Well... this is a very interesting game. At first, RuneScape seems very basic, as you will probably wander into a cow farm and up your stats a little. You don't actually realize the deepness of the game until you hit about combat level 10. Speaking of levels, this is not a game where you gain experience toward the next combat level and up all your stats. Instead, it uses a somewhat strange experience system that uses your main combat skills to determine your level:
Attack: Your accuracy and ability to wieild weapons.
Defence: Your ability to wear armour and block physical attacks.
Strength: Determines how much damage you do.
Prayer: One of my favorite skills, very hard to level up. Lets you call upon the power of the Gods to increase you stats temporarily.
Ranged: Your ability to wield and hit with ranged weapons. (Need Arrows&Bow or Crossbow&Bolts or throwing axes, darts, or throwing knives.)
Magic: Your ability to cast spells. (Need different types of runes.)
Slayer: A rather odd skill, there are some unkillable monsters in the game that require a certain slayer level to kill.
All these combat skills factor into your total level and combat level. The highest combat level is 126, and the highest skill level is 99.
But this game is so much more.
COMBAT-9/10
Now, the non-combat. Here are the skills:
Cooking: Your ability to make different food and burn food less.
Fishing: Your ability to catch fish.
Woodcutting: The first skill you'll learn and a favorite among newcomers.
Firemaking: Not a great skill, really. Lets you make fires.
Mining: Your ablility to mine different ores and materials and wield different pickaxes.
Smithing: Your ability to make weapons and armor out of ore mined form the ground.
Runecrafting: Making runes, which let you cast spells.
Crafting: Your ability to make objects such as clothes and glass.
Thieving: Lets you steal different items and amounts of money. Extremely useful and rewarding, especially in Relleka or Ardougne.
Fletching: Similar to crafting, lets you make more combat-oriented objects such as arrows.
Agility: Your ability to manuever past traps and other obstacles. Not very useful.
That about sums it up for noncombat.
NONCOMBAT- 10/10
Now, the community. Here are the types of people that you will find:
Complete Jerk: The title says it all.
Scammer: Someone always trying to steal your stuff or password.
Spammer: Says "..." alot and things like that.
Autoer: Someone who uses an auto-miner or auto-talker and is not actually playing RuneScape. Report these people immedeately.
n00b hater: Picks on newcomers or lures them into a dangerous place so they die.
Life Hater: Goes around saying "I hate Runescape".
Complete @$$: Goes around to lumbridge trying to pick up chicks. :/
And you'll occasionaly find:
True Friend: Someone who you can actually trust. Very rare.
COMMUNITY SCORE-6/10
Now the graphics and sound are nothing special. They're not awful or especially good (although I like the new theme that they added), but they do the job.
GRAPHICS/SOUND SCORE-8/10
Now this is what I'm wondering about: Fun.
RuneScape is extremely addictive, so much that you can spend 12 hours sitting in front of the computer in a row, but is it FUN? It's extremely simple, just click on something to attack it, or mine it, or steal from it, ect. That doesn't seem fun, but you are so engrossed in it that you don't even notice!
FUN FACTOR: ?/10
Now the storyline. Not the game's strongest point, but not it's weakest, either. There's plenty of quests, each with their own story (there's no "find 15 silk pieces and you're done" quests) and the game's backstory is OK. It's kinda strange with all the gods there and all the Lesser Gods (Saradomin, Zamorak) defeating the Greater Gods (Zaros, Armadyl). It really seems ripped out of Greek mythology, but it's not that bad.
STORYLINE-8/10
So yeah, this is a great game. My favorite MMO of all time, actually. Play it, and get the members version. It's only $5 a month and I can't think of a better way to spend that!!!