Early Runescape Classic Pking Was Bananas 

Discord server: discord.gg/GQWe6nq5 Left out wine pures, they would use the combat training dummies to avoid getting hitpoints up. This led to them being able to use items such as the rune 2h at lower combat than others, increasing the chance to 3 hit. They would use wines to lower their attack below 8 so that they could keep training on the dummies for xp. All videos used are in the description!

So many great memories playing RSC in my early teens. I remember skipping middle school/faking sick to stay home and play. PKing was such a rush. “Wars” were also a huge thing where clans (wearing certain color capes) would battle in the wilderness. Those days felt like a legitimate holiday. So many people were out PKing, it was crazy. Also, looked down upon at the time, but I remember learning how to “cheat” and set up my char to train all day long while I was at school. I’d come home to find that I had leveled up a handful of levels, then would spend the afternoon PKing. It was pretty impressive how versatile some of those autotraining interfaces were. They’d auto-eat, go to the bank, get more food, and walk all the way back to the training location. Good times.

I remember when I was 11 I lost my r2h and cried. I messaged the guy who pk’d me and asked if I could have it back. He said no

The game was so fresh and new at the time. There were no guides, no "meta" just people exploring and finding out everything along the way. I didn't play classic for very long but i'll never forget when they announced members and the hype surrounding "first time ever sound effects" as f2p had no sound effects. In terms of pking, I was fortunate enough to experience even a fraction of that time period. As others have said - low level mage accounts using bolt spells to essentially 1 hit someone in varrock level 1 was ridiculous. The wine pures to lower your attack and train at dummiies was huge as well. I myself had a 40 attack r2h pure somewhere around the 40'ish combat area. During that time since there were no negative bonuses wearing rune armor it was a common thing to see lvl 26s, lvl 29s wearing full rune (with platebody) using charge & guthix claws hitting 30s on literally anyone while being hit 0s almost exclusively. If you were in a members world you could duel anyone anywhere. This made lumby a huge spot for stakers as when you died you arrived in lumby anyway. There were also accounts people made that were 20 or 30 attack, 40 def, and high strength and fought pures exclusively. These accounts didn't hit super high but couldn't be hit by pures and usually died from the 3-round rule. Auto-catching was also a thing believe it or not.

RuneScape truly is like a time capsule. You're a legend for making this channel especially for RSC being recorded.

I had a "black pure" that could wear black armor. I thought it was so BA. I did manage to PK a rune 2h which was a huge deal to me at the time. This was all on F2P. Must have been around 2001 or 2002.

I started out as non-pker back in 2001 (pre-wilderness). But I saw someone with a chefs hat and really wanted it. Since he was a pker, I changed my setting to pker briefly to kill him. He was a few levels higher but I somehow managed to get the job done. I then switched back to non-pker after. I basically used all my switches on that alone. Wildy came out shortly after.

Another great RSH video! I joined ~2007 so Classic kind of lies in obscurity. Super interesting to watch, can’t wait for more history.

this is good, some things were slightly wrong, but you cover a lot of info and do it a lot of justice. thanks RH!Between my brother and I, we had about 30-40 pking/staking builds

Awesome video, enjoy listening to these! Keep up the great work!

It was def 3 levels. I played like 6 hours a day back then and 12 hours a day as a kid during summer. This was my childhood. I remember being in the same clan as thestinger44 and m3alstr0m I use to have a 75 attack 60 def and 93 str account and would 3 hit people all the time but I use to wear full addy. As a kid you never wanted to loose your rune. One summer I stacked up almost 100 full sets pking it was my summers trophy. I wish this game still was alive and kicking I miss rsc

Awesome video ! Never got to experience classic so it’s cool to see what it was all about

so idk who informed you but the wilderness was out long before rune plate bodies were out and there was a time before when there wasn't defense and attack levels needed to equip the rune long sword run med or rune chain (the only rune to exist at this time)

Love these videos! Please make more...

This is such an underrated channel. Love your videos.

I recognize 2 players were pking each other in the wilderness at edgevile, and a guard said the quote "Hey! No Fighting!"

