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22-Nov-2011 - RuneScape Revolution v3 & Anti-Gold Farming Measures V2


Carl

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*shrug* So DV can defend his own actions better than I can. As for lumping me in - whether you want to or not doesn't really bother me, I just wish that I could give feedback in a way that didn't label me as either a Jagex apologist or anti-Jagex.

 

I didn't lump anyone, that was jrhairy. You could give feedback in a different way that would be less likely to lead people to label you, you just don't want to, apparently. Took me about 15 seconds to find a quote of you calling Jagex "eye-gougingly stupid" or whatever it was. Still, that's fairly restrained compared to most of the others he mentioned.

 

 

I'm merely defending myself here. In debates, I like to hear both sides of the table, and not immediately say, "Let's cordone people off that don't agree with such-and-such view to this side of the Internet!" I just felt like I was personally attacked there, that's all. Don't read too deep into it, I'm really not looking for a fight here.

 

hearing both sides of the debate is one thing; moving the people saying they hope Jagex burns in hell--or that Runescape dies quickly-- to the rants forum where they clearly belong, isn't really losing any side of anything one might reasonably term a debate.

 

I'd find it much easier to sympathize with you saying you were personally attacked, if you hadn't been using much harsher language than any directed towards you, towards Jagex and it's developers. I think you might want to consider that dichotomy, and rethink why you're still posting so often here despite apparently having quit playing RS some time ago?

 

I'm not going to deny anything I said. I'll happily stand by it. I felt like they did something incredibly foolish - perhaps "eye-gougingly stupid" was a bit over the top. However, at what point did you hear me saying that Jagex was going to die or fail or anything like that? As for why I'm still posting here - maybe it's because I enjoy the fansite atmosphere. Or better yet - as a CS major and software engineer that intends to make a successful product, I observe and comment on the behaviors of another company, and learn from their mistakes.

 

If you want to talk more about it, feel free to drop me a line in PM. We've beat this to death. I don't want any trouble from you.

 

---

 

On-Topic:

 

I had a chance to digest the main site and forums, and it feels like they're a step backwards in terms of usability. There's Flash content everywhere, the fonts are difficult to read, and the ease-of-use of the RSOF wasn't preserved. The site itself is a lot laggier and harder to use with mobile devices, which is a shame - I don't know what happened to "Ortho Mode" (from the first Runefest), but they're not going to be able to deploy this successfully if the site uses this kind of CPU-intense content.

 

The fonts really hit home though; I sit about 2 and a half feet away from my monitor at home. Most websites are comfortably readable with that distance, but RuneScape isn't. I kind of feel like they regressed with accessibility and ease-of-use here.

Linux User/Enthusiast Full-Stack Software Engineer | Stack Overflow Member | GIMP User
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...Alright, the Elf City update lured me back to RS over a year ago.

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I finally got in-game and I will say that I do like most of the new changes there.. all except for the new menu icons. They look a lot boxier and.. amateurish IMO. But I like the new tooltips, text changes, etc.

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Am I the only one here opposed to the trade restrictions? I think it was very poorly thought out. As I see it, the implementation of this will have absolutely no effect on either mule accounts or gold sellers real-world trading with their mains -- the main source of this.

 

First problem, is that it's very easy to remove these restrictions, and it's a permanent removal at that too. Gold sellers handle real money very often. Who in their right mind would think a RWTer would be stopped simply by the requirement to purchase membership? They do it all the time to keep their business running!

 

Secondly, the trade restriction only affects outgoing transactions originating from the affected account, not incoming transactions. Many RWTers use mules, whose only use is to store excess gold/items acquired from the main account. Existing gold sellers will be able to transfer excess without any impediment. Whenever they're running out of gold to sell on their main account, they'll just take some from their reserves.

 

Oh, but don't worry! At least we stopped RWT where it most matters -- the new accounts! :rolleyes:

 

I'm all for trade restrictions, as long as they're imposed on the appropriate population, and implemented correctly. New accounts are the least likely to pay for gold -- by the fact they just started the game. They'll likely play legitimately unless pushed enough to play otherwise thanks to the intolerable grind. By the time they feel compelled to RWT, they'll have enough real money to buy membership and be rid of the restrictions anyway. What's an extra $8.00 to someone who wants to purchase $50.00 worth of gold? On top of their shiny new gold, guess what, no more trade restrictions! :rolleyes:

 

Needless to say, this update targeted the wrong population, and incorrectly at that. Jagex at least could've implemented it to affect incoming transactions -- you know, the way customers actually get the gold. Fail update is fail.

 

I think the point is that Jagex have suggested they have got rid of gold sellers main and mule accounts, therefore they will have to start again and will be unable to farm gold with the new ones because of the restrictions, if thats the case that is a moot point.

 

Most people have seen this as a positive update for that reason.

 

In fact, I have doubts that Jagex wishes to achieve anything substantial from this update. I think they have ulterior motives, although I can't exactly say what those motives are. Most suspicious is that they require you to purchase membership to permanently remove the restrictions.

