RuneScape Forum Archive

D F Angel

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Alas, the Story Forums. They have my infinite sympathies. Invaded by people who didn't care a whit for their culture, their history. Who would never post a story themselves, nor read one of the classics. I think every roleplayer started on the story forums, dabbling there before migrating over. But they never cared to move back once they had the collective storytelling bug.

I would argue that the collective community decision to mark roleplays with [RP] in the title, which they never had to do, should have been seen as an olive branch. Instead, I fear it was perceived as a marker for how much the Story Forums was being supplanted. I wish I could give an appropriate commentary on the Story Forums; the Awards that Jagex personally ran, the Guilds, the Rate Threads, the Noob Threads (always written in script form rather than narrative prose,) but that is not my story to tell. And time, most likely, has ran out on that front.

Self-Indulgence
There are few roleplayers who can resist the urge to wax lyrical about themselves. I share that weakness, so allow me to self-eulogise for a moment.

I was 10 years old when I first joined the forums. The first roleplay I wished to join was called Six Kingdoms; it was an Avatar: The Last Airbender rip-off but I had never watched it so didn't realise it was anime. I read all 80 pages of posts, because I thought that's what you had to do to join. I did this over the course of three days.

When I posted my bio, it was declined.

The first thread I made was called Dooms Day, and it was a zombie apocalypse. When it reached 600 posts, I considered it a massive success and made Dooms Day 2. There would be four Dooms Days in total, each with a smaller post count than the last. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

23-Jan-2024 22:45:24

D F Angel

Posts: 19,604 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

If I am to be remembered by anyone, (outside of for my years of service to the MSN big chat) it will be for my roleplay The Final Quest. It was named such because all of my friends had stopped roleplaying, and I was going to as well. The thread was in a broken world, and the plot involved getting back together the main characters of my friends for one last roleplay.

This was made in 2012, in what I would have considered the sunset years of the forums. Yet it proved popular; over 40 roleplayers to my memory. In all of my 18 years on these forums, that was the first and only thread of mine to ever reach 2000 posts. It featured many of the characters I had previously roleplayed as, the zombie king from Dooms Day, and gave me the greatest roleplaying experience of my career. The thread was only as good as those who joined it, and put their love and faith in it. I am grateful to all participants.

Ever since 2011, I had been a reluctant poster. My reluctance only ever increased with time. It is with profound regret that I will never finish Into The Fire, my last roleplay of substance. Many people put a lot of effort into it over a great deal of years. I thank you for your time, and hope the secret conclusion you shall never reach will tantalise you into infinity. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

23-Jan-2024 22:45:52

D F Angel

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Annie
Finally, I cannot complete a reflection of the Runescape Roleplaying Forums without remarking on its greatest user. There have been hundreds, likely thousands, of roleplayers on these forums. On Off Topic, on Ingame and Forum Roleplaying, on Roleplay and Story Forums. But none of them come close to the shining star that is Annie1227.

Annie, you are radiant. You have, for over ten years, been unapologetically yourself. You've contributed to many of the most memorable roleplaying moments that I can think of. For so long, you have represented the best of the forums, the unofficial mascot. At over 51,000 posts you might be on record as the most prolific roleplayer in the history of the Runescape Forums.

There was a time, long ago, where a lot of people put you down. But you never let it get you down. You have always done what you loved, and you have never sought to be mean or cruel. You are an absolute joy and I have enjoyed every moment of knowing you. I hope that you, and Azi and Pink and all the rest of those who still linger here, are able to find a new pasture in which to continue roleplaying. Never give up doing what you love. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

23-Jan-2024 22:46:19

D F Angel

Posts: 19,604 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

And, for the last time...

You May Now Post. Hags be hagglin', gods be god damn crazy, it's all happening ogre at Into The Fire

23-Jan-2024 22:46:25

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This was a lovely read! As maybe the last surviving member of the Novelist's Guild still posting (well, actually, member-in-bad-standing, because Guild Drama was the hot pasttime of the 2010s), I also wish I could give them a proper-send-off, but I was myself a late arrival!

But, you know. I think it might just be me who's still here. So I'll do my best.

I remember The Word, a writing clan founded by Dreamweaver that lives on in a very stubborn little Discord group. That clan was my first real friendgroup, and it's a testament to how you can really form friends with anyone if you just let inertia keep you near them for long enough.

I remember the Guilds. The Guilds always scanned to me as a hybrid of two competing desires: to build community and to build prestige. Unfortunately, I think the latter motivator usually won out. The Word was a community. A Guild was a status symbol.

That's what any guild is for, though, isn't it? Guilds are as much about separating yourself from the chaff as they are about organizing your labor. And so you had the guild drama, you had the petty infighting, you had the squabbles about story contest results. I still remember how (I believe) the last major stories contest fizzled out because a contestant got in a fight with one of the judges and ruined everyone's desire to continue. [I was the judge. I still kind of think you deserved that score, you-know-who.]

23-Jan-2024 23:01:06

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Oh, and I remember those contests. Those contests were the lifeblood of the forums, and once, believe it or not, Jagex really put effort into them! There were official story contests, widely promoted. Everyone wanted to be involved. It was the only way to gain rank in The Word, too, which was. Weird, in hindsight. But sure did drive participation.

I think Runescape's whole style of lore inherently encouraged fanfiction--learning about the setting sparked a personal connection, a feeling of drawing together the dots. People like wrote stories about Zaros, like the Empty Lord trilogy, because they knew he existed and wanted to speculate, to play in the space. Simply learning that Runescape was also called Gielinor almost felt like being let in on a secret.

