RuneScape/Members

What are RuneScape Members?
Members are players who pay $5.95+ US dollars (Could be a bit more if you aren't a returning member), or the equivalent thereof in their local currency, once every month. It is also known as P2P which is RuneScape slang for "pay to play". There are several methods for paying that are detailed when players click on the "subscribe account" option on the official RuneScape website. Basically the money will be taken automatically once a month until the player cancels their subscription. Once the subscription has been cancelled, the player can check how many more days their previous payment will give them and they still count as members for that time. Once those days run out, they automatically revert to non-member status.


 * Members have special world servers on which they can use members only features, none of these features exist on free worlds. You cannot train a members skill on a free world, nor equip a members only item, even if you have a membership.

When do Players Become Members?
It all depends on the person. There are some who upgrade to members as a fresh level 3, and some who max out all of the non-member skills before purchasing a membership. Given, these are both extreme cases, but they do happen. There is not right or wrong time to become a member.

Members Benefits: Skills
Agility, Farming, Fletching, Herblore, Slayer, Hunting, Construction, and Thieving are all skills that exist only for members. Non-members cannot train or use these (even if they were members previously). These skills provide great benefits to players who have them and make the game much more fun to experience. Besides these new skills, being a member also expands upon previous skills. For example: non-members have the crafting skill, but only members can use it to blow glass or craft dragonhide armour. Members can also use the runecrafting skill to make cosmic, chaos, nature, law, astral, blood, and death runes whereas non-members can only make the most basic runes in the game.

Members Benefits: Wear
Members can access a ton of new items, both skill and quest related. The most prominent among these are the dragon and barrows armour and weapons as well as the powerful abyssal whip. Another very big item members can use are sharks as a combat food because they heal 6 more health than the best non-member fish. Other items are halberds, new amulets, rings, and necklaces, tons of new and fashionable clothes (such as werewolf or Viking styles), new soul and blood runes, and much more.


 * Because of all of these new items, members get many more spaces in their banks than a nonmember has.

Members Benefits: Quests
Non-members currently have 18 quests they can complete, members have 80+ quests only for themselves and they can also do all of the non-members quests, leading to a total of 100+ quests members can do. Some of these quests are simply interesting, others, such as the Legends Quest, Recipe for Disaster, or the elf quests are very challenging with great rewards.

Members Benefits: Areas
The members area of Runescape is about five times larger than the non-members area. It includes the second half of the kingdom of Asgarnia (Taverley, Burthorpe, and White Wolf Mountain), the entire kingdom of Kandarin (Seer's Village, Catherby, Ardougne, Yanille, and Castle Wars), the Gnome stronghold and village, the Elf lands bordering on Kandarin in the west, the Relekka province of the Fremenniks bordering Kandarin in the north, the Kharidian desert lands bordering the city of Al Kharid in the south, Morytania bordering Misthalin in the east, ogre and troll lands, Ape Atoll, and pirate islands in the eastern seas.

Members Benefits: Community
Although non-members can now post on forms and vote in polls used to provide Jagex with player feedback, there are a few benefits in this catagory worth noting. Weekly game updates will be mostly directed at members, non-members updates are extremely rare. New updates for non-members pop up every now and then, but most of the new content, including skills, quests, areas, and minigames, will be members only. Customer support is also more effective for members.