Why RuneScape Ran Out Of Runes

Runes used to be some of RuneScape’s rarest items. Impossible to come across but ridiculously powerful. This is the story of how Jagex solved the rune shortage by creating the game's most hated skill, Runecrafting.
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[@DrumlinVODs]

Ah, I remember skills failing quite a bit back in classic. One of my memories from classic is seeing a guy fail to light a fire so long his logs showed up on the ground and someone came over and took them as he was trying to light.

[@Yotarnn]

That's hilarious

[@j3nnytool]

I had that happen all the time it was so frustrating!

[@Dong_Harvey]

Unlisted LogThief skill was 100% effective

[@merasion]

Lol

[@Valetic6]

I remember trying to range rats for like 10 minutes on tutorial island back in the day

[@Mud-Brain]

Lore-wise, the introduction of Runecrafting coincided with the "rebuilding" of the wizards tower, which was burnt down in the beginning of the fifth age by Zamorakian mages who weren't allowed full access to the tower's secrets and runes. After burning down the tower, those Zamorakians struck off on their own to study runes, which resulted in the Zamorakian Magical Institute (ZMI). The ZMI then went on to discover and repurpose the Ourania altar, which was originally a perfect RC altar that could craft any rune at will. They're also responsible for the (accidental) discovery of The Abyss and the resulting rifts that formed. But if you wanna place the blame for rune scarcity on anybody, it's the bickering wizards at the tower.

[@Jokervision744]

Yees... one of the stories I remember from runescape. Maybe I would have not remembered that fight between the towers, but yeah... maybe after scouring through my memories I would have come up with this. Saying that it is quite interesting plot point.

[@ingydegmar2060]

Didn't the fremmenik also invade because people started using runes? You're not supposed to use the power of gods or something. It's why the altars on our world, besides Astral, are mysterious ruins and the runecraft skill was lost in the fourth age. Moonclan and fremmenik still aren't too pleased with eachother.

[@potatoheadpokemario1931]

@@ingydegmar2060 a thing I don't understand is why do the fremmeniks consider V a hero when he was the one who invented runecrafting and founded the moon clan?

[@user-pr6zj9du9t]

wasn't it revealed that it wasn't actually the zamorakians who destroyed the tower?

[@ingydegmar2060]

@@potatoheadpokemario1931 I believe they approved of him using magic, the weapon of the gods, because he was a god. They mostly celebrate V for being the strongest warrior. The moonclan embraces V's teachings about runes and magic. Neither side today have details about how V's story came to be. I bet they passed their own stories about V down the line, filtering out the parts that don't suit them. Pure speculation though, could be wrong.

[@cdallen46]

I remember the pure essence update. I got really lucky with it. I was going for base 80s at the time and runecrafting was my only skill left. Literally the day before the update, without any knowledge of the pending update, I bought a massive supply of rune essence for like 3gp each. I woke up the next day and read the update and saw that all my essence had been converted into pure essence. I didn’t think anything of it at first since essence had been so cheap, but then I found out the pure essence was selling for 200gp each. I considered selling my supply for a massive profit, but ultimately decided to stick with my goal. I was just thankful that I didn’t wait until the morning to buy the essence, because I definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford it… lol.

[@TarnishedProductions]

i would have sold all the pure essence then just bought back the regular essence and kept the profit lol

[@ro0b0]

​@@TarnishedProductionsthen he wouldn't have been able to make good runes lol

[@Sousabird]

The Multicannon in RSC looks like someone frankensteined a bunch of tornado sirens together.

[@undead8393]

Check out what the cannonballs looked like on the wiki, they're brutal.

[@JohnnyD1986]

Siren Head?

[@jameswilkes451]

The Shattered leagues cannon ornament also looks very similar! I was like "where have I seen that before??"

[@Bittamin]

When runecrafting was super new, I was still eating kids meals from McDonald’s and let me tell you, I had a friend from school walk to me through how to get rune essence, and then walked me to the falador spot and showed me all these kids running in and out in a line. Turns out there was people who would trade your essence inventory for 2k gp . The richest people in the entire GAME were doing this, and there was far more snot nosed kids like me doing this strategy of trading them the inventory than they could handle 😅 good old days

[@ColonelloRS]

Haha that's awesome! I had a similar experience when OSRS opened. I had never ran runes before but a buddy taught me how :)

[@azoniarnl3362]

Got my first full rune using this😅

[@SensitivityGames]

2k? should have done nats 20 to 28k per inv XD made milions on that

[@xkisskissx8187]

Pure Gold. Accounts had a sense of worth. My new acc. Is a wet blanket.

