qeltar

If this was about stopping RL trading, no. They threw the baby out with the bathwater. If their real goal was to stop high-level staking entirely, why lie about it?

Um. I can't really understand what you are trying to say.. nor where the part about absolute power comes in. Please try again. :)

ego_scorpion and lord_british - if you do not both stop immediately I will have this thread locked. ego_scorpion, your repeated attempts to derail this thread are not appreciated. Why the moderators are allowing this to continue I do not know, but I hope this is just an oversight, otherwise it's certainly not making me feel like continuing to start interesting topics here.

Solidus, I enjoyed reading your reply, thank you. I just want to point out that I do not believe this girl killed herself over a "verbal insult". It was much more a matter of the betrayal issue you mentioned subsequently. Having someone do to you what was done here is horrifying, and when combined with depression can lead to a state of feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. Also, I would like to reiterate that I specifically said in my article that I do NOT think that merely insulting someone in RuneScape would be likely to lead to this sort of tragic outcome. But it can still be damaging and harmful.

To force you to think when responding to it. My guess is that it's a bit of an anti-autoer measure (and hardly a big deal.)

Well you agreed that the book is wrong, and the book is direct marketing at pre-teens, so how can you say that they aren't doing that? Whether intended or not, these are some of the characteristics that make the game popular among pre-teens. Jagex COULD do something about this, but that would cut into their expansion plans and profits. So they don't. It's really that simple. Talk is cheap. Especially when it comes from a corporation defending its self-interest. I don't care what they say -- I care what they do. And what they do is create a game that appeals to kids, and then market it to kids while insisting that they don't want kids to play. This tack was BS when the tobacco companies did it, and it's just as much BS with online gaming. How long has it been since you went through Tutorial Island? Or talked to some of the NPCs in Lumbridge, or went through the Stronghold of Security? I cannot think of a SINGLE PERSON I know who has looked at this game's content and thought that it was oriented towards 20 to 40 year olds. Just as one of many examples, somewhere in the game you are told (paraphrasing), "don't share your password with anyone, net even your best friend!" Do you think companies that believe they are talking to 20-40 year olds write things like that? You are not being honest with yourself. Then again I must ask why you deny that they are marketing to pre-teens? So, you disagree with the concept of the book but are still trying to bend over backwards to defend Jagex. :roll: The book has a copyright of "Jagex Limited". They own the book. They chose the author and they chose to go through a kids' publisher. They are responsible for how this book is being marketed and sold. And it was published earlier this year and has a 2006 copyright date, both of which are after the "only over 13" rule was put into place. Have they tried? Of course not. Yet here you are, again, trying to do everything you can to defend them. Why are you and some others so desperate to do this? Is being a forum moderator that important to you? I consider Jagex money-centered for the very simple reason that they rake in countless millions of dollars in profits but refuse to take any steps to fix issues like underaged players that might cut into those profits. Talk about "how much we care" is cheap. Action matters. What actions has Jagex taken to stop underaged players from joining this game? The answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So, feel free to go on making excuses. I will continue trying to get Jagex to put its money where its mouth is. (Or rather, where the mouths of people like yourselves are, since they can't be bothered to even discuss this issue.)

Sad, but at this point no longer astonishing.. at least for me. :( That analogy is invalid. There is a simple and important legal doctrine called the "reasonable person standard". It simply asks, what would a reasonable person do, or expect, under a particular set of circumstances? Would a reasonable person expect telling a salesperson (who is a stranger) that they are bad at their job to cause him to commit suicide? No. Would a reasonable person expect that befriending a troubled 13-year-old girl who had a history of depression and then betraying her and humiliating her in public might cause her to commit suicide? In my opinion, yes. Whether she had tried before is disputed. I have not seen a reliable report on that. Regardless, suicides do not generally come out of the blue. They are in response to a specific trigger. She had been depressed for years; this event pushed her over the line. Again, this is a completely invalid analogy. And don't make the mistake of assuming that how you'd react to something is how someone else would. I also bet that you aren't a 13-year-old girl, and that DOES matter.

