Runescape Rare Items - Are They Keeping Runescape Popular?

I was recently thinking about all the things that might keep a game like Runescape successful. Now Runescape has a lot of things going for it that keep it addictive. Firstly the fact that they off free Runescape accounts is a wonderful feature that no doubt keeps loads of people happy and entertained without being required to pay for the game. Then there is the whole friends factor, with Runescape being quite an interactive game where you can make lots of new friends with whom you can enjoy yourself with and pass the time with. Then obviously there is the whole thing of setting goals and wanting to improve skills and just make those couple or levels so that you can do an assortment of new things in the game. Then I got to thinking about goals, and I couldn’t help but feel that for so many Runescape players one of their all time long term goals must be to obtain themselves a wearable Runescape rare item. I mean this is probably one of the ultimate challenges in Runescape these days considering the prices it costs for such rare items.

The challenge of obtaining a Runescape Rare Item

Working on skills and raising levels in Runescape is one thing, but the goal doesn’t change, you just need to mine X amount of coal or iron to get X level or fish X amount of lobsters to get X fishing level, but one target that is forever changing is the goal of earning enough Runescape gold to buy a Runescape rare item. Currently, as at September 2006, santa hats, the cheapest of the wearable Runescape rare items are selling for 25 million gp which is far in excess of most Runescape players’ budgets. So to be able to work for and save up enough money to purchase one of these items is surely one of the greatest Runescape achievements. This achievement doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that the inflation in the Runescape rare item market is insane, we are talking 100%+ every year. So unless you can make millions of Runescape gold virtually overnight you will no doubt be paying more that you original expect to pay for such items. This increasing price makes this one of those challenges where the level of achievement is forever ever moving upwards making you work harder, smarter and longer to reach your goals.

For me Runescape was always about reaching little goals, and I can’t help but feel that this is the way that so many other Runescape players play this game. So if reaching goals is what one of the major attractions of Runescape I can’t help but feel that the big daddy of the Runescape goals has to be obtaining a Runescape rare item, and if obtaining this Runescape rare item soon becomes impossible then maybe Runescape’s popularity may start to diminish as well.