Yoko Kurama

If that is referring to me, I don't support theft, in-game or outside of it. I don't regard RWT as necessarily theft, do you always consider it thus? My comment on the matter was in response to the claim that RWT is immoral, which I don't think is *always* the case. I should make clear that I don't support the wholesale type of RWT that bots, and gold sites engage in. What I had in mind(but did not make clear) is the scenario where a long time player decides to quit and tries to get a little bit of money for their investment in the game. I have always begrudged Jagex's "we own your account" line on the matter. I don't think this sort of RWT harms the game and it's a sort of autonomy that people should have. It's the same thing with giving your account away when you quit, I think players should be able to do that much. As for the people who run gold sites, bots farm and so far, they are indeed scum because their activities have a very negative effect on the community. I would agree with this. When the law enforcers themselves become corrupt, it leads to all sorts of decadence.

With regards to OT, it's somewhat disheartening but not exactly surprising. ------- I think that says more about the communities of WoW and RS than the respective companies policies on returning items. Not in this case. This aspect of the community is shaped (or controlled) by the policies of the company. Correct. Jagex has a bullshit no-refund policy which is strictly enforced. You do not get items back even if you manage to prove that the perpetrator was guilty, and even if he gets banned, the items leave the game, rather than be returned to their rightful owners. In fact, in the past, even when glitches have caused item loss, including particularly egregious ones that were Jagex's fault, Jagex has still maintained this policy. So it depends completely on the company. -------- Mercifull wrote: WTF do taxes have to do with any of this? Taxes are a necessity to maintain the modern standard of living and various services and functions of the modern state; most sane people recognize this and support it. The Grand Exchange and the various draconian controls that Jagex placed on RS, and their general laziness in adjusting prices(something they promised but never actually did) are not necessary to maintain RS. Scamming and hacking are horrible, but the solution is not to coddle us to the point where people can't even trade on their own terms, all for the sake of preventing some people from getting scammed. ---- With regards to RWT bring immoral: I say nonsense. There's nothing immoral in deciding to sell off the product of the time/energy/effort you have invested into the game, regardless of the bullshit disclaimer you sign which hands Jagex ownership. I have never RWTed and don't ever intend to, but I see nothing immoral about it. It's unfair in a sense, but not immoral. Besides, since Jagex itself RWTs, I am not going to blame the players for selling off what is rightfully theirs any ways.

It's reformism 101, giving out small concessions after a rather upsetting package of updates to quell the storm. Smart decision on their part, but I can't say I support it, purely on strategic grounds.

And if you had bothered to read what was said(which you obviously did not do) before rushing off to quote it, you would have noticed that I specifically and explicitely stated that I do not think Jagex is deliberately trying to destroy the game, nor do I think they are bad people. It's a simple matter of interests, their interests conflict with that of the player base, that is where the problem stems from. And there are perfectly sound reasons for that; it is never a good idea to hand over your economy to people who are detached from the local community and thus unaccountable. That doesn't mean foreign business is bad; no, trade is invaluable and completely necessary, you just can't let foreign entities completely takeover local economies, particularly at the expense of local businesses. In any case, that's another topic for another day, even if I did raise that analogy myself.

I have to say this was a really fun update. It certainly wasn't what you'd normally expect from Jagex in this sort of department. Usually their idea of a good time, as far as mini-games are concerned, is some inexplicably torturous amount of insufferable grinding(livid farm, temple trekking). But today's update is completely different, it has a rather good amount of xp(30K agility), doesn't take too long to get all of the outfits, and it's relatively fun.

More hasty and baseless divisiveness on your part. While I didn't present any hard numbers in that post, nothing I said was false or controversial. Not only is financial information on Jagex easy to find; there was a popular user on these forums by the name of "Ren" who use to post such information frequently. I assumed a few things in my post. A) that Jagex has been profitable over the years, this is true and easily verifiable. B) that under the old model, Jagex use to raise at least 5 million dollars a month from subscriptions. This is not hard to calculate, there were roughly 1 million P2P players, and it cost 5 dollars per month, so you get 5 million dollars per month, at the very least C) The Gower brothers made hundreds of millions of pounds from RS; once again, a simple matter of facts; any quick google search will reveal that are worth around at least 200 million pounds. So what part of my post was baseless, or invalidated my argument? If I have been wrong in any of this, I would happy to offer a formal retraction. I will be waiting for you to back up your false accusation and show me how my argument was "moot". I won't be hold by breath though. I am not sure how this refutes in any way what I already said: that Jagex was making a lot of money under the old model, and especially enough to try their hand at numerous other projects, it's just that all those projects ended up mostly failing. No one, certainly not me, is opposed to Jagex broadening their horizons or branching out in other projects. No, the part of his post which I highlighted and responded to presented a false dichotomy where unless Jagex was given another source of revenue the game would cease to exist, this was false. Strawman. I never stated that Jagex should operate on the same revenue forever. I simply asserted that another source of revenue was not immediately critical for them to continue to exist. It is obvious that Jagex should branch out as far as they can. Another thing which no disputed. No one thinks Jagex should turn away investors. In fact, IVP has been a major investor in RS for years, since at least 2005, and the game was fine. The problem is not that they are involved at all. The problem is that they(an entity which doesn't really understand Runescape, nor its community or its various needs, nor can it relate to said community) now has majority ownership(55%). That's the problem.

