Items
In Old School RuneScape, items are physical objects that a player may have in their inventory or bank. Players distinguish them by their names and graphics. The game internally distinguishes items by unique ID numbers and config names that are not visible to players in-game.
Characteristics
[edit | edit source]Items can be described by a number of characteristics:
- Name: Each item has an associated name that can be seen when hovering over the item on the ground, in the inventory, or in most other interfaces. Though most items have a unique name, in some cases distinct items have the same name, yet have different purposes.
- Items use ucfirst capitalisation, wherein the first character of a string is capitalised, but the rest is not. One consequence of this is the item 'perfect' gold ore, which begins with a lowercase letter because the first character is the apostrophe. This restriction only applies to items, so even though TzTok-Jad's pet is capitalised as TzRek-Jad as an NPC follower, the inventory item is capitalised Tzrek-jad.
- While items can share the same visible name, such as "Key", every item has a distinct config name within the game's code. For example, the item "Key" used during Witch's House has the config name "
witches_shedkey", while the item "Key" used during the The Lost Tribe has the config name "lost_tribe_chest_key". These config names are used by Jagex Moderators to uniquely identify items when writing the game's RuneScript code.
- Graphics: All obtainable items have graphics. The primary graphic for an item is defined as a 3-dimensional model that can be seen when the item is on the ground.
- Items have a specific 36 x 32 pixel icon seen when the item is held in the inventory. The inventory icon also appears in the Grand Exchange box and the equipment screen, though the outline and shadow vary between interfaces.
Mod West showcases the program used to generate inventory icons. - The inventory icon is generated from the 3-dimensional model used when the item is dropped on the floor. Artists set the rotation angle and translation that the model should be displayed at in the item's config file, and the game engine renders the item at the smaller size. This means that unlike true image sprites, artists don't have control over how the game renders items at a pixel-by-pixel level. Items that only have a destroy option and never appear on the floor still have a full 3D model defined in the code.
- When an item is displayed in the chatbox, it appears at the same angle as the inventory icon, but is displayed larger and shows additional texture and detail.
- Equippable items have unique models for when the item is equipped on the player. These are also 3-dimensional models that are usually more detailed than the inventory or dropped appearance.
- Items equipped in the head slot have a third unique model that can be seen in the chatbox when the player is talking. This can be even more detailed than the standard equipped model.
- Some items may have unique graphics during animations or other situations. For example, a hammer cannot normally be equipped, but can still be seen in the player's hand during the smithing animation.
- Items have a specific 36 x 32 pixel icon seen when the item is held in the inventory. The inventory icon also appears in the Grand Exchange box and the equipment screen, though the outline and shadow vary between interfaces.
- Tradeability: Many items may be traded between players. However, many quest-related, holiday, and miscellaneous items cannot be traded, and cannot be transferred between players in any other way. These items are often called untradeables. Almost all tradeable items may be traded on the Grand Exchange and therefore are associated with a certain price range of coins, which can change when the Grand Exchange updates its prices. A small number of items are tradeable between players but cannot be sold on the Grand Exchange; a full list is available on non-tradeable items. Naturally, coins are an item that cannot be bought on the Grand Exchange as they are the primary currency.
- Coin value: Each item has a specific hard-coded value defined that is distinct from its Grand Exchange price. This value is used to calculate the price of the item in a shop, as well as the amount of coins awarded when casting High Alchemy or Low Level Alchemy on the item. Untradeable items may still sometimes be converted into coins using alchemy spells. An example of an item falling under this category is a partially degraded piece of Barrows equipment or the ecumenical key.
- Weight: All unstackable items have weight which affects the player's ability to run. The higher a player's weight, the faster they lose energy while running. Stackable items do not contribute to the player's weight.
- Item stacking (Stackability): Stackable items such as runes or coins will pile up in a single slot in the inventory. Non-stackable items such as buckets will take one inventory slot per item. All items that are stackable have zero weight. Most non-stackable items may be converted to a stackable form using a bank note, but bank noted items lose most of their properties as they just become a piece of paper. Bank noted items may be deposited in the bank and then withdrawn back as usable, unnoted, non-stackable items.
