These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
Prior to the rework of the Demon Slayer quest, Delrith*
the super-demon the Dark Wizards are trying to summon
had fewer hit points than a cow or an imp. In fact, depending on your combat levels, you were more at risk getting killed by the surrounding Dark Wizards who, despite their relative weakness, could get quite annoying with their ranged magical attacks.
Mother Mallum, who has a pillardropped on her, and your own character never battles her.
Anvilicious: Perils of Ice Mountain, so very much. The puns didn't help either.
In December 2007, Jagex made the bold move of eliminating all means of large-scale private wealth transfer in an effort to combat bots and gold farmers. Among other things, this meant no more trading items with a net loss/gain of more than 3000 gold and no more unrestrained Player Versus Player combat in the wilderness. This led quite a few people to quit "RuinedScape". Eventually, the changes were reversed, in favour of new mechanics designed to combat macros and bots.
The Evolution of Combat. Or, as some likes to call it, Evilution of Combat. That is all.
In early 2013, Jagex introduced dedicated "Old School RuneScape" servers, running a complete version of the game from back in August 2007. This went just fine until the divisions really kicked off with the announcement that a highly-anticipated and lore-critical Grandmaster-level quest (among other possible updates) was being pushed back, simply due to the sheer amount of resources dedicated to resurrecting the older version.**
Modern-day 'Scapers are fed up with "Old School" announcements out-spamming even the Squeal of Fortune, while old-school purists look down on modernists simply for the sin of accepting the Evolution of Combat.
Complete Monster: Sigmund is a total xenophobe who wants the peaceful cave goblins dead. The first thing you see him do is try to start a war between Lumbridge and the Dorgeshuun. At one point, he even uses emotional blackmail on the character. And then it gets much, much, worse. He tries to drill a hole under the river to fall into the cave, drowning all the goblins, after that fails, he ties Zanik to train tracks in an attempt to start a war between the goblins and the dwarves. He does finally get his comeuppance with Zanik cutting off his hand to keep him from escaping with the ring of life, followed by her killing him. He relishes killing the player just as much as he relishes killing the goblins....such as in the Chosen Commander.
The Squeal of Fortune, an obvious gimmick to entice free players to subscribe. It's featured prominently on the main page, has its own icon on the toolbar, and will create an intrusive popup when you login if you have unused spins. Even worse, Jagex has allowed players to purchase additional spins with real-world money. It's rapidly becoming one of the most hated mechanics of the game, and while Jagex has acknowledged the backlash, they continue to relentlessly promote it.
Solomon's General Store joined the Squeal of Fortune in July 2012, a fairly straight implementation of a microtransactions store selling cosmetic upgrades — and, later, bank space — with similar in-game advertising (albeit without the dancing, squeaking goblin that jumps around your screen).
On the in-game character side, Jagex's developers miss no chance to gush about their adoration for Sliske the Majarrat, whom they have already managed to build into an invincible, invulnerable and unstoppableVillain Sue. And what's more, there's a very real chance he might now be a god, thanks to murdering Guthix at the end of The World Wakes.
Dork Age: A regular complaint from segments of the Broken Base is that the latest update or rework has ruined the game forever and that some past era was always better. Between the Squeal of Fortune and the Evolution of Combat, however, this sentiment seems to have really come to a head during the reign of current RuneScape head Mark Gerhard. The sheer amount of player outcry prompted the creation of separate servers running an "old school" version of RuneScape dating from mid-2007, and online player counts are significantly down from historical highs**
Thanks in no small part to macro-eradicating "bot nukes" and other measures.
, leading to frequent assertions of being a game in decline.
Dude, Not Funny! / Cruelty Is The Only Option: The 2012 Easter event. The Easter Bunny is out of action with an injury, so the player gets the choice of serving either the Evil Chicken or the Chocatrice (both villains). The task? Go around Gielinor using your newly-acquired "Eggsterminator" to break the Easter eggs and convert their fluffy contents into either chicken drumsticks or chocolate.
Many of the earlier music tracks are very catchy, especially the main theme, and some of the later ones too.
Bard Roberts on Mos Le'Harmless can sing you a shanty recapping any one of the pirate quests. This comes complete with voice acting.
Ensemble Darkhorse: General Graardor has loads of fans, and it seems Jagex has picked up on this, as he functioned as the game's mascot for a while.
Fan Hater: Loads. Many people view it as a poor man's World of Warcraft, and saying anything positive about it on some websites will get you laughed off the internet.
Fanon Discontinuity: After the release of "Salt in the Wound", a popular theory amongst the fanbase was that the entire quest was nothing more than a delusion brought on by Mother Mallum. This is because the fanbase refused to accept the events of the quest as canon and violently ridiculed it to the point where many believe the quest's developer left the company solely to avoid further ridicule.