Dude yes you are back!!! Please keep uploading!

You’re on point with the rsc history got me as a subscriber

Its fun to see my language used in those clips! I have allways known that osrs is very popular in Finland but still its nice to see Finnish used in clips :D

That does bring back some good memories! Mastering the art of catching ppl trying to run away. Still remember some names, not mentioned in the vids; ravoz, cpolgara, kuriz, ssjgoku, spotlight.. and so many more but most are forgotten tho. Good times!

Good memories of playing classic, trying to do wildy fights 1 iteming with a R2H and monk robes, and always every single time I'd get a fight would get jumped by 3-4 mages/rangers adding tons of extra damage to me. Good times.

Hell yeah man love you videos. Runescape pking was wack. Excited for this one

I love these I miss rsc between my wine pure and mage tank. the days of the mage wall when Mr garrison would own people in draynor. staking anywhere. times were good.

The biggest bracket was level 20-40 and it was 10-20 attack pures bc rune 2h's were to expensive. Chefs hat leather body pink skirt (due to the ability to pick them up on the walk back to the bank and edge of the wilds bc pures didn't get teleports back then). P crossbow and Black battle axe or mithril 2hs. High levels didn't pk members would duel making Lumbridge and draynor bank the hot spots, but it was about making sure to get equal risk. The mage tanks were for dueling and basically were boss level when they had 1 attack 1 strength 60 def and 70+ magic at around combat 46ish. But that was back before the dragon square shield came out.

this game was still fun in 2009 on the re releases...hell its still decent on rscrevolution private server today The colors are so beautiful. Forever in my heart

Love the vids ❤️

I still remember watching Kelly's videos and being amazed.

Used to love this game. Played it at the library haha. Old school

Your country voice "they're gonna get on and we're get em made me laugh so hard. Subbed

damn! Just saw my name pop up(Generalish) on this video. Flashbacks DELUXE! This was a good time and thanks for bringing back some old memories!!!

Plate pures existed because the map piece used to be tradeable. They existed only during RSC, as the conversion to RS2 brought with it the ability to pay 10k to the goblin for the map piece. That's why we used to see so many pkers in rune chain.

i had this wine pure where u drank wine to keep ur attack down so u could use the punching bags in varrok to train all the way to 40 attack and not gaining hp. resulting in a level 13 with a rune2h

New sub here. Enjoying all your content

Some of my best times were on a level 30ish pure hanging out between Varrock level 1 and castle

I always preffered RSC to RS2, the pking and staking were more fair to me. I never was able to get any high stats in rsc because training was actually hard. I think my best account was 40 attack, 71 strength, 3 accident defence, 13 prayer. Good times at edge and castle. In the members world we used to do little r2h/amulet stakes in lumbridge all day. Low level mage pking (lv 8 - lv 13) was also very addicting, it was hard because you had to manually click the spell then click your opponent. But they would all easily 3 hit each other if the spell hit lol

God, I miss the good old days. The Clan Wars were the best part.

The time periods where I didn't play RuneScape (back in the day) I find the most interesting. I missed out on RSC and stopped before RuneScapeHD.

Man I miss how simple pking use to be, even up til 2011 id go dh pking with no veng and I’d still get more kills than deaths, it’s so fast now 😂

Some of my favorite pure builds: Low level (like 10) Steel 2h pures with ranged (cuz ranged didn't level you up to a certain point based on str and atk.). Could play with friends and you just stack amulets in your bank. Level 12ish~ 30 defense 59 magic fire blast mage (absolutely demolished low level pvp, don't remember exact level), stacked tons of runes and amulets and adamant 2h cuz most people were using chaos runes instead of death runes. You wore full adamant armor and people could not hit you. Prayer 31 and 1-5 defense (with dial up internet sometimes you dc'd and logged in to exp cuz you one shot a mob you was training on with default controlled stance rip) 40 attack rest strength. Typically around level 40-50. Go into wild with prayer robes, ruby amulet, rune 2h, swap to f2p and just farm massssssive amounts of rune sets and rune 2h and your only risk was a ruby amulet. Absolutely insane build. Hp on attack and strength pures was also higher per level than people that trained defense so even with low defense your hp was high too. All these builds you just go to varrock or edgeville, swap to f2p servers, and just pvp right on the line between wild and town. Either kill someone in 3 hits or they run to safety and eat lol. That's the benefit of making a popular level range, you had so many people you could easily pvp with right on the edge of town. Such a good time, such good nostalgia. I'm trying osrs now and it's just not the same. PvP back then was such a rush. Do people even sit on the edge of varrock anymore? In hindsight I probably only enjoyed it because 95 percent of people didn't know how overpowered pures were and just let me 3 hit them and take all of their stuff. It wasn't super skill based except the catching so it was mostly about having a superior build. Would probably never fly in 2023 where every guide is on RU-vid and stuff. Players would be better now.

Also you said mage wasn’t used on pkin but it was very very useful in duels. Especially swapping to a Zamorak staff. Would be interested to see you do an episode about being baited by low level max mages with zammy staff

Random things I noted watching this from an old guy who played. Flats is actually 99 99 99, meaning max melee. A 70 70 70 for example is just a main/flats in progress. Best pk build was: 40 att 1 def 99 str 69 mage (69 to have +10 above 59 so never fail cast) Typically low prayer to keep combat low. Range was very useful, and did NOT impact hitpoint level whatsoever. So could have a 99 range 10hp sniper multilogged. Could have many of these with an assortment of defense/hp levels to cover multiple bracket ranges. Catching is indeed what sets the good and best pkers apart. Jukes, diags, straights, and timing hp bar vanish to reattack avoiding delay. Chase and seting up a catch all while eating, casting, repotting was a rush. Real way to catch: after 3 rounds when they run to eat, you chase them by clicking tiles (NOT clicking attack). You only reattack AFTER their hp bar goes away. If you attack while their hp bar is still visible you will stop moving get a delay and they will walk away from you gaining a gap. Regarding klanks.. the pros would bring a plate and klanks, and swap during combat. Also amulet swapping was a big thing too. Bringing an assortment gave an edge in duels/staking big time. Thanks for the nostalgic video, I feel old :)

5 combat mages with wind bolt were the most fun. get 100% fatigue when you get a hard powerspike and stay there forever and not gain xp.

Me and a couple of buddies that used to practice catching in the wilderness figured out that if you clicked to follow a player, you could determine if you we able to catch them by the distance behind which you would follow. At the time only one of the 2 people in combat could catch.

I remember when the mage arena came. Low level mages like level 30 could own a level 60-100 main. Alot of people got scammed thinking they could win, me as well😅

Mmmmm coffee and rs historian = good morning

Pking back then was alot of fun I made mage builds and ranger builds hit and un away or on the other side of the fence lol

Oh man, when it comes to Classic RS History, there's no one that I trust more than the guy that was insane enough to play a Classic Ironman without botting.

I started with this runescape this runescape was so much fun I miss it so much 😭😢

I started in 2002, and the only pures then were basically like 40 attack and low def with high strength. I had a 40 att 10 def pure that I pk'd on myself. Magic was bad until ancients came out, and it was extremely hard to level up because there was no runecrafting and there was hardly any worlds to buy runes from. I'm also confused on why you heard that mains didn't pk, because from what I remember, it was mostly mains because it was so damn hard to level up then.. so I'm guessing this is based on the rerelease of classic and not actual classic from almost 20 years ago. I was in a really big clan back then, and it was all mains, and we fought other mains.

8:40 I can hear let the bodies hit the floor from the background footage lol

I had an addy pure lvl 63 and a plate pure ranger lvl 56 back in the day. Great days indeed. Also, it was 3 levels in the early days.

you could switch to shield in between attacks and back too sword if you were good, and I would use range as well, I would shoot them right before that attacked me so I could get an extra 2 hits in before the 3 rounds started. I would also pretend that I was a pure ranger and shoot at a guy and not pull out my sword until 5x 3rounds or so, This would cause a player to get over confident and not eat before the next round of 3 rounds and have like 2/3 to 3/4 life then they would have if they ate before rounds. Another strategy, was trapping people in castle with closing doors :). I been playing since spring of 2001

prayer beast? I remember it as monk pkers. also diag running would still get you caught by the better pkers.but good video . brought back some good memories.

