Makoto_the_Phoenix

Good to see the Original Poster making a return. I do agree with much of what you said, and your ultimate point - players have to accept that change will be controversial, and then they should move on for the better of the game. Ease? Guys, we're not talking about making the skill easier - we're making it purposeful. That's all that is. Explain what these limitations are, and assume that all respawn times are similar or proportional to those of Woodcutting trees.

While I do agree with your post, I must disagree with the whole "fighting RWT instead of pleasing players" mindset. They can kill RWT in their own game and keep players pacified, but they haven't stumbled across the magic formula, either. It's true when you said that PvP was simple - kill or be killed - and these new rules and all that stuff totally messed that up. But, there's a way to recover from it - you don't have to nuke everything because it's "failed", because it really hasn't yet. Also, I don't quite understand why everyone's so anti-'anti-RWT' anyways - getting rid of that is a good thing, and the systems needed to replace what you players enjoyed from it (namely getting what they were wearing) just need to be toned down to about 10% of what they are now.

Hmm, maybe these people are nothing more than script kiddies who somehow got a hold of a botnet. Only reason that they'd do it to RS would be for "t3h lulz" - no ransom, no rhyme to it, just to cause anarchy.

Okay, where to start... First, I highly, highly doubt that it was a DDoS that crashed those servers - it was most likely the bad ISP or some other internal issue. Second, any machine that connects to the Internet is instantly weak to a DDoS, doesn't matter if you have a firewall or not. Third, the ISP was unreliable, so yes they're moving - it has nothing to do with DDoSings. Here's the easy way of how it works: Think of fifty or so kindergarteners trying to vie for the attention of one teacher. @Master_Smither: That's no proof at all! For all you know, something with their servers malfunctioned and they're too slow to fix it. EDIT: Did you join another IRC network outside of Tip/SwiftIRC? Because that's how they get you, you know - if they have your IP, they can DoS you all day.

No, Jagex is [bleep] stupid for giving in to them. They should have known that the first PVP update would cause massive disapproval and economy turbulence, so if they had a planned fix ready, why did they not WARN people not to sell their items. :evil: Because you and I both know that the community receives updates that are controversial like a spoiled brat - either make that kid happy or they're going to destroy everything they hold dear.

The reason that players don't normally accept the fact that there are girls online is that they have no circumstantial, real evidence to satisfy themselves. Avatars and names won't cut it for them, for some reason. Typically, whenever a player tells me that they are indeed female, I have no reason to doubt them and I accept it. There are a lot of women playing this game. There are a lot more men playing this game. But it wouldn't matter so much if people didn't care about another person's gender while playing online.

No one person can control the market unless they have 9000 trillion GP, anyway. We control it based on the prices that it is indeed selling for between the GE updates.

[/hide] 1) More risk......same rewards, along with being the #1 target. Every pjer would love to kill you. You get barraged all the time. And once you die, all the gain from pks is gone. D scim = #1 weapon. 2) Pjers don't give a rat's [wagon] about Protect Item. They will still rush, and they enjoy it even more now, as one of them stated on forums. The only difference is that while you use a crap weapon, they use a better one and don't care. 3) That's cool. Just give us back the goddamn Protect Item and we'll be happy. It doesn't allow RWT, it won't steal credit cards. 75king will continue, bolting is there, pjing is there, but real pking took the biggest hit. It's like they have dropped a nuke but completely missed it. 1] So what? Do you expect or anticipate an angel of safe-keeping to protect you while you carry four Statuettes out of level 47 Wilderness? 2] Most PJers usually prepped themselves with item protection before they jumped into the fray, especially if the item that they had was worth more than they knew they could ever make again. That's just how it was. Again, leave Protect Item out of the Wilderness. The Wilderness is not meant to be safe. It's not meant to let you keep anything. If you survive, 'you're the man now, dawg'. If you die, get used to it.

I'd rather it not become AFKable either. In fact, that's the last thing I want. All I want is to be able to mine bulk Mithril/Adamant/Coal to achieve my Mining/Smithing goals. I'm not concerned with the prices on the market whatsoever - I pointed out that if there is more, the price drops; but if the price drops, the demand raises, which means the prices stabilize again. ...You read the rant? Or did you stop at the first paragraph? Okay...so? This has been since the age of certificates - you could always sell coal. Where does the majority of coal come from? Let me give you a hint - it ain't Mining.

