CASHING IN

A RUNESCAPE player's approach to grinding saw the game struggling to cope

- Ted Lichfield

There’s dedication, and then there’s dedication. And then sometimes, there’s a little bit too much dedication. An old-school Runescape player with the handle NC State (presumably not an official representative of the Raleigh-based university) finally sought his reward for grinding an infamous minigame, the Brimhaven obstacle course, for eight years. But without banking the rewards.

Rough math estimates this grind would have taken upwards of 5,000 hours of game time with near-perfect play, and all in the same dungeon doing the same few things.

NC State finally brought his journey home, turning in everything and gaining 178 million XP in