Yoko Kurama

Actually I had already looked into that market, and I was aware of the update today and at the GE within a minute of it happening. I simply did not have the sort of bank to buy any set of Nex. These(investment merchanting) are hardly reliable money makers. What are people supposed to do? Wait for weeks for such opportunities? These sorts of things don't happen everyday, and are only really profitable for those who are already loaded. The point is that Maxed players should not have to gamble or play the stocks to make the money. That such parasitic activities are the preferred money-making method instead of skills or some other organic component of the game is indicative of a grave structural problem within the game's design.

Are you actually suggesting that this method is available to all of us? We don't all have a billion lying around with which we can flip some expensive item to make a 100M profit margin. Unless you have a high stack of cash, you won't be making anywhere near that for quite some time.

There's a fine difference between being challenging to get and being nonsensically ridiculous to get. It's obscene that Maxed players have to gamble in order to get level 80 gear. And most of us have settled for the second-best armours(due to a variety of reasons), it doesn't suddenly mean that we should abandon our desires for a more sensible RS. So we have settled for the moment, but on the sidelines we are still advancing the arguments that we shouldn't have to settle.

This is simply not true. The crash you are referring to this time was precipitated by something else: the very nature of EOC itself. Contrary to the image that they portrayed when EOC was in development where we were lead to believe that we would get all these nifty abilities because the game was going to be complex and challenging, most bosses and monsters in the game now are pathetically easy. Not only that, but several armours were improved substantially(In comparison to their pre-EOC counterparts) and this lead to several high-end armours being viable. Before EOC, Nex armours had not only the best stats, but they also gave a substantial and unrivaled LP boost. Also, monsters and bosses were still relatively(relative to now) challenging, so having a Nex armour was a boon. Nex was clearly the unrivaled and sole gear at the top. Now, barrows and Gwars armours also have LP(well, all armours do now), and their LP boosts are comparable(or at least in the same ball-park) to Nex, hence the crash began. So to recap: a) several alternatives for high-leveled players in place of Nex, b) monsters in EOC being ridiculously and pathetically easy; both a) and b) naturally lead to a much reduced demand. As for the Glacor boots, they crashed because Jagex nerfed their stats(steadfasts for instance don't give att bonuses anymore) so they crashed. That's a perfectly reasonable incentive for people to dump them. Who(aside from billionares) wants to pay 10's of millions of Gpies for boots that give marginally more Hp/Defense than other boots that only cost a couple hundred thousand, or merely 30 thousand(in the case of D boots) in a game where monsters are too easy to beat anyways? Once again, not terribly difficult to understand. If there's anyone to blame for these crashes, it'd be Jagex, they are the ones who needlessly nerfed certain things, made monsters too easy and so on, they not the players incentivized these things. It seems that they have realized this and are trying to rectify it, somewhat, though by band-aides rather than attacking the root cause I don't see what exactly you can't understand, it's almost as if you haven't been paying attention to these items and the various updates for the last 3 months, all your various examples are horrible(for advancing the point that you seem to want to make anyways).

That's hardly an effective argument for the justification of the ridiculous amount of effort that is(or was) needed to obtain Nex armours. They both belong to the category of madness, only that one differs from the other in terms of degree; that's all. I would be in favour of sensibly reducing the time needed for both activities. @ Ginger, that observation is very astute on your part, I had nearly missed it. I guess from that we can conclude that Fallstar hadn't really thought about what he was saying; rather was just acting on knee-jerk and visceral impulses: "Why are all of you complaining? Nex armour is so easy to get, everyone has it!...Sorry, but the best armour is only meant for people like me and my friends, that can gamble billions! If you want it so bad, get ready to gamble like us! Otherwise, know your role and learn it well, peasant!" Yes, that's a caricature, but it's close enough. :wink:

The so-called panic selling of the Nex was motivated initially by announcement of the Obsidian Armour and the sneak preview BTS video which showed the stats for it, without mentioning the penalty(as you well know, Obsidian has stats that rival that of Nex). Thus, high-leveled players reasonably assumed that Nex armours would be overshadowed by the new and easy-to-obtain armour, hence why several popular youtube channels recommended dumping them. This behaviour was perfectly rational with the amount of information given at the time. Then, a few days later Jagex announced the penalty and that particular crash was averted -- or so it was thought --then, they announced new high-end equipment(PoP), so the crash resumed. It has already been confirmed that PoP, for now at least, surpasses Nex, thus it is a perfectly rational for Nex to crash. It's not terribly difficult to understand.

This is false. Whilst panic selling does exacerbate the crashing problem, it is not the initial cause of the problem. If an item becomes less useful, or superseded by a better item, the demand for it will fall, as will the prices. Also, as an individual, one has little if any control over the behavior of other participants in the market, hence, an intelligent individual will take that into account. If I have reason to believe others are going to panic sell, then it might be better for me to join in, since I alone don't control enough market share to countervail their panic selling. It is perfectly rational in that situation to go with the tide, dump your armour, then buy it a little while later, saving yourself some money in the process. ---------------- SInce PoP armours are only marginally better than Nex, I wonder if the set effects will make Nex armours superior to PoP? As far as I know, the PoP armours don't have any effects, yet.

