We Solved Runescape's Oldest Mysteries

[@HectorVII]

this has gotta be one of the most niche subjects ever. the history of a virtual game. people are literally doing digital archaelogy to start to understand how this world worked and things that no longer exist. its hilarious i love it!

[@Swanke]

This is hysterical. I love it. I can just picture the JMods back in the day: "oh yeah mate add that, aw yeah that's good mate" just fucking around making a classic game that'll come to be around and loved for decades. What an insane look into the past. Well done on this vid!!

[@andydeneef4790]

It's even better when you imagine Mod Mat K saying it.

[@azazeldeath]

I can say that honestly seemed to be how it was at the very early stages of "classic" you could be talking to a "Mod" about something then a month later it appears then gets removed etc.

[@SleepyHooman]

I remember getting stuck in the Pious Pete random for around 3 days. I was like 8, and the event itself had no instructions at all, and I couldn't figure out how to leave. There were candles and you had to light/unlight to solve a puzzle, except someone thought it would be a great idea to have certain candles randomly extinguish as you were trying to solve it (independent of the actual puzzle solution) which made it impossible to figure out the mechanics of the puzzle itself. Probably caused my biggest childhood tantrum.

[@DavidBouy]

The weird old man had a puzzle box and being a young child back then I couldn't figure out the puzzle, and the box kept multiplying every time I got it wrong so it filled my inventory up and I had to create a new account.

[@AukePoelman1]

Oh my fucking god I remember this aswell. This was the worst thing ever, I remember having a huge fight with my best friend of not being able to solve it and screwing up our accounts.

[@wandernaut]

Omg yeah I remember this as well

[@scblitzer]

Yessss, my Aol dial-up was so laggy that while the cube was spinning I would click and it was nearly impossible to get right

[@skinmadness5604]

Can confirm, this was a thing, I played with like 8 of them in my inventory for awhile while I cut willows and bank stood at Dranyor

[@AukePoelman1]

@@skinmadness5604 it would be so cool to just see footage of this man. I remember it but vage.

[@RockMore]

I remember my brother getting stuck on his way to the feldip hills. After an update some more scenery was added, which trapped him. Without any runes at hand and before home-teleport was added to the game, his only chance was for someone to tele-other him. At the time it was incredibly rare to find people walking by there, let alone a high level mage. Less than a week after a bug report was sent, home-teleport was added to the game. Looking back, I'd like to believe my brother's bug report is the reason why home-teleport was added to the game, which we all use today. I thought that was interesting to share.

[@AurforeRhodontis]

This a a fair possibility since most games add some kind of unstuck options after they find players submitting reports of being stuck! Home teleport does that perfectly! Such a fun fact to think your brothers report had a hand in that

[@nickmeyer238]

There were a few areas players could get stuck. I believe an island on karmaja used the mithril grapple and if you dropped it you'd be stuck.

[@TakiruScape]

This is not from the old era, but there is an unsolved easter egg in Prifddinas that I think deserves a mention from you and maybe you and your fans can help solve it ? There is a jingling bell sound heard around prif (also possible to hear on command with the bell music instrument in Poh chapels). Supposedly there is an unsolved Easter egg that involves this jingle and clicking a specific order of bells to recreate it in the top layer of the Prifddinas tower. I have tried slowing down the audio myself and re creating the jingle with the prif bells to no avail. its hard to tell weather it is 4 or 5 bells, and not sure what order to click/how to reset the order if wrong. perhaps you and your fans can crowd source a solution ? it has kept me up at night since they first mentioned it in Q/A livestream a couple years back. best of luck ! I think it would make a cool video/fan event !

[@thehowlingjoker]

I thought it was confirmed to be a hoax?

[@michaelmichaels5906]

wow !!! could be!

[@craigasauruswrecks4915]

I thought is rs3 it spawned an npc with some dialog but nothing of significance just elf lore

[@ganadorification]

Will's always been three steps ahead of me. Chopping yews in 2004 while I was still picking flax and spinning bowstrings.