 

Fair enough, except it doesn't affect the trade flow of gold at all. This update only affects outgoing transactions from new accounts. The vast majority of supply-side RWT is performed by already existing main accounts, who aren't affected by this update. New players can still happily purchase gold, and RWTers can still sell it. If this has little to no effect on the trade flow between these people, then this is just a pointless update.

 

This brings me to my second point. The last two updates were very determined at breaking illegitimate game-play. This update looks like a ham-fisted attempt at curbing the major sources of RWT. And given the fact the last two updates were for the most part, successful in breaking illegitimate game-play, why is it that this one is such a flop? I want to draw attention to one thing: the payment required to remove restrictions. Why is payment even required?

 

If Jagex were truly serious in their attempt, they shouldn't have allowed any exception. Also, why are the restrictions permanently removed upon payment? Why does it only affect outgoing transactions and not both, like the last trade limit? Why has Jagex returned to trade limits after admitting they don't work?

 

What's Jagex expecting from this update? To curb future players who might sell gold? Excuse me, future players are the threat? I thought we were focused on the present! This is honestly what the update sounds like to me (even though that may not be the point). It only affects new players and outgoing transactions -- in other words, rich new players looking to sell gold, who apparently aren't rich enough to buy membership to remove the limits. You see a problem there?

 

In my opinion, I think this only legitimizes real world trading. Jagex's giving all new players a pass once they buy membership. No trade limit in members means they're free to buy and sell gold as they like. It's not so much a barrier to entry (which they should be focusing on) for cheating as opposed to a one-time tax on cheating. If they were sincere about their intentions behind this update, it wasn't done well, in my view.

 

Ulterior motives? They're probably corrupt NWO shills raining down death on average citizens. Occupy Jamflax! But seriously? If you see an ulterior motive to everything Jagex does, then you'll be able to rationalize it too. This is a case of your opinion providing the evidence, not the evidence shaping your opinion.

 

If Jagex didn't allow any exception? They tried that, people quit the game. They allow transactions to go to new F2P accounts because otherwise it would be the downfall of gift giving and of course people setting up their pures. You can buy gold and get it on a new F2P account but how many people do you think will actually do that? Most of the people buying gold are probably 13 year olds leveled in the mid-70s and want to buy the super cool Barrows armor, or whatever. You think they'll start a new account, or do you think they'll say "Screw it" and go play a less inconvenient game?

 

Yes, future players are the threat. Have you forgotten about a recent update that introduces a new theoretical system known as "banning"? It's quite an interesting dohickey, I hope that the Y2K bug doesn't wipe it out. Once the current RWTers are banned, they'll create new accounts. In go the restrictions.

 

Again, you don't seem to be aware that Jagex bans people for RWT. They aren't "free to buy and sell gold". It's just as against the rules as it ever was.

 

I didn't say I was absolutely sure Jagex had ulterior motives. Rather, what I meant was that the way Jagex went about tackling this problem makes it seem, to me at least, that they may have ulterior motives. Even if they did have an ulterior motive, it's not obvious. I'm not going to claim it's profit-related, if they do have one. Virtually everything they do is profit-related. So I can't speculate on that part. At the very least, it suggests Jagex is incompetent. Of all the action they decided to take, it was against new accounts who have no gold to trade, yet have trade limits imposed on them! How does that make sense?

 

It only makes sense if you focus more on the gift-giving aspect rather than the prevention of RWT. That Jagex wished to pacify their player-base by tip-toeing around their precious feelings this way, and leave the gift-giving alone while gamely slapping the gold-seller on the wrist is pathetic. :rolleyes: This is why I said Jagex couldn't have been serious in this particular effort. It does nothing, and you should know that.

 

It'd be more effective if they imposed these restrictions on players most likely to possess large amounts of gold -- high levels and so forth. If they wanted to stop mule accounts, simply impose restrictions on all new accounts for incoming transactions, not outgoing. If they wanted to cut into companies' profits, they could increase the price of membership substantially, and they could make it harder to generate cash in the game. This hasn't happened considering RWT is still thriving even after the bot-nuke. But why would Jagex do that, right? It cuts into their own profits -- players either start quitting more frequently, or are even more compelled to buy gold to ease the grind.

 

And what you've seemed to have missed is that the restrictions are only there for as long as the person doesn't pay. $8.00 for permanent removal of trade limit, and a $1000 profit from selling gold is a good return on investment, no? Also, many, if not most gold-sellers, are P2P. They pay membership anyway, as it yields higher profit margins. How does this tactic cut into their profits again? :unsure:

 

Why don't you see that this decreases the attractiveness of Runescape as a venue for RWT? Sure you pay membership and then the restrictions are gone, but you can also pay nothing and go sell currency in another game. It comes down to a really simple business decision.

 

You think RWT companies don't have membership costs included in their expenditures already? Do you remember the stolen credit cards gold-farmers were using?

