeviousMUD was indeed playable online as a one-week beta test for a short time before being renamed and ultimately retooled as Runescape.

 

 

 

DeviousMUD in action:

 

[hide=]sshot1.jpg[/hide]

 

 

 

[hide=]sshot2.jpg[/hide]

 

 

 

An extremely intriguing world map drawn by Gower during the DeviousMUD days. Upon closer inspection, particularly acute individuals will note plenty of resemblances to our modern world:

 

[hide=]oldrs.jpg[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

Public Release

 

 

 

Runescape was finally released to the public on January 4, 2001. These first few months weren't without their faults, as certain bugs impeded gameplay. Initially consisting of just 2 servers (3 at the time of Poopingman's conception) with no more than a few hundred players a piece, these early days are of stark contrast to the massive environments we are spoiled with today. The environments are laughable compared to the awesome detail of RSHD, as all of the buildings featured the same two textures and maroon roof. Here are a couple of 3D renders covering nearly the entire playable world at this time, see if you recognize anything!

 

 

 

[hide=]bigview2-full.jpg[/hide]

 

 

 

[hide=]bigview-full.jpg[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

Character Creation

 

 

 

After creating a character, you were opted to choose a "class". The options were:

 

  • Necromancer (Later changed to Wizard)
     
    Warrior
     
    Miner
     
    Adventurer
     
    Ranger
     

 

 

 

I chose Wizard. Your selection dictated a small boost in a skill associated with your decision, along with matching equipment. For example, a miner would start with 5 mining, and a basic pick-axe. This feature was removed in July of '02, not long before Tutorial Island's release.

 

 

 

 

 

Early Hindrances

 

 

 

Through programming fault, NPCs were only allowed to engage with one player at a time. This caused chaos specifically at banks and during popular quests. Jagex attempted to remedy this by creating duplicate NPCs in key parts of quests. Speaking of banks, Runescape Classic featured a very disheveled bank interface that restricted the number of items that could be withdrawn at a time. Up until July 26, 2001, banks could only store money! The later inclusion of certificates made selling large amounts of items that were in high demand (Fish, for example) a very tedious process, often taking hours to simply swap to certificates! Miles, Giles, and Niles of Random Event fame originally performed the cert-swapping duty in Draynor Village.

 

 

 

A vintage bank screenshot:

 

[hide=]Rsc_Bank.PNG[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

Equipment

 

 

 

There were some notable equipment differences as well, especially pertaining to plate armor. Armor tops were almost entirely gender-specific, with only males being able to wear the male plate. Thrander, a long lost NPC who used to reside near Varrock's east bank, was able to switch tops to the proper gender free of charge. Female players were able to don both plates. Furthermore, adorning a plate top restricted the player from being able to wear gloves; the same was true for platelegs and boots. In these early days, the small attack boost garnished by wearing gloves helped maintain the rune chain's value, as it had no such restrictions. Early on, adamant armor was the best available. Rune armor was first introduced as the medium helm, a then highly coveted drop from lesser demons.

 

 

 

 

 

Fatigue

 

 

 

Near the end of Runescape Classic's solo lifespan, the fatigue concept was introduced to help combat autoers who were infringing the boundaries of fair play. The concept was simple: Training a skill would raise your fatigue slowly, capping at 100%. Once at 100%, you would no longer receive experience. A player then had to use their sleeping bag (Formerly beds only!) until their fatigue dropped. To awake from your slumber, you would have to enter a code, nowadays called a "Captcha". The inclusion of fatigue was widely hated, and it was eventually dropped after the switch to RS2.

