Yoko Kurama

Is it possible to get 2 SOTG if you keepsake the first? Someone asked me about that today.

Both, I believe. Some items show prestige through the sheer amount of effort/game time to earn (1k, 5k Castle Wars games cape), while some show off insane RNG luck (15 champions killed, phoenix egglings). Different items show off your achievements different. Why can't some achievements be about pure effort and some about pure luck, especially when some of the latter can typically be considered non-essential content? If some were pure luck, I'd sort of accept it, but the problem is that a large part of content is pure luck based. There's nothing inherently positive about luck and I see no reason to not reduce its effects wherever possible. I am not even suggesting eradicating it, but simply reducing extreme cases. I mean, let's take some super rare item with a normal drop rate of 1/500. Some people will get it within a few kills, some within tens of kills, some within hundreds, some within thousands and some might not get it at all after thousands of kills. If there were built in safeguards which stipulated that after say 5,000 kills you'd automatically at least get one of said item, I don't see how it diminishes the prestige or the excitement of the item for anyone, especially people who already got it. There's no reason why we should accept luck; as long as it is within our power, we should subject it to more reasonable outcomes. It's sort of like medicine or health. In a natural setting without modern medicine, infastructure, and technology and knowledge, some people will do okay, some very well, and some very badly. That's how it was historically as well, and it was simply a fact of life - there's no reason why we should have accepted that, and I'm glad we didn't. Now Runescape is obviously just a game and nowhere near as serious, but the same principle applies. Again, I am not just realizing it now because of my experience with PP, I realized this long ago throughout my experience with PVM and the experiences of people I have met throughout the years. It's something that's always in the back of my mind when it comes to RS and I talk/complain about it when it's topical. TL;DR: Retain some reasonable amount of luck based things, it can be fun and exciting, but have some reasonable built-in safeguards in place. --- On another note: Just got my Ibis and SOTG earlier today. It took me very long to get it, whereas several people I know got it on day 1 within just 2 hours, and several people I know have yet to get it despite some 20-35 hours spent. Kind of sad. Still, a victory of the RNG and the pernicious forces of pure chance.

Right, I don't think you could do it with item drops to the same extent (that would have all sorts of effects), but you can do it with non-tradeables.

Right, I think the hybrid system is a step in the right direction. I am not against rare drops, but there should be safeguards in built. Like the horror stories about people who didn't get a single Champion Scroll in 20K kills or whatever, that shouldn't be able to happen. After a certain extreme threshold you should get the drop or whatever. I am angry, but I hope people can sort of see where I am coming from.

I never approved of the rarity of these two items. I am only talking about it since it's sort of topical at the moment. As for equal opportunity or not, I'd prefer alternative arrangements to the RNG, or ways to mitigate its extreme cases. Not necessarily equal opportunity, but something. As for beginning to like them and suddenly disliking them over this weekend, that was just hyperbole. |^_^| The reason I find myself frustrated with this weekend is that there will lots of people who will spend lots of time on the weekend because of the promotion (myself included), and possibly not get anything. I think that sucks. There's plenty of things I think should be revamped. Again, I did not expect them to revamp them for this weekend, specifically, but actually being there and doing it, did make me resent it more, and more strongly feel positively towards a revamp. I am sure such people would prefer the RNG. But it doesn't really matter. I bought my Seismic set for 3b and would kind of like if it was 3b forever so I don't lose asset value - but Jagex should ignore me or my interests, because it's better overall and long term for the game if Seismics are more affordable, even if I personally don't benefit from this. Same principle applies. Just because some people were fortunate enough to get lucky by the RNG is not really a good justification for Jagex to use it for everything or to allow extreme cases.

I didn't expect them to do anything, I never expect them to do anything. But it would have been the right, healthy, creative, and intelligent thing to do. It's not something I just realized. It's an insight that is reinforced every time they foolishly push the RNG as the master determinant of progress.

