PREVIEW 1: About one of the players that have been added to the Hall of Fame chapter

Bluerose13x: If there is one name that I hope all of you will remember, it should be Bluerose13x. She was a living legend in the RS1 era and one of the pioneers of high-level skilling. What Bluerose13x is best known for is her Smithing achievements, which helped to make her become one of the best and wealthiest players of the RS1 era. Her dominance in the Smithing hiscores began quite early in 2001 already, as she was the first player who reached level 60 in the skill, and she then never lost her rank one on her journey to level 99. This means that she was the first player who could smith adamantite and runite items but not right away. As explained in book two, by the time that Bluerose13x reached the Smithing level that is required for rune, no player (including herself) could mine rune rocks yet, and the same was true for adamant, so she had to wait until the first miners reached the required Mining levels. By the time that the first miners could hack into rune rocks, also other players were already close to reaching the requirement of level 85 Smithing.

It is commonly believed that Bluerose13x had a monopoly on the Smithing market, but the truth is a little more nuanced, for several reasons. The above is one reason as she did not have the Mining level that was needed for the high-level types of ores, but there was no need for her to train Mining anyway because people just came to her with the ores or the bars, and also her friends sometimes mined for her, so she did depend on other players there. That said, she certainly was the only source of adamant and rune bars for some time. Furthermore, most types of high-level combat pieces at that time could be obtained through means other than Smithing. For example, the adamant platebody and the rune chainbody, platelegs and longsword could already be purchased in the Champions’ Guild; and the rune platebody could be bought from Oziach, so she had no influence on the market of those items, but that still leaves 2h swords, battleaxes, helms and shields.

Even though the true extent of her monopoly turns out to be a little more nuanced, she certainly was the first player who created runite items by using the Smithing skill, and she did have a monopoly on the runite weapon around which everything revolved back in 2002 for free players: the rune 2h sword. As explained in book two, the rune 2h sword was the strongest weapon of the F2P game after the launch of P2P in February of 2002, so the demand for it was huge. Also the market of kiteshields is where she had an absolute monopoly early on already, as wielding even a steel kiteshield was initially viewed as a symbol of status. Given that rune was still the strongest type of combat equipment, she did have a huge influence on the prices of some runite weapons for a long time, which enabled her to become one of the richest players in the game. Requiring level 99 to smith, when the rune 2h sword was released alongside the launch of P2P in 2002, she had the power to decide how expensive the weapon should be as no one else had reached level 99 in the skill yet. Several weeks later, she was still the only player who could smith rune 2h swords. There are varying accounts as to how much she would charge, but prices of over 1m gp were reported for the rune 2h sword.

It is known that Bluerose13x also offered her services for free sometimes, but it is not clear if that also applied to runite items or only to lower-tiered items. As soon as the first dragon-type weapons were released and when some of the runite weapons were added to the drop table of several monsters, both of which happened in February of 2002, and as soon as other players also reached 99 Smithing in April and May, the prices of rune combat gear slowly began to decrease, so that might be when Bluerose13x decided to smith the runite items for free. […]

Bluerose13x became known for a lot more than just for Smithing, though. Even before reaching 99 Smithing in December of 2001, she had already become the first player to reach 99 Magic, back in October. With both skills at level 99, this made her the first player to have level 99 in two skills. A clever strategy that she used to secure her rank one in Magic before reaching 99 in the skill is that she would sometimes also ask for runes in exchange for her smithing services. Mainly the non-elemental runes were what she looked for, and she ended up getting several thousands of those every day. This allowed her to reach 99 Magic without needing to face the struggle of trying to purchase the runes. Keep in mind that Runecrafting did not exist yet, so those runes were hard to come by. Given that she reached 99 Magic two months before reaching 99 Smithing, she probably asked for runes mainly in the initial phases of her smithing period when she did not have 99 Magic yet. By the way, she would sometimes use some of those runes to train both Magic and Smithing by superheating.