[@Bittamin]

@@SensitivityGames bro I was 8 years old 😅

[@emsouemsou]

7:40 The name was changed in 2008 to Runecrafting in-game. RS3 uses that name to this day. But even Jagex used/uses "runecrafting" outside that. Look at the name of Old School World 213 for an example.

[@DeVoid1]

I knew it! There was no way I'd believe that the skill was always called "Runecraft". Jagex (and some content creators) have just been gaslighting us.

[@mategido]

Damn, some of classics animations really had a lot of character, I love how that demon has a double punch attack, hope we see some of that in osrs

[@Orinslayer]

Give the demons special attacks :)

[@99prxp]

i mean it already swipes you twice in osrs but that double bonk looking kinda nifty

[@super8bitvideos]

Its charming until youre looking at it for 10 hours

[@Leonyoung11]

If a Blood Rune was 3000gp today I don’t think anybody would complain about runecrafting ever again

[@Gameprojordan]

The conditions needed for blood runes to reach that price in this day and age would be impossible. So much content would need to be removed for that to happen and almost none of it would even be RC related. If we go by osrs standards, then bloods steadied out to like 400-500 gp each for the longest time, and that was long before blood RCing was ever introduced to the game. Just the sheer content introduced to the game (new monsters to pvm, new shops across the map after the introduction of new quests) brought in enough blood runes to plummet the price to relatively reasonable levels.

[@Leonyoung11]

@@Gameprojordan I think that’s the biggest mistake RuneScape made is adding skilling items on PVM monsters PRE-EOC seeing a level 3 skiller was common you don’t see it anymore because skills have been so devalued

[@TetrisChemist]

@@Leonyoung11 for osrs maybe, EOC you seem to know about gutted pvm sources of runes and now bloods are like 20-40mgp an hour rs3.

[@lfcmike12]

​@@TetrisChemist People still play rs3? That continues to amaze me. Personally I'd rather just play actual world of warcraft over a wannabe copy of it, but to each their own I guess 😅

[@hello7937]

@@lfcmike12as an osrs plsyer, i prefer rs3

[@gamingwithgeko7377]

This video was brilliantly done. Takes me back to when on an old account I made 10s of millions of gold buying large quantities of essence and selling them for more in smaller batches. Then the grand exchange came into existence and ruined that whole thing for me lol

[@ColonelloRS]

Thank you! That's really smart haha. Flipping must have been so much easier back then.

[@DrOmegaBattleSphere]

@@ColonelloRS Sort of easier but sort of way fucking harder as well. You had to stand in a bank spamming what you were buying or selling, no sticking in a trade and logging out.

[@SympleSyn]

As a Runescape boomer who played through all of this, this was a certified blast from the past.

[@ownage11445]

Runecrafting maybe a pain to train but back in the day the idea of crafting your own runes was awesome.

[@lifevest1]

Being self-sufficient (i.e. not trading) was time consuming but great to level up. Need food to train? Fish/cook it yourself. Need runes? Craft em’. Need bones? Kill the chickens!

[@ownage11445]

@@lifevest1 people also tend to forget that OSRS made a huge mistake in the first couple years when they added pure essence as a reward from nightmare zone. Back in the day essence and glories were expensive and can eat into your revenue fast.

[@jackgarcia4950]

@@lifevest1 yessss!!! I loved this idea about osrs!!!

[@exantiuse497]

@ownage11445 And what about it is a mistake on Jagex' part? The skill was abysmally slow with the sole saving grace being that it gave great profit, and you think it shouldn't even make profit?

[@ownage11445]

@@exantiuse497 my point is that before nightmare zone PE was just like any other resource that had to be gathered by mining. Essence used to be an effect low level moneymaker before NZ flooded the market.

[@andrew_sar]

You forgot to mention something. When RS2 was first released you could easily swap items between classic and RS2. Players were bringing in tons of runecrafted runes into classic before Jagex patched it.

[@kingchongy1712]

I remember killing jad on classic. Good times

[@MusharnaMush]

@@kingchongy1712 jad was not on classic

[@RSClassicAngel]

@@kingchongy1712 uh? Lol

[@StrangeFall]

@@kingchongy1712 Yeah I remember making up stories about runescape too. Good times

[@kingchongy1712]

@@StrangeFall the same as ops runecrafting story? I didn’t know if this was a woosh thread or not Just to be clear, I know jad wasn’t in RSC.

