Rune essence


 * See also Pure essence

Rune essence is the raw material that players can craft into runes through the Runecrafting skill. Rune essence can be mined through the Mining skill on non-members worlds or on members' worlds by players with less than level 30 Mining. Players receive 5 mining experience per rune essence. Rune essence can only be used to craft the six lowest level runes. It is most commonly called Rune ess by players.

The rune essence change
Before the game update on April 20th, 2006, all runes could be crafted from rune essence (see Runecrafting). However, the update made the runes craftable only by members, and only craftable from pure essence -- which can be mined only on members worlds by players with 30 Mining.

It was a measure to devalue one of the popular real-life trading routes to easy profit, as the essence mined without membership or adequate mining level became unusable for high level runes.

It unfortunately also devalued a good revenue stream for many honest non-member players, players who could previously have become members with a good supply of usable rune essence already banked.

Price speculation on pure essence is rife, as are fears that Runecrafting members will also suffer a grave reduction in supplies, resulting in a price shift on higher level runes and a considerable slowdown in leveling.

This update was met with mixed reactions: Some supported "sticking it to the autoers," while others were concerned that it destroyed the wide availability of non-costly essence for Runecrafting members.

Note that when the change occurred, all rune essence in the banks of members automatically became pure essence; but for non-members with rune essence, there was no change.