 

 

 

The sleeping interface:

 

[hide=]SleepingBagScreen.png[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

Skills

 

 

 

Certain skills were much slower during these early days, and would drive some modern players nuts! Mining was an incredible test of patience, as there was no clear-cut way to confirm whether or not a rock contained ore. Furthermore, every swing had to be confirmed by using the pickaxe with the rock! Later this was changed to simply clicking on the rock. Woodcutting was hindered by the existence of only regular trees. A fail message also prompted from time to time, proclaiming that you "Slipped and missed the tree". Prayer was ungodly slow, with the only methods of training being bones and big bones. In the very early days, prayer was divided into two categories "Good" and "Evil", as was magic as well. Following is an excerpt from an interview with Gregechidna6, one of the very first high-combat players, describing the significance of the magic types:

 

 

 

"When RuneScape first begun, there were some significant differences to the skills from today's world. My personal favourite being "good magic" and "evil magic," which were two separate skills. The magic menu was split into two parts, containing spells for specific sections of the magic spectrum. The highest level spells didn't even really break level 20 if my memory serves me correctly.

 

 

 

Some of those spells don't exist today in any shape or form. "Fear" was a spell that was certainly feared! When cast on a monster, it retreated from combat - beautiful for annoying players and stealing their monsters. Oh yeah, "new runes" as we called them back in the day, didn't exist. That means chaos, law, nature, cosmic and death runes. Those came out later on in one foul swoop when magic was updated into just "magic," and like forty new spells were added. And they were called "new runes" for ages. I don't know when that stopped, it has been years, though, they're not so new anymore."

 

 

 

A very old stat menu screenshot:

 

[hide=]Early_rsc_stats.png

 

Note "Tailoring", which was originally a standalone skill. It was later assimilated into crafting. Influence was basically Quest Points, and Herblaw was present on the stat menu, but dropped and revived some years later in the form we are familiar with today.[/hide]

 

 

 

The aforementioned skill bubble:

 

[hide=]2193429659_2cbebcc621.jpg?v=0[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

PKing/Dueling

 

 

 

PKing has always been an important variable in Runescape. The earliest days featured a world that can best be described as a hybrid between a PK and traditional server today. Before the arrival of The Wilderness, players were able to toggle between PK and Non-PK. Until February of 2001, what you chose upon character creation was what you were stuck with. Jagex then proceeded to allow players to toggle PK/Non-PK up to 2 times. Lumbridge was the only safe area, and battles raged nearly everywhere you went. I remember one particular experience when I watched a fierce clan fight erupt in the Barbarian Village. You were only able to fight players within 4 levels of yourself, but this posed a problem since combat levels weren't visible back then! You had to guess and try attacking people whose names were orange/yellow; a color-based comparison concept that still lives to this day. Obviously, this entire concept was dropped when The Wilderness was released.

 

 

 

Running wasn't an option in Runescape Classic, so catching fleeing players was an extremely difficult proposition. Players couldn't flee during the first three rounds of combat however, spawning the birth of the ever-famed "3-hit". 3-hitting a player rendered the opponent near-helpless. "Catching" fleeing players was another fabled skill, represented by PKer's ability to time their next strike with a small window of opportunity during fleeing that gave them another chance at finishing their prey off. Eating wasn't allowed during combat, so minimizing your opponent's time out of combat was essential for a swift kill. Also worth mentioning is the fact that weapon speed didn't exist. Two-handed swords and battleaxes were much more popular during this time. Dueling was a popular addition that allowed 2 players to square off anywhere in the world. Lumbridge was the undisputed hotspot for dueling. The relocation of this feature to Al-Kharid has angered quite a few classic players.

 

 

 

Dueling in Lumbridge:

 

[hide=]lumby%20duel.png[/hide]

 

 

 

A large clan war deep in The Wilderness:

 

[hide=]runescape_great_war.png[/hide]

Metal fans, check out my band!

Poopingman.png

Still the King....

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Wow... talk about bringing back memories. I actually joined rs as a Wizard (Big Gandalf fan at the time =D, still am technically just not as obsessed as when I was younger) I am surprised to see no tank mages in the screenies as I used to be one.

 

 

 

BTW, out of curiosity, who did the RSC bank screeny belong to and when was it taken? 86m back in RSC makes me feel like a realllly big noob now lol =(

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Wow... talk about bringing back memories. I actually joined rs as a Wizard (Big Gandalf fan at the time =D, still am technically just not as obsessed as when I was younger) I am surprised to see no tank mages in the screenies as I used to be one.