Fey_Warrior, I must begin by noting that in all of the verbiage you wrote, not once did you answer the simple question I asked: Why is Jagex marketing this game to pre-teens? I get lots of excuse-making and obfuscation but never any legitimate answers. Especially from RSOF mods, which really calls into question their ability to analyze these issues fairly. Jagex has created this environment by making rules that prohibit new account signups by pre-teens, while not taking any practical actions to stop it. They have also refused to clearly tell the community that pre-teens who had accounts before that rule have effectively been "grandfathered". And *I* would point out that this is another area where Jagex pays lip service to the matter. If they really didn't want people under 18 registering without permission, they could implement appropriate systems. But this would cut down on their income and member totals, and with Jagex pretty much everything comes second to money. They care about player safety to a certain extent. Specifically, they care about it only so far as it doesn't impact their bottom line. But they are NOT serious about it. If they were, there is SO much more that they could do. I'm sure that they do address the really serious issues, but the rest they only pay lip service to, or make a token effort. They refuse to make any structural changes to their business model to improve online safety or to effectively block children from the game. And again, what's worse is that they happily target kids with ads and marketing campaigns intended to draw them in. You should really stop spending so much time with Jagex apologetics and look at the issue more objectively.

All I have to say to these comments is that I am happy for the both of you. The only way anyone can have these views is if they are both young and lucky enough that they've never had to live with depression or other serious issues. I hope you remain care-free and ignorant enough to be this judgmental of others for as long as possible. Enjoy it while you can. This is false both in terms of ethics and as a matter of law. I could give countless examples. Were it not for their actions, there is no doubt in my mind that the girl would be alive today. They did cause the girl to kill herself. The people who did this knew the girl and what her condition was. That makes what they did all the worse. The larger point is that when someone bullies another on the Internet, you never know what the impact will be on the other person.

Actually, your most important assumption really is #3, and I believe it is incorrect. Even what little Jagex told us about this in the BTS contradicts it: "the ability to offer items to buy and sell across ALL servers and to ALL players!". That's one reason why your conclusions are incorrect. Another is that you are not taking into account the fact that there are thousands of people with billions of gold worth of items clogging their banks that are going to try to sell them using the GE. Initial prices will drop, sometimes significantly; this will level off but I believe that as a whole prices are going lower as a result of the GE, not higher. Edit: Turtle_GS mentioned the buying thing, I missed it before.

It's 2 am in Britain. I'm sure they'll fix it. Network outages are most common on Sundays because it is a slow day often used for maintenance, and not as many technicians are around. Go make yourself a nice cup of tea and relax. :)

Shahrazad -- thank you. I've noticed that women seem to respond to these issues much more reasonably than some men. Doesn't surprise me since on the whole they tend to be more empathetic. Are you truly unaware of just how many people say similar things about RuneScape? Well, it's good that they will take action if you bring abuse to their attention. At the same time, there is much more they could do in terms of being proactive to stop the abuse, and to keep kids out of their game. They apparently don't care enough to do them, however. How am I "taking it a bit far"? By continuing to talk about it? I don't see why I shouldn't, when the situation persists. Jagex clearly isn't going to stop marketing to kids. If the few people like myself who try to bring the issue to light stop, then what? As has already been mentioned several times, the book was written at Jagex's behest and with input from Jagex employees (including, if I am not mistaken, at least one of the Gowers.) Jagex chose to have this book written at a level appropriate for pre-teens. Jagex chose to publish it with Scholastic, a company that specifically puts out kids books and sells them in schools. Why? Bobbington2, you're clearly an intelligent person, but I have to wonder if your status as a moderator has affected your ability to be impartial. (Frankly, I think that using players as moderators is not only a way that Jagex gets free "slave labor", but it's also an instrument of control.) Be honest with yourself. Is it reasonable or appropriate for Jagex to have a RuneScape book that gets kids excited about playing the game, being marketed to 10 to 12 year olds?