"Funny Aneurysm" Moment: During the 2011 Christmas Event in relation to the 2010-released Grandmaster Quest "The Void Stares Back". For those who did the available-for-all Christmas event before one of the highest-requirement quests in the game, Wizard Grayzag mentions that he desires to become the greatest summoner in the world in a semi-joking way while he faces opponents in friendly Snowman-summoning battles. During "The Void Stares Back", it is revealed he has been killing Void Knights for 20 years through the pests to prove this. For those who did the quest before the Christmas Event, these lines are instead said by a Suspiciously Similar Substitute named Wizard Whitezag, serving as a Call Back instead.
Ancient Effigies are sometimes considered this for skilling. They allow a player to gain 90k+ xp without training those skills at all, are semi-rare combat drops, and essentially allow player to train non-combat skills in combat. The fact that effigies require 90+ levels in pretty much every skill to be very useful makes this less of an issue to most people. However, this has since been nerfed to only being able to store 5 at a time in your bank, with each one reducing the drop rate of the next.
A few combat weapons and spells also came to mind, some eventually getting nerfed. Ice Barrage is one of the most memorable in its glory days for making any PvP game laughably easy, and Dragon Claws once went for hundreds of millions due to its special attack being essentially a one-hit kill if the user uses a setup focused on maximum strength.
Wild dogs in Brimhaven dungeon and Shadows in the Temple of Light. They're not difficult to take down, but they keep on coming, and they interrupt whatever else you were doing.
Ghasts. When just crossing the Myre they sometimes destroy your food, and during Temple Trekking they have annoyingly high HP and drop little loot. You can kill them but the items required to do so are irritating to gather.
Vampyre juvinates east of Burgh de Rott. If you're trying to farm Vyre Corpses, get used to scrambling around to avoid them, because they're everywhere.
Loads of these now exist in Dungoneering. AsteaFrostweb is relatively low-level, but she freezes you in place and puts up prayers that make her immune to certain types of damage. And Stomp...See Luck-Based Mission.
The Fight Caves minigame has Tz-Tok Jad at the end, his attacks are fairly easy to dodge*
You can use Protect from Range and Protect from Magic prayers which block all damage of that type, and you have to watch Jad's attacks and switch to the correct prayer before it hits.
, but if you mess up, he can easily One-Hit KO you and you have to start from the beginning of the caves, which typically takes 2-3 hours to complete.
Plane-Freezer Lakhrahnaz's room is covered in Frictionless Ice. It has a knockback attack it loves to spam.
I Am Not Shazam: The bosses in the God Wars Dungeon are commonly misreferred to as Saradomin, Zamorak, Bandos, and Armadyl, after the gods they worship. Their real names are Commander Zilyana, K'ril Tsutsaroth, General Graardor, and Kree'arra.
Koschei the Deathless revealed to be Kharshai, which was correctly theorized by a large part of the fanbase.
Internet Backlash: Oh so many times, most infamously after the removal of the old Wilderness PvP and free trade in 2007. It continued long after that, and three years later Jagex decided to undo that particular change.
It Was His Sled: Much of the history of Zaros is well known to those who care for the plot, despite much of it coming from Master-tier quests. Still, most Zarosian armour and weapons are never referred to as such, instead being referred to by the word "Ancient".
It's possible, but extremely rare, to randomly receive 100 silver ore as a drop from most monsters with drop tables. Otherwise, silver ore is a common item, and even a hundred of them are only worth a few thousand gold in total. The dragon spear is obtained through a similar system (an extremely rare drop from the same wide variety of enemies) and is also very close to completely worthless.
Clue scrolls occasionally reward the player with rare and valuable items...and other times, you get a handful of mundane firelighters.
In the Agility Arena, the little song snippet that plays when you get a ticket gets old fast, especially considering it stops the music for several seconds.
Have a pet? Get ready to hate the sounds they make, especially the Baby Troll's loud 'BBBBBBBBBBBHHHTT!'
The tweeting birds when you fail at pickpocketing, mostly for their association with being stunned for a few seconds.
Sigmund's repeated attempts to commit genocide against the entire goblin race.
Guthix and Juna actually condoning Bandos' efforts to break the Edicts of Guthix and bring about another God War. Juna even basically states that Zanik and her kind are merely Bandos' property to be used or abused at his will.
Sliske may have done it before, but he crosses it big time in The World Wakes by killing Guthix.
The "level up" fireworks, and the fanfare that plays when you advance a Combat Level.
The trickle of coins when your Ring of Wealth affects a drop. Interestingly enough, this can also become a Most Annoying Sound while fighting Cave Horrors, since it plays after every single kill, regardless of the drop's value.
