Free Quests

New to RuneScape? This guide breaks down essential skills like Fishing, Mining, and Crafting, plus tips for the Wilderness and making money. Start your adventure!

Hey there! So you're jumping into RuneScape and wondering about the best ways to get started without needing a membership? You've come to the right place. This guide is all about the free-to-play experience, covering the basics of skills, how to avoid trouble, and even how to make some starting cash. Think of it as your friendly nudge in the right direction.

First off, RuneScape has a free version and a members' version. Obviously, members get access to more stuff – more quests, more skills, more items, the whole shebang. But don't let that stop you! The free version is huge and offers tons of content to get lost in. If you ever want to check out the world map or get the game, head over to www.runescape.com.

This guide is my first attempt at putting together some helpful hints and tips, especially for skills and the Wilderness. I'm always looking to improve it, so if you've got any corrections or cool strategies, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]. Let's dive into what you need to know!

Things You Should Know

• The Wilderness: This is the PvP (player versus player) zone. Things get a bit wild here, so be aware that other players can attack you.
• Skulls: Attacking another player in the Wilderness will give you a skull. This is shown above your head.
• Death Penalties: If you die with a skull, you lose *everything* in your inventory. If you die without a skull, you keep your three most valuable items, but everything else is lost. Plan accordingly!
• Trading: General stores don't offer much for items, but players often do. Things like party hats can be worthless to a store but fetch 50-100k from other players. Always try to trade with people for the best prices.
• N00bs vs. Newbies: Don't confuse the two! A 'n00b' is someone who's annoying, begs, or scams. A 'newbie' is just someone new to the game and learning. Be patient with newbies!
• Scam Awareness: Watch out for scammers! They might tell you to drop items and press Alt+F4, claim to be game creators needing your password, or run 'trust tests' where they ask you to drop items. They might also try to trick you with similar-looking items, like iron and tin. Always double-check and never share your password.
• Don't Beg: Seriously, just don't. Making money and leveling up is a core part of the fun, and you can do it yourself.
• Max Hit Increase: Your maximum hit increases every 4 levels. This applies to other combat stats too.
• Taking Screenshots: Want to save a cool moment? Press the 'Print Screen' key, open Paint, paste the image, and save it as a JPEG. You can then upload it to sites like Angelfire.
• Certs (Certificates): These are like vouchers for items, usually worth 5 of that item (e.g., 2 coal certs = 10 coal). You can get certs for items like ores, fish, and bars. In free-to-play, you can find cert traders in Draynor Village for ores, fish, and bars. More traders are available in members' areas.
• Fighting Demons: If you're going up against demons, make sure you have a Silverlight sword. It significantly weakens them, making the fight much easier.

Skills

Fishing

You can grab all your fishing supplies from the shop in Port Sarim. For the lowdown on what fish you can catch at what level, check out www.tip.it/runescape – it's a great resource for lots of RuneScape info.

Start off catching shrimps. You can find fishing spots near Draynor Village or a bit southwest of Port Sarim. Stick with shrimps until you can catch anchovies at level 15. Honestly, skip the fish in between. Fishing is also a fantastic way to train your Cooking skill, so keep a hatchet and tinderbox handy to cook your catches.

Once you hit level 20 and can catch trouts, grab some feathers and a fly fishing rod. Head over to Barbarian Village and focus on fishing and cooking trouts. The closest bank is in Edgeville, just to the north.

When you can catch tunas (level 30), you'll need a harpoon and some cash for trips to Karamja. A trip costs 30gp. There's no bank on Karamja, so you'll be making trips back and forth to Draynor Village or Falador. While you're there, you can chop trees for wood and cook the tunas. At level 40, you unlock lobsters! Cook them all – they're great for leveling up Cooking. Lobsters are caught at the same dock as tunas. While cooked lobsters aren't super popular for buying, raw ones are great for players training Cooking. You can sell raw lobsters for about 100gp each, or around 1k per cert. I haven't fished swordfish myself yet, but you'll need a harpoon, and they're in the same spot. Be warned, you'll catch a lot of tunas before you get many swordfish.

Power Fishing

For the fastest fishing experience, grab a ton of feathers and a fly fishing rod. Head to Barbarian Village and just keep fishing trouts. Don't bank them or cook them; just let them drop to maximize your experience gains.

Mining

You can snag a free pickaxe in Barbarian Village. To start, you'll be mining tin and copper. These aren't really worth much, so your best bet is to smelt them into bronze bars. A good route is to mine at the Varrock Southeast mining site, run to the furnace north of Lumbridge, and then head to the anvils in Varrock to smith your bars. You can learn more about smithing and mining at www.tip.it/runescape. A solid way to make money early on is by smithing bronze swords and selling them to the sword shop in Varrock. Remember, it's 1 tin and 1 copper for 1 bronze bar, so keep your ores balanced.

Once you hit level 15 mining, switch to iron. Iron can be mined in many places, including Dwarven Mines, Varrock mining sites, and the Scorpion Pit. Smithing iron bars has a 50% success rate, which can be a bit annoying. Using magic can boost this to 100%, but that's for later. You can sell iron ore certs for about 1k each, and individual iron bars go for around 100gp.

At level 30 mining, you unlock coal! This is a popular choice for many miners. You can find coal southwest of Varrock, in Barbarian Village, and other spots. If you're comfortable fighting level 25 skeletons, the mining site northwest of Edgeville is an option. It has over 20 coal rocks but is in the Wilderness (level 8-10). Be cautious of PKers! If you go here, take only your three best items (weapon, legs, chest) and don't get a skull. This way, if you die, you'll only lose your coal and pickaxe, not your equipped gear. You can heal at the Monastery nearby and bank your coal in Edgeville. Coal certs usually sell for 1k each.

After coal, you can move on to mithril and adamantite, but they're not as commonly mined. Most players stick with coal. If you reach level 60 mining, you can access the Mining Guild in Falador. It has plenty of coal and mithril rocks, plus a bank right next door. The downside? It's usually very crowded. At level 85, you can mine runite – that's impressive!

Power Mining

For pure speed, some players mine copper or tin until around level 60, then switch to iron. A common method is to stand between two tin rocks in Barbarian Village, constantly mining and dropping the tin to save time.

Crafting

You can start crafting with a pickaxe, jug, and chef's hat, assuming you have at least level 31 Cooking. Head to west Varrock and mine 27 clay. Then, go north to the Cooking Guild, where you can wet the clay. Once it's wet, travel to Barbarian Village to craft it. Drop the items you make on your way back to the mines and repeat. This works well until you reach level 40 crafting and can enter the Crafting Guild.

Another crafting route involves leather. Get cowhides from cows near Lumbridge (be aware it's a popular spot). Once you have a good amount, head to Al Kharid. You'll need a needle and thread from the crafting store there, which also has a bank. Trade your cowhides at the tanners for leather (1gp per hide). With the leather, use the needle on it to craft items like leather armour, gloves, or boots.

You can also craft Holy symbols of Saradomin. A good way to get silver is by mining at the Scorpion Pit in the desert. You'll need level 20 Mining to mine silver and level 20 Smithing to smelt it into bars in Al Kharid. Once you have silver bars, buy a Holy symbol mould (5gp) from the Al Kharid crafting store. Then, use the silver bars on the mould to craft the symbols.