But change is inevitable. You know, except from vending machines. But still, change is inevitable.

Alright, after letting the flames of immaturity die down a bit, my take on this update is pretty straightforward: best update to PvP/PKing in a long while. I'll give you three reasons why. 1) Risk versus Reward. It's finally risky now if you want to PK in Bandos or want to use a set of Dragon Claws to quick-pwn someone. For a long, long time, n-itemers could really PK with near impunity, so long as they didn't run out of prayer and/or didn't skull. This has been a major complaint since the PK days of old, and it's one of the reasons I got out of the PK scene. It's also riskier now if you want to gain 2 or 4 times more experience - what, you thought that Brawlers were meant to be safe to use? 2) This one dates back to a friend of mine that PKs a lot - "There's no such thing as safing on Members, you know" With players no longer able to protect their whips, Godswords, or all other manner of weapons that hit over 33, the potential for getting KOed while loitering in the Wilderness out of the clear blue is significantly reduced. This means fairer fights - not everyone can afford claws or Godswords - and also more interesting battles. 3) This update has the potential to drain off some of the cash brought in by inflation, 26K or otherwise. Now that you have the chance to lose stuff, gear such as food, potions, ammunition/runes, and armor can finally normalize themselves. What I'm hoping is that with this update, players that previously exclusively PKed/26Ked for their funding will have no other alternative but to gather food for themselves, and harvest herbs once again, either at Abberants or Chaos Druids, et al. I don't think that this fixed the 26K trick, but it did provide some long standing issues that needed to be resolved in PKing. Now if we can just make it so that if you teleport out, you lose all of your EP, and if we beef Mage up a bit, PKing will actually become a pleasant pastime.

Just because you turn off the garden hose doesn't mean that the basement is going to magically drain itself. Jagex will have to implement a stronger, wider-reaching money sink to eliminate the inflation, which would most likely hurt skillers more than those that actually tricked... :|

I'm glad that we agree in principle, but offering the key is probably one of the best ideas to circumvent hacking/account stealing they've come up with; it'd be definitely worth their time to do so. I agree with that - test the waters before jumping in the ocean, that's what I say. And here's the ironic part: You (and others like you) would benefit the most from having this security key. That right there is the fallacy of most players. "I've never been hacked in so many years, so I don't need it." It might be that your password has been good for eight years, but all it takes is one mistake to destroy all of that.

But if the key is really that important to security, then why not just make it mandatory for all? I imagine that would be a much tougher sale to force everybody to buy one for their own accounts. I own 4 accounts; I certainly wouldn't be buying 4 different keys for each one. They would risk ending up losing members if it was mandatory, which is not their goal. I know I'd probably quit playing. Here I believe you've refuted your own point. It would be a much, much harder sell to everyone if they decided to make it mandatory. If it's an option, then people will still consider it. [/hide] Actually, that was my point. :lol: But if it is that important to security, and their motives are altruistic as they seem to be saying, well there is no sell then. They should do what's necessary, and I'll go find something else to waste my time on. But they won't make them mandatory. I see that as a sign they're not as important as you think. It's like selling extended warranties. I don't have a problem against the keys. My problem is attaching something that everybody seems to want to it. Like Andrew has implied, nobody is interested without the bank space. I read that as people are more interested in buying bank space. If they can't sell the key on its own merit, then maybe it isn't worth it, at least at this time. But we both know and realize that the only way to get people to buy the key in the first place would be if it came with that incentive. There's really no getting around that, and it's not based on necessity - it's the fact that the reward looks better than the benefits. They don't have any real reason to make them mandatory, but they do have a reason to offer them, of course, but that's stating rhetoric.