Paranoia Fuel: While on the Desert Treasure quest, you'd better bank those Diamonds of Azzanadra until the final part of the quest. If you don't, you may get randomly attacked by a stranger with a poisoned dragon dagger. He CAN and WILL use the special. And yes, this can happen in your house.
Player Punch: Players who have become fond of Hazelmere the ancient gnome mage, Cyrisus the fighter, Ghommal the giant door man, Sloane the Strength master, and the Slayer Masters Duradel and Turael may feel like they've been punched in the gut when all of those people die confronting Lucien during While Guthix Sleeps. And people who became fond of Princess Astrid and Prince Brand may feel like crying after they die fighting the Dagganoth Kings in the Blood Runs Deep Quest. It doesn't help that you married the one opposite to your gender a few moments before!
Play the Game, Skip the Story: It's common to find players with this attitude, clicking rapidly through all the dialogue in quests and consulting a fansite Walkthrough instead so they can get the rewards as quickly as possible without bothering with the storyline.
The Sawmill Operator, for the exorbitant prices he charges.
Zachary Bragg of the Temple Trekking series. For one thing, he's the escortee in an Escort Mission, and his accuracy is laughable. It takes fifty levels (compared to the usual twenty) for him to learn an attack that regularly hits, meaning he's a chore to train. He's a Miles Gloriosus, despite being a nerfed version of his counterpart, Pazuzu. The best part? In order to get one of the best shortcuts in the game, you have to get him to level 99. Even the Runescape Wiki makes fun of him. This was probably intentional, though, given that he's an Expy of Zapp Brannigan.
Random event NPC's were widely hated before an update that made events less frequent and more rewarding. They're still not exactly fan favorites. The lone exception is probably the Evil Chicken.
Yelps, the host of the daily Squeal of Fortune game. Plenty of players hate the minigame because he is essentially the poster image of Jagex beginning to add features that result in higher profit and that the wheel has a habit of rarely rolling on something good, usually giving players trash items on a regular basis. It does explain why (and makes it that much more satisfying when) the goblin looks like he is bruised and beaten when the character does happen to get a rare or super rare item. The wheel eventually got some of the rewards adjusted, but people still have a disliking to the goblin mainly out of the former.
Emote clue scrolls require you to perform an emote with certain items equipped. Obtaining said items is annoying to begin with, but some of them, like metal boots and snakeskin armor, are especially irritating due to not being sold by NPC's and rarely being sold on the Grand Exchange, which means you'll also probably use up a bank spot to hang onto them for the next time you get that clue.
Coordinate clues require you to use a very clunky navigation interface to find a spot to dig. What's worse, some of them send you to dangerous places like the Wilderness where stopping to use said interface would be problematic. Many players regard these as de facto Guide Dang It moments.
The inability to play music of your choice in Daemonheim. Don't like the ambient soundtrack or the battle songs? Too bad, whatever you put on will get cut off in a few seconds and replaced with the Daemonheim music.
Ship Tease: Quite a lot between the Player Character and Badass Adorable Cave Goblin chick Zanik. Crosses over into Interspecies Romance, and, if the player is female, Les Yay. One of the letters pages reveals that Zanik does indeed have feelings for the player, but wants to go off on her own so she won't be stuck in your shadow.
Tear Jerker: The Vengeance!saga is a surprisingly poignantPerspective Flip from the view of a female Forgotten Warrior in Daemonheim. The saga begins with you in control of a normal adventuring party comprised of a few player stereotypes (one who's obsessed with killing, a role-player, a rule breaker, and their sane team leader), after entering a room and seemingly killing everyone within it, you then take control of one of the victims who's Not Quite Dead. She awakes, poisoned, and surrounded by her dead comrades and her dead little brother (Taevas). She continues to wander through the dungeon, the poison slowly killing her, as she runs into more dead friends (each with their own examine info as she fondly remembered them), confronts and kills the members of the adventuring party that attacked them, and struggles with her own madness as her thirst for revenge begins to warp her mind, turning her into one of the very killers that she hunts...
If you have a slow internet connection, any attack that requires you to dodge projectiles can turn into this. Particularly nasty examples include the Luminescent Icefiend's icicle rain and the Spirit Beast's magical attacks.
In its heyday, Ice Barrage was this to players who played Castle Wars and other PvP minigames. A lot of ancient users were usually trash talked by those on the receiving end of such attacks.
Nomad. The custodian of a minigame as a fight, shouldn't be hard, right? Well, he's been gathering the souls of everyone who's died there for a year, and has harnessed their power for himself. He will freeze you, hit you to the literal maximum your body can withstand without disintegrating, summon land mines in a circle around you, and call up clones that fight at 100% power. What's that, you think you're going to win? He heals himself once you get him to a quarter of his health, and if you do it again he'll knock off the nonsense and just smack you around faster than you can blink. Your reward is a solid red or blue cape. Enjoy.
