Today’s game is RuneScape. I would like to make a confession with this game, and that is that I have no clue what I’m doing in it. I’ve done maybe 3 quests. I really just like walking around and listening to the music while exploring and taking in the sights. I’m basically using RuneScape as a tourist simulator.
Like today for example. I went by this museum and just checked things out. I imagine it’s tied to a quest, but if it is I couldn’t find it. I suspect maybe it’s under premium or whatever.
The whole vibe of this game also makes me want to play Myst. I have disk copy for MacOS. Like an old one on iMac G3. I’m half tempted to boot it up and play just because of this, but I think I’ll wait and just buy it on Steam. I have to imagine it’s close enough to the same experience, and besides. I have a CRT monitor that I could hook it up to if I really wanted an older experience.
Tangents about Myst aside, I also ventured into this house and killed this imp. I panicked at first because I thought maybe the Imp was with the guy or something but he seemed pretty chill. I head cannoned it as the Imp was like a pest. Or this guy is just a shitty pet owner. Either way I took the spoils from my kill with me. I think I’ll put it in the bank as a weird messed up trophy of sorts. Sorry to that poor Bank Keeper.
Anyways. To end things off I found this village full of Barbarians. Until I boot the game up again I’m going to head cannon that he’s taking a prolonged stay here. He helped bake a cake or something one time. Maybe he can help make food or something to earn his keep.
Runescape (osrs/rs2) in my opinion is one of the best games ever made.
It’s janky, the mechanics are all dated in a pseudo 90s ADND RPG style, the game econony is carefully balanced to accommodate this through RWT and botting. There is a lot to dissuade someone from enjoying it.
But the quests, coming from a passion project by a small team are some of the best quests I have ever played. Custom mechanics have been written for a lot of them (further adding to jank), the writing shows its pulpy influence and revels in its own absurdity.
I have yet to play another game where I have helped a pirate union-bust his zombie workers for his rum operation, worked for the fairy mafioso and helped Jean Luc Picard with his hot air balloon in the same day.
I had to stop playing at points because I was in tears from laughing so hard and without guides some of the quests are genuinely challenging and stimulating.
Always a brief respite from the modern gaming community to revisit osrs
The absurd writing is honestly part of why I love it. I haven’t touched many quests but the game feels so wholly unserious that I love it
This is the way the game was meant to be played: exploring and having fun with it. Not XP grinding into the ground.
I started osrs about 6 months ago and I am absolutely sucked in. I hadn’t played since like 2008 and seeing both the old content and the new content has been such a treat. It really is a great game.
I found out you can run a local single player instance of 2009scape, and have been messing with it for nostalgia
I’ve been playing on the live server of 2009scape off and on for a couple of years now. The community is awesome and the team that maintains it has made (and kept) and oath to provide your character data should you ever find yourself banned and they promise to do the same should the server ever shut down for any reason
This. Whenever I get the itch, I boot up 2009scape. Thanks for mentioning it here! :-)
You sure it’s Myst you’re thinking of? There was some super old school 3D polygon game that came out around the same time as Myst. (Wasn’t Myst just like static pictures?)
Anyway I played original RuneScape in like 2003-ish for a few years. So much grinding.
It’s sure Myst, I actually went and tracked it down on my old iMac G3’s Hard Drive. I remember specifically the wooden library room too. You’re right about the static pictures though. Except for the remake version. I think that’s fully 3D
I was thinking RuneScape might remind one more of the early polygon graphics in Another World, or Out of this World. Actually that’s still not the game I’m thinking of but I can’t seem to find it. It was made by a French game company, that I remember, but none of those screenshots look like levels I remember.
There were some followup games to Myst that were in 3D as well, but yes the original must was static pictures and FMV clips at times
Dont worry imps are basically just pests in that game
Not going to give you any spoilers, but glad to see new blood in the game <3
Fuck yeah
Also look into runelite once you get going, if you haven’t already
Run Escape felt like one of those games that was a brick wall to get into. I think only people who were nostalgic for it and played it originally actually still like it lol, or maybe it’s just not for me
A lot of its mechanics and gameplay are unbelievably outdated. I’m sure I wouldn’t play it if I didn’t as a kid.
So much this, it’s from an era when games were universally pretty unforgiving. My wife ragequit and refuses to return when she died and learned you lose all but 3 items on death
But if you play casually and explore and just generally vibe it’s pretty awesome. Like finding a little lake and fishing some crawdads and cooking them over a fire and pretending to be camping. Or y’know you could do what so many players do and power level as fast as possible and grind away for hours, but I don’t see what the fun is in that personally. Me, I just vibe
Vibing is honestly a big part of it for me. I can spend so long walking around and just taking in the experience. Legit one of my favorite things to do is open up the map, pick a place I haven’t been, and walk there seeing what interesting things I can find
