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OSRS: First Time Exploring Old School RuneScape

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Aywren

As of late, I’ve really had a hankering for playing something a little more old school. At first, I looked at my current main MMO – FFXIV – to see what elements I could glean from it that would scratch my itch. I’m sure there are activities there, and still lots I have yet to do, but something about this itch was really searching for true old school.

I’d poked around watching MMO videos on YouTube on the topic, and one game that kept popping back up is RuneScape. Now, this is a game that I didn’t really play back when it was fully relevant (though it seems just as relevant now, interestingly). I knew about it, of course, and I think I even rolled a character a very, very, very long time ago, but never did more than log in and look around.

RuneScape was mentioned so much on YouTube, in fact, I started to become curious. I searched videos about it, learned about the two versions of the game, and a bit how everything worked.

Last night, I made my choice. I would try out the Old School version of RuneScape (OSRS). Yes, that is its official name. I’m not well-versed enough about the game to be able to tell you all the history of how two versions of the game came to be, but I chose OSRS over RuneScape 3.

This has a lot to do with the upcoming release of boats and sailing skills. Just look at this…

This, along with player-owned housing – which is also interestingly tied to a Construction skill set – really caught my eye and pulled me in. There are many, many skills to learn in this game, and some are tied to a paid membership. However, I don’t see the price of membership as all that expensive, especially if you enjoy your time and you pick up the yearly version – it amounts to $6.66 a month.

OSRS is completely free to play, and offers quite a robust amount of content even without a membership. Free players can also pick up membership bonds, which gives them the perks of membership for a period of time. These can be bought with real money and sold to other players for gold.

But enough about membership and cost! Let’s talk about the game.

Learning About Old School RuneScape

OSRS is a point and click game that is all about skilling up. So, when you do something – such as fight a monster – the skill associated with that activity increases in level when you successfully execute that skill – such as actually hit the monster with your weapon.

This is very similar to Ultima Online, and I suppose I could have gone back to play that game for my old school itch. But I wanted to experience something new. Also, UO doesn’t seem to have the same pull for current players as OSRS still does for whatever reason (probably the PVP).

I found it interesting that your character is considered your account, even though you can add up to 20 alts on a Jagex account overall. So, if you do buy membership, it’s linked to one character only.

I also found it interesting that there’s a whole slew of servers you can pick from when you go to log in. Some are member only, some are for everyone, but I noted some are PVP servers, too. It looks like you can log into any such server you want with the same character each time you enter the game, and that you’re not locked down to just one.

I believe every server can hold up to 2000 people, so as you can see, there’s a pretty healthy population for such an old game. I even got a message that one of the servers I logged into was populated, so if I wanted a quieter experience, I could switch to another server. Imagine that!

Now on to the elephant in the room – graphics. Yes, graphics are dated. But no, I found that didn’t really bother me all that much. Especially since I followed the advice of the YouTubers and installed the RuneLite client.

It took a little fiddling – you don’t log directly into RuneLite, but instead, choose it as a client from the official Jagex launcher – but it opens up a world of mods and plugins. This includes the 117Scape's HD Plugin, which vastly improves the visuals of the game while still conserving the old school charm.

There’s plenty of videos out there that walk you through how to install the plugin and what settings to use. But I found it intuitive and quickly got it working right out of the box. Having put a few hours into the game, I feel the graphics are quaint and very much serviceable with this HD mod.

My First Day in Old School RuneScape

So, my first day in OSRS was like you’d imagine – I went through tutorial island and learned the ropes. It being a point and click game, it was pretty simple to get the hang of. I know there’s probably more complexity with the different skills I don’t know anything about yet, but for just the basics, the island had me in and out of there in less than half an hour (and that’s with reading everything and figuring out controls).

I found it interesting that I was not at all alone on the tutorial island, given the age of the game. I saw at least a handful of other folks there – some which obviously were making alts and speeding through, but a few who seemed legitimately learning like I was.

Once the tutorial was complete, the game dropped me in what I guess is the starter town (called Lumbridge) and told me to talk to Jon the Adventurer, who looks like he could use a good shave. I won’t knock him, though, as he seems like a great guy, and opened up what’s called the Adventure Paths system.

