Recruit a Friend

Refer a Friend programme is a new feature introduced 18 August 2011. Players can invite a friend to join RuneScape and they both receive experience multipliers.

How it works
If the player being invited subscribes within two weeks upon joining, the inviter will gain a 10% experience boost for one week. Only five boosts can be received within a year. Also, this means that the invitee will get twice as much experience in any skill level 30 or below.

The referring process only works for players who have created a new account that has not played RuneScape previously. The starting player will receive a cracker which contain starter items such as weapons, armour, cake and 500 coins.

The player can even refer another account he/she owns such as a pure or hybrid character. The 10% boost only applies if the other account is subscribed as well. The bonus XP is shown on the XP globe, but the benefits will not stack with a Bonus XP weekend.

Controversy
The update was met with overwhelming negative reception on the forums as players accused Jagex of real-world trading, as players can gain the bonus experience by buying membership for an alternate account rather than a friend. Complaints were similar to that of the Flagstaff of Festivities and the Member's Loyalty Programme.

The controversy that Jagex is breaking its own "real world trading" rule spread to a riot on a members, World 66 and also, World 79. As is the norm in past riots players spammed and chanted sayings such as, "We pay we say", "Ban the bots!" or "Welcome to Botscape" and generally did anything they could to add to the chaos. A popular way to add to the chaos was by setting up cannons and summoning large familiars such as titans, thus creating large amounts of lag on slower computers. Many players also planted flowers and put on overhead prayers such as Smite and Wrath to show their anger. There has also been massive spamming on the forums with over 50 pages of threads being locked, many players referring to a past quote by Mark Gerhard in their arguments against the programme.

"One of our fundamental philosophies is that having fun is more important to us than making as much money as possible. " - Mod MMG