It's a completely false dichotomy. Firstly, under the old model, Jagex had two sources of revenue(at least); membership and advertising. Secondly, the Gowers, simply on the basis of the old model, managed to take what was essentially a throw-away hobby and turn it into a multi-millionaire enterprise, one of the most popular and longest running MMORPGS of all time. On this model, the Gowers were able to make hundreds of millions of pounds, for themselves alone. And we are to believe that this wasn't enough? I am sorry Jagex aren't billionaires. They were able to run on that model of only subscription and ad revenue for over 10 years, so it was certainly a sustainable model. That was when membership cost 5$, and they raised about 5 million dollars a month. Since then, they have raised membership prices(I have no problem with this) and started the micro transactions. Jagex hardly needed another major source of revenue, and they certainly would not be out of business, or anywhere near there if they got rid of the recent string of stuff. It's simply a false dichotomy:give Jagex more money or the game goes under. Not true at all.

I was thinking more along the lines of controversial stuff; for example, sites which refused to partner up with Jagex were censored. People who complained about Jagex's policy on not refunding items if lost due to a glitch on account of Jagex(the mobilising armies glitch) were also censored. I don't have many examples on hand, but this sort of stuff was not uncommon.

They are doing so because it directly influences us. Their involvement directly influences the game, and some people feel, that lately it has influenced the game for the worse; with a great deal of Jagex's effort being spent on money grabbing micro transaction content, as opposed to effort spent on any actual, real in-game content(of which there has been little, lately). IVP clearly is not interested in the gaming industry, aside from how much money they can rake out of it. Unlike the Gowers, that is not their passion. They don't have any attachment to the game or its community. Only in money. This negatively affects us. For the Gowers, it was different, were they interested in maximizing profits? Yes. But not at any costs. Why not? Because Runescape was their baby. They had a passion and emotional attachment to the game so they were able to balance the various interests(more profit vs a better and affordable game). There's nothing wrong with pursing money. However, IVP's interests are directly opposed to that of the players. Whereas the Gowers balanced the interests, IVP is disproportionately interested in making more money. I am not saying they are bad people or are deliberately trying to destroy RS, all I am saying is they don't understand nor relate to the game the way the Gowers use to(or a game developer would), and that's a problem. It is important for people in power to tied to the land, as the old nationalists use to say. It's the same reason why people complain when foreign industry starts overtaking domestic industry, domestically because local industry actually has to deal with the consequences of their actions; because they live where the business takes places. Foreign industry can just pack their bags when shit hits the fan, and thus they are detached from the process. I highly doubt that these people were the only investors in town when Andrew sold off his shares. It isn't a big deal, and certainly not something new on Jagex's part, you're right about that.

I should point out(if it hasn't already been pointed out so), that Jagex has always censored certain things through the filter for political leverage, or to stifle discussion on certain things. So this isn't something new, by any means.

What utter nonsense. Of course the power-relations directly affects the in-game content, community and the players, in a very real way. Some would argue that as of late, the current regime(IVP) has made some rather controversial choices, and the generation of updates has been substandard. The implication that this does not concern us in any is completely ludicrous. I can't believe you actually managed to say that with a straight face(presumably). Furthermore, simply discussing these sort of things is not "whining", it's called discussion. This sort of dismissive attitude any time a discussion comes up, "ZOMG you're whining, stop it!It won't accomplish anything" is moronic. If you aren't interested in discussion, why are you on a forum?It's a far more egregious attempt at censorship than Jagex's aimless attempt to censor IVP. I agree with the other posters in this thread, it won't do much to handle complaints, it will only exacerbate the situation.

