Ginger_Warrior

In 'getting rid' of the threat, they've given this guy more momentum than he could ever have wished for by himself. If you're seen to be the aggressor, you always come off second-best in PR. Counterproductive 101 right there.

I smirked upon reading that. Sadly I do, but I also remember the atrocious reviews which accompanied it. It would be interesting to see a more modern review of RuneScape (within the past two years) to see whether appearances really are flattering to deceive or whether the ad-bots provide a shattering first impression.

The attitude from the company appears to be that if they give us shiny new graphics and schemes which incentivise us to keep the subscriptions rolling in, we'll turn a blind eye to the blight of botting, which thanks to Free Trade, has now found an environment where bots can flourish and their owners not hold any fear of ramifications. I agree that that's a very poor assumption, particularly amongst those players who have organised themselves into clans and fansites and are therefore part of a network where they're never far away from the issues that affect RuneScape, including botting and the general decline of quality in new content. By that I mean people like me and you. They need to focus less on the shiny stuff and concentrate more on the issues that affect RuneScape players on sites like Tip.It. If Jagex released a BTS saying, "This month we're not releasing any content because we're fixing the deeply embedded problems that fansites have flagged up repeatedly but we've ignored for far too long", I think it would actually go down well here even though subscribers aren't getting anything new.

I have this same argument with friends whenever they whine about EA doing essentially the same thing. They're a company. Their job is to make as much money as possible so that shareholders and investors make a good return on their money, so they'll continue to invest into the company. The only consideration a company has to its customers (aside from what the law dictates) is whether or not they'll continue to use and pay for the company's products. The only case I can see for not approving of 'money grubbing' from Jagex's perspective is if players drop off from RuneScape, they don't receive the subscription fees, and RuneScape fails to make enough profit. The difference with botting is that, unlike Free Trade (where only 9% voted against), I think this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many.

You think that the money-oriented business practices they have currently, the board would let a section that has been useless for years stay around if they didn't make a profit. Spare us the "you don't know, Jambflex is so poor and their trying their hardest!". If they were spending a lot of money on anti botting measures, we'd see results. Honestly? I don't even believe such a section exists, or if it does, it doesn't have enough employees to cause financial harm. You're still speculating. It might be correct speculation, but you're still speculating, and an argument doesn't usually end in a satisfactory outcome when it's made through assumptions. Well the only thing close to evidence we have is a statement from a moderator saying that Jagex doesn't profit on bots due to the cost of fighting them outweighing the cost of their subscription. Again, they could be talking out of context, or quite simply lying, but that really is the only thing we have to go on. Well... thanks for that. I hadn't yet realised that when more people are working, less people are playing. All I'm saying is that we don't know anything for sure, except that botting is a massive problem. You could make all these wonderful points and feel massively confident about doing so, only for them to give real evidence a few months later that completely refutes what you're saying. What do I think? I think they're lying, but I can't say for sure.

P2P is just F2P with more crap. At the end of the day, that 'more crap' is equally tedious and grinding regardless of how much you pay. Only difference is some people happen to enjoy that, which is probably why they won the Golden Joystick. To be fair, we do get some 'ungrindable' things chucked in. A few minigames (Barbarian Assault, particularly the defender and healer roles spring to mind), dungeoneering, more complex PvP, MHing. I'm not suggesting they form the lionshare of P2P-exclusive content but it's better than nothing. The fact is RS is a grindfest. P2P RS is a much bigger grindfest, with just enough diversions to make it all seem worth it.

You can't possibly argue that without knowing the figures in detail. You're essentially trying to tell us that you know how long the piece of string is. You don't.

To be honest I've never had any intention of voting at all, actually. Unless you've given all of the games a fair crack by playing them you can't give a reasonable opinion. Anything else is either fandom or ignorance.

