~A History of Bug Abuse~

Note that some information is outdated and I do not plan on updating this thread.






A history of bug abuse, written by a bored bug abuser.

Take your time to read this, every bug in here has a detailed explanation of how it was done. You may not find this info anywhere else.

Runescape is full of bugs/glitches. Ever since the day it was created there have been a countless number of bugs, I don't think I can even think of a major update that did not have a single bug. Although many of the bugs are minor graphical glitches, Runescape has had a fair amount of major, profitable bugs. This thread will explain the most major of Runescape bugs.


All credits to I, Svew. You may reproduce this document as long as I am given full credit for it.


~2001~
--------


Information on this year needed.

Somewhere around this time a bug was discovered that allowed you to dupe 65k at a time but I can't find much info on it... (the highest you could have back then).



~2002~
--------


++ The Knife Glitch++

Discovered by: Unknown
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics: http://www.runescaperealm.com/files/knifebughits255kx.jpg

The knife glitch was one of Runescape's 1st well-known major bugs. It allowed you to wield knives, not intended to be wieldable, and would have a very high attack and strength bonus. This was done by filling your inventory with knives and a weapon and drop the weapon while walking. This would cause your character to wield a knife that would add to your weapons strength. Someone with 10 strength performing this glitch could hit well over 20. After the patch, players in the wild with knives equipped died upon logging in, players with them wielded anywhere else simply had them unequipped.




++The Attackable NPCs Bug++

Discovered by?: Unknown
Difficulty?: With the proper knowledge, relatively easy.
Leaked to general public during existence? No
Vids/Pics: http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1945/rockandrollwr1.png


This is a lesser known bug exploited in RSC that allowed you to attack normally unattackable NPCs such as bankers. Players performed it using the same program later used to discover the phat dupe, AutoRune. Using the program they would add an attack option to unattackable NPCs which they could use to fight them. Bankers were the most targeted as more players would see and more attention would be gained.



~2003~
--------



++The Party Hat Duplication bug++

Discovered by: Sixfeetunder
Also abused by: Kaitnieks, Dylock, g0ne, Aid, and David.
Difficulty: Unknown
Leaked to public during existence?: No
Vids/Pics: Use link in next paragraph.


Discovered on November 7th, 2003, this glitch/hack became well known in only a day. Sixfeetunder was experimenting with a program called AutoRune in an attempt to trade a scythe. He never managed to do this but did find out how to create any unstackable item. By changing the ID of an item in the trade screen with the program, such as changing it to 81 to make a rune 2h, and setting its value to 0 the game would think you didn't put up an item but when you went to the second trade screen it would show up as a value of 1.

More info here: http://www.sythe.org/showthread.php?t=389387



~2004~
--------


Information on this year needed.



~2005~
--------


++The Charge Spell Bug++

Discovered by: Unknown
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to public during existence? Yes
Vids/Pics:




The video pretty much explains the bug. You could click the charge spell over and over for VERY fast but expensive mage exp (around 3 mill+ exp per hour).




~2006~
--------



++The Glory Dupe++

Discovered by: The Tainted ones (Bug abuse group consisting 6 members.)
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to public during existence?: No
Vids/Pics: http://www.therunescapeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/s8.jpg
http://www.therunescapeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/s11.jpg


The glory dupe was discovered by the Tainted Ones on June 4th, 2006, just a couple days after POHs being released. To do it you'd smuggle out building mode from your POH (meaning when you clicked on the house options tab it would say B mode is on outside of your POH) and go into someones house. You would be able to remove anything from their house and since it wasn't your house, they would not disappear from the wall. Thus, you could repeatably remove the item resulting in a dupe.

The most notable item duped was the glory ammy, other items such as CWs armor was also duped. Tens of thousands of glories were duped and T.O. made billions of GP. Prices of the glory ammy fell significantly, from 100k to around 50k in a matter of weeks and never recovered. The bug was eventually patched about 3 weeks after the initial discovery.