But if the key is really that important to security, then why not just make it mandatory for all? I imagine that would be a much tougher sale to force everybody to buy one for their own accounts. I own 4 accounts; I certainly wouldn't be buying 4 different keys for each one. They would risk ending up losing members if it was mandatory, which is not their goal. I know I'd probably quit playing. Here I believe you've refuted your own point. It would be a much, much harder sell to everyone if they decided to make it mandatory. If it's an option, then people will still consider it. It's the cookie versus cattle-prod ideology at work here; what's going to get more people interested in keeping their account secure - a 750 word essay about it, or extra bank space? A few quotes from Andrew's recent response would suffice to answer that question: To begin with, CatherbyCrumudgeon makes no attempt at proof that this device would turn a profit. Andrew has admitted that they won't make a profit. Mod MMG confirmed that they would be looking at a loss if they rolled this out. Where are you getting this "shameful attempt at boosting profits" theory from? I'd very much like to know. Yes, it occurred to me. It occurred to me that Jagex makes millions of dollars every year. But it also occurred to me that not only does Blizzard make billions every year, they also have six times more staff. The only way they could have better Customer Support is if they stopped rolling updates out altogether. Know what happens to profit? It would tank instantly due to stagnant content. You're dead wrong. Investing in good antivirus and anti-spyware prevent the most common and easily detectable types of attacks. I'll leave this as a research assignment to you, but a social engineer could very, very easily get account credentials - and they don't even have to have a piece of malware to do it. Also, most computers don't have up-to-date security, even in major firms or places where it would make the most sense - that's about typical. I agree that people should secure their machines, but failing that, what's wrong with securing their RS account? Oh yes, blame the victim. That's really good. :roll: Also, it's not that one's account is made rock-solid by having a maximum-length password with numbers and letters, or a four-digit PIN that is nearly unguessable, but it's adding as many difficult-to-compromise access methods to it. On a machine, the three ways that access/information is protected is by something you know, something you have, or something you are. If you already know the password/PIN to another person's account, you have no other way to protect your data; doesn't matter how it came into their knowledge. But, if you don't have their security dongle/device, then you can't get into their account, period. Again, neither you nor the author do anything to prove that this is profiteering; do you assume that these devices are cheap? Because they aren't. I also thought it was worth pointing out that once you gave them your cash, it was no longer your cash. You no longer have the right to tell them what they can do with their cash. You only have the right to stop giving them cash, and that's as far as it goes.

You should check my signature - Mining Sucks. I've addressed this problem, and I might move it to RSOF sometime later this month (when I finish a script to ease that transition). I do agree that a lot needs to happen to Mining before I'll ever smith back my Rune Pickaxes again.

Let this be the last time this is said: Jagex is not copying anyone's idea to implement this kind of key. So just drop it already. Please. ...hence, the incentive. We all know that people just won't do what's good for them, not even if their lives depended on it. Giving them some extra bank space as part of the deal would get everyone interested, so it isn't just the well-informed that have the key (which is actually very good security) and some bank space to boot.

No, but they do have time to make smarmy comments without even bothering to check. He did check, and he did apologize. I know what you're talking about. The reason that they get so defensive is because they usually get a lot of bogus lost-item glitch notices. It happens, you know.

So instead of taking a loss on keys, why not....Hire more support? They only gross about $60M a year, whereas Blizzard's earnings is in the billions. To hire more staff, they need more customers, and to get more customers, they have to protect the ones they have. It's honestly a tough thing to think about - but working with 400 staffers, probably one half of which are devoted full-time to support, being able to do anything on the scale of Blizzard is, at best, a pipe dream. The key was offered to help keep the current, existing players supported/protected. Losing money to a glitch is unfortunate, but they can't sit back and go through every log determining if Player X lost money due to a bug or something else.

I'm sure that they could write a small script telling at what time and where they lost money. Only problem is that the script alone can't determine if the items were lost due to a bug or through another natural means. And this is where the actual manpower comes in.

I don't like the Anti-Hack. It seems that the author missed the point with this one. Yes, we know that offering bank space is a bribe, but consider that no matter what you do, people won't take in better security until a) their valuables are compromised, or B) they are offered something in exchange. The only way that Jagex could roll this much needed security booster was to offer bank space. Second, the editor makes an erroneous comparison to Blizzard and Jagex's tech support. Do you want to know what the difference is between the two? Blizzard has six times the amount of staff that Jagex does, so yes, they can afford to flip through whatever logs those characters have and give back the items. Jagex can't. Even if they wanted to, the amount of work required to do that for half of their staff would be immense. Lastly, yes the reason to hack another player has been reduced to nothing more than to be a jerk, but that doesn't stop me from wanting better security. Security is a good thing to have; even if you may see it as unneeded, the possibility exists for your account to be compromised, and and you should have some way to keep that air-tight secure. Passwords and PINs are only as strong as the person that types them in, and if they use their favorite something-or-other, or some other socially engineerable password, then it's not strong at all.