My suggestions were not meant to be comprehensive in any way, just passing thoughts to solve very specific problems: namely the advertising bots at the GE and Dungeoneering. Simply sending a team of P-Mod's would quite literally solve the problem in the case of Dungeoneering, with the GE it would take more work. Ultimately though, I would probably look into IP bans, in certain situations and perhaps contacting ISPs(if something along those lines is possible), or lawsuits where applicable. Vigilance is key with regards to bots; at the moment Jagex doesn't even seem to be making the minimal effort to combat bots.

I think they are at that stage where they have stopped caring about the bot problem. If they really were concerned, there are bots in all sorts of common places that would be easy enough to nuke. In fact, one of the disturbing trends I have noticed while training cooking at the GE is the number of firemaking bots there, especially the number of high level bots(some well over level 130), it's as if they no longer fear getting banned. They are real easy to detect because of their patterns. Then their are the spamming bots, both in public chat, and private chat(if you happen to ever turn yours on for a second). It should be easy enough to send a team of P-Mods, to Dungeoneering servers(there are bots there too) and the GE, to sort this mess out(at least the advertisers). But apparently they can't be bothered to do that. You know botting is rampant when they do it openly in the GE of all places. The trial membership seems only to exacerbate this problem because the culprits can just claim free membership on level 3 accounts and spam, if I am not mistaken. A possible solution would be to limit their speech during trial memberships in key places(Dungeoneering -- outside the dungeons where the actual recruiting/advertising goes on and the GE). It really isn't too hard to deal with these problems, much like the server problems that have beset RS for months, but it requires actual concern on Jagex's part; a difficult feat indeed. Giant bot nukes, while fun, are not enough, it's not enough to simply nuke them once every year, one must stay vigilant.

The formula is a major problem, on so many levels. Firstly, arbitrarily deciding to remove certain skills which had always(or at least since their inception, in the case of summoning) been part of combat(and sensibly so they were part of combat) is asinine. Prayer and Summoning are important combat skills. To just remove them suddenly, is completely uncalled for, particularly when so many people have worked hard for them. I am not against these sort of changes(for instance the Divine Shield lost it's abilities with regards to mage/range, and i am sure that shits on a lot of people who paid hundreds of millions for it, but it was worth it since it balances the triangle). In the case of combat there is simply no justification for removing those skills. When pressured, their response was "Well, don't worry we will once again arbitrarily weaken the influence of these skills on combat, therefore, the formula won't be too inaccurate as a descriptor of combat skills". More nonsense. Like I said, I am not against major change, but it should at least have some justification. From what I can tell, the formula re-work is just to simplify it for the kiddies, rather like the HP --> Constitution change was. In any case, I am not too pleased. It's part of what I called the "WoW-ifcation" of RS. I am somewhat happy to hear that they nixed the idea to lower XP when training on lower level monster training. It wasn't inherently a bad idea, but it was causing major problems for slayer. I read two of the articles, the one on the combat update and the one on RS and coping, I enjoyed them both.

I admit my posts were somewhat abrasive but only so because the person towards whom the abrasiveness was directed towards jumped into this thread with a similar attitude towards. I wouldn't have noticed it too much but this is not the first time that user has been discourteous to me. Abrasiveness begets abrasiveness. I am more than happy to treat with people courtesy and respect provided they treat me in a similar manner.In any case, I apologize if my attitude has been inappropriate, and I will try to minimize that. I never stated that my posts or efforts in this thread were somehow going to stop this. Nor am I some sort of crusader. If I was interested in making myself known or directly stopping this, I would probably make rants, petitions, organize riots, etc., all the usual stuff, I have no interest in any of that. I simply made my opinion known in this thread(which is, of course, what threads are for). My comment on social pressure was merely to state, just for the sake of discussion, that contrary to what was stated, judgement and social pressure can be effective. That's to say, if the RS community wanted, they could shame these people into submission, to some extent at least. I came here only for discussion, not to crusade or to make my views known to lot of people. I was somewhat taken back by all the responses claiming that we have no right to judge others and their spending habits -- I took issue with that and thought I had something different to share, so I came in and discussed, that's all. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alg wrote; Well, I am part of that group too I suppose, I have been around RS for some 9-10 years at this stage. I have personally never been part of the "ZOMG, Fletch X has made my achievements completely worthless! Dat evil Jagex!!!" group. *Emphasis mine. Just to clear up a few things which you have not necessarily stated, but I feel some people are assuming about me. Firstly, I did not post in this thread as a means of activism. I did not post here to personally convince someone or to sway them in some other direction. I posted here only to participate in a discussion, a mostly academic discussion. So am I under the perception that players will read my posts and suddenly stop buying spins? No. Secondly, I previously stated that I do not go around harassing micro transactors. I don't think insulting people is a productive activity. There was a research thread here where someone bought 970 spins, I don't recall if I participated in it, I might have made one post. Nonetheless, I didn't berate the OP at all. Thirdly, social pressure is not about harassing people or yelling at them or insulting them. That's just bad manners and juvenile douche-baggery. Mind you, I did hand out a few [cabbages] earlier in this thread, but that was for rhetorical purposes, only to counter-act the stringent line of thought that was developing in this thread, "You have no right to judge-others". No one stated that social pressure would eliminate all the problems in RS, I simply refuted the inaccurate notion that being judgemental accomplishes nothing. My application of social pressure won't accomplish much, but that's because I am an unknown player. There are plenty of well-known and respected players whose opinion does matter, I leave the crusading and activism to them.

