Any players of RuneScape that didn’t sign up within the past couple of months (and even some that did) know of RuneScape’s troubling history of cheaters. From macroing to gold farming to afk training, RuneScape has a known problem of players trying to take the easy way out. Even Jagex knew this, and with updates like the trade limit they tried to eliminate it. It solved most problems (seeing bald, goateed men wearing green clothes following the same pattern for hours is much rarer now) but not all of them.

If you frequent sites about RuneScape, like RuneHQ or Tip.It, you’ll almost definitely see gold selling ads. You might also see some power leveling ads. After Jagex cracked down on real world trading, the practice of power leveling rose to the surface of RuneScape. Power leveling companies accept money to log into your account and raise your levels. Players should naturally be suspicious about giving their account details to someone else, but sometimes the promise of higher stats can overshadow caution.

Laziness is crucial to the RuneScape cheating industries. Players pay to get their stats raised without them having to lift a finger. My question is: Why do you want someone else to play for you? Why do you want the RuneScape experience (I don’t necessarily mean just in game experience points) to be given to someone else? The selling point of RuneScape is to gain levels by working on certain skills. If YOU don’t put in the effort, the hours of watching your character chop that tree or attack those monsters, how do YOU feel satisfaction bringing up your stats page and looking at your levels? I wanted 70 strength, so I spent hours with the experiments, training my level until I saw the sparks fly over my character’s head. The feeling I got after putting in the time and effort was much better than any feeling you could get by having someone else do the work for you.

The feeling of accomplishment, that emotion we train hours on end for, is too great to give up for a higher number next to a stat icon or a higher number next to a pile of illegitimately obtained gold. Even though my stats are not the greatest, I know that I will not cheat in RuneScape.