Although he introduced me to the game, Steve never once played it with me. Most of the times he was online, he either had his private chat turned off, or he was too busy to talk. However, his friend Jake, from across the lake, was quick to befriend me. He was an experienced player who helped me out a lot. Once, he traveled all the way to the Asgarnian Ice Dungeon (the caves south of Rimmington) when I was mining for Blurite ore, to save me from aggressive ice giants. He was wearing expensive rune armor, and for a long time I thought he was a girl, because his character was designed with a female body. It was his joke, and I was confused once he told me his name was Jake.
Besides Jake and Steve from the lake, I soon had plenty of other friends from real life playing RuneScape with me. That summer, I was a member of a recreational park where I would play sports and games during the daytime. My best friend whom I’d known since Kindergarten, R. J. Fischer, lived next to this park. We hung out at each other’s houses at least once a week to play video games, duel with Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and play with Legos. We were both huge Lego fans, and had been since Kindergarten, when we would fight over who got to play with the Duplos! We would build massive kingdoms and armies, and would take our Lego people to each other’s houses to battle. Or, we would use our Lego characters to make a story together. Anyway, R. J. invited me to the recreational park near his house to play with him that summer. One day, we were on a ‘Field Trip’ to see Pokémon 3: The Movie. I told R. J. about RuneScape that day, and he was very excited to play it! It was all we talked about after the movie and on the bus ride back to the park. He told me that he would register an account as soon as he got home! The bus dropped us off, he ran as fast as he could all the way back to his house in excitement, and I got into my mom’s car to ride home to my house. That night, he registered an account named RJFischer, but after his original account was hacked, he would later re-register and be known as Dark Zorg, a variation of the name of a Yu-Gi-Oh! card called Dark Master Zorc. That night, however, we were overjoyed to play RuneScape together. I found it funny how he called me on the phone to tell me that his mom typed his messages to me because his typing was so slow!
A year earlier, I met Michael Pocse when I started Karate Lessons at the Okinawa studio in October 2001. Although we attended different schools, we lived not too far apart, and decided to call each other. Soon we were best friends. We would hang out just about every weekend to play. Sometimes we would run around in his backyard, swinging on the tree swing, with imaginary swords, pretending we were a part of a fantasy story. Other times we would run around in his basement with Monopoly money, pretending one of us was a hero, and the other was a villain stealing money. Sometimes we would act out the Myst games, playing music on the piano keyboard to go along with our stories. Other times we would race cars through a toy city he built. Sometimes we would run around his ping pong table pretending bombs were going off behind us. But every time we hung out, we would always “role-play,” acting out a story that we would make up on the spot. We were best friends, who had a common imagination. And, like R.J., Michael shared an interest in video games, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and Bionicles. But flash forward a year. That summer of 2002, he was at my house, and I showed him RuneScape. He fell in love with it and registered an account named Link to Myst, after Link from the Zelda series, and from the books that would “link” one to worlds in the Myst game series.
After that summer, R. J. and I went to school for our 5th grade year. We told my good friend Jeffrey Kenyon about RuneScape one day. He had a hard time playing it, though. He logged in one night, registered as “JKwingsfan” (for Jeffrey Kenyon, fan of the Red Wings). I followed him as he wandered around the Lumbridge castle’s kitchen and dining area for a while, not replying to my messages. The problem was, as he explained to me in the school lunchroom the next day, he didn’t know how to talk to me in-game. Eventually, he had a good hold on the RuneScape, and started specializing in mining and smithing for money. Jeffrey and I also got into a business we called “silk trading,” which consisted of us buying at much silk as we could carry from the silk stall in Ardougne, and running it to Al Kharid where we would sell it for more than we paid for. One day he called me, in tears because he was hacked by Link to Myst. I assured him that Michael wouldn’t hack him, and I decided to call Michael. Michael told me the same story, except he was hacked by a character named Spongebob777! After Michael recovered his account, he found Jeffrey’s set of Adamantite armor, as well as a Santa hat and other items that didn’t belong to him. He felt pretty lucky, until a player he’d never heard of before accused him of hacking him of his Santa hat. Michael explained that it wasn’t really him that hacked the player, but he decided to hand back the items instead of risking being ‘reported’ to the Jagex staff. Michael gave the Adamantite armor back to Jeffrey, and they never heard of ol’ Spongebob777 again.
We introduced Nick Kreider to the game in our 5th grade year. We weren’t huge friends before RuneScape, but that game really brought us together in the long run. Over the years, we've taken many classes together, and have developed a close friendship. He registered an account called Nicbob, but would later use an account called Clash6666, after a long and shameful story that you’ll have to ask him about personally! Ha-ha-ha…
We were the main five. And through us, more people came to RuneScape. R. J., Jeffrey, Nick, and I talked about RuneScape all of the time at school, whether we were tricking each other into thinking we found a free set of party hats the night before, dreaming of “RuneScape 2” (the RuneScape of today, which had its first beta test in Dec. 1, 2003), or just talking about recent updates. Regardless, people overheard us and were intrigued about this game. At our school, some of the first people we recruited would be Kyle Fish (who would later register and join the clan as “Cayman”), Trevor Bosom (known as Hardxcore14, and shows up in several photos on this website), Andrew Larson, Nic Biondolillo, Laurie Cale, Will Morgan, Michael and Jon Scott, Daniel Wig, Alex Hegedus, Drew Bundy, and countless others until the majority of the school was following the RuneScape fad. Heck, Jagex should be paying me, on account of how many people I talked into buying RuneScape memberships. But I digress…
Aside from those immediate friends at our school, there were others who were introduced to RuneScape, indirectly. Michael Pocse told several people at his school, including the “other” Ethan (Farts123), Caleb Alger (Majinblitz), and Phillip McWalters (Zeratoleader). R. J. introduced the game to his neighbor, Alex Tom. The two of them came up with a name together for Alex, called “Shadowfalnx,” which stood for Shadow-Fallen-X. He and R.J. would eventually become some of the ‘highest level’ players in the game! Jeffrey introduced his neighbor, Duncan (Sir Trimble); his little brother, Jason, (Slayer245); and his two cousins, Matt and Katie, (LazerLizard1 and BBallcutieKT) to RuneScape. And more and more people told more and more people after that.
But stepping back a ways, the main five of us—-R. J., Michael, Jeffrey, Nick, and I-– would soon come together to form the clan that this entire website is dedicated to: Shining Knights Force.