[@MrRyanCock]

I was stuck in Lumbridge because of the scary jail guards in Draynor and the dark wizards near Varrock

[@1ltmikesalvatore448]

I actually killed Ram's untill 99 str

[@99temporal]

cutting planks lol

[@BWADaniel]

Mining Essence. Flax & Bowstrings. Thats how I made my few dollars

[@steeveewuzzheer1992]

I remember when one of the dwarf quests came out (I think it was King of the Dwarves), one of the dialogues featured a dwarf saying “damn”. This resulted in some wiki editor declaring that quest THE RUDEST RUNESCAPE QUEST TO DATE.

[@DeanAshford]

I've been playing almost since the beginning. Random events man... I remember when they replaced the good old trips to the beds or using an inv slot to carry a sleeping bag for fatigue. If you got too much fatigue your xp gains stopped, and you'd either have to go to a bed to sleep, or use your sleeping bag and solve a captcha to refill your fatigue to continue training.

[@MegaChickenfish]

As someone who played the RS2 beta, I don't recall any NPCs to restart quests. The servers would reboot themselves and port over your character practically every week as they patched and added stuff, and I'm pretty sure there were item duping glitches because my most vivid memory was people just throwing drop parties like crazy loaded with super valuable dragon items. Was my first time ever holding a dragon sq shield, but I wouldn't finish Legends Quest until several years after RS2 released. An NPC I know was removed was the one to turn platelegs into skirts and platebodies into skimpier female platebodies. He was in Varrock next to the rune shop. 9:40 I know there was a Big Fish that would grab your fishing tool and throw it to a nearby tile.

[@KingCondor]

I love coming here to learn and also remember all the horrors of my childhood. Thank you

[@dk9]

Two legends who should collaborate on a KZbin video right here

[@Math_Yeww]

Condor + Will would fuck shit up

[@FatAlbert1]

Love this series! Always fun to learn more about this game!

[@Boneheaded0]

Same.I clicked so fast

[@Swanke]

6:48 OMFG THAT BECAME THE ANCIENT STAFF THAT YOU GET AFTER DESERT TREASURE!

[@TheXnaut]

I was once told via dev on Twitter hat the Runescape soundtrack was "personalized" (as a joke) due to midi files being processed by your specific sound card. This essentially implies that all the RS soundtrack might have sounded different depending on your sound card. Could that explain the odd sounding Sea Shanty 2: it being a version made by a different sound card configuration?

[@TenshiCat]

Yeah, I remember the game sounded noticeably different when I played it on my Grandma's computer as a kid

[@maxgreen6081]

Yeah that’s exactly how midi audio works

[@Gemini476]

MIDI files are essentially just a list of notes and what instruments to use with them. The difference with sound cards is because different cards would have different sound clips for guitars etc. It the notes are different, that's not on the sound card.

[@LoserHands]

You can still experience Runescape tracks being idiosyncratic if you play certain ones through outside players--so not the recordings of course but their midi files that others have mentioned. There's a jmod who uses features in the new runescape audio player or something to control the pitch in songs like Upir Likhyi, Ruins of Camdozaal because they're off when I play them outside runescape lol. Custom player, custom effects..? I know it's one dude so far because it's a few select, hype af tracks.

[@danm7298]

What were those cube things that multiplied in your inventory non stop untill you did sumthing? I just remembered those watching this. I never hear anyone talk about those. Theyd give u gems or sumthing. this was back in 05-05

[@christopher6600]

On the subject of the Tangle Vine deleting scenery, there was a similar issue with Mithril seeds in the RS2 beta. In RuneScape Classic, Mithril seeds would cause trees to grow when planted, rather than the flowers we're all familiar with these days. This was originally true during the RS2 beta as well, but it apparently didn't behave as intended in the new engine. Because the tree model was larger than the single tile you'd plant them on, it would end up deleting objects in adjacent tiles to make room for the tree. People would commonly use this trick to delete the bank booths in the RS2 beta, until Jagex ultimately changed Mithril seeds to grow the single-tile flowers that remain in-game today.

