Free-to-play

Free-to-play, also known as F2P, is the free version of RuneScape where no payment to Jagex is required to play. Players who play the free version of RuneScape are known as "free players", "F2Ps", or "non-members". This is in contrast to members, who pay a fee for access to a much larger map and a multitude of skills, items, quests, and activities, which are not available to Free to Play users.

Overview
The free part of RuneScape is described by Jagex as being the game with close to 5,000 hours of skills to train to reach the maximum level of 99, while members is considered the expansion version. There is no limit to the amount of time players are able to continue playing for free, although free players are only able to enjoy about 20% of everything RuneScape has to offer. Free players can upgrade and become a member at any time by paying a small fee, granting access to more skills, locations, items, etc.

Formerly, the free-to-play version of RuneScape was its only form, prior to the introduction of members and the subsequent creation of RuneScape 2. The pay-to-play servers were intended by Jagex to benefit all of the RuneScape community.

With respect to gameplay, the majority of new updates within RuneScape are restricted to pay-to-play members with the exception of updates concerning graphics or the addition of new servers. When the members service was announced, Jagex acknowledged that the free version would not be updated as often as it used to be.

The following are free-version updates that have been made available since the launch of the members service:


 * RuneScape 2 in March 2004
 * Various graphics updates
 * Most holiday events
 * Some community events, such as the Cryptic Clue Fest
 * Item certificates (the prelude to bank notes) in December 2001
 * Runecrafting and the Rune Mysteries quest, along with RuneScape 2
 * The Tutorial Island and its later incarnations
 * The Stronghold of Security in July 2006
 * The Party Room
 * The Grand Exchange in November 2007
 * The Duel Arena in November 2007
 * The Misthalin Training Centre of Excellence and Stronghold of Player Safety
 * Fist of Guthix
 * RuneScape High Detail (access to resizeable window)
 * Lumbridge and Draynor Tasks (previously called the Lumbridge/Draynor achievement diary), as well as a few new Tasks that were introduced when Achievement Diaries were renamed tasks.
 * The Runecrafting Guild in August 2008
 * The Crafting Guild in May 2002
 * The Make-Over Mage in May 2002
 * The Mining Guild
 * Corrupt dragon equipment.
 * Ability to purchase and wear team capes
 * Beefy Bill, who sells various items
 * Musicians and resting feature.
 * The Blood Pact quest. If it is completed, access to the Lumbridge Catacombs dungeon is granted. Furthermore, the ability/possibility to obtain the Mask of Dragith Nurn, F2P headgear providing a +1 attack bonus to stab/slash/crush/range/magic.
 * Access to Hank's fishing store in Lumbridge (introduced to Runescape on 17 September 2009)
 * Tools for games.
 * The Dungeoneering skill and some resource dungeons.
 * Ability to use the anvil (introduced 24 June 2010) next to the Lumbridge Furnace.
 * Quest Swept Away made permanently available to F2P on 24 June 2010 (was temporarily available to free users in 2008).
 * Quest Myths of the White Lands made permanently available to F2P on 24 June 2010 (was temporarily available to free users in 2008).
 * Gunnar's Ground quest (and upon completion of this quest, swanky boots, footgear providing a +1 mage attack bonus)
 * Full access to the 25 August 2010 updated makeover available at Thessalia. (This update brought a larger selection available in customizing the clothing of one's avatar. In addition, changing the base clothing of one's avatar decreased in price from 1000 gp to no cost at all.)
 * Use of the Wind Rush spell, which costs two air runes to cast (none if a Staff of Air is equipped).
 * Use of the sling, a two-handed ranged weapon requiring no ammunition to use. The sling is the only free-to-play ranged weapon that does not require ammunition to use.
 * Make All feature for skills where numerous objects can be made, in skills such as: Cooking, Crafting, Smithing (Smelting bars in a furnace), etc.
 * Bank-Equip screen update, where one can change armour while inside one's bank account. This update also came with the Bank-Compare object ability, where a person in their bank screen can compare two different items that a player has equipped, in their inventory, or in one's bank account.
 * Ability to craft clay rings, and the ability to obtain and wear a Ring of Devotion, which can be obtained by having Father Aereck bless a clay ring. The Ring of Devotion gives a universal +1 defence bonus.
 * The ability to craft and use pottery urns to gain extra experience in certain skills (15 February 2011 update), access to the water well within and to the five new clay rocks south of Barbarian Village (Gunnarsgrunn)
 * Access to the Artisans Workshop to train smithing (8 March 2011 Update).
 * Access to building canoes as it was a members' feature before. (15 February 2011 Update).
 * For those belonging to a Runescape clan, the Clan Vexilium, which provides unlimited, free teleports to Falador and the closest teleportation spot to Rimmington for F2P.
 * Money pouch (6 December 2011 Update).
 * Toolbelt (6 December 2011 Update).
 * Access to the Squeal of Fortune, which can be done once daily.
 * Access to the Lodestone Network teleportation system (13 March 2012 Update).
 * Dungeoneering toolbelt (11 April 2012 Update).
 * Runespan (30 April 2012 Update).

