Every time an Old School RuneScape story crops up, there is a interval of acclimatisation the place I battle to work out precisely what the gamers are doing and why. I’m not unfamiliar with the sport, having performed it approach again within the day, however RuneScape on the extremes is usually a fairly wild place, a world the place gamers all of the sudden break the dam on a 16 year-old minigame by overwhelming guards en masse, or some thrillseeker dangers a 370-hour no-hit account to get a flowery cape (to be truthful, it does have flames).
But even by RuneScape requirements this one is bonkers. OSRS gamers have been ganging as much as bathe dragon bones on a well-known Vtuber, seemingly to assist her max out one of many sport’s grindiest stats: Prayer.
Let’s unpack this. Nerissa Ravencroft is a hololive streamer, presumably straight from the imply cobblestones of Hogwarts, who in latest months picked up OSRS and has attracted a bunch of the sport’s gamers to her streams (thanks, GamesRadar+). RuneScape being RuneScape, the adventuring quickly glided by the wayside in favour of extra esoteric pursuits, and just lately Nerissa discovered herself targeted on Prayer Training.
Prayer coaching is completed by gaining (watch for it) Prayer expertise, and the quickest approach to do that is to accumulate or simply straight-up purchase an entire load of bones after which provide them at an altar. This maximises the XP acquire from the bones, and in case you’ve acquired dragon bones then, comparatively talking, it is an XP bonanza.
A latest Nerissa stream was entitled, ahem, “I’m sick however there’s all the time time to bone.” And in some type of meta-shift for RuneScape, an entire load of gamers queued as much as genuflect and reward Nerissa as many dragon bones and even superior dragon bones (la-di-da) as they might. “It’s boning time,” declared the Vtuber. “Now I simply await the bone donations.”
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And the bone-ations did movement. Nerissa’s followers, who for causes I do not perceive name themselves “Jailbirds”, completely drowned her in bones. The max stage for the Prayer talent is 99 and Nerissa at the moment rests at 96 (in OSRS the XP required for every stage will increase exponentially, such that the midway level to stage 99 is stage 92).
The complete factor is one thing of an OSRS in-joke. Prayer is without doubt one of the expertise that is mainly a ache within the ass to max out, being each vastly costly by way of the bone outlay (if you wish to do it effectively) and taking a variety of time regardless, and the advantages of hitting the upper ranges aren’t even that good. It tends to be one thing that gamers do after they’ve doing every thing else, reasonably than an necessary focus.
Unless you are a Vtuber with a military of followers bringing you the bones, in fact. Nerissa by no means needed to depart the altar (the place you sacrifice bones) as a result of a gradual stream of OSRS gamers have been lining as much as hand over their dragon bones, superior dragon bones, and even doing the busywork of lighting the altar’s incense burners.
Nerissa might be the highest-profile Vtuber to get into OSRS, which might be why the sport’s neighborhood has responded so enthusiastically to her curiosity. They’re not simply providing bones for the bone god, however creating fan artwork of her within the sport and even remixing a few of her songs within the OSRS model.
As far as OSRS goes that is fairly healthful, not least as a result of the enchantment of a number of the sport’s extra bananas tales is within the time dedication some people make to this sport. Maxing out Prayer talent is all effectively and good, however what about grinding the worst model of a minigame for 149 lengthy hours (and abandoning 88 ranges of XP) simply to get a cute raccoon with out committing a criminal offense? Heck, there are some on the market who’ve crushed odds greater than profitable the lottery jackpot to pay money for the sport’s rarest merchandise. In that type of context, getting crowds of worshippers to carry you bones looks like a fairly sane strategy.
