Kimberly

Well, but in that case there's no real need to mention the CEO at all, is there? I thought the CEO did more administration for the company while the lead designer did what you're referring to. What's the purpose of pairing them together if not for being unhappy with both the company direction as well as game direction?

I enjoy opinion pieces and looked forward to this latest edition of the times. However, this week's piece seemed more like a ramble of thoughts on the subject with no real conclusion. At a few points, it outright contradicts itself. It was unsatisfying to read and I got the sense that the author didn't really have any belief in what he was writing on, or it would've been more cohesive. The article opens stating that many would have quit if death was final. It concludes guessing for a "mode" just like that. It puts the introduction and conclusion completely opposite of each other and would've been better off being explained throughout the article. ("Why is this important? Why do I think it's important?") Then it asks a question in the middle of the piece when we, the audience, already know the answer to ("Is the risk?") from the first 3 paragraphs, even without the common knowledge your average scaper has. Even still, this could have been a point to emphasize despite being out of place, yet that emphasis is lost by an overuse of linebreaks. (This actually happens throughout the article as well.) It challenges the physics of the game lazily, jumping from gravestones to lack of environmental danger, yet doesn't even mention why that's a problem to them personally. (And it's problematic because they disrupt the narrative context, breaking immersion, however you want to describe it.) Were it not for everything above though, I would still say the article is flawed. The piece lacks any ties to current-day events to make it relevant. It's the sort of article I'd expect to see after grave timers were extended or after the Dwarf King gravestone was released. At the very least, an opportunity to make this gripe relevant was lost by ignoring the behemoth boss Vorago and how it's entirely risk free compared to, I don't know, any other boss released prior to 2007. Mentioning GWD would have been a great example since it was the last big boss set we received before gravestones that is still relevant today. Or failing that, even having a better recall of Runescape's history would have helped since there was no turmoil over how player drops worked because when the wilderness was removed gravestones were clearly explained to players and released at the same time free trade was removed. Overall the article just seemed ill informed, latching onto any stray thought possible to stretch the article length, and made no attempt to be relevant to current events when it was so mindblowingly easy to do so. That sort of speaks to a lack of presence in today's Runescape. Even still, if more effort was made to tie it to personal feelings and better organized those thoughts, the out-of-touch vibe you get as a reader wouldn't have been such a big deal. It made good, sporadic points, points that are just timeless because they've been there as long as the game has. Unfortunately, these weren't emphasized and sloppily spread through the article and seemed more like dumb luck than actual informed opinions.

The problem about citing arguments in a thread is that you should actually cite them rather than just glancing at the posts and drawing whatever the most convenient conclusion is for you. By just blabbing back fake quotes of arguments not even slightly stated is not only poor discussion, but is very near to insulting. If you have opinions to say, surely you can take a few moments of your time to actually explain those things rather than just mocking the people who are putting in effort to discuss the subject. The topic title might have been a loaded question, but the discussion has gone beyond that without being held back. So just try to actually post instead of posting what is essentially "lol im right u guys r proving me right see yeah lol" (If the above statement irritates you because it's an overly simplified, childish response then you finally understand what you're doing to every person you respond to with your above post.)

If the game is declining, so is their "stable" income that allows them to do all the cool stuff they need to do in order to make the game better and correct whatever mistakes occur. If the people aren't coming to the game, then they need to start funding (more or less) more work to correct those things. They can't do that if the money from membership subs keep declining, so they have to get that elsewhere - microtransactions. With that, they can keep working on and releasing the sort of stuff to hopefully correct what's going wrong rather than cut back things more and more. I think the direction they took (which surely the CEOs chose) with MTs was vital and without it they wouldn't have even had a chance to TRY to save the game, let alone fix anything else. Yes, MT's are a short term recovery, but maybe that's just what they need right now until they can start getting content that will grab new people. Just look at the sort of stuff that's getting overhauls lately: major skill reworks, an entire interface overhaul, use of HTML5 which will only improve as time goes on, a looming pvp rework, EoC which still needs work but now the foundation is there if they can just start allocating more effort into improving it, steadily reworking/updating old quests. All of those updates are focused on improving the old game to bring it back up to current-day-snuff. It's the sort of stuff that sounds good on paper, the sort of thing you can get behind that makes MTs a bitter pill and gives the current userbase hope for the future. But if you look at how the EoC has progressed since release, that hope becomes a bit more shaky. Oh, it's still there, sure, but the longer it takes to correct EoC's "flaws" the weaker and dimmer that light of hope becomes. And they absolutely cannot afford to keep losing their base to despondency and boredom, or the MTs won't be a big enough bandaid. tl;dr: When I look at what they're trying to do, I've got a lot of hope for the future even though the player base is still decreasing. But the "recovery"/gaining more players is uncertain. I think the direction they took with MTs was vital and without it they wouldn't have even had a chance to start correcting what was wrong with the game at a fundamental level. EoC was the start, but the overall benefit of that was neutral since it added a new set of problems on top of what already needed fixing. At least now the groundwork is there, and we'll see if it pays off. Sorry if that was too off-course.