[I still remember getting in an argument with an in-game RPer about a pirate character calling the setting Runescape. Listen, this is a world where Santa Claus canonically exists. You can't put that random event back in the bottle.]

The idea of Runescape fanfiction was also bolstered by official titles, like the iconic stories accompanying Death to the Dorgeshuun . Meanwhile, machinima promoted a more comedic, goofy approach, made Runescape jokes feel cool and clever. That's where a lot of the noob stories came from, I assume, but who knows? Maybe Tehnoobworld stole from them!

And we can't forget, of course, Betrayal at Falador . A lot of us wanted to be the next TS Church. That's around the time I showed up.

It was the age of front page writing and machinima contests. I know it sounds like I'm seeing with rose-tinted glasses, but I don't know how else to say it: Jagex treated Runescape differently back then. We were encouraged to think of Runescape as a place worth telling stories about.

23-Jan-2024 23:12:24 - Last edited on 23-Jan-2024 23:32:45 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I'm not going to get too negative here, but I generally hold that the death of the Stories Forum was something inflicted, not inevitable. Jagex stopped holding contests. With world events, the lore stopped feeling like a cozy secret to share. As the game leaned further on microtransactions and gimmicky reworks, the community floundered.

OSRS was the last nail in the coffin. Runescape's fanfiction community no longer had the strength to sustain two separate timelines. Were we supposed to tell stories about Guthix being dead, or about Kourend? Were we supposed to care about the quality of our stories when the dozens of books filling Kourend's library felt like they were hashed out in an hour? We were done. Put your chairs on top of your desk and leave in single file.

We were already fading fast when the merge hit.

But... yeah, it sure didn't help.

Afterward, it quickly became impossible to find our own stories amid the much-more-active roleplay threads, and roleplayers didn't see interested in non-collaborative stories--even the weird "submit your bio" stories. I don't hold that against the RPers. They weren't here for fanfiction. Most of the roleplays weren't even Runescape-based. It wasn't their fault.

Still, it's as it is: If your story falls off of Page 1 mere hours after you post it, you're not going to find readers. You just aren't. And you can only send your stories into the void for so long before you lose heart.

I was in exactly one forum RP. It had "Banshee" in the title, and it was a pirate RP. I really enjoyed it and completely ran out of time to participate pretty quickly. Anyway, it wasn't really what I was here for. The thing I was here for didn't exist anymore.

Personally, though, I stubbornly kept writing. Sometimes I daydreamed about getting literally a single reader. You really come to appreciate every crumb of feedback you get in a place like this. I did get the odd reader now and again. Then the roleplayers started to fall away, too.

23-Jan-2024 23:25:37

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,904 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

But, you know, for all the factors I just listed... we also just grew up! Maybe this was never going to last forever, you know?

It was pretty cool while it did.

Okay! That's all. Sorry, uh, my quick summary went on a little longer than I wanted. If you'd like me to delete all this and start a separate thread for it, I'd be happy to! I just wanted to do my best to capture...

... and Nightfall just came up on my "chill music" playlist.

Take care, all.

23-Jan-2024 23:27:45 - Last edited on 23-Jan-2024 23:29:49 by YuBiusk Ink

Gunslinger Z

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I guess I didn't truly realize that the 'Big Chat' era went on quite that long but thinking about it, it pretty much was one uninterrupted [sometimes EXTREMELY dark and schizoid and lecherous] stream-of-consciousness from 2008 to 2012 or so. Then Skype happened, and well, that was that. Everybody hated Skype. Everybody.

Frankly, one could likely write an entire collection of volumes about solely the various splinter factions, cliques, splinter sites [that usually failed within two weeks including all of my own], RoleplayRevolution [shudder], all of the weird cliques that formed on MSN and God knows you could certainly write ten volumes about the Big Chat drama and love triangles alone.

As such I find it hard to put any of it into words. It really was 'lightning in a bottle'. A long, fine flash of light that could have only been manifested by those specific groups of people at that specific time in this specific place. If it had come any earlier, it wouldn't have worked. If it had come any later, it would have been born in the prime 'social media' era and wouldn't have worked.

The whole thing really is a sort of 'period piece' on when adolescence meets with fantasy and a DSL connection and I'm not sure we could sum it up even if you get everyone back together and we all worked at it for months. I know I certainly can't do it.

Anyhow...

Joe? It's your post on Hard Times.

And Justin? I heard you've been hanging out with Monster Hesh.

I suppose one good thing about the Big Chat era having ended is that I won't have to see anyone's fuzzy little appendage again, assuming he still even has it at this point.

I'll always kick myself in the ass for not having more than a handful of Big Chats circa 2008-2010 archived, but perhaps it's better this way. Yet another reminder that nothing is permanent and everything is transient, no matter how 'big' and permanent it might seem in youth. Nothing is really forever but memories.

24-Jan-2024 06:52:26 - Last edited on 24-Jan-2024 06:54:39 by Gunslinger Z

Azi Demonica

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Very nice read, Angel! Your history has value, thanks for making it. I loved the part of Mark H, he was quite the tyrannosaur even the Stories Forum had criticisms about, ha. Fun times. Also, you are very correct about Annie, she is indeed the mascot of the RuneScape forums! She deserves an invitation to RuneFest.

I read through your posts, YuBiusk, more memory lane! I don't have anything to add as, during the 2000s and 2010s, I was a nobody who had no audience. Ironically, I only got readers after the golden age of the forums, but I really like how you and others have kept the history alive. RuneScape was a special game with a special feel in its forums, I regret nothing and enjoyed all the bumps in the ride!

Exactly as Gun put it, it was a lightning in the bottle. Nothing lasts forever, and that's what makes life special.

24-Jan-2024 08:53:29