When I was overwhelmed, I decided to focus on a life-long dream of mine to master the art of firemaking. Learning to master a skill takes hours and hours of repetitive moves to achieve the 99th level (now 120 in a handful of skills) And, in the process, can earn you a cape worthy of being a master with RS Gold. The cape has been cut. It’s bright.

It shows the symbol of any skill, and comes with a matching hood. My brother and an excellent friend–who claimed to be a mage of great power — also joined in the MMO enjoyment, and after revisiting the RuneScape the world (and frequently reminding my crew over our Discord message that I’m the best among us) I was ready to go to work.

The crew would eventually become one of the most legendary artisans Gielinor’s ever encountered I with my arson My friend with his magic and my brother with herblore (potion-making) the latter of which he took on because the cape for his skills appears like a weed.

It was the most restful time of the pandemic. Yes, it was a monotonous grind but RuneScape is doing such an impressive job at rewarding the grind that it almost felt like me and my buddies enjoying a night of fun on Discord just like usual, but with goal-setting.

And of course, RuneScape has its fair share of microtransactions, the darkest aspect of gaming in which MMOs have in common with RuneScape or World of Warcraft almost invented, but now when I was a grown-up and a decent budget, getting a membership wasn’t a problem, and beyond membership other things like cool cosmetics to intimidate other players as well as XP boosts, game-specific money, and so on–is almost entirely optional.