jettrider

It's either part of an existing quest or part of the plans for a new low level quest. It can't possibly be a GWD update or new high level quest because Jagex doesn't make high-level content. It's better to make content that 5 million people can "enjoy" rather than create exiting, useful, replayable content that gives people goals to shoot for. No, that would make absolutely no sense for Jagex, quest requirements are a bad idea because it means less 8 years olds will subscribe. QED.

I'm level 138, I have completed every quest, and my lowest skill is level 73. I don't enjoy any of the skills anymore because they've gotten stale. Any update has no replay value and isn't fun in the first place (on the average of 1 medium 1 small update per month, compared to 1 large 2 medium 1 small back in 2005-2006). That's probably why they've lost my $5/month. It almost seems as if the development team has shrunk in size because the lack of quality updates is quite disturbing. I would have been happy to pay Jagex far more than $5/month in 2005-2006 but now I wouldn't even pay $1/month for RuneScape.

Every game the vast majority of idiots flock to the level 4/5 stuff. You're supposed to grab the fragments then find a 2/3 resource and use your level 1 tool, then find a level 4/5 resource with your level 2/3 tool. It saves about 3-5 minutes (no joke) by working your way up instead of hoping to strike gold, figuratively speaking. In all honesty if I see my teammates doing that I have already resigned myself to a lost game.

Probably just a graphical update, it's only a few pixels different.

Okay. I'll bite. First and foremost, they're not just updating the code, they're refactoring the entire engine [source]. It's been rehashed a lot this past week and a half that refactoring is one of the most complicated things any programmer or team of programmers has to do, and for RuneScape, has become absolutely necessary. Refactoring also means that they're adding support for new stuff, so things like randomly-generated scenarios for groups or multidimensional combat may become possible. With that out of the way, and even without ever seeing a single line of their in-house code, I would imagine that the creation of new areas, such as Morytania, Priffnidas, and so forth requires less new code than most; chances are they have a way to generate cities and landscapes without much work on the developers' part. New updates or things that they want to do differently than the norm (example: Temple of Light/Construction) require new code, and in many cases, it's these projects that not only take a lot of time, but are susceptible to break a lot more quickly. [Case in point: Construction. Not only did the game engine get updated twice to support it, it still had a lot of gaping errors. Not that I'm pointing my finger at them for that, though. Just saying.] That being said, in 2004, the biggest minigame we had was probably Castle Wars. This was a new piece of code since nothing had existed that allowed multiple players to play "capture the flag", and it needed plenty of tweaks throughout the years to fix gaping holes. Fixing "gaping holes" is perfectly fine, but whatever changes they made to the engine to allow (Im)mobilising Armies to come out were a waste of a time. If MA is the type of content they can churn out with those upgrades I don't want them to keep working on those particular aspects (selecting multiple units, camera view, etc) of the engine; instead, they should work on something fun, like a replayable minigame or a completely new skill/game aspect.

Jagex hasn't fixed anything this year that needed fixing badly (see "Biggest 5 Problems in RuneScape"). The only replayable updates were bad. Soul Wars has become a new PC, with about as much fun in it, and Mobilising Armies made me feel more disappointed in Jagex than any other update. The Q&As and Developer Diaries haven't told me anything I've wanted to know, and any time Mod MMG has been asked an important questions, he answers with "we are aware" or "we are working on it" meaning "we don't care and it's not a priority." I quit RuneScape this year. Coincidence?

Make an account -> Grind to 120+ combat without training skills -> Go to GWD/new monster releases -> Make cash -> Buy skills to be able to do all quests -> Go to TDs or GWD if you feel like it -> Go corp whenever you get LSP -> buy the rest of your 99s. Part of the reason I've quit for now is Jagex's lack of response to adding value to skills like Crafting, Herblore, Smithing, etc.

