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[email protected] Copyright © Gunter De Groodt, 2015 You write history each time you play RuneScape. Keep playing. Contents Acknowledgements Preface 7 1 RuneScape 1 13 2 The Community 35 3 The World of Gielinor 57 4 Player versus Monster 78 5 Player versus Player 122 6 Skilling 163 7 Quests 223 8 Influential People 249 9 Miscellania Etceteria 275 Appendix I: Revival of the Wilderness 297 Image Library 311 Sources 312 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The final version of The History of RuneScape is the result of a process that took multiple years to complete. Many people have contributed to this final version, for which I owe them eternal gratitude. I would like to dedicate some space to former RuneScape player The Pain105 for inspiring me to start this project. It is because of his stories about the early days of the game that I had initially set out on the mission of learning as much as possible about the history of RuneScape. I would also like to explicitly express my gratitude towards Andrew Gower, co-creator of RuneScape and co-founder of Jagex Limited, for responding in great detail to the many e-mails and even more questions that I have been able to ask him. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jagex employee Mod Balance, head of the community management team, for voluntarily assuming the role of communicator between Jagex and myself.