In my opinion, to start with, When your first start playing Runescape, you're basically like this:
"Aawww, long tutorial, what do I do here?(...)Shit Graphics I quit." Then, a few months later, something happens at school, work, life and you think about it and end up finishing the tutorial. I think when you feel bad in real life, Runescape has the capability to make you feel good and powerful because you can become "rich n' famous" and you can't stop because you're becoming even more e-cool and then there's always the option to say you're athletic, pretty, popupal when you're just a anti-social fugly fatty.
I quit playing Runescape in 2007 and the only reason why I'm browsing here it's because I bot for extra $.