Account
A player's account is their digital profile, which stores information and is represented in-game by the player character. Accounts are accessed by unique log-in credentials, with a password and either a login email or username, depending on when the account was created.
An account holds all the information on the player's in-game activities, including their skills and achievements, the items they possess, and the quests they have done. It also makes the player responsible for anything they have said via the game's chat interface, as well as any actions that breach Old School RuneScape's Code of Conduct.
Beyond in-game play, players also need to log into their account to use certain functions on the RuneScape website, including posting on the RuneScape Forums (for those that have not attained 350 overall total level), as well as voting in official polls and accessing the Player Moderator Centre (if the player has player moderator status).
Overview
Account management
Players may receive messages from Jagex via the Message Centre when they log into the game. This is the only means by which Jagex contacts players individually. They will NEVER use email, and any emails claiming to require action for your account should be discarded.
As of 24 January 2010, players are required at sign-up to give Jagex their email address.
Multiple accounts
An individual person can use several accounts, and they can interchange between playing them with no limits. Historically, it used to be forbidden to log into more than one account simultaneously; this was changed in May 2014,[1][2] with Jagex explicitly allowing trade and other interaction between alternate accounts, "as long as it doesn't involve rule breaking or gameplay exploitation." One may not, however, allow anyone else to use any of their accounts at any time.[3] See the alternative accounts section below for further information.
Sale of accounts
Jagex also prohibits the sale of accounts whether by in-game or real currency. The exchanging of Old School RuneScape goods for real money, otherwise known as real-world trading, constitutes a violation of the Terms.
Banning
Accounts can be permanently banned after repeated, severe infractions of game rules, most notably major bug abuse, botting, and real world trading. Players can also be banned for their conduct on forums. Permanently banned or muted players may appeal mutes and some types of bans. Jagex moderators will check the accuracy of the ban and whether the offence resulted from the activity of a hijacker. Ban appeals are a "last chance" appeal, and if denied, Jagex will not look at it again, nor will they respond to further ban appeals for that account.
Repeated offenses over multiple accounts can result in banning based on IP address, the digital number assigned to individual computers' connections to the internet. Since IP addresses are sometimes re-assigned, players have mistakenly been banned due to the IP they accessed the game from.
New account trade restrictions
New free-to-play accounts have trade restrictions in place until the account's logged in time surpasses 20 hours of game time, 10 or more quest points are acquired, and reaching 100 total level.[4] Such restrictions include a block from selling certain items on the Grand Exchange. This restriction is in place to help prevent botted and black-market goods from entering the economy, as many of the accounts are caught and banned before they can be logged in for 20 hours in total.[5]
Restricted items
| Item | GE Price | |
|---|---|---|
|
Oak logs | 109 |
|
Willow logs | 74 |
|
Yew logs | 260 |
|
Raw shrimps | 110 |
|
Shrimps | 22 |
|
Raw anchovies | 54 |
|
Anchovies | 54 |
|
Raw lobster | 74 |
|
Lobster | 158 |
|
Clay | 93 |
|
Soft clay | 109 |
|
Copper ore | 27 |
|
Tin ore | 27 |
|
Iron ore | 209 |
|
Silver ore | 65 |
|
Gold ore | 157 |
|
Coal | 152 |
|
Mithril ore | 134 |
|
Adamantite ore | 1,069 |
|
Runite ore | 11,025 |
|
Cowhide | 246 |
|
Vial | 2 |
|
Vial of water | 3 |
|
Jug of water | 36 |
|
Fishing bait | 5 |
|
Feather | 3 |
|
Eye of newt | 4 |
|
Wine of zamorak | 714 |
|
Air rune | 5 |
|
Water rune | 5 |
|
Earth rune | 5 |
|
Fire rune | 5 |
|
Mind rune | 3 |
|
Chaos rune | 102 |
Tradeable event rewards
New accounts are also barred from receiving tradeable rewards upon completion of a holiday event, such as Easter eggs, Halloween masks, or partyhats. If this limitation applies, the player will be told to return to the main event NPC after sufficient in-game time has passed to claim their tradeable rewards.[6] This measure was put in place to prevent players from creating new accounts en masse to collect the potentially valuable event items.[7]
Alternative accounts
Secondary accounts, alternate accounts, or alts, are generally lower levelled or less frequently used accounts (some of which are pures and throwaway accounts).