[@ultratog1028]

I remember this also being an issue in early runescape 2. Law runes were 3k each minimum and not many could runecraft them.

[@exantiuse497]

When were laws 3k? I started in 2005, and I remember laws being around 500-600gp. Sometimes you'd see someone who wanted to teleport right now offer to buy one for 1k but not higher than that

[@literatemax]

I would love to see a breakdown on the changes from classic to 2! It would be cool to see what we take for granted.

[@kingjames4886]

one of my first runescape memories from waaaay back was finding a death rune on the ground. couldn't even use it, but I was so hyped lol.

[@BioMasterZap]

I still stand by that the skill's name is supposed to be "Runecrafting". Back in Classic and early RS2, there were more character limits. For example, Woodcutting was "Woodcut" in the skill menu but it was still recognized as "Woodcutting". Since Runecrafting was developed during this transition period, it may have been given the shorter name to go with the Classic style but since it was being made for RS2 and not Classic it didn't get fixed when porting like the others. Also, I believe the same Dev who made the skill made the expansion with Combo Runes and in the skill guide for combo runes, its uses "Runecrafting". Other parts of the skills, like the skillcape/hood were called Runecrafting, but the OSRS Team changed them to Runecraft. They really should just update it to Runecrafting since it is pretty clear that is what was intended.

[@ColonelloRS]

Good point! I could definitely see that being the reason :) You're correct that the same dev made combo runes as well.

[@j_mie6]

I dunno, I think of it being like "witchcraft", which doesn't have an "ing" on it

[@JakoZestoko]

Also at some point around RSHD everything was updated to consistently be runecrafting. Runecraft is just some word retcon specific to OSRS.

[@Notius]

@@j_mie6 but you are actually producing runes themselves, thus you are rune crafting, witchcraft isn't about crafting witches, it's a witch's craft (trade/job).

[@Rezplz]

I still call it herblaw

[@GrimmDesires]

I remember sometime around late 2006 early 2007 selling pure essence 100 each. Gather 1,000 of them and it'd buy a full rune set minus the shield.

[@stuartclifton4764]

Back in those days I was a part of the clan ffdn = famous for double nature's, the wildy battles we'd have with others to secure a path through the abyss are some of the fondest memories I have of RuneScape

[@rainbowtrout51]

I remember being f2p and running air runes for people on w16 back in the day. Amazing how the games changed since then.

[@TheSkulleh]

running essence to air rune crafters in f2p bought me my first rune armour set. Good times

[@OldSchoolDudeGaming]

You were missin out. Running laws is where it was at.

[@william9922]

@@OldSchoolDudeGaming relax , stop gatekeeping

[@exantiuse497]

@OldSchoolDudeGaming He said he was F2P, laws are P2P

[@adamross4426]

When I was 8 I started playing RSC, main thing I did was kill dark wizards in Falador wildy for nats. Soon after, my dad and brother started playing too. They would take my small idea of selling nats and make a lot of money with it, instead of killing wizards, they started merching - buying nats cheap, selling for a lot more on F2P worlds. For what felt like a long time, we had such a monopoly over nature runes, we had so many people private messaging about selling their nats, or others looking to buy (even when we weren't varrock centre, or behind draynor bank advertising). It was definitely the most fun I ever had playing this game. Over the years, we ended up with so many santa hats, phats, SS, and just gp in general. Most of our wealth came from staking on def tanks, charge mages, but it all started with that little green rune.

[@MikesLaffy]

I actually checked my skill tab in game while watching this to check if it was "runecraft" instead of "runecrafting." In all my years...

[@DeVoid1]

Jagex changed it like a year ago. It used to actually say Runecrafting in level up messages and the skill guide. They're gaslighting us for who knows why.

[@Varrocklife]

mandella effect

[@exantiuse497]

Runecrafting was called Runecraft in RS2 before 2008 and now in OSRS, it was changed to Runecrafting in 2008 and is called that in RS3 today

[@mikec5400]

man...running essence to law rune crafters...such good memeroies even tho its such a simple and boring task...its so sad there is no sense of community and friendship within osrs or rs3 world anymore. Everyone just sits there in silence

[@LilacMonarch]

it's not totally dead, try hanging out at varrock west bank in world 302 (osrs)

[@AidosTheMan]

It's turned into a sweat fest, everyone grinding for max efficiency and not talking to anyone outside their discord circle, really sad.

