Home > Video Games > PC > RuneScape > Messing Around with Construction Glitches
The release of the Construction skill and player-owned houses on 31 May 2006 was a very large and complex update that was bound to have many unknown (at the time) bugs and glitches. The most famous bug, of course, was the one that permitted the Falador Massacre to occur, but there were many smaller and far more harmless Construction-related bugs that existed for many months, and even years, after the release of the skill.
As Construction was one of my favorite skills, and I spent much time and very much enjoyed attending house parties, naturally I learned about many of the various glitches that existed inside player-owned houses. I recall that the first Construction glitch I learned about—which I am quite sure was first shown and then taught to me by somebody else (maybe a friend), rather than being an independent discovery of mine—was the quite well-known chair glitch (it is the first 33 seconds of the video), which was an animation bug that would cause your character to be able to move around the house while still appearing to sit on a chair. I remember there being multiple ways to initiate the glitch; I preferred the method by which I would first have my character sit in a chair, then right-click another player and click Follow or Trade with, and then very quickly eat some food in my inventory. Later on I discovered that it was possible to click on nearly any action with any other object to successfully glitch the chair, rather than only clicking Follow or Trade with on another player, thus eliminating the dependence on another player being present. (The video I linked to uses yet another method, but I never liked that one, as it required the help of another player, which wasn't always available.)
Once your character was glitched, there were many amusing things you could go about doing: you could appear to teleport
around the house while still sitting on the chair by first clicking where you wanted your character to go, and then attempting to turn on building mode; you could close doors without appearing to be next to them and magically push
away anybody who was following you (skip to the 5:26 mark of the video); and you could even venture through the dungeon (if the house had one) and fight, damage, and kill other players while appearing to be sitting motionless in a chair! I also remember that it was easier to do the glitch with some types of chairs than with others: the dining room benches seemed to be the easiest, the benches in the throne room were a bit more difficult, and the thrones in the throne room and especially the chairs in the parlor were much harder. Leaving the house, logging off, eating food, sitting in another chair, or dying (among other things) would all cancel the glitch.
There was also the weapon glitch (skip to the 0:33 mark of the video), another animation bug which first required the execution of the chair glitch; I most likely discovered it by myself, while I was performing the chair glitch. While doing the chair glitch, if you switched to a new weapon that was held differently than the weapon you were holding when you initiated the glitch, and then canceled the chair glitch, your character would now be holding the new weapon in the same manner as the old one—e.g., if your character was first holding a dagger (which is held with the arm straight down to the side), and you then switched to Dharok's greataxe (which is held resting on the shoulder, with the arm bent) and canceled the chair glitch, he would now be holding Dharok's greataxe like a dagger, i.e. with his arm straight and the axe pointing directly forward. It was always entertaining to have my character walk around while holding weapons in very odd ways.
A third glitch I can still remember messing around with is related to the flame pit of the oubliette. I can remember discovering this one by myself a little later on, most likely while at the house of my close friend Son Of Fire3, who was wealthy enough to have a very high Construction level. In order to perform this glitch, it was first necessary to turn off challenge and PvP mode in the house's dungeon, and then drop a player into the flame pit from the throne room's trapdoor, whereupon challenge or PvP mode would be turned on again. Any player(s) who had been dropped into the flame pit while challenge and PvP mode were turned off would, of course, not be damaged by the flames, but, interestingly, if either mode were then turned on while they were still in the flame pit, they would still not receive damage, whereas anybody else who then fell into it would. With the glitch activated, I would often stay in the flame pit and attack any players who then fell into it after PvP mode was switched on—it was like I was acting as an additional guard within the oubliette's cage.
The biggest obstacle to performing this glitch was that, unlike the chair and weapon glitches, it inevitably required the cooperation of the owner of the house, as only the owner could turn on or off PvP/challenge mode by using the lever in the throne room; you couldn't do this glitch in your own house, because if you were in the flame pit, then there would be nobody to operate the lever. I was fortunate enough back then to have a good friend (namely, Son Of Fire3) who had a high enough Construction level to be able to build the flame pit in the first place, who was always happy to help me perform the glitch, and who enjoyed throwing house parties quite often, which meant plenty of other players who, as they were generally unaware of this bug, would be (I imagine) very surprised when they fell into the flame pit to discover that they were being simultaneously damaged by the flames and attacked by another player who was somehow immune to them. Naturally I received many questions from confused players regarding my immunity to the flames; as I was often in a mischievous mood, I would usually tell them that the red boots I liked to wear (bought from the clothes shop in Canifis) were special fire-proof
shoes.
These three glitches are only those that I can still remember in sufficient detail after all these years; I recall being aware of and having fun with a few more Construction bugs back in early/mid-2007. Unfortunately, at some point during (I think) mid-2007, I logged in one day and discovered that the weapon and flame pit glitches had been fixed, while the chair glitch, though still possible, had become much harder to do (the methods that I had been familiar with up till then no longer worked). Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I remember being enthusiastic for any large house parties, as it meant, among other things, a chance to screw around with these glitches in front of many other players.