For a game that's been around since the early 2000s, Old School RuneScape still boasts an impressive player base, with more players joining all the time. The player base peaked in700,000 recently. With the launch of OSRS Mobile, this number has increased even further, albeit segregated on a different platform.
The rush of new players means that some of you have never played RuneScape before and don't know where to start. Well, good news! We have a lot of RuneScape knowledge to share, so buckle up. In the OSRS Beginner's Guide, we'll cover the basics of making money, skills, wasting time, subscriptions, and more.
I just started my character. Now that?
You might feel adrift once you've completed Tutorial Island and landed in Lumbridge.What should I do? Where I go? Who do I talk to?
There's a lot going on and countless ways to play RuneScape, but I recommend starting with the beginner quests. Quests are a great way to get used to the world of RuneScape, the nature of the NPCs and get comfortable exploring the open world.
In Lumbridge, you can start with The Restless Ghost and Cook's Assistant. While you complete Restless Ghost, you can pick up the mage's Imp Catcher in the mage's tower. The main target for new players is the Dragon Slayer - if you can beat him, you really have achieved some bragging rights.
Otherwise, you can sign up for the Adventure Path by saying you're new to the Guide to Gielinor. The path will give you beginner tasks to do when you feel lost. It has two branches, a combat path and a gathering path. Both will feature the relevant mechanics, although Combat has more tasks than the other. This is an optional feature that you can turn off if you want to set goals for yourself.
Another thing you can look out for is Steam Achievements if you're playing in the Steam client. They can be a good indicator of what you can do early in your career.
One advantage of quests is that it's a much faster route to using the Grand Exchange. Otherwise, it will require you to play at least 24 hours in the game. By the way:
What is the Great Exchange?
what is hebig exchange? It's more or less a marketplace for players from all over the worlds of RuneScape to buy and sell items from each other. If you are a seller, you offer an item for a price. Some are suggested based on market rates or you can choose your price. If someone else in the world places an order to buy that item at the price you offer, they will buy it from you at the price you specified!
It's a great way for low-level players to get their hands on items that would otherwise take a long time. With GE, you can also earn a good amount of gold by selling raw materials that you have collected or received items.
The Grand Exchange is a very complex market and some people use it as something similar to a stock market when "inverting" items. That's buying them at lower prices and selling them at higher prices, but that's a guide for another day.
What's the best way to make money?
When you are adventuring or improving your skills, you will probably find many occasions when you need gold to buy items. How do some players acquire items worth hundreds of millions of GP?
Well, most people start out earning substantial amounts of money with Skilling. This is raising the level of specific skills that help them earn more money. The biggest skills for this are logging, mining, and (for members) Slayer or Thieving.
The easiest thing to start with iswood cutting– You cut down trees, store your logs and sell them at the Grand Exchange. The downside to this method and other training methods is that they take a long time to become substantially profitable. If you're looking for quick gold, it's best to kill monsters, like cows, and pick up the items they drop, like cow hides.
Sometimes quests also give small amounts of gold, but this is a much slower method. However, if you're not trying to get rich, it can be fun to do quests to earn rewards!
What's the problem with Skilling?
RuneScape has a reputation for being a very "grind-y" game, meaning you can spend a lot of time doing repetitive tasks to reach skill levels. To me, that just means this game has the best skill progression out there.
Truly achieving skill mastery in OSRS is incredibly difficult, with some skills requiring thousands of game hours to reach level 99. Along the way though, there are so many incremental milestones and benefits you get for putting in the work that does it all. be worth. this.
For new players, choose your main combat stats (attack, strength, defense, range or magic) and some skills to earn money and spend your time focusing on them. There's no need to go "all in" on skills right away.
I recommend spending your early game researching and leveling your skills just to help your research skills. Once you've become familiar with the game and your own goals, you can fully immerse yourself in the skills of your choice.
Should I buy a subscription?
There are two tiers for RuneScape players: Free-to-Play (F2P) and Membership. As you can imagine, membership costs a fee ($11 for 4 weeks). I always recommend playing F2P for as long as possible before you start dabbling in members-only content.
Old School RuneScape is an amazing MMORPG for many reasons, one of which is how much you can do as a Free-to-Play player. It's a better investment of your money and time to get familiar with the game and get the most out of the F2P content. Then splurge on a membership. Otherwise, you'll likely spend most of your low-level playtime doing things you could have done for free.
No matter when you decide to join as a member, a world of possibilities opens up to you. Over 2/3 of the game's content is locked into members-only options, including new skill areas, minigames, quests, and bosses. Most of this content is best experienced late in the game when you have the necessary skills and prerequisites to access it. As a new player, you should mainly focus on improving your skills and completing quests.
Plus, you don't have to shell out any money to become a member. Bonds can be sold on the Grand Exchange for OSRS gold. If you follow the ways to earn money for F2P players, you can eventually have enough to buy a bonus and get a subscription. Of course, buying it with real money is faster, but at least those who can't afford it still have a chance to get their hands on it.
What else can I do?
Old School RuneScape is an open world sandbox game, which means you have the power to choose what you do. In addition to quests and skills, some players also roleplay or use the game to meet new people. Clans (the equivalent of guilds in other games) can host some events for their members and others do PvPing in the Wilderness.
Gielinor is your oyster, and creating a character is just the beginning of your journey. I hope this OSRS Beginner's Guide has helped to some extent. The most important thing is to have fun playing!