Makoto_the_Phoenix

These forms of legalized gambling "hubs" already exist; Duel Arena and Conquest, or any system that has the game engine as the ultimate gate keeper, in terms of both funds and likelihood of victory. The main separation here is that these systems involve skill from the player, and don't rely on the PRNG alone. If you create a system that allows for very high payouts, but requires very little skill outside of dumb luck, then the balance of the game (or what's left of it) is pretty much shot. There would be little purpose in leveling skills for GP, as it would be as fast to participate in that system instead. That seems to be the trend for most of the major problems that Jagex has "tackled", which is unfortunate. It would be far better, from a design point-of-view, to truly consider global ramifications of adding new content into the game, rather than play this game of whack-an-issue and remove items that could have had legitimate uses.

That sounds more like the early-mid days of the Wilderness, but they eventually hardened on their stance of luring (after much shouting from those with actual sense).

Weren't the trade restrictions in place when they introduced those things (with the possible exception of the RSC cape, I can't remember exactly when it came out)? Using them to gamble billions of gp probably didn't occur to them at the time. Maybe...but I won't let them plead ignorance on this one. Consider that Dueling was around for much longer, and gambling of entire banks wasn't uncommon practice. The main reason that Dueling isn't in the main crosshairs of Jagex with these hotfixes is that it still incorporates a fair chance for both players (based on skill levels). Take away the "fair chance" rationale, and you're left with every [pseudo]random number generator in the entire game. It's not that tough to consider, but perhaps it's easy to overlook...

I'm confused now. They introduced items such as dice as a form of emergent gameplay, and they also trended on items having a [pseudo]random effect when used (RSC cape, Max Dungeoneering Cape, Horses, Flowers, etc). Wouldn't they have considered the ramifications of people using a built-in [pseudo]random system that allows for so-called "illegitimate" gameplay? Hell, why didn't they just take the easy route and make it a bannable offense? Sometimes these fixes are, to me, like a wild goose chase. Next, they'll move on to fly fishing. Nerf that.

Hmm. It's a bit tough for me to agree with what the person said if I take what they said at face value, but that's due to my own personal bias. For that matter, I think abstaining my position on his judgment is a wise move. I do agree that RuneScape remains one of the most accessible games, and it has had a wealth of content infused into it - more in the former half of its lifecycle than the latter half - but for most MMOs, the amount of content and frequency of updates still can't be compared.

Not sure if I should panic. Here's a collection of Jagex's financial statements compiled with Stellar Dawn Central's data (they get their hands on Jagex's financial statements). Some adjustments were made for increase in subscription price but not due to currency inflation. I leave the option of "panic" to you.

$115M for a game that has an gross revenue of < $50M (circa 2009-2010 numbers)? Yeah, I'd probably take that deal, too. It's an unfortunate turn of events, but really it's nothing new. If anything, it's only cementing what everyone here already assumed - Mr. Gower sold his share, and left the company in the care of these "nice businessmen", who are investing wonderful things into RuneScape and their other products, such as FunOrb, Stellar Dawn, 8Realms, and Herotopia.

A new skill? Wouldn't they be more focused on fixing the older skills that are bemoaned for their uselessness surprising lack of applicability in the game grindiness (yeah, I'm looking at you Firemaking)?

I didn't expect the survey, or its results - I didn't realize that the average person here had played 'Scape for an average of six years. Explains a lot of what's going on (in terms of morale) rather neatly, if I do say so myself...

What you've done already is pretty nifty so far! I didn't realize that so much was so intertwined...but what does it all mean? What quests have no storyline? Which quests are only requirement-based (i.e. have no real attachment to a storyline)? I'm also interested in giving it a go with Graphviz + Python; I could use some formal experience in the latter when making graphs, anyway. Up to you if you want to share the data file, of course.

While there are always going to be detractors either which way, I don't think there's much doubt of it anymore. I mean heck, look at the collateral damage removing bots has caused, let alone the damage caused by them explicitly.

I'm definitely sleep-deprived while replying, but I'll put it like this. I don't see anything behind such a title at all, not even the hint of a tiered system. It may be my current state, but I don't see how that could possibly work, considering normal Members has done exactly what they've needed...

I'll try to answer the original posit directly. The only skill I recall "powering" would be Fishing, and that made it all the way to 99. It was a painful 4 months, but I did it because I wanted to have the wealth (Rocktail were a pretty good price). I enjoyed it, not because I enjoyed the skill, but I enjoyed talking to the people that were online; it made the time fly by. I varied my gameplay as to avoid stagnation and boredom, but to a degree. There were times when a certain period would be designated as "Skill X Month", or "Skill X as-long-as-I-can-stand-it". The variation would be to break away from what I felt was repetitive and enjoy myself.

15-16-63-63429712 Why wouldn't they have had time to sort these out over the development of the toolbelt? It's been in development long enough to flesh out usefulness and iron out conceptual bugs.

Let's make it clear. Screenshots from RuneScape: Protected by Jagex's copyright. Derivative works from the game (i.e. concept art by a fan): Protected by the original creator's copyright. So if you removed all of the copyrighted images from RSWiki, then it'd be fine. Because that's all that Jagex can really come after them for.