[@IAmStayingAnonymous]

Bro there were soooo many people running laws on world 66 I remember that from draynor to entrana that was good times

[@miciso666]

dude this was a trip down memory lane. i remember farming hours on essence just to afford my adamant armour set.

[@iAmBrah]

"at least you don't have to pay 3,000 gp for blood runes anymore" *laughs in RS3*

[@exantiuse497]

3000gp in Classic was more like 300k in RS3 nowadays

[@UIM_Loki]

Wow, as a runescape veteran, I'm surprised how much I learned from this. excellent video, truly

[@ColonelloRS]

Thank you!

[@D0TperiodD0T]

Back when I first started playing using magic felt like such a fucking treat. Even with knowledge of the triangle it felt like magic had a pretty big edge because of how absurd the cost of leveling magic was.

[@oplkfdhgk]

i used to runecraft so much when i played the game that it would actually have a noticeable impact on the rune prices. :D

[@aarons6935]

Yeah sure bud...

[@EpicHeroSandwich]

Real nostalgia hours here, I remember all this happening, Classic > RS2 was my jam and the transition from 2d to 3d RS broke me a bit. All the RC updates from talismans to tiaras and rune to rune and pure essence are nice touches.

[@spiritofnex]

Calling it "Runecraft" sounds gross ngl. I'll still call it Runecrafting, even if the other way is correct. Edit: It's actually called Runecrafting in rs3, and was apparently changed in 2008. Neat.

[@thatonneguy]

I became somewhat well known back in the day (IGN Attombomb) because I only ran air runes, and I'd create trains so everyone could AFK. It got to a point where we had enough people to create a loop. Whenever there wasn't a full loop, I'd get tips of air runes, essence, and Unid Herbs. When I ran out of essence I'd sell the air runes, and buy all Unid Herbs. For those that don't know/remember, Grimy herbs were originally all called Unidentified Herb(s). I'd keep a stack of Unid Ranarr's and resell the rest for a slight loss. Clean and use the Ranarr's, use the profits to buy more essence, start an air altar train again. 12 year old me thought I was big brain. In retrospect, at the time, I was.

[@samisuhonen9815]

"it's actually called runecraft and not runecrafting" ...no way *checks skills tab* "dear god" I have played this game for over 15 years. And I have never noticed runecrafting is actually "runecraft" without the ing.

[@principalmcvicker6530]

A lot of people also think "Ranged" is "Range"

[@pulsefel9210]

the runespan is still my favorite way to train runecrafting especially with it explaining how the altars work in the first place.

[@AluviumOSRS]

I'm always fascinated about learning how the game used to be. I've loved this game since I was a kid and these videos are never long enough :P

[@ColonelloRS]

So glad you enjoy them!

[@Tselel]

Waaay back in the day, when I first got membership, I remember being in awe of the players at the law altar who would just give you a full inventory of law runes in exchange for essence. Up until then (being on f2p servers before the GE) that was unheard of for me.

[@bryceheider2456]

"Well, at least you don't have to pay 3k gp per blood rune anymore." * Looks at RS3 blood rune price trend over past 3 months. * I dunno, I give it until March, and then I think we'll be right back where we started.

[@StevenHawkingsSpitrag]

Seeing that “Sals Realm of Runescape” webpage really brought me back. Thanks for the nostalgia trip my guy💪🏼

[@DaRealPielover1987]

Petition to change Runecraft to Runecrafting pl0x

[@mattysway4792]

Nice sponsor Segway that was honestly smooth

[@WhiteSupreme]

Must be some crazy shit in that food if it's never frozen and shipped straight to your door. Imagine not going to the grocery store and buying real food.

[@edgarloike]

RunEscape is not a game about runes. Its a game for running from and escaping the real life.

[@l0lan00b3]

My buddy had shown me "law rune running" unfortunately my attention span only allowed me to do that like for two inventories. After that I went back to making 200k a week killing green dragons with a rune dagger. Picking up the extra gp and items the bots left on the floor. And shitting my pants when some mage pure would attack me. So exciting.

[@skateruwu]

Runespan was Jagex's fix to training runecrafting for the contiguous game. GOTR was oldschool's fix. Can't believe you didn't even mention runespan

[@greenaum]

So what I've learned, is that back in 2001, there was an MMORPG that someone made in MS Paint.