[bleep] Pyramid Plunder and Jagex's irrational and infantile obsession with the RNG. There are people that got Ibis and the SotG within 2 hours of this weekend, whereas others (such as myself) have been at it for far longer without any success. Instead of coming up with something creative like a point system per trip/urn/sarcophagus to trade in, they went for the worst possible option, which is just completely luck based and the most likely to induce carpal tunnel. I was sort of beginning to like Jagex and they pull something like this. I get it that in real life sometimes luck matters, and that's fine, but in a controlled environment why would you want to opt for pure randomness whereby often people get nothing regardless of their effort? And why would you implement it for nearly everything as Jagex does? It makes absolutely no sense. A little randomness can be fun and quaint, but to push it everywhere is ridiculous. God, I hope their weekend was as unpleasant as mine and that of countless other people who couldn't recieve the blessing of Jagex's much-vaunted RNG. They don't learn anything, ever.

I remember that. One of the victims was a TIF member I believe. I think he quit over that.

Reinforcing that content worthwhile for higher leveled players while providing content for mid levels? This type of stuff usually doesn't work. In order for something to be worthwhile for high levels it has to be fairly profitable - it has to have more worth than level 60's can afford. So either you get items targeted for people with level 60 stats that are too expensive and they can't realistically access them until much higher levels, or you get stuff that level 60's can afford, but isn't worth camping for by higher levels.

Probably, if we follow the pattern of pretty much all previous dragon items. Jagex took such a long time releasing them that they were eventually nowhere near the best gear (as they were in the early days), yet probably because for lore related reasons (dragon items are still significant in the game's mythos), they are still releasing them slowly, through high level avenues.

Although I don't play OSRS, I used to think that Mod Mat K was one of the nicest and most dedicated J Mods around, and I admired him for his work in OSRS. But after watching that notorious incident on stream, I have to admit I was wrong. Mod Mat K is just another callous douchebag. He spawns a dangerous monster for an official event that he hosts, invites a bunch of people to come and watch and when it's all glitched and things go wrong with people dying and losing stuff, all he can say is "Life's not fair, there are no refunds in life"? A decent person would have taken responsibility for this mishap, and rectified it, but apparently this nonchalant moderator is way too cool for that. [bleep] Mod Mat K.

I don't really understand why you say this. I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community. He keeps thinking the 120 capes will skyrocket resource prices like the 99 capes did when they first released, ignoring the fact that barely anyone is going to go on a manhunt to get the 120 capes because unlike Dungeoneering, there's no incentive past 99 > 120. I don't particularly care about resource prices. They will be perpetually kept high because of the experience craze, which I suppose the capes are part of, but only really an acceleration of that trend, not something new. And as for the bit about 'blaming the rotten community' in that post you quoted, no. That's a clichéd cop-out. More often than not, it is people's conditions and environment that determines their behavior by incentivizing them to do particular things. I would much rather blame crappy incentives rather than the usual 'it's just people, or human nature' or whatever. It has absolutely nothing to do with a conspiracy, so claiming it is is a rather desperate attempt to avoid substantive argument. It's about incentive structures, nothing else - that's something that's quite easy to understand. Also, it's about incentives at a general level, not an individual level. You like skilling or pursuing mounds of experience? Good for you. There are other people that play this game, aside from you, and many of them are pressured in a soft way (that's incentives) by this sort of stuff to do stuff that is otherwise pointless and they wouldn't have done otherwise. Jagex, as Runescape's authority, is who determines goals, achievements, prestige, respectability, and so on - thus all players to an extent look to them for validation. So criticizing them for master capes is fair game, as it's just another incentive that is going to push the game in a certain way - a direction many of us happen to dislike. Your ranting doesn't address any of this, not really constructive and it avoids any of the real concerns various posters have brought up. Firemaking has received more updates than construction, that's the one skill that really needs attention. Besides the fact that you're completely missing the point, construction has a major overhaul already in the works, and firemaking, as far as we know, has nothing planned at all. The construction overhaul was, if I am not mistaken (which I might be), planned for last year. After missing that deadline, Jagex admitted this year that they haven't really started on the construction overhaul, and don't intend to release it anytime soon. I am a person who cares about experience, and would set the goal for a 120 cape. That doesn't mean I don't want them to make meaningful content though...you act as if they are opposites of each. So I shouldn't train any of the skills if I think they should be updated? Then I would be sitting around playing like a quarter of the skills in the game. It's not really about what you choose to do as an individual. There will always be all sorts of individuals who pursue all sorts of different things. That is not necessarily the problem. The real important thing is overarching incentives set by Jagex because they have an institutional force behind them and will encourage or discourage legions of players in doing or refraining from doing stuff. So if you and Fall Star and whoever else want to get 120 in whatever skill - fine, I personally don't care, go at it. Jagex setting 120s as an official standard for gameplay is a completely different and something far more important. It superimposes onto everyone the obsessions of a small and peculiar minority - that I am not fine with and opposed to. This should all be really super easy to understand. Yet it seems everytime we broach this subject, some incensed person from experience craze community comes along and takes it personally - it's not about that.