++The Falador Massacre++

Discovered by: Unknown, several people at once.
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




The Falador Massacre, also known as the World 111 Massacre or Durial bug, was a major bug discovered on June 6th, 2006 during a house party hosted by the 1st player to reach 99 construction, Cursed You. The event took place in world 111 on 6/6/6 (6/6/7 for some) which is why its also called 666, the day of the devil. It was done by using a scrying orb while PvP mode was on then having the owner log out. The scrying orb interface would disappear and you'd have the ability to attack whoever you'd like anywhere you wanted.

The most famous player to abuse this bug was Durial321 who during his "massacre" pked many millions of GP, including a green party hat. He was disconnected and banned about an hour after initially doing the bug. It was patched shortly afterwards. Many other players also abused the bug in smaller massacres, most were banned, some got away with it. Durial's massacre soon became one of the most famous events in Runescape history.




~2007~
--------



++The Barbarian Assault Blood Rune Smuggle++

Discovered by: The Tainted Ones
Difficulty: Hard to set up
Leaked to public during existence?: No
Vids/Pics:




The B.A. rune smuggle was another major bug discovered by the Tainted Ones only hours after B.A. was released on January 4th, 2007. It allowed you to smuggle any item from Barbarian Assault except the cape such as runes and arrows. The most notable rune smuggled was the blood rune, at the time the most expensive item in the minigame that the vendors gave you. It was done by using another bug that made the game think you were in a duel. When your partner left the duel you would be "force teleported" back to the duel arena no matter where you were without normal affects occurring such as the deletion of minigame items. Thus, you could go into B.A., take tens of thousands of runes from the vendor, then have your partner leave the duel and be forced back to the duel arena with the runes still in your inventory.

After finding the bug, T.O. immediately went to work. They would multi log on up to 6 accounts and enter a game to smuggle the runes. They smuggled hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of runes and made hundreds of mills. Jagex found out something was going on and the bug was soon patched a few weeks later.

In 2009 a similar bug was discovered that let you smuggle runes from the minigame. It was done by making your summoned familiar disappear but keeping the tab. You'd then go into the minigame and call him. Then you could take the runes and store them in your familiar and leave, keeping the runes. This was patched a few days after being leaked to the general public, many abusers were banned.

"Force teleports" or "ft"s like the duel arena ft are explained later in the thread.




~2008~
--------



++The Fight Pits Massacre++

Discovered by: Unknown, many people at once.
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to general public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




The Fight Pits Massacre occurred on May 13th, 2008, the same day Tzhaar's graphics were updated. This bug allowed you to attack people in the waiting room from the minigame and could loot their items. It was patched a few hours after the release of the new Tzhaar after Jagex mods went to the pits on busy worlds and banned most of the abusers.

There are several possible explanation that could have triggered this bug. The ability to attack other players is normally an "area based" affect meaning it doesn't matter if you have the ability to attack if you are not in an area that allows you to attack others. Jagex may have forgotten to make the fight pit's PvP ability area based and you could attack anyone you want. The only reason fally massacres didn't occur is because the only way you could leave is to log out or go through the barrier into the waiting room, both take away the ability to attack. Using other bugs it could have been possible to keep the ability to attack, but bug abusers were fast enough...

But most likely it was still area based but Jagex simply forgot to not let you attack people from inside the Fight Pits.





++Invincibility++

Method 1 discovered by: Champ7020, Roboreapper
Method 2 discovered by: Svew (more info below)
Difficulty: Easy - Medium
Leaked to the general public?: No, leaked to most glitchers though.
Vids/Pics:




The 1st actual invincibility bug where players or NPCs could not attack you or interact with you at all was discovered by either Roboreapper and Champ7020 or me, Svew (this was before we became partners). Robo's and Champ's version allowed you to stay invincible for as long as you wanted but could not attack anyone either, my version allowed you to attack people while invincible but was timed. They were both discovered at around the same time in early June coincidentally, I admit I'd rather use their version for most bugs though.

