RuneScape's 18th Birthday Present To Players: New And Improved Mining And Smithing

RuneScape launched on Jan. 4, 2001, which means it's now 18 years old. Time for it to move out of its parents' basement and get a real job, wouldn't you say?

As if on cue, Jagex today announced changes to two of the game's original skills, Mining and Smithing. Smithing gets four new tiers of armour as well as the coveted masterwork and trimmed masterwork armour. Items now take longer to smith, but the XP received from crafting them is greater. All this makes Smithing "the most valuable non-combat skill in the game," according to Jagex.

As for Mining, a friendly, Guild Wars 2-esque touch has been added: Ore nodes don't deplete when they're tapped, meaning that multiple players can access the same node. You can also mine while AFK, though the yield won't be as high as if you were actively working. Also, for us inventory geeks, you can now craft an ore box, which stores even more ore -- m'ore? -- and there's a "metal bank" you can store ore -- st'ore? -- at every forge, furnace or anvil that holds up to two billion of every ore and bar. Two billion.

Learn more about the Mining and Smithing changes in the video below or on the RuneScape website.