The glory days of RS Gold have come and gone like the autumn breeze each year, however a recent development is looking to breath new life into the now fourteen year old browser based MMO. On September 16, Jagex Game Studios announced the release of DarkScape, a PVP everywhere, new look-old feel version of Runescape. Claiming that this “experimental new game takes RuneScape and throws it into chaos, giving you free reign for intense combat and ruthless trade wars”, DarkScape is an entirely free to play version of RuneScape with a far more tense ramifications: any player can attack and potentially kill any other player at literally any moment.
“As big fans of sandbox survival games, DarkScape was born from an idea we first bandied around the studio a couple of years ago. Even while it’s been on the backburner, it’s stayed with us,” said Conor Crowley, senior producer of DarkScape. “Developing a new take on the world of RuneScape, one where PvP gameplay rules supreme, has proved very exciting. We spent time looking for a way to get DarkScape into the hands of players as soon as possible, so launching the game today is very much an experimental first step. That said, it will continue to evolve and further develop based on how players explore our fresh take on a deadly MMO experience!”
Buy Runescape Gold, a game that I played when I was 9 and that somehow managed to survive despite its atrocious quality and less than amazing experience, has apparently received an update…addon… sequel of sorts. The thing is called ‘Darkscape’ (clearly the epitome of original naming, rivaling Thief and Tomb Raider) and basically, it’s just a version of Runescape where PvP is turned on permanently. It uses the same engine (and thus has the same level of headache-inducing ‘quality’) as the main Runescape game, so it could as well have been just another Runescape server with special features. But I digress. The fact of the matter is, Jagex, from what I can see, is trying to set this up as a big thing that will rekindle interest in the game.
Players all start out at level 1, with a blank slate, and have to build up all their stuff all over again. The world is split into three regions, each with their own Grand Exchange and similar institutions, and the only way to travel between them is on foot. Furthermore, these regions are described as ‘high risk’, with lucrative enterprise possible if one is savvy and lucky. It’s really meant to be a dangerous adventure. We’ve released DarkScape in a raw, formative state, so it can be driven from the earliest possible point by its community – realizing its potential as an emergent, player-led game. This is your chance to be in at the start of something new – to help make a game that you want to play. This reminds me of the old school PvP server rule sets which were really fun before people got max level and would camp out in the newbie areas, and if not the newbie areas (if they were protected), the roads leading out of the newbie areas.
The RuneScape universe continues growing with the new MMO from Jagex, DarkScape, a new free to play PvP sandbox MMO, which takes place in an alternate universe of RuneScape. You can access the game using a RuneScape account, and RuneScape players can play DarkScape getting 50% more experience, double bank space and an extra item kept safe on death, which essentially means that they’ll progress more quickly through the game. We’ve kept DarkScape quiet so everyone can come to it completely fresh. This is a world for the taking with wit, guile and strength, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it. It’ll be your stories that bring it alive, and your feats that become its legends.
Actually it reminds me of a really awesome WoW PvP story, when I was a little Xerin on a PvP server, I took my horde character into Ashenvale and became a ninja, taking out various characters at my level with surprise ambushes for hours, feeling like I was basically Kenshin. Anyway, DarkScape is available now – to play log into RuneScape and choose the DarkScape server. If you want more details about the update, check out the official website.