[@OhTyZer]

I’m glad this popped up on my recommended, I love the short documentary styled videos about RuneScapes history! Thumbs up from me 👍🏼

[@TylerMcVeigh1]

I remember as a kid minning rune essence every day for GP as a f2p thinking one day I could mine enough essence to buy a set of gold-trimmed black armor, gold-trimmed wizard robes, or a set of Sara Rune armor. It wasn't the best but all I needed was a pickaxe and the method didn't require combat or the wildy.

[@mickkelley3776]

My only major issue with runecraft is that some of the altars can be annoying to get to. If there were a way to travel between the altars quickly without needing to use stuff like fairy rings, teleport spells, et cetera, I'd be more inclined to go out of my way to do it. Acting as a means of fast travel available for F2P accounts would be a huge bonus as well.

[@mr.gentlemanfish1011]

Everyone calls it runecrafting because runecraft sounds like a runescape themed minecraft knock off

[@DeVoid1]

And it also used to be called Runecrafting in the game. Skill level up messages at the least, referred to is as Runecrafting. It just wasn't polled, so no one really noticed it was changed under their noses.

[@middy5284]

Run. Escape.

[@oplkfdhgk]

that's what i usually do in wildy. 😛

[@DeVoid1]

From this dying game. Save your time, put it into something else.

[@kylebrooks6382]

"qb of the gnomeball team" That got me lmfao

[@MoliorRS]

I remember doing air rune runs. Making 1.5k gp gear run lol Then you'd find another runecrafter offering 2k and you felt like it was the jackpot. My brother went round to his friends house (who played Runescape too) and hopped on his account. We both ran air runs at the same time and doubled our profit. Did this for a while until we bought our first ever rune set. Such good memories.

[@noobmaster31]

As someone who played classic, I used to pick up mind runes in Lumbridge castle and air runes on Karamja. Affording it in other ways back then in 2002 wasn't really a thing, especially as a f2p player.

[@TheUnfallenHero]

I remember money making with runecrafting was awesome back then, especially with laws and nats. Also, Desert Treasure spells made Magic and Pking with it so much fun

[@Gothstana]

HOLY CRAP I used to use Sal's Realm of Runescape back in the day so much. Seeing it here has unlocked hidden memories for me.

[@TheTolnoc]

The Multicannon is *that* old? Holy crap.

[@BenightedAlizar]

I remember trying Runescape ages ago and was really annoyed by the teleportation rune system as a total newbie. In Ultima Online you could just buy these super cheap wooden runes from NPCs and cast a Mark spell to get a permanent teleportation spot almost anywhere. You could even stuff runes in a book and people made entire public rune libraries you could use to teleport (or create a gateway!) to all sorts of crazy places.

[@yosiahw4305]

Dude placed an ad eight after th sponsor segment. I skipped the sponsor segment and Colonello called in backup. You clever little bastard! 🤣

[@The.Stalker]

I haven't touched RuneScape since 2002, and MAN I'm remembering my attempt to be a wizard.

[@LiquidusSnakeX]

It being Runecraft and not Runecrafting just blew my fkin mind.

[@Astrovite]

The way I remembered the combat triangle as a kid was since metal is conductive, the magic would have an easier time travelling through it. (Maybe an npc mentions that somewhere but idr.) While leather would nullify it. However a sharp object could slice through it. Physically magic being more resistant to melee makes little sense but I figured the robes being magical had a barrier that weakens physical blows. But since arrows and bolts concentrate force into a single point, they break through that barrier. Like how a car window breaking tool is a metal point that concentrates the force into a single area to break through with minimal effort.

[@exantiuse497]

Magic armor wasn't resistant to melee at all. It is in RS3 but not in RS2/OSRS. If the melee guy got to the mage he would shred him in seconds The idea was that the mage freezes the opponent with entangle or ancient magic freeze spells so the melee doesn't get to him (melee armor's poor magic defence making it more likely the freeze lands), but against ranged the freeze is useless because he can shoot the mage anyways. In reality the melee had the advantage because there was nothing preventing him from wearing ranged armorbsince that gave no melee penalties, thus resisting the freeze and other spells

[@Astrovite]

@@exantiuse497 Oh that makes more sense now. Yeah it wouldn't make sense for a thin robe to be resistant to a slashing weapon. In my head canon D'hide leathers are resistant to magic because they're the skin of dragons. Metal armor one still makes sense though.

