+- TimeLierG Companions (https://timelierg.com)
+-- Forum: A site for furries by furries, but non-furs are welcome! (https://timelierg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Welcome, Companions! (https://timelierg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=2)
+---- Forum: TimeLierG Blog / Archive (https://timelierg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=17)
+---- Thread: History of RuneScape Trilogy Review Part 1 (/showthread.php?tid=310)
History of RuneScape Trilogy Review Part 1 - TimeLierG - 12-05-2023
I'm not sure if I will finish these "ebooks" as the author calls it, it's riddled with errors, spelling mistakes, blatantly wrong information, and more despite them saying they researched the game since 2010 and started playing RuneScape in 2008, despite them saying they read every single patch note and update post from the year 2000 up until a certain date, despite them saying they found some of the first RuneScape players like Rab and even one of the Gowers. I bought this book for five euros (seven USD) in hopes that it would contain information for my own personal RSC / RS2 archive that I have had for a long time but I'm fifty pages in and it looks like these books won't have anything new for me to add despite it claiming there's "never before seen" content within, which hey, there might be like it says, I know I'm only a half hour into the books but still, I can already tell there's not going to be much for me in here. As a side note, due to these kinds of people releasing these books and others claiming to be "RuneScape historians" I will not be releasing some content I have within my archives, I have some data caches, images, and other things that are lost media in regards to RuneScape.
The first book lists some credits to others which is ironic considering one of the credits goes to "RSWillMissIt" who actively never credits anyone in videos and takes footage from other people without permission, including my own. Upon purchasing the book for five euro, one euro of it goes to a charity of Jagex's choice which is questionable as they have donated to an organization once that burned down cities before.
The book begins with DeviousMUD and makes a seemingly false statement which should be listed as speculation, that speculation being that DeviousMUD was "the base for RuneScape" without citing a source. On page 25, in the 2000 - 2001 section, the author for some reason mentions "lodestones" not being in the game yet as well as the Grand Exchange and then later on mentions how "combat is legacy combat". I don't think I need to say why this is weird to bring up in a 2000 - 2001 version of RSC / RS1. On the same page they also mention how skills are missing such as hunter and runecrafting, why bring up RS2 skills? Why bring up EoC? The article goes on to say that the Gowers called this era of the game the "beta launch" and then mentions how "it's an appropriate name if we now know that around 95% of the content that exists today was still missing". Hey author, buddy, the Gowers stopped working on the game a LONG time ago, some things past 2005 were never planned to be implemented by then as if they had an entire planning list that scaled 20+ years ahead of time.
"Paul ended up designing the world map for it and Ian joined the project a little later to draw the graphics together
with Andrew. Ian also designed the player-ID kid." - What the hell is a "player-ID kid"? The author is clearly talking about the PID system but, what?
Despite the author saying they started playing the game in 2008, despite them saying they did research and looked over every update and patch note for the game since the year 2000, they some how don't have any specifics when it comes to certain dates or when certain things happened such as the release of certain rune equipment, at this point I just wanted to return the virtual book I have just purchased, not only do they not know the release dates of certain equipment, they think all rune equipment was released on the same day earlier in the article. Oddly enough they say and I quote, "Ian confirmed that rune armour, which required level 40 in the Melee skills" - What? Is this something I missed? I played RuneScape Classic, I archived enough to know what you only need / needed defence to equip rune armor. Page 28, why the hell did you make the page sideways? Do you want me to read all of this PDF document on my phone? Page 29, please stop saying "game mechanism" just say game mechanic.
"A so-called three-round combat system was in effect, with each round referring to one cycle of a player attacking an opponent and the opponent retaliating. This, of course, is not weird because that is also how combat works today"
What the actual...? This was NEVER a thing after RSC was done with. Players have been free to roam in combat and eat whenever, there are no "turns" in that sense in RS2. Did this author even play the game?
Page 34, "Although Runecrafting did not exist yet, runes could already be purchased in Varrock’s runes shop," - Not all of them, especially not blood runes.
Page 35 "The role of bows in RS1 was to determine the type of arrows that could be used. For example, rune arrows required a yew bow or better." - I noticed this a few times in the book already, they say "required" as in it's not required anymore when speaking of RSC, when a lot of these things still apply to RS2, you still need a yew
bow or better to use rune arrows and you still need 40 defence to wear rune armor.
Page 36, the author once again mentions in a very simple way that rune and dragon armor were released but never mentions when they were aside from mentioning dragon weapons releasing in "February of 2002". For such an absurdly important thing to be added to the game the author spends only two sentences writing about it. "Some dragon-type items followed in 2002 and 2003, but the platebody and platelegs were never released in RS1." - You mean chainbody? The platebody was never a thing in RS2 either.
The author mentions if you want the highest magic bonus you would have to wear, "a blue wizards hat, wizards robe, a robe of zamorak, sapphire amulet of magic, god cape and either a battlestaff or enchanted battlestaff". This is incorrect, the zamorak robe top gives one less magic bonus but makes up for it in prayer bonus. Also just like in RS2 the part about the battlestaves are not correct at all, they give the same magic bonus as a regular elemental staff. Notice how the author mentions a regular, non-elemental battlestaff which has worse magic bonus than a regular elemental staff as well as an elemental battlestaff. By the way, just like in RS2 having an enchanted battlestaff just means it increases the melee bonuses of the staff, that's why it's called a BATTLEstaff.
Page 37, "Longbows are called shieldbows in RuneScape today" - What the hell is up with modern RS?
Page 39, "The banks expanded their services to include items as well, which was a Guthix-sent gift from heaven." Heaven isn't in the RuneScape / Gielinor universe or it's realms, I suppose the author doesn't want to mention "God" because they are a loser with no family life, it's most likely why any mention of God in the books are uncapitalized.
Page 43, "If you were never lucky enough to do the original tutorial, then I highly recommend creating an account for Old School RuneScape, which still uses the original tutorial today." - It does not, this is incorrect, I thought we were just discussing RSC / RS1? There were a few changes to the island over time, not every one is the same.
Page 44, "A little fun fact about skilling in RS1 is that a white think bubble would appear above a player’s head when skilling." This PDF is just false advertising at this point, it said it's marketed to both old players and new players yet states something so blatantly obvious it looks like a joke. What's the next "fun fact", that rune armor was originally a dark brownish / purple? Actually, why didn't they mention that in the book? I actually have the real, unreleased, original sprites in my own archive of what it looked like.
I have to take a break from reading this book already, I will post an update if I continue reading more of it.