Jonanananas

Yes they do still have a connection with Runescape. First of all, the gowers are still shareholders of (I believe) 52% of Jagex, also Paul is a Game Content developer for Runescape and Andrew is lead developer of Runescape, at least on paper. However, it's not quite clear (at least to me) how much exactly he is still doing, and how much of it is decided my Mod Mark, lead designer of Runescape. Also, while the Board of directors generally has an influence and could override any decisions made, they usually worry about the business aspect of running a company and leave the game itself to the lead developer/designer. So this doesn't mean that foreign investors control everything about Runescape now...but it definitely has an influence, and probably a not too small one.

Cool to know my article was liked :P I'll adress a few things now. Quote from the article: Into the cash reserves emptied by the MechScape incident? That covers your first part, and for the second part...I haven't read anything about that. Could you point out which lawsuit exactly you mean? Well, first of all I only used wiki references of which I was sure they were legit because I have seen it on the original source. Unfortunately, if you check the references in the wiki article, it seems to have expired over time, keep in mind that was a few years ago. Also, I used references to state where I got my information/inspiration from, not to make it 100% failsafe. If I wanted an article good enough to be used at court I would have put way more work into that ;) #8 was the sticky on the wildywyrms update, unfortunately it got eaten by chewy already. I should've watched out and bumped it :/ As for #9, the link isn't quite correct, replace the "a" after ...forums? with a "1", then it will take you there. And as said....of course it's a company. They have to focus on making money or they will never succeed in the modern word of capitalism ;) They simply shouldn't take it too far, especially when it's only about short-term profit....in the long run they will hurt themselves. --------------- And yes, I guess my article is indeed quite "doomsday"-like, but I had to get that off my heart ;)

first! :D Can't escape the present: Well, I haven't played in 2006 so I don't really can say what it's like. But I think what people think back then was so much better is not how the game in itself worked, it was more the spirit of it. Jagex was smaller at the time and at least seemingly not so money-oriented as of today. Also, I think it had more of a "cult" game status back then that comes from not having good graphics and being told of only through players themselves(kind of like minecraft today). Today, even though I haven't played back then...Jagex seems more distant somehow. Why the negativity: Well, have you ever though about that this are simply your feelings because you personally like pking very much? For me, and from what I've seen from some others the general feeling is that some people at Jagex don't care as much about runescape anymore and only use it as a cash cow. There are several incidents to suggest this, one of them introducing wildy/free trade with no functioning bot detection system. We *do* know now that bots are back forcefully(I don't know when you wrote this article, but honestly even before the update it wasn't hard to guess tbh - there were plenty of people predicting exactly this.) There are some other points of your article I disagree with. The report abuse button: Have fun wasting 2 hours of your playtime reporting 100 bots at Aubury's on *one* world. Even if you do...what use if 1.it takes months until something happens 2.for some bots, nothing happens at all 3.most will just get rolledback slightly 4.even those banned can buy their accounts back? The community using the economy to disable bots: Dream on. Nuff said, sorry. I will happily provide Jagex with feedback and ideas, but only when I get the impression that it is of any use. From the way they are acting at the moment, I never even slightly had the idea that this would be the case.

Maybe I misunderstood something(I haven't tried out the urns myself - not much time to play recently), but aren't the urns basically free xp for nothing? Just like effigies were? I'm sorry, I'm definitely not one of the guys who complains every time a skill gets easier, but honestly I hate those updates which only deliver more xp and NOTHING else. Xp as a quest reward? Great! New elite content with higher xp rates? Super! Some FUN new minigame/D&D who offer an alternative way of training? Awesome! But....Free xp for the sake of it? Honestly, where's the point? How does it improve your playing? Why did anyone waste developer time with that...?

The ultimate bot horizon theory? :rolleyes: Sorry...what exactly would that be? lol

Honestly, I don't want to see the rage when they take out free trade and wildy again...and I don't think it will happen. I honestly doubt that, no matter how bad botting or RWT is going to become, as long as they get enough money from membership revenues, they will not take it out again. Even if it should ruin the game for a large number of legit players. They only took it out last time because of credit card fraud, and it seems like they have something against that now - but not against botting and RWTing in itself. Why should they care, they get their $

Of course the only way to deal with it is somehow adapting if Jagex doesn't change anything...but isn't that exactly the point? That Jagex SHOULD change something? That their passiveness(sometimes more like encouraging) way is NOT right? My second point is that, if you don't do something you would like to do in RS because of bots, then something is seriously amiss. If bots grow so bad that, let's say every yew tree(or chinchompa hunting spot or w/e) is too crowded to do the certain skill, then that means bots are forcing legit players out of their playstyle. This is, imo, in NO way acceptable and should really be fought against. True, there will always be a certain percentage of bots in rs, but as long as they don't suppress the legit players then it's not a big deal. With the current situation, bots do suppress legit players in some ways though.

