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The Soapbox: RuneScape is a proper MMO
Most of us will remember RuneScape from its first incarnation: a tiny and blocky world with simplistic gameplay, no sound, and only a handful of quests. The product of two brothers operating out of their parents' house in Nottingham, the original version launched in 2001 and slowly carved out its niche as a game for kids that could be played in a web-browser. RuneScape has a special significance for me as the first MMO I ever played, and it's responsible for starting my life-long love affair with online gaming. A whole generation of gamers grew up with that primitive, blocky world and eventually left for more polished games. But RuneScape has grown up too -- and boy did it have a growth spurt! Today's RuneScape bears little resemblance to the classic version many of us played as kids. The graphics are now considerably better, the world map is about five times the size, and it has features most people dream of getting in their favourite MMOs. RuneScape now has player housing, guild halls on huge floating islands, a full player-designed battleground system, procedurally generated dungeons, regular content updates, and 186 quests packed full of British humour. People sometimes say that RuneScape isn't a proper MMO like World of Warcraft, but I'd argue that it's actually more worthy of its "massively multiplayer" title than most of the MMOs released in the past decade. In this editorial, I look at just how far RuneScape has come and argue that RuneScape may be more worthy of being called a proper MMO than some triple-A releases.
Massively's hands-on with RuneScape's Dungeoneering
For many of today's MMO players, RuneScape provided a first taste of massively multiplayer online gaming. Released in 2001, RuneScape was a blocky world full of ugly characters trading each other logs and feathers. The world existed only to perpetuate an endless skill-grind that was largely without purpose, and the height of competitive or co-operative gameplay was racing a friend to a particular skill level. It's been almost ten years since those first moments of RuneScape, and the game today is barely recognisable as that world many of us grew up in. The game engine has had several major graphical overhauls over the years, from the RuneScape 2.0 3D upgrade in March 2004 to the RuneScape HD overhaul in July 2008. There are now hundreds of servers worldwide, and players can benefit from ten years of previous content updates. Back in April, Jagex published the largest content update in RuneScape's entire ten-year history. The Dungeons of Daemonheim expansion brought in dungeoneering -- a fantastic new solo or group activity with practically infinite replayability. Players can form groups of one or more characters and venture down into the dungeons of Daemonheim to test themselves against some unique challenges. The high degree of replayability comes from the fact that the dungeons are procedurally generated and tailored to the specific skills of the players in the group. The dungeon rooms are filled with monsters of varying difficulty, items you can use and skill challenges that unlock bonus rooms and loot. Dungeoneering is available for free players, though some of the content is limited to subscribed members. In this hands-on article, we get to grips with RuneScape's massive dungeoneering system and ask whether or not it's as fun as it sounds.
RuneScape introduces largest update in game's history
Hot on the heels of some pretty nice financial news for Jagex and comes some good news for RuneScape players: new content. Not just any new content, either. Jagex is calling the Dungeons of Daemonheim expansion the biggest update in RuneScape's history. This expansion is going to keep players busy for quite a while: it's added a completely new underground world consisting of five separate levels, each of which gives "customized rooms." The customization feature is what makes this update so exciting for players: "Every room in the Dungeons is randomly generated and customized to the skill level and abilities of the players that enter it. No two rooms and no two experiences will ever be the same, providing billions of different play-experience combinations." The update adds the Dungeoneering skill as well, giving players a brand new avenue to explore. The Dungeons of Daemonheim expansion is live now, so if you're a RuneScape fan and haven't checked it out yet, it's definitely time!
