Makoto_the_Phoenix

So here's my constructive feedback: don't release known bugs into your system. Fix them all during your Beta phase. That's why you have a Beta phase to begin with. That can cost people their jobs. I've seen it happen first hand.

I'd argue that doing something like that would require a change to the ToS that gave Jagex permission to monitor your machine while connected to the game. Security fiends and those conscious about their privacy wouldn't stand for that.

Despite not partaking whatsoever in the beta, I'm noticing a lot of people post about how buggy/glitchy it is. Forgive me if I'm a bit off, but isn't the whole point of the beta to specifically catch these kinds of bugs? Furthermore, there's still questions of balance. How will The Void Stares Back play out now? Does it truly feel like it's ready for primetime, or could have used a bit more time in the oven? Again, I wasn't in the beta, so I can't say one way or another. My gut says, if bugs/questions about balance still exist, then the beta isn't ready yet. But I'll leave the rest to the community.

It's also noteworthy that many of these things aren't production ready, may not become production ready, or may be launched in the next 6 weeks which will require many patches for the next 18. I also looked at the list, and was concerned that I may have burned my RS password in haste. Since I didn't see the word "Elven" in their implicit list of quests that they were going to wrap up, I feel vindicated in my decision thus far. I'll admit though; it's a healthy list of updates. If the next platform of RS takes it away from Java, as was proposed, things would become really interesting, especially for the security of the platform. Now, Java isn't any Fort Knox, but WebGL and WebSockets is largely unproven for primetime.

Computer Science tutor in college was my first job. I was also a sophomore at the time. If you want to count first jobs with benefits that could carry a family, it'd be the one I'm at now - Software Developer. Sorry to hear about your personal situation, though. You definitely do need to find work that can provide health benefits for your family.

We'll never get a real explanation of what happened here and that's what concerns me. Human error is vague and can cover so many different things. I don't want to call for a public lynching, I don't care if the guy(s) who did it get fired. I just want to know what actually happened with the system that was supposed to be free of false-positives and accurate. I think that the main problem was that the system was pumped to this degree - that there were promises of very high accuracy - I think they even mentioned 100% accuracy at one point. That's just foolish. 100% accuracy with an automated system would imply that they've solved the Turing Test, and the money/publicity alone from doing such a feat would mean they wouldn't have to worry about saving up for RuneScape's future for a long time. What actually happened? That's up for debate. What I think of the system design that would cause this to happen is answered with the next quote... ...So from what I can guess to allow something this big to happen, the design would have to be along these lines. There are components that monitor a player's repetitive behavior over a period of time, after a certain trigger is hit - be it by player or automation. While the system is running in an automatic mode, it would not have the permission to remove a player from the game. Human intervention would be required to ensure that players at any warning phase are not inadvertently banned or punished. While in automatic mode, information would have to be gathered for metrics and quality assurance - to determine that the data being collected matches the profile of a bot within six-nines (99.999999%). In manual mode, the assumption is made that the information gathered builds a strong case against the player and their actions, and as such, would be eligible for banning. The assumption made there is also that the data would need to be double-verified (that is, there is a hard-check in code that specifies if an account drops below a specific percentage, then the Mod is unable to ban). My guess would be that the code to ensure that the bans would be justified wasn't properly QA'd or wasn't vetted. This is a massive failing, and easily could cost someone their job.

This gravely concerns me. Why would a human error permit the banning of thousands of online accounts that haven't had any history of botting? Someone needs to be fired for this - a design flaw this large can't be overlooked.

I'm not sure how much sense it would make to limit it to only P2P. But yeah, good that it's available for everyone.

That was botting/cheating, this is goldfarming Not to play [bleep]-for-tat, but what's the difference in the accusation? A rule was broken; a moral trust was allegedly violated between a player and Jagex. It really doesn't matter what they did as far as anyone - especially Jagex - is concerned. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt to be sure, but I've seen how these things turn out. If it is a false positive, then Jagex's detection system is still flawed. It only takes one false positive to be knocked down from 100% to 99%.

False positive + reasonable doubt on both sides of the issue + swift and final justice = bad. I don't know Sonikku, and it's been the case that players that were thought to be outstanding members of the community wouldn't cheat (e.g. Duke Freedom), but hey - you never know...

