Before I leave on hiatus again for awhile, I wanted to just say something about the game of Runescape. I used to love playing the game and only recently quit (1 January 2013). This is taken from my Amazon review of the game. Some people will be indifferent or favorable of this review, but I imagine that some will be offended by it, so read it at your own risk.
I played Runescape for over 8 years, so I know what I'm talking about here. Everyone talks about how good the game was "back in the day", and those who disagree just say that it's because we, as veterans, were young. While that may hold true, the game was also run by a different Jagex than it is today. Jagex used to actually care about player input, but in recent years came under control of the investment firm IVP (Insight Venture Partners). While this was beneficial to the game for quite awhile, it has eventually caused the game as a whole to take a turn for the worst.
In the Runescape community, players have actively voiced their frustrations over the introduction of microtransactions into the game. While this is common in most modern MMO's (and indeed in any kind of free game), Jagex took a stance at the beginnings of Runescape that they would never allow "Real World Trading", or RWT as used by players, into the game. They stood by this principle because they didn't want to give players an unfair advantage in the game based on their financial background. Recently though, Jagex removed this from their ToS and introduced the Squeel of Fortune, a way to gamble real-world money for prizes. The game itself was fun for awhile, but eventually becomes so much of a grind that most of the players in the game now use macros in order to play the game for them. This may seem detrimental to the game, but Jagex has been so lax on them that they continue to grow and multiply. Botting has become so common that the game itself is almost boring to play because there is no one to socialize with.
The combat was unique for much of the game's lifetime, but was recently changed by their "Evolution of Combat" update. While I was indifferent on the update, it caused many people to stop playing the game as they found the new combat system to be too complicated, in comparison to the old system which was relaxed and "afk-able". The game continues to lose players. I also completed every quest released in the game, but in the last year or so, I have really disfavored the new quests that Jagex has released. Maybe the game has just lost its magic, but I strongly believe that it is simply the updates, and not the game itself (since I still occasionally enjoyed some friendly player-versus-player combat or a minigame).
I hold out giving this game one star because of the entertainment I had for several years while playing the game. I eventually turned to botting because of the scourge of macros in the game. I continued on like this for the last few years, never really enjoying the game like I should have, and quitting once along the way. While it amused me to see my character progress into the near-maxed account it became, there was nothing left for me to really do in the game since I had completed all of the quests, played all of the minigames, and had no real-world friends that played with me anymore. I really wish that I could still enjoy the game like I used to, but the magic of this game has simply left.
