The virtual world that I chose to explore as my field for participant observation was the famous, long-standing Runescape. Runescape is a medieval fantasy style massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It’s been around since the mid-2000s, when I first tried my hand at it under the careful tutelage of my brother. This was my first time logging into Runescape since childhood.

I created my character, NuffNuffII, and after customizing his appearance (I chose a dark-skinned man with a pink mohawk and a split beard) I was dropped into the tutorial stage, a town complete with a cave full of trolls, a mining shaft, a smithy, a weaving station, and more. What surprised me about this tutorial stage was that, unlike most other MMORPG that I’ve played in the past, the early stage (the bunnyslope) was actually heavily populated with advanced players. As I worked my way through the tutorial, the reason for this became clear.

A large part of Runescape is the player’s ability to craft just about anything that their character might need, whether that’s a bronze sword, a grilled rabbit sandwich, or a magic wand. Because this stage had to be designed to show new players how to create all the items they might need, it included an unusual concentration of crafts-making stations, like forges, looms, and cook stations. A large number of advanced players were in the beginners’ combat practice dungeon, farming magical items from the troll shamans who lurked there in vast numbers.

This brings me to my first encounter with another player. While I completed one of my tutorial quests in this troll-infested cave, an advanced player proposed a trade, and gave me several hundred arrows asking nothing in exchange. When I asked why this player was giving them to me, the player responded that they no longer needed them. What I soon realized was that Runescape has a limit on the number of items a player can have in their inventory, or store in the “bank,” a receptacle for items that aren’t needed at the moment. One of the results of this mechanism was that advanced players approached me (obviously a newbie to the game based on my low-level armor and weapons) and gifted me items that no longer had any value to them.

Between the self-manufacture that was so central to gameplay in Runescape and the finite number of possessions, the economy of the game was much more focused on raw materials and items than on the gold used as currency. Of course, I would need much more play time than the few hours I spent online to learn more.

The most notable encounter I had with another player, however, was when a player again offered me a gift. This time, however, the player also offered to help me until I “became a member.” After gifting me a few items and a bunch of gold, they told me to come with them to another in-game location, and then teleported there. I set off walking in that direction, then received a request from the player to join their “group.” Groups are ways that players organize collective quests and goals, and creating one creates a specific chat box for only the members of the group to communicate. Unfortunately, I did not know how to accept the invitation, and upon arriving to the city, I could no longer find the other player.

A thorough exploration of Runescape would require, first and foremost, that I understand the controls and mechanics of the game much better. Beyond that, it is in fact a massive game, with innumerable players and quests, and would take much more than the three or four hours I spent online to properly explore.