Your two counterexamples don't bear too heavily on the 20 some other skills which behaved the way I mentioned. Furthmore, skill capes were released in 2006, where as overloads and curses weren't released until 3 years or so later (in 2009, iirc). I get the feeling that you're trying to rationalize the experience craze or trivialize it as many in the HLF community do (because they are part of the experience craze, and wish to protect themselves); I don't find anything too compelling in your argument, and I think the general consensus (which I happen to share) on skill capes and their effect on the game is accurate.

I don't really understand why you say this. I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community. That's a pretty succint and accurate answer, Noxx. Not much to add here. Basically, the addition of skill capes completely changed the face of the metagame and started the experience craze. It's no so much so that it made the game more goal-oriented (people have always had goals in RS, long before skill capes), but it did make chasing experience mindlessly the standard goal. Whereas before people did a number of things based on what appealed to them (whether that be skilling, Pking, PVM), afterward, skilling became the official mark of achievement in the game. There's a reason why you don't really see PVM/Pure/specialized accounts anymore, we're all skillers/comp capers/max capers or max-capers/comp-capers-to-be in 2k14. ninja team's budget is an actual potato (bonus is cabbage) they get most of the stuff they need from other departments by threatening to ruin their work with minor patch note alterations and hiding their lunches I have personally dealt with the much-vaunted Ninja team. I can't say that I am impressed. They have been incredibly lazy as of late, doing next to nothing, not even fairly simple fixes, and they are often very stubborn. Just earlier this morning, I was talking to Mod Ryan on a particular issue that is very easy to fix that has been brought up to him repeatedly by various players, and he gave the same reasoning as he always has, against it, and it was very poor, and unconvincing reasoning. It's as if he refuses to acknowledge that he is wrong.

Lame patch notes as has become the norm in recent weeks. As for the Master Skillcapes, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like the last time skill capes and comp capes were released that the gaming culture was completely ruined, is it? Oh wait...

Not all of us are this callous though. Yes, everyone is geared to pursue to their self-interest, but some of us do keep some regard for others. I could make a lot of money by peddling crack to crack addicts, but for some reason or another, I don't. yeah that's the things though... some regard. Jagex has that unlike crack dealers who plainly want their money. Jagex isn't putting a gun to your head ready to pull the trigger without concern. They so have concern and interest in healthy playing habits. They just aren't holding your hand guiding you. The world lacks common sense and personal accountability. This would be another example of that if a person choose a game over a carrier. Actually the fact that they are doing this is indicative of their complete lack of regard for the personal health and habits of their playerbase. They are openly and shamelessly taking advantage of people who don't know any better, and are proudly acknowledging it. I can't think of any way to spin this incident in any positive light. Perhaps on their next BTS they can proudly boast that since stealing candy from babies is very easy, that they will now actually start doing that. Their statistics state that the average player plays a little over an hour each day. A few people seem to have fallen into an XP Craze and have become more and more addicted to the game as time has gone on. People have stopped playing the game for fun - or if it isn't efficient "it isn't fun". Minigames dead left and right - content dead on arrival if it isn't efficient. Stop and smell the roses. If you find you don't actually enjoy the roses, leave the garden (the game) and go play something you actually enjoy. Each and every day I see too many players who actively state they HATE playing this game, but continue to play.... I just don't get it. I am not too convinced by their statistics, since they never ever reveal their methodology (what numbers are they using, which players are they counting, etc?). In any case, this is sort of irrelevant to the fact that Jagex are encouraging unhealthy gaming habits and styles. The hardcore playerbase is a minority, I don't doubt that. I also disagree that it's merely a 'few people' that have fallen prey to the exp craze culture. It has now become a prevailing part of the game and its culture. Simply witness the exponential increase in the number of people who go for 200Ms/120s as opposed to even just a few years ago. I'd say they are still a minority, but this culture has completely taken over the high level community (which was not always the case). Hell, it was only recently that 120 capes were voted for, in a landslide. As for your last comment, I'd refer you to ALG's comments: hating the management of the game is not the same thing as hating the game. Furthermore, the only option to an unacceptable state of affairs is not 'just to quit' (telling people to 'like it or leave it' is horribly lichened). There are other options, such as criticism of said affairs, which is precisely what I am doing here.