Currently online: 10700 F2P players and 66000 P2P players. I meant a rough estimate on the total amount of semi-active players, but this is helpful too; thanks. The stats indicate it isn't as bad as I thought(assuming these are indicative of the overall active players), but it's still a very stark decline from just a few years ago.

I have been out of touch with F2p for years ever since I became a full-time member(well I would cancel P2p sometimes, but when I did, I would take a break from RS rather than return to F2p) but the news that there are less F2pers than P2pers was completely shocking to me. Even more shocking to me was that F2p is dying. Now I have been playing for years, and the way memory(in general) - as one person explained it to me - works is that as you grow more distant from events, you don't actually recall the events as you did, rather you recall the last time you recalled the event. So often, you suddenly "recall" things that might not have exactly happened, or they didn't happen in the way you recalled them. Anyways, I wanted to put that out there because I was wondering, when I think of the F2p from years ago, I don't know exactly what year but I think around 2006-2008, the number of P2p'ers was around 1 million, and there were 9-10 million semi-active F2pers around. Was that actually the case anywhere in the period I mentioned(2006-2008), or is my memory acting funny or nostalgic re-imagining things? Can someone confirm that? Also, how many P2pers, and F2pers are there now? Does anyone know? The decline of F2pers is not a good sign.

While the player whom you are responding to is/was certainly bitter, I think the general point stands. I like RS, I have played for years and I still play it regularly and I have no intention of qutting, and I am not one of those nostalgia ridden people who keep thinking about "the good old days", but even I(and I know many similar to me who feel the same way) can't help but feel that the game is on its descending phase in terms of popularity and lifespan. I will continue to play it until they pull the plug or I get bored, and I certainly don't ever tell other people to "move on" or "quit", but the feeling is very much here that RS might not be here in a couple of years.

I have been completely removed from the training scene for years(ever since I maxed combat and slayer), so I am not too sure about the details. Correct me if my guess is wrong, but at it's current level of power, wouldn't Dharok's only be really good for situations where the monster weakness is melee(or slash specifically, but the general weakness should suffice too)? Is it really just ripping apart mage monsters and other monsters that aren't weak to melee? I have been thinking of places to make the most of my Dharok's until they nerf it and I can't think of any boss or place where it might be too good. Any suggestions? So far I thought of Bandos, but the hilt is worthless now. Is it good at any other bosses?

Undoubtedly Dharok's will be getting nerfed this week or sometime in the very near future. I'm a bit torn. Despite some people arguing that this is overpowered, I was personally over-joyed at this. Dharok's has finally returned to the place it was in 2005(one of the best PVM/PVP armours in the game, directly as a result of it's effect; in fact, it even costs the same now as it did in 2005, though unadjusted for inflation). If you recall, in 2005, Dharok's could hit *incredibly* high, far beyond what any melee weapon could hit. Personally when I tested Dharok's in beta(and I did this very often), I didn't too well in PVP particularly against shields, so I don't know what has happened since the beta and the EOC. I'd personally like Dharok's to be fashionable once again, though I suspect it will be horribly nerfed. One alternative to this could be to make it uber rare at barrows; that way people won't take it to Wildy again, and no more of that sort of thing.

I am an old-school player and while I always had fond thoughts for Travelry, I kind of like it the way it is now. Though not everthing is perfect(the new layout is kind of weird at times), but still I like the addition of the bank, the loadstone, and proximity to the the POH portal, are some of my favourite aspects about it. I don't know what to think about the Burthrope revamp, or the the turning of the place into a newbie hotspot, but I am not overly bothered by them.

I, too, will be attempting the Kiln soon for the very first time as well, using my newly obtained Obsidian armours. :razz: Though, I haven't really watched any videos or done my homework with regards to the KIln yet. Though, I have spoken to a few people post-EOC and they seem to say it's about the same, if not faster than before. Best of luck!

Unless it can be taken outside the aforementioned areas and be viable despite the triple damage, it is far removed from the best armour. It's sort of like a quest from years ago, involving Bane and the rift, where you could fight monsters and deal incredible damage(incredible for pre-EOC, I think in the hundred's), but since that damage was contained to a specific area with useless monsters, it didn't matter all. The Tzhaar City is for the most part useless, except for the Fight Caves and Fight Kiln which, which, greatly aided by this update(in theory), were easy enough to do so as is.

This also applies to things like the rewards for hard diaries, for example "free teleport to the slime cave under Ectofuntus" implying anyone with 96 fish/94 herblore/91 farming will be training with the Ectofuntus. Less of an issue with Obsidian armor/Fight Kiln as it's pretty tough and still relevant at maxed combat, but kind of a disappointment for those who have already overcome all of the Tzhaar challenges. I was referring solely to the XP rewards, which for instance in the Diaries are of your own choosing. My reason for doing so is, if the whole selling point of the quest is "EPIC XP REWARDZ", then they should kind of be tailored to the demographic. The demographic in question happens to be fairly high level players for whom combat XP is most certainly useless. The rest of your points are somewhat valid, but the area of my focus, as I stated, was XP. In the case of this quest, it's forgiveable since the armour rewards seem very alluring.

