Runescape was created by Andrew Gower in 2001 along with his brother Paul. Before Runescape was released it was re-written from a previous game called DeviousMUD in 1998 which was not publicly available.
Jagex Ltd. was formed to look after the business dealings of Runescape which was started by Andrew, Paul and Constant Tedder. Since then Runescape has gone on to become the world's largest free MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007 and 2008.
"Runescape has been played by over 150 million people since its launch in 2001. The game currently has over 5 million free players and over 1 million subscribers (Over the last two weeks)," comments Adam Tuckwell who is Head of Public Relations at Jagex Ltd.
Runescape is a fantasy MMORPG which is reminiscent to 'Lord of the Rings' style scenes, where your avatar can run around the world taking on quests, battling steel dragons, building your own house etc. Full members have total access of the world and all of the weapons, tools, skills, bank space etc. Whereas non-members can only run around the Kingdom of Asgarnia and Kingdom of Misthalin and have limited things to do, but they can pay a monthly fee to become a full member.
There are 24 skills which you can do and when you reach level 99 (the highest level) in any skill you will get a skill cape. Apart from people gawping in awe at you for owning one, by wearing the skill cape you can use the emote and see your avatar do a special act of that particular skill. My highest skill is level 82 in wood cutting, still a long way from a skill cape!
Here is my avatar demonstrating a few things you can do:
Combat is an important aspect of the game, which Runescape incorporates, is called real-time combat system. Players can die by losing all their hitpoints, but can recover them by eating food or drinking potions. If you do end up dying, fear not, your avatar is reborn in Lumbridge Castle or two other respawn points.
Depending on what level you are in combat, you can wield a variety of weapons and armour to slay your opponent. Combat is broken into three main catagories: Melee, Magic, Ranged. For extra protection in combat players can use Prayer to boost their combat ability or defence.
If you decide to fight another game player PvP, you can go to the Wilderness (dangerous), or to the Duel arena or Clan Wars which is a safer environment to not lose your items.
It is endless what you can do in Runescape and to find out more about the game visit: www.runescape.com
Go to top"..I got too inquisitive by clicking on anything to see what it was or did, and within a few days I died and lost all my items in my knap sack (inventory) as I didn't know where or how to use a bank. My heart sank 'Game Over' or so I thought as my dying avatar withered to the ground, but the screen refreshed back to Lumbridge Castle where my avatar appeared. I was reborn!
"You died already," my manager laughed "you're going to have to earn the next set of armour, food weapons. I think 1000 oak logs will do."
So began the start of 'levelling up', starting from chopping down a basic tree to get a log and gaining experience points (xp), you work up enough points to go up a level for example Wood Cutting: 1 regular log is 25xp. It takes 83xp to get to level 2, 174xp for level 3 and so on. When I got to level 30 I could chop down oak trees.."