Myth. There are dozens of excellent training monsters, but few people seek them out, rather just crowding the same handful of spots that everyone tells everyone else to use.

You should do okay with jellies. Give it a try. :) I wouldn't use bone bolts on Tzhaar monsters, that would be a cure for insomnia...

Two ways, both are more efficient, faster and MAKE money: 1. Ice troll cannoning. 2. Aviansies.

I doubt Jagex is worried about this at all. Consider that detecting drop trading now is not very simple. They'd have to watch for specific items being dropped and then see who picked them up and under what circumstances. In contrast, doing this on the GE would be very obvious, very public (thousands of people would see it) and very easy for Jagex to monitor.

No, I wouldn't. And this claim, too, was already discussed a couple of pages back.

This was already answered. Nobody is "blaming the Internet for her being suicidal". That comment is just silly. ego_scorpion, you have posted over 25 times on this thread in under 7 hours. Mostly making personal attacks -- including one particularly nasty and off-topic post that was deleted -- and repeating the same comments over and over and over again. You are disrupting what had been a rather good conversation. I would appreciate it if you would stop, or if there's a moderator reading this thread, if something could be done before the thread is killed off completely. Thank you.

Once again, those of you who are hand-waving this issue away by effectively blaming the victim do not understand what depression does. alas we agree, it was the depression and not the intrawebz That is not what I said, and we do not agree. Depression is treatable, and she was being treated. Megan Meier was pushed into suicide as a direct result of Internet abuse.

Once again, those of you who are hand-waving this issue away by effectively blaming the victim do not understand what depression does.

Venedlor, A few things. First, as you recognize, hindsight is 20/20. Parents make mistakes, and I doubt you'll find a parent who disputes this. My understanding is that this situation turned sour very quickly and the parents didn't have a chance to respond before Megan made her tragic decision. When she died she was only a few weeks shy of her 14th birthday. If she had been a month older it would not have made a difference. My guess is that her parents felt that it was better for her to be on MySpace under their supervision than to ban her, which would prompt her to try to sneak on without their knowing or being able to monitor what was going on. There are many parents who make that same choice when it comes to RuneScape, incidentally. In hindsight perhaps this was the wrong decision, but we cannot expect parents to be perfect, only reasonable. And the decision was, in my opinion and that of most other people, reasonable. Regardless of their failings, they are not the one who betrayed and prodded this girl into suicide. The people who set up the fake account did that.

Hugh_Mannity, as I said, the story is about a minor and is not in dispute so there isn't going to be a lot of what you are looking for. There are more details here on this 5:40 CNN report. It has an interview with the parents. It includes footage of the police report, which is damning. A neighbor who tried to save Megan with CPR has also been interviewed in other reports. But believe what you wish.

If there aren't medical reports and so forth publicly available, that's perhaps because it is a minor, and because there is no reasonable dispute about the events in the case. That doesn't rule out the "possibility" that there may be more to it, as I already said. But there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that supports any claim that the parents were involved in this girl's death. The fact that anyone would say this here -- which I guarantee they'd never dare say to the parents' faces -- reinforces the core point of my article. ~q

Who brags about what in signatures is not the topic of this thread, and I see no point to you bringing it up unless your goal is to disrupt it. highlanders, you too seem to have nothing to contribute but attacks on me. I'm well aware that you do not like me, but I am not the subject of this article. Please take your vitriol elsewhere, thank you.

As I've already said, the fact that one type of bad thing happens doesn't mean that there isn't valid reason to discuss another type. If you aren't interested in my threads or posts, you have plenty of other options. I have patiently ignored a large number of personal attacks that you have leveled towards me, but it is growing tiresome. If you do not cease, I will take this matter up with the moderators. ~q