Browser games are developing successfully, and with the release of Battlefield Heroes and Quake Live they threaten to turn into an independent art form. The free online RPG game Runescape, while impressive from a technical point of view, now looks a little outdated. Despite the recent graphic overhaul, the game world looks like it was assembled from Lego.
Runescape is a huge, living universe with over six million active players, but aging technology is making itself felt.
What remains interesting is the non-linear approach. Unlike almost any online game, you are rarely dragged by the scruff of your neck, save for the creepiest tutorial section in the galaxy. For about an hour, you have to wander back and forth between the knight in the basement and different people in the gradually opening city, performing small boring tasks at a very leisurely pace.
But as soon as this horror is over, you will be left on your own, In the full sense of the word. There is no usual nonsense like "you can turn left or right to reach the next goal." Someday you will find a friendly NPC character who will assume that someone can give you a "quest". But by talking to everyone in a row, you get more and more new opportunities to find a job. Or you can just wander through wild places, fighting with different animals. Or maybe you want to play one of 33 multiplayer mini-games. Or you may find yourself at a party in someone's hand-built house.
The bad news is that the experience of all this wealth is constantly spoiled by the vile design. New people, accustomed to fresh online games, will constantly get stumped. With whom to talk about "quests"? Nothing indicates that someone has business with you; you have to poke the mouse at random. Where to go? The mini-map cannot be scaled to a reasonable level, and the full map does not show your location, which does not fit into any gate at all. You play blindly: they call you a farm, and then it turns out that it is not marked on any map. But the worst part is that things are going horribly slow. There is an option for running, but the strength is not long enough, and they recover for a surprisingly long time. You can't really scale the image either. Sheer annoyance killing the good things the game has to offer.
But she has a lot to offer. RuneScape puts a very strong emphasis on crafting. There are a billion things that can be pulled out of the ground, grown, cut, ground, weaved, cast, built and cooked in the kitchen. The more you do this, the more skillful you become, which opens up new opportunities. And these opportunities are so many that the eyes run up. RuneScape has grown in complexity over the years, and has been accompanied by a powerful, dedicated community. And you can clearly see where it came from: all kinds of activities in the game are enough for a dozen World of Warcraft. Quests are often exceptionally elegant; they are more like “puzzles” from “quests”: you collect objects, combine them and use what you get in a specific way. Get poison and fish food, combine them and feed what happened, piranhas in the fountain - get access to the "machinery".
For eight monthly dollars, you get even more. The most obvious advantage is the ability to play in full screen mode, rather than in a tiny "browser" window. Plus a great variety of "quests", skills and various optional fintiflyushki. But one has only to open the wallet - and the flaws in the game appear even brighter; she lacks a lot of little things. Make the keys redefined so that we no longer need two right hands. Give the opportunity to move faster. And finally allow me to be absent from the game for more than a minute before disconnecting.If you leave the game for a very short time, then, upon returning, you will find yourself alone with the login screen.
It's hard to refuse a gift, and even so large-scale and cunning. But it's much harder to find the strength to get through all the flaws of RuneScape. Of course, it makes sense to look at this colossal game with at least one eye, but not the fact that you will be able to break through the barriers set by it.
"Hardcore" will vomit from the mere thought that at least something here leaves much to be desired. Runescape has an incredible amount of great ideas, and it can be charming, but this constant struggle ...
