My sons and I have been playing RS for about 18 months now.  Its enjoyable and not excessively violent.  He needs to be aware of all the rules that Jagex has in place for players safety.  No personal information is to be asked for.  There is a good reporting system for bad language, rule breaking etc.  There are also player moderators (I personally know 8 of them - all adults) who have the power to mute players using offensive language etc.  On your own control panel, there is also an "ignore" list, which  you can put offensive or annoying players on - and their chat is muted for you.

As in any internet based game (or real life for that matter) there are a small percentage of undesirable players whose only aim is to cause grief for others.  There are also a lot of adults/parents playing (I am a member of one adult clan, all of us over 30, 90% of us parents).  We generally step in if we see anything undesirable happening.

I recommend that you start up a character for yourself and check out what is going on.  I would also recommend you consider letting him become a member - it costs about $9 Australian, a month.  Members worlds tend to be habitated by players who are more dedicated to the game, therefore you find less scamming, offensive language and general icckyness.  My personal belief is that the number of predatory adults will also be slightly fewer if they have to pay.

Just make sure he is aware of internet safety, and drum the golden rule of  "no personal information - not even your first name".

Hi
I asked my 15 year old daughter about it and she loves it my 14 yr old son goes booring
I didn't even know they had played it
My daughter hasn't logged in for ages but logged in for me and i died of boredom...sorry
You meet people and kill and sometimes you group up with others she said she followed a magician for a while and he taught her heaps. Booring lol
Gimme The Wiggles anyday they are more exciting

Luv Deb

Thanx everyone for ya input! Appreciate it

My 14 yr old plays it and has 'met' some really nice kids on there, Of course, the kids at school play as well, so they can play and chat at the same time rather than have msn on all the time. He has been playing it for about three years and if he finishes all the free worlds and stuff he goes back in on a new handle and does it again. Each time there are different things that he has missed or whatever.

However I do monitor how much time he is spending on there.

Leisa

My 10yr old has been playing it for a little over 12months now.  It doesnt seem to be too violent.  I have issues with the chat though.  We have gone over the ground rules, no names, addresses etc and if someone asks for his password he is to report them (he learned that one the hard way).  I do limit him to one day a week for 2 hours.  He was also wanting to get on there every chance he got.  He has now completed all of the "free" worlds (you can become a member and access more things) so now he is kind of over it.

my seven almost eight year old boy is addicted to runescape, too. as far as my husband and i can tell, there's nothing bad on it and we are very vigilant about what we allow him to play. the only thing i worry about is if the others playing the game on the net are using foul language (you know how kids are) but what to do? as long as my son keeps getting good grades and behaving himself in general, we let him play that infernal game on the weekends (as well as participating in organized sporting activities, otherwise playing runescape is ALL he would choose to do.) i rue the day that we let our son get exposed to video/computer games!!! but there's no turning back, so all we can do is monitor the games he plays and the time he's allowed to play. everything in moderation, right?....  

Runescape? Meh. Have you ever heard of World of Warcraft? That's far more addictive - you have to pay for WoW subscription though. Keep a look out for that one. WoW is the hottest online game in the world. Gamers addicted to WoW have been known to play from day to night, especially at the beginning.

At least your son isn't looking at adult game websites.

yer my neighbours kids play it and i doubt they would let their kids do anything that could be constrewed as bad, kiall said he's had a go of it and it and says it dosn't seem to be bad, just remind your kids that there could be preditors on that to just like any internet community.