In addition to the differences described above, the majority of outside-of-game features (such as the official RuneScape forums) are open to members only, but also to F2P players with at least 2.5 million total experience or a skill total of 350. This requirement was 12.5 million total experience before an update by Jagex on 15 March 2010.

Advantages


Listed below are some of the advantages non-members have over members.

No monetary cost
Players are not required to pay, nor is there a cut-off period. Free-to-play now acts as a less substantial game to new players: some may find they do not enjoy the game, and are able to leave without losing money. In addition, others may use the free-to-play version to learn the basic skills of the game before creating themselves a new account with membership or may even play as a free player without ever getting membership.

Simpler play
As restricted as the play is, players are able to devote more time to social or fun activities. That is, free players can relax, not feeling as if they are wasting in-game time (and the money spent in order to get this time) they could use to train, make money, or do quests. In addition, most quests or monsters in free-to-play are more moderate compared to exigent members-only monsters and quests, allowing new players to easily and gradually get a handle on the game. Simpler play also means that there is less distraction in F2P than in P2P, allowing F2P players to more easily focus on their goal.

Greater sense of achievement
Because skills are generally easier to train in Pay-to-play, some players consider getting a certain goal on the free version to be a more prominent achievement than getting it on a member's server. Players who have been F2P for long periods of time may see switching to P2P as "lowering the difficulty," and thus devaluing their achievement.

Less chance of death
Monsters in the free-to-play world are generally not as powerful as monsters found in member worlds. An example being dragons, of which only Elvarg appear in the free-to-play world, while powerful and deadly dragons like green, blue, red, black, bronze, iron, steel, mithril and frost dragons and even the King Black Dragon dropping some of the most valued loot in the game can be found throughout the Wilderness and other areas in members-only worlds. Additionally, free players do not have to worry about contracting poison or disease, which can weaken or even kill P2P players without them realising.

Disadvantages
There are numerous disadvantages, which Jagex has begun to address.

Smaller world area
The world which free players have access to is very small compared to what members have. Free players have access to 20% of RuneScape, whereas members have access to the entire world, including areas unlocked throughout their membership. Free players only have access to Varrock, Rimmington, Falador, Draynor Village, Al Kharid, Edgeville, Lumbridge, Bandit Camp (Wilderness), Port Sarim, the free-to-play section of Wilderness, Gunnarsgrunn, Musa Point (Karamja), Crandor and Daemonheim floors up to 35.

Limited resources
Most areas in the free-to-play worlds only contain a small portion of what is available, so many natural resources, such as logs, raw fish, and runes are only able to be produced at lower levels, thus meaning slower training and less money-making.

Botters and Real World Traders also abound every aspect of the F2P economy. This extra supply lowers the price of the F2P resources, as well as making those resources harder to acquire due to the high Botting competition at Mining, Woodcutting and Fishing locations.

No Capes of Accomplishment
Free players can train skills to 99, but cannot buy any Skill capes, which are only available to members. Thus free players are unable to display their mastery in a skill with clothing. There has been much debate on whether non-members should be allowed to purchase Skill capes or not. Many members disapprove the idea of releasing Skill capes to non-members as they feel this should stay a member-only benefit.

Limited access to skills
Free players can only train 16 of the 25 skills. Free players also have limited access to these skills. This generally slows down the ability of free players to increase their levels, thus inhibiting their enjoyment of the game through repetitive tasks of the same element, quickly losing the interest of potential skill trainers.

Fewer items
Free players have access to less than a thousand items, whereas members have access to many thousands of others. In addition, many of the items members can access are more powerful, have unique abilities like special attacks or armour set effects, are more valuable, or even a combination of all three. Members items in free worlds cannot be traded or wielded/worn until moved to a member’s server. The item(s) may still be banked, however.