For a skill-leveling game, I thought this was excellent! It provides a little bit of structure, while still letting you go out and do whatever you want in terms of leveling skills.

There’s a battle path and a gatherer path, both which guide you on your first steps and reward you for skilling up. From this, I learned that combat is broken up into three skills – Attack, Strength, and Defense. Depending on the type of combat skill you’ve toggled on when you attack an enemy, you can level one of three, or all three at once.

I opted to slowly level each one on their own – not sure if that was right, just what I did. I took it all out on the non-aggro goblins right on the edge of town.

Battle is really nothing more than clicking the monster and standing still while the fight carries out. It reminds me a bit of old MUDs, which were very similar. While in battle, you can actually do things in your inventory, I learned, like eating food to restore your health. I’m assuming using potions is part of this, but I didn’t try that yet.

As a completely new player, I could only fight one or two goblins before I had to eat or take a breather from battle. HP does come back on its own, but it’s pretty slow. I had a little food from the tutorial, but I knew I was going to need to cook more.

So, I took a break from battle after I finished my first level in the Attack skill path, and went to learn about fishing. I already had a fishing net in my inventory from the tutorial, but I found that you couldn’t net fish on the nearby Salmon block that was labeled “rod fishing.” I journeyed a short way away where I could see some Anchovy spawn on the map, and discovered they could be caught with the net. This process looked something like this:

Your character basically net fishes without any more input from you until the node is exhausted or your inventory is full. And my inventory was quickly filled.

I learned at that point that inventory space is limited, and it is done so by design. There’s no way to increase your bag carrying slots because that keeps resources in the game limited and valuable. Interesting.

So, I took my haul of shrimps (from an anchovy node), made a fire, and cooked them. This resulted in mostly burned shrimps, but some that were edible.

I also spent some time learning the layout of Lumbridge, as you do the first day in any MMO. It was fairly straightforward with a shop, tavern, and what looked to be a manor or castle in the middle.

Finding the bank was a little tricky the first time. I could see where it was on the map, but going inside the castle’s first floor, it wasn’t there. Surely, the game would make the bank easy to get to in the noobie town, right?

Well…

I did finally find it on the top floor of the building, which required me to find and climb a flight of stairs twice. A bit of an inconvenience to have to do that every time you want to go to the bank, but it is what it is.

With my edible shirmps in my backpack, I went back to skilling up Strength – which earned me a pair of boots and gloves – and Defense, which I did not finish last night. Some of the drops from the goblins were quite cool. I got a new tower shield to replace the tutorial one, for example, and a book of goblin lore – which I did read.

I also got a chef's hat, which seems to be fully cosmetic - but it was one of my first drops, so I put it on instantly and will probably keep it forever. Oh wait, actually, it is of use!

While I was out in the field, I noticed a message in world chat. Another player walking by was greeting me and wishing me luck.

I didn’t see it at first, and the person was long gone by the time I did. This was my first interaction with a player in the game, so I felt bad I didn’t say something in return.

A short while later, however, they passed back that way again, and saw me still out there skilling. This time, I was able to figure out how to chat back.

And yes, my name in this game is sadly “Aywrenn” with an extra “N.” Because, as I said, many years ago, I think I rolled an “Aywren” character, so my normal name is taken. I did spend some time trying to remember this old account and log into it, thinking I could delete the character and reclaim my rightful name, but had no luck. So, for now, I’m stuck with an extra “N” – I might change my name later.

I did see noticeable improvement in my combat skills as I leveled. When I first started out, I could hardly hit a goblin, and had to take a break after almost every one of them. But now, I can hold my own against several in a row and skilling comes much faster because I am successfully striking more often.

Anyhow, this is as far as I got before bedtime came calling last night. I had fun! Yes, it’s just a basic point and click game, but it’s very chill, and something you can do enjoyably on the side of listening to an audio book or a YouTube video.

I will be exploring more today when I can, for sure. I doubt it will ever take the place of my main MMO, but for times when I just want some Old School in my day, I think I’ve found a place to go.

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