The bug occurs when you stall the game from logging you out. When you click "log out", you cannot be attacked for a split second so nothing interferes with your logout. If you stall the game from logging you can stay invincible for as long as you want.

Anyways, Roboreapper decided to be a retard one day and leaked their version to a friend of his after 2-3 weeks of abusing it privately. That friend leaked it to several players and the cycle continued until most players in the "glitching community" knew how to do it (Glitchers have their own "community" like botters and other cheaters have. Most glitches leaked to the community stay in the community.) The 1st true Runescape invincibility was leaked and many bug abusers stood in minigames such as castle wars invulnerable to attacks. The original one by Robo and Champ has long been patched, my version is still possible and unleaked. Many versions of this bug have been discovered since then, most of them patched, but new ways are being discovered all the time.





++The First Noclip Glitch++

Discovered by: Roboreapper and Champ7020
Also abused by: Svew, eventually 4-5 others after players started finding it.
Difficulty: Hard
Leaked to public during existence?: No, it was leaked AFTER it was patched.
Vids/Pics:




The noclip glitch was the 1st bug that allowed you to "noclip" or stand in/go past barriers in the game. It abused a bug in the Fishing Trawler that allowed you to teleport ~120 spaces east/west outside of the minigame. In the trawler you are normally teleported 120 spaces east/west whenever the boat fills with water or empties. This bug allowed you to teleport 120 spaces outside of the minigame, allowing you to do many things. The bug was abused to go into many inaccessible areas such as Prifddinas, Tutorial Island after finishing it, the Legends Guild without even starting the quest, and inside barriers such as the Taverly wall. It was discovered in early July, 2008 by Champ7020 and Roboreapper. The bug was told to me, Svew, as the 3 of us were partners.

The 3 of us abused the bug for around 2 months, never leaking it to anyone outside our 3 person team. Eventually in September or so a couple other players found out about it, fortunately they did not leak it until November. The bug lasted until November 11th (I think) where it was patched. A couple days later, a player released a guide on how to do it along with another glitch as a result of us annoying him over MSN. Fortunately for us, it was already patched. Later we found out Robo had leaked the bug behind our backs to the same friend who leaked the invincibility bug. That was the last time we bug abused with him.




~2009~
--------



++The Penguin Hide and Seek Bug++

Discovered by: Unknown, multiple players at once.
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to general public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




The Penguin Hide and Seek bug was a bug discovered on January 28, 2009. This bug was a result of Jagex accidentally messing up a piece of coding that told the server whether you have spied on a penguin or not. The result was the ability to spy on the same penguin over and over and cashing in all the points for a very significant amount of experience. Hundreds of players tried the glitch and gained almost 1 million experience per hour in any skill they wanted.

The minigame was removed on the same day as the bug's discovery and Jagex started banning the bug abusers. 159 accounts were permanently banned for spending a significant amount of points (250+), many were temporarily banned for spending a major amount of points. The bug wa s soon patched and the minigame was re-released.





++µ Crash Bug++

Discovered by: Unknown
Difficulty: Easy
Leaked to general public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




This bug was discovered on the February 25th, 2009. This glitch occurred as a result of Jagex messing up a piece of coding resulting in the Runescape client not being able to display certain special characters, notably "µ", and would crash upon trying to display them. Many players ran around busy areas spamming these characters and disconnecting many players from the game. You could prevent yourself from crashing by turning off your public chat so your client did not try to display one of the characters. The bug lasted for many hours before Jagex finally patched it.




++The PvP Drop Potential Glitch++

Discovered by: Unknown
Difficulty: Medium
Leaked to general public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




Discovered on April 12th, 2009, the PvP drop potential glitch was a bug that made the game think you were risking much more then you were really risking in a F2P PvP world (before bounty hunter was re-released). It was done by putting a high amount of cash or items (preferably 500k+ worth) into a summoned familiar then switching to a F2P PvP world. The game would think you have your summon out and are risking that much cash when the familiar is not with you.