Another Dungeoneering boss, Shadow-forger Ihlakhizan. It can kill a player with maximum HP with a single attack by splashing acid on them, since the puddles spread out and the damage from each puddle stacks if multiple ones land where you are standing. His special attack alone will reduce your combat stats by a ton if it connects, as well as most likely killing you instantly. The only way to dodge this is to hide behind the pillars he hangs from, but if you stay there too long, the shadows will literally tear you apart. You only get a few seconds to get behind the pillars as well, so if you walk into the boss room just as he uses his special, you can expect to have to walk back all over again. Did I mention none of these attacks can be blocked by Prayer? And Saradomin help you if you forget to turn off Auto Retaliate.
Vanstrom Klause isn't quite Nomad-caliber, but he's still damn frustrating. He can hit through prayer and has a bevy of special attacks. One particularly infuriating one is his darkness attack, which can only be dodged by angling the camera away from him. The game doesn't explain that very well. His other specials are no slouches either, capable of summoning flunkies to heal him, teleport you right into his attacks, or just cover the room in magical projectiles.
If there is any quest-based boss than can trump Nomad in difficulty, it's Tok Haar-Hok from Brink of Extinction, which is also That One Quest to a majority of players. Battling him involves him summoning Elite Mooks that were giving hell in the previous battles, avoiding heating conduits, and locking Hok into a stun for the later half of the battle to prevent healing. Unfortunately, Hok can maim you for upwards of 6,000+ damage if not having prayer on (which is capable of draining), his mooks are far from slouches that can rip you to pieces, and the conduits are not something you want to stand on when heated up. An unlucky combination of either are known to kill players in seconds.
The snake event in Temple Trekking / Burgh de Rott Ramble is generally accepted as the hardest challenge to take a hard-tier character through; without a certain amount of luck, the snakes will aggro your character and kill him or her before you can kill off the snakes. Oh, and good luck trying to attack all of the snakes before they focus on your escort; they're a pain to click on.
The gnome tunnel under Ape Atoll, if you attempt Monkey Madness at a low level. Hundreds of aggressive, powerful skeleton gorillas and zombie monkeys, poisonous floor traps, and constant damage from falling rocks, all on the epitome of a Space Filling Path.
The sliding puzzle in Elemental Workshop 3. Tricky to figure out, your view is obscured by an odd angle (plus a pillar), and have a limited number of moves.
The Temple of Light in Mourning's End Part 2 due to the high-level agility it requires. The shadows hit rather hard if not having prayer on and that said agility level? You were likely to fail the obstacles... a lot.
One Crackedarticle lists the accordion puzzle from Rocking Out as #1 on its list due to extremely vague details and the general absurdity of the solution. You would have to be capable of thinking outside the box on the grand scale to consider figuring out using a mixture of an accordion, a seagull, and paper instead of doing something mundane.
Then there was PvP Worlds that appeared from late 2008 up until the 12-10-07 update was reversed on the account the drops ended up inflating the economy to ridiculous proportions.
The introduction of microtransactions and particularly the associated changes to the rules and terms of use were poorly received.
Every update gets this reaction from at least one section of the Broken Base. Some being reasonable, others not so much.
The early reaction by most of the Broken Base to the Evolution of Combat Beta.
Villain Sue: Sliske the Majarrat is largely hated by the player base for murdering Guthix at the end of "The World Wakes", not to mention enslaving Akrisae as the seventh Barrows Brother and generally being a Karma Houdini for it all. Meanwhile, he is beloved by Jagex's developers, and in-game he is basically uncatchable and none of his shadowy plots (to date, anyways) can ever be foiled.
The 2007 Christmas Event. The community was in a ranting mood thanks to the recent Wilderness and Free Trade changes, the event itself was extremely short, and the reward wasn't wearable, so it was very swiftly harshly panned. However, it included a post-event activity that gained some popularity, and the snow globe that was rewarded could be used to quickly generate snowballs for several of the future events which other people had to get gradually. It is now considered by many to be one of the best holiday events ever.
The Pest Control change, which greatly lowered the possible experience gain for high level players (but increased it for low level players). It was one of the first seriously controversial updates of RuneScape 2, and triggered many riots. However, thanks to the addition of Void Knight Helmets, and other training areas being released, it has been considered an alright update.
The Woobie: The World Wakes gives us, of all people, Guthix. Not only he dies, but his backstory showed he came from another world that was destroyed by an unknown war with the husks of his race and a god. Despite the Edicts, he knew it wasn't going to be enough to avert the fate that fell upon his world. Made worse is that he personally shows us his past before lying on a bed in his desolate home.