Fewer Spells
There are far fewer magical spells available to cast, which limits the max damage which a player can deal and non-combat spells which can be cast. Free players also do not have access to certain teleports, i.e those that would take them to a members area, or the Lunar and Ancient Spellbooks.

Less profit per hour
Members can easily make money fast with high skills. For example, a member who has the ability to hunt Grenwalls can easily make over millions of coins per hour, while a free player cutting yews will make around 100k or so per hour depending on their Woodcutting level. This shows the large difference in profit between F2P and P2P.

Less Advantages
Before the return of Free trade and the PvP wilderness, there used to be a bank in the Wilderness Volcano, allowing the use of players to bank there. After the Free trade update, the bank was removed, preventing free players to bank anywhere in the wilderness, the nearest bank either Daemonheim or Edgeville. Members also have access to the bank in the Mage Arena.

Free players are also unable to use agility shortcuts, such as the Grand Exchange tunnel, they are unable to restore energy as fast as members, and the only energy-restoring item for free players is the Explorer's ring.

Fewer and weaker equipment
Free players cannot use as many or as strong weapons and armour as members can. For example, the highest level armour free players can wear is Corrupt dragon armour (armour and weapons of this last 30 minutes, at which point they crumble and disappear, so many prefer rune) but, also Gravite weapons, albeit which takes a large amount of time to acquire and is costly to repair, while members have access to much more advanced equipment, such as Dragon equipment, various types of dragonhide armour, Mystic armour and Barrows equipment. This dramatically changes the battlefields for free players as they have less access to quick kills (i.e. poison and ancient spells) and weaker supplies for skill training, along with less kills per trip unlike members. Players with a Chaotic rapier can easily kill a Revenant dark beast while for a Free player they would probably take too long or be dead.

Slower training
Free players do not have access to as many locations which allow for fast levelling of skills/combat. However, the free worlds are often less crowded. Also, for most skills, there are fewer methods that allow training. For example, training prayer on members is about 20 times faster (given the right resources). Free players also do not get to participate in the Bonus XP weekends. Players who have reached a combat level of 90 or above in F2P worlds receive only half of the Dungeoneering experience that they would in a P2P world, considerably slowing down training in F2P worlds (even if they can avoid this penalty by training together with proper lower players in team, making the combat level average lesser than 90).

Lower maximum combat level
When Summoning was released in January 2008, free-to-play players continued to have a maximum combat level of 126, whereas members can train up to level 138 combat. This is because Summoning is a members only skill and adds to combat as well, calculated similarly to the Prayer skill. However, the raised combat level due to Summoning will not appear in free-to-play worlds.

Less Bank Space/Grand Exchange slots
Free players have a 68-item maximum in their banks (78 if they have registered their email addresses), which is far less than the bank space that members receive, 468 as of December 2011 (546 if they have registered their email addresses). Additionally, members can store numerous items in their player-owned houses, such as random event costumes and various others, saving space on their bank load and making a nice retreat from normal game-play.

Free players only have two spaces for Grand Exchange offers whilst members have six; this naturally makes it more difficult for free players to trade items via the Grand Exchange. For free players that have more than the maximum amount of coins allowed in the game, there is no access to some of the "better" storage items, such as Spirit Shards.

Members who have their membership expired will have their F2P and P2P items separated, making it easier to prevent members from dropping valuable P2P or sell items to get F2P items in the bank. (for example, 50/78 is F2P items, and 200/458 are member items)

Fewer music tracks
To unlock the Air guitar emote you need to unlock 500 songs in the RuneScape music player, which can only be done by members. Currently about 216 songs are attainable in F2P in contrast to 821 (and slowly increasing with additional updates) in P2P. However, former members who have less than 500 songs can still achieve Air Guitar if they haven't completed the free version of Daemonheim, which has enough tracks to get a character with about 460 tracks unlocked to 500 tracks unlocked, though this really only works if the tracks unlocked is 460 or higher. Each room type of Daemonhiem has 10 regular tracks, and there are 4 or 5 room types available on Free-Play, thus 40-50 music tracks unlocked in Daemonheim non-boss rooms.