In all honesty Jagex doesn't care if you rant about glitches, as long as you are addicted enough to keep paying membership they can just churn out filler updates to keep you momentarily busy. In terms of software used for things other than entertainment, such huge glitches would be big problems, but since hundreds of thousands of addicted kids have their parents pay $74/year to play the game, stuff like that can happen. I really would have hoped that over time Jagex would learn why such horrible bugs "slip" through QA and modify the test server/QA process to prevent the same things slipping through. For example if I was testing MA I would try everything I could to lose items in a "safe" minigame, then I would try everything possible to break the process for getting into a game (such as getting 20 players, or computer drones, into the waiting room and seeing the average waiting time per game of each), then finally I would try to find ways to abuse the system to get faster reward credits (like suiciding on Siege). After all that is solid then I would start worrying about graphical glitches and unresponsive units. Unfortunately, every one of those game-breaking bugs made it through.

We don't care about graphical glitches, we care about game-breaking glitches. For example when Mobilising Armies was released only one of the four scenarios worked. Either they forgot to try playing 75% of the game or their test environment isn't a good model of RuneScape. Either one is a big problem.

I was writing a simple program to test whether a string was a palindrome. I spent three hours trying to figure out what was going wrong on certain phrases, thinking all along that my code was correct, then I realized that my program was taking the wrong input on those phrases using next() instead of nextLine() #-o so yeah, I understand somewhat how simple things can get through, but... I do have a problem as to how they approach it. The things that are slipping through have been more and more game-breaking. I don't care if an odd combination of items makes a graphical glitch or if my familiar gets stuck. But when bugs come out that players can abuse for big profits/experience, I'm astounded. As a tester, you should think like a player: "how can I abuse this to improve my character?" instead of "if I do something odd, what error message will the game give me?" because frankly only game breaking bugs are worrysome.

These are all huge problems in RuneScape, so much so that I can't rank them in order of severity. Every single one of these reasons will bring down RuneScape or hinder its progression in the years to come. What's worse is that Mod MMG tries to sound like they are working on these but with clever escape answers he really reveals that they don't care: [*:1stl010g]Huge lack of high-level skill updates. None of the "refining" skills make a profit (Hunter and Runecrafting are the only ones that can compete with camping even low level monsters). This in my eyes is a serious problem and Jagex has done nothing over the years to fix it. As soon as they do they can return to creating GWD-style updates. [*:1stl010g]Manipulation clans (on a broader sense, some of the GE's more lenient limits) [*:1stl010g]Lack of high-level content/end game perks [*:1stl010g]Lack of quality, replayable, bug-free content (either filler updates which work or big updates like MA that are filled with glitches, have no replay value, and aren't fun at all). Jagex's QA team and late response to player feedback. [*:1stl010g]A continuous waste of time when it comes to PvP (76king, drop potential, statuettes). The system is NOT balanced and has never been. Every time they make a temporary update like statuettes, +1 item worlds, etc, they just delay the problem and other content that a developer could be working on in the meantime. The above made me quit RS, more or less. I am level 138 with 2167 total and over 225m total experience (and I had to look that up for the first time since starting RuneScape).

I agree - treasure trails are a gamble on whether it is worth your time to do the clue. Read my earlier posts - my suggestions would make it always worth your time to do a clue and keep the same rewards.

Water battlestaff was dropped for me, haven't seen it on many of these lists. Charms seem to be mostly blue/crimson.

It's a shame too, the ammy is really good. All I can say is that if a 78 monster drops an ammy that good, I wonder what new monsters for 90+ would drop :shock: A mage weapon with a special attack, dragon defender, dragon crossbow, better metal boots ("barrows boots"), rings with higher offensive bonuses or other uses, etc

Well I did try to warn everyone. 78 is far too low for a new individual slayer monster - it should have been released with others. There are literally 4 people per spawn on all member worlds, and that's with a crashing drop item.