A few thoughts on this week's updates: Things I like: --A new grandmaster quest? That's always great! --Spiffy new armour, especially one that is smithable and untradeable? Even better. A step in the right direction. --100K mining XP? Lovely! Things I am not too fond of: --BA is still not fixed, this will be the 3rd week I will have to reschedule my activities on account of Jagex's inability to fix a simply bug that was brought to their attention 3 weeks ago! --Void was nerfed, and apparently this seems to be some sort of compensation for that, and the armour is great in that it has stats equivalent to Torva, but the fact that it is only useful in a limited area is a heavy hit which not only makes it sort of uncool, but completely unsuitable as a replacement for Void. If only they had not restricted it, then we could move away from Nex armours. Still, there's hope with the Ports. --I am really excited for the quest, though I wish they`d stop giving combat rewards for tough quests. Most of the people doing them are either maxed combat and maxed overall, or they are certainly maxed combat. Thus, combat XP is sort of useless to us, I liked the old model of complex quests which gave XP in skills of *your* choice. Still, I am quite excited for the quest.

A few quick comments: @tripsis: I still remember the glory days of Bluerose, or circa 2005(perhaps the peak of RS) when rune armour was the second best non-degradable armour, second only to Dragon(and only marginally so, and when I say marginally, I mean by margins of +4); then barrows and whips were released, and they despite being the best armour in the game were affordable to any high level who wanted them. Skilling was also marginally profitable, though not much. For those who wanted nothing more than obscene wealth, they had their rares and left us warriors and our armours and practical items alone. It is not necessarily a matter of whose perspective has more value. It's simply the case that someone who has been here for a very long time will most likely have a different perspective than someone has been here for less time. Also, someone who has been here for a very long time is also likely in a general sense to be more knowledgeable and susceptible to the general nature of change; and that sort of perspective is valuable. That does not mean that all veterans are like this, nor does it mean that all or that most newbies(relative to veterans) have an incompetent perspective; it`s simply something that might be the case and a matter of variety in perspective, and is worth mentioning in certain cases(such as this one). False. With just a few minor and some structural changes, not only could skilling be profitable once more(as it has been in past), but it could be amongst the most profitable things if that`s what they decided. Let`s not forget that Bluerose was once not only amongst the most famous players and skillers in RS, but also amongst the wealthiest. Also, this whole obsession with the value of XP is also a particular phenomenon that was not always a part of RS. There was a time when most people considered level 70`s and 80`s and in skills to be quite high and respectable and most did not even dare imagining training further than that. It was only after the release of Skill capes, the fostering of an environment where skills were given social value(despite often being useless), and the celebrity worship and admiration for people like Zarfot that skilling excessively became fashionable; It was something that was deliberately introduced, much like the devaluing of the economic power of skills, and just like that it could be changed.

Deflation is great; as it is, everything is far too expensive(I am talking about high-end gear of course). Normal high level skillers should not be held to the same standard in terms of what they can afford as idle billionaires. There's simply no way most of them can hope to compete.

If Ports are cheap to maintain and use, and not uber expensive, and the armour is worthwhile and good(and they don't nerf it like they randomly did with Void), then, this will be the greatest reallignment of armour and skills, since, well, when RSC came out and the only way to obtain Runite was through smithing.

I, too, am a veteran of over 9 years, and I found the piece rather mild. Just a politer way of saying, "If you don't like the update, just quit, or accept it". I can't really find any fault in the piece, though nor is it an uncommon sentiment amongst people like us. Runescape has changed countless times over the years, and it will continue to change, people will come and go, until they decide to pull the plug. Once you have played the game as long as some of us, nothing surprises you after a while, and you learn to understand and accept the nature of temporal things. That's probably why people such as the poster, and myself, and other veterans, weren't too disturbed by the EOC, and were actually supportive of it, and resisted the urge to get hysterical.

Because you can't powertrain runecrafting. Right. Well you can, but it will suck. Not after they surreptitiously nerfed Runespan(you know after leaving it powered for months, allowing thousands upon thousands to get 99 RC), you can't.

So it's been over two weeks now and BA still isn't fixed, despite the dozen or so threads detailing rather "constructively"(to use their phrase) the problems. Problems, which, I might add, should be fixed in no more than 10 minutes of work. It certainly isn't frustrating when they just ignore things like this(one Jmod did confirm that he had forwarded the threads to the proper departments, but that was weeks ago).

Great, that's absolutely wonderful news! Down with plutocratic elitism in RS! It's about time the best gear is actually affordable rather than accessible only to a tiny few who can stake or merch billions, or those who got billions by being early birds at new bosses(I was part of group number 3, but that's a rare and temporary occurrence in RS).

And as I just explained in that quote, the analogy is completely dissimilar, thus there is no similarity in logic either.