Yeah I totally understand :) E: I realize that might seem sarcastic...wasn't meant to be, I swear @_@

You're forgetting that people that resort to those things are deluded in regards to what is socially acceptable. You're forgetting that on the internet, memes are socially acceptable. It's normal to dislike them when overdone, and while you're not alone in that regard, you probably shouldn't be preaching from a supposed position of superiority. still luv u doe, drown in the irony of this closing remark

Which was exactly what Lego said. But really, is this any different than any other time? There's always a large percentage of whiners. You have to dig through the dross to find the gems worth reading, always. A large majority of whiners is no reason to ignore the constructive criticism offered. If the RSOF wasn't so dreadful with archiving, much of that constructive feedback would've been preserved. Maybe then it would have had a better chance of reaching the right people and been harder to ignore. Hindsight may be 20-20 but I hope they consider different ways of gathering feedback in the future because anyone can see that the RSOF is a bad way of doing that.

Not to mention then that people would have to purchase a separate dragon pickaxe, gild it, and convert it to this inferno pickaxe if it won't modify what's already on your toolbelt. I think I might have to buy a pick just in case...:/ E: I had this thread loaded and up, went to go do stuff for an hour, and came back to respond without reloading the page first. Whoopsie. It seems this point has already been covered. :) E2: Ten bucks says they add that a week after the pick comes out Well there is a possibility that the update that releases the quest will allow you to add the adze and inferno pickaxe - or at the very least have a one-time chance to remove the pickaxe already on it. This is such an obvious issue that surely they'll figure out something.

Yup, done.

PvP was dying long before the EoC came out. The blows that it was dealt beforehand came too fast for anything to be built up as safe alternatives for PvP increased. Loot was one of the main draws to keep the community growing, and that only got worse and worse as years went on.

Thank you Orangeesh. :) This weekend won't really be one for exp. Boyfriend came over for Friday/Saturday, then today is my mother's birthday. She would've been 54 years old. I'm going to try making tiramisu for her birthday like I had promised her I would the year she passed. If it's not absolutely horrendous maybe I'll take pictures.

Today I'm watching Clue to make some gifs. You've been warned.

ice spells don't work anymore though, do they thought the whole reason people used them was cause of the freezing effect and that doesn't work

Jagex didn't really do anything especially wild back then though to attract people. They didn't have to. Instead, they just worked on their game in a time where convenient browser games and MMOs were hitting it big and they reaped the benefit of advertising. To get the same level of attention with so much competition in all the aspects that made the game popular, they have to really bust their ass. And they do. You can hate the game all you want but when you roll out an update like EoC that changes the entire core of how the game runs takes a special set of balls.

I'll throw in some Lime & Lemonade :thumbup: Just made a big batch of lemonade and I'm going to make italian ice later on.

Comparing OSRS and Runescape in 2007 doesn't make sense. The former was a static game with usability updates and a portion of the community and the latter got regular new content and the entire community. I don't agree with 2007-era RS being better than today, personally, but it's really foolish to say that time was worse and use 07 as supporting evidence.

Working through: White Collar Breaking Bad The Riches Luther

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzh3qYHtw9U

You win coolest blog name is prestigez prize

I personally think that blaming the declining activity in minigames on the efficiency mindset is too convenient a scapegoat. While the current community is definitely more efficiency minded than it was in the past, this sort of behavior is nothing new. In fact, it has always been a part of the game, just in a less pop-culture sort of way. It's important to remember that they're minigames, not really intended to appeal to everyone. There's always going to be your reward chasers increasing the game's activity so long you use that to draw in extra players - and many minigames do use this system. Nothing really wrong with that, except that as the game changes it risks becoming completely irrelevant with each game update. If you look at almost every dead minigame, there is a section of the community that will always be there that enjoys the game simply for the sake of the game. This is true for GOP, Stealing Creation, Castle Wars, etc. These people will always be there, regardless if the rewards are no longer relevant in today's game. Sadly, those people will always be a smaller group than the reward-seekers. Again, that hasn't changed over time at all - what has is the number of overall players. It's simply easier to spot these problems when you look at minigames. Less people overall throughout the course of say, 3 years, can really make things difficult even for the hobbyist players since a few of these games were clearly made with a larger audience in mind to run smoothly. (Castlewars being a prime example.) It might not be all that wise to hold minigames up as the sole pillar of proof that the game's population has declined over the years, but when held against the rest of the evidence we have on the matter it's easier to infer what's going on. Now that I've said all that though I would like to also point out that MMORPGs overall are declining as well, which does not help the problems RuneScape suffers from today.