I think that scenario is unlikely, since you have to actually log in anyway before you can hop. We just don't know the nuisances yet to be afraid of anything like that, though. If a single person could truly practice common sense 24/7, they would be completely safe (ie, they wouldn't make that "one wrong click" and if they did, they would fix it before entering their password because they would have thoroughly scanned and checked their computer). However, none of us can do that; I know I for one deviate from common sense several, if not many, times per day. Using common sense all the time is simply wishful thinking when it comes to computer security. Not everything we trust is really safe, and not everything we use is bulletproof. Fact of the matter is, common sense really can't do much for you if you go to a seemingly harmless site, and wind up with a rootkit on your machine.

Finally, the big cannons come out to dismiss the FUD about this thing. It just seems that people can't take what's said at face value to mean something at face value; Jagex isn't the kind of company with an evil motive behind every question or update. For those of us familiar with this technology, rolling it out for $10 is not only a bargain, but they're taking a major hit - to be frank, I would be glad to pay $20 for such a thing. But that's neither here nor there. Now, let's get to the FUD here! Doesn't look like he will. If it does get scrapped, it's a shame, but that totally depends on the community, not just him. How many people have lost that kind of cash to a glitch before? Besides, if the updates to curb RWT and then this don't give you the feeling that Jagex cares enough about their customer's satisfaction, then nothing will - they can't make neon lights for "obvious" in the size you'd need... [No, this isn't a flame or a troll, just telling you how I feel.] So you know how much it would cost to deploy it, right? I really, really don't think that $20 would let them make any kind of profit. Is it not true that if you have lots of items, you have some semblance of value? We're not talking wealth, per se, but sentimental value. Wouldn't it suck to lose something sentimental to you, that you know you couldn't get back? (E.X. Faladian Knights' Sword) I laughed out loud so hard at this. Familiarize yourself with Murphy's Law - if it can go wrong, it will. You should also know that common sense alone isn't going to save you from getting a virus. Sure, it'll prevent some of the more obvious instances, but all it takes is one wrong click. Not even common sense could save you then.

The point was that I can't believe they stated it like that...It is one thing to say "if you buy this thing, we'll give you an extra bonus of some more bank space!" But I simply find it shocking that they correlated it with account security. I can't tell if its simply an attempt at humor, or if they are actually trying to convince players that if they make their account more secure, Jagex will be more willing to add bank space to their account. This possibility concerns me, because if somebody ends up actually thinking that bank space actually has anything to do with account security, they might actually buy this thing, with hopes that the one-time space upgrade could eventually turn into other rewards due to the fact that their account is now "secure". Its one thing to try to give buying incentives, but its another thing if they are actually trying to say that the "reason" you get the bank space is due to better security (when we all know that the only reason you will be getting any bank space is due to a real world financial transaction). I hope you understand my thought better now. If I do, then I believe that you're clutching at straws here. I must include that the possibility of an in-game incentive is simply on the table, and it's not in stone - in fact, it might get changed or removed altogether based on the out-lash/complete misinterpretation of the community. I've said that the offering of this token (be it bank space or something else) is simply nothing more than an incentive, and anything further would definitely be reading too deep into this. I also fail [quite hard, by the way] to see the problem with Jagex offering bank space in exchange for cash. Members get that as part of their perk. Freeplayers have a unique way to manage their entire game career into 68 spaces, and there's always the option to upgrade solely for that. As far as I see it, it's just an incentive. Nothing more, nothing less. Buy the dongle that radically increases your account security, and we'll give you a few bank spaces. That's all they're saying - that's all they're mumbling about. Why are you reading so deep into this?

The more important thing behind this game, as hinted at by the Dev Diary for it, would not be the game itself, but the underlying technology. Innovation is always worth the effort and time put into it. Besides, no one does anything right the first time, if they've never done it before.