[@FWdeCloet]

Lol, you used a clip of BlauweBeer in which you can see a PM from Gemini Pro. I remember them from playing Castle Wars World2 24/7 with our maxed accounts back in around 2006? 🤣😂 Gemini/Maikel Pro, Eren, Zanderinos. So much fun, thanks for this unexpected nostalgia! 😁❤️

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

been watching OSRS content for years and somehow never stumbled upon this channel before now. neat stuff!

[@ColonelloRS]

Thank you!

[@frogdude59]

My first 99. I remember doing body altar runs between 40 and 50 before the runespan was released. Trained somewhat frequently from there and then spent a week after school grinding from 92 to 99 after reactivating my membership

[@XxJustinxx88]

As someone who has played since early 2001 this video was a huge dose of nostalgia! Back then full rune or any gear for that matter was bis for both melee, range and mage lol. Oh how I miss the way you would cast a spell or range on classic. The animations were so cook to me as a kid and even now at 34. The days of mage pure staking people 3x their cb level and often winning. Does anyone remember that when a mage pure was staking you could stand In the middle between the players and It would block the spells? Great times for sure. I genuinely miss classic. These days they are called "hcim" but back then everyone on classic was hcim. Great video Colonello!

[@gamewithadam7235]

"Healthy" meal sponsor is heating it up in the microwave. x'D

[@gidedin]

I made over 1 billion getting 99 Runecrafting. At the time, that was enough to get 2 of each rare, which I still have this day and still had a lot of money leftover. A partyhat was around 20m at the time. It was REALLY BORING and took a really long time, but man, I dont regret it, at all.

[@taaste]

i've played this game for over a decade and never realized it's just "runecraft" instead of "runecrafting"

[@MidnightAhri]

honestly, i trained rc to 99 with double nats abyss and astral rcing, and it wasnt too bad, and actually felt like i achieved something, more so than with the other methods of training these days. (given that my skiller is 91 rc, and getting 77 was a bigger achievement for me than 91 because of bloods) whilst gameplay is boring, it really gave me the oldschool vibe and i love rc for that, kinda less now with guardians of the rift but we cant have everything right ^^ (+ its like 10 years after launch of osrs or something crazy) same thing can be said about shift drop, i liked ahk/mousekey dropping way more, idk i just enjoyed it more as it was more engaging i guess... my playtime went from 16 hr a day to like 6-10 hr just cuz of shiftdrop making stuff pretty boring for me and less satisfying. hard to explain to anyone who doesnt like skilling tho :p

[@BRoyce69]

As someone's who's skilleer has an untrimmed rc cape (first 99 on the account). I even ran nature runes for a good chunk of the post 92 grind, even though runespan was out at the time I feel somewhat validated

[@jwil4709]

Runescape classic private servers are alive and have thousands of players. Just thought I'd mention that for any interested. Rscrevolution even has iron man mode.

[@AndyGamezoldschool]

I used to lure bad guys into the Runecraft shop in Varrock and they would kill the bots granting me 1000s of runes at a time. Good times 😁

[@sapphire--9375]

Being forced to watch that prehistoric gameplay must have rotted my eyes cause i think that modern osrs looks amazing now

[@wolflordass5278]

Just that one clip of sals realm of runescape brought back so many memories.

[@eddiethealbatross5734]

As a runecrafter it's upsetting how the rune market has crashed. It's normal with other runecrafters, but with how many pvm botters there are bringing thousands of high level runes into the market, I think jagex needs to remove rune drops from bosses like vorkath, zulrah etc. Runes used to be super expensive and now they're less than half of what their peak was. Bloods were above 400 gp when I started runecrafting in 2019 then they kept dropping and now they're almost below 200 gp. Sad.

[@SIGIDIOT]

The lack of runes in classic also made all quests take far longer to complete than they actually do now. Magic and a few options of the charged dragonstone amulet were the only ways to travel to areas you frequently needed to - and yes, 8 law runes was a huge deal. So either you used law runes to travel huge distances (like varrockyanille), as your own homemade ring of life (which didn't exist at the time), or you simply didn't teleport at all. Think of all the quests in OSRS that recommend using fairy rings, teleport spells, or specific items. Now imagine not using any of that and walking from spot to spot instead.

[@exantiuse497]

Not to mention that Classic didn't have the run option. You'd WALK, not run

[@SIGIDIOT]

And no GE! And no way to know where all the quests were, what the rewards were, or if you could even start the quest or not. Want to be able to make potions? You can't just warp to GE, buy all the meat for the quest, then warp on top of the druids, run to the cauldron, then run back. You get to walk to the druids. Find out they got a quest in the first place. Then walk to a rat. Then walk to a bear. Then walk to lumbridge. Then walk all the way to the cauldron. Then walk back to the druids... Stuff that takes a minute tops to do now used to be a whole 1-2 day adventure depending on how well you knew the map!