Not really the best designed poll... Slayer needs more high-leveled monsters than anything, not even more low-leveled monsters (there are barely any places to fit them level wise compared to the higher levels). The new monsters need new drops to make them profitable to high-leveled slayers, preferably drops that are untradable or can only be gained on task. These monsters need to be in a new area because there's simply no more room for them, and anyway, a new dungeon or cave could hold other, crowded monsters.

When they nerf statues it will take a few months to settle back to normal. Then the main flow of gold pieces will be from alching again. There was no massive inflation during the years during which the same was true: alching provides the vast majority of cash flow into the game. The new skill that comes out this year will be a money sink, as will the one after that. I really can't see a future skill *not* draining cash (as in, we'll never have another production skill like Hunter). The only thing Jagex can do is create a skill that drains money but can generate quick profit off materials (not the pure cash that was put in).

I'd like to know where you got the 65000 hours of alching number? Is that for one person? What if the person does magic longs instead of yew longs? Basically explain all your figures to me before I can give a response. Yeah, I left out some key details there. Oops. The 65000 hours was the approximate result from dividing my 40 billion approximation by 768, the alch price for yew longbows. There's really no way for me to justify using yew longs. Some more expensive and less expensive things are alched. Even setting the average value of alched items at 1200 (steel platebody), you generate more cash from 26king than from alching. Above steel plates, only a few items can be alched for a reasonable loss. Battlestaves, for one, but those still have a heavy GE limit. Rune meds and chains are commonly alched, but not nearly enough to make a serious dent (they result in heavy losses if you buy to alch, and high-level slayers only occasionally alch their rune item stocks). No matter what numbers you use, 26king is a serious problem.

I agree almost completely with the Anti-Hack Key article. I disagree with the inflation article though. Thousands of players are 26king around the clock. Alone, the yield is not great - only about one million per hour potential per player. But this profit is in pure cash. Combined the threat is huge. If 10000 people got 4 hours worth of potential per day (the core group of players), this pumps 40 billion into the game per day. For reference, that's another 65000 hours of alching (2713 days) that's contributing to inflation daily. Considering alching alone was slowly lowering the value of gold pieces, this is amazingly unwelcome. The problem with alching is that it inputs huge amounts of cash into the game while the person alching gives previously earned cash for the supplies. However, alching is hindered because you lose a substantial amount of money while alching and it is boring. Getting PvP potential, on the other hand, is painless, afkable, and laughably easy. You can even alch comfortably while earning potential. And the hourly yield of 26king in pure cash is higher than the hourly yield from alching anything with a value of 1250 coins or less. And don't tell me I won't feel the effects - I was holding several hundred millions coins before the latest PvP update. Even hastily buying raw materials didn't turn around my losses - it only slowed them. Honestly, dropping slayer and boss monster items was a better temporary solution than artifacts.

I know, but I cba to get it anymore. It was years ago and my friend was doing it and I thought it was hilarious. Now I have better things to do and I like having a smaller bank anyways.

Well you still have the charms, and they are quite good experience with ranged or halberds. Plus, you would be getting the same value per clue, only you wouldn't have to go off and do a clue so much that more time is spent clueing and traveling than training. At the same time I want to be reasonable. No one wants to grind on hours for end and treasure trails provide a welcome break. We could call for extremely rare clue scrolls with guaranteed millions, but I think semi-rare scrolls with several hundred thousand coins worth is the right balance. That sounds to me like the state lotteries. Their motto is "if you don't enter, you can't win." A better motto would be "if you don't enter, you can't be disappointed." In the state lottos you get about 20-30 cents back per dollar you put in (although in reality you will never see any of your money again, because you would need to live several lifetimes for the chance of hitting a jackpot to be reasonable). I think that doing a treasure trail should NOT be a gamble whether it is time efficient or not. I've talked to many people and stalked a lot of forums and over half of the scapers I've met don't do clues. It's a waste of all the programming that went into them (a considerable amount, considering how many different clues there are). My suggestion (on page 2) would mean that doing Treasure Trails is a good use of your time while making it actually exciting to get them as a drop and do them.