Not all of us are this callous though. Yes, everyone is geared to pursue to their self-interest, but some of us do keep some regard for others. I could make a lot of money by peddling crack to crack addicts, but for some reason or another, I don't. yeah that's the things though... some regard. Jagex has that unlike crack dealers who plainly want their money. Jagex isn't putting a gun to your head ready to pull the trigger without concern. They so have concern and interest in healthy playing habits. They just aren't holding your hand guiding you. The world lacks common sense and personal accountability. This would be another example of that if a person choose a game over a carrier. Actually the fact that they are doing this is indicative of their complete lack of regard for the personal health and habits of their playerbase. They are openly and shamelessly taking advantage of people who don't know any better, and are proudly acknowledging it. I can't think of any way to spin this incident in any positive light. Perhaps on their next BTS they can proudly boast that since stealing candy from babies is very easy, that they will now actually start doing that.

Not all of us are this callous though. Yes, everyone is geared to pursue their self-interest, but some of us do keep some regard for others. I could make a lot of money by peddling crack to crack addicts, but for some reason or another, I don't.

It sounds good in theory, but that's not how special events, or bonus events, work in practice. Usually people go all out when those happen. And moreover, Jagex knows this. We have only had such events dozens of times in recent years, and we know that Jagex compiles data on those. They did peddle out '24 hour' T-Shirts, of course. They are well aware that the player-base will go into overdrive, and are counting on that. >Not Jagex's fault >Actively and intentionally enabling these players by rewarding them at the worst possible time Typically when Jagex does this, they can have 'plausible deniability'. But this time they are openly acknowledging it, and celebrating the fact that they are doing this. That they are actually enabling people, and preying on people with low self control. And for what? They have plenty of months with lackluster updates, such as this April, worst updates in ages. I didn't see them pulling out all the stops this month. And yet, next month, which they acknowledge is a busy one for people, somehow needs to be jam-packed? There's no excuse for this. Jagex can be scum sometimes.

These were precisely my thoughts when I watched the video (someone else made this post): This sort of thing is more and more becoming the norm with Jagex. Whether it be hosting 72 hour BXP Weekends, and then shamelessly peddling '24 hour' or 'Eat. Scape. Sleep. Repeat' T-Shirts, their fawning or celebrating over streamers who stream, or the top players who scape, for 12-16 hours, which on the surface seem like lighthearted jokes, but in actuality are quite serious since a lot of the playerbase obviously struggles with these sort of issues in a very real sense. It's like Jagex is completely degenerate and proud of it.

I don't think Dungeoneering needs any changes to take it outside of Daemonheim. It's fine as it is, as a self-contained quasi-minigame thing. I have no problem with that.

