As someone who is only a few months into exploring the realm of Gielinor in Runescape3, there are a few things that are difficult to get over.
The essay is written from the perspective of someone who has played Runescape and Oldschool Runescape for many, many years, therefore the experiences described may differ from those of a really “fresh” player.
The problem with a post-game economy
When I initially started playing Rs3, I was astonished to discover that there are (many) products that are just not offered on the Grand Exchange.
And I’m not even talking about insanely rare goods here; I’m talking about relatively regular quest items for free to play, and members’ missions are often just unavailable.
Because there are so few people at the “new player” stage, it might be difficult or costly to obtain certain goods in comparison to Oldschool Runescape.
On the other hand, certain objects are fantastic to accumulate and sell slowly. The end-game economy also provides a wonderful method to gain money in the early game by gathering extra things for the tasks you want to do.
Items from Horvic’s shop near the fountain in Varrock that I sold for a profit early in my Runescape3 voyage included Bat Bones (for 25,000 GP apiece) for the King’s Ransom quest.
I also walked about picking up cabbages at the farm south of Falador, near the Draynor Lodestone, to make some money because of those paid an easy 100k+ per hour with no prerequisites.
The system of Achievement Diaries
To be honest, the entire Achievement Diary system is a complete catastrophe. As an example, it took almost a MONTH to realize the system existed in the game at all. It’s hidden behind five options you seldom use in one of the ugliest interfaces I’ve ever seen.
Despite this, many of the awards are quite valuable to gamers. The most popular way for individuals to discover it is through the many community wiki pages that explain how to locate and unlock the prizes.
A really simple solution is to add an Achievement Diaries tab, identical to the quest tab. A system akin to Oldschool would work beautifully and provide folks with more instruction if desired.
To convey everything Runescape 3 has to offer, the game needs a better mechanism
I’ve been playing Runescape3 for a few months now, and every day I discover new stuff I wish I’d known about sooner.
There is so much wonderful and valuable stuff that you would never know existed if you didn’t spend all day browsing the Wiki.
Training techniques, shops, and even entire countries that you would never know existed until you explicitly sought them out.
