Glitch

A glitch (also known as a bug) is a fault in the program that causes it to function improperly. The severity of glitches can vary. One glitch caused a player's username to appear as "null" immediately after login; another hard-to-find, yet serious bug allowed players to kill other players outside of the Wilderness. After the temporary release of RuneScape Classic in 2009, the "null" name glitch was still in effect.

Abuse of glitches is a direct breach of the 'Bug Abuse' rule under the Honour section of the Rules of RuneScape. The punishment for guilty parties varies depending on the particular glitch and the degree to which it was abused. For example, minor graphical glitches, such as 'stealing furniture' from other players' houses, will generally result in a short-term ban or mute. On the other hand, more severe glitches, such as the Falador Massacre that allowed players to attack other players outside of the Wilderness, warrant longer (and usually permanent) bans or mutes.

Jagex has recommended that players who find a bug or glitch in RuneScape should report it to Jagex immediately via the "Submit a Bug Report" interface on the RuneScape main page.

Falador Massacre
One infamous example of bug abuse was the Falador Massacre - also called the World 111 Glitch, the World 111 Massacre or the 6/6/6 massacre. On the day of 6 June 2006, the first player to reach 99 Construction hosted a celebration party at his house. He eventually expelled all of the guests because the number of guests was causing large amounts of lag. There were massive amounts of people at the party, and when he expelled all of them, some incorrectly assume that he overloaded the server, although this was not the case. It was, rather, an error in the coding of the Construction skill. Because he did not turn off PvP (player vs player) mode, those in the dungeon and combat ring were able to attack and kill any player anywhere. This resulted in a PKing rampage that caused many deaths, the loss of items that Jagex could not replace, and the permanent banning of most participants. Although the player was not banned for the massacre, he was later banned for real-world trading.. The items could not be replaced because of the numerous false claims of lost items from players who had not even logged on at the time.

Mods tried to tell people to bank their items and teleport, but they were barely seen among the massive amount of followers.

This bug remained on RuneScape for about an hour and was fixed immediately after it became known to Jagex. A green partyhat was thought to be looted by Durial321, he later wore it while massacring the unaware players. Mod Murdoch eventually banned the massacre leaders.

Noclip Glitch
In mid 2008, a bug known as the Noclip Glitch was discovered by numerous players. This bug gave them certain properties of "noclipping" (the ability to walk through walls) and performed many unusual bugs such as getting a level 3 player into the Legends' Guild. After months of the same few players being spotted in inaccessible areas, Jagex finally patched it in around the 8th of November. Most, if not all, of the bug abusers who performed this bug are now banned.

μ Glitch
Another infamous glitch would be the μ glitch. When a player pressed Alt+0181, the μ character was created (The Greek letter mu, used for the prefix "micro"). A player who typed in this character and actually said it would find that all nearby players including him/herself would be automatically logged out from RuneScape. Some players abused it horrifically in PVP worlds and Bounty Hunter to gain extremely unfair advantages, by putting their chat on "off" then saying the character μ. This would crash the other players, leaving the abuser to kill the other players without resistance. However, players could avoid the glitch by turning all chat filters to "Off". This glitch was fixed removing the µ character from the game, and in a hidden update the character was placed back.

Player (level: 1) Glitch
In the house containing the Customs Sergeant in Rimmington, one could right click the floor by the sergeant to see an invisible level 1 'Player', which gives you an examine option saying "Invisible player". This glitch was fixed during a patch in May 2009. This also seems to occur when a player summons the magic elemental game in a Player owned house.

Partyhat duplication glitch
The partyhat duplication glitch is one of the most infamous glitches in RuneScape. A player had been experimenting with RuneScape by using a third-party program called AutoRune in an attempt to simply trade the scythe. Although the player never managed to trade the scythe, he did discover how to create any non-stackable item. Therefore, the glitch did not duplicate existing items, but instead created new ones. The use of any such third party software to gain any advantage was, of course, against the rules of RuneScape. The glitch was performed on a massive scale over the period of a few days, drastically affecting the RuneScape economy.

The rares market was affected the most, with pink/purple partyhats dropping from the most expensive partyhats to the cheapest. Jagex didn't know how the items were being created and therefore offered a reward of lifetime membership to the first player who could tell them how the glitch worked. A few players came forward, and the glitch was fixed with the knowledge they provided; the players who did come forward were permanently banned.

Game engine update glitch
On 9 June 2009, numerous glitches were found in the game after Jagex has changed the game's engine. During that time players could attack all monsters and these would not return with any sort of damage, including the greatest of bosses like Corporeal beast, or even the simple ones like Goblins. This also included non-responsive NPC's such as bankers and random events, which left players stranded inside random events such as the Sandwich lady and Giles/Niles/Miles. The glitches were fixed a few hours after they had been confirmed by Jagex.

Penguin Hide and Seek Glitch
The Penguin Hide and Seek Glitch was a glitch that occurred on 28 January 2009, on World 60, involving the Distractions and Diversions Penguin Hide and Seek. Players discovered the glitch when they found out they could spy on the same penguin over and over again. As a result, players could gain 50 points in a short amount of time, visit Larry, trade them in for experience, and then return to the penguin to earn more points. More than a hundred accounts were permanently banned and several more accounts were temporarily banned as a result of this bug.

Nothing
Nothing is something that can be examined while in the skill hall of a player-owned house when in building mode, or out of it, so it can only be seen by members. When examined, it states, "There's nothing there," or, "An eye-wrenching nexus of utter negation!" It is most likely there due to technical reasons which cannot be removed.

Gallery
Glitch Glitch