I had a really good time with RuneScape and it defined nostalgia. The main reason for me, was that it was just so simple and jolly. No shiny flashing animations, no fireball explosions, just whack each other back and forth and pray to God that the enemy dies first.

Like many MMO’s, there is a ton of stuff to do and explore in RuneScape. There are many different biomes and areas, you have a ton of skills that you can level up by practicing that art, and you can just hunt monsters, fight bosses or other players. Combat is really simple and is turn based. You attack (ranged or melee), a number appears, your health goes down (or not) and then it is the other players turn.

Like Eudemons Online for example, RunesScape was/is a product of its time. This meant that you could play the game for free, but many, many things, quests, stores, battles, functions, where locked behind the monthly membership paywall. Of course, this is/was just the business model of the game, but when playing the game as a kid, poor as dirt, I never felt more poor and unimportant in a game than this one. Altough I had my fun with the game, there is/was just a lot that I missed out on.

I spent hours just burying bones, killing Goblins, collecting junk to sell at vendors and, occasionally, finding some cool new weapons or armor. The cooking and fishing in the game was really relaxing for some reason and RuneScape really felt like a Medieval Second Life Simulator for me.

The graphics in RuneScape are primitive. They are poorly rendered polygons with square and pointy edges. This however, had a certain charm. This opinion is shared by many, as the game has been rereleased with far more superior graphics, but the old classic game is also still available and played by many.

The sound and music effects are as classic as ever. The crappy soundboard effects when hitting stuff, bury your piles of bones, shooting an arrow, it is all just glorious. When walking trough the forest, finding a spot to go fishing, the sharp, shrieking 8-bit background music helps you relax. I would not trade it for anything else.

I played RuneScape a while with some old and forgotten buddies from the past, but even back then, I realized that I enjoyed this game far more when playing alone. For some reason, I liked the solitude and just doing my own thing while other players were clustering around some dragon boss that I did not have access to with my poor, peasant ass.

Trading with other players was also a lot of fun. Someone asks something in the chat about a certain item they need, and I was thrilled to respond to them that I had what they needed. It made me feel important somehow. Most of the time, I did not have the items that were requested in the chat, but when someone asked for bones, to level up their prayer, it was my moment to shine.

The fun got ruined for me when I got hacked (I presume that son of a b… that I called my buddy back then) and lost all my Black Armor pieces, of which I was very proud. After this, I logged out and never logged in again.

Nevertheless, RuneScape was another piece of childhood for me that I embrace to this day.