[@MegaChickenfish]

10:15 I knew the tanglevine killed a lot of players who didn't understand it and panicked, did not know it ate game scenery too. Makes me wish we could have an osrs quest themed around having to stop a wild tanglevine from destroying Karamja. I know in RS3 there's a giant "livid plant" there that was likely inspired by it.

[@GrumpyIan]

In the mini game Fist of Guthix the god books where the only items with emotes that you could take into the arena. Something I discovered was that if you preached with one it would instantly end the game. To what I remember that bug worked from day one to sometime in late 2010.

[@frogbattle]

3:13 underrated af. Well done!

[@martydelaney]

had no idea the tanglevine would delete scenery, that would be hilarious to relive nowadays in an event of some kind

[@hmalba7864]

RS3 expands a bit on the connection between Tolna/A Souls Bane and Zaros. The reason for why the rift Tolna is in is due to the influence of a hydra-like being name Loarnab, who experienced the same four emotions Tolna undergoes in his quest as it was subjugated and destroyed by Zaros. Between that and Tolna's mentioning of the Senntestin people, this may have been Jagex trying to set up the Zaros questline very early on.

[@deskysurfer]

I remember an update that let members change their name one time, extra emphasis on the you can only do this once, but I can't find a record of it in the way back machine. Name changes are why I made a second account to begin with, and why I kept the second one.

[@hudphil]

Circa 2003 a man named “sirweedalot” traded me a rune pickaxe, 100notes anti-poisons, and around 500gp and said follow me. He took me to the horseshoe gold mine and said message me every time you get 100 or more and I’ll buy them from you. Sir. You gave 9year old me a purpose and for that I will forever remember you. You level 123 god

[@Synli]

10:20 omg I remember this! I was cutting willows and watched as a vine deleted parts of the Draynor bank.

[@MrFiinigaN]

I recall being able to re do quests, but not an NPC called Rasumus. And the troll that would attack you was 100% that thing killed me so many times going AFK.

[@mrburnout]

Not really as exciting as some of the other random memories you've shown, but when I was a kid (2003 ish) I found an infinite gp exploit. I would sell feathers to the general store up to a certain point, and eventually the price of feathers (for me to buy back) would go down to 0 gp. From there I could keep selling feathers to the store for 1 gp and buying them back for 0 gp. They eventually patched this and 9 year old me was very sad, but I was able to buy full mithril which was super exciting in a time where f2p money making was non-existent. It was a completely different time where you'd be happy to get a few thousand gp, and holiday rares were'nt that valuable yet.

[@itsmeribb]

I literally did this exact thing! I did it at the lumby general store!

[@Azletrack]

I predicted the middle finger thing with the random event never happened, a bunch of 13 year olds known for spreading rumors on an mmorpg is the very least believable source

[@Blackbaldrik]

This makes me wish I had payed more attention in my early days on RuneScape. I've been playing since the og Classic era, and I do vaguely remember some of this. I think I might have actually played the RS2 beta, if memory serves. Being able to play a full 3D MMO on my crummy internet and garbage hand-me-down computer was super exciting for young me.

[@garyoak3987]

Fareed, the warrior of smoke, looks like that because the lead developer James B smoked a mad bowl of dank kush before designing him.

[@holohala2724]

My best memory was if I wore a coif my face went black. This persisted for months. I could take the coif off and when I put it back on my face would disappear. Everyone could see my face but from my perspective I was the faceless man.

[@awkwardsaucetv4770]

I wonder why they got rid of the “Brownie”…

[@redwood8138]

I remember giant rats looking much different when I started playing, but I can't find any proof that they were.

[@AdamOwenBrowning]

They definitely got new models with the RSHD release, or some time around that. I can confirm remembering the rat models changing, so you aren't the only one, but there's lots of different "giant rats" in RuneScape.

[@redwood8138]

@@AdamOwenBrowning I remember them looking just like big versions of the small rats. It was updated in 2006 or 2007 I can't remember exactly, but I've never found any images of the original models.

