Player killing

Player killing (PKing), or player vs. player (PvP), is the act of two or more players in combat, instead of a player and a monster or NPCs. At present, there are only seven places in RuneScape where player killing can occur: Bounty Hunter, Castle Wars, Duel Arena, a player-owned house's combat ring or Dungeon, Clan Wars, and the TzHaar Fight Pits. However, there was a time in the game's history that the entire map was open for player killing.

Combat Areas
There are two forms of combat area found throughout the land of RuneScape - single and multicombat areas.


 * Single combat restricts players such that they can only fight one-on-one. In a multicombat zone, multiple players can attack multiple targets.


 * Multi-combat areas are identified upon entering by two crossed swords appearing in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. Anywhere else is classed as a single combat area. Multicombat areas are especially dangerous in the Wilderness, as more than one player can attack you at one time. These areas are beneficial to groups of players, as it allows them to pile a player and greatly decrease the opponent's chance of escape or allow a group of lower level players to fight a higher level player at the same time.

Bounty Hunter
Main article: Bounty hunter

The Non-Safe Mini Game known as Bounty hunter was introduced into the wilderness on December 10, 2007. This game allows players of three categories to fight off in a free for all to the death to obtain each others' items. The Level categories are in Free-to-play 3-55 (low), 50-100 (med), 95+ (high) and in Pay-to-Play 3-67 (low), 62-112 (med), 95+ (high). This is the only PK that allows you to obtain someone's items as a reward for killing them, Replaced the Wilderness on December 10, 2007. See Also: Mod Hasmo Riot and Pay to Pk Riot

Castle Wars
Main article: Castle Wars

Killing other players in Castle Wars is technically only a secondary objective to getting the enemy flag; however, many players fight amongst themselves with no regard to the team objective. Castle Wars can only be accessed by members.

Duelling and the Duel Arena
Main article: Duel Arena

This is a place where players can fight in a controlled environment and choose rules to their fight. They can also place a wager on their fight. The duel arena has inspired a new type of character called a staker. These characters are created to make money by winning duels.

In RuneScape Classic, there is still a third option available when right-clicking on a player in normal areas. The option, "Duel-with", allows the player to send a duel request as if in the Duel Arena of the modern RuneScape game. There is also even the option to stake items, and to set specific rules in the duel, though this is very limited compared to the modern Duel Arena's rules. Such options include "No Retreating", "No Magic", "No Prayer", and "No Weapons". Once the rules are set and the stakes are agreed on, the players then proceed to fight under the condition of the given rules, if any.

On 20 November 2007 JaGex made a cap to the amount a player can win in a space of 15 minutes in a staked duel, which is set to 3,000 gold coins to make it harder for real-world traders to unfairly use the Duel Arena as a covert way of transferring items. This also applies to the 'player value' of items which will change according to any market fluctuations in the Grand Exchange. This resulted into the Duel Arena Riot as well as rendering stakers useless.

The key difference between wilderness player killing and this form of duelling is that players cannot obtain the skull and crossbones effect upon attacking another player in a duel, and will not lose any of their items if they should happen to die.

TzHaar Fight Pit
Main article: TzHaar Fight Pit

The TzHaar Fight Pit is a minigame in which players fight against each other in a free-for-all arena. The winner is crowned champion once everyone else has been killed. Since killing someone ejects them out of the arena and into the waiting area, the first rule is all one needs to remember.

Combat styles
Main article: Combat classes

Melee Fighters

 * Advantages - For those who want to get up close and homicidal, melee is the preferred option. This involves, generally, bulkier weapons and armour than the light and flimsy range and mage options. Not only does this make you look more impressive, it gives the adventurer a strong advantage over Ranged attacks. Arrows and bolts will have a hard time piercing armour, allowing the melee fighter to get close enough to do serious damage.


 * Disadvantages- The 'but' comes when encountering mages. Well-constructed melee armour does a good job of deflecting blades and bolts, but also manages to strongly conduct Magic attacks, increasing the effects and damage caused by an opportunist magician. An experienced spellcaster can also paralyse a melee combatant with a 'holding' spell and then attack from afar. Mages are melee fighters' arch enemies, and so should be avoided.

Mages

 * Advantages - The mage may look like an easy target, wearing what could be described as a glorified flannel, but beneath their soft and stabbable exterior lies a dangerous opponent. A combination of 'holding' spells and Magic's conductivity through armour makes the mage strongly anti-melee, often keeping a hand-to-hand combatant incapacitated and highly vulnerable.


 * Disadvantages - Soft-to-the-touch cloaks and robes make the mage a tempting target for passing rangers. With little Ranged Defence, this often makes the mage a walking range or melee target - and 'holding' spells will only encourage rangers to shoot from afar.

Rangers

 * Advantages - With light, articulated armour for optimum ranging, the ranger is able to substitute what his or her armour lacks in physical Defence with magical resistance. This makes the ranger a strong adversary for the mage, who will find a foe that is well defended against magical attacks while also being able to attack from long distances.


 * Disadvantages - To keep nimble, the ranger has sacrificed a large element of his or her armour's melee Defence. A hand-to-hand combatant will be able to aim attacks at the joints and other unprotected areas with relative ease, as long as they can get close enough to do so.

Anti-Player Killing (Obsolete)
Anti-Player Killing (Anti-PKing) (Sometimes called PKKing, or Player Killer Killing.) was the act of killing a Pker. Anti-Pking was around for as long as PKing was. An Anti-PKer is someone who only ever attacked a PKer's (i.e. Only attacking players with skulls) and never attacks anyone else. Some RuneScape clans were "Anti-PKing clans" and only ever killed PKers. Ironically, Anti-PKers often made more money than PKers, as the players they kill were skulled with drops from other players. Sadly these noble people are gone. Due to Pking in the wilderness being transfered into bounty hunter only PKers are at the PKing areas (See Bounty Hunter). Now people dont have to deal with PKers unless they are PKing also.

History
Originally, after the release of RuneScape Classic, players could select whether or not to play as player killer characters. Players could switch from player-killer mode to non-player-killer mode (in which the character could not attack or be attacked by other players) three times, after which they remained at their chosen setting forever. PvP combat could take place at most locations in the RuneScape world. The rules of combat were the same as in the modern Wilderness. Lumbridge was designated as a neutral area in which players could not attack each other; this was done to prevent a practice called "spawn camping", in which recently killed players were immediately killed again as soon as they respawned. In addition to this restriction, NPC Guards and White Knights patrolled the cities of Varrock and Falador, breaking up PvP battles by attacking the aggressor. These guard units were limited in number, however, and if all the units in a city were already in combat, PvP combat could go on freely.

On 13 August 2001, this system was replaced by the Wilderness, partly due to complaints from many players who were unable to leave Lumbridge without being attacked by hordes of hostile player killers. Later, additional areas where PvP combat is allowed were added.

On 10 December 2007 Jagex made a highly controversial update that made pking in the wilderness only possible at the Bounty Hunter (not safe), Clan Wars (safe), and the Fist of Guthix (safe). Runescape lost over 20% of its players due to this update.