In the original game, melee was the primary type
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In the original game, melee was the primary type of RuneScape gold combat. This was due to the fact that magic and ranged were not developed. Ranged was a completely overlooked style. Ranged had very little range armor and was rarely used in PvP. Magic also had its own disadvantages. The player was required to wait 20 seconds after casting a spell that failed.
It was hard to learn magic, and the Runecrafting ability prevented runes from being affordable. While magic gained some traction with the advent of god spells magic was mostly a complement. Runescape Classic Attack was preferred over Strength in combat calculation, rather than Ranged and Magic.
In Runescape Classic, the maximum combat level was 123. The combat calculation was not altered by the Runescape 2 change. The highest level of combat was raised to 126 because prayer was considered more. In the calculation, magic and ranged weren't more or less favoured. But they were in the actual system of fighting.
Magic and ranged became their own distinct classes. Since the spring 2004 update to the spring of 2005 magic and ranged were given armors of the highest quality and also new attack options (i.e. The Ancient Magicks Spell Book, which provides protection from melee prayer, easier access to cheap OSRS gold arrows, runes and other beneficial features. This increased the power of these classes, and they arguably became comparable to the melee class.