[@TummaKing]

Definitely interesting stuff. Love learning the old lore aspects as well. Maybe some stuff on tip.it not sure when those forums came out but I know I was on them waaay back.

[@TheGhostHAG]

That old sea shanty...thats the one I was looking for when I started osrs again recently. Back in 04 I was 5. I barely remember it, but I noticed the song wasn't right. I needed that

[@hamburgler9839]

People have been playing capture the flag irl for thousands of years

[@Zugzuged]

I love this series and the "how people played in 2007" video. And thank you for the information

[@Victoria_Orlova]

09:22 Ah, this is the imp wizard greyzag in wizards tower used to be able to spawn to help aid him in combat back before they removed his attack option

[@MrJelleLive]

imagine being a skiller back then, just get one shotted by aggresive random events, make it happen jagex

[@wandernaut]

They actually scaled by your combat level so on a skiller the random events only hit 1-2 I believe

[@thealmightyassman]

I vividly remember catching lobbies in Catherby when bots, and sometimes afk mains, would get attacked by the river trolls and die. Everyone would swarm the piles. Got my first dragon items that way

[@ghostlypresence5362]

Used to be the funniest thing, Jagex really made a mistake nerfing randoms. Just made the the game sterile and too bot friendly.

[@ghostlypresence5362]

@Bren now the bot creators don't even have to try :)

[@M0usekilll]

those three spells you mentioned the raise skeleton and demon, i do not recall them ever being a part of rs2 at all.. maybe in classic? those runes you also showed were the classic sprites so I'm assuming maybe before 2001.

[@andypowell5377]

The guy who let you replay quests was in the game during rs2 beta testing. You could replay all the quests asany times you just wouldn't get the rewards. I've played since rs classic before members.. miss the old days

[@jn3697]

I remember being stuck in that pious pete minigame, had to have a friend log in and do it for me.

[@beet111]

Your videos that aren't just streaming highlights are some of your best videos. Great video ;)

[@lol5776]

3:55 "No games room. They weren't playing around back then"

[@noshotmedia6412]

I just want to know who named the leader of the black knights "Daquarius"

[@thumssss]

Don't you think that the red bird became the Evil chicken? I remember standing in Dharocks grave, at barrows. High alching all my yew longbow all day, waiting for people to either DC and die to Dharok or be killed by Evil chicken randoms :D

[@MrJackk24]

Also theres a capture the flag game from the 90s MS Dos. A game that was likely played by Gower who then developed his own version for RS.

[@SixtenD]

This kinda content is the reason I'm subbed. Awesome job!

[@HappyQuiet]

Just did Elemental Work Shop 1 and 2 and if you go to the bottom floor across from the mind room doors is a set of doors with a rune from before they deleted out all the old extra stuff.

[@PIZZAGUYNO1]

Before on the evil bob island if you kept getting the fish wrong you would have to keep feeding the cat the right fish until you got back to positive territory

[@ShinnosukeTokuda1684]

yes my little brother could never figure it out and would have me do evil bob and a couple of the other more complex randoms for him (to be fair he was like 6)

[@natsfan100]

Weird memory I have but there was one point in 2005 or 2006 where an update caused a huge bug with F2P. For a day or two you could cast ancients on F2p. It required that you were on the ancient magic spellbook and since bloods are p2p you could only cast up to burst spells. But this was the height of runescape clanning so it set the clan world on its head for 24-48 hours as all of sudden their were multi target ice burst spells destroying everyone and everything.

[@yt.personal.identification]

Fally Massacre?

[@yungsos]

great vid will tax season is coming up

[@Iog0ut]

This video just unlocked a core memory. I was 6 or 7 years old and I asked my friend Mike for weeks (or maybe days) at the park to come over to my house help me figure out the pious pete random until he came over one day and I wasn’t in the event room anymore. I just looked it up and my parents got me membership in April 2006 and this was a bit after it ran out (probably late may since my birthday was the 19th of April) and according to the wiki pious Pete was removed in June 2006. I remember the dilemma I went through trying to get away from pious Pete and those fucking candles. I would spend hours after school before my mom came home trying to solve it.