 

The companies already pay for membership (however possible) so they can generate more gold to satisfy demand. It's better to be efficient and buy membership, make a few million an hour, and then sell that gold, than to remain F2P and struggle for dozens of hours trying to earn the same amount to sell, right? No, I don't think this update will cut into their profits at all. They've been doing this exact thing since inception: buying membership, farming gold, then selling for larger profit. It's how they've been so successful. Efficiency is key to success in business. P2P provides efficient ways to generate gold to sell. F2P, not so much.

 

Again, if Jagex really wants to cut into their profits, they could try raising membership costs. But the way they implemented this tactic -- if that's their goal -- will not achieve this effect. Think about it. In 2007, gold traders got banned pretty frequently, no? Yet they were still populous in member's worlds. Banning them did not have an effect on how well they could afford membership. Keep in mind they were also using stolen credit cards. They bought membership on someone else's dime. Have they stopped doing that now? If not, how can you claim it cuts into their profits, knowing they don't lose cash from it?

 

Bottom line, RWT companies budget for these sorts of expenses. A requirement to buy membership to bypass trade restrictions won't affect them, because paying for membership is integral to their success as a business anyway. Hence why this update is useless. The effect you stated it will have has already been diluted by this trade's very essence. In fact, it makes the business more successful! Access to P2P resources means higher profit margins for the gold-sellers. It's not a deterrent -- it's another reason to get into the business.

 

Oh, and I'm aware that RWT is against the rules. What I meant by free is that while it may technically be against the rules, and Jagex says they're taking action against it, their actions prove the opposite -- no effective action has been taken, as my explanation has demonstrated. Further, players are free to real world trade, for we all have free will. A deterrent however, is the consequence of doing so. But then, where are the consequences? If there are no consequences, no one will feel deterred. I'll grant you that perm banning of offenders is a consequence.

 

However, is this update yet another reason to avoid cheating? No, because no consequences come directly from it. The threat of banning is that deterrent -- not these particular trade limits.

 

No consequences, no effectiveness, not a useful update. Case closed.

 

Not really any evidence of ulterior motives or incompetence. I said in another thread that there's a tendency on this site to look at Jagex as some kind of Disney villain caricature and then respond to every update with that in mind. This essentially says "Jagex may have ulterior motives because they're greedy, but it won't work because they're stupid and dumb. Ha!"

 

You're right, Jagex needs to man up and make the game unplayable to stop RWT! Then you and the 6 other people who still play can sit there and go :thumbsup: until the servers shut down.

 

Impose these restrictions on high level players? This would be terrible for high level gameplay, but you've already stated "[bleep] the game, we have to get these RWTers no matter what!". The difference here is that Jagex wants to, you know, survive as a company so they imposed restrictions on F2P new accounts rather than on established customers.

 

Makes no difference about incoming trade. They can put that gold on a F2P mule and never see it again until they get membership. And when they get membership, Jagex gets money. And like you said "Why would Jagex decrease their own profits?" and I assume the answer you'd like to see here is "because they're retarded, oh yeah and they're evil". Jagex isn't going to decrease their own profits, and I'm fairly sure that they put far more time, effort, and research into this decision than you did criticing it.

 

Oh yeah, speaking of research: why do you make claims about the status of RWT without citing anything and then attempt to act condescendingly to anyone who doesn't agree with the unfounded claim you just made? Am I supposed to assume it's common knowledge? Well personally, I believe it's a widely established trend that RWT is decreasing. It's common knowledge. You didn't know that? :rolleyes: Me neither, because I'm just assuming something to support my argument.

 

Of course they have membership costs included in their budget, but eliminating the usefulness of free accounts means that membership costs would essentially become their budget. They wouldn't be able to operate in the free game with these restrictions, so their costs go up. Do you think they have some kind of vendetta against Runescape and Jagex, or do you think they will move on to a free or more popular game where they could make more money? Jagex is trying to remove the incentives to RWT in game without giving their game a shotgun blast to the face like they did by removing free trade.

 

I really, really tend to doubt that most RWT companies primarily utilize P2P accounts. F2P resource gathering is decent money and requires less attention and startup effort on the part of the RWTer. Get 40ish fishing, go get lobsters. 60 Woodcutting, go get Yews. The exception is probably dragon bones but the odds of being killed at Green Dragons are probably greater than dying at a fishing spot or a Yew tree. Almost every other source is packed with slayers and mid-level money makers and when every spot at in Taverly Dungeon may be occupied, you will always be able to cut down a Yew tree without considerable world hopping. F2P gold gathering is reliable and is relatively simple to set up and maintain (although more difficult with botting now gone). It's also, well, free. No company gives up free money. With bots gone, P2P tasks such as the Sq'uirk garden (probably spelled that wrong) become less attractive. Boss hunting as a method of moneymaking is too luck based and has a much steeper learning curve for a company that wants to crank out money. You can teach a guy to fish lobsters in all of 5 minutes, but boss hunting requires more equipment, more knowledge, and more experience. There will likely be early failures, and even then the millions aren't as guaranteed. Losses are possible, which are highly unlikely with F2P moneymaking.