I see parallels with RuneScape now, and the way other games have gone when they've been heavily botted and the community's tolerance to it has reached snapping point. Those games dealt with the issue by effectively allowing botting, within reason and within certain criteria. RuneScape has got the point where they may as well allow botting, because Free Trade has allowed the problem to spiral so far out of control that it can't realistically be reeled back in. It's unbelieveable to say this, given how zealous Jagex were in their anti-cheating stance (to the point where they removed Free Trade the first time round), but perhaps it's time to start reconsidering whether the rule that prevents botting is really something that requires no further validation. Before it was taken as read that botting is wrong and should never be tolerated, but has the problem become so prominent that not botting has become more difficult to justify than simply allowing botting? I don't personally support botting, but simply saying that without further argument has becoming an increasily tenuous stance to take.

Some of these awards are already decided on before voting even occurs. You have to accept a nomination for legal reasons, so there's definitely PR work behind the scenes. It's quite common in music awards. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are never actually revealed.

The issue here is that, although Jagex were fully within their rights to remove his privileges, there's two more fundamental questions: 1) Was it morally right for them to do so; 2) Was it an effective solution to the problem that imminently faced them? Now, for the first, I'd say it depends who you are. If it was the case that Jiblix was being paid to work for Jagex, or sponsored in some other way, then yes you could easily argue Jagex held the moral authority to remove him since they weren't getting their fair side of the deal any more. But this isn't the case--he was a volunteer who simply happened to air his opinion on a private YouTube account. They had no need to censor him, they did so because they're thin-skinned, and panicked about the effect this would have on their chance at winning this Joystick award, which frankly is a pretty crass reason to not allow someone a chance to share their opinion. The second question has an obvious answer, the evidence being the fact we're discussing it right now. Which again calls into question their judgement. Purely and simply, rights or wrongs aside, they just haven't dealt with this in a way that could possibly be described as 'good'. Certain people in this thread don't understand this. I know this is semantics but... he said both of those statements at the same time really. The video wasn't exactly discursive was it?

No, I don't get it. Which is quite funny really, because in the past three months, I've volunteered for no less than four major organisations, and not one of them has made "speak kindly about us in the public domain" a precondition to me working for them. So long as the work I'm doing for them is of a competent enough level, what I think about them personally is neither here nor there. If you had any sense of real life experience, you'd understand that this is just crap PR and people management skills on Jagex's part, neither of which are good signs for a company vying to hold a best F2P game title. All he did was ask the question, "Are Jagex good enough for this award?" on his personal (non-Jagex affiliated) YouTube account and gave an opinion he has every right to hold. These aren't grounds for a reasonable dismissal. And by the way, a "rank" isn't a privilege--it's a tool given to people so others respect their authority, in order for them to do their jobs. They receive a green background not because they're 'special' people, but because it gets noticed much more against a sea of brown on the RSOF.

And right there you've shown how far you're missing the point. You get paid to wear a logo and put a smile on your face when working in a kitchen. No one gets paid to moderate on here or on the RSOF (to the best of my knowledge). If I'm taking up a position voluntarily, the person I'm giving my labour to for free can just be damn grateful for the privilege, not the other way round. For the matter, there's been plenty of incidents where staff members have criticised the Admins on this forum in recent history, but none have had their ranks removed for it. Most of the members I have in mind left themselves.

In a way, I find it utterly stupid on Jagex's part. Had they allowed the video to exist, not taken any action and just "let it slide", the whole farce would have died pretty quickly, just like all the other anti-bot videos. But because they made such a big deal of it in an open environment, it's given the video exactly the momentum it was lacking. Rule #1 of crowd control is to reduce the ante, not raise it.

Just a note, for the Crew as well as anyone else, that the Legend of Seergaze quest uses the newly revamped version of the Temple Trekking minigame rather than the old version, though the 'Mercenary Warrior' starts at Lv. 1 and does not level up like the other characters.

All nighters don't really work, unless you're kind of person that's fine only doing the barest minimum when you're capable of so much more. Because the barest minimum is the standard of work all-nighters tend to produce. It's not a substitute for effective revision.