So you know how much it would cost to deploy it, right? I really, really don't think that $20 would let them make any kind of profit. You're right, I'm guessing. But when he says that "to be able to get it down to $10 we would have to sell it for a loss or buy so many than they would never sell," it sure makes me think that setting the price as double the amount would eliminate the loss. Besides, if they want to run RuneScape long-term, buying hundreds of thousands of these things doesn't seem as bad when the game has many years of life in it. Perhaps they could sell the basic one with a less complex algorithm for $10 and offer a $20 one with a more advanced algorithm, extra bank space, and perhaps an avatar on the official forums. Is it not true that if you have lots of items, you have some semblance of value? We're not talking wealth, per se, but sentimental value. Wouldn't it suck to lose something sentimental to you, that you know you couldn't get back? (E.X. Faladian Knights' Sword) Yes, I didn't think of that. I've always found it disgusting that hackers drop charms, fire capes, quest items, etc. I know for sure that if I could get my bull roarer back, I could, because swinging it and making an odd noise in the middle of w2 GE is priceless. Though this is a rather minor complaint, because it's doubtful that the hundreds of excess spaces we already have are filled with sentimentality. I laughed out loud so hard at this. Familiarize yourself with Murphy's Law - if it can go wrong, it will. You should also know that common sense alone isn't going to save you from getting a virus. Sure, it'll prevent some of the more obvious instances, but all it takes is one wrong click. Not even common sense could save you then. If a single person could truly practice common sense 24/7, they would be completely safe (ie, they wouldn't make that "one wrong click" and if they did, they would fix it before entering their password because they would have thoroughly scanned and checked their computer). However, none of us can do that; I know I for one deviate from common sense several, if not many, times per day.

Well people finally got on highscores. Playing the game honestly, it will take about 150 hours to get that 300 ranking. By suiciding it will take about 40 hours. I knew Jagex was a first in online games, but I never knew they were this talented. First they made a strategy game where the best strategy was to do nothing. I didn't think they could eclipse that, but after only a day they managed to create an expansion to the same strategy game where killing your own troops was the best strategy. Bravo, I would never have designed a strategy game with the same cunning =D>

Lies: -I noticed he skated over mentioning the $20 price, which WILL make Jagex profit comfortably (if $10 can almost break even by buying in bulk, $20 definitely can) -It does not make any sense that fuller banks are richer. The richest players have only the necessities. Just admit that bank space was the only thing you could sell to keep a straight face and maintain that you don't sell in-game advantages. -Common sense > all security. Before you visit any webpage, hover your mouse and, if necessary, do a google search on it to see what the deal is. He makes it sound like a person using common sense could still get a virus. Of course, not all of us use common sense 24/7, but if we did, we would be completely safe.

I stopped doing them a long time ago. After 400-500 level 3 clues the best reward was 1 robin hood hat and a bunch of trimmed crap. I want a total rehaul of the clue scroll system. Right now it takes about 100-200 monsters to get a clue scroll - I want to change this to about 1000. You should get once every several slayer tasks, not 1-2 times per task. In turn the average steps for clues should be increased; level 3s should move from 6-7 steps to 12-15. This will push the average time per clue from 10-15 minutes to 20-30. So clue scrolls are harder to get and complete; that means the rewards must be good. I want to get rid of all the silly trimmed crap that doesn't sell. Heraldic helmets were a stupid idea. You should be guaranteed a few clue-specific items per each new clue that you do, and the average value should be 500k+. In other words, doing a clue scroll should be very good money. Right now you get lots of clues with few rewards each. I want the system to change to give few clues with lots of rewards each; in other words, the yield stays exactly the same. Instead of doing 8-10 clues to get 500k, one clue should grant that much. This way, when you see a clue scroll, it's actually worth picking up. The gameplay doesn't suffer because you must do more steps per clue. And the rewards are more exciting while staying perfectly balanced.