 

Illegally using other people's credit cards is a way that RWT companies have paid for membership in the past, but as previously mentioned this would drastically increase costs. They would have to steal more credit cards and attract more attention to themselves as a company, allowing Jagex to pursue them more effectively through legal means. The selling of in game cash probably can't be pursued but there's little doubt that credit card fraud is. Let them steal more credit cards - it'll get them more attention and bring them down faster.

 

You don't really have any examples of the F2P-P2P makeup of RWT companies or any evidence that Jagex hasn't taken action against them beyond "I said so" and using the " :rolleyes: " emoticon because that means you're even more righter. There are still RWT companies, yes, but that's to be expected: people still want gold. There will always be RWT companies as long as people still want gold and are willing to pay the price. This update inconveniences sellers and leads to higher prices. People buying with their parent's credit cards won't care, but this will price people out of the market especially in combination with the bot nuke. Again, the "DeVry Institute of Facts Pulled Out of Asses" is not a credible backup for any argument. Expecting all RWT companies to be wiped away in a glorious Jagex firestorm is foolish, and you may as well ask Mod MMG to personally go on a Liam Neeson-style rampage and wipe out the RWT companies himself.

 

I'd agree that this doesn't affect individual accounts, but there's no real way to do that. Catching 100% of any offender is impossible. What I see in this post is just more of the same "Damn it Jamflax why aren't you bombing the houses of everyone who breaks the rules". They can't catch people without violating internet privacy (which I doubt a games company could justify legally) so they make it more difficult for them to operate. You may not see any consequences, but you probably aren't buying or selling gold. The bot update was pretty effective and the only consequences brought on bot users were legal threats. Why is an update ineffective if it doesn't murder the offenders?

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Fyi there are many people that flip rs gold. They buy it on a fresh f2p mule (using vpn, proxies etc), then sell the same gold to someone else for a slightly higher price and never use that account anymore. Requiring them to get p2p makes a dent in their profit. And of course, it's pretty pointless to bot resources in f2p now.

 

Oh for sure. I won't deny that for some groups of the RWT populace that it would make a dent in their profit. Although, somewhere in the supply line, there's a primary supplier (or suppliers) that grind for the gold and sell to others. Being P2P alleviates that grind because of the larger money making opportunities. Then the flippers come in :P Though, the guys that have large amounts of real cash can afford to lose a few dollars on membership while still profiting considerably (depending how their business is structured. They might sell from solely a main account, or a main and several mules, who they buy from, and so forth). That's who I was talking about when I argued my point, but I see the counter has some validity. But for the trade limit's role as a deterrent, that's easily bypassed depending on how you market the gold and what skills you have. Some people flip gold with no loss, others flip at a small loss. If you have enough skill to generate substantial amounts of cash on your own though, well, that's pure profit.

 

Not really any evidence of ulterior motives or incompetence. I said in another thread that there's a tendency on this site to look at Jagex as some kind of Disney villain caricature and then respond to every update with that in mind. This essentially says "Jagex may have ulterior motives because they're greedy, but it won't work because they're stupid and dumb. Ha!"

 

In fact, I argued the reasons for incompetence in light of the fact they wished to avoid negatively affecting players using evidence. The fact that they wanted to achieve a particular effect, and failed as a result of appealing to the immediate needs of the player base is shown through the fact that they left gift-giving untouched. Gift-giving = anyone can use this as a ruse to real world trade. Not hard to see, right? Can you see why they're incompetent? They wanted to curb RWT, and this major source of RWT still remains.

 

They failed in this respect, no matter how successful their other efforts in the same instance were. I'll concede to you, thanks to Bruno, that some RWTers are actually affected to some degree by this update. But the effects are not as far reaching as some would like to hope, for a large portion of RWT remains, no? Further, any effects this has on gold-flippers can be lessened, if not completely bypassed, provided they're willing to take a little risk by buying a membership.

 

It was never my position that Jagex had malicious ulterior motives to justify the way you're mocking the portrayal of Jagex by some members here. The ulterior motives can be neutral, or they can even be beneficial, although that's unlikely. Perhaps I came off as demonizing them because of the context surrounding the world "ulterior". If so, I apologize for not clarifying.

 

You're right, Jagex needs to man up and make the game unplayable to stop RWT! Then you and the 6 other people who still play can sit there and go until the servers shut down.

 

Impose these restrictions on high level players? This would be terrible for high level gameplay, but you've already stated "[bleep] the game, we have to get these RWTers no matter what!". The difference here is that Jagex wants to, you know, survive as a company so they imposed restrictions on F2P new accounts rather than on established customers.

 

I never stated it was imperative for Jagex to stall RWT efforts no matter the cost. In truth, I wouldn't care very much what the effects their actions had on the populace or the game itself. I've long since lost interest in this game. What I was critical of, and the reason why I posted here, was to show that the implementation of this isn't as well-thought out as some people think it to be.

 

Makes no difference about incoming trade. They can put that gold on a F2P mule and never see it again until they get membership. And when they get membership, Jagex gets money. And like you said "Why would Jagex decrease their own profits?" and I assume the answer you'd like to see here is "because they're retarded, oh yeah and they're evil". Jagex isn't going to decrease their own profits, and I'm fairly sure that they put far more time, effort, and research into this decision than you did criticing it.

