Since I started playing Runescape, perhaps two years ago, there have been many changes in this online society. As of late, I have noticed some changes in Runescape, not just the game itself, but also the people who play it. As a result, Runescape has become a lot more friendly place to be in.
Real World Trading and Trade Limit
I have been scammed more than once in the past, while I was a naive, new player. Also, the worlds were rampant with bots and autotypers, trying to get you to buy there gold for real money. Recently, there have been major changes by Jagex to try to stop this, including the inclusion of a trade limit, and the removal of the (old style) Wilderness. This upset quite a lot of people (mainly the people who were benefitting from this illegal activity), but it has helped the game move forward. This ‘trade limit’ has also got rid of scammers, trying to make money off you unfairly off you.
‘Bots’
A Macro is a program that a user can download and install, which does the actions of that character automatically (it is highly reccommened that you do not even attempt to download the software). Such programs are banned by Jagex, because it gives the player an unfair advantage over the other players, also they often install some nasty viruses. When I started playing, these ‘macros’ were all over the place, especially cutting down trees with expensive logs (such as yews), selling them on en masse.
More friendly people
Many of the people who were using Runescape for illicit reasons, most particularly the scammers and the such, were less than pleasant people, and you would not like to meet them in a dark alley. I am not saying that everybody in Runescape is the nicest person in the world, but the level of nastiness has dropped significantly.
Defunct skills for money making
Since the Grand Exchange was introduced, some skills have become useless, for money making or for otherwise.
Smithing used to be a very useful skill for making money and for practical uses, but with the advent of the Grand Exchange, the ores that are used in smithing are now more expensive that the finished product. This, of course, is good for the miners, however, not very good for the smithers, the only way that they can make a profit on some items is to mine the ores themselves and follow the process the whole way through.
Rune-crafting is also very unprofitable, at lower levels especially (if you have it in the nineties then it can be one of the most profitable) as the cost of the basic, non member runes is more than the rune essence, meaning that you have to pay to make runes.
There are still many things that are not quite right with Runescape, but I feel it is almost on the brink of a revolution.
