Duel Arena

The Al-Kharid Duel Arena is a place where all players can go to engage in one-on-one-combat, either for fun or for a prize. Duelling for prizes is referred to as staking. As of 10 December 2007, the Duel Arena is now open to both free players and members, but only members can engage in duelling tournaments.

The duel arena is a safe pass-time. In case of death, there is no penalty, and no items (expect the stake) will be lost.

Origins
The Duel Arena was brought into RuneScape shortly after the end of the RS2 Beta. It was partially due to Jagex wanting to do something about players abusing the "Duel anywhere" option back in RuneScape Classic in order to get a free teleport to Lumbridge.

Location
The arena is located northeast of Al-Kharid. It is fenced off from the rest of the area.

Players can also rub a Ring of duelling to teleport directly to the arena entrance. This saves on having to walk from far away, although using an Amulet of Glory to teleport to the palace is another viable option along with the Lumbridge Home Teleport as it is close to the Duel Arena.

Main Building
The main building is located along the northern fence of the arena. This is where the majority of players stay to challenge others. There are good number of surgeons there that can heal a player when needed. There is also an altar in the eastern side of the building. The abilities to heal and recharge prayer are somewhat useless though, as when a player enters a duel, all statistics are restored to their normal levels. Outside the eastern side of the building are two bank chests as well as a banker. This banker, though, does not have the capablility to return lent items. Immediately below, is the Head Registrar for Duel Tournaments.

Picking a Fight
To fight another player, players must right-click their intended opponent and select the "Challenge" option. This will tell that player that someone wishes to duel with them, and they accept by challenging that player in return.

Combat
To fight another player, players must right-click their intended opponent and select the "Challenge" option. The player must then select whether it is a fun or staked duel. This will tell that player that someone wishes to duel with them, and they accept by challenging that player in return.

This will open the dueling options screen, which defines the parameters for the battle. The screen shows the name and combat level of the opponent, as well as what each player is offering up for a "bet", or a "stake". Free-to-play players can only bet up to 10000 coins or items worth up to 10000 coins. After acquiring 10 Quest Points, the amount you can stake in 15 minutes increases, until you have 270 or more Quest Points. At this point, you are capable of staking 60,000 coins. Finally, there are 11 different options that can be turned on or off and are adjustable by either player. These are detailed as follows:


 * No Ranged: No ranging weaponry can be equipped during the battle.
 * No Melee: Players cannot engage in hand-to-hand combat, including bare fists/feet.
 * No Magic: No magical attack spells can be cast.
 * No Special Attacks: Special attacks cannot be used.
 * Fun Weapons: The only allowed Weapons are the Rubber chicken, Flowers, Mouse toy, and other items that have very negative combat bonuses. Bare fists are not allowed, nor are snowballs as they are not able to cause any damage.
 * No Forfeit: Players cannot escape the arena; the fight lasts until one player dies.
 * No Drinks: Players cannot drink anything that boosts stats, such as Potions. All stats that are boosted prior to the fight are reset to their default values once the fight begins.
 * No Food: Eating food is not allowed.
 * No Prayer: Using any Prayers is not allowed.
 * No Movement: Players can't move during the battle.
 * Obstacles: The arena becomes like a mini-maze during the fight, also the fighting area is separated from the obstacle-free one.
 * Summoning Enabled: Players are allowed to summon during the battle.

Some of the options can't be combined; for instance, having no ranged, melee, or magic makes it impossible to fight.

It is also possible to take equipped items off on this screen, rangers should be careful not to check off shield if they intend to use a bow.

When the battle begins, players are teleported into the arena itself with a 3-second countdown before the fighting actually begins. If "No Forfeit" was not checked off, players who are losing (or simply wish to end the duel early) can retreat through one of the trapdoors, ending the battle immediately. Anything staked is awarded to the other player. When a player's opponent has a weapon that is faster than the speed of a longsword, it is relatively difficult to forefit, as the screen to confirm "Yes", disappears when attacked.

During the fight
After reciting 3-2-1-Fight, the players run towards each other, ready to attack. A skull is shown in the bottom of the screen. This skull means that you are engaging in Player killing. There is a chance of rotten tomatoes, from Pelter's Veg Stall, being thrown at you by anyone in the audience. This will, however, cause no damage to either person duelling. When in the duel, you can only fight players with a yellow arrow above them, signaling they are your opponents. You can still click the "Fight" option for other players, but you are not allowed to fight them. It is customary to say "Good fight" or "Gf" (an abbreviation of good fight) at the conclusion of your duel.