 

I'm aware that you have to pay membership to remove the restrictions. My entire premise was that this has no effect despite the fact you pay membership. The point is that this doesn't curb the profits of the sellers by any significant amount. If you have 5 mules and you pay $8 to remove the restrictions on each of them, that's a $40 expense you'll pay in exchange for a large profit selling the gold housed on those accounts. This is common sense through simple observation.

Yes, it'll have an effect, no doubt, this requirement. But how large is the effect that it can be considered a deterrent?

 

I argued that it isn't really a deterrent because players will buy members either way for a larger profit margin. Hence, it's closer to a tax, not a barrier to entry.

 

My position does not require further research. The fact that Jagex gets money for what's essentially allowing RWT to continue is what confounds me, hence why I called this plan not a barrier to entry, but closer to a tax on cheating. Jagex is taxing cheaters to play the game when, in my opinion, they should focus on devising methods they know cheaters can't rebuff against. All this is doing, is in my opinion, very slowly bleeding the RWTers dry.

 

To at least make this plan effective, why not mass ban accounts more frequently? Then these people will be forced to buy membership more frequently and hence it'll more deeply cut into their profits, no? :P

 

You're correct, fewer remaining gold-traders means others will be forced to create new accounts (and pay membership) to continue the practice. But some traders have so much capital that I think this dilutes the effect it could have. I think it's an inefficient solution, in my opinion, because I think Jagex is trying to bleed RWTers slowly rather than swiftly deal with the main source of the problem.

 

I've heard (from some black market forum, one player's personal experience, and corroborations from other members) that Jagex wiped a few major gold-sellers in the middle of highly-unbalanced trades. I applaud them for that! But is this tactic we're talking about the best they can do? I think they can do better. At the very least, provide incentives for gold-sellers to buy membership more frequently. Preferably at a pace where their expenses are higher compared to their income. But is that possible without negatively affecting legitimate players? Where do we find a comfortable balance where we can effectively deal with cheaters while keeping the population happy? I think Jagex tried to do this, but fumbled on some points.

 

Oh yeah, speaking of research: why do you make claims about the status of RWT without citing anything and then attempting to act condescending to anyone who doesn't understand the unfounded claim you just made? Am I supposed to assume it's common knowledge? Well personally, I believe it's a widely established trend that RWT is decreasing. It's common knowledge. You didn't know that? Me neither, because I'm just assuming something to support my argument.

 

Like I said, my positions here aren't meant to be based on much research. If I were making a greater claim, I research it, I assure you.This isn't to say I'm purposely making unfounded claims. Rather, I assume my assertions are valid to some degree because the premises that construct my argument are empirically verifiable. In other words, I base my assertions on what I assume to be common sense. I understand how it could be taken the other way though. I apologize if it seemed I was pulling facts out of my ass. :P

 

Of course they have membership costs included in their budget, but eliminating the usefulness of free accounts means that membership costs would essentially become their budget. They wouldn't be able to operate in the free game with these restrictions, so their costs go up. Do you think they have some kind of vendetta against Runescape and Jagex, or do you think they will move on to a free or more popular game where they could make more money? Jagex is trying to remove the incentives to RWT in game without giving their game a shotgun blast to the face like they did by removing free trade.

 

I'm not suggesting that they remove their free-to-play effectiveness, no. I agree with what you say here. I don't deny that free-to-play macros are useful to RWT companies in generating a healthy gold supply. The reason I focused more on P2P gold-farming is because I assume most would agree (for what I think are evident reasons) that P2P gold-farming is more profitable than F2P gold-farming due to greater access to resources, and generally higher prices on members-only resources there (sharks, monkfish, rocktail, and so forth). As these companies are businesses, after all, profit is the bottom line for them. What ensures the most profit? P2P. This is how I reached my conclusion. Again, I think this conclusion can be reached by simple observations and thus carries some validity. I apologize if it seems I'm pulling facts out of nowhere. :P

 

I really, really tend to doubt that most RWT companies primarily utilize P2P accounts. F2P resource gathering is decent money and requires less attention and startup effort on the part of the RWTer. Get 40ish fishing, go get lobsters. 60 Woodcutting, go get Yews. The exception is probably dragon bones but the odds of being killed at Green Dragons are probably greater than dying at a fishing spot or a Yew tree. Almost every other source is packed with slayers and mid-level money makers and when every spot at in Taverly Dungeon may be occupied, you will always be able to cut down a Yew tree without considerable world hopping.

 

That's true about resources. On top of that, transactions to P2P customers can occur on F2P worlds. I'll give you that. Perhaps I was wrong to assume P2P was more efficient due to more expensive resources :mellow: I mean, maybe I shouldn't have assumed so readily. But the gold-farmers in Taverly Dungeon, the wilderness and elsewhere do generate hefty amounts of profit, no? I think the more expensive P2P resources gathered offset the quantity of the lower-level resources gathered in F2P.

