Checking out the main website, I saw the word “Classic” and immediately thought, “All right. Another development diary taking us back to the good old days. The “gold” days. … conveniently and aptly named, of course.” As I usually do, I skipped the summary and dove straight into the article, where it told me that not only was it referencing the gold days, but it was, in fact, BRINGING IT BACK!

Not for updates, of course. For two weeks, if you are a member, you can log into RSC and your character will be locked in as “playable” in the gold worlds. Log in whenever and have fun playing an old-fashioned time-waster as you walk around and explore a world you used to know off the back of your hand.

I didn’t hesitate. Immediately, I sought out that annoyingly hidden link and clicked it so hard my screen broke. After getting a new laptop, I loaded Runescape Classic for the first time in forever, except it was actually a few years. There was the loggin screen. Funny how you instantly recognize something that you have been familiar with for your childhood, yet for the life of yourself can’t recall directly from scratch without reference. That’s how the brain works. Or so I was told.

Originally, I had been duo-playing them for a bit, trying to get all my stuff back on RSC that I transferred over (including a duplicated cannon, but I won’t get into that; I still regret doing it). I got an adamantite axe, and figured that was good enough, so I dove into the Now-And-Forever Runescape and left Classic behind with pictures and memories. Oh, such sweet memories …

I logged in. Of course, I expected to start back at level 3 with naught but bronze and beer. How surprised I was, then, that I saw my old character, donning priest robes and an adamantite axe, chilling in Lumbridge.

Oh, the sights! Oh, the paper-thin walls and doors! Oh, the hideously static leg movements! I ran all around the world, seeking out memories. What am I examining a post for? Because it’s THERE! Walk on top of an imp and it dies! Pick the guard’s pocket and he actually fights for his rights, to which I take a step away and he completely forgets I exist.

Of course, thousands of members had the same idea as I. However, the majority didn’t have RSC characters to start off with. It felt almost superior to be the greater character than 99.5% of the RSC population. Except when i met that level 101 dude with a party hat (Max RSC combat level is 117, I think), Every single person following him was asking for a duel. Try as you may, you are NOT getting that hat, boys.

I used to have an RSC cannon, which was by far my favourite weapon, but it was transferred to RS2. Now, I am stone broke once more with naught but my slightly higher than average skills to pull me through. I still have to take on the Legends Quest in RSC (only a super set and uber-armor can help me, because prayer is drained and you cannot heal during any of the 3 fights), but that will come in due time.

Nevertheless, I had a good time walking around, chatting with the poorly punctuated and (uh oh – word invention!) ungrammaphized NPCs throughout the land. It takes forever to talk with them, and you have to pay attention because the text only lasts a few seconds, and then you have to carefully coordinate your mouse to click the response directly on the letters. You miss, you end the conversation and start all over. Not just that, but only 1 player could talk with an NPC at once. Ah, good times. We would always yell at players talking to a quest starter the day it comes out and scream when he selected the obviously wrong option, making us have to wait for that talk to be over. By the time we got to the NPC, we already knew what to do, and it was a matter of clicking the right buttons in the quickest order.

Last bit of fun I want to share was the duelling system. Anywhere, everywhere, right-click a player, spar with them, and send them on a free trip to Lumbridge (or they can pay for it). The damage lingers, and I … believe there are no poison weapons in RSC. Some enemies like poison spiders can poison, though, and being restricted to walking everywhere indeed made it lethal. Especially when your stuff appeared for everyone to see. Nevertheless, it gave me great satisfaction to be approached by a newbie, listen to his poor request, and literally do him the favour of beating the life out of him.

Then, a couple weeks later, I logged onto Runescape once more and was delighted to see that Jagex unleashed a 5th level of attack spells. The Surge Spells. They take up one blood and one death rune each (among inexpensive elemental runes) and do damage greater than any Godspell could dream of (considering they take 2 blood runes, there will now be chaos in the death rune market, but I’m not worried, because I already stocked up for the winter).

I always like having new options to desecrate my opponents, but for goodness sakes, Jagex, these spells need detail! Spiky ball of matter the mere color of their chosen element that explode upon contact. No, when I cast earth strike, I want there to be crumbling. When I summon water wave, I want a soaking. When I throw fire blast, something needs to BURN! I’ll let you ponder that one for a while, because fantasy games are widely appreciated for the epic-ness of their magical techniques. That’s why I’m sticking with Lunars; to show them off whenever desired.

Not just that, but they added an auto-setup function for the cannon. Unnecessary in my opinion, but convenient in a strange way, I suppose. There goes any chance of another awesome cannon party … but then again, they already messed with that code ages ago so that you can only have one cannon at a time. Again, unnecessary, because the only thing it really did was be fun. It usually cost me a lot of law runes and energy potions (this was before summoning) to set up a cannon party, and even then, it didn’t thwart any firemakers or combateers (since you can’t fire the multiple cannons, it prevented other people from annoyingly setting up theirs). Come on, Jagex! Return our cannon parties to us!

… heh heh, that was another funny thing about RSC. If you owned a cannon and lost it, anybody’s cannon was officially yours. They set it up, then brag to newbies that they’ll log off if they are given 5000 coins (it is believed that players could take a player’s cannon if they were gone, but that was false). Then I walk over and “yoink”. Boy, was that funny.

I miss the RSC cannons and cannon parties very much. I will await for Jagex to set up a week-long item-transfer system allowing us to send RS2 items back to RSC characters (give it a time and money limit to prevent RWT, of course). The wait will be fruitless, because they would probably more likely make a quest where we team up with Saradomin to kill Zamorak rather than that. One can hope, though.

Until then, see you guys on the trail!