TruthScape.com  9  The Truth About Luring in RuneScape       9  Illegal Wilderness Lures and Scams

In-Game Trade Lures and People Who Ask You to Follow Using Tele Group to Ice Plateau

Real drop parties are fun activities where nice people drop items on the ground, which others run around trying to find and take. It is this prospect of getting “free stuff” that makes them popular, but that same aspect makes them an attractive mechanism for lurers. The reason is that a lot of people stop thinking clearly when they think they are going to get something for free.

First of all, recognize that a legitimate drop party is an act of generosity on the part of the person having it. They are giving away items for fun, so they are not going to do it in a way that endangers anyone. They will usually pick a location that is well-known and easily accessed, like a town or a spot near one, or they may use the Party Hall in Seers' Village. Some people also hold drop parties in their houses, which are generally safe (but watch out for combat-related house scams).

If you are invited to a drop party that is being held in a strange location, that is when you need to be careful, and the stranger the location, the more likely it is a fake party being used to scam the participants. This isn't always the case—some folks have parties in odd places to avoid uninvited guests “crashing” them—but the more dangerous or obscure the place, more you are at risk. And that applies doubly if the Wilderness is involved.

The easiest drop party lure to detect is one that is openly held in the Wilderness. These are now relatively rare, because most people realize how obvious it is that this is an attempt to lure. In fact, I don't believe you are even allowed to advertise Wilderness drop parties on the forums any more. If you do go to a drop party in the Wild of your own volition, you are on your own—if (when) you get killed, it's not reportable. This falls squarely in the “you should have known better” category.

Far more sneaky are the fake drop parties held near the Wilderness but not in it. These used to be very common, because it was hard to tell where the Wild began, and this let lurers trick people into stepping over the boundary accidentally, where they would be killed. The Wilderness ditch has mostly eliminated drop party luring near the Wild, making it basically obsolete; you can read about how these lures used to work, including a typical example, in the topic on drop parties near the Wild before the ditch.

The only remaining way that someone could possibly put you in danger by convincing you to participate in a drop party near the Wild is if he held it in the small “safe area” just north of the ditch. This is a two-square strip on the Wilderness side of the ditch that is not actually in the Wild. Needless to say, there is no possible legitimate reason why anyone would have a drop party there. Never cross the Wilderness ditch for a drop party, or for any other reason than going to PK or use other resources in the Wild.

In-Game Trade Lures and People Who Ask You to Follow Using Tele Group to Ice Plateau