RuneScape Lobby
- "Lobby" redirects here. For the fish sometimes referred to as "lobby", see Lobster.
The RuneScape Lobby was introduced on 3 March 2010, along with the updates of Constitution, the iron smelting, and the Shattered Heart. It replaced the previous login screen.
When you log in, you are put in the lobby. The lobby allows you to see what world friends are online, as well as join a clan chat. You can also private message friends, as well as review new features. It also lets you set graphics settings, sound settings and account information. It is also useful during Bonus Xp Weekend because it allows players to hang out while waiting for trees to grow or something to buy over the ge or for dungeoneering teamates to log in without losing xp multiplier.
Default Screen
After logging in, the player is shown a screen - shown below - where they can check and change email settings, recovery questions, check their inbox for messages, see the date and time that their membership credit will run out (before the Elemental Workshop IV update, this showed the amount, in days, of membership credit remaining), and view one of the current promotion banners.
If the player does not have a registered email address, has not set recovery questions, has not paid for membership credit, or has unread messages, red crosses will be shown next to the respective notification (see membership in the associated picture) rather than green ticks (see email registration, recovery questions or messages in the associated picture).
To start playing, the player can select one of their favourite worlds in the lower right hand corner, or click the 'Click Here To Play' button to be put in a suggested world, if they choose not to select one manually.
Using the tabs at the top, the player can also see chat from the public, friend and clan channels. Options can also be changed using these tabs.
World Select
The World Select is similar to the previous World select, however you can change worlds without leaving the game. This means you do not need to re-enter your username and password. The filter arrows (which are the arrows under World, Players, Activities/Locations, Type, Coin Share / Loot Share, and ping) filter out the worlds you want. The up arrow gives you the highest number, sort by alphabetical order (for location/activity), and/or member worlds while the down arrow gives you the lowest number,sort by reverse alphabetical order, and/or non-member worlds. Please note that you can filter the types of worlds (non-member/member) and other filter arrows at the same time by clicking a filter arrow in any category then clicking the non-member/member filter arrow. The Green highlight is your favourite worlds (It’s always at the top of down-right corner even while in other tabs). Ping is a lag meter. The lower the ping number, the less lag a world has. The orange highlight is the world you have selected, and the grey-white highlight is follows your cursor. The white text is for non-member worlds while the yellow text is for members. This can be useful for finding worlds on a particular server or which are dedicated to a specific activity.
Friends
This displays your friends list, ignore list and the chat box, which lets you talk to your friends whilst not actually logged into the game. The report abuse button is also present on this interface allowing users to still report abusive users should any arise. Just like in-game, if someone of your friends list logs in or out you are notified in the chat window below the Ignore and friends lists. Currently some characters cannot be used in lobbies, such as < and >. Also you are not able to click a specific part of your message to change it like you can in-game.
Friends Chat
This is almost exactly the same as the Friends Chat in-game. However, users will not automatically join their last Friends Chat nor are they required to start their message(s) with "/" to chat. Users also cannot change their friends chat settings from the lobby.
Those with permission to kick users within the friends chat channel may ban users temporarily from the friends chat channel if they are in the channel or not.
Clan Chat
It is similar to the Clan Chat in-game, and it is automatically joined. Players do not need to add "//" to their messages. Users cannot change settings or invite users while in the lobby, they are only able to chat, ban/kick players, and check the player's ranks. However, those who are able to kick users from the clan chat can do so.
Options
Gives you the options just like in-game and in the previous options menu, except the Animated background Button, which can change the picture to the sites of Gielinor. The animated background shows images of Daemonheim, and other places. In the Options Screen, some of the options are to: To fit the screen with Fixed, Resizeable, or Fullscreen mode. You may also change the graphics settings, sound options and some more.
Exiting
When players exit to the Lobby, their scores are updated just as if they had logged out. The player will stay logged in for up to an hour in the Lobby. However, when re-entering the game from the Lobby they will not have to re-enter their name and password.
