RuneScape:Wiki Post/Editorials/The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers
Written by: Mr. Garrison

The taxi business is significant in RuneScape despite there being no road vehicles available. Several players simply right-click on their taxi and they are taken to wherever while they sit back and relax. Some try to make money using this method, demanding fees for their work, though some of these are just scams. There are however, real taxis out there who are willing to help players find Points A, B, and C, and I was once one of them.

I got into it all when I helped someone get from Lumbridge to the elusive Draynor Village and the dangerous lands surrounding it (well, for two low-levelled players this was the case). They were really thankful for my help, so I started doing free journeys to anywhere on the free-to-play map (aside from the Wilderness). Despite the occasional wind-ups from people who didn't want to hear, it was all good, until I became more focused on helping myself.

At some point last year, I became involved with one of the forum-based taxi companies. Despite flunking the test (this was way before the multi-tab Internet Explorers), they let me through after I claimed my computer was slow, or something like that. This one used the basis that people would give you coins before your journey and then at the end. This made me a few thousand coins and also helped my own navigation of the map. Then I met a player who wanted to go to Varrock, though I had my suspicions since he kept talking about hacking accounts and such, though I doubt he actually did know (the swine!). He gave me the starting fee, but upon reaching the destination he said something about not wanting to go there and then being smug and using words the censor loathes. So I did the honest thing and reported him, so the player ended up having wasted their time going to Varrock, paying me money and then getting banned, leaving me richer, yet slightly alarmed.

In the coming weeks I came to the conclusion that you can't trust other players when it comes to one-sided trading, and you're better off making money the more conventional ways. Anyway, if you're going to taxi people, do it from the kindness of your heart. Anyway, at least nobody will trick me out of money, so now I'm off to speak to that poor level three player who got hacked and needs to borrow 3000 coins from me...