Fewer quests
Although there are 19 free quests, free quests are released very rarely - the last free quest released other than the now unused tutorial quest, Unstable Foundations, was Gunnar's Ground, on the 20th of September 2010. In contrast to this, members get an average of 1-2 quests every month. During a holiday event, a holiday related quest may temporarily be available for free players until the event is over. Due to update on 24 June 2010, however 2 holiday quests (Myths of the White Lands, and Swept Away) are now permanently returned to free players.

Also, free players cannot sort their quest list to Progress or Difficulty like members can; the only options available are Free/Members.

Less attention
The same set of rules apply to members and non members alike.

Despite some assumptions as to Jagex's real intentions on fighting in-game crime, there are no real cases to prove Jagex ignores free players in their reviews. Jagex has revealed many times the thousands of accounts banned, free-to-play and pay-to-play alike, thus free players should always take caution while playing and should often refresh themselves on the rules of conduct.

Money-making methods
Free players have severely limited amount of methods to earn money compared to members. By definition, members have access to much more game content, activities, more areas, and more profitable ways to train their skills, whereas free players often find themselves crowded in mundane tasks and activities. This puts a strain on well-known free-to-play money-making opportunities, as non-members are forced to contend with crowded resource areas and are able to sell only a small fraction of the possible amount of goods available to members.

Examples of non-member money-making activities include Lobster fishing, woodcutting Yew trees, mining coal, and smelting bars. For members, there is much more content: higher-cost items obtainable throughout PvP and minigames (i.e. Treasure Trails, Barrows), a greater variety of items for trading opportunities, easier skilling locations with shorter banking distances, such as the Catherby fishing spots compared to those in Karamja. Members also have access to a truly massive orrey of monsters that drop various exspensive items, such as Mithril dragons and their Dragon Full Helm drops, the corporeal beast and its sigil drops, along with numerous slayer monsters and the Godwars bosses. Because of this, members can get a much higher average gold and exp gain per hour compared to F2P methods.

Unbalanced Combat Triangle/Less equality in the battlefield
Members' servers allow much variation between each combat class. F2P is greatly warrior-based. Rangers only have a maximum ranged hit of 197 (with Eagle Eye prayer and the Amulet of Zealots). Mages do not have access to Ancient Magicks and Lunar Spells as well as being restricted to lower levelled spells in the standard spellbook (Bind and Blast spells for example, are the highest level spells accessible in F2P), and have little damage potential in free-to-play, with a maximum hit of 250 (using the arcane blast necklace, gravite staff, magical blastbox and a Wizard Mind Bomb whilst casting the Fire Blast spell) instead of the long held max hit of 160 without the time and cost of expensive Dungeoneering rewards. Free players do not have access to entire standard prayers or the Ancient Curses.

Though restriction towards higher level armour is susceptible to Melee as well, higher bonuses and the general demand for a one-time cost of full Rune equipment outweighs the factors attributing to that of a Mage's and Ranger's potential use in F2P activities. This allows for less variation in the battlefield as it causes many F2P players to preferentially use Melee in the advantage of a less balanced F2P Combat Triangle. This is because there isn't any excellent mage armor (only Runecrafter Robes or standard blue/black Magic Robes), and the best ranged armor is Green Dragonhide, which isn't that strong aganist slash/stab attacks.

Range and mage equipment are strictly limited. There are no combination runes/stafffs (such as Lava Runes), no robes with excellent mage stats. Rangers are only able to use up to Maple bows (however these may be sighted for more accuracy) and Adamant arrows. In Dungeoneering, Ranged and Mage provide poor offense, making Melee the superior combat skill there.

Rare updates
The Free to Play game is very rarely updated. There have been extremely few new free-to-play Quests or areas released since the launch of the pay-to-play version of Runescape (the exceptions listed above). Generally, the only updates which affect non-members are interface, music, graphic updates, and consistent additions of free-to-play servers. Usually, the only other updates involve the security and safety of players' accounts. Holiday items and other items are released after updates during Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and April Fool's Day for free players. Free players have access to all of these items with the exception being the Wintumber tree that was released in conjunction with the Reindeer hat during Christmas 2006, the icicle crown, which was released during Easter 2011, and the hourglass, which was released during the 2011 Hallowe'en Event. Jagex has also released two members-only pets as Holiday Event rewards, Mackers the turkey, from Thanksgiving 2011, and Sparkles the tinsel snake, from Christmas 2011. Recently, Mod MMG has revealed that Jagex plans to release F2P updates more regularly. After this the Dungeoneering skill was soon added to the game, he had kept his word, but some people are not sure whether or not F2P will be included in any major updates any time soon. As well as this, Free trade was added back into the game and staking has been upped to a 40k limit.