A throwaway account, also sometimes called a rag or a ragger, is an alternate account that has been created to carry out a certain task, with the owner having no intention of developing the account. It is sometimes used to accomplish something controversial or malicious, such as griefing, which is the act of intentionally ruining other players' gaming experiences by using aspects of the game in unintended ways, or disrupting the community. (The act is also known as ragging.) It can also be used to experience or re-experience low level content and quests. In PVP, alternative accounts are commonly used to scout out dangerous locations or to scout for enemy players.
Legitimate usage
Many players opt to play both a normal account and an ironman to experience the game in a different way without limiting themselves to only the other. This also applies to pures.
A common use of alternate accounts is to make money while training skills on the main account, allowing the player to sustain wealth whilst always using expensive methods with high experience rates. Runecraft, merchanting and killing profitable Slayer monsters are common methods of money making for this purpose, as they are relatively low effort to allow playing two accounts at once.
Secondary accounts can also be used as scouts to assess Wilderness dangers (e.g. Mining runite or King Black Dragon hunting), as storage in which they are referred to as mules or mule accounts (mules are not allowed in Deadman Mode), to repair the Blast Furnace, and a variety of other tasks provided they have sufficient levels. As a scout, secondary accounts are essential since they can help seek out dangers and avoid your main from falling victim to a player killer. Also, as a player killer, a scout can be used to seek out potential victims.
Throwaway accounts are sometimes used by players to explore newly updated content already completed on their more advanced character. For example, when a revision of the tutorial (Tutorial Island, Troll Warzone, Ashdale, etc.) was released on RuneScape 3, many players created throwaway accounts to explore the new content. Typically, these accounts are abandoned and never seen online again.
Quests such as Heroes' Quest or Shield of Arrav require a partner. However, you will need to have both accounts logged in at the same time which conforms to the rules as long as it doesn't involve rulebreaking or glitching.[2]
Additionally, prior to the Custom Nightmare Zone update, players would use booster accounts, which only had certain quests completed to unlock certain bosses that cater to the player's combat needs and build. Nightmare Zone boosting may still be done, but this practice has lost significant popularity due to said update.
Prohibited usage
More malicious throwaway accounts include gold-farming bots that are created to continuously play the game to make gold to sell to players for real-world money (i.e. real world trading). Accounts are also used as auto-talkers to advertise sites trading RuneScape gold.
Throwaway accounts are also used to insult and scam other players. These accounts are often reported quickly, and banned soon after as they do nothing except negatively influence the community's well-being.
Punishment
While other players can always choose to ignore the player in question, illegitimate throwaway accounts are often reported and banned. In some rare cases, throwaway accounts will be traced by Jagex moderators resulting in action being taken towards the user's main account(s).
Personal data rights
Players' legal rights are described in Jagex's privacy policy, subject to the GDPR (for EU residents), the California Consumer Privacy Act (for California residents), and the DPA 2018 (amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019).
Under certain circumstances, outlined in the privacy policy and UK legislation, players may:
- Request access to their personal data
- Update their personal data
- Remove their personal data and permanently disable their account
- Restrict the processing of their personal data
- Obtain and reuse their personal data
- Request information about the use of their personal data
A data subject access request may be submitted using this form (requires login). Jagex must respond with the outcome of the request within 3 months, and inform the player if the request takes more than one month to process.
Trivia
- The number of RuneScape accounts reached 200 million on 19 July 2012,[8] and 300 million in 2022.[9]
See also
- Noob
- Main account
- Combat pure
- Skiller
- Ironman mode
- Rules of RuneScape
- RuneScape Authenticator
- Bank PIN