In this episode of The Stuff of Legends, Frost tells us a RuneScape glitch that turned into an unprecedented massacre.
The Famous RuneScape Falador Massacre – Transcript
What’s that behind your back? I won’t be mad. Oh! The Geneva Convention might be. Oh no! Don’t cry…no. Okay! Look! Senseless violence! Here’s a story about senseless violence!
Normally I’d write a short explanation of what one does in the video game I am about to highlight in case this ever breaks out of the circle of perpetually-onliners and into the hands of the I’ve-got-a-few-minutes-to-kill-on-my-lunch-break-and-this-was-recommended-to-me-for-some-reasoners, but I also don’t really know what one does in Runescape aside from chasing the highs of ceaseless progression. It’s a steady dripping of dopamine. There’s quests to do, bosses to fight, skills to train, capes to collect, you can even go on a homicidal rampage unstoppable by the devs themselves, and it constantly gets updated so the massive following of addicts who have been playing for years and years and years still have something to do. It’s the one game that makes me almost understand where my parents were coming from when they said video games were a waste of time and if I needed something to do there was an entire list of chores waiting for me. Sure, the same can be said for any video game, but some sell themselves more readily on better graphics, moment to moment gameplay, or even fanservice. I myself have played Runescape. I clicked over a square of water with a rod continuously until the progression was so miniscule I had to move elsewhere for more fishing, and then I went to recreationally medicate myself while folding laundry, both having more of a tangible outcome on my well-being, for better or worse, than whatever I had done in Runescape. It’s in a philosophical sense that I find Runescape to be so existentially exceptional, nihilistic nectar if you will. Because what is life if not a journey in no discernible direction with no tangible outcome with random characters making their own goals and sense of progression? Meaning makes things meaningful.
Runescape introduced new meaning for players on May 31, 2006 in the form of another skill that incentivized another hundreds upon hundreds of hours of grinding called Construction, and a contest to see who could be the first to get the skill to the maximum level of 99. It was a close race until a player by the name of CursedYou shot past everyone on the final day and became known as the guy who was better than everyone else when it came to making this particular furniture crafting progress bar go up. What a cause for celebration! CursedYou now had access to the biggest mansion one could create in Runescape at the time and he used it to throw a massive house party, open to all. Not a real one, of course. A virtual house party where you can set your avatar next to another avatar and small talk over virtual punch. It’s mostly for showing off your loot and gear to the public without getting robbed. Sounds like a sad alternative to the real thing, but you can’t abruptly dismiss everyone with the excuse of connectivity issues or low frame rate from a real house party. I’d probably be more eager to have family over for holidays if I could simply right-click and kick my mother’s belligerent brothers on a whim the way CursedYou tossed everyone to the curb for making his game lag.
There’s too many conflicting accounts of the specifics that caused it, but the general story goes as follows: when CursedYou kicked everyone out of his home he accidentally caused a strange glitch that allowed a few players to attack people anywhere. Normally, fighting could only take place under specific conditions in marked areas, but these players were able to attack anyone anywhere. Another awkward condition is these players could not be attacked back except by other bugged players. They were effectively invincible against all attacks except from each other. Durial321 was one of the party goers that found themselves unceremoniously ejected from the house party and infected with the bug. I’ve dug for hours on his motives, but he gave no clear reasoning for why he went berserk and attacked everyone he could. He did it because he could. Meaning makes things meaningful?
Give an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters an infinite amount of time and they might reproduce a work of Shakespeare, but they are equally as likely to reproduce Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The thing I find hard to wrap my head around is how conveniently inconvenient the entire scene was from start to finish. If Durial321 had decided to teleport to the city, he would’ve lost the bug that allowed him to slay players indiscriminately. It’s a common method of getting around in the world, but Durial decided not to teleport because he was having too much fun picking players off one by one along the way– heh… It’s the journey, not the destination I suppose. The players, in their panic, were messaging everyone to run to Falador bank to store their valuables so they wouldn’t lose them if they died. The players would’ve been better off running away from the city, as this ended up concentrating more would-be casualties in the same spot, up to the maximum of 2000. The moderators of the server were getting messages that Durial321 was on a player killing spree, but they hesitated to act because Runescapers frequently misreported player killings in a Boy Who Cried Wolf kind of way, and this happened late at night when there were less Jagex employees available to look into it. When the moderators did decide to take action there wasn’t anything they could do because a player can not be disconnected from a server for 10 seconds after getting into combat. Durial321 could continue his spree so long as he didn’t stop for more than 10 seconds. It took well over an hour before Durial321 ran out of players to attack long enough for the moderators to disconnect him from the game.
Players were trying to make sense of the 2-hour murderfest, but there was nothing more to be found than an unfortunate series of loosely tied events. There was no grand web of conspiracies connecting one morbid part to the other. The bug accidentally came about because CursedYou booted everyone from his house while under network stress and awkward conditions. Durial321 was of no relation to CursedYou, just a stranger who was invited by the friend of the postman of the barber of some fisherman who happened to hear about the open house party. He didn’t target anyone specifically out of hatred, malice, or revenge for macking on his e-girlfriend, who is totally real– she just goes to a different Runescape server. A random 16-year-old was presented with the ability to ruin the experience of hundreds, if not thousands of players, in a manner that would undoubtedly get him banned once he was caught, and he went along with it. Senseless. But the Runescape community did what it did best and gave meaning to the meaningless.The Falador Massacre is solidified as a canon moment in the game’s history. There is a plaque in Falador Park erected in the memory of the fallen victims. For the 10th anniversary, Jagex recreated the events of the Falador Massacre by throwing a fake house party hosted by a fake CursedYou. Players would then be teleported to a new area where they could attack each other or join forces to fight a giant boss version of Durial321. Why? Because they could. Meaning makes things meaningful.
