Is the game runescape unhealthy/ bad for a 17 year old senior to play?

It’s silly, pointless, and completely lacking any entertainment value, but I’m 100% certain it does not carry any communicable disease.

Only if it gets in the way of your life. It doesn’t really matter which game it is, if you spend 4 hours a week you are probably fine. If you spend 40 hours playing, you better be getting paid or find a therapist.

I played that game when it very first came out—(and I recently discovered that my account is still there. They like NEVER erase you as far as I can tell) I see kids at the library play all the time. Here’s what I see from watching them and from personal experience. I have played many pay and free morpgs similar to Runescape and this is is how I think Runescape stacks up.

The graphics have gotten much better better, but they are still far behind other similar games—including the free ones. There are some games that actually are almost WoW quality that are free. They just look better.

The community of Runescape is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Lots of spamming and little kids all over the place, whispering weird stuff to you and being uberannoying with blinking text and all kinds of bleah stuff.

The gameplay is—meh. Not too sophisticated. I’ve seen much better.

If you still want to play some online free to play games, maybe try Rune Quest or DnD online. If you really like Runescape better, don’t worry. Like I said, they NEVER seem to delete your account you your guy will still be there.

I play off and on. Like @keobooks said, I find it rather simplistic. You have to spend way too much time hacking at rocks and fighting rats to build your strength to do anything. That get’s real tedious after a while. While it’s free, a free player is limited to a very tiny part of the game world. That has prevented me from “getting into” the game and wanting to pay to explore far and wide. I’ve made a few friends there, and I pop in every now and again to go dungeoneering with them… Yeah, I think a lot of them are little kids, but many people are very nice and helpful—giving you free armor (the higher level players tend to accumulate more such stuff than they need) if you’ve been killed saving you from going through the chore of mining ore, smelting it, and making new armor.

My brother plays it and he is 20 years old.

have fun, who cares
as long as it isn’t taking up your life
my sixty year old uncle plays it

I’m sure it’s harmless but it does seem to me to be more aimed at 10-year-olds. Runes of Magic is a far better free MMO.