I'll be generous and assume that Jagex can detect bots within six-nines accuracy (that is to say, 99.999999%). However, that, by no stretch of the imagination, will ever guarantee that no false positives are in the system. Not just that, but it's been the case that, with whatever technological detection or prevention scheme that's come their way, the bots have found a way to crack it. I don't see this software being any different. I'd also submit, from a programmer's perspective, it's risky to make hard and fast assumptions about a certain area, skill, or type of activity. Are there nothing but bots in the Fishing Guild, Living Rocks, Mining Guild, or Piscatoris? There's a damn high probability of them, for sure. Nothing but? Not likely. Is it feasible that a human player could behave in a similar manner as a script? You betcha. I can't just walk into an area with no one talking and their names scrambled and say, "Yep, they're all bots." What if they're sweatshop workers, as unfortunate as that may be?

My takeaway: The report button for bots and macroing actually works now...interesting.

The challenge system has potential to shake things up a bit with training. I'm just not convinced that the experience gains will be equivalent or superior to the most efficient methods out there. JAG - meh, I suppose I was holding out hope that they'd implement a two-step authentication in regards to account security. Ah well, not everything can use an RSA fob...

No. There is too much grind to have it all thrown away by some random PKer so I'd have to start all over again.

I couldn't hear a damn thing that Gerhard was saying, but truth be told, I'm not sure if I needed to. Pulling four developers onto this content which doesn't add any substance is still pulling a decent chunk of your development resources onto a side project, which can prove to be detrimental. Furthermore, I want to throw this out there about the stats about SoF: There are three types of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics. 90% of players using SoF doesn't mean that 90% of players are actively buying spins. I wonder what their motivation for shying away from that is. EDIT: Just thought about their decision to go with microtransactions. It seems that now they don't have an excuse for the heat they'll catch behind it. It sucks that it's here to stay, though.

Breaking bots and detecting bots fall under the same category as "fighting bots". In my eyes, the indication is that Jagex is spending a lot of resources in combating bots in this manner, which haven't really worked - hence the need for this update yet again. As for my opinion on it being "showy", it really is - you really don't need a giant dragon's hand giving divine accusation; you need swift and immediate removal. Instead, Jagex is showing the playerbase visually that they're doing something about bots, as opposed to just doing something about bots. The whole song and dance in regards to seeing which ones were removed is an unnecessary placebo for the players. Again, that's just my opinion.

I'd say it's both seeing as they NEED the underlying mechanism to detect and ban bots to be working for this to have any impact at all. The graphics and bay area are just nice cosmetic add-ons to add visibility to the fight. After all now people say oh jagex never ban them, I see the same bots here all day blah blah; it's much more posititve (and off-putting to potential botters) if they can actively see bots being removed. They even said in interviews and stuff the big bot thing IS this new system that detects and auto-bans. ...but do you really need a giant dragon's hand coming down from the heavens to serve as a visual indicator that Jagex is doing something to fight bots? A simple arrow over the player's head and text in the chat box would be sufficient enough notice IMO. Now you are just trying to find fault with Jagex just for the sake of finding a problem. If it was a simple arrow you probably would have said it isn't extreme or obvious enough. I still think the whole idea is just to appease players, but if you can actually see bots getting banned instantly that's pretty cool. I'm not finding fault for the sake of finding fault. I mean, I don't mind that they're doing this - I've long pined for the return of the Black Hole - but it's more showy than functional IMO. Yes, Jagex probably has dramatically improved their bot detection system, and it probably blows their current one out of the water. So then that implies that the showiness of it all will only be useful for a little while - if the system is truly capable of detecting bots 100%. Honestly though, for that to fall through, it only takes one false positive... Furthermore, if the previous bot nuke was any indication, no system is capable of detecting bots 100% accurately. But hey - if Jagex feels that their development time is spent well by creating these visual cues for the player base, then so be it.

I'd say it's both seeing as they NEED the underlying mechanism to detect and ban bots to be working for this to have any impact at all. The graphics and bay area are just nice cosmetic add-ons to add visibility to the fight. After all now people say oh jagex never ban them, I see the same bots here all day blah blah; it's much more posititve (and off-putting to potential botters) if they can actively see bots being removed. They even said in interviews and stuff the big bot thing IS this new system that detects and auto-bans. ...but do you really need a giant dragon's hand coming down from the heavens to serve as a visual indicator that Jagex is doing something to fight bots? A simple arrow over the player's head and text in the chat box would be sufficient enough notice IMO.

It seems as if this update is more for the players, who are concerned that nothing's being done about the bots, rather than the underlying mechanism to detect and ban bots itself.