[@deelik1827]

back in classic, i camped mage tower outside of falador... blood runes galor. runes werent really in shortage no one knew where they dropped most consistently and it also had an upstairs bloodrune spawn that was never contested

[@Mike-qo9hg]

Look what's happening in RS3 though. Runespan is the most popular training method. Water runes are now 254 gp each! Nature runes 913 gp, and blood runes 1854 each. It's ridiculous.

[@Bl1ndarknes]

a rubix cube of the game skills is actually fucking LIT im so jealous

[@Mortal209]

Don't see anyone mentioning it but it was called Runecrafting because you're crafting runes, it just made sense English-wise to add the "ing" at the end because we're performing an action which is a verb. You wouldn't say "I've been doing runecraft for so long" because it just sounds off so it was unanimously just called Runecrafting because you're performing the act of crafting a rune which is what Runecraft is, the art or whatever of crafting runes. Yeah they changed the name officially but I remember it was Runecraft back in the early days, we just called it Runecrafting because it sounds better "I've been runecrafting for so long", it just sounds better than what was previously stated. It just makes sense that way. It's why we say "I'm training this agility" or "I've been training herblore" because the skills themselves don't have a way to add to the word to turn it into a verb, so you say "training" with the "ing" at the end to signify that you're doing something. It's basic English honestly and it's something most of us grew up learning from school whilst playing Runescape. Not to mention the fact that the Developers probably had no clue that they'd actually be teaching millions of people basic English while playing the game, it's kinda funny since so many Game Developers don't understand this but it's thanks to them that so many people throughout the world has learned some of the English language.

[@TheRetroGamingPrincess]

The only tiny insignificant information missed here was the day of the pure essence update if you logged in f2p all your essence was converted to regular. If you logged in members you had pure essence. I remember quite a few friends losing a few million by letting membership lapse 😂

[@cub1009]

I was a free to play kid when I was mining rune essence. I had been playing just long enough at that time to know Jagex was going to make my rune essence worthless. I remember mining it at the varrok bank and I think it only sold for 10gp ea at the time. So each inventory trip was like 280gp. You could do a bunch of trips pretty quickly. Except I was probably wearing a bunch of junk that slowed my run down. That update is when I finally became a member. I played pretty consistently up until 2010. The EOC ruined the game for me and I stopped playing after that. When I heard 07 was coming back I was really excited. I made a new account and started playing again. Doing the Runescape grind all over again. But quickly realized how hard it was without certain things especially the GE. I did enjoy the childhood nostalgia of those early days before the release of the GE. Once the GE came out, the nostolgia was over and I stopped playing again. Got interested again during the covid lockdowns and grinded up to lvl 126 combat hit 2000+ total level and finished all of the quests at the time. After that I quit again. I have been playing on and off this winter again as I started playing back in April of 2002. So my original account is legally allowed to drink now. I have been playing OSRS for 10 years off and on. Kinda crazy to think about that OSRS has been around longer than I played from 2002 to 2010 when I played originally. I remember when I quit green masks were like 10M, and I thought they wouldn't go up very much. I remember when they were like less than a 1M. I bought a few of them. It's too bad the modern game is unplayable to me as I'm sure those green masks are worth billions now maybe not each but I had a few of them locked up on my old account. I log in time to time but don't play long as that game has just become unplayable to me.

[@zezimahot69]

Not gonna lie, I thought this video would explore the effects of the Fractured Staff of Armadyl in Runescape 3. For those unaware, this weapon has a spec that will permit you to throw a spell each time you land a critical strike for 30 seconds, and the dominant spell in RS3 takes 10 waters, 2 bloods, and 1 soul rune. The claim about paying 3000 for blood runes isn't too far off, they're about 1800 each right now.

[@Jmhuns]

Inflation is more real in RS than anywhere. 10mil in classic and early rs2 was a ton of cash usually collected over months. Today 10mil can easily be collected in an hour or two by mid level players. RS Boomer here, I remember in classic spending days trying to get 3200 for an addy long sword. Today that's selling a couple of bones or feathers.

[@emmanuelsayeh1751]

Runecraft was my favorite thing to do in Runescape. I love exploring & going to the alters all over. Well the free to play alters.