you can chop other trees OR you can chop yews in other locations What happens if every yew tree has bots at it? Are you honestly saying that it's ok for runescape players to be forced out of their playstyle because of bots lmfao. that's like saying if i spend my free time weaving baskets i need to pay taxes on the value of those baskets. i would only need to pay taxes on the baskets if i sell them. True. There are games with microtranscations, and obviously every player has to fill out tax forms for that[/sarcasm]

I was at Aubury's recently and caught over 100 bots. I have checked there from time to time and never have I seen that much, maybe 30 at max. Grant you, it's a limited point of view, and yeah I haven't done extensive studies...but I do believe that there are a lot more bots than were before the petition was announced.

The trailer can also be seen on the Youtube channel of jagex, from which you can easily download it. Just google it, there are thousands of ways to download youtube videos :P

First article: Very good and logical, and shows how meaningless this whole poll even was. It was indeed just a PR stunt, and one of those little signs that show me that Jagex is not quite the perfect company I'd like them to be. Second article: Excellently writting, I could really understand how you feel about the return of the old wild even though I cannot stand PKing at all for myself. :thumbup:

First article: Well the petition and referendum definitely caused some stirring but apart from a bit of a fail on jagex's side and their usual covering of having made a mistake, there wasn't anything bad about that. And to covering up we're sadly used to by now. King of dwarves definitely was not the best of quests, but I still liked it. I don't know where that ridiculous fight came from, and the puzzles weren't perfect either. But the storyline it itself was quite good and I think it's mostly a preparation for the grand finale - and after chosen commander we know that mod john a is good at finales And nex...is simply one of the best updates recently. Finally a boss that needs really high levels(even though i am not high-leveled), cannot be soloed(yet) and does consist of more than "hit and eat"+tanking. I don't see the problem with the armour being degradable - if you can afford it, you can afford the degrading costs anytime. You also missed the fact that high defence bonuses make the zaros kc monsters unaggressive, as well as the fact that getting the key, in comparance to nex is a piece of cake and if you're actually having trouble doing that, you shouldn't even attempt nex. When I have a look at all that, I cannot see how you deem january to be a disappointing month. I just about disagree with almost all of your points :P Second article: I actually like that fact that leveling dungeoneering is at first very slow and the xp rates grow a lot over time. I find both the fact to be able to breeze through 60-70 levels in a skill so fast and having such a huge gap that takes ages after 99 rather a joke. Imo, this system is far better. True, teaming up can sometimes be a bit annoying, but in the end it's what makes the skill really fun. I think it's ok that Jagex wants to encourage group playing. And if you really want to solo - hey! you still can, and the xp rates are not *that* bad either. On the last point - of course the skill was hyped up in the q&a's. W/e, it will always be. The only thing that I agree with is that frozen, furnished floors etc. are kind of a waste and it's sad to see them only rushed through. But hey, we need to start somewhere, and it's clear that most of the development time went into the high floors.

