Aspects of RuneScape
While thinking about generic medieval fantasy signatures, my mind always goes to RuneScape first. This led me to a question, what are the primary aspects of RuneScape?
To do this, I took a look at the game interface in 2004scape and checked some of my lists found in RuneLibris. Using this data, I compiled the table found below. It should be noted that this is just based on my own opinions and not objective by any means.
| Aspect | Importance |
|---|---|
| Skilling | Primary aspect |
| Combat | Primary aspect |
| Quests | Primary aspect |
| Item & inventory system | Primary aspect |
| NPCs | Primary aspect |
| Interactable scenery objects | Primary aspect |
| Ability to equip items | Primary aspect |
| Music & ambience | Primary aspect |
| Sound effects | Primary aspect |
| Magic spells | Primary aspect |
| Shop selling items | Primary aspect |
| Combat styles | Secondary aspect |
| Prayers | Secondary aspect |
| Run energy | Secondary aspect |
| Weight system | Secondary aspect |
| Trading with others | Secondary aspect |
| Emotes | Secondary aspect |
| Music player | Secondary aspect |
| Cutscenes | Secondary aspect |
| Holiday events | Secondary aspect |
| Minigames | Secondary aspect |
| PvP | Secondary aspect |
| PvM | Secondary aspect |
| Clue scrolls | Secondary aspect |
Aside from music, I believe that every primary aspect of the game was introduced in 2001. This is interesting as this suggests that the core of the game was already defined back then and that everything since was mostly extra features.
I take note that some of the "extra features" such as prayers were introduced in 2001. The early history of RuneScape in general is interesting. For example, a skill called "tailoring" was planned but never released.
I believe those primary aspects may have some relation to my signature concept. All the primary aspect listed are generic RPG features. This harkens back to my ideas of RuneScape feeling like a "default RPG" of sorts.
One day, it might be interesting for me to study the first year of RuneScape. I speculate that RuneScape was originally more of a technical demonstration (running a pseudo-3D game in a web browser was impressive at the time) than something designed to be an RPG first. I believe this is why its design and signatures feel more "honest" than something like Skyrim.
Written by manpaint on 19 March 2025.