So I recently read a post on the front of r/Runescape about what keeps players coming back to RuneScape, and totally agree with all of it. I started playing RuneScape when I was young, and as such I hadn't much experience with other MMOs. When I eventually grew out of RuneScape and tried to get into other MMOs, I found them to be surprisingly dull for their fanbases (Though many would argue that I came into these MMOs past their hey-day, such as WoW) -- I come back to RuneScape every now and then with the assurance that the quests will be fascinating if not fun and humorous, and that there will always be something to do.
So this made me ask myself: What keeps me from staying, every time I come back? Well, first, it's interesting to consider why I come back: I have a strong, nostalgic, emotional attachment to the game. Quality of the game aside, I always think of RuneScape as being the epitome of my youth. I played it after school, I played it before school, during school, with my friends or alone, and even when I wasn't playing the game, I was thinking about it. I made my own "concept" armors during Art Class, I used to try and make paper-mache "helmets" (You know the ones; The round, sorta-closed-face ones with a plume, that used to be the generic "armor" appearance on oldscape..) I used to carve swords out of backyard sticks and pretend to be slaying monsters. In fact, my earliest Christmas that I can remember is the Christmas when all I asked for was Membership. (X-Mas 2007; The snowglobe, the dragon-helmet'd snowmen..)
-- So after thinking of all this, I realized that the reason I still cling to RuneScape is a somewhat emotional and kinda sad one. I do it because it reminds me of a time when I had time to play RuneScape. My biggest goal of the week was getting in so many hours between sleeping, eating and schooling, and I didn't have to go out of my way to make friends as they, too, were all playing RuneScape. Now, life has gone a much different way-- as it does for all of us-- I have a job, I have college, I have a social life (sort of.. not really) to maintain, and between this and the many years I spent away from RuneScape, I just don't have time to keep up with RuneScape's changing landscape.
So that brings me to why I keep leaving: Inevitably, RuneScape is not my home anymore. At one point, I could recall bustling streets full of players who were intent on nothing more than socializing, going to house parties, doing group minigames. Of course there were grinders and questers and pures back then, but the community of RuneScape had not been so controlled by them. Skillcapes were rarer, and money was harder to come by. So you might say, "Well, just play OSRS!" -- THAT'S ANOTHER THING: I always thought my changed feelings for RuneScape were easily passed-off on the changed graphics, the new combat system, the new.. everything? But it wasn't-- in truth, I much prefer many of these newer systems, no matter how much they change the game. Jagex's work to fervently breathe new life into this game is not wasted on me, and I feel it helps keep RuneScape relevant in a changing tide of gamers.
It's not that the game changed; It's not that I changed-- I feel like the community changed. It's much more focused on, well, gaming-- it feels like everything has to be a justification for an end-goal (Skilling, Grinding, rarely Questing) and I don't so often see people just getting on the game to be on. Perhaps it is for the reason I said before; Nobody has time to just waste on RuneScape. They want to beat the game, they want to make the progress.
But I'm afraid. I currently have 2 skillcapes and get on for maybe one day out of a month just to sorta look around and do a quest or two before retiring again. I'm afraid that if I work too hard to "beat" the game, that it'll be beaten and the magic that RuneScape once had will be truly exhausted. A younger variant of myself would log on with the excitement that there were more NPCs than I'd ever care to count, more quests than I was willing to flip through in the questlog, more items than I would ever know from just the Grand Exchange search menu. I would mark the day that I'd see a player with a party hat or a skillcape, and now these items are commonplace amongst veteran players.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to say that RuneScape is worse now, or that my style of enjoying RuneScape is at all preferable. I'm aware of how weird it is to say that I got on an MMORPG just for the RP part and not so much the rest of it, perhaps if I put any amount of effort into learning the new complexities of the game instead of giving up each month, then this would be a nonissue. I would have half an idea of who the popular Twitch streamers were, or what "Comp"ing even entails, or what the fuck a Vorago is.. it just feels like a more casual crowd of RuneScape players from my youth has hardened into a hardcore veteran crowd that I can't keep up with at all.
What do you guys think? Do you agree that the game has gotten a lot less casual, or is that just the biased look from someone who didn't take the game seriously enough as a child? Is any part of this too-long-of-a-post coherent or am I just rambling uneditted?
My New Years resolution is to stay active for an entire year, no matter how bored and/or disillusioned with the game I might get, and to learn about the "new" (-to me) things of this game that has perplexed me for some time now. I will also strive to get at least 3 more 99s (I currently have 99 FM and Cooking, I'm closing-in quickly on 99 Construction and 99 Smithing as well.) If anyone would like to add me (since I have a now-100%-empty Friend's List), my RSN is Denlim and.. yeah, that's about it.
TL;DR (cus seriously, it is too long :( sorry)-- I miss the old RuneScape but not the "OSRS" RuneScape; I'm a casual scrub who can't keep up with the lingo of modern players and I haven't been an active player since, like, 2009.
Submitted December 31, 2016 at 02:17PM by skelitor121 http://ift.tt/2hDZecb
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