By: Olivia Visser, Copy Editor
My first encounter with swear words didn’t even involve real swear words — but it was just as horrifying to my eight-year-old self. Yes, I was eight when I first started playing Runescape, and yes, it was probably evident to every teenage and adult player that I was just a kid. Believe it or not, I was hardly even aware of the game’s skill-building or combat components at the time. I was more interested in farming coins, buying clothing, and mining for armour that would see no actual use. So, you can probably understand why I found the now-retired player-vs-player (PvP) component so very frustrating as a child.
Player killing was a common occurrence on old-school Runescape servers. In the Wilderness, which is where I spent much of my time, killing a player would grant you access to the loot they dropped when they died. Given that I was eight when I started playing, I had little understanding of PvP and instead thought that I was being relentlessly bullied for no reason. Maybe they could tell my age, I thought. Maybe they knew I lied about being 13. To be fair, they probably did know, if only because my instinct was to run every time and beg them to leave me alone. Can’t blame ‘em.
Just imagine the sheer horror I experienced when one player chased after me exclaiming “*******!” Thank god I had the profanity filter turned on, but I’ll be honest, the stars weren’t very assuring either. And yes, this player camped out in the area, waiting for me to return and killing me at least three times when I arrived to grab my items. At some point, I remember exiting my browser and stepping back from my computer anxiously. There was no way my mom could find out I was lying about my age and playing with teenagers (more like being chased by, but you get the point).
Despite my unease at the time, I take some solace in knowing that the damage the internet inflicted on my younger self was largely limited to some stars and tomfoolery by faceless avatars. No TikTok, no Instagram, no whatever else kids now grow up with. All I had to do was open up Internet Explorer to be transported into what felt like a new dimension. It was the novelty of it all that made my eight-year-old brain chirp with wonder. It was also this novelty that led games like Runescape to be quickly eaten up by the ever-evolving internet. Make browser-based MMORPGs cool again, damnit!