Tbh....once again Jagex has shown they know [bleep] about communication with their players. I mean, this is a very important hour for the future of RuneScape, and yet they don't manage to give us proper information. I wrote an article about this a few weeks past and I'm shocked to see how they still mess up, even with something this important. 1.The first "poll" is ridiculous. Until now, not even a million has voted in the referendum - yet 1.2 million votes were gathered in the poll? Yeah, right. And instead of admitting their mistake, they post crap in the forums as if the poll was functioning properly. Then they finally give in and agree to the referndum - and then make it look like it all was part of the original plan. I can't believe this is actually true. 2.Once again, we have a terrible lack of information. Instead of getting a real list of what would change, what problems would arise etc., we got no easily accessable official information at all. It once again takes players to post CC conversations with mod mark, once again QFCs have to be thrown around to prove this or that thing - it's horrible. 3.I think a temporary forum really would have been needed. Instead of that, FU is drowned in tons upon tons of the same threads, spam etc. all about the new wildy.(When will it be? OMG No-voters fail, etc.) 4.The most important issue is definitely RWT and botters. The same trade screen will still be there, and content in the wildy will be relocated, so scammers and lore won't be a big problem. bots and RWT however.... Jagex admits they will be back. Oh wait, they never left. And that's the problem. "There will be more bots" is not enough information to be able to decide if the old wildy should be back. There ALWAYS have been bots and RWT - only the amount is different. Jagex says they are confident to be able to deal with the problems - but which problems exactly? Will they be able to restrict RWT - or just the credit card fraud that comes with it. As to me, I can't believe this - how do you want to avoid RWT? It's simply not possible! How would you distinguish between a gift and RWT? You can't! RWTers use outside resources to agree about the deal - how in seven hells does Jagex believe they can control that? There is simply NO tech to deal with RWT. About bots...Honestly, there are 2 differences to 2007 regarding bots: 1.There are mostly no gold farmers anymore, but people bot on their mains instead 2.bots have evolved a lot. From what we have seen in the recent months, Jagex is in no way able to deal with the current bots. So how do they want to deal with coming ones? Some people use the fact that there are still many bots in the game as an argument for they wildy - they say: hey, bots have always been there, it doesn't matter anyway. However, what they forget is that the quantity matters. Yes bots have always been there - which proves Jagex can't really cope with them. Only NOW, people bot on their mains. With free trade back, players will once again resort to gold farmers as these can collect money a lot quicker - and you don't even have to fear for your main being banned. The more gold farmers used, the more income is generated - which means that(unless jagex can do something about it), worlds will again be swarming with bots besieging every single yew tree, red chin, green dragon or w/e. You get the idea. So...I would be all for a returning of the old wildy and free trade(even though I don't PK) but honestly - I see how much Jagex messed up just with the communication about this update. If they can't manage to do that, how will they ever be able to deal with the problems that arise from it? On the fictional: I read it through in one go now - and I must say, it's brilliant =) The style of the epilogue was a bit too "happy-ending" for me, but I think that's just my personal preferences :P Overall, it was really great and I'll look forward to another fictional of you, should you find the time and inspiration to write one.

Interesting articles this week, although I tend to partly disagree. First article: First things first - I have to agree with alticultural. The description of the framework of Do No Evil is wrong. Especially interesting is that what he failed to mention is that there were three bosses - which is already a deviation of the standard layout. Also - of course the quest layout gets a *bit* repetetive. But on the other hand - I think Jagex does a very good job of fighting that with interesting storylines, good puzzles and challenging bosses. And there is only so much you can do. Wingless left the whole notion of what could be changed to the readers - which I think is because he didn't have any special ideas. I don't blame him for that - I don't have them either. But this is exactly the point which speaks against his article - there is only so much you can do about it. Second article: What I do not like to hear when I criticize somebody is "Can you do it better?" Tbh, that is BS. I am not a good musician, but I am able to judge if a band plays good or not(technically seen) I can point out flaws in articles even if I couldn't do it better myself. I -partly- agree with you. There is too much emphasis on the article's style in contrast to the content when discussing the tip.it times. And it also is often presented too rudely. But, I have to say it again - the question is not "Can/could you do it better?". It is NOT. The questions are: 1. "is it relevant" and 2."can you offer something to improve it" The fictional really has me now - although I have to agree with others that I'm slowly getting character problems. There's not really much you can do there stormrage - it's simply because I'm reading it always one week apart. I will probably wait until it's finished and read it in one piece then =)

Fictional is getting better with every time, I'm really enjoying it. Just one thing that seemed a bit strange to me: "The blanket of snow did not seem as thick in Kandarin as in our own lands, but the ground beneath us was not frozen." Why use "but" here? Both statements support each other instead of contradicting. So does but even make any sense here? Might be because I'm not a native english-speaker but it just sounds strange to me. Choice: Totally agree! Now if the choices made in a quest did actually change the quest itself or future quest based on that, this would be awesome :P

Two things I think may be interesting: The balloon at the crafting guild takes slightly longer to reach but you don't have to deal with banking weapons, desert tiara etc. e.g. at the last boss, I found curses incredbly more useful than normal prayers, even though I could only use leech curses.

Hmmm.... I agree with the first article, but there's nothing really much to say about it for me. On the second one, I also didn't quite understand it. Apparently Runescape has changed "drastically", but in what way exactly? There's new stuff, and chaotic weapons did their part to influence rs, but what is the outcome of this? Or why do you seem not to like it? Also, to the beginning of the article - what was that about the deposit box? I didn't understand that sentence... "Although I knew that I was clueless, the biggest shock came when I was actually writing this article. The line, They would return to mining iron in a suboptimal way, now that there is a deposit box in the dwarven mines (or so Ive heard). was included. This made sense at the time, Id heard of the bank deposit boxes, and new dungeoneering rewards. But somehow, Id missed that they removed it. " deposit boxes from where were removed? and where would you have put that line? huh? on the fictional: I like it more and more every week ;) The story seems interesting, only sometimes I think it could do with more detailed descriptions instead of the kind of fact-repeating narrating. I don't know exactly how to word it :P sometimes the narrator seems to be a bit too emotionless. Maybe you could try to write a bit more into the direction of that one here: http://www.tip.it/runescape/index.php?times=514 but rather stick to your own style than trying to adapt something which doesn't work out ;)

I believe I was actually defending the times and its posters. Apologies if is taken in any other way :blink: If one reads to quickly over your comment, it looks like the ironical "from professional authors" is aimed at the editorial panel. I misunderstood it at first too.