Advertisements
The free game also has large advertisements across the top of the page above the Java player. While the majority of these are not exceedingly irritating, some of the ads flash and have annoying sounds that cannot be turned off. Some ads expand and can cover most of the screen if the cursor is accidentally moved over the ad, making it harder to focus on the game. Others can cause some computers to slow down and/or cause lag. The ads can also cause a problem as far as spyware is concerned and some anti-spyware programs often flag the RuneScape ad cookies for deletion, sometimes trying to block the RuneScape ad server, which is a violation of the rule that forbids ad blockers. To prevent crazy overrides with these ads and their capability of lagging the player’s game play, you can right-click the ad, turn the repetitive actions off, and zoom in on a black area to create an appearance of having no ad. In order to reduce the impact on performance by an advert, it can be right-clicked and "Low" selected under the "Quality" sub-menu, however this will only work on Flash-based adverts. Another way to minimise offensive advertisements is to use the "Text Size" feature on most browsers, and hold "CTRL" while scrolling down with the mouse scroll-wheel. Usually these tactics are not needed as most advertisements shown are polite.

Also, it is possible to eliminate ads altogether by disabling both images and Flash, but this will break other web sites and it could possibly get you banned because it is debatable whether or not this practice is "ad blocking". However, many people would state that it is illegal for Jagex (or any company) to force people to install Flash or certain image codecs when they are not required for operation of the actual game, and some people may not even be allowed to install these programs because of legal reasons, such as a court ruling.

If Flash adverts happen to slow your computer down, just disable Flash. You should not get in trouble for doing this because you are still allowing static adverts to load, and therefore aren't breaking the rules.

Though extremely rare, offensive ads can be seen in the space above the RuneScape screen. Please note however, that offensive adverts can be reported on the RuneScape main page.

Rule-breakers
Due in part to the larger crowds and the easiness of creating an account without having to pay money, free-to-play is prone to contain more scammers and general rule-breakers. Most notable of these are the macro users: players using programs to repeat specific tasks. This is especially common at areas containing Yew trees. Most scammers make accounts with long or hard to remember user names (i.e. a combination of letters and numbers from different parts of the keyboard). So that if the player scams someone, the scammed player would not remember the username to report (Runescape have now fixed this with the "right click report" option in the game settings tab). Care should be taken around suspicious players in free worlds, for this reason. This can also appear frequently in member worlds, even though limited (such as Green Dragon Bots).

Community/website features

 * Free players cannot post in official Jagex forums unless their total experience exceeds the 2.5 million total experience requirement or their total skill level is over 350, after the 5 November 2010 update.
 * Free players used to only be able to vote in certain polls specified by Jagex. However, Jagex announced on 22 April 2010 that all future polls will be accessible by free players and members alike.

Macros
Noted above in "Rule-Breakers", macros (also called botters or bots), are accounts which run off of a script to repeat various tasks such as cutting yew logs or fishing lobsters. They are not controlled by a player, meaning it is possible for one botting account to stay logged in hours on end, through the day and night. Because free-to-play is free, the accounts who do use macros have no worries other than being banned, but due to the simplicity of making a free account, a new macro can be put in its place almost instantly. Macroers hoard resources, lower prices, and flood the market with raw materials, making it harder for honest players to gain money and to train. While some people argue that the lowered cost of raw materials keeps training a skill cheaper, but reduces the profit (Runescape have now banned bots from the game completely through legal processes). However, due to an update by Jagex, all newly made accounts must be registered to an e-mail address, and only one single account may be created per e-mail address. This has helped to stem the flow of bots.

However, there is now a trade limit in which new players can not make a trade where they give away more than 25,000 coins, to prevent players from buying/selling gold. This was introduced on 22 November 2011 to combat Gold farming. The limit only affects accounts created after this limit was introduced, which have never had membership. The trade limit is however flawed because if you die in dangerous clan wars, you will still loose your items and the other player will get all of your items.

No Hiscores
Since the 22nd November 2011 site update, the hiscores are no longer available to Free Players.

Other
Jagex has also changed access to RuneScape Classic, making it members-only.

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