While I think your numbers aren't even in the ballpark, you may be on to something. How many total accounts did they say were registered? Of those, how many were used to bot? How many of them were then banned/removed from the game?

They're only now implementing e-mail validation?

This is true. Eventually the "trust" will break down within these groups. But, it won't really stop them from trying in the meantime, especially with updates that add chance to an event occurring. Well of course not. Dicing wasn't a big enough problem to resort to something so drastic. However I do disagree about the legal response; I genuinely get the feeling that this is them not wanting their game to get notoriety for gambling of that sort. I would have said any sort, but if you can wager on Conquest games....well...

I'm sure it's been mentioned before (probably in big letters), but the only real way to do that would be to go back to trade restrictions of some kind. Interactions with the game are random enough that, with time, so-called "dicers" will permeate into every imaginable random activity and seek to exploit players from it. I'm actually pleased and a bit confused with this change. On the one hand, it's good that they're [finally] taking a stand against this sort of behavior in the game. On the other, wouldn't they have known that virtual dice and virtual coins would create a virtual gambling ring?

Agreed. At least, I would finally have my excuse to go to Hawaii.

Yeah, I was going to mention this. As soon as an editor on RS Wiki hits "Submit", their content has been 'given' to RS Wiki subject to a CC-BY-SA license. However, one of the conditions of said license is that although third parties are free to use whatever the license is for, the original author(s) must be accredited in any subsequent versions. Another condition (the Share-Alike part) means that if the content is used elsewhere, it must be released under the same CC-BY-SA license as the original work. Well firstly, Jagex's Wiki does not allow authors and contributors to be named, therefore there is no means to credit someone else's work. Secondly, everything submitted to Jagex is protected under commercial copyright, therefore they're not publishing the information under SA terms. Simply put, unless Jagex change the copyright status of information on their website, and until they provide a way of naming a work's original creators, they cannot either themselves copy information from RS Wiki, or allow others to copy information to their website on their behalf, and if RS Wiki found a case of plagiarism, Jagex are legally obliged to remove it immediately. Isn't the vast majority of stuff on RS Wiki covered by Jagex's copyright anyways (pictures of ingame items/etc)? --snip-- It's called "fair use". Yes, pictures belong to Jagex. No, actual writing doesn't belong to Jagex. (Again, pics are covered by fair use.)

I'd say it's too early to tell. Jagex's Wiki is obviously immature, and it may prove challenging to find dedicated, reliable, accurate editors. The fansites that exist are already well-established and have consistent, reliable content editors to their teams. Jagex is definitely acting like it's of two minds with this going forward, but pray for the best, prepare for the worst, and don't take your eyes of what they're doing. I mean, heck - I see no reason to sound an alarm when this little gem is still on the Wiki (as of 25 Nov @ 10:13PM MST):

If new pures don't count...then old pures don't count...so then isn't that a reason for Jagex to take off f2p accounts from high scores, they're mostly pures and bots? Hm. Seems logical to me. So, do pures count or not? I don't believe it is. If the premise is "new" player, then a pure is basically the account of an existing player. You missed his point: The argument seems to be f2p is/was mostly bots and pures. If this is true then f2p is now mostly pures. Therefore are not all the OLD f2p accounts still merely pures of people who play members. And if pures don't matter as part of a live game why do they need to be on hiscores, thus rendering the point of if all f2p is pures why does it matter they not on hiscores? Perhaps I did. *revisits* I disagree with the point in that not all F2P players are pures. There is a large quantity of them on there, no doubt, but I don't see how only having pures in F2P would justify removing highscores for all of F2P. Since playing on a pure is competition by restriction (i.e. you only allow yourself to have X Defense or X Attack or have X combat, etc), removing the competitive aspect of creating a pure doesn't seem intuitive. To the original point I [thought] delapaz was making: I messed the initial definition of "pure" up. I'll revisit it: It's an account created with restrictions in mind for certain gameplay aspects, such as combat pures or skill pures, etc. My original counter was that a pure would not normally count as a new player. There are exceptions to this, of course, but in general, a pure isn't the same as a new player.

If new pures don't count...then old pures don't count...so then isn't that a reason for Jagex to take off f2p accounts from high scores, they're mostly pures and bots? Hm. Seems logical to me. So, do pures count or not? ;) I don't believe it is. If the premise is "new" player, then a pure is basically the account of an existing player.

Sheesh. I've had about enough of this. Let me clarify my point one final time as to avoid any further confusion on your end. If you wish to take my point or my stance outside of my point in this current topic, then we will do so in PM. Take this to mean that any comment you make outside of my point will be replied to in PM, full stop. *deep breath* I've merely stated that the images that Erewhon2 has shown don't demonstrate or prove her case. It is easy to infer that those images could mean something else, such as pures training or gold farmers training. There's nothing in those images to suggest that these players are straight-up fresh to the game. It doesn't matter if she wouldn't lie about it. Truth be told, I don't think she is. But what I'm saying is that her "evidence" doesn't fully support her claims. As to your personal accusations, it seems only fitting that I give you a reply to them in private. Check your inbox at your leisure. It's not fair to the subject of this topic to reply to them in public.