Posted by admin on October 21, 2009

Our Exclusive Runescape Interview

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VidGamer: What can you tell us about RuneScape?

DEV: RuneScape is a massively-multiplayer online game developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. The game is set in the lands of Gielinor, which is a vibrant fantasy world of warring races, ravaged landscapes and sinister powers. Players take the role of adventurers, travelling through the many different lands and taking part in a variety of quests and mini-games.
The game currently holds the world record as the most popular free online game and over 150 million accounts have been created worldwide since it was first launched in 2001, making RuneScape the most successful browser-based game in history.

VidGamer: What are the features of RuneScape that will attract players?

DEV: The first big feature is that the basic game is free for as long as you want to play it. There are no level caps, no time limits, and no need to purchase individual items to keep up with everyone else. There is also no fear of a subscribing member outclassing you with their stats alone, as they can’t use their extra skills or equipment on free-to-play worlds. It’s true that the membership will give you more content, with updates happening 3 times a month, but we have players who’ve been free-to-play for years and they haven’t run out of things to do.

The second big feature is that the game can be played on almost any machine with almost any internet connection and with no download needed, just like all of our products. We know that a lot of the more ‘hardcore’ gamers will have ’killer rigs‘ at home with the latest broadband connection, but not everyone has access to this sort of technology at all times. For example, when did you last get to use an Alienware PC in your school library or at your office desk ?. Being able to play virtually anywhere, on virtually anything, means that you don’t have to worry about the processing power of your PC, or that of your opponents, and you can just get on with the game.

The massive choice of things to do is the real attraction for the game, with players having loads of activities to choose from. The mental challenge of questing, the furious rush of fighting monsters or other players, the analytic planning of taking part in the games economy, or just the fun of socialising with other people in a relaxed environment are all major attractions to our current players. People can choose their own path, effectively making a personalised gaming experience and deciding their own victory conditions.

VidGamer: What types of classes are there?

DEV: RuneScape doesn’t use a class system, instead all players are able to raise all skills to the maximum level if they so wish. This would take a lot of time to do, however, so players tend to focus on specific areas and the community has come up with terms to designate the various styles of play that they represent.

To begin with, there are the combat types: Melée, Ranged, and Magic. Each one of these covers the combat skills that are available in the game. A player is considered to be of that class if they have their highest stat in the respective skills. In addition to that there are ‘hybrids’, which are players combining the pros and cons of two (and sometimes all) of the combat types, and ‘Pures’ who only have one combat skill with any stats, allowing them to hit harder and faster for their combat level while sacrificing diversity.

Away from the fighting skills there are the ‘skillers’, players who focus on the non-combat areas of the game. This can range from people who have some battle skills, but just prefer to take part in the trading and crafting community that has grown in the game, all the way to people who have enjoy the challenge of never raising their combat stats while getting all their other skills maxed out.

VidGamer: Can you tell us about some of the features players can explore on a social level?

DEV: The first social feature that players will see is the public chat system which that is the main means of communication in the game. Any public messages that you send will be seen by everyone else who is close to you in the game world, and you’ll see everything that they say as well. As you can imagine, this can get very busy in the main cities, especially at the main trading hubs, but it’s the way people meet each other and get additions to their ‘Friends-Lists’.

The Friends List system works in several ways: firstly it can be used as your standard ‘private message’ system to players that are logged in at the same time as you and are anywhere in the game on any server. The second part is that you can set your Public Chat to ‘Friends Only’, meaning that you and your friends can talk in crowded areas without having to sift through what everyone else is saying. Further to this is the ‘Clan Chat’ system, which effectively allows in-game chat rooms that players operate themselves.

Away from the in-game chat features we have the Official Forums, which are where a lot of the socialising takes place. They are some of the most active forums on the net and are host to a multitude of topics, from arranging in-game trades, to finding people to team up with or join a clan, to roleplaying and storytelling, to just talking about what they are going to be doing in the game next week.

VidGamer: How do the classes fit together? What would group make up look like?

DEV: The combat types fit together in a triangle: Melée beats Ranged beats Magic, and Magic beats Melée. We don’t have the traditional ‘tank, dps, healer’ classes and all players are able to fulfil all roles to some degree while playing any of these classes.

The make-up of a group will depend on what the group is planning to do. If it’s a PvP group, it’ll be a blend of all of the ‘classes’, but if it’s a group off to take out the King Black Dragon, you’ll have mostly melee types. It’s all down to who is about to get attacked. Additionally, players can switch between roles by changing what equipment they are using, so it’s perfectly possible for a player to go from a full Melée to a full Ranged role in a couple of seconds in the middle of a fight.

VidGamer: What types of PvP does the game have? How are players rewarded for their efforts?

DEV: PvP has always been a major part of RuneScape, and is something that we’ve been adapting and modifying since the game began, so the short answer is: lots, in many varied forms.

The long answer is we have multiple PvP environments for players to use, all of them focusing on different aspects of that playing style. We have solo events such as the Duel Arena and the TzHaar Fight Pit, giving players either one-on-one challenges or a ‘circle of death’-style all-vs-all grand melee, and we have team-based games like the capture the flag-style Castle Wars (with added catapults), the Clan Wars team melee arena, or the Soul Wars ‘attack and defend’ battle ground.

If none of those mini-games takes your fancy, there are the PvP worlds that allow you to fight anyone of a similar combat level almost everywhere in the game, or the Bounty Hunter worlds – that use less of the game area, but give you a target to hunt for better rewards, while you are being hunted yourself. Both of these worlds are on servers that anyone can log into whenever they want, allowing players to dip in and out of these deadly environments.

With so many different types of PvP, there are a wide range of rewards, ranging from the pure enjoyment of beating your opponent, to tokens for speciality stores, to high level drops from the people you’ve taken down.

VidGamer: What would a new player to MMOs find in RuneScape that is different?

DEV: The first thing they are going to find is that it is a very open world that they will be able to explore in their own way. Content of all levels is mixed in together, so new players are likely to meet players of a variety of experience levels from the very beginning, and not just at the major cities or travel routes. Additionally, the new player won’t have a set progression path to follow; there is no one skill that needs to be raised first or area that they must train skills to access. Players can just explore the area and set their own tasks as they go along.

The next big difference is in the questing, which we consider to be a major part of our game. RuneScape quests are designed to tell stories, to expand the game world that the player is in, and to introduce them to new aspects of the game that they may not have tried before. Single quests can take hours to complete, will take players all over the game world, have multiple cut scenes, and often include puzzles and game elements that are only found in that quest. We try to avoid the cliché of ‘kill X of creature Y’ quests and we give players a reason to do them beyond the completion rewards.

The other big difference is how often the game world will change. As mentioned earlier, we have updates almost every week and each of them will have an impact on how the game is played. A resource will become more desirable and make you more money, new way of training a skill could appear, or a new area could be opened, giving you new skill goals to reach; it’s always on the go. Nothing stays static for long and that keeps the game in a constant state of evolution.