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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 additionally seems to distinguish items by ID numbers that are not visible to players in-game.

Characteristics[]

Items can be described by a number of characteristics:

  • ID: All of the items in Old School RuneScape have a unique number that identifies it, invisible to players in-game. Only one item has the same ID, unlike how multiple items can have the same name. The ID of an item can be used to lookup Grand Exchange prices and get additional information about an item from the database, such as the examine text and value. Seemingly identical items may have different IDs as they are used for different purposes.
    • Unobtainable items, such as Hazelmere's book, exist within the game's code, have an ID number assigned to it, but are never seen via normal gameplay. Instead, they are found within the game's cache.
  • Graphics: All obtainable items have graphics. There are four main types of graphics items may have:
    • All items may be held in the inventory and therefore have inventory pictures, restricted to a size of 36 x 32 pixels. The inventory icon also appears in the Grand Exchange box and the equipment screen, albeit its outline and shadow may vary. The inventory picture is actually a 3D model, though it is only shown at one angle and has an outline (usually) and shadow added to it. Most textures, also, currently do not appear on inventory icons.
    • Items may actually be seen in 3D when dropped on the ground, and will use the same model as their inventory icon (they may, however, appear at a different size or orientation, and will also be affected by graphical settings such as textures).
    • The third kind of item graphic is equipment that is equipped on the player, which is a 3D model that is usually more detailed than the inventory/dropped appearance.
    • A fourth appearance for items is an appearance in a chatbox, such as when an NPC gives you an item, and it appears as a larger version of the inventory icon (with textures).
    • In addition, some items may have graphics for other situations, such as animations, POH mountings, or the player's head when talking to an NPC. All of these graphics will usually look similar to each other, normally only varying in detail.
  • Name: Most items have a unique name for that particular item. Some may have the same exact name, yet have different purposes.
  • Tradeability: Many items may be traded between players; however, many quest-related, holiday, and miscellaneous items cannot be traded (and cannot be transferred in any other way such as the Party Room) and therefore are often called untradeable items or non-tradeables. Almost all tradeable items may be traded on the Grand Exchange and therefore are associated with a certain price range of numbers of coins, which can change when the Grand Exchange updates its prices. The only tradeable items that cannot be traded on the Grand Exchange are a very small number of useless items such as burnt fish. Naturally, coins are an item that cannot be bought on the Grand Exchange either as they are the main currency in Old School RuneScape.
  • Weight: All unstackable items have weight which affects the player's ability to run. The higher a player's weight, the faster he/she loses energy while running.
  • Item stacking (Stackability): Some items such as runes or coins will pile up in a single spot in the inventory. Other items such as buckets will take one spot per item and therefore are non-stackable. 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 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, giving bonuses or penalties to different combat styles. Many equipped items also have other effects.
  • The High Alchemy or Low Level Alchemy spells may be cast on most items to convert them into coins. The number of coins obtained per item is specific for each item. All tradeable items may be "alched", and items may be "alched" one by one while in banknote form. Even if an item is untradeable, it sometimes may still be converted into coins via the High Alchemy or Low Level Alchemy spell. An example of an item falling under this category is a partially degraded piece of Barrows equipment or the ecumenical key.

Tradeability[]

Not every item in Old School RuneScape is tradeable, and of the items that are, not every tradeable item is tradeable on the Grand Exchange. When RuneScape was first released, all items could be traded. However, many quest items were made non-tradeable following complaints in 2002 that this made quests too easy. Untradeable items are not limited to those used in quests; other items, such as clue scrolls are also untradeable.

In general, most tradeable items are tradeable on the Grand Exchange, however. The most common exception to this rule is coins. In general, almost every tradeable item has a "drop" option rather than a destroy option and will display itself on the ground. Exceptions exist (such as implings in jars).

Trivially, any tradeable item may be offered to another player via the trade screen, and this may be the only way to get items not available on the Grand Exchange.

As a basic rule, tradeable items share properties and they may be:

The latter three rules, however, are not limited to tradeable items. Untradeable items may or may not be alchemiseable. Similarly, some tradeable items cannot be alchemised, such as membership bonds.

Even if an item is tradeable, free players will not be able to trade it away to players nor a shop if it is a members-only item.

Dropping and destroying[]

Many items may be dropped on the ground. There is no limit to the number of items that can fit in one place on the ground. However, items dropped on the ground disappear after a certain time. Tradeable items and items dropped by monsters appear to other players 60 seconds after being dropped, and disappear after 120 seconds if not picked up. Untradeable items simply disappear 180 seconds after being dropped.

If Ranged projectiles are dropped on the ground as a result of their usage, they appear to other players one at a time, and correspondingly disappear one at a time.

Some items may not be dropped on the ground; they have no "Drop" option in their right-click menu. Instead, they have a "Destroy" option, which allows the player to remove the item from their possession.

The destroy option was introduced with the Garden of Tranquility quest. This is a feature in Old School Runescape for certain quest-related items, discontinued items, Achievement Diary item rewards and holiday drops that replaces the usual "Drop" option available to all other items. It most often applies to items which cannot be traded. There is usually a warning screen that appears when "destroy" option is selected that asks if the player is sure they want to destroy the item, and also explains how to get the item again (or that it cannot be re-obtained). Members-only items will always have a "Drop" option on free worlds; however, trying to drop the item will still trigger the dialog box for destroying the item.

Most modern holiday items, such as the chicken outfit, can be destroyed and retrieved from Diango in Draynor Village.

Sometimes, if a player wishes to drop a high-value item, a warning screen will appear. The item is not protected by anything, so other players will still see it after 60 seconds, and it will still disappear after another 150 seconds. Be careful of what you wish to drop.

Discontinuation[]

Some items are discontinued, meaning no more can be created. Some discontinued items are tradeable and some discontinued items are non-tradeable; this includes non-tradeable "fun" holiday items as well as obscure items that many people do not know about, such as the war ship.

There are no discontinued items that have practical uses; some are used for showing off or for fun, others cannot be displayed in any way.

There are also many items that are, in a way, partially discontinued; they can only be created a certain number of times for one player, often just once, but can be brought into the game by new accounts. This is often the case with quest-related items. These items may be non-tradeable or tradeable.

Categories[]

Trivia[]

  • 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 woodcutting a yew 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 2^31 - 1 or 2147483647, per the definition of a Java integer as 32 bits.
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