[@codiematute8441]

The first time I played Runescape, I remember being at Lumbridge and you could pick up imps by their feet and shake them for loot.

[@k2a2l2]

a minigame based on price speculation actually sounds really fun i hope we someday can get something like that

[@ratmrage]

no girl ain't never been wit a guy like itswill, they close the doors at hot topic and bring out complimentary cans of monster when he pulls up

[@OneLongQuest]

Loving the Ultimate Ironman series keep up the good work Champ!

[@MisterChappy]

thanks for showcasing this stuff, Will. it's very special.

[@jessie1078]

Does anyone else remember a random event circa 2004/2005 that was one of those matchstick puzzles where you have to move 3 matchsticks to make a new shape with them? I vividly remember doing it in RuneScape but I've never been able to find anyone else who remembers. Wondering if I'm just misremembering doing the matchstick puzzles somewhere else

[@Muffyn_]

You could be thinking of the 2008 Hallowe'en event, released along with a quest "Swept Away", which has something like a matchstick puzzle

[@MsMiDC]

Yep, Swept Away had that matchstick puzzle.

[@nickb4749]

I remember river trolls killing people lob fishing in karamja. ppl brought cash stacks, also rares, which weren't kept over lobsters upon death

[@igelbeatz]

Yo Will, I unironically liked this video (I say unironically because there is a whole community of people out there who ironically watch your videos haha)

[@vermilion123]

i distinctly remember blue dragons being lvl 99 late 2004 early 2005. i know this because i remember being super excited about getting lvl 100 combat and being able to left click them. but then their levels went up to 111

[@ryanscott6600]

The vine was used as a lure method in drainer manor. You got stuck on a tree

[@azurequu]

Will: "I know how to pronounce it now 100%" Also Will: "Zaros Majolner"

[@egoboost9952]

I don’t remember how you said it last time, but Norma pronunciation of “mjolnir” is “myole-ner”. At least in real life it is, maybe the mods wanted to pronounce it differently

[@FedadOSRS]

"looks like theatre of blood honestly" okay I'm realizing how funny you actually are

[@xBoWlcuTLeGenDx]

Def my favorite types of videos you make since im always watching your streams i never need highlights

[@yiaro222]

Very nice vid. Ps random info: i want the collosal chicken to return it was fun

[@zurbach1626]

Savage Bird may have been a Red Chocobo reference for Final Fantasy. Those birds have been messing people up for ages, but idk if it's that or just literally a red bird that's mad.

[@zundeesteed]

I was in the RS2 beta having played since early classic and there was for a short while during the "Try out RS2" there was an NPC that would reset all your quests so you could redo them in RS2 i remember specifically redoing all the quests during the beta of course the only proof i have of this is vague decades only memories.

[@matthewmcinnes9725]

Ironically I probably have some of the game files from 2003-2006 ish era on a laptop that my dad has in storage at his house; currently living on the other side of Canada and doubt my dad would know how to send me them but it hasn’t been touched since that era and this was around the same time RS custom servers were popular but would be lovely to browse through

[@GamingCookster]

Can someone please tell me the background song that starts at the beginning of the video.

[@williesuede]

Able Sisters theme from Animal Crossing

[@tealwolf150]

I remember the Troll, he was a random event that would attack you while you were fishing

[@lukemorris4065]

I remember the day hunter came out some dude managed to go far into the black space at the end of the map south of feldip hills and everyone lost their shit

[@lobstercation1713]

When RS2 launched items from runescape classic were transfered and deleted. Their were a surprising large amount of people who hated RS2 which resulted in Jagex offering the option to transfer your items back to Runescape Classic. A while longer RSC started to die and many players realised that RS2 was better and Jagex offered one final item transfer then it would be locked forever after. RS2 did look wierd at first because it was a very bright coloured game, RSC had very dark visual and feel to it.