First of all, I want to apologize for the mistakes I made - I guess you can call these a schoolboy's errors as I AM, indeed a schoolboy who mostly learned his writing style from trial and error+listening, and that mostly on the RSOF instead of the english classes I have. Unless I take professional education in english, I will never get to the level of a native speaker - qualifications from school simply are not high enough. Of course, if you could give me a few tips, or just some examples how you would've worded certain parts, that'd be great. On the ones you mentioned: The first one was a typo that I personally easily read over. I had to look twice at the sentence even to realize what was the fault. The second one is obviously a grammatical error, nothing to discuss here. But what exactly would be wrong with the first sentence? The preposition? On the topic of my article, I didn't intend to put blame on the CM team. Yes, I know they mostly just handle the events and are not equipped for serious discussion. But that's exactly the problem. Not the CM Team, but the fact that apparently they never know if a developer changed something or not. Just look at this whole mess with the Dungeoneering shields. The KB was wrong for 6! Months and it's still kind of misleading. Now that the people who bought these shields are complaining as they have been lured into buying crap(because that's what these shields are) for up to 600k tokens, apparently Mod Emilee has said there isn't going to be a refund. Don't ask me where she posted it, because I DON'T KNOW. I don't know what the reasons are either. I'm not sure she even has stated any. And here we are again. the FAQ only says the KB was wrong. Neither are there given reasons why there is no refund, nor is there even a simple "we're sorry". I'd want more information, but where am I going to get it from? File dozens of threads with hundreds of pages until I find the one post from Mod Emilee? Hell no. I'm really quite angry these guys don't get a refund, although I'm very far away from buying one of those myself. I am angry at whoever was in charge of the decision here. I think there must be reasons why they didn't do it, and they may be good ones. But as long as I do not get told these reasons, I cannot understand them, cannot understand the move of Jagex and only see negative impact. What else should I do than being angry? I do not care whoever is guilty of what. But something is simpy going WRONG at jagex, and I don't want stuff like that to happen again. But at the moment, I can't see any real future where that is going to be true. edit: I have finally found emilees quote. No reasons for no refund btw. not her fault, but that doesn't make it better.

Definitely an awesome week! I enjoyed reading all four articles: Xp Cap: I definitely agree with you. I never understoof why they have done it like this, and their excuse for the members' doors in dungeoneering is pathetic. There's still a lot left to be done here. Storyline: yes, yes and yes! I'm on my way to the questcape at the moment, and it really makes a world of a difference if it's some random quest like one small favour or one that actually has a story to appeal. Fictional 1: You, sir, are awesome. I thorougly enjoyed reading those detailed descriptions, and until now this is the best fictional I have read. Period. I hope there's more to come =) Fictional 2:Looks interesting, but I guess I'll have to wait to see how it evolves. No comment atm.

awmg this is so cool to hear =) I never thought my luck would reach as far as getting the autographed copy ;) Congratz to everyone else, I'm really curious as to see the articles and participate in the discussion ;) The images were very cool as well, I LOVE Mouse ;) I have no idea who toad is unfortunately :/ my knowlegde of famous rs players is limited ;)

Submitted my entry! w00! Good luck to everyone (as long a you don't make me lose ;)) I just hope it's not too long....

That attitude is exactly what's wrong with the RS community in general these days. Everyone is so busy looking out for themselves that any sense of teamwork or camaraderie is lost, and that's why DG teams generally suck. I'm sorry, this is the internet. I'm pretty sure honour, camaraderie, and brotherly love don't exist. Even if they do, they're restricted to the few players that one would be in contact with often and want to help. Even then, there is a limit to wanting to help people, and sacrificing a few hours/days worth of prestige so you can show a random person the ropes on floor 1 certainly crosses it. I think nobody asks you to sacrifice your prestige but rather accept a teammember who's not so experienced in order to help him get better. No need for a 90+ Dungeoneerer to dunge with someone who's never done it before, but maybe he could accept lvls 70+ too sometimes instead of only those 85+ or whatever.