If her Magic and Smithing achievements are not impressive enough yet, then certainly her other achievements will be. For starters, Bluerose13x was the player who had the most total xp from October of 2001 (and possibly earlier too) until January of 2002. After the release of Herblore in February of 2002, Bluerose13x decided to focus on that skill as well. Even though she stopped training it at around level 80 as rank one in the skill, she had in the meantime realized a special achievement that only one other player would ever repeat in the entire history of the game; Bluerose13x became the first of only two players to ever hold rank one in three skills at the same time. This happened in March of 2002, when she was rank one in Herblore, Magic and Smithing. At that moment, she was also rank three in Crafting, while also being rank three in the total hiscores. Two months later, she also rose to rank two in the total hiscores as the highest rank that she would ever hold. In terms of hiscore accomplishments, this period marked the apex of her career.

Despite those incredibly impressive achievements in 2001 and 2002, Bluerose13x’s presence at the top of the hiscores was limited to the RS1 era. […]

 

PREVIEW 2: About the timeline reconstruction of players with the highest total xp at any given moment since January of 2001. That timeline is added right behind another timeline reconstruction that does the same but for total ranks one instead of total xp. Both timelines are exclusive content that is as detailed as showing updates for every single month since January of 2001.  

The timeline of all people who have held total rank one in the hiscores is certainly interesting, but a player who held rank one was not always the player who had the most total xp. For example, someone could be rank ten in the hiscores but have more total xp than the rank one did. So, instead of a timeline of total ranks one, it could also be interesting to reconstruct a timeline of all players who had the most total xp at any time since 2001, on a single account. If I then also mention the total xp in the timeline, then I can very beautifully show how the xp rates have evolved over the course of the years, so let’s do that! Before I get to that, however, it is important to note that it is impossible to know for sure who had the most total xp during the period January 2001 – October 2001. That is because the hiscore boards were added to the website in November. Until then, Andrew published less detailed lists every now and then. Those updates not only listed fewer players, but they also did not mention the total xp or the xp that the players had in the skills. That said, we can still derive some useful information from day one of the official hiscores, which were released on 22nd November 2001 and listed the top 1k players (later also 2k), so the players that I have listed for the first ten months are what some people would call educated guesses. […]

Both timeline reconstructions also come with charts for RS1, RS2, RS3, and RS1-RS3. Here is the one for total xp in the RS3 era. That is admittedly the least interesting one, so you will have to read the trilogy for the other charts!

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Trilogy's contents

There are three books (PDFs) that contain a total of eleven chapters and just over thousand pages. The trilogy covers the period 2000-2019. In addition to around fifty authentic screenshots, the contents of each book are as follows:

 

BOOK ONE:
-RuneScape 1: about the RS1 era (2001-2004)
-The Community: about the evolution and growth of the community since 2001.
-The World of Gielinor: about the geographical development of RuneScape since 2001.
-The Combat skills: about the evolution of the combat skills since 2001.
-Player versus Monster: about the evolution of the PvM community since 2001, including preferred equipment and training methods for combat, and the impact of boss releases.

BOOK TWO:
-Player versus Player: about the rich history of PvP since 2001.
-The Non-Combat skills: about the evolution of the non-combat skills since 2001.
-Skilling: about the evolution of the skilling community since 2001, including historically significant skilling communities, old traditions (such as rune-running), and the most popular non-combat moneymaking methods since 2001.

BOOK THREE:
-Hall of Fame: about the most influential players since 2001, as well as about the evolution of xp gains, total xp and total ranks one; all of which has been reconstructed in detailed timelines and lots of tables.
-Quests: about the release of all quests since 2001 and how those quests affected the community and/or the gameplay experience at the time and/or in the next years.
-Mods, Bots & More: about the history of moderators, botting, real-world trading, as well as bugs, holidays events and rare items.
-Glossary: This is an overview of all the historically significant terminology that has been used throughout the trilogy. It is quite lengthy. Lots to learn!

Note: This trilogy covers only the history of “RuneScape” and its iterations, i.e. RuneScape Classic, RuneScape 2 and RuneScape 3. – Not Old School RuneScape/the RuneScape intellectual property as a whole.

