Free Gaming: Runescape!

by Richard Rowell, Gaming Successfully Staff

Free Gaming is a new series about free online games that you may want to check out. Our first installment in this series is all about a game I played many years ago, and am trying once again, called Runescape.

Back when I was in junior high, around 2000 or so, I played a free to play browser game called Runescape. It was the first MMORPG I ever played. Well, after taking a break from my Star Wars the Old Republic subscription, I needed another game to play. Runescape suddenly crossed my mind. Sure enough, it’s 2016, and it’s still one of the most popular free MMORPG’s around.

Obviously after probably 15 years of not playing, I started fresh. They even let you log in with Facebook now! There’s obviously quite a bit new in the game. I remember there being an almost endless number of quests and things to do. The crafting and skills were both pretty great, as well.

The character creation is a lot more interesting now from what I can remember. I decided to create a female character. As you might imagine, naming was hard. So many people play this game. I chose Xylophonia, a joke name I came up with when my partner and I were deciding what to name our daughter.

Unfortunately, I immediately ran into trouble. My graphics didn’t want to load. Fortunately, I quickly figured it out. I set the graphics to minimum. Don’t look so hot, but at least everything wasn’t black.

So my first quest involved entering some Catacombs. It involved dealing with some cultists who were after the power of a dead necromancer. They took a girl hostage to complete a blood pact ritual. My task was to save her.

In this first quest, you learn how to use melee, ranged, and magic attacks while facing the first three. You have the option to kill them or let them give you their stuff and go. I decided to be nice and let the first two go. We’ll see what consequences that has later, as those two were supposed to be taking part in a blood pact. The third drank a potion to kill himself to finish the blood pact. I rescued the girl they had taken prisoner and returned to the surface.

Before finishing the quest, I soon ran into one of the bad things about the free-to-play version. I couldn’t equip the off-hand sword because you have to be a member to dual wield swords. Bummer.

So far, this game is holding my interest for now. Glad I found it again.