Players abused this bug by dieing multiple times while the game thought they were risking high amounts of cash then 26k'ing in a members world. Since the game thought you lost high amounts of cash it gave you very expensive drops such as furies and dragonfire sheilds. Players easily made 50m a day doing this but most were not banned. Jagex patched the glitch a couple days after its discovery.




++The "Broken NPCs" Bug++

Discovered by: Unknown, multiple players at once.
Leaked to general public during existence?: Yes
Vids/Pics:




On June 9th, 2009, a major bug occurred that prevented NPCs who ranged/maged from attacking you. This was the result of the run update that introduced "resting" to the game, apparently the new game engine had some unexpected results. Players were able to kill any NPCs who attacked you from a distance without worrying about dieing, most notable major high leveled ones such as the Kalphite Queen and Corporeal Beast. This was patched fairly quickly and no bans for abusing it seemed to occur.

Many smaller bugs also occurred on that day. NPCs you could normally talk to from a distance such as bankers would not talk to you. Many rooms in POHs lost their doors so maneuvering around a house became difficult.





~Other~
---------




++Safe Deaths++

1st Performed by: Tainted Ones
Vids/Pics:




A safe death is a bug that allows you to die and keep all of your items regardless of your position in Runescape. This is a result of the game thinking you are in a minigame or other safe area such as Pest Control and spawning you at that minigame with all your items. These types of bugs can be performed by forcing yourself outside of a safe area and keeping the affects with another bug.




++Luring++

1st performed by: Unknown
Difficulty: Easy - Hard
Vids/Pics:




Luring was a popular way of scamming before the trade limit was put into place. The 1st lures were simple and involved tricking the victim to step into the wild with expensive items, normally promising him an expensive item. This didn't always work as it looked very suspicious most of the time so bug abuse came into play.


---Poh Luring---

POH luring was a very popular luring method back in the day when your hitpoints did not increase when you left your POH. At 1st players could simply kick someone right as they get hit by a player and they'd take damage outside of the POH. The player who did the most damage would get the drop. After that was patched players would get the victim to low HP and trick them into taking damage outside of the POH such as by getting them to eat a poisoned karambwan. You could also use vengeance on a friend and "stall" the vengeance from hitting the victim and kick him out. The spell would hit them outside of the house.

Most forms of POH luring have been patched but POHs haven't been patched enough to prevent future house luring...


---Minigame Luring---

Coming soon when I find some information on the more older lures that were possible.




++Other Noclips++


Ever since the trawler noclip, a whole new area of runescape bugging was introduced: force moves. A force move "forces" your character into/past barriers such as when the trawler teleported you 120 spaces west and "forced" you into an object or area resulting in a form of noclipping. Only 2 bugs that force moved you into objects on the main map was discovered after the trawler noclip, one involving a minigame in the warriors guild and another abusing a trap in the quest Smoking Kills. They were both leaked and patched fairly quickly though.




++Duel Arena Bug Abuse++

1st performed by: Tainted Ones?
Difficulty: Easy - Hard
Vids/Pics: Need a vid, I know theres some out there.


Duel arena was a popular place players, notably the Tainted Ones, used bugs to make cash. The 1st instance of bug abusing in stakes would probably have to be using smuggled bandages from castle wars in no food duels. The game didn't recognize bandages as a food and you could use it to heal yourself. There was also a bug with the dragon spear special where if you used its special it would push your opponent back and he would not be able to attack you, at this point you would use a halberd to kill him. After that was patched bug abusers could use a bug that gave you 2 partners using the same bug used for the B.A. smuggle. Your second partner could use the d spear special on you in a no movement duel and it'd work. No risk duels were also possible by "forcing" yourself out of the duel when you thought you were going to lose the same way the Tainted Ones forced themselves out of B.A. When the lunar spellbook was released players could heal others or cast vengeance on players in the middle of a duel.




