Mining in Runescape: The Past, Present and Endangeering Future
Written on September 30, 2009 by Nix
Mining has been a vital part of this game ever since the beginning of Runescape back in 2001. It encapsulates the back bone of the game itself by providing resources in order to accomplish numerous skills which either entirely depend on or either partly depend on Mining to serve their purposes as skills. Mining has always been an available skill to both members and non-members, this availability thus creates the Runescape population in a whole to critique the attribute itself; for good or worse. This article will touch up on the past, present and future of the skill with commentary from an experienced miner as well as the majority of thought about the skill which was accumulated from endless hours of game-play, Runescape development teams and numerous Runescape fansites/communities.
The past is an indicator of just how far someone… or something has come from it’s previous state. Civilizations forego technological and medical advancements, Academics extent knowledge outward, Life continually evolves to merit needs and wants of the ecological system around it and Runescape has be an exception to this rule by a certain degree. In the beginning, Runescape made mining fairly easy to gain experience in. If you are familiar with the process mining regular or pure rune essence for the skill of Runecrafting, then you transmute that process to mining virtually any ore but with the addition that you can indefinitely mine at one rock and for an unlimited amount of time. Basically, you could sit at one rock and mine it all day with a full inventory whistle ores would continuously auto-drop under you! No one was complaining.
Jagex Ltd. did only what any company would do if their company expanded the populations that were projected to already have be quite large… they made their game much more difficult from it’s previous state. Slowly, one after another, enjoyable factors of miningwere being removed from the game interface; no more sitting at one rock, no more clicking spontaneously, and now there was even a little animation your character would perform before even extracting any ore out of the rock… losing valuable time in the big picture. Feedback soon turned soured about the skill and many veteran miners quit in regards to how Runescape’s mining skill was ruined forever.
Only until recent years has Runescape has given something back to the hard earned skill of mining. Although small, Runescape had provided the miners with such tools as: the Inferno Adze, various summoning spells and special armor. All of these were attempts to help provide the miner with a better attitude towards gaining experience in the skill.
My rant starts here. I have been playing Runescape for around seven years; I’ve experienced many changes throughout my gameplay on one of the most interesting and diverse MMORPG in history. For many reasons, I have generally accepted Runescape’s updates with welcoming arms… yes, capping the trade system, restricting the wilderness and even eliminating holiday drops. When many people complained about these installments, they were generally looking in a first person sense; with their needs and wants being first and foremost. The former adjustments I have stated were all implemented in the game by Jagex because of the fact they were thinking in the company’s best interest; something any one of us would do as well if we were in their shoes. But what I have never stood for, and still don’t to this day, was neglect of certain skills deemed unimportant by the vast majority of Runescape as well as Jagex staff. Firemaking, Mining, Smithing, Fletching, etc. are all skills that are becoming more and more obsolete over the course of Runescape history. I would love to lecture on each and every one of these skills, however, for time’s sake I’ll stick to the skill of Mining.
Firstly, the pinnacle of mining is to mine all ores in the game. Essentially, this can be achieved at the mining level of 85 when you can mine Runite Ore. “Coolio” you say, something that is worth around 11-15,000 gp (11-15k) every time you extract it out of ore deposit (rock). 11-15k may seem like a lot of money per time it takes to extract an ore out of the rock. But, there are numerous confounding factors I would like to point out that shatters the idea of getting rich of Runite Ore Mining. It boils down to the math: I set up 30 different trail times in which I would log into a [completely random*] world at a [completely random*] time. Out of the 30 different trials, I found only 3 times when there was at least 1 Runite Ore left to extract at the level 46-wilderness Runite Mine (2 Runite Rocks). That is a 1:9 ratio in odds of getting Runite Ore. So… say it takes 50 seconds to completely log in, check the world for any Runite, see none, log out and to factor in the world switching time and about 120 seconds (on average *note: educated guess) to extract both the rocks if there were any with addition of log in and log out. Therefore, putting it all together, [(1 World w/ Runite Rocks(2 rocks available)*120 seconds) + (9 Worlds w/o Runite Rocks*50 seconds)]= (450+120)=(570 seconds/1)*(1 Minute/60 Seconds)= 9 Minutes and 30 seconds to mine about 22,000-30,000 gp or to put it in per minute, (2,315-3,158 gp per minute) given if you mine two Runite ores that time you hit runite ore. This calculation shows just how weak the Runite Ore Mining system really is. Another factor demoting Runite Ore Mining is the increase in players acheiveing the benchmark level 85 and the constant number of Runite Rocks in circulation. Runescape has stated that the company has continually added more servers and thus they believe this addition of servers has given miners ample room to mine Runite Ore efficiently. I strongly disagree with this and I believe the two variables: Runite Ore Miners and Runite Ore available, is greatly non-proportional and they will been an even greater divide in the near future if the problem is not fixed.
Secondly, Smithing has gone hand in hand with Mining ever since the beginning of time. Smithing now-a-days is almost an obsolete skill because it doesn’t produce armor highly sought after by the most elite fighters, thus Mining is also indirectly affected with the problem having less of a demand on miner’s ores (Demand goes down, Price goes down). Originally I believe the backbone purpose of the Mining-Smithing combo was to aid in such manners as to provide the most elite armor to the bulk masses but now it seems ever so distant from its original intent that the armors most skilled warriors are now wearing into fierce battles are far more advanced defense-wise than the standard bonuses Rune has given. As an alarming number of players have reached defense limits beyond Rune, it makes the Mining-Smithing combo a less important name as it once held in a former life… giving the skill to the people whom only skill in either of the two for the achievement cape. Way to waste two spots on the skills tab Runescape.
Thirdly, the skill of Mininghas been nerfed by Jagex via experience gains. Gaining Mining experience in Runescape is like watching grass grow in your grandmother’s backyard. All updates toward mining since the game has gotten big were geared towards the direction of which would aid the process of gaining experience. Numerous times have I been in clan chats on Runescape where people were discussing skills. The questions always arises, “What is the most boring skill of Runescape?” Assuming the crowd has experienced all skills well enough, the majority of them reply, “Mining .” Sadly, if anything could be drastically changed about the way in which Mining is composed, gaining experience would have to be the priority.
In the future, if Runescape maintains its unstable relationship with its skills, Runite will be the new Bronze, Gp will be so inflated that your Runite Ore will be worth as much as jugs, and the skill you’ve worked so hard on for months… even years for the achievement cape will be so under-appreciated and disappointing in its perks that it will turn into the next Cooking Cape. So far all signs point to negative for future intentions of the Mining Skill. If Jagex doesn’t act now, then when? A year from now? Five years from now? Ten? Nonetheless, in order to save one of their most dire skills, Jagex must act. Let’s hope they get the message before it’s too late.
- Nix
Awesome article bro.
Really interesting. I do disagree with you when you said that mining will be the next cooking cape. I feel that only if Jagex makes mining easier will it be on that level. So long as mining remains boring and slow will the cape be respectable.
Nice article, though. Very enjoyable to read.
This article helped me realize just how unbalanced skills really are. Yeah…so, you’ll get your seconds of fame by wearing your hard-to-attain cape in public. But, is that enough? RuneScape would be far more enjoyable if these tough skills had other benefits too.
You still have to give props to Jagex for their recent updates, however. Stealing Creation is just one example of how skills that are seemingly becoming more useless are still under the gaze of their creators.