 

 

 

BTW, out of curiosity, who did the RSC bank screeny belong to and when was it taken? 86m back in RSC makes me feel like a realllly big noob now lol =(

 

It was just a random screenshot I found of the old style bank. Definitely a rich player in any time, however.

Metal fans, check out my band!

Poopingman.png

Still the King....

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masks were prolly (averaged together) around 700-800k ea at that time (after october event let's say.) party hats maybe around 3mish.

 

 

 

HUGE cashpile for rsc. now isn't the gp ratio like 1:8?

 

 

 

meaning that 82m would be 656m with the work it took to make that 82m. =P~

 

 

 

impressive piles of runes/arrows/str pots and dbones i must say. No runecrafting, i can't remember the price of bloods at the time.

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2nd troll to 840+ post count.

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Talk about a nostalgic look back into the past. I still remember 300K Blue masks, 1M red partyhats, and the trading interface that was a royal pain to get every cent exact...

 

 

 

The map there looks right, too. Just imagine that you're standing on some mountain in the Wild, looking south.

 

 

 

I also note that the major features of big cities (Varrock, Falador) have remain essentially unchanged. There's still a moat around Falador Castle, and there's a huge courtyard in front of Varrock Castle.

 

 

 

Ahh, memories...

Linux User/Enthusiast Full-Stack Software Engineer | Stack Overflow Member | GIMP User
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...Alright, the Elf City update lured me back to RS over a year ago.

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I joined as a miner, in jan 2002, i miss the days of dueling to get back to lumby, instead of teleing, i still think the inv pics were alot better in classic, and well i miss it, i cant log in anymore lol, the community back then was alot more friendlier, and i do miss not being able to tell the difference between a dagger and a 2h in terms of speed and length lol.

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Although I only played RSC for a few months (I joined the December before RS2 came out), these threads still make me wish I could go back for a visit. There's just something about where things start that you can never get away from...

> SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue > 0;

0 rows returned

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

There are only 10 types of people

in this world: those who understand

binary and those who don't.

This statement is false.

$DO || ! $DO ; try

try: command not found

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

 

 

Haha, the entire glitch with bearded women was a scream in general.

Metal fans, check out my band!

Poopingman.png

Still the King....

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I didn't get a chance to read the whole post, I will after this, but female characters were also able to wear male platebody's. Only the male character was restricted to wearing his set gender platebody.

 

 

 

Edit:

 

Great topic/post, but there could be more added to it. Such as the very early version of banks where you could on deposit/withdraw money. Maybe include holiday's, and the infamous black hole?

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

 

 

Haha, the entire glitch with bearded women was a scream in general.

 

 

 

It wasn't really a glitch. Just packet manipulation using a different client than the one Jagex gave you.

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

Also to add to your picture websites, www.rs-pics.com has a ton of rsc photos. Website that was first made in like 02 I think, and has been revamped a handful of times.

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If you are bothered about RSC history then your first action should be to find the many resources already available to help inform people.

 

 

 

Initially consisting of just a handful of servers (3 to my memory)

 

We didn't get our third game server until the 25th of May 2001.

 

 

 

Runescape Classic featured a very disheveled bank interface that restricted the number of items that could be withdrawn at a time

 

The item bank wasn't launched until the 26th of July 2001. It replaced a money-only bank.

 

 

 

I'm still awaiting information on the significance of the two.

 

IIRC they had no significance, as they were merged before they were used.

 

 

 

Read viewtopic.php?f=28&t=724510

 

 

 

The issue with this concept was the fact that it could only be toggled twice.

 

That option wasn't introduced until the 28th of February 2001.

ren_tbv450.png

Mechscape World (the original MechScape fansite)

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impressive piles of runes/arrows/str pots and dbones i must say. No runecrafting, i can't remember the price of bloods at the time.

 

 

 

I remember selling bloods at 2k each when the god spells came out. That is the only time I remember selling bloods though.

