Chatting in RuneScape is of course important. You need to communicate with other players to play the game fully. To chat you simply enter your message in the typing box and hit enter. When your message has been sent, it will appear in the chat box, and above your character's head. Normal chat is blue in the chat box.

Private messages
Private messages are, as the name would suggest, private between you and another user. To send these, you will need to have the friend on your friend list (look above for more information), then click his or her name, and type in a message in the chat box. When you're done with the message, just hit enter and your friend should see the message on their screen. It is only you and your friend who can see what you type. Private messages are red in the chat box.

Split private-chat
In the Settings part of your control panel you have an option to split your private chat. If you have this set to off, the private messages you receive will appear in your chat box. If you have it on, your private messages will appear above the chat box in your game window. If you have split on, the private messages will appear light-blue in your game window.

Underneath the chat area there are three buttons to control your interactions with other players. The public chat button controls the chat that everyone can see. There are four options, simply click to change between them.

- On: Chat acts normally, you can see messages from everybody above their heads and in the chat box.
- Friends: You only see public chat messages from people on your friends list.
- Off: You see no public chat at all. If you talk, the button automatically changes to hide.
- Hide: You only see messages above people's heads, not in the chat box.

The private chat button toggles how you filter the people who can private message you.

- On: Everybody can add you to their friends lists, and everybody can talk to you.
- Friends: Only people on your friends list can private message you, everybody else sees you as being offline.
- Off: Nobody can send you private messages, you appear as offline to everybody. If you private message someone in this mode, the button automatically changes to friends.

The trade/duel button toggles who you see trade and duel requests from.

- On: You see trade and duel requests from everyone.
- Friends: You only see trade and duel requests from people on your friends list.
- Off: You see no trade or duel requests. You may, however, still send requests to other players.

Chat effects
You might have seen someone who is typing with a red-coloured text, or a text that's waving. Typing like this is called chat effects, and you can only see them if you have the chat effects part of your settings in your control panel on. Chat effects will only appear over the head of the person using them, not in your chat box, there the text will look normal.

To use the chat effects, you will need to write the code, and a colon ( : ), and then your message without a space before the first word. For example, writing red:Hello would make you say "Hello" with a red font, but if you throw in a space and write red: Hello, you would actually say "Red: Hello" in game... Here is a full list of the codes:

Colour codes: Movement codes:
Red: Text is red Wave: Text moves up and down.
Yellow: Text is yellow (default colour) Wave2: Text waves diagonally.
Green: Text is green Shake: Text shakes bizarrely.
Cyan: Text is cyan Slide: Text slides from up to down.
Purple: Text is purple Scroll: Text scrolls from left to right.
White: Text is white -
Flash1: Flashes between red and yellow text -
Flash2: Flashes between cyan and blue -
Flash3: Flashes between light and dark green -
Glow1: Text fades from red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to cyan -
Glow2: Text fades from red, to magenta, to blue, to dark red, to red -
Glow3: Text fades from white, to green, to white, to cyan -

Now, if you want to do something really advanced, you can use one of the colours AND movements at the same time. For this you need to write the colour first, and then scroll/wave. For example you could write something like this red:wave:Hello everyone and you would say "Hello everyone" with a red waving text.

Glossary
In addition to common net shorthand (brb, lol, g2g, etc.) RuneScape players have developed a set of slang for RuneScape items, places and terms.

Glossary - Items
Weapons and armour Items
2h - Two-handed sword
Addy - Adamant
Ammy - Amulet
Battle/B-axe - Battleaxe
Blk- Black armour
Chain - Chain mail
D or Drag - Dragon
Full - Full set (i.e. Chest & legs, full helmet, and sometimes shield)
(g) - Gold trimmed
Helm - Helmet
Kite - Kite shield
Large/Lrg - Full helmet
Legs - Leg plate mail
Long - Long sword
Med - Medium helmet
Mith - Mithril
Plate/pl8/chest - Body plate mail
R - Rune
Scimmy - Scimitar
Square/sqr - Square shield
(t) - Trimmed Airs - Air Runes
Ammy - Amulet
Axe - Hatchet
Bloods - Blood Runes
DOR - Disk of Returning
Earths - Earth Runes
Ess - Rune essence
Fires - Fire Runes
Glory - Amulet of glory
Gp - Gold coins (money)
Law - Law Runes
Lobs/Lobbies - Lobsters
Mask - Monster mask
Minds - Mind Runes
Nats - Nature Runes
Phat - Party hat
Pick - Pick axe
Pot - Potion
ROW - Ring of Wealth
Saph - Sapphire
Santa - Santa hat
Souls - Soul Runes
Swordies - Swordfish
Talis/Tally - Talisman
Unids - Unidentified Herbs
Waters - Water Runes
Wealth - Ring of wealth
Glossary - Generic
1337 - Elite, also "cool"
2 - to
4 - for
Ard(y) - Ardogune
Att - Attack level
Barb Village - Barbarian Village
BRB - Be right back
BRT - Be right there
CW - Castle Wars
Def - Defence level
Edge - Edgeville
F2P - Free to Play (Free version of the game)
Fally - Falador
FM - Firemaking
G2G - Got to go
GP- Gold pieces (money in game)
Hits/HP - Hit points
IDD - Indeed
IDC - I don't care
IDK - I don't know
IRL - In real life
K - A thousand of something, usually gp (eg. 2k = 2.000gp), can also mean okay
KBD - King Black Dragon
Lag - pauses or jumps in play due to slow game speed
Logger - Person who escapes attack in the wilderness by logging out
Lumby - Lumbridge
Lvl - Level
Mil - A million of something, usually gp
Newb - Player who is new to RuneScape.
NFS - Not for sale
Noob - Experienced player who acts like a newb (derogatory)
NP - No Problem
NTY - No, Thank You
NVM or NM - Nevermind
OMG - Oh my God, or Oh my gosh
Owns - Very good, or best at something
P2P - Pay to Play (Members version of the game)
Pker - Player Killer
RC - Runecrafting
RL - Real life
ROFL - Rolling on the floor laughing
RS1/RSC - RuneScape 1 (Classic)
RS2/RS - RuneScape (2)
Seers - Seers Village
Str - Strength level
TY - Thank You
Wildy - Wilderness
Varr/Vrk - Varrock
YW - Your welcome