Spend some time in world 1 Lumbridge before you claim it's not a problem. If you can't be bothered to do that, read this. If you can't be bothered to do that, don't pretend to know what you're talking about. I don't think World 1 Lumbridge is a fair comparison - it's always been bad, and will always be bad. The fact that one can now change their avatar to look unclothed doesn't much change how just downright bad that part of the game is. --- Honestly I see this as a generally uncomforting issue, but it's probably one Jagex knew about forehand. Why would they release Dwarf clothes is beyond me, but surely in QA, someone had the bright idea of saying, 'Hey, I look naked in this, lol'? The only thing they can do is remove the clothing items. It would seem that this would be a satisfactory move for both parties; players don't have to see Barbie-doll avatars anymore, and Jagex doesn't have to hear players complaining about the models' lack of clothing (in lieu of all other possible moral issues in-game, which are, as usual, defenestrated).

It'd be interesting if it were SMS and E-Mail only. Also, very, very unforgiving to anyone that didn't have a mobile.

I replied to this here...but this may not be the best place for it. If you'd like to continue discussing it, we can take it to PM. As a software developer, there's just a lot that I'd have to consider before I started implementing this...and, as always, if I'm taking the time to design and implement it, that's a cost to the company. Double-door design is flawed, since the blanket assumption about player stability, wealth, and technical constraints can't be made. Even if the KC was 10, I'd still have to regain that just to get through the first set of doors. While gravestones last a lot longer than they used to, if they're going to be used, they should be used in a manner that causes the player the least pain. I mean, they just died - let them get a reasonable crack at getting their stuff back. A disconnect would throw a few dozen spanners in the works; if they were on an instanced team, and they disconnect, how would the system react? It's not that much different than someone logging out, which would likely mean exclusion from the team. Lastly, suppose the player used the best weapons they had, or the only God-item they had to prevent damage. Getting KC would be a bit tougher for them, and cause more pain than necessary. The time to implement this can never be assumed to be "not too long". It's one of those mistakes in the industry that we always underestimate tasks - this could easily be a huge undertaking. I would estimate that about 30-35% of all active members are eligible to participate in God Wars Dungeon in some capacity, yet maybe half of that actually go through to boss fights. Even less so are those that go after Nex, as ~57,770 players would qualify for the most optimal equipment, yet I'd estimate that less than 10% of that would venture to Nex regularly with a group. That leaves me with...what...7,000 players that would get the maximum benefit from this, and roughly 300,000 total players that would benefit in some way from this update. That's only 15% of the player base - admittedly a large chunk. I can't say it'd be beneficial, as not that many players would go through the boss fights - may are content to harvest Adamant from Aviansies. (Unless this has changed, or I'm showing my age.) Crowded is also subjective, as this may mean crowded at the boss or crowded at a particular NPC spot. Using instances may address both, but to do both, that would be a technical miracle - instancing out NPCs much like farming patches...then you deal with the logistics of teammates and aid again! I wouldn't expect Jagex to be able to answer these questions without placing monitoring hooks into the code, which is another cost (development time is money), and it may not return anything fruitful. Conversely, it would be less costly to implement the hooks than instancing; you would get a feel for if this is worth it or not.

Imo, an instanced GW is a hell of a lot better then what we currently have. It's not ideal, but it would probably be relatively easy to implement and would be a definite improvement. (I'm also not against the price of it dropping.) Things I can think of when designing an instanced version of God Wars: - How would teams work? Are they in a clan chat? Does Lootshare have to factor in to this? What about casuals that spontaneously want to form a group? - How would death work? Does the dead player stand a chance to rejoin the same instance? (I can see a lot of pain here.) - How long would it take to implement? Who would benefit the most from it? What's the return on investment for this development? - Would a shared-instance world be more suitable to this, to allow for more flexible spontaneous teams? - How would kill count work? (I believe it's reduced to 10 after/during EoC.) Would you be in an instanced variant of the boss's anteroom? Would you be able to gather killcount uninterrupted from players? Mountain of technical questions here, my friend. Death, especially, would be the largest sticking point. Notwithstanding a few low to moderate technical hurdles, of course.

Experience with either a chronic liar or backstabber will temper your faith some. Jagex has promised a lot in the past, and delivered much, much less. I have no reason to take anything they say as gospel or trust that they'll come through until I can verify it with my own two eyes. I do want to speak a bit to the argument about the number of players that partake in the advantages - notably the bank space. That number doesn't matter. What does matter is that they're offering these advantages for cash. This is one of many promises that Jagex has made (and subsequently failed to keep).

MMG said a few good words to a community that wanted to be pacified. Not that what he said isn't a good thing, but Jagex's poor track record of telling people what they're doing is definitely hurting them here. HTML5 advances ought to be interesting, as that means they can move away from the Java platform. To be fair though, moving a code base from Java to Javascript is about as easy as moving from Texas to Tibet. It did feel like he said, "We won't do microtransactions, we swear!", then said, "Look at this cool stuff we're working on! It's coming soon, we promise!" I don't feel secure in his statement.