Screenshot of the day: Runescape

Infiltrating the palace of Al Kharid *mission impossible theme*.
Runescape is an MMORPG that is more massive than many. I probably shouldn't count how many hours I spent in Runescape in my junior year of highschool. This week, though, I wrote an article on Runescape's player-player economy, specifically related to virtual fishing and cooking. I decided that I needed to spend at least some time in game to do so. I started a new account today, and power-leveled my character,
'Fisherman_Ed' to level 50 fishing and cooking. Runescape is great fun, but it is, when you get down to it, a huge mountain of busy-work surrounding the gems that are achievements and high-level content. The system works, though, and it's a very satisfying accomplishment to have a high-level character.

After spending a few hours clicking on fishing spots and reading while I wait for something to happen, and then another hour cooking all the fish I caught, the reasons I stopped playing Runescape are coming back to me. It's an incredibly engaging game with a lot of appeal, but in the end, I personally don't get any benefit from it. I don't have any friends that play Runescape, so it's just a game of making numbers go higher. While that's great for a day, it's not worth the ultimate investment of time for me.