compfreak847

I don't think a community-based ban system is a good idea, especially given the (relatively) low average age on these boards. A system of responsible moderators and admins is probably the best option, but they need to communicate with the board, and if necessary, explain why certain punishments were handed out. More importantly, they should be able to admit when they've made mistakes, and take actions to correct them.

Good times indeed :) I wasn't always right, but it certainly was fun to argue about it.

Odd how the same reason I left is resurfacing. Though I can't say I'm completely against the mods\admins on this one.

It does apply. The OP is drawing a correlation between old wild going away and search terms for RS declining. He's then implying a causation based on that. We're calling bull [cabbage]. The OP says that the graph is of the "runescape population over time", and goes on to state that the wilderness removal is what caused the decline. However, I'm not arguing about the second part of that statement - the first part is fundamentally flawed. After I pointed out that the graph was of search terms, not RS players, the OP decided that search terms were indicative of population, and continued on into the second part about the wilderness. I disagree with the first part - I don't think search trends accurately reflect population for reasons indicated in my previous post. I'm arguing that there is not a direct, linear association - we've never even gotten to the 'correlation' part. Additionally, using the term 'correlation' between the old wild going away and search terms for RS declining is still wrong. Correlation requires two quantitative variables in direct comparison; the removal of the wilde4rnes is an event, not a quantitative datum. As such, he is trying to promote a cause and effect relationship, not correlation. The overused phrase "Correlation does not imply causation" is irreleveant in this thread; at no point has anyone yet arguged about the causation of two quantitative variables. In my case, I'm arguing against the association of two variables, search terms and players; however, I've yet to hear anyone, including the OP, insinuate a causation (in which the number of searches for RS would, in and of themselves, cause a change in population).

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site. Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe. ^If that is true, and Google is only tracking the hits from people who search RS through Google, my money is on that. I bet most people playing RS today have it on their favorites, or some type of bookmark system to get there quickly. But it DOES mean a decline in new people.. And all people who are playing will at some point grow tired.. So a game can only exist if there keeps coming a group of new player base! No. It means that fewer people are searching for the term "Runescape" on Google - nothing more, nothing less. We can use this to infer that there are fewer new players, but that can be a rather risky assumption. There are plenty of opportunities for lurking variables; I provided a few in my post above, but there are certainly many others. For example, Jagex's new advertising campaigns including the direct domain, Runescape.com, could result in more players visiting the site directly instead of searching for more information on it. Another potential variable could be the increase in internet proficiency of players - I've done plenty of consulting work for people who visited web sites - every time - by typing the word into Google and clicking on the first term that came up (Think visiting google.com, typing in facebook, clicking search, and clicking the first link to facebook.com). There is a multitude of other potential causes, many of which could have a significant impact on search trends without being immediately obvious. The phrase 'correllation does not imply causation', said before by other posters, does not really apply - in this case, we're arguing about whether or not there's an association between two variables: google search trends and overall players. Since we have very limited data on the latter variable, it's hard to point to the first and say that it dictates the second when we have no markers by which to gauge its past performance, and we are forced to assume that the two are closely related with little evidence to go on and a plethora of confounding variables.

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site. No. It's a Google Trends graph, showing the number of searches for Runescape on Google over time: [source] While it may be an interesting performance marker, it's not necessarily indicative of an overall trend. For example, look at Jagex's financial reports released by me [The username, not myself :)]; though they are somewhat out of date (the latest being July 2009), they show a decline and resurgence around 07-09 (I know, membership hikes may have skewed that to some extent as well) that is not indicated by Google Trends. Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe. Unfortunately, there are currently no good traffic markers out for us to judge Runescape's popularity by. The most reliable figures we have are direct quotes on membership and account numbers from Jagex themselves, but they tend to be few and far between. Most web stats, from Alexa to Ranking.com, are highly inaccurate; they generally sample only a small fraction of the population (In Alexa's case, only the people with toolbars installed) and reflect web trends as a whole - Alexa reports in percentages relative to overall internet traffic, meaning that a stead value actually represents a growth rate equal to the rest of the internet. But yes, I would agree that Runescape's popularity does seem to be waning slightly. The most likely causes are the increasing numbers of bots (seen frequently in my own playing) and a sense of increasing disconnect between players and the company. Bringing the wilderness back may be a good idea, although the poll seems to stray a bit into 'publicity event' areas, but it seems to be generating a considerable amount of interest and will potentially re-introduce many players to the game (and their friends along with them). Still, I don't think Jagex is in any serious difficulties yet - subscriber numbers are still very high, and as several financial statements show, they have plenty of spare cash and major revenue sources. I also suspect that, as a pet project of the Growers, the company will remain even if profits take a serious hit. In short, though we don't really know, it is indeed possible that membership is declining. Still, it's not really something to worry about; RS has many years ahead of it unless Jagex manages to severely mess up major aspects of the game, and they seem to be actively working to improve it (Dungeneering is a good example) in ways that will reverse the trend and increase its popularity. Sorry, I felt the need to post since this is a topic I find interesting. I'll slip back into lurking mode now :)