I have a confession to make. It involves a pile of several thousand lumberyard teleports tucked away in a dark corner of my RuneScape bank. Bought during a more idealistic, wide-eyed era, I remember entertaining vague notions of training Runecrafting by making mud runes. Instead, they have relaxed undisturbed there for almost a year now as I've resorted to training that skill with XP lamps from weekly and monthly events. Dust-covered and perhaps slightly moth eaten, they relax next to six dozen binding necklaces and numerous other notables I've yet to touch.

If you had asked me what my least favorite skill was a couple of weeks ago, I would have answered "Runecrafting" without hesitation. It had an innocuous yet malicious way of gradually wearing down my resolve to train it. Running to the altars was too repetitive. The XP rate made tortoises seem speedy by comparison. Conversation was non-existent since bots were the only company I could expect. I would begin reasoning against myself until, inevitably, the frustration set in and I would stop.

How quaint those times seem in comparison now.

Runespan has completely changed Runecrafting and how players perceive it. Along with the recent update to Firemaking, Jagex seems to be taking real action towards reducing grind in the game. This change has long been requested by the community and makes for a welcome break from the past. Like most other players, since the Monday of release I have been enjoying how fast the XP seems to roll in. Yet I'm still not completely satisfied.

My reservations weren't apparent at first. It didn't stem from a belief that Jagex was making the game too easy. Rather, it grew from the realization that Runespan had turned Runecrafting into something similar to Dungeoneering. Like Daemonheim, the Runespan takes place in an environment separate from the rest of the surface world. Like Dungeoneering, you could level Runecrafting from 1 to 99 without ever leaving one place. Yet the similarities end there. While Dungeoneering was designed to compass all existing skills within a teamwork based game mechanic, runecrafting had an original purpose of producing runes for magic users. That purpose has now been lost with the introduction of Runespan.

What a missed opportunity. While Jagex works on rebalancing the game, they have neglected to fully incorporate new updates into what already exists. With Runespan being superior XP in every which way, taking essence to altars has been destroyed as a viable training method. This is wrong. Instead of creating a slew of stand-alone content, they should be trying to augment those game bits that need modernization. In other words, don't make players choose between the old method of slow XP with actual rune-crafting and the new approach of fast XP with nothing to show for it. Good design should incorporate them both.

So why should you care? Is there anything wrong with just taking semi-AFK XP rates as they are? Certainly. I'm sure you've all noticed the swarms of bots currently infesting the game. Because Runecrafting outside Runespan is now such an unattractive option, bots will have greater reign over rune production than ever before. Jagex has devoted considerable time and energy into stamping them out through legal action and game updates like the Bot Nuke. These all seek to interfere with the operation side of macro programs. That's one way to approach this problem, but there's another simpler alternative: address the root of the issue by making bots less efficient than players.

Bots are mostly designed to perform repetitive actions that players would rather avoid. If players could out-compete bots, that would hurt them as much as revising the code. We can change the dynamic by improving altar running so that it's more interesting and fun, while at the same time giving it a slight boost in runes produced as a reward. One possibility I imagined would be portals from the Wizards' Tower opening onto randomly generated "paths" to Runecrafting altars. These paths would feature a variety of obstacles, creatures, and challenges to be overcome. It could a solo venture or even tweaked so that groups can participate together. Included with the update could be a mechanic that allows more essence to be carried to account for the additional time spent.

Of course, everything hinges on Jagex's continued commitment to RuneScape. I am encouraged by the latest announcement that they will be running beta servers for the upcoming combat system overhaul. More player input can only lead to improvements and a turn away from the secrecy of the past, so it's another step in the right direction. I only hope for the sake of this game that it is not the last.