It's not really unbalanced, it's selective levelling. By levelling one or two skills instead of all of them, you maximise your capabilities for those skils, while forfeiting the others but lowering your overall level, meaning you can kick the arse of anything around the same level as you and with timing, higher.
And yeah... Cash is a LOT easier to make as a member. Hell with that.
hey tell you what without Runescape I'd probably have stopped playing video games. (now maybe some people who really hates me would have wished exactly that, but, roleplay is pretty much what kept me playing other games online.)
I should really start that again, I was so close to a questcape at level 113. But runescape pretty much sucks now, after you get to high levels and there isn't anything to do. All the quests that I had to go were too hard and to do them I needed to level, and leveling is too hard...
So I stopped playing that. And the noobs pissed me off, even though there wern't that many on members server.
It's simple, runs all of my computers and my laptop without lagging, has enough stuff to do to keep me interested (quests, trading, crafting, etc.).
But yeah, the massive downside is the player base. Like any online game, 90% of people you will meet are complete morons. Which is why I really like Runescape sometimes.
I very rarely see a mature player who spells correctly, is polite and helpful. So when I'm walking around and people call me a "fag" for being smarter than them, I feel really superior and mature compared to these worthless sacks of... Yeah.
I quit playing at level 100 mainly because I get hooked on it too easily, while Disco FL is a good game/mod, I am not addicted to it as much as I was to Runescape, so I have time for college and work.