-Anyone who is interested in the development of RuneScape since 2001
-Anyone who wants to understand how the community has changed over the years
-Anyone who enjoys reading about RuneScape in general
-Anyone who would like to feel some real nostalgia
-Anyone who would love to be taken for a walk down memory lane
-Anyone who misses the good old days
-Anyone who began playing Old School RuneScape in hopes of revisiting past memories
-Anyone who is an avid reader and a RuneScape player
-Anyone who works at Jagex, to fully understand how the game and the company came to be

The three books were written entirely by myself (July/Gunter), but I have been able to interview lots of people, which enabled me to add more information to the books. Such persons include Andrew Gower (the creator of RuneScape) and two of the four alpha testers (Lightning and Rab) who tested RuneScape before its public release in 2001. Especially Rab stands out here as he was able to share with me lots of exclusive information that I, or anyone else, would probably never have found anywhere else.

It is important to understand that this digital trilogy is built upon the foundation of another work that I published in 2015, which was a PDF of 200k words. I had by then spent well over thousand hours researching and writing since 2011, which is when I originally posted a RuneScape history thread on the RuneScape forums. The PDF received a lot of praise and was even featured in the gaming magazines Massively Overpowered and PlayNation Germany.

In the next months, I also received some requests to write a real/physical book that people could buy. Enticed by the idea, I spent most of 2017, 2018 and 2019 writing a trilogy of 1k pages in total, with lots of new information as well. In fact, the size has increased from 200k words with the PDF of 2015 to just over 400k words in this 2020 trilogy. In the end, however, after discussing the project with Jagex, it became clear that the timing for a physical trilogy was not opportune, but I am glad that I am still able to offer you a digital version instead for now, and to donate a big portion of the proceeds to charity (see other questions below).

Ever since I began writing the original PDF in 2011, I have spent at least 5k hours on researching and writing about the development of RuneScape. Altogether, this means that I have spent almost a decade – albeit with breaks – writing this trilogy for you. Combined with all the interviews that I was able to conduct, I am confident that I have been able to write a high-quality product that should perhaps even exceed your expectations in terms of historical and factual accuracy. I can assure you that there is no other source out there that matches the accuracy, the detail, the level of completion and the nostalgia that you can find in this trilogy. Don’t believe me? Check out the next question!

If you would like to have a look at several previews to assess the quality and the value of the information that you will find in the books, then you can head to the previews section on this website, where you will find over thirty previews! Nevertheless, I should stress that this is still a very, very small quantity of text in comparison with the 1k pages of the trilogy. Furthermore, these previews do not showcase any of what I consider to be the best information that is in the books, so if you like the previews, then you can expect even better in the trilogy!

In addition to that, the quiz with 33 questions on this website is essentially a preview as well because all answers can be found in the books, so perhaps you would like to try the quiz first!

In the preface of the trilogy, I explain that these three books are the result of a process that began almost a decade ago. Even though the three books were written entirely by myself, I could not have included certain information without the help of several other players, for which I owe them eternal gratitude. – Keep in mind that some players that are mentioned below may have changed their display name in the meantime.

I would like to start by emphatically expressing my gratitude towards Rab, who was one of the four alpha testers until the public release of RuneScape in 2001. My daily conversations with him for more than half a year have enabled me to add exclusive information to these books; information that likely does not exist anywhere else online, such as invaluable fun facts and stories about the pre-release alpha phase and RuneScape 1. He always seemed eager to share his knowledge, for which I am extremely grateful. For example, I remember waking up one day and seeing 93 unread messages that Rab had sent me! Of course, that was an exceptional day, but the point is that without Rab, some of the information about the early years would have been less detailed and less complete.  

Another RuneScape player whom I would like to thank is The Pain105/Ziyaxian for inspiring me to start this project back in 2011. It is because of his stories about the early days of the game that I had initially set out on the mission of learning as much as possible about the history of RuneScape, which initially led to a short thread on the RuneScape forums in 2011. Almost a decade later, that simple thread has evolved into the trilogy that you are currently reading.