[@DishonoredAce13]

Everyone's most hated skill but I love it. Same with agility. I wish osrs would add the advanced courses with the agile armor. As for rc. I watched a "all skillcape emotes" video and it just stood out to me as the coolest emote and since then I got into it and really like it. Sure it can't be afk'd but I also enjoy active gaming in rs. The afk skills are just eh to me. I also think the slow training offests the dumb amounts of money you can make.

[@exantiuse497]

RC isn't inherently terrible but the XP rates are horrible (aside from the ZMI altar which was added years later). I always thought that the skill wasn't properly tested and balanced, and this video confirms it. They basically slapped the skill in as a bandaid to the rune shortage without thinking if the xp rates were acceptable, and never fixed it RC isn't even good for profit nowadays. The best RC method for money is like 600k/hour, while other skills like thieving, smithing and agility have methods that make millions while giving decent XP. Regular runecrafting is just dead content except maybe for ironmen

[@aliveandwellinisrael2507]

Ah yes, I remember the time Runescape ran out of runes. It was around the same time that World of Warcraft achieved world peace.

[@kensprivateinvestigation2128]

Anyone remember when the head of your axe or pickaxe would fly off and you would have to go pick it up and reattach it to continue skilling.

[@Komskorner]

Runecraft is the skill name, Runecrafting is the verb.

[@LilacMonarch]

Skill names are so inconsistent lmao. Woodcutting, Runecraft, Hunter. Why is not Woodcutting, Runecrafting, Hunting

[@paulisawesome10]

How have I been playing this game my whole life and I just now realized the skill is called runecraft and not runecrafting?

[@TooShots]

Ironically you can basically gather any resources faster through combat now than through the skills designed to bring the resources into the game

[@ByeBaybe]

we say runecrafting because we're speaking about the action performed while training runecraft. just as smithing, ranging, or maging.

[@Gameprojordan]

40-50K gp per hour on an f2p mining method, that required only 1 mining, in the early days of RC being introduced to the game (2004-2005) was insane profit. No wonder they nerfed it with the release of members only pure essence with a mining level of 30 needed for it

[@jamiecrwilliams]

11:18 "this would decrease the demand for rune essence, thus making it harder for those free to play bots to profit" you misspelled "increased number of memberships"

[@truemultipking3591]

It’s funny how much trial and error went into their updates. They have one solution which causes more problems and it keeps escalating from there. Like a hydra replacing its head.

[@YamahaR12015]

As somebody who spent a vast majority of my time as a f2p, till this day I favor melee over anything based on cost alone. I have a few accounts where I tried a range and magic main but I'm still not much of a fan of it.

[@AnimeFridays]

I enjoy runecrafting and actually achieved level 120 in runecrafting. Was very profitable as well

[@patrickphilip777]

Runecrafting was awesome when I started OSRS return in 2013. (I played a mele fighter mainly in 06-07 before quiting rs and only coming online here and there from 2007-2011) so in 2013 when OSRS started I played a mage and loved Runecrafting and made 200k just from selling mind runes and other noob runes.

[@ryuranzou]

I just came back to osrs recently and I think this rune shortage has made me avoid magic. I avoided ranged too because fletching wasn't around for me at least since I was f2p for most of my original account's life. Just lots of mining I remember mining iron in varrock and going to a bed after doing a run and world hopping trying to find coal nodes in barbarian village without competition. I wanted to level up enough to make decent armor for me and my friends. I also remember going into the wildnerness with some friends and making pizzas since we didn't know what we were doing out there we just wanted the danger since I could make us new armor if we died.

[@douglasgoodwon8227]

11:40 "At least you don't need to pay 3k/blood anymore" I mean, they are sitting at 1900 currently in RS3 despite all this

[@handlesmademeloseauniqename]

I remember a time when laws were 1k each. I didn't get to play much as a kid and I remember logging in one day and getting laughed at for trying to sell it for 1k. Felt like it happened over night.

[@bigbrisk8423]

Man I used to runecraft every day after school and got banned for botting didn't even know what a bot was lmfao apparently Noone would wanna rc that hard but I wanted it to be my first 99, safe to say I used bots after that to fund my future accounts, they legitimately taught me how to cheat by banning me for cheating when I didn't even know it was possible

[@baddragonite]

Funny thing. I've barely played RuneScape, but I remember making a newbie account in like 2006 or 2007 and a random guy came up to me and gave me hundreds of all sorts of runes and trinkets then disappeared. I haven't logged into that character since then though cause I lost the email/password. Lol