RuneScape players represent a wide range of nationalities and ages. Most players speak English to some extent. Players who speak languages other than English tend to gravitate to servers populated by other players who speak the same language; some worlds have larger numbers of players who speak Spanish, Dutch, French, German, or other languages. It is not uncommon, however, to see many languages on the chat screen throughout RuneScape. A German translation of RuneScape has recently been released as an open beta.
A set of official forums created entirely by Jagex programmers is available to players on the RuneScape website. On the forums, players are able to participate in game discussions, play player-made forum games, make arrangements to buy or sell items, and interact with the community. Free players can read the forums, but posting on them is reserved for paying members. The RuneScape forums are quite diverse, allowing thousands of players to access them at any given time. Each forum has its own specific list of rules enforced by forum moderators.
Players can submit questions via an e-mail address listed on the website to any non-player character in the game. Selected letters are answered in an update called Postbag from the Hedge, typically at the end of each month. This feature began on 26 September 2005 and has since become one of the most accessed pages of the site. From 24 September 2002 through 9 December 2004, players could submit questions to the RuneScape gods. However, this feature has been discontinued. Players can also submit original RuneScape related artwork, some of which is displayed in a gallery on the RuneScape website. Media featured have included sculpture, comics, drawings, and paintings.
Many RuneScape fansites have been established by players, none of which are supported or recognized by Jagex. In order to provide players with an alternative, official site to get the information they want or need, Jagex introduced the Knowledge Base, which offers information on gameplay, the main RuneScape rules, and account security.
RuneScape has a player economy based largely around items produced using skills. Raw materials are collected using the extracting skills, such as fishing, and are processed into more advanced materials with processing skills, such as cooking. The products produced by processing skills, such as armour or food, are often sold and used by players in combat. Some players also engage in arbitrage, commonly referred to as merchanting, in order to turn a profit buying and selling prices. Recently, inflation from a variety of sources, along with the large number of resources put into the game by macroing, has caused instability in the game economy.
Cheating
Cheating is a major problem in RuneScape. In the early days of the game, most cheaters were individual players using special programs that exploited weaknesses in the game's client-server communications by sending false data to the server. In response, Jagex made direct interaction with the client impossible, so more recently, macro programs like SCAR have been used to automate mouse clicks for repetitive tasks. Random events, requiring human reaction and decision making are one method Jagex employs to disrupt such programs. According to Jagex, many cheaters are now based in game sweatshops in East Asia, making gold to sell to players for real-world money, an issue in many other MMORPG games. Jagex is seizing billions of gold and banning thousands of accounts every week for cheating, but such activities still continue.
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