- Equippability: Some items, such as weapons or armour, can be worn to give bonuses or penalties to different combat styles. Many equipped items also have other effects.
- ID: Every item has a unique number that identifies it, invisible to players in-game. Items that have the same visible name may have a unique item ID and be used for different purposes. The ID of an item can be used to lookup Grand Exchange prices and get additional information about an item from the game source, such as the examine text and value.
- Unobtainable items exist within the game's code and have ID numbers assigned to them, but are never seen via normal gameplay. Instead, they are found within the game's cache. Some unobtainable items may appear in game in specific interfaces or animations, but never be picked up by players directly.
- Item IDs can be shown on this wiki by navigating to the user preferences page and enabling the "advanced data" gadget. The ID will then be shown on item articles at the bottom of the infobox.
Tradeability
[edit | edit source]Not every item is tradeable with other players. When RuneScape was first released, all items could be traded, until a 2002 update introduced the concept of untradeable items by barring players from trading certain quest items.
With few exceptions, tradeable items can be:
- Traded to other players via the trade interface.
- Picked up by other players if the item is dropped onto the ground, typically after 1 minute.
- Sold to a general or speciality shop.
- High or Low-alchemised into coins.
- Converted into notes at a bank.
- Listed on the Grand Exchange, with the exception of Grand Exchange/Non-tradeable items.
These properties do not apply to all tradeable items; for example, a membership bond is tradeable but cannot be noted or alchemised. These properties are also not exclusive to tradeable items: untradeable items may or may not be alchemiseable.
Free-to-play accounts cannot trade members-only items with other players or sell them to shops, even if they are tradeable. Members' items can, however, be sold on the Grand Exchange, regardless of membership status or world type.
Ironman Mode accounts are restricted from trading items between players entirely.
Dropping and destroying
[edit | edit source]A large number of items may be dropped on the ground through the right-click "Drop" option. How an item behaves once it is dropped depends on whether it is tradeable or untradeable. Tradeable items will become visible to other players one minute after being dropped to the ground, and disappear altogether after three minutes. This timer will keep ticking down if the player who dropped the item logs out, and will always stay on the same world it is dropped in. Dropped untradeable items however will not appear to other players, though they also despawn after three minutes. In contrast to tradeable items, untradeables are tied to the player who dropped them, and will appear in any world that player switches to. The despawn timer of these items is also paused while the player is logged out.
| UIM deathpile | Untradeable | Tradeable | |
|---|---|---|---|
| World location | Cross-world | Cross-world | Same world |
| Visible to others | Never | Never | After 60 seconds |
| Despawn timer | 60 minutes | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| Pauses on logout | Yes | Yes | No |
Dropped item behaviour can diverge from these rules in certain circumstances. Notably, nearly all items dropped in the Wilderness become visible to other players immediately; this is to discourage players from dropping their items before dying and quickly travelling back to pick them up. The only exceptions to this are cooked foods and potions, which never appear to other players in the Wilderness, to prevent clans and teams from dropping supplies for each other during a fight. Items dropped on Tutorial Island will disappear after only 30 seconds. Items placed on tables disappear after 10 minutes. Items dropped in instances tend to have a much longer despawn timer, which is typically, but not always, set to three hours.[1] Clue scrolls of all tiers have a despawn timer of one hour when dropped, except when dropped in instances with increased despawn timers, where they will instead respect the despawn timer of that instance.
Players can allow potions and food items to form a supply pile on death by enabling the corresponding option in the Settings panel, which will cause these items to persist across worlds and suspend their despawn timer on logout as though they were untradeable.
There is a limit on the total number of items or item stacks that can remain on the ground within the same 8x8 tile game chunk.[2] If more than 129 tradeable items are dropped within that area, additional ones will begin to replace items already lying on the ground.[3] The order of priority is determined by the Grand Exchange guide value of the various items, with the lowest priced items being replaced first.[4] For item stacks, the value of the whole stack is taken into account when determining its priority.[5] Untradeable items and items that are part of a supply pile do not count towards this limit.