 

F2P gold gathering is reliable and is relatively simple to set up and maintain (although more difficult with botting now gone). It's also, well, free. No company gives up free money. With bots gone, P2P tasks such as the Sq'uirk garden (probably spelled that wrong) become less attractive. Boss hunting as a method of moneymaking is too luck based and has a much steeper learning curve for a company that wants to crank out money. You can teach a guy to fish lobsters in all of 5 minutes, but boss hunting requires more equipment, more knowledge, and more experience. There will likely be early failures, and even then the millions aren't as guaranteed. Losses are possible, which are highly unlikely with F2P moneymaking.

 

True. I think I interpreted 'efficiency' too narrowly in this context then. I concede that my conclusion may likely be wrong. I still think, though, that their budgets can absorb the membership costs, provided accounts aren't banned quickly enough. If you're right, however, I'd like to think Jagex is slowly bleeding out the RWT companies this way via what I term a "tax".

 

Illegally using other people's credit cards is a way that RWT companies have paid for membership in the past, but as previously mentioned this would drastically increase costs. They would have to steal more credit cards and attract more attention to themselves as a company, allowing Jagex to pursue them more effectively through legal means. The selling of in game cash probably can't be pursued but there's little doubt that credit card fraud is. Let them steal more credit cards - it'll get them more attention and bring them down faster.

 

 

Well, if we're talking about increasing costs, perhaps not directly. Firstly, there's no immediate cost to the user of the credit card. Secondly, If I remember, Jagex had to pay charge-back fees on behalf of the users who had their credit cards stolen. I agree that legal action is possible. The question is, what sort of legal action will be taken? Jagex has taken action against RWT companies before -- but not in the way you think. They got to change their domain name. This temporarily stalled their operations, but they quickly resumed after.

 

You don't really have any examples of the F2P-P2P makeup of RWT companies or any evidence that Jagex hasn't taken action against them beyond "I said so" and using the " " emoticon because that means you're even more righter. There are still RWT companies, yes, but that's to be expected: people still want gold. There will always be RWT companies as long as people still want gold and are willing to pay the price. This update inconveniences sellers and leads to higher prices. People buying with their parent's credit cards won't care, but this will price people out of the market especially in combination with the bot nuke. Again, the "DeVry Institute of Facts Pulled Out of Asses" is not a credible backup for any argument. Expecting all RWT companies to be wiped away in a glorious Jagex firestorm is foolish, and you may as well ask Mod MMG to personally go on a Liam Neeson-style rampage and wipe out the RWT companies himself.

 

My argument was not to prove that Jagex hasn't taken action against these people. My argument was to prove that this particular action isn't as effective as some think it to be. I could be wrong though, I admit. I agree that expecting Jagex to deal with the problem in a swift manner is unrealistic, considering the legal fees, which are certainly beyond even Jagex's income to pursue the several cases they have, and the law surrounding real-world trading is actually complex.

 

I wouldn't say it's exactly illegal. It's against Jagex rules, but there's facets of it that have to be considered. Breaches of copyright, intellectual property, legal protection of the prosecuting party, and so forth. I really don't know much about the issue beyond that. I recommend you look here though. Links to places in that thread, as well as discussion of the legal aspects to get the juices flowing.

 

Again, I didn't mean to give off the impression I was making unfounded claims. I thought they were valid to some degree, otherwise I would've clarified how uncertain I was. I apologize for this.

 

I'd agree that this doesn't affect individual accounts, but there's no real way to do that. Catching 100% of any offender is impossible. What I see in this post is just more of the same "Damn it Jamflax why aren't you bombing the houses of everyone who breaks the rules". They can't catch people without violating internet privacy (which I doubt a games company could justify legally) so they make it more difficult for them to operate. You may not see any consequences, but you probably aren't buying or selling gold. The bot update was pretty effective and the only consequences brought on bot users were legal threats. Why is an update ineffective if it doesn't murder the offenders?

 

I'm not advocating that extreme measures be taken, no. Certainly they could've implemented the trade limit better, in my opinion. For example. What's the need to bleed RWTers dry? Why not stop incoming transactions to begin with? That way, customers can no longer buy gold. RWT is fueled by demand (the customers). With no way for the customers to collect their ill-gotten gold, demand from them effectively falls, no?

 

Yes, gift-giving may be affected, but this can be patched. Remember the former friends trade limit? You could give several tens of thousands to your friends provided they'd been on your friend list for at least one month, and depending on your quest points. At the very least, the implementation of a system similar to this would impede customer demand for gold a bit, I think. Plus, once the would-be buyers finally collect their gold, the system picks up the unbalanced trade and punishes the suspected gold buyer. It would need a way to differentiate between RWT and gift-giving though. I have no proposal for this, unfortunately.

 

I don't object too much to Jagex making money off their current tactic. It's actually clever that some RWTers are buying into it.