Maxing
Many people use the duel arena to find their max hit. To do this, you want to have the lowest possible defense possible.

The lowest possible magic defense: 1. Any defender will give -3 magic defence bonus.

1. Any defender will give -2 range defence.

Outcome
After the battle ends, players are teleported back to the building beside the arena and all the stats are healed, along with fully recharged running energy (poison and stat-reducing effects are negated as well). Any ranged weapons that fell to the ground are automatically returned to the owner, if the ranger had no inventory space, the arrows would drop to the ground, ready to be picked up by the ranger only If there was a stake, the victor claims the prize(s). When you die you only lose the items you staked.

Near the gate and outside the main building, are scoreboards, where players can view the last 50 battles on that server. The scoreboards show the combat levels of the combatants and who won the round. The scoreboard automatically updates every five minutes.

Tournaments
On 20 November, 2007, Jagex added a new way of participating in the Duel Arena by adding a tournament mode. Up to 64 players can compete and the entry fee is based on the number of participants; up to 1 million coins for a 64 player tournament. In the Tournament dungeon, 5 registers hold 5 different tournaments with random rules varying on difficulties. The rules might include food or potion usage, attack styles allowed, healing between rounds and special attacks. Additionally, winning or losing against a player will affect the winner's and loser's tournament rank. If a weak player lost against a high leveled player the tournament points won or lost won't be of much significance. Tournaments are also restricted with a range of tournament ranks allowed, the tournament value depends on the set of rules and the rank range allowed. It also affects the players rank more or less at the end of the tournament respecting to its value.

Tournaments are only held on worlds 54, 83 and 114. Although the only world with enough people to conduct a tournament is usually world 54.

NPCs
The following NPCs are found at the Duel Arena.


 * A'abla
 * Afrah
 * Captain Daerkin
 * Dalal
 * Fadli
 * Hamid
 * Head Registrar
 * Ima
 * Jadid
 * Jaraah
 * Jeed
 * Mubariz
 * Registrar
 * Sabeil
 * Sabreen
 * Spectator
 * Surgeon General Tafani
 * Zahwa

2007 update controversy
On 20 November 2007, during the tournament update, Jagex set a limit of 3,000 gold (or items value thereof) per stake, per every 15 minutes, claiming that this would make Real world trading difficult. This move was heavily criticized by players, especially since it also hurt legitimate players. As of 30 September 2008, the limit has been raised to 5,000 coins to 60,000 coins depending on quest points. For free-to-play, the limit is up to 10,000 coins.

In response, some players have organized mass riots, and many claim that they will no longer continue their membership. Other players have suggested alternative ways to "stake," such as doing deathmatches or "trust stakes," in which two opponents agree on a stake, give their stakes to a middleman, and fight, and finally claim the spoils from the middleman (despite the risk of being scammed). However, this method has been soiled due to the removal of unbalanced trade.

Worlds
The official Duel Arena worlds are World 132 and 12. Both are friendly and staked. The free Duel Arena world is 33, this was as of the F2P Duel Arena update.

Trivia

 * Setting ranged on, arrows off and movement off, the game was fooled and players stood facing each other unable to attack, making the duel neverending. It was also used as a scam, with a duel set to only ranged, movement off, and at the last second arrows off, one player used knifes whilst the other player couldn't use their bow. This is no longer possible. However, as there are many ways to create this scenario, the situation itself can still occur.


 * Entering a duel with movement turned off between two melee players, one use the "fetch" interaction with a pet rock to be able to move, and could then range or mage their opponent to death. This is no longer possible.


 * "Snowball fights" are sometimes (but rarely) used as scams. Players would each stake items and set no melee, ranged, magic and fun weapons. The idea of this was that the opponent would eventually give up and forfeit, losing the stake. Setting no forfeit as well could result in a non-stop duel.


 * Just over 21000 players are ranked in the tournament highscores because it requires 1800 points.


 * Both Ice amulet and the snow imp it summons are not allowed into dueling, though they actually have no effect in combat. They are from 2008 Christmas event.