There are already some very famous players/streamers who have openly multi-logged on stream and have even been caught by Jagex Moderators and nothing has happened to them (well one of them got their account 'force-logged' and a verbal warning). These streamers were AFKing castle wars on their main account in order to get trimmed, while using their alt account to do stuff like Vorago and make loads of money to then ship off to their main so they could get 200M. Basically trying to bypass certain natural limits, and doing more stuff than they normally could with one account (obviously if you're at castle wars, then you can't be at Rago, on one account, so they made other alts). If that isn't an abuse of multi-logging, then I don't know what is. Yet these people, at least one famous example, whom I won't mention, have not been banned, and J-Mods are aware of this, and have actually shown to their parties for 200M stats and celebrated with them, and fawned all over them. I could really make a whole thread about this sort of stuff, this stuff being that I don't think Jagex really cares about much of the rules (some exceptions, such as botting), or even game balance, if you're a famous player. It's only a problem if normal/average players can do it.

In moderation, it's fine as a leisurely activity, done purely for the purpose of pleasure. In excess, however, like many other things, it can be quite destructive, and indeed a waste of time. I am not a hedonist, so I don't buy the nonsensical argument, that, "well, as long as the person is happy, or deriving pleasure, so long as he doesn't physically harm another person he can do whatever he wants". There are other things to do in life, other commitments, obligations, responsibilities, and opportunities to make the most out of. I would not accept, for instance, that simply because sitting on a couch, and munching Cheetos, and watching 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' for 12-14 hours is what some person wants to do, regardless of how immensely happy this makes him/her, that this is a worthwhile or noble use of that person's capacities. Yes, pleasure is good, but a certain level of discipline is necessary. With a proper education (and I don't mean by this formal education), people can be taught to derive happiness from worthwhile endeavors, as well pleasure from whatever they want. Pleasure is a mental state, so if playing Runescape or watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians is what gives you pleasure, I have no problem with that in moderation. If, however, you are so shortsighted to obsess only with crude maximization of pleasure at the cost of everything -- I will not look upon you favorably, and I will judge you. No, I am not going to pull a gun on you, or use force, but I will judge you, and regard you as no different from a drug-addled waste of potential, much like a crack addict who does nothing with their life. And no, I don't buy any arguments about individualism, such as how "we should just respect an individual's choice, just cause...". Individuals can often make the wrong choices. Society has always operated by using criticism, judgment, education, socialization, and other forms of repression to push individuals in the right direction, and fulfill certain obligations. TLDR that's sort of long itself: There's nothing wrong with playing Runescape within a certain moderation and deriving pleasure from it, but if Runescape becomes all you do, to the detriment of your family members, friends, to the detriment of forming meaningful relationships, at the expense of having meaningful interactions with other people, at the expense of your health, or at the expense of developing your human capacities and powers, and at the expense of your obligations to society, then I am not going to approve of what you're doing, or look too kindly upon it, ever. That's simply my opinion. Shorter TLDR: Play Runescape if it makes you happy, but diversify, do other things as well, and play in moderation.

It was never a matter of technical abilities. The numbers were purposefully such that melee was the best and that mage and ranger were secondary. They could have easily tweaked the numbers to equalize the triangle, and released mage/range weapons/armours but it was never really a concern or priority. In OSRS, their small and limited team has just done something of the sort, they have released t70 weapons for rangers/mages in God Wars (something the original god ars never had), and they released new shields for mages and rangers from the wilderness bosses. It's not that hard, something of this could have been done in the original RS, it was just never really a concern.

But our achievements today HAVE to be as special as they were eight years ago! If the game moves forward, everything we've done is wasted! That is a caricature and an unfair one at that. The fact of the matter is that skills and experience rates have always gotten progressively easy over the span of time in Runescape -- it's always been that way. There's nothing wrong with that in and out of itself. What is wrong is if this pace is accelerated to being super fast, with mounds of free experience given everywhere, social/healthy training methods and fun things becoming obsolete and so on. When you give free exp to everyone and they all get 99's or Comp Capes, it 'devalues' certain achievements and you end up with a crazy metagame where everyone is suddenly mindlessly grinding experience for 200Ms, 120's, and ranks. I suspect that's one of the reasons why 120 Capes passed: people felt their 99 capes (because who can't get 99s these days?) were worthless and needed something else to show off, so they voted yes.