Several people at Jagex deserve a mention here as well. More specifically, the social media team and the legal team. For more than a year before I made this trilogy available online, the social media team was incredibly helpful and pretty much did whatever I asked them to do to streamline my communication with Jagex. In addition to that, I should thank Jagex’s legal team for keeping up with the mountain of correspondence, for their willingness to spend a lot of their time on assisting me with the legal aspects of this project, and for granting me a licence for the sale of this trilogy.

I would also like to express my gratitude towards Andrew Gower, co-creator of RuneScape and co-founder of Jagex. Before I released my original PDF in 2015, he kindly allowed me to send him some emails with lots of questions; all of which he answered in great detail. A few years later, for these books, he also willingly responded to questions that I sent his way on Twitter. Some of his answers have been extremely helpful, so I am equally thankful for that.

For the PDF in 2015 and this 2020 trilogy, many players have been a source of major help in the form of information that I gained through interviewing them and/or in any other way that stood out. In alphabetical order, these players are 3   Hit   U, Castle Wars, Furry Wall, King Sabre, Leta, Lightning, Lovvel, MetalManiac9, November, Rab, Savolainen, Speljohan, Suomi, Thehate, Tks, Whitemagem and Zparanoid.

For minor contributions in the form of one-time help, proofreading or other limited help in the past eight years, I would also like to express my gratitude towards Agent, Aasiwat/Allar, Bluerose13x, Carosali, Council Tax, Cursed You, Dardan, Drew, Dusty 125, Gwynrwyn, Helring, His Lordship, Jaro, Jebrim, Jennica, Jitterbug, Lilyuffie88, Ltangel, M Oldfield, Mintella, mSL, Nat, Ore Sabre, Poultrychamp, Prezleek, Quest Luke, Rsvapd, Saiansha, Spoon, Uwfootball1, Vonte, Will Miss It, Yogosun, Zam, Zarfot, Zezima, and the MaSoRS clan.

Furthermore, I owe a lot of gratitude to RuneScape player Visa, for setting up the official website www.rshistory.com; and Volcaban, for drawing the cover artwork and taking care of the final cover design for all three books.

In addition to that, I should not forget to thank anyone else who has offered their help or supported this project in any other way, including the followers of my Facebook page, The History of RuneScape, who have given useful feedback about this trilogy in the months leading up to the release of these books. Thank you!

 

The sources that I have used include interviews/testimonials, archived websites and really anything that I could find on the Internet. You can find a list of the sources here.

Practical

Update: The trilogy was made available on this website in April of 2021, with a single one-time payment giving access to the PDF file that contains the trilogy. You can follow any news about this on my social media pages (see bottom of this page).

The decision not to publish this trilogy on Amazon/Kindle is related to the complexity of selling on Amazon when it comes to including charity:

1) A significant portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
2) Amazon has specific policies in place that complicate the sale of eBooks of which some of the proceeds go to charity. This is mainly because Amazon charges a significant amount for using their website to sell eBooks. In addition to that, Amazon is notoriously known for having hidden fees that could risk the feasibility of this project.
3) Another obstacle with Amazon is that Amazon collects all money but pays the third-party sellers (me) only every two weeks. Sometimes even later. This could become a practical issue further down the road for me personally.
4) Some of the trilogy’s contents (such as the screenshots and the many tables that it contains) may not be compatible with Kindle.
5) Combined, this means that publishing via Amazon makes the charity initiative a lot more complicated (perhaps even impossible, given that Amazon would also take a part of the money that is designated for charity); it would lead to having to reduce the charity-designated portion of the proceeds AND to having to charge a higher price for the digital trilogy to accommodate Amazon’s fees. This means that selling the trilogy on this website is much easier for me, comes with fewer financial risks for me, and is cheaper for you.

The trilogy of 1k pages was made available for just £4.99 (excl. 6% VAT). 20% of the before-tax proceeds (or roughly 40% post-tax) are donated to charity (more details about this in the questions below).

All payments are handled via this website. After confirming your purchase, you will receive access to the trilogy.

Payment options: PayPal or credit card.

All sales are final and non-refundable because you will be given access to the trilogy immediately after confirming your purchase. This is necessary measure also due to the involvement of charity and the subsequent possibility that your money may already have been passed on to the charities by the time you submit your request.

