My Favourite Era of Runescape

Introduction

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, and as I get older and further transition into adult-hood I often find myself reminiscing about a seemingly simpler time. Video games were a big part of my childhood so when I look back on these times, there’s usually something gaming related.

One game that triggers a lot of nostalgia for me is Runescape, specifically when I was in middle and early highschool. I loved the short stint of bounty hunter worlds from 2009 - 2011, while trading and wildy were removed.

I played runescape outside of this time frame, and I find it ironic that this was my favourite era because I also remember briefly quitting in protest after they removed free trade. Of course, you never really quit runescape and I came back shortly after to what I would consider the golden age of runescape, lasting all the way up to EOC.

Memories

In 2010 I was 14 years old and volunteered at a summer day camp for kids. For lunch I got about a 30 minute break, where I vividly remember biking home as fast as I could, getting and fighting a bounty hunter target, and then biking back to the camp. Looking on google maps now it says that bike would be around 7 minutes. I don’t remember if I even ate lunch or not.

For a low level f2p player, bounty hunter offered much better loot than just the opponents gear. It also felt more competitive and more risky; I remember physically sweating and being able to feel my heart beat while fighting with 26K cash in my inventory. I’ll also never forget seeing a corrupt dragon longsword on the floor after killing my target.

My mom was yelling at me to stop playing, I don’t remember why. I could hear the threats and punishments racking up in the background as I fought my target, fluidly switching from maple short bow to addy 2h. My older brother was watching me, trying to help bargain with our mom that I was almost done. A few minutes go by and I am able to kill my target, and then I see that foreign looking item sitting on the ground. A corrupt dragon longsword. I didn’t know how much it was worth but I knew it would be a lot more than my current bank. I go to pick it up and then ...

My mom grabs the mouse from me and started boxing us out from the computer. She made it clear she was staying put until I went to my room. I was panicking, but it was no use. My brother said he could grab the loot for me if I just leave, so I ran up to my room as fast as I could. From my room, I could see into the computer room if I kept the door open and laid on the floor at a particular angle and I remember doing exactly that. I watched as my brother picked up the longsword and the feeling of pure relief knowing I was safe with my biggest score yet. Then the feeling of pure joy as he took it to the GE and told me it was worth 1M+. I didn’t care that I was grounded, I was rich.

Another funny dynamic I remember about the bounty hunter targets is trying to coordinate meeting up with your target if they weren't in edgeville. If they were in multi or doing other stuff, you’d have to DM them and try to convince them to come fight you. Or if you were multi-pking in a big team, all of a sudden your target is one of your teammates and the two of you are fighting to the death as everyone watches.

Here’s an old screenshot that I find perfectly sums up my time in bounty hunter:

The 15K cash cause I couldn’t afford to bring 26K at the time
The player names and banter
The 2 numbers perfectly stacked up after delaying range and 2h