Time is the most precious thing we have. Use it well.

[Rexz]

Thought I'd ask the community about investing into RS in 2021. Do you think it's still worth it? Putting time into RS after all these years? I love the game, but after a few hours the thought of time spent is kinda uneasy. Anyone else feeling this way?

[Xelane]

Yes. It's why I stopped playing for a long time. I try to only grind when I would be spending the time watching videos or doing something monotonous anyway.

[171.103]

It depends on whether or not you enjoy your time spent in this game.

A lot of people make excuses like "If only I haven't played X game for XXXX hours, I would spend them on something useful", but this is never true and they waste that time on something else anyway.

Runescape is a great and unique game that won't keep you bored.

After 20 years, the game still gets a lot of new content and updates all of the time.

For example, the divination skill was reworked recently so it's more fun and easy to level.

Yak track was released not long ago (this is a task track with a lot of cosmetic rewards and useful items)

Also there's a recent update with Battle of Monolith and Sity of Senntisten, which will probably introduce new (elder god wars) dungeon into the game.

If you're a fan of lore, Runescape has a lot of immersive quests to offer with full voice cover, atmospheric soundtrack and awesome story (like One Piercing Note, The Needle Skips or some quest series like Sliske's Endgame, Desert, etc).

If you're a fan of combat, Runescape has a vast amount of bosses and dungeons with epic battles (accessing them will require a lot grind tho, but it's worth it).

The game is great and it's up to you to decide whether you want to play it or not.

Everybody has a different opinion anyway.

[BuzzardBee]

The only good thing about playing games is to waste time and have some fun. There is little practical use for them except as a distraction. Play it for a while, when you are bored or have a particular short term goal in mind. Then take a break to do something else, something important or more pressing. Whenever you need some down time, you can always come back to it.

New things are being added all the time and you might find that you've missed out on something important or special. So, a good rule of thumb might be to keep an eye on the RS subreddit or their Twitter account or even the RS web site for upcoming events, quests or new content. Or check in around holidays or near the end of each month as they usually post what's coming up or planned for the next month.

There's lots to explore and accomplish in the game. You might find that you enjoy quests and won't mind devoting some time to doing those. You might like PVM more and see them as a challenge. One of the best things about the game is that you aren't locked in to playing as just a warrior, mage or archer. You can and should train all skills so that you'll be better able to face what you encounter in the game.

That said, some prefer to limit themselves in order to create even greater challenges for themselves such as shunning combat altogether in favor of only skilling or doing only combat and foregoing non-combat or gathering skills. It's really up to you how to spend your time.

It can be quite a grind but again that's all on you. You don't have to spend 8 hours straight every day in order to get anywhere in the game. A few minutes here, a few hours during a weekend there -- this is where those short term goals really come into play. As for long term goals, that's also up to you. Some want Max Cape, maxing all skills to level 99. Others want the Completionist capes. Some refuse to even try for them because they require so many difficult things including some very tough bosses.

If the game appeals to you, you won't feel as though you've wasted your time. If you find that it just doesn't hold your interest for any extended period of time, them maybe it just isn't for you.

[Yournewstepmom]

Certain activities that consumed a considerable amount of time have been objected to nerfing and/or relegated to a piece of dead content, (no suitable expansion / other activity makes it moot). It's worth doing things that you know will receive an update or that are planned to be expanded on. Unfortunately we don't get polling like OSRS does, so we can never tell what we're going to get until it's revealed.

You're wasting time right now but 'wasting' time is just an illusion really. You're wasting time constantly and don't even know you're 'wasting' it. It's like the concept of being bored - it doesn't exist. You are always 'doing' something: 'waste' is completely subjective. Not to be an existentialist but giving meaning to what you're doing removes all matter of 'waste' time has to offer. Just like how you can never be 'bored', you just have to give something essence or purpose. It's anecdotal and that's why people tend to disagree on how their time is used.

So if you want to play Runescape I wouldn't really consider it a waste of time, if you really want to play. Asking for anecdotes will probably only invoke cynicism. If you're asking the question maybe you don't actually want to play to begin with. Who knows, just do what you want to do and do it 100%.

[Phirestar]

I enjoy all of the time I've spent and spend playing RuneScape. There's a reason that after 15 years, no game has reached even half of the hours I've invested into it, and now that number's going even higher because I came back to the game this year. Already I've racked up over 600 hours since the end of February, making it the game I've invested the most time into in the past 5 years.

I just don't like how much time it takes away from being able to experience other games as well. You either spend those hours playing RuneScape, or you spend them playing the rest of your library. There's no way of balancing that in my eyes, apart from taking a short break from one to do the other, and vice-versa.

[BuzzardBee]

I started playing as F2P back in 2008 and three days later, got members because I fell in love with questing. I got my Quest Point Cape just about a year after that and my first 99 (Hitpoints!) less than 2 years later. I've never let my sub expire. I've taken short breaks from time to time, whenever some new game came out, but I've always come back to it at some point.