JAGEX AND THE CHARITIES

No. This eBook is an unofficial history of RuneScape, not associated with, endorsed by or affiliated with Jagex Limited or RuneScape in any way.

In addition to that, just in case you are wondering, Jagex has not paid me to write in an exclusively positive way about them, and they have not asked me or otherwise suggested to do anything like that either. Everything that you read in the trilogy is my honest and personal assessment and reflection of the game’s and the community’s evolution.

Yes. They are aware of the trilogy’s contents and the trilogy itself is made under licence from Jagex Limited, for distribution on this website (and on this website alone).

In addition to that, Jagex has selected the charities to which £1 per sale will go, and Jagex will also receive confirmation of each sale as well as of each donation that is made to the charities in order to ensure that the correct amount is donated.

As mentioned above, £1 from each sale will be shared equally across Jagex’s official Charity Partners. The charities may change in future in line with Jagex reviewing charity partnerships every two years. Currently, they are:
-Blueprint for All (inclusion)
-CPSL Mind (mental health)
-RAD (Rise Above The Disorder) (mental health)

You can find more information about these charities on Jagex’s website.

First question: I have been donating to charities for ten years now and I strongly believe that everyone can help to make the world a better place by giving to those who are in need; whether that be people, institutions (small and large), animals or just nature in general. I know that many people who do not currently donate to charity are not necessarily opposed to it but may just not know how to go about it or which charities to pick. That is one reason why I suggested to Jagex to involve charities in the sale of this trilogy, as it gives the RuneScape community an easy way of supporting charity initiatives that would benefit from even the smallest donation.

Note for full transparency: The £1 donation is not tax-deductible on my part because the Jagex charities are not registered in my country (Belgium). This means that the £1 that I donate per sale is subject to taxation and therefore incurs an additional cost on my part, equal to the tax rate that will apply (which could be anything up to 50%). Considering other costs as well (artistic drawings for the trilogy and website, transaction and currency-conversion fees per sale, social security contributions, website design and management), that explains why I could not go higher than £1 per sale as a donation to charity.

Second question: The charities that Jagex supports revolve around improving the mental health and wellbeing in general of young people. Having a history with mental health issues myself, and also having studied psychology, I am very aware of the enormously high prevalence rates of the main psychological pathologies (anxiety, depression etc.), which are even higher in the gaming community and among adolescents. That is why I fully support Jagex’s charities. It is also why I have since 2016 already been wanting to conduct my own scientific research about mental health in the gaming community and I hope that some of the money that I personally receive from selling this trilogy will finally enable me to do that. On a related note, any other money that I receive would help me a lot to finance my studies, so you would be helping me as well by purchasing the trilogy.

Privacy and security

The management team of this website takes reasonable precautions and follows the industry’s best practices to ensure that there is no alteration, destruction, disclosure, improper use or loss of information.

All information that is received from debit cards and credit cards is encrypted using SSL technology and is stored with AES-256 encryption. We also follow all PCI-DSS requirements and periodically run anti-spyware and anti-virus software to keep the website safe.

Furthermore, given that this trilogy is a digital product, you will not be asked to enter your address or anything else that is not necessary to handle and finalize your order.

All data that are necessary to process your payment will be destroyed as soon as the data are no longer needed. The exact “need” is here dependent on the extent to which I can destroy data without compromising: A) proof of your payment; B) sales data that I need in function of the agreement between Jagex and myself regarding both the sale of the trilogy itself and the periodically executed donations to the charities. In addition to the above, all personal data that are obtained through your purchase will not be used for anything other than the direct exchange of your monetary contribution for access to the trilogy.

Other

To stay up to date and to be among the first people to become aware of any news, you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

As a side note, you can also join the Facebook group RuneScape Memories, which I manage, to revel in nostalgia and to share all your memories. I also invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. If the sales of this trilogy indicate that lots of people are interested in the history of RuneScape, then I will consider making videos about all this as well!

Update 2025: The Facebook page “The History of RuneScape” has been temporarily made unavailable.