++Force(d) Teleports++

1st performed by: Tainted Ones?
Difficulty: Easy - Hard
Vids/Pics:


A force teleport (sometimes called ft) is a teleport that where affects applied on your character are not taken away. Normally they are teleports that are designed only to be used in a specific area such as the teleport from the waiting area in fight pits to the actual minigame itself.

An example of a force teleport is the duel arena ft discovered by the Tainted Ones. There were a few different ways to do this, one way was to throw a gnomeball to a player right as they accepted a no weapon duel. The game would take the player he challenged into the duel arena alone until the "3, 2, 1" ended. He would then be teleported back out. What the Tainted Ones did was use a gnomeball to get 1 player to go into the duel arena alone then quickly have the player who was stopped from entering accept another duel offer. That player would be sent into the duel with 2 players who could attack him; the player who entered the duel 1st would not get teleported out like usual as his partner entered the duel with someone else before the "3, 2, 1" ended. He would then leave while the player who was stopped from going into the duel and his new partner stayed in the duel arena. He would then go get barricades from castle wars for example and his partner that stayed behind would leave the duel. He would be force teleported to the duel arena hospital with the barricades as a force teleport does not take away special items/affects you have.


There have been many force teleports possible that have been used for many bugs, they are one of the most useful tools in bug abusing.




++Old Bounty Hunter Bug Abuse++

1st performed by: Everyday Bug Abusers
Vids/Pics:


After Jagex took away the wild and added bounty hunter, bug abusers went straight into action. Many different bugs were performed during the many months the bounty hunter craters existed.

The 1st instance of bug abuse in the old BH craters I can think of was dieing and not losing your items using a bug that let you retain the affects in tzhaar fight caves such as the ability to die and not lose anything (explained in the section on safe deaths). This was patched by giving the affect to lose all your items in bounty hunter a higher priority then the affect to keep all your items from tzhaar; you would die and lose everything but still have the safe death bug in affect.

Another bug was found that allowed you to keep the bounty hunter skull. This was done by using the tutorial by talking to Mandrith, getting to the part where the different skulls were shown above your character, and spam clicking a badly coded interface (the quick chat help interface) after you clicked on the floor beneath your character. You would be sent back outside bounty hunter with the interface repeatedly opening with the skull still above your head. You could then teleport and walk around with it still there as long as the interfaces kept opening. The interface, which bug abusers used to do many glitches, was patched and the cutscene itself was later also patched.

A bug discovered by an unknown player allowed you to bring summoned familiars into the crater. This was done by logging off with a familiar, switching to a f2p world, going into the crater, logging off, and logging back in into a members world. You would log in with your familiar and if it could hold items you could bring in large amounts of gp, runes, ect for fast real world trading using this bug. This was leaked pretty quickly and soon patched.

There was also a bug that allowed you to bring any tradable or lent item into the craters discovered by Monni, Champ7020, and I. This involved a glitch that "force teleported" you out of the bounty hunter craters then force tele'd you back regardless of what you had in your inventory or equipped. It was a pretty time consuming bug to perform so it wasn't abused much, but when it was abused it could be used for safe pking with lent items, transferring large amounts of gp at a time, and bringing in familiars to help kill players. It was never really patched.

Noclip also played a major role in bounty hunter bug abuse. Bounty hunter consisted of 4 craters, 3 craters off the main map and the crater you see when you open the world map. The one on the main map is a "fake" crater that players aren't teleported into but it still had the same affects as the other 3 craters. Champ7020 was the 1st player to step foot into the crater on the main map using the 1st noclip (with the fishing trawler) and I became 2nd. Since all bounty hunter affects are present in the fake crater and there's no players, we could transfer large amounts of cash with no worry by killing eachother.