I echo Phirestar I've amassed more hours played on this game than any other one I've played. There's just no end of things to do.

But in the end, life is subjective, or at least it should be. YOU are the only one who can decide how best to spend your time. If you feel like you're wasting it with this game, then the solution is a simple one and there's honestly little point is putting the matter up for discussion.

[⅃⅃IꓘЯ3VØ]

dont pay jamflex after your first bond. you can make it back in many different ways in only a day or two.

[Kranon]

This will be a SUPER LONG read, so maybe it foreshadows how vast and intricate this game is... the short answer i can give you to save you the 5 minutes lecture would be:

About 4 Years (hours may vary) if you plan to be "well rounded", there's a reason people who are "good" at the game are college students and those veterans from 2000's have lots of knowledge and cool items. If you want to specialize into something it may take more than that.

In the following paragraphs i'll describe each "common" goal people usually pursue, i'm open for corrections however since these are based on my own experience and other people's opinions from reddit and discord.

1. Maxing your skills, even with the most efficient methods will consume a huge chunk of time, per skill. Some skills take longer than others even with Bonus XP, even with XP lamps, even with whatever XP boost and DXP Week Jagex releases, ignore people who say the game is P2W, even if you waste enough IRL Money to buy all those boosts and XP points, the amount of skills and then the necessary methods to make the most out of it will take the price and time taken through the roof.

2. Okay so you have level 99 in all your skills, congrats, now... what about comp cape? what about your quests? what about PVM? what about literally any other piece of content outside reaching 99 in a particular skill. Although let me add, different people place value onto different things, you may value getting a skill 99 more than killing Telos or Raksha, or vice versa. There's no correct way of playing the game however, and these things are subjective, because you may be a skiller, or try to become better at PVM at some point, depends on your personal goals and views of the game.

3. In my own experience (although i'm open for corrections), i would give you the following estimates on how long it would take you to reach the most common goals in the game.

3.1. Max Cape (or 99 in all your skills) will take you, roughly, 1,800 Hours (assuming you play 4 hours a day everyday for 450 Days), and also, that's assuming you don't quit or take a break in the middle. In the past, this would take you way longer, but nowadays, and using the most efficient methods and maximizing your DXP weeks it has become significantly easier and fast, but still, you're looking for a lot of time here, dammit, you could even complete each pokédex in every single pokémon game by the time you max.

3.2 Quest Cape (doing all your quests) even with a guide you're looking at about 8 Months (a number bound to increase as more quests get added and the skill requirements get higher), that's, roughly, 960 Hours (again, assuming 4hrs of playtime).

3.3 Comp Cape (doing all of the above including mini quests, post ques activities, getting some skills to 120, etc), much like questing and including time gated content, you're looking at 12 months to get all the requirements done. It's pretty hard to put a time mark here because some tasks are easy but others are a pain to get while others take so damn long or rely on your luck.

3.4 Trimmed completionist cape, after you get your comp cape, you can tick off the remaining tasks in about 6 months or so, although some tasks are super reliant on luck (like the breeding logs and slayer codex) so yeah, the amount of hours would be about 720 for the final requirements after getting your completionst cape.

4. If you want to get good at PVM which is the "other half" of the game, you'd need to put in a lot of hours into reading the PVME Website, joining the discord server and picking up the guides to learn the ropes of it. Learning the basics and having a decent level of ability shouldn't take you more than 2 months (maybe 3, but that also depends on how fast you learn new things). However! if you want to perfect your rotations, buy the required gear and building up your muscle memory, you might aswell be looking for 1 YEAR, and that's assuming you get your own gear from the game, even if you end up buying bonds and selling them for GP at the G.E. learning how to use your stuff correctly takes months of practice, while the basics can be learned on days and you'll get the hang out of them in a couple weeks.

4.1 Boss logs and insane final boss titles... that's probably as painfully long as completionist cape and, since it relies on your luck, it may take a lot of time, i've known people who grinded out a single boss for years hoping to get the final drop to finish their logs, even i experienced how long completing a log may take, Araxxor took me a couple years to complete since i took a break in between and ended with 707 total kills for log, whilst, on the other hand, ED3 (The Shadow Reef) in solo mode Log took me 2 months with a total of 256 kills, and even then, i consider myself lucky to get it at such low Killcount. Now if we talk about optimal DPS rotations and strategies, they took me from 2016 to this day to "get good" at PVM and even still, i learn a lot of new things every other day, although "How good" depends on who you ask since a lot of people will use your "Warden Title" from defeating Telos as a masurement of your skill at combat, alongside your Kill times.

That's why people has literal YEARS of playtime... It's pretty damn scary when you try to crunch the numbers.

[BuzzardBee]

Congratulations on reaching a decision that's right for you. Somehow though I don't think you needed anyone else's input to reach it.