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

 

 

i remember the woman outside heroes guild, achiettes i think it is? she had a beard for along time until jagex eventually fixed it

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

 

 

i remember the woman outside heroes guild, achiettes i think it is? she had a beard for along time until jagex eventually fixed it

 

 

 

So was it really a glitch, programming error, etc.?

 

 

 

The instance I was talking about was the fact that when you went to the Makeover Mage, women still had a facial hair option. Of course its been a long time, I may be wrong. In that case it would just be a lazy mistake by Jagex.

Metal fans, check out my band!

Poopingman.png

Still the King....

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started in early spring of 03,

 

go to around 74 combat & 850 total,

 

chose to keep my bank in rs1 during the switchover, so I started rs2 with the only things that were in my inventory - an r2h and 50 laws.

 

 

 

one of the stranger things that i loved about rs1 were all those bearded-lady autoers.

 

 

 

(hohto and meili each have many many pictures of rs1 on the websites in their sigs, if people are interested in other screenshots)

 

 

 

i remember the woman outside heroes guild, achiettes i think it is? she had a beard for along time until jagex eventually fixed it

 

 

 

So was it really a glitch, programming error, etc.?

 

 

 

The instance I was talking about was the fact that when you went to the Makeover Mage, women still had a facial hair option. Of course its been a long time, I may be wrong. In that case it would just be a lazy mistake by Jagex.

 

 

 

I remember doing it with AR, however I cant remember if the option was available when I started out (because I was a guy :P)

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masks were prolly (averaged together) around 700-800k ea at that time (after october event let's say.) party hats maybe around 3mish.

 

 

Yes, and the blue one bacame the most expensive after the duping ;)

 

Santa hats were 400k when f2p rsc was coming to an end, i know, i bought one :D

 

More things i remember:

 

-Buying and selling expensive items west of Varrock castle

 

-The door glitch: stand in a diagonal door and close it, no-one could attack you so you could easily range them.

 

-The entrances to the general en shield shop in falador were located on the side of the road coming from the northern gate.

 

-Between these two there were 2 more houses, one with 2 men and one (the house against the park) with 1.

 

-Drop parties in falador park and varrock museum.

 

-Iron dagger spawn in the goblin house in lumbridge, selling 16gp each to the general store :twss:

 

-Gaints were zoomed in characters.

 

-The hill gaint cave (gaint cave back then) was mirrored.

 

-So was karamja dungeon.

 

-Fishing on karamja was on the western dock. (the only one back then?)

 

-Imps were tiny lesser demons :D

 

-East of varrock there was an ocean, and a forest with a well between it.

 

-Silverlight was tradable and useful against lesser demons!

 

-Paralyze monsters

 

-Protect from missiles

 

-...

 

Good times, to bad i can't play it anymore <3:

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What I remember most about Runescape Classic was being so naive that I opted to smith/craft my supplies and sell to general stores rather than people. By the time I realized how much other players would pay for my full mith I had already sold countless sets to the NPC in Varrock. I had a friend that lived with me during college and that was all we did. Mine gold/coal/iron then smith/smelt. We made so many gold necklaces, steel plates, and anything with gems we mined, that I to this day HATE mining and smithing. Crafting has become more useful and I have always like the skill. But the others... yeah never again.

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What I remember most about Runescape Classic was being so naive that I opted to smith/craft my supplies and sell to general stores rather than people. By the time I realized how much other players would pay for my full mith I had already sold countless sets to the NPC in Varrock. I had a friend that lived with me during college and that was all we did. Mine gold/coal/iron then smith/smelt. We made so many gold necklaces, steel plates, and anything with gems we mined, that I to this day HATE mining and smithing. Crafting has become more useful and I have always like the skill. But the others... yeah never again.

 

Hahaha, I would do the same thing until one day my friend told me that the plate trader in varrock bought plates for more. I was ecstatic.

 

My most prominent memory from rsc was how freaking beautiful rune bars were. I would dream about them at night, but for some reason I was eating them?

 

I also remember picking up a r2h in the wildy, and going crazy with my friends when we discovered it was worth millions (it was a crazy slumber party, that night). So I kept it for awhile, got bored of the game, came back and there were worth 100k :(

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