Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

The author did a great job capturing the essence of what made RS such a great game, and the soul that Jagex has totally lost over the years with updates to make the game a softer place.

This formative moment could never happen today, because the wilderness is behind 3 confirmation screens instead of just being something you get to discover in the game:

> You have to know that [items] are worth something in order to not get taken advantage of. And it goes to kind of extreme levels too because not only will people, try to give you a bad price, but the game is just really well known for the scamming and the lying and stealing your password. And it's really the wild west out there.

> And so, and really this is true. My very first memory of the very first time that I entered the world of RuneScape, I was asking somebody for help. I said like I was trying to make bread and I was like, "Where can I find a mill so I can make some bread?" And a guy was like, "Follow me. I'm going to show you." And I followed him like into these woods. And you know, you can imagine he turned around. He started to attack me. And I realized what was happening. I was probably 11 years old. I realized what was happening. And I made a break for it. I ran back south for cover and I got away. I didn't die. And I remember like, you know, closing the game.

> I think that my parents hadn't been home, so I had time to think about this. And I was like, that was the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. And I think that this is kind of the beauty and the magic of this game is that it's a little bit of like a rough and tumble world where you have to look out for yourself. And as a kid, it's like that's actually really great practice to be out in the world with real people and have to understand what's going on and learn things like, oh yeah, if somebody offers you a really great deal, maybe be careful.

Cheers to this kind of game design. Wish we'd see it again some day.

Similar experience in a MUD. I fled a faction that experienced a hostile takeover, and was subsequently consistently hunted down by one of the leaders of the faction. Rather than it killing my motivation, it forced me to learn the survival skills the game gave to discover and monitor the locations of others, identify incoming presences through various shortcuts, etc. In essence, it made the game more alive to me and forced me to develop my character's story to go with it. Just a totally unique experience.

  > because the wilderness is behind 3 confirmation screens

Some of the earliest social/life lessons I learned were through interactions in that game

Today's youth will never re-live the experience of having someone tell you to "follow them to hidden area" and then one-hitting you with a rune weapon the second you crossed into wildy + taking all your shit.

RS3 became an enshittified hellscape, that's why everyone is on OSRS. Without OSRS the company was enshittifying to its own death.

The modern game - either one - has more safeguards to make sure you don't enter a dangerous area by mistake. There isn't "three confirmation screens" but there is a ditch you have to click to jump over, and when you do you get the one screen that basically says "hey you know players can attack you past this ditch right? [Acknowledge] [Cancel] [Acknowledge and don't ask again]"

(Technically it's not even correct because the first few tiles past the ditch are also still in the safe zone)

There's plenty of enticing stuff in the Wilderness to make you want to go there and accept the danger, you don't really need to be tricking 11 year olds to have them face danger. Though I suppose you're arguing it's better to teach the 11yo that they can be tricked like this, in a video game instead of real life. I agree with that. At the same time it's a pretty unfair game if it has no indication you're walking into a PVP area other than scenery objects nobody pays attention to, and I think they current system is adequate.

> in a video game instead of real life.

Yeah, that's the argument. I'm kind of getting at something deeper though, like when you say this:

> At the same time it's a pretty unfair game if it has no indication you're walking into a PVP area other than scenery objects nobody pays attention to

Unfair by a comparison to contemporary game design practices maybe, but my point is that it was more fun before (and paying attention to scenery is a valuable lesson to learn as well).

Anyway the point isn't that I think Scamming is Good, Actually. The point is that Modern Game Design is Boring, and bringing back some of the discovered elements of gameplay rather than having everything explained in a dialog box or bright yellow safety paint would serve the industry well.

> rather than... bright yellow safety paint

Ah, yes. The "Pac-Man reimagined as a modern AAA game" problem: https://youtu.be/tVY_oJlv_Eo

I don't think Runescape goes overboard with warnings. A lot of places have a "hey this place is dangerous, are you sure you want to go in?" dialog but they usually don't even explain exactly what the danger is, they don't stop you from going in unprepared if you click yes, and there were some changes to reduce how much stuff you lose if you die but dying in the game is still overall a huge PITA, especially in PVP where your killer gets to keep most of your stuff. The most impactful softening I can think of is that you can pay a large fine to the Grim Reaper to get your stuff back if you die to monsters and don't get back to claim your gravestone in time.

Truly, the wilderness was the best part of the game.

I remember grinding away to a set of black armor, going right to the wilderness and getting immediately crushed and losing it immediately lol.

"I wish it was easier to get scammed in online games" is a wild take.

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