Hello, this is my first post here, and will be my opinions about a game I've played on and off for over 15 years, Runescape, and the consequences of the time commitments that myself and other players have put in.
First of all, Runescape, and especially Oldschool Runescape, are famous for many reasons but one notorious reason is the major time commitments it would take to max out all the stats of any particular character. Some players take it upon themselves to play this game as efficiently as possible, and yet still they commit thousands of hours to max out their accounts.
You may ask yourself, why do these players do it? Is it fun? Well, honestly for most players, certain aspects of the game are fun and some are simply overwhelming. Some skills such as Runecrafting and Mining take hundreds of hours of tedious and repetitive clicking to max out your level in those particular skills, of which there are 23.
Another reason people spend these thousands of hours grinding, is simply to have the bragging rights that they accomplished maxing out all their skills, as well as they have a completionism mindset. This is obviously unhealthy in a space where every person wants to be able to compare themselves to others, and the only way to get ahead is to commit more time / real money / or cheat with macro software. These are their own separate issues, but are worth mentioning because the real world applications of playing these games are very real.
Over all the years I've spent playing this game, I can't begin to estimate the amount of times I've seen players declaring whatever achievement they have reached, whether it be a certain gold value in game, a rare drop, or leveling up skills only to be met with insults or essentially an off hand congratulations.
If this seems like a sinister view or lumping every encounter into a box, well, sort of but not entirely. Obviously friends will be happy for one another and proud for their time commitments however silly it may sound, but that is an incredibly small minority.
The elitism community in this game garners the most respect due to their incredible achievements. These people also have the ability to sway the popular opinion on game changes and direction to some degree, especially players who also create content for the game whether it be Youtube content creators, or Twitch streamers. These elite communities establish what is respectable, which unfortunately sets standards very high which is dangerous in a game that demands such an incredible time commitment.
The entirety of the Runescape community is impacted greatly by the small majority when it comes to making any major changes, which include things such as increasing the rates players would gain experience in certain skills, but these players have already committed so much time into their accounts, some with 10s of thousands of hours, heavily advocate for these changes to not take place.
Due to this, a player base that is essentially made up entirely of people who played the game as children and continue to play for nostalgia, will sometimes partake in unhealthy life choices in order to complete their goals to reach their goals faster. I've personally found that tons of players spend real world money to get in game currency to expedite the training process, people stay up late committing countless hours doing repetitive tasks to reach ultimately inconsequential goals in order to try to fit in or impress other players. The players that do this, gain a sort of elitism angle and well and tend to say there shouldn't be changes implemented and other should have to go through the same experiences that they did, whether or not those actions have real world consequences.
And I'll end it with this, as a player who has spent thousands of hours playing before I realized how deep these mindsets and realities of playing go. And at the end of the day nobody has ever, or will ever, care about anybody else's achievements in a game that ultimately comes down to how much time can be spent doing repetitive tasks and it is truly a horrible thing that so many people are throwing away legitimate years of their lives searching for some sort of respect or acceptance without realizing that there is none at the end of the journey.
Thank you for your time.