When players press the X on the top right corner of the Lobby, they move to the title screen. To return to the Lobby, you must then wait for a short amount of time then log back in, using your account details.
Instant Demo
The Instant Demo was a game mode that was made to give people a chance to play on a smaller world with less quests without having to sign up. The option to play on the instant demo was introduced on 29 March 2010 on Runescape affiliate sites such as Miniclip. Once accessed, the instant demo was unlocked on the official Runescape website. Players got access to 9 quests and a restricted world and their progress was saved to their computer however players did not have access to several main features including chat (Quick chat was available). During the tutorial the player was known as 'Adventurer'. However once in game, this changed to 'Player #' (Where # is changed to a random number). Instant Demo was played on world 901. On 9 June 2010, the ability to start an account in instant demo was removed, but players who already had an active account could still log in until it was removed completely on 6 October 2010.
Trivia
- A split second after entering the game, the Minimap will show 0 Life points and 0 Prayer points and will not show Summoning points if you are a member. The heart-shaped symbol of life points will also disappear. The 0 Life points frightens those that have unreliable internet, causing a lag and restarting of the browser catches the 0 LP and Prayer.
- As well as RuneScape, the multiplayer FunOrb games (excluding Dungeon Assault) have also received lobbies. In the lobby, you get to talk in a chat box and play games. Although, FunOrb had the lobbies before RuneScape did, and they look completely different.
- There was a glitch where-by if you log out of RuneScape, instead of going to the lobby, you go back to the RuneScape menu. This was later fixed in an update the next day.
- You can't use Quick chat in the lobby.
- When hovering over an owner's name, it would not indicate the rank.
- There was a former Easter egg where if you go to The Clan Chat tab, click the Enter chat Button, then right click anywhere on clan entry but the Join Clan Chat, ok, or close, it will say Hai as an option. Hai is slang for hi and clicking it does nothing.
- If you attempt to join a player who is in a lobby other than your own, you will receive the message "Sorry, you can't join that person."
- There is a glitch when logging in the lobby and going to world select, on the top right where the star is, it will be gold even if it isn't a member's world. This glitch is not yet fixed
- A glitch may occur when the "click here to play button" is pressed. After the game leaves the lobby screen, your original display name will appear during the black screen before changing to your current name. It also shows your original display name in all small-case characters whereas before the display name update all accounts had the first letter in uppercase.
- From the 26th of May, there was a message saying "If no one else can help, maybe you can try...Quest help". This is a reference to the A-Team ad, which in itself is a copy of the introduction of the Hamish and Andy show, a radio broadcast in Australia.
- There is a glitch sometimes where if you log out into the lobby, you will get the message, "Connection lost. Please wait - attempting to reestablish." You will re-login as usual. This glitch has yet to be fixed.
- Another glitch was that when logging on to a Bounty World, you would receive a warning. A short music track will play. Quickly log in onto another world. You will then hear the lobby music play. Simply changing the song in the Music Player or moving to a different area will cause a new song to be played. The title of the song though, is still unknown, as when checking in the music player, you will not see the title.
- At first, you may see -, N/A, -1, or 1,000 for ping. You have to refresh the worlds for this to be fixed.
- There is a glitch where sometimes when logging in, you will get sent back to the lobby with a message saying "Your account has not logged out from it's previous session". Occasionally you will be sent back to the login screen after clicking to continue on the message. When you log in, you will find that you do not automatically join the last clan chat you were in.
- Following the Bonfires update on 10 May 2012, there was a glitch that clicking on the "Friends" tab made the chat box stretch out to overlap the friends and ignore lists. This can be fixed by dragging around the resize indicator a little bit. Changing to another tab and back to the friends tab wouldn't make it appear again, but leaving the lobby and coming back to it again would. This glitch did not appear for the "Clan Chat" and "Friends Chat" tabs.
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The Hai Easter Egg
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When a server is full, a box with the player's queued world and log-in position will appear.
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The lobby as seen in RuneScape combat beta servers.