The point made was specifically about public healthcare. Of course insurance-based systems should be allowed to measure risk.

Nurses and doctors have a duty of care to their patients, end of discussion. Can you not see this obvious flaw? If they didn't treat their patients because they happened to disagree with their lifestyle they'd be (rightly) open to legal action, not to mention they'd lose the moral authority to treat any other patient. What you're doing is asking fully trained healthcare professionals to not do their job when patients are at their most vulnerable, and ignoring the benefits of intervention. You either support cannabis being legalised, or you don't. The healthcare system has to provide for them either way, so don't bring it up as a condition. You can't make it one.

I asked Sam specifically, though he appears to have ignored it. You do? Because I don't understand it at all; a ban on treatment for cannabis users would literally make medicine almost completely redundant. If someone picks up skin cancer from over-exposure to the Sun, they should be denied treatment because "they did it to themselves"? If someone working with powertools accidently trips and slices their hand into pieces, they should be denied treatment because "they did it to themselves"? If someone eats a fry-up every Friday for twenty years and suddenly keels over with a heart attack or a stroke, they should be denied treatment because "they did it to themselves"? You go through pretty much every medical diagnosis and you'll find some degree of personal liability for it. But the various codes of practice for nurses and doctors in near enough every country all sing from the same hymn sheet: They are nurses and doctors, not judge and jury, and their job is to diagnose, provide treatment and care for patients, not second-guess whether the taxpayer would happen to like the circumstances that lead them there. If you say cannabis users should not receive medical treatment, then you have to extend that logic to everything that also holds some element of personal responsibility (this is the only fair way of doing it) and if you did that, there wouldn't be much of the medical world left. Even if you somehow manage to argue your way out of that hole--and in doing so, rewrite basic values which have underpinned two thousand years of good medical practice--how do you explain the nonsense of treating people when a substance is illegal, and not treating them when it is legal?

Why?

You're a nurse in an A&E ward. Your job is to treat the sick and the ill, not judge whether the reason they are there in the first place is worthy or not. The idea that the NHS shouldn't treat drug users is frankly ridiculous and shows total ignorance to the fundamental values which underpin the medical profession.

This is what they need to work on the most. When a friend can purposely use the most obvious bots, taking 5 minutes to write, with no anti-ban, and get away with 7 99s and counting... What detection system? Well, the cynics amongst us would suggest it's not in Jagex's vested interest to run anti-bot programs to detect cheats who simply want to avoid grinding. Firstly, it doesn't really harm anyone in terms of criminality. Secondly, I reckon the extent to botting doesn't really deter as many honest players as it does attract cheats, resulting in a net gain of players. In 'not really caring' they're actually profiting, in my opinion.

This is what they need to work on the most. When a friend can purposely use the most obvious bots, taking 5 minutes to write, with no anti-ban, and get away with 7 99s and counting... What detection system? Well, the cynics amongst us would suggest it's not in Jagex's vested interest to run anti-bot programs to detect cheats who simply want to avoid grinding. Firstly, it doesn't really harm anyone in terms of criminality. Secondly, I reckon the extent to botting doesn't really deter as many honest players as it does attract cheats, resulting in a net gain of players. In 'not really caring' they're actually profiting, in my opinion.

The fact is, people go whereever there's work. There's foreign policy from my own government I don't agree with, I'm not going to suddenly up sticks and leave the precarious livelihood I've built for years, just because I'm idealogically juxtoposed to the machiavellian hand that feeds.

Yes it is. Another man's penis is uncovered dangerously close to mine. No. Wrong, it's bisexual. When the both of you can get it right, we'll continue. Semantics. There's an increasing body of evidence to suggest to that to some degree, we're all bisexual, it's just that the vast majority swing heavily to the heteresexual side of the spectrum. Today I withdrew some money from my account. I always take a receipt to check how I'm doing, and I discovered I'm no longer in overdraft. Nine months in the red, now in the black. Damn does that feel good. :^_^: