A common habit of long-time MMO players is to set their own challenges. Outside of something truly emergent like EVE, even the best of his MMOs tend to be repetitive as the most dedicated players beat super-hard raids over and over to gain loot . So a player of Old School Runescape (OSRS) decided this wasn’t his idea of a toy soldier game (Thank you GR+ (opens in new tab)), I set myself a frankly strange challenge.
Leveling a character in OSRS requires 23 skills, each of which can be trained to level 99. Each skill level adds to the character’s overall level, bringing the game’s level cap to 2,277.In addition to this, in 2014 the game Added iron man mode (opens in new tab) Players must be self-sufficient in the game: Iron Man accounts cannot trade with other players, cannot access the Grand Exchange (OSRS’s market hub), and are basically all self-earned. must be collected at
Ironman mode makes OSRS a more demanding and more challenging experience, especially when it comes to training certain skills. Good time, right?one player called wicked (opens in new tab) I thought… but somehow this wasn’t enough. His Runescaper of his skill required an even tougher challenge. Something like Quad Ironman Run should do that.
Devious set himself the challenge of getting the most out of not one, two, or three, but four different Ironman variants, including the aptly named Ultimate Ironman, which is essentially insulated from useful game features. set to Ultimate Ironman accounts can’t even use the in-game bank, must carry all items, and lose all stats upon death.
Each of these Iron Man characters takes hundreds of hours to train their specific skills, and thousands overall. No problem, De Beers thought when he set out to work.
Eight and a half years and about 19,128 hours later, Devious has joined Normal Ironman, Ultimate Ironman, Hardcore Ironman, and Hardcore Group Ironman (a small circle of in-game friends allowed). The Iron Man character should make it difficult to even play the game “normally”. Maximizing one is an incredibly rare feat and probably not something the mode was specifically designed to accommodate, so OSRS’ commitment to the method here is amazing.
Devious has a long history with RuneScape and fell in love with the game as a kid, but the 2014 release of Ironman mode brought him back. He said, “When he was a kid, he used to play casually.” Malice told GamesRadar+ (opens in new tab)“I have a lot of 99’s, but I’ve never maxed out my RS3 account. When OSRS came out, I struggled quite a bit. I was in the top 10 when the game released, and I got 99 in my blacksmithing skill. It was around top 200 at 99. Slayer.Smithing was so high that I also made some of the first Dragonfire shields that came out in the game, that was cool.But it’s kind of like when Ironman came out There was no
Devious’ played this mode a lot and after maxing out his initial Ironman account decided to move on to Hardcore and Ultimate modes. Devious narrowly lost when he competed against another player and he maxed out all three. So when the group Ironman option was added, he decided to go with his 4-piece.
19100_hours_and_85_years_later_i_have_maxed_4 from r/2007scape
As you can imagine, the first, biggest Iron Man was the most difficult, or at least the most time-consuming, despite being technically the easiest option. The strategy Devious later used was not discovered or included in the game.
“For example, to get 99 Rune Crafting, kill about 10,000 Zulrah bosses to get 1 million Pure Essence, then use that Essence to craft 99 Lava Runes.” says Devious. “That alone was insane compared to now. All I had to do was play a runecrafting mini-game.” This was obviously the most difficult because it is large.
As Devious himself put it in a quick Q&A on the OSRS subreddit, “Life?: No.”
Devious has created a YouTube video about exploiting OSRS, detailing his successful career in esports. Another notable element of this achievement is that over 19,000 hours were logged while the player engaged competitively in his PUBG, Call of Duty: Warzone, and other games. Devious also has a sense of humor about achievement, Gracefully accepts normal internet shellacking (opens in new tab).
This Iron Man isn’t over yet either. wicked (opens in new tab) is currently posting an update on a collection challenge he’s done on his Ultimate Ironman account, but interestingly enough, he needs to find the time to “maximize the main account on the side because it takes much less time than Ironman.” there is. I suspect he will get there somehow.
I always think about this kind of story. why this game? There’s something about MMOGs, and how you land with certain types of players creates a bond. But it can be difficult to pinpoint what it is. I remember me and my friends talking about everything we were going to do when WoW Classic came out and then… just fishing at night. Sitting there chatting, tapping through demanding mini-games, buying the occasional book, doing quests to raise the skill cap.
If you ask me why WoW is great, I probably wouldn’t say fishing, but I could be wrong. It’s the ultimate ignorance that ties us to certain games, makes these experiences so meaningful, and sees people impose extraordinary challenges on themselves, just like they do in real life. No one knows what drives us. His three most famous sayings in climbing are those he uttered in 1924 when George Mallory was asked why he was trying to climb Mount Everest. “Because it is there”