What question would that be? I already answered at a decent length all the relevant points you brought up -- which you seem to have completely failed to address in this post of yours.

Simply repeating, or redirecting me to your erroneous assertion that I was "shoving my opinion down other people's throats" will not suddenly make it accurate. On the contrary, I don't lose any sleep over it, nor do I obsess over other people purchasing micro transactions. It is something that I strongly disapprove of, and I have made that known in this thread, but that's it. It's rather like botting, another thing which I strongly disapprove of, but it has no immediate bearing on me. I am a relatively high-level player whose training spots are bot-free, so bots aren't a daily annoyance to me like they are to others, but I still disapprove of people using them, and I still think they have disastrous social consequences for the general RS community, particularly lower-level players. I am not "butthurt" over them, though, much like I am not "butthurt" over micro transactions. Ironically though, you seem to be struggling with the notion that there are actually people like me that simply disapprove(it isn't as if I go around rioting, or harassing micro transactors, I simply hold an opinion on their action which I have made public herein) of micro transactions, you can't seem to bear it, and insist that merely holding the opinion of disapproving of the act of micro transacting is "shoving down my opinion down other people's throat", it seems you are the one butthurt over people simply holding an opinion. I am perfectly aware that the administration has changed and what precisely that implies. Which is why I am quite sensibly, voicing my opinion that prior to their taking over the reins, there was a long-held tradition that I(and others) would still very much like being upheld. Nothing wrong, or insensible about that. It has material and symbolic consequences. Some players feel that this devalues their accomplishments(I don't personally feel this way), this is a symbolic/emotional/personal consequence. Some rather well-known players(e.g., Zezima, Zarfot) have voiced such concerns. There are several material consequences, it encourages Jagex to develop more micro transactions, taking time away from other updates, but more importantly it normalizes micro transactions and once that happens, suddenly aspects which previously were obtainable by simply playing P2P and working hard, now become available through only or perhaps mostly micro transactions, say such as high-level gear. If enough players signify, with their wallets, to Jagex that they are okay with purchasing stuff(surely a sizeable amount, if not most, of those who would purchase worthless cosmetic gear, would also be willing to pay for important and useful stuff), then Jagex will charge for more stuff, and the rest of us, who aren't fond of micro transactions will have to buy important stuff in order to stay competitive/enjoy the game, when we previously didn't. That's a material consequence that affects a great deal of us. As they say, it's somewhat of a slippery slope(which before any smartass decides to jump in, is not always a fallacy).

Your personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant;words and phrases have a specific meaning. The phrase "shoving one's opinion down someone else's throat" specifically denotes repeatedly stating your opinion(often when it is unwanted), and insisting people adopt it. I have done no such thing. Simply stating your opinion, even if it happens to be judgemental of someone else is not "shoving my opinion down other people's throats". If you need any further help with understanding basic English phrases and idioms, I'd be happy to help, I know you've been struggling with these. Predictably, you have failed to read or perhaps understand what was said yet again. What part of "their personal decisions have social consequences" do you not understand? Would you prefer that I break down that statement, and explain the meaning of each individual word to you? That(people buying more cosmetic gear than game-altering gear) has not yet happened, or if it has, no evidence has been provided to confirm this. RS enjoyed, prior to the current regime, a proud tradition that it would never engage in micro-transactions of any kind. By partaking in and tolerating a subset of micro transactions(e.g., cosmetic gear), these players are directly and actively undermining that tradition, which as stated above, has grave consequences for the rest of us. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Alg wrote: False. Social pressure can be incredibly effective if intensely applied. Furthermore, if anything, the only thing this forum has become somewhat familiar with, and known-for, over the years has been its legion of Jagex apologists and brown-nosers. Mind you, I am not calling anyone in this thread that, but that is a general problem this forum has.