Also, pardon me for coming off as arrogant to you. I don't want this debate to be antagonistic towards anyone. I just strongly felt what I said at that moment. The annoyance wasn't directed at you rather than Jagex. I certainty didn't mean to paint them as evil, either. I think that's a silly idea. :P

 

This has been a long reply for me. It's been fun to debate with you, Stewie. I'll check your reply sometime later. Take care :P

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I'm not sure what's going on with the hiscores...Whether they're trying to gather every member still but the numbers has jumped up from 566K to 574K. I think 8K people subscribing in a few hours is a little weird.

RIP Michaelangelopolous

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The creature this happens to be and the raised eyebrow are clear indicators as to the official response to player feedback to this update.

 

"What do you mean you won't bend over and take it?"

Was Deathknell, but the password recovery never worked for me. So I'm this now. Whatever. Someone get me some damn fried chicken!

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Absolutely hate the new A-Log. The in-game photobooths (Falador and Daemonheim) are now useless, apparently, and it no longer tells me how many hours I've played. The A-Log updates themselves have been shortened so that only your last few are shown. Bullshit. There's no point in looking at the A-Log now. The Hiscores are exactly the same but easier to read.

This. Usually if an update doesn't effect me I don't really care because its not lessening from my current experience...but now I'll never take a look at my, or others', A-Log. And unlike you I find the hi-scores harder to read than before. Not that I ever looked at them regularly, was just nice to have to check things like overall exp/h.

 

As for the in-game portions...I've been having a slightly harder time seeing the stuff in my inventory. :(

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Expecting all RWT companies to be wiped away in a glorious Jagex firestorm is foolish, and you may as well ask Mod MMG to personally go on a Liam Neeson-style rampage and wipe out the RWT companies himself.

 

Nope, already asked him, he said that the time is not yet ripe for a Liam Neeson-like rampage. Good news though, he did tell me that they will use the money saved from F2P hiscore removal to hire Liam Neeson himself for said rampage. :thumbsup:

 

There is one method of eliminating RWT though, that is bound to work. We just have to wait for real world currencies to devalue enough so that RS gold is actually worth more than RW currency. This won't actually eliminate RWT, but since RS gold will be the better currency, it will be renamed VWT, virtual world trading, at which point Jagex will encourage it but the national tax services will attempt to ban it.

 

Ha ha, no seriously though, all this RWT talk makes me think of all the dicers raging on the O-forums about dicing removal. They all said "don't even talk to me about dicing leading to RWT, Jagex could easily ban RWT's if they wanted to". I always thought in response--then why haven't you been banned yet? *rimshot*

 

It's all jokes and laughs, but it's funny because it's mostly true. Except the Liam Neeson part, MMG would never turn down that glory.

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Expecting all RWT companies to be wiped away in a glorious Jagex firestorm is foolish, and you may as well ask Mod MMG to personally go on a Liam Neeson-style rampage and wipe out the RWT companies himself.

 

Nope, already asked him, he said that the time is not yet ripe for a Liam Neeson-like rampage. Good news though, he did tell me that they will use the money saved from F2P hiscore removal to hire Liam Neeson himself for said rampage. :thumbsup:

 

There is one method of eliminating RWT though, that is bound to work. We just have to wait for real world currencies to devalue enough so that RS gold is actually worth more than RW currency. This won't actually eliminate RWT, but since RS gold will be the better currency, it will be renamed VWT, virtual world trading, at which point Jagex will encourage it but the national tax services will attempt to ban it.

 

Ha ha, no seriously though, all this RWT talk makes me think of all the dicers raging on the O-forums about dicing removal. They all said "don't even talk to me about dicing leading to RWT, Jagex could easily ban RWT's if they wanted to". I always thought in response--then why haven't you been banned yet? *rimshot*

 

It's all jokes and laughs, but it's funny because it's mostly true. Except the Liam Neeson part, MMG would never turn down that glory.

 

I think at a certain point Jagex weighs changes to the game against enforcing the rules. If Jagex could do a RWT nuke like they did a bot nuke, they would, but they wouldn't destroy what remains of player interaction to do so.

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I think at a certain point Jagex weighs changes to the game against enforcing the rules. If Jagex could do a RWT nuke like they did a bot nuke, they would, but they wouldn't destroy what remains of player interaction to do so.

 

Are you referencing free-trade removal? :P

 

 

The thing about free-trade removal for me, was that the GE price determination algorithm, whatever it was, seemed like utter shite to me. Certain items, that you could barely buy at max, would not move at all, or even go down on rare occasion. The ironic thing is now that the GE price mechanisms are so much more free and it doesn't matter that much what the med price is, only now does the med price actually do a decent job tracking the street price. This bad algorithm A. caused normal players problems as those items were difficult to trade. B. enabled RWT by letting people balance trades with well-picked items whose street value differed from the GE value enough. The whole wildy/76k'ing thing was another problem, but that a more easily fixable problem imo, just a minor amount of attention to risk/reward curves would prevent sweet spots like that. I often wonder why the botnuke seems technically sound but they couldn't get the math right during nonfree trade ~_~ Just get whoever programmed the botnuke to do the rwt nuke this time :P

 

But yea, I think they've abandoned that idea for now.