[@LiveTwinReaction]

that red terrorbird attacking me out of nowhere would have made me panic lmao

[@ThatsSoPerry]

that merching game thing, has a very similar song to the GE song

[@thrakerzad5874]

According to Google the earliest what I would consider "computer" version of capture the flag was in 1992 by some guys at an early computer convention.

[@aGoodBlunt]

This was cool to see man I’ll be looking to hopefully see a next!

[@needsafish]

Really do enjoy these videos. Really get to learn a lot and a few throw back memories.

[@fiddleriddlediddlediddle]

Just wanna say that the mustache 100% suits you.

[@Allerz13]

Love the runescape mysteries videos will, keep it up :)

[@blakestuart3645]

These for KZbin videos are awesome keep em coming if you please

[@CadPlaysMC]

loved the last video and im excited to watch this one :)

[@Sirsipeed]

this is ultra awkward... but there's an rs3 content creator who goes a lot into many of the topics you've been bringing up in these mysteries videos. what makes it awkward is they go by "rswillmissit"

[@jrod2989]

Rs3 has content creators? Wow

[@Benennatis]

@@jrod2989 yes he's one of the few, if only, good one

[@Benennatis]

@@jrod2989 hes a bit like colonello in osrs If u know who that is

[@dark_brother_hood]

stock market mini game sounded intreasting ngl also maybe it could help new players to learn how that stuff works in the ge

[@sithisrants4154]

Are you planning on uploading the full version of original Sea Shanty 2?

[@MrJackk24]

This is a stretch and i don’t expect anyone else to have this memory but… I have a RS memory that ive been trying to confirm/debunk for a while now. Back in the day when i played as a kid i was in the wild at the lvl 50 (members) fence and was attacked from the other side of the fence by a pker. I do not remember what i was attacked with but we were both one tile away on opposite sides of the fence. My theory is that it used to be a normal fence in a members world but was silently updated. This would have been 2003 - 2004.

[@WokWongz]

“I was busy chopping yew trees and bank standing” wow, why do I feel personally attacked ?

[@davemcdonagh1999]

When you said the name Razimus I swear I unlocked a deeply forgotten memory but I can't confirm it

[@danm7298]

I remember being killed in edgville. i was not in the wilderness either. It was right before they implemented the wildy wall. that may be why they did that. I remember sending jagex a messege saying theres a glitch with the wilderness cuz i just got killed in edgville lol. there were still warning signs there so im 100% i wasnt in the wild.

[@devyboo2]

I actually remember the tangelvine, that brought back an ancient memory

[@cuban_bread]

7:30 your reaction confirms "call animal" looks like a sack

[@jackassmonkeyninja]

Love these. :D You and the wiki people do great work.

[@jakupaldrich3447]

I remember some of those events but not all of them. I remember another weird one that had these purple discs of returning something like that. Does anyone else remember anything about the event with the discs?

[@dark_brother_hood]

was the giant sandbox before desert treasure maybe that explains the huge hole maybe they where laying ground for the pyrimad

[@whispwindswept]

when they reworked the gnome area, there was a medium clue step where you had to search a crate (or boxes, I can’t remember) and its search option was disabled, making the clue step impossible for a while. does anyone else remember this?

[@Slothptimal]

Unsure of how helpful it is, but I was part of the RS2 Beta - you could redo the Dragon Slayer quest by talking to an NPC. (I was f2p still at the time, so wasn't super familiar) Pretty sure Waterfall, UG Pass, Heroes, and Legends were also on that list.

[@Dargonhuman]

I'm watching a video about RuneScape digital archaeology while (whilst?) training the Archaeology skill in RuneScape. That's some Third Age Iron-y right there.

[@rahimske]

Great video! Btw, the word Mjolnir is a Scandinavian word and they pronounce it "Me-YOL-nur"

[@sluhgo]

Hi loved the video. I remeber as a younger man grinding out castle wars endlessly I ended up getting a shield with a purple particle effect that was in the game and I don’t see it on the castle wars quest rewards Anymore