Voicing your opinion once in a thread, even if it happens to be judgemental is not tantamount to "shoving one's opinion down other people's throat". If you are going to come in and try to save the day, try actually understanding what your tired old cliches mean before using them. That way you won't make a fool out of yourself. Pr0 phr33 tip,bro! I already explained the social consequences of their personal choices, thus immediately making this my problem, and that of others. So in addition to not knowing what your own cliches mean, you also aren't terribly good at reading comprehension either. Not too surprising. That only detracts time and resources from real updates, and encourages Jagex to develop even more micro-transactions:including cosmetic and substantive game altering ones. It already has happened to an extent(with the XP lamps) and Solomon's general store is simply one more step in that direction.

I don't accept all this talk about how unfair it is to judge these people for engaging in micro transactions. [bleep] it, I will judge people all I want. Why? Because their, albeit, personal shopping decisions have a huge social impact within the realm of the game. By spending money on such things, these people are reinforcing and encouraging this sort of behaviour from Jagex; they are subsiding it. It's the same moral principle behind boycotts. They are encouraging a regime that is consistently, as of late, putting out filler -- or worse yet -- no content at all, too preoccupied with micro transactions, while there are problems with [bleep]ING logging in, you know actually accessing the product. And I also blame the Gower brothers, I rather like them and used to respect them, and their regime certainly didn't have this sort of shit, but it was ultimately Andrew who decided to take his millions of pounds(more than enough to live the rest of his life in absolute luxury) and run off to make more money, selling the game to vulture(sorry, I meant "venture") capitalists, whose only concern is making money at any cost, the rest of the game be damned. So, yes, [cabbage] the players who subside this sort of stuff, [cabbage] this insidious regime, and [cabbage] the Gowers who shafted their own game.

@Arcley I don't have any problem with the concept of group slayer' date=' in fact I was quite excited for it, I am merely dissatisfied with [i']how [/i]it was implemented, not that it was implemented. Nonsensical apologetics on your part. So just because we have legitimate concerns with this update, we shouldn't voice them? We should pretend to like it? The problem isn't "ZOMG, they didn't make the game easier, time to complain". The problem is that the update failed to accomplish its goal(addressing the fundamental problem of limited monsters/crowded spots). This update doesn't phase me either way, I have long been 99 slayer, I merely offered my opinion so that it may be a good update for those who have still yet to train slayer. It's not about making the game easier for me, per se, it's about addressing some concerns which have always been there in slayer(crowded spots). If anything, by pointing out this failure, we are engaging in constructive criticism, so that the particular update can be successful. But hey don't let that get in the way of you arguing against some half-baked straw man where everyone just complains ad-nauseum for the sake of it!

If the whole point is getting xp, then that's something that needs to change. Doing activities socially is much more fun and personally fulfilling than doing it on your own, and Runescape has trended towards this fact, and it's not an unwelcome one. If all you care about is xp, all the power to you, but lots of players don't play the game for that. I certainly don't. There are already plenty of social activities to do in RS which allow you to get a decent amount of XP. This one is egregious because rather than making a slow skill(one of the slowest) to train more bearable it only compounds the problems already present.

What a poorly planned, self-undermining update social slaying is!If I understand it correctly, you do not get shared XP, combat or slayer. That makes this update completely worthless. Why would I want to do slayer at an even slower rate than it was before this? At best, you will roll through assignment after assignment with less XP. Also, why would I want to unlock abilities like share potions; which aside from being minimally useful(it is more efficient to use your own potions than to get half the effect from your friend), they might actually make my partner get more kills. Afterall, if I am after XP, I will be competing with my partner to do more damage. It does not solve the fundamental problem of crowded spaces. The whole point of slayer is XP, not just rolling through assignments. The only way this could be worthwhile is if somehow you get more XP per hour because of your ability to do assignments faster with a friend.

Since when do fantasy games need to be "sensible" in the framework of real life? Anything can happen in MMORPGs, that's the whole point! How else would explain all the other stuff that goes on in there? It makes complete sense within its own framework. They could explain it away quite easily if they wanted. Here, I will try: Guthix's edict prevents multicombat in certain areas. That only took me 2 seconds to come up with, it wasn't that hard. If what you have stated is Jagex's justification for this, then that's quite moronic on their part.

I just logged onto RSC, apparently I still have access despite being away for 400+ days. It managed to keep my interest for a few minutes before I left. That aside, this server crash is simply annoying, that's all, I will survive(assuming there are no major roll-backs).