My experience of Runescape at 2006 was mainly this: mill for hours, buy a few shiny new gear, smash computer keyboard upon realising my battle level was not high enough to equip it, grind combat levels, equip gear, get murdered in the Wilderness, lose shiny new equipment, RuneScape gold. Every few months I would decide it was time to initiate a new account, motivated by some specialist build I had seen or a inexplicable urge to live an easy life and become some sort of fabled hermit. Honestly, 12-year-old me thought that would be an enjoyable thing to do.
At first you might sulk and long to get your puppy that once was, but soon enough you start to notice the new dog is gorgeous when compared with its haggard predecessor. It will all sorts of new tricks, it’s charm and character, heaps of endgame content and does not need to be fed or walked often.
Where Runescape utilized to involve offering up one’s hands to hours, or days, of grinding for piecemeal progress, now it hands out level raises with a regularity that is hard to stomach if you are able to remember sinking 20 hours of constant play into acquiring just half of the XP you need to level up.
From blind custom, I invest my initial hours mining ore, killing cows, burying bones, chopping wood and lighting fires. Pleased with my progress, I place an extra eight hours into boosting my abilities. At this point my general impression is that Runescape has only gotten wider and easier, which would not be cheap RS gold sufficient to drag me back into its F2P clutches.
What did handle that (I begrudgingly admit) was that the number and quality of quests to be performed in RuneScape. They also come in all shapes and sizes, from shearing sheep and running errands to slaying dragons or mounting your prison escape.