I just love your vids you do such a good job man you go out your way for extra knowledge you even through a nice way to the "know it alls" in the comments section of saying hey "I'm sure yall can know this better or I'm sure yall done more research on this" knowing damn well they didn't lol just to keep them from harassing your vids for no damn reason at all just to be little shit satins but yo when you said those crazy people waiting for them to log back in saying all that shit was funny as hell man and I cab belive that to but great job man

PK videos were a thing on the Runescape Community forums. I recall some of the music used being Iron Maiden and Linkin Park, haha.

I have so many fond memories of building a Prayer Beast and hounding around the deepest parts of the wilderness for any fight I could start. I was probably a giant shithead too lol.

I was there Gandalf. I was there 3,000 years ago

Lol one of the most underrated changes from rsc to rs2: renaming plate mail body to platebody....what a mouthful 🤣

In the beginning of classic, you also couldn't store items in banks, only coins. So if you were a pker with a skull you would be risking everything you owned. It wasn't until July of 2001 that they release item banks along with runeite items (Although only items sold in the champions guild, and med helms from lesser demons were available until Bluerose13x and eventually others were able to smith them). These were both added because players were saving lots of coins in anticipation of the release of player owner houses where they would be able to store items. Note that these were not the POHs we have today but actual house on the map in various cities (where the Falador party room and mining guild enterance is used to be just a bunch of little square houses). These were scrapped because Runescape had gotten too popular and they didn't have enough map to allow anyone who wanted one a house (instances were a thing until the Farming skill was released much much later).

I sadly missed classic because of my age but when eoc came out it was my instant resort so glad 07 came out because it was so clunky

You could use magic ontop of melee, as in, you didnt lose any melee hits by using a magic attack, it was just an extra attack. Magic was used heavily in pking for this reason.

Shit, i remember sitting at the wildy gate north of Varrock pking in classic. There was basically a market at wildy edge. People selling lobs and pking shit.

i remember duelling 10 def 40 attack and high strength. wearing black armour and staking rune 2H swords in duels. remember winning like 5 in one night

you can write about it but if you weren't there it just doesn't do you any justice. great times good vid

My account started as a prayer beast can confirm 1 item I use to hide in the black knight fort. Combat was alot more simple then.

i got rich back in 2002-2003 from staking rune 2 handed swords, i had an account 40 att 1 def 60 str, id duel other pures around my level, alot back in the day had 10-20 def because they thought black armour looked cool, and id have an advantage over them with my str lvl most of the time. I remember staking r2hs and getting my bank upto 30m, which was a ton back then, id say comparable to seeing someone these days with 30bil. It was a fun time in my life for sure ahha, i miss the classic days.

I was just too young for rsc (born in 99) but this literally sounds so fun, video games were more fun when they were less polished and more glitchy unlike they are now. Is there anyway to place this today?

@runescape historian Is it worth a vid on how classic players received the release of RS2? Interested to know whether they liked it

I wish i got to experience this version of the game in its heyday.

Magic was slept on in rsc for pking, the spells to drop attack and defense and strength were op

The leveling system on rs classic took so much more time compared to osrs. They Introduced a fatigue system with sleeping bags

started playing this game in 2001 i was 11. Santa hats had just dropped. I remember leveling my character up to 11 and spelt chaos "choas" because i was a kid and had to delete and start again lol

I miss pking north of varrock....

Amazing how ingrained pking builds from rsc remain today despite how drastic the combat mechanics changed in 03/04, with the beta and full release of rs2. Prayer beasts (1 defence pures) were easily the most overpowered in rsc for their combat level and risked next to nothing with next to zero skill involved besides trying to preserve your prayer and eating quickly. Defence mage pures were also popular at the time since armour didn’t hinder your ability to cast spells

Coming back to this vid I noticed I didn’t have all notifications on. Coming back to this video was the determining factor Just know that 😂

I joined a RSC private server and it was sick as hell man, the pking was just as good as I remember it. I stopped playing because the population was too small, and it was super clicky you were either with these clan or that clan, people were abusing multi-accounts in PKing. Shame what a wicked game.

rune and items looked good in the game i loved the combat system, the wildnerss was dangerous and it prevented power creep. The pvp and combat was simple and i loved it.

