A common habit of longtime MMO players is to set their own challenges; outside of truly emergent ones like EVE, even the best MMOs tend to become repetitive as the most dedicated players hit the ultra-hard raids over and over again to procure loot. So one Old School Runescape (OSRS) player decided that this was not a game for toy soldiers (thanks, GR+ (open in new tab)) and set himself a frankly bizarre challenge.

To level up a character in OSRS, you need 23 skills that can be trained up to level 99. Each skill level adds to the overall character level, bringing the game's level cap to 2,277. In addition to this, 2014 saw the addition of the Iron Man mode (open in new tab), where you must be self-sufficient in the game: an Iron Man account cannot trade with other players or access the Grand Exchange (OSRS's market hub), and basically You have to basically earn and collect everything yourself.

In Ironman mode, OSRS becomes a harder and harder experience, especially when it comes to training specific skills. Sounds fun," a player called Devvious (opens in new tab) thought so. A runescaper with skills like his demanded an even tougher challenge. It's like a quad Ironman run.

Devias set himself the challenge of maxing out not one, not two, not three, but four different Iron Man variations. The Ultimate Iron Man account cannot even use the in-game bank, must carry all items, and the Hardcore Iron Man loses status when he dies.

Each of these Iron Man characters would take hundreds of hours to train a particular skill and thousands of hours to max it out. No problem, Devious thought, and got to work.

Eight and a half years and about 19,128 hours later, Devvious had maxed out Normal Iron Man, Ultimate Iron Man, Hardcore Iron Man, Hardcore Group Iron Man (allowed to belong to a small circle of in-game friends) the first and perhaps the only OSRS player to do so. Iron Man's character should make it difficult to even play the game "normally." Maxing out Iron Man is a very rare feat, and one that this mode was definitely not specifically designed to accommodate.

Devvious has a long history with RuneScape, having been hooked on the game as a child, and was tempted again when the Iron Man mode was released in 2014. Devvious told GamesRadar+ (opens in new tab), "I played it casually as a kid. 'I never maxed out my RS3 account, though I had a lot of 99's, and when OSRS was released I did pretty well. I was within the top 10 people who got 99 in the Smithing skill when the game was released, and about top 200 in the 99 Slayer. I was so high in Smithing skill that I even made some of the first Dragonfire Shields that came into the game. But it was nothing like when Iron Man came out.

Devvious' played this mode a lot and after maxing out his first Ironman account, he decided to move on to Hardcore and Ultimate modes. At the time, he competed with other players to max all three, but Devvious came up short. So when the Group Ironman option was added, he decided to go for four pieces.

As expected, the first Ironman max was the hardest and, despite being technically the easiest option, at least the most time consuming. Players had not yet mastered this mode, and the strategies that Devias would later use had not been discovered or were not in the game.

"For example, to get 99 rune crafts, you would have to kill about 10,000 Zurer bosses to get a million pure essences and then use those essences to make 99 lava runes. "That alone was insane compared to now. "You have to collect a lot of rare items in certain combinations, because the character's pockets aren't that big.

Devvious himself says in a quick Q&A on the OSRS subreddit: "Life . : no."

Devvious has produced a YouTube video detailing his work with OSRS and his success in esports. Another notable element of this achievement is that the 19,000-plus hours were logged while the player was also working competitively on games such as PUBG and Call of Duty: Warzone. sense of humor as well, gracefully accepting the usual Internet put-downs (opens in new tab).

This iron man is not done yet. Devias (opens in new tab) has posted an update on the collection challenge he is currently doing on his Ultimate Ironman account, and interestingly enough, "I need to find time to max out my main account, as it takes much less time than Ironman He says, "I'm not sure how to do that. He will get there somehow.

I've always wondered about this sort of thing. Why this game? [Devias says, "RuneScape was introduced to me by a friend around 2005, and it was the first MMO I ever played. So when Oldschool was released it was nostalgia for me originally. [If it weren't for YouTube, I wouldn't have kept creating different accounts and spending so much time on it.

There is something about MMOGs and the way they land with certain types of players that creates a bond. But it's hard to pinpoint what that is; I remember when WoW Classic launched, my friends and I talked a lot about what we were going to do, and then we spent the evening fishing. We'd sit there and chat, tap out the less demanding mini-games, occasionally go book shopping or do quests to raise our skill caps. It was bliss.

If you asked me why WoW was so great, I probably wouldn't answer fishing. What binds us to certain games, what makes these experiences so meaningful, and what sees people impose extraordinary challenges on themselves, just as they do in real life, is the ultimate unknown. What drives us, no one knows. The three most famous words in mountaineering were uttered by George Mallory in 1924 when asked why he wanted to climb Everest. "Because it's there