Some items have a "Destroy" option instead of a "Drop" option as part of their right-click interface. This is commonly the case for quest items, event rewards, and untradeable items in general. Destroying an item will make it vanish instantly, rather than first being dropped to the ground. A chatbox message appears in most cases when the "Destroy" option is selected, prompting the player for confirmation, coupled with a short description of whether and how it may be reobtained.
Discontinuation
[edit | edit source]Unlike in RuneScape, the team of Old School RuneScape have intentionally chosen to avoid introducing discontinued items to the game. All holiday items are able to be reobtained every year at their respective holiday dates. Whenever an item is in fact discontinued (such as the cabbage rune, kristmas kebab, or other items used during holiday events), any of the item still held by the player is removed from wherever it was stored.
Despite this, a small number of items were discontinued for gameplay or technical reasons after the launch of Old School RuneScape. For example, multiple versions of seed nests have been introduced when adding new seeds to the game, to avoid stockpiles of nests from introducing large numbers of new seeds on release. None of these discontinued items are tradeable between players.
Categories
[edit | edit source]Longest item names
[edit | edit source]Historically, item names in RuneScape could not exceed a certain amount of pixels.[6] As a result, the longest item names prior to the launch of Old School RuneScape did not exceed 20 characters. This limit was lifted sometime after the launch of the Nightmare Zone, where the item anti-dragon shield (nz) surpassed the limit at 23 characters. Due to an Update on June 1st 2023, Members' Items are now visible in Free to Play worlds with "(Members)" as a suffix, thus Corrupted morrigan's leather chaps (bh)(inactive)(Members) may take the lead. However the actual item name did not change leaving this open to interpretation.
Overall
[edit | edit source]| Item | Characters | Timeframe | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Strailblazer reloaded relic hunter (t3) armour set[sic] | 50/49[d 1] | 15 November 2023–23 November 2023 23 November–present (tied) |
7 days 857 days (tied) |
 |
Corrupted morrigan's leather chaps (bh)(inactive) | 49 | 24 May 2023–15 November 2023 23 November–present (tied) |
175 days 857 days (tied) |
 |
Hardened wristbands of the arena (broken) | 41 | 16 March 2022–24 May 2023 | 434 days |
 |
Trailblazer relic hunter (t1) armour set | 40 | 6 January 2021–16 March 2022 | 434 days |
 |
Trailblazer relic hunter (t2) armour set | |||
 |
Trailblazer relic hunter (t3) armour set | |||
 |
Rune scimitar ornament kit (saradomin) | 38 | 11 April 2019–6 January 2021 | 636 days |
 |
Charge dragonstone jewellery scroll | 35 | 6 July 2016–11 April 2019 | 1009 days |
 |
Dragon plate/skirt ornament kit | 31 | 12 June 2014–6 July 2016 | 755 days |
 |
Box of chocolate strawberries | 29 | 13 February 2014–12 June 2014 | 119 days |
 |
Unfinished broad bolt pack | 26 | 6 January 2014–13 February 2014 | 38 days |
 |
Anti-dragon shield (nz) | 23 | 5 September 2013–6 January 2014 | 123 days |
| On launch, item names had a pixel width limit of 20 characters. | ||||
Top 33
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Trivia
[edit | edit source]- If one selects the option to "take" an item, and the item disappears before reaching it (or picking it up), a message that says "Too late - it's gone!" will show in the chat box.
- Items in the inventory will remain there even if the player is wielding them in an animation, such as an axe when chopping a tree.
- The maximum amount of an item the player can have on an interface (bank, inventory, Grand Exchange slot, etc) is 2,147,483,647 due to the amount being stored as a signed 32-bit Integer. In the Java programming language, an integer has a maximum value of 231 - 1 or 2,147,483,647, per the definition of a Java integer as 32 bits.
- Items are referred to as "objects" by Jagex internally in the game code.