Back on September 1, 2014, Jagex released the grouping system on RuneScape. I had heard about the news, but didn’t pounce right on the opportunity to try it out. Since then, I also forgot about it for a while.

Recently, I took a closer look at the grouping system, hoping to play some mini-games again that I hadn’t played for years.

Originally, I thought that the grouping system was sort of like a dungeon or raid finder in other massively multiplayer online games. For example, in World of Warcraft, when you queue up, the system finds other players for you, then puts you inside the dungeon or raid together.

So, logically, my expected result for the group finder was to check off all the mini-games I wanted to play, queue up, then after several minutes, end up inside a mini-game with other people who also wanted to play.

The RuneScape grouping system is completely different.

The RuneScape grouping system is there to help you find other people who claim they are interested in playing the mini-game or doing the activity. Actually setting it up, hopping worlds, and entering the mini-game is all up to you (or the leader of your group).

Pretty much nothing is automated.

I tried using the feature and got nowhere. On occasion I had a few people come and go, but literally noth­ing happened as a result.

It is a near-useless feature, because it finishes one task for you, then leaves a lot of effort-re­quiring tasks for you to do on your own.

Basically, the grouping system baits you into thinking that it’s an easy way to get what you want, pretends like it’s going to do it for you, then pretty much does nothing.

I was actually pretty hyped to play RuneScape’s mini-games again, and now I’ve crashed down to dis­ap­point­ment.