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Expecting all RWT companies to be wiped away in a glorious Jagex firestorm is foolish, and you may as well ask Mod MMG to personally go on a Liam Neeson-style rampage and wipe out the RWT companies himself.

 

Nope, already asked him, he said that the time is not yet ripe for a Liam Neeson-like rampage. Good news though, he did tell me that they will use the money saved from F2P hiscore removal to hire Liam Neeson himself for said rampage. :thumbsup:

 

There is one method of eliminating RWT though, that is bound to work. We just have to wait for real world currencies to devalue enough so that RS gold is actually worth more than RW currency. This won't actually eliminate RWT, but since RS gold will be the better currency, it will be renamed VWT, virtual world trading, at which point Jagex will encourage it but the national tax services will attempt to ban it.

 

Ha ha, no seriously though, all this RWT talk makes me think of all the dicers raging on the O-forums about dicing removal. They all said "don't even talk to me about dicing leading to RWT, Jagex could easily ban RWT's if they wanted to". I always thought in response--then why haven't you been banned yet? *rimshot*

 

It's all jokes and laughs, but it's funny because it's mostly true. Except the Liam Neeson part, MMG would never turn down that glory.

 

Actually the idea of MMG saving the game is much funnier. The only way to destroy MMG at this point is by throwing him into Mount Doom.

Was Deathknell, but the password recovery never worked for me. So I'm this now. Whatever. Someone get me some damn fried chicken!

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Am I just not seeing where it is, or did they remove the 'days/hours' played from my Adventurer's Log? If it's the latter, that truly sucks. I enjoy keeping various time-related stats, and not being able to track them any longer is frustrating.

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Three years of disconnection with their playerbase, Under 600k members, the complete stall of the mechscape/stellar dawn project, the flop of funorb, a middle finger to free to play players and a website which is both visually chaotic and difficult to navigate.

No one but Jagex could do such a terrible job. I don't know how anyone who remembers the days of Jagex being competent could stand to play this game anymore. I'm certainly glad I left when I did.

quit

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The new site design doesn't play nice with my 1024x768 resolution at all. I can't even play the game without modifying the stylesheets because the bottom fifth of my game window is cut off. That is the absolute garbageness this minuteness.

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Fyi there are many people that flip rs gold. They buy it on a fresh f2p mule (using vpn, proxies etc), then sell the same gold to someone else for a slightly higher price and never use that account anymore. Requiring them to get p2p makes a dent in their profit. And of course, it's pretty pointless to bot resources in f2p now.

 

1.)Wait for gold prices to shoot up

2.)Bot 100m worth of gold

3.)Have a buyer lined up ready to go

4.)Buy membership

5.)???????

6.)PROFIT

7.)Mine Pure ess for the rest of the month

8.)repeat

 

 

Im not sure why Jagex thinks membership is a barrier, remember that time that they added pure ess? Yeah I do

Oh, the bots that really do a good job are working again? Must have missed the memo. So, unless you add a "2a.) Hope Jagex doesn't ban the account prior to getting 100m in gold" that to do list is fairly optimistic.

 

On top of this, with so few F2P accounts, it's likely they'll compress more and more servers making botting more difficult since more players will see the botters. Assuming that you these are the less complicated types (screen scrapers or timed bots).

 

That said, I don't think they have all the loop holes for tranfering funds closed. There's death drops where runes or expensive armor could be swapped at a minimum. It's less convenient, but it's there. I do like how it stops trust trades and scamming at least in one direction.

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Personally I find the new ingame font an eyesore of epic proportions. To the point of almost headache inducing. The A-log is shot to pieces (thank-you google reader), HS worse than they were and the new icons on taskbar in game terrible. I swear I've seen the prayer book one used in wow. Mainsite graphix are cartoony and not pretty, not to mention loud and horrible to navigate. Haven't checked wiki or forums but appears they follow the trend. I am dissapoint.

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Fyi there are many people that flip rs gold. They buy it on a fresh f2p mule (using vpn, proxies etc), then sell the same gold to someone else for a slightly higher price and never use that account anymore. Requiring them to get p2p makes a dent in their profit. And of course, it's pretty pointless to bot resources in f2p now.

 

1.)Wait for gold prices to shoot up

2.)Bot 100m worth of gold

3.)Have a buyer lined up ready to go

4.)Buy membership

5.)???????

6.)PROFIT

7.)Mine Pure ess for the rest of the month

8.)repeat

 

 

Im not sure why Jagex thinks membership is a barrier, remember that time that they added pure ess? Yeah I do

 

Let's see - given current prices are about .7, that would be 70 dollars. A standard membership pin would be 8 of the said dollars, or 12m of the 100m. That's still a dent of about 11.4-12% in profits. If it's only about 2 dollars per day, with a strong chance of getting banned prior to acquiring the money, I think there's enough of a deterrence to drive away a significant proportion of those who already run gold farms.

 

Oh, and don't forget - it's significantly harder to clump 20x5m into 100m with f2p trade limits.

 

What JaGex hasn't achieved - removing RWTing stakers.

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