The MMORPG Runescape (Steam) is known for its hardcore community. But what a player recently posted on reddit even forced the toughest fans to show respect: The YouTuber Devious has spent 19,100 hours torturing himself through all four “Ironman” modes of the MMORPG. However, there were also some biting questions about what the man was doing with his life instead.
What you need to know to understand what he accomplished:
- Oldschool Runescape is a version of the MMORPG Runescape (2001), based on how the MMORPG was in 2007. This version is also being developed further, similar to WoW Classic.
- In October 2014, the game received various “Ironman modes.” These modes can be activated when leaving the tutorial island and when one feels like truly torturing oneself.
Each of these modes makes Runescape harder, as it excludes certain features that would otherwise allow you to acquire items and make the game easier:
- In “Standard Iron Man,” you cannot trade, receive loot from player kills, disassemble dropped items, and certain multiplayer modes are locked.
- In “Hardcore Iron Man,” players additionally only have one life. If you die, you revert to Standard Iron Man. Many people know (and hate) this hardcore mechanic from Diablo.
- In “Ultimate Iron Man,” you cannot even use the bank and face even more restrictions.
- Additionally, there is also “Hardcore Group Iron Man” – here you are allowed to play with a group of close friends.
Player sets himself an extremely hard task – then sits at it for 19,217 hours
What did the man do? The Reddit user and YouTuber Devious (104,000 subscribers) has maxed out 4 Ironman characters in the 4 described variants.
“Maximum” means in Oldschool Runescape: He leveled all skills of the characters to 99: this is therefore harder and more demanding than simply reaching the maximum level in another game.
To complete all 4 modes and maximize the characters, he needed 19,217 hours. He says he did this in eight and a half years:
- The man played more than 6 hours of Runescape daily for 8.5 years – including Sundays and holidays.
That he managed to maximize characters in all 4 Iron-Man modes is generally regarded as an incredible achievement. As something that requires an immense amount of effort and dedication, and that even the creators did not foresee.
The post received over 10,000 upvotes on reddit and more than 1,000 comments:
This is what the player says: In an interview with GamesRadar, Devious says:
I played casually when I was a child. I never maxed an account in R3, but I have many 99s. When Oldschool Runescape came out, I grinded quite hard. I was one of the first 10 people to reach 99 in Smithing after the game’s release and was in the top 200 of Slayers.
But things really took off for him only when Iron Man was added to Oldschool Runescape.
He had set himself the goal of being the first to max out all 3 solo variants but lost the race narrowly.
When the “Group variant” was released, he wanted to give it another shot and went for it.
What did he spend the most time on? Devious actually needed the longest time for the “easiest” mode, Standard Iron Man.
He says this is because everything was new at the time, and Runescape was much harder than it is today:
To get 99 Runecrafting, you had to kill 10,000 Zulrah bosses to get 1 million Pure Essence, and then you used the essence to forge Lava runes to 99. That alone was completely insane compared to how it is today; now you can just do Runecrafting mini-games.
Much recognition, but also biting attacks: “Sad and pitiable”
How do people react? On reddit, many are excited and impressed by the achievement. But there are also some nasty comments. There are mentions of bots or multi-accounts.
And there are also personal attacks. It implies: If you play like this, your life must be much worse than yours.
The player himself points out some reddit posts attacking him, stating he has “0 personal contacts” – “Would never shower” and similar things. One reddit user even wrote that it is “sad and pitiable.”
Player says: He plays even more shooters than MMORPGs
Others also ask: How can the man afford to spend so much time on an MMORPG? What does he do for a living?
Devious says: He is a professional YouTuber, which is how he earns his income. He also participates in various e-sports tournaments (via esportsearnings). He even plays more shooters than MMORPGs: Alone with Counter-Strike, he has spent about 15,000 hours since 2004.
After being attacked that his life is so bad, he says: He has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, he has no debts, over $100,000 in the bank, and he is his own boss, chooses his own working hours, and goes out with friends twice a week.
But self-deprecatingly, he also writes: A life? No, he doesn’t have that.
And yes, he knows that if he had done a “standard job” in those 19,100 hours, he probably could have earned more money in that time.
But apparently, that was not what mattered to him.
Strange things happen in Runescape:
Twitch streamer loses €12,700 in gold in MMORPG, freaks out in front of family
