The worst possible way to spend time. Simply have to play it to dread it. Do yourself a favor: Stay away from RuneScape.
The combat! The monsters! All those quests to complete, all those skills to train, all of the places to explore, all of the items to get! What about the random events? The mini-games! Cool, huh? The answer is a cold, hard NO. Although it might seem attractive at first and addictive after a while, soon one will find out that all of these aspects of RuneScape are more irritating than the other.
The map is the only part of the game that features a depth, and that is due to the fact that it is humongous. Fun to explore at first, even if you don't know where you're going. However, the more one gets to know it, the more one will hate it. It is similar to having to drive for an hour to get to work: tedious. Remember the phrase, "too much of a good thing?" Regrettably, Jagex was able to ruin perhaps the best part of the game by overdoing it. Just like parents who hate driving their kids around the town, you will hate the way you have to travel from one corner of the map to the other unless you have a personality similar to Pollyanna's. But wait! Jagex has come to rescue! There are ways to travel around the map, such as teleportation and various other ways. Before you say thank you, just remember that you do not know Jagex yet. Almost all of these travelling methods require something: that may be a quest, an item, a skill level, etc. Whatever it is, it will take more time to obtain that prerequisite than to walk to the place you wanted to go anyway. Sorry, walk? You can RUN! Sadly, your RuneScape character is not a marathon runner from Kenya: before you know it, you'll find yourself walking again, except this time your Run Energy Meter will be depleted. Thank you, Jagex!
Combat and skills. These are what RuneScape revolves around, yet it all seems to be quite ridiculous. Watching your character do the same action, over and over again.. millions, billions of times.. if that's your definition of fun, so be it! Any person with an adequate IQ level will notice that RuneScape requires absolutely no wit to play. Like the Guns N' Roses song goes, "All you need is a little bit of patience." If you have LOTS (literally) of time to throw away, you might be very successful at RuneScape. Based on experience, a character's skills can be advanced. Ranging from levels 1-99 (0-13 million experience, with the point requirements doubling every 7th level), there are rewards at some levels to satisfy the players' efforts! Incredible, isn't it? Would be, just if Jagex took the time to plan the game with more intellect. The final reward of any skill is to be able to wear a Skill Cape: different colored pixels that all look the same when worn (More of this will be covered later). If you have the nerve to get that far, but still are not satisfied, you have the opportunity to push your experience up to 200 billion points - the most masochistic torture possible.
Quests? Infuriating. These are similar to your everyday chores, where one is forced to run around the map doing pointless tasks for an abysmal reward that will cause you to rip your hair out. Like that's not enough, some of these quests are mandatory to use certain items or to enter specific areas. But wait! A large amount of the quests require others to be complete, skills above a certain level and furthermore, a load of random items that are needed. If you're keen on having the most of the atrocious satisfaction RuneScape provides, quests will gladly be your friend. What fun! Point is, what seem to be initial excitements eventually turn into a nightmare. Oh the items! RuneScape features a vast range of items, with more than half of them being useless junk. All of the game's smithable metal armor and weapons look the same. From bronze to rune, they are all the same except for a better stat bonus as you get higher up the ladder, and a different color. That said, the bank space is not enough to store even the items one needs. There is no point of getting into free world bank space: it is just a little bit bigger than the inventory space given. What logic! You'll soon find yourself sorting your bank, tossing useless items. Guess what? The items required in quests involve lots of this junk that you don't keep. The fear of a common RuneScape player is fetching the items required for the quest that may be scattered all over the map. Yes, that huuuuuge map that might have seemed cool at first.
The free version of the game provides a number of skills/items to work with over a part of the map, with a couple of quests available. At first, it is more than enough to entertain eager new players, who will be referred to as a "noob" as soon as the tutorial ends and the chat is enabled. If you like the disaster you see and you have years to waste, proceed to a RuneScape membership. If you want to pay to spend your time in a wasteful way, this is perfect for you.
Customer service, let alone helping players, does not even exist. The only message a player will get from Jagex will be automated, unless one is a player mod who writes through the Mod Center. Jagex works not to help, but against players instead. Every now and then, they randomly send accusations to players that do not even make sense, issuing temporary, permanent, or sometimes IP bans; yet, somehow, all the players that scam, macros, and everything illegitimate is overlooked. Does this get any better? Well, yes. There is all kinds of people playing this mess. The massive online hub squirms with people all the time: from children who are barely old enough to operate a computer, to adults who have not found a sufficient life in this world. Whether they use "noob" to greet you, or try to hit on your pixellated character, a VAST majority of the people on RuneScape will drive you nuts - not to overgenerelize. As you can see, there's no end to the flaws of this game. However exciting at first, RuneScape will slowly invoke a revolting feeling inside of you and turn into a nightmare. The worst possible way to spend time. Simply have to play it to dread it. Do yourself a favor: Stay away from RuneScape.
P.S. On Difficulty: RuneScape is not difficult to play. A more fit word to describe the game is "torture." (Meaning annoying, not hard)