During the time frame the old bounty hunter was closed and the fishing trawler noclip was patched, a bug discovered by a lucky, random, wannabe glitcher involving the warriors guild was found that let you "force move" into barriers like the trawler noclip. This was leaked and patched quickly but several players managed to get into the bounty hunter crater on the main map which still had the same affects it had before BH was removed. Some RWTing and bans happened but nothing major occurred.




Contribute! If you know any old bugs I haven't put up tell me, I'll look into em and put them up. They must be major and profitable.






~Bug Abuse: Facts vs. Myths~



++Scamming with Lent Items: NOT POSSIBLE++


Imagine this scenario:

1. The lender decides to lend a blue phat (ID = 1042) to a player.

2. In the trade screen he puts in the phat and sets the time limit to 1 hour. This tells the game to give the lent version of the phat (ID = 13533) to the player, make it disappear after the time limit, and to give the original blue phat back to the lender after an hour under any circumstance.

3. The player who received the lent phat manages to drop the phat and the floor using a bug and it disappears after a minute.

4. The server DOES NOT CARE whether the player who had the lent phat still has it or not. It will still give back the original phat to the lender after an hour.


*There is no proof that dismantling lent godswords was ever possible.*



++Duping with Lent Items: NOT POSSIBLE++


1st of all, stalling a lent item from disappearing with an interface is not a dupe...

Even if you managed to keep an item from disappearing somehow, it would still disappear upon logging back in. If someone lent you a phat for an hour and you managed to bypass the time limit and logged out, the server will notice the time limit has passed and will treat it as though the hour was passed while you were logged out; it will take the phat from you.

Also, you may have noticed in the above the original item and lent item have different item IDs meaning they are completely different items and unless you know some epic bug that can turn buckets into phats, there is no possible way to change one item into another.

 

Nice. Lots of memories.

 

Good time's i remember some of these.

 

Wow, amazing, I never even knew some of these glitches....

 

Many major bugs discovered by full time bug abusers are never revealed to the public.

 

wow very nice, how about the dupping of items?

 

What do you mean?

 

nice post lol i have a pdf of the Great dupe

 

Never knew most of these.

Interesting to read...

 

this just educated me quite a bit.

Thank

i didn't know anything before 07

 

There was a glitch in 2005 that I did that allowed you to force yourself outside of the game through a wall in varrok sewers, near the moss giant area. This allowed you to just walk into any underground room or area in the entire game. I had tons of pictures but the place I had them hosted has since died. Some people still have characters there

I found this picture..not a very good one and it isn't me but yeah..

 

Ah yes I do remember reading about that one a while back, not sure if it's major enough to put in as all of these bugs are profitable one way or another, I do not see anyway you could make a profit off doing that unless you sell accounts still in there.

Edit: Pic doesn't seem to work btw.
Edit again: Now it does =p.

 

Duping glories. Win win situation it was

 

Lmao I was at the fally massacre it was mad

 

Very nice thread but u have forgot some of the sickest bugs in rs.

One of them was when people were able to use CW bandages on people at duel arena and the other one had something to do with tele other and duel arena but i dont remember how that bug worked but i know people made billions with it, i hope u do some research and find more information about these 2.

 

Wow, This is really interesting. I've never been big on glitching as it's apparently easy ot get caught and perm banned for but your really know you stuff!

Was a great read thanks for posting!

 

Cool idea for a thread. Good ol' memories.

 

do you know anything about level 100000 glitch/bug?

 

I believe you forgot the glitches: rune smuggling from barbarian assault using familiars and the TzHaar Fighting Pit Massacre.

The massacre happened on May 13th, 2008.

I'll post if I remember any others.


I'm not sure if it was major, but you could somehow get familiars into Bounty Hunter.

 

I was just about to put some of these ideas up and level 1000 glitch was not major. I might put a history of bugging at the beginning like how it all started who were the 1st bug abusers ect once I get more info on that.