Black baxe(battleaxe) pkers. 10 1 30 the best build. Black baxes had higher str bonus than b2h.

Yeah the 38 combat was probably the most common build. 40 1 79 or 76 I can't remember and 40 prayer. Also there was some loop hole to be a lvl 1 magic pure (pure plate) and it was closed well before rs old school (rs2).

"you are too tired to gain experience. Go to bed first..." That's a wild line to see in a videogame

This was when I played when runescape was legend. My character was ri0t. 44 attack 40 defense plate pure 99 str 91 hp roughly, 99 range.

Did you ever see any pking going on when you played a few years ago? I couldn’t imagine it being very fun with how prolific bots and macros were.

PKing was such a thrill back then

I think at those times there was also pure build with full black armor and 2H rune sword

Around 2004 the catching in pking changed not in the way jagex changed the code but someone found out in catching if your player ID to the server was lower than your opponent you would be able to catch them ie 1500 players in a server if you logged in and got ID 1000 and someone was trying to catch you with ID 900 they could catch you, visa versa you couldn't catch them it would just stop instead of attacking them. Bots made it possible to see your ID so people would be logging in and out outside edgy for ages until they got like a lower ID say like below 20 so they could catch most people. Andrew said himself that he didn't intend to include catching it's just the way the code worked and they left it in.

this is exactly how i wished the game was now but also understand it would be shit even less risk when doing ANY content not just wildy

One thing that you might be interested to know is that PID was very very important in RSC PKing. There were actually cheat clients that would log you in and out constantly until you got a PID within the range you set. Catching was very important as you said, but you could not catch someone reliably if the other player had a lower PID. You could follow them accurately, click attack but you would just stall and they’d get away.

My build was 30 att 1 def 60-65 str it would put your combat lvl around 30-32 and wouldn’t be that much of a grind before you could have fun. Sure you didn’t make bank due to low lvl items but it was still the most fun I could have. Oh yeah you could also get 55-60 range with this build without going up a combat lvl. Notable clans/groups at that level around the 1999-2000 days were the “azn boi” clan and the “I h8 my mum” clan. I really miss classic but don’t miss the click intensive grind.

good old days when varrock wildy was packed..

Does anyone have a client/server of RSC to play offline single player?

I remember making mage only lvl10 or so characters and pking in lvl1 wildy

I played on 1 server in 6th grade, it sucked trying to get to the bank in varock as a kid because the messiah gang clan would always kill you with ranged using crossbows on the way to the bank and if you made it to the bank if they killed all the guards they could attack you in the bank too. if you attacked someone in the bank the guards would attacked you.

PKing and duels sure were fun in rsc! I really miss this game. What a shame they closed rs classic down. I really hope that some day they will change their minds and bring rsc back.

it was within 4 combats levels, the first level someone turns dark orange to you, you could still fight them. thats how u know its 4 combat levels away and not 3.

I was a player back then.... And this video gives me so much anxiety. Each time im like "No! What're you doing!?".... because I was a noob back then and could barely afford mithril

Early staking was interesting too. It was pretty much the exact opposite of PKing. You'd see 60/99/1 or some variant with high hitpoints.

I remember people using dragon longs to stake in lumby rather than pking.

The way the plate pure was created was much simpler… you could trade quest items back then.

Classic look like South Park characters when they move. I wonder if that's how where they got the inspiration. Less movement probably made it easier back when "modern" computers were still new

Man I use to get some crazy 3 hit kills with my brother iron or wind pure. if you have a pure pb with magic aka battle mage it’s over that magic, prayer and str pot combo was deadly. Fcking miss this game. When this type of style got properly it broke the game and had ppl scared to pk unless they were 99 flats 😂😂💪🏾💪🏾