Glove

Me, and I'm not complaining. I'm happy with whatever the Admins want. Ah way to not have an opinion and believe what you're told. Let me ask, do you vote Democrat too? :rolleyes: Yes, because if you vote democrat you're not capable of critical thought. Let's not drag politics into this, yeah? It's really not pertinent to the discussion at all.

I disagree. You are only thinking of the game in its current state, with its current style of update. Currently, when runescape gets updates, they either "top" the old stuff, or they dont. And they tend to render old items "useless" and hurt the economy. But, all it takes is some creativity. Right now, off the top of my head, I can come up with an idea. What if there is some type of new dungeon that gets released where items and levels of the monsters are scaled to the player who enters the dungeon? The system could also change its rewards based on your combat levels, and also maybe they could make this something you can enter with a group of friends and get rewards from. That way, players get new things to explore, no matter what their levels are, and we can give players "99 attack" weapons while still creating a new chunk of the game that isn't created explicitly for people with 99 attack. This is just a random idea I came up with quickly. With some effort, creativity, and determination, I am sure Jagex can find a way to add new useful things to the game that reward people who have 99s, but could also still be fun for the rest of the world. I'm not disputing that the style of update could change, nor that creative thinking is a solution to some of the problems development faces. My point is that it becomes more difficult (and thus more time consuming) to create and implement content because the game becomes more complex with every new piece of content that's added. Your example wouldn't necessarily save any development to implementation time because it calls for completely new code, it also has to be tested, lore has to be created to explain why it works the way it does given that it runs counter to the physics of the rest of Runescape; doing things in a completely new way that doesn't follow a set pattern that has already been developed can be just as time consuming an difficult as following the system they already have in place. All new content has to fit in with the rest of the game some how, some way. That's why the longer Runescape exists (and thus adds new content) the harder it's going to be to make and implement new content (or simply update old content) that works with the old content. Also, while your idea isn't necessarily geared solely towards players with level 99 attack, it still hits the same walls that all high level content hits; it has to reward players without giving them too much or too little. If the dungeon is basically too much a good thing for players with lvl 99 att (loot is excellent, monsters are not too difficult and give excellent exp/hour, etc.) it creates a disincentive to train anywhere else and can devalue the relative value of other monsters in the game (not to mention causing problems with crowding, having too many people training at once, unless the monsters spawn independently for each player; but that still could cause other problems). If the dungeon isn't enough of a good thing for players with high att then they won't use it and it'll be a failure. Whatever way you slice it, it's just simple and only becomes more complex the longer you want that content to be relevant to players.

Um, there's only really one point that I don't remember seeing brought up so far on this thread. The more released content there is the harder it is to develop new content. However you feel about the quality of the content Runescape has, I think we can all agree that there's a lot of it. Every single time a new piece of content is created, or an old piece is updated or changed, it has to work with the rest of the existing content without clashing or making other things completely useless. It's a balancing act that grows exponentially with every new piece added to the whole and consists of a multitude of aspects (including, but not limited to, lore, graphical cohesion, programming, etc.). Even small tweaks have to be thought out thoroughly. That it takes longer and more people to create and implement content geared towards high levels (and, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to speak only to high level content because the thrust of the majority of the complaints surrounding content seems to find its root in a longing for more content geared towards high level players, or complex content that faces similar difficulty in development even if not geared specifically to high level players) is neither surprising nor unexpected really. High level content is some of the most difficult to develop and implement because it usually doesn't just deal with one aspect of the game and can often bring up issues with the balance of the game. Runescape has to pay special attention to this because it has been around for around nine years and plans to be around for another ten (or more) years. An easy example of this is boss monsters that were once nearly impossible to solo are now relatively easy to solo (such as the KQ) because the equipment available to players has changed drastically while the boss monsters have stayed more or less the same; this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I doubt Jagex wants all of its boss monsters and challenging quests and whatnot to become watered down or obsolete (due to other considerations, such as the loot becoming so devalued due to better drops from other creatures,) in a few years time. The longer Runescape is around, the longer and harder it will be to create and implement new content.

Wow, okay, that was ages ago. One of my first memories of playing RS was burying every single bone I could find because even though prayer didn't have any abilities yet, I was convinced it was going to be awesome and useful. When the actual prayers were released, it wasn't as useful as I was hoping because it was really hard to level (LOL chicken killing sprees!) and there weren't any prayer potions yet. Still, good times. I also died once at the ice giants and lost my prized iron armour, I've had a bit of a vendetta with them ever since... although, lately I haven't felt the urge to slaughter them every time I come across them. Mmm, mostly I remember the forums. That's how I met most of my friends, chatting on the RS forums about random stuff; they weren't all like the RSOF we have today, there wasn't any separate boards for random, non-game specific topics, so it was just sort of a crazy mix of all sorts of different things.

I do slayer, some herb farming (though, right now I'm stockpiling herbs so I'm not actually making any money... it's more like saving a bit of money on herblore right now), fishing, and MTK. Sometimes I'll make secondary items from skilling into finished products if it will net me a small profit or at least cut into some of the cost while getting me a bit of experience in another skill (like converting gold bars from smithing into dueling rings). Mostly I'm a stockpiler, I'll save up supplies for various things (like, I always have around 400 three dose prayer potions in my bank) and food and stuff, so if I need a bit of cash I'll just sell some of them and then make more from drops or gather more later (unless it's cooked fish, then I just gather raw fish to sell and then buy cooked, because I make a little profit and there isn't much point to getting more cooking exp if I already have 99). I don't know, I'm not really up on the most efficient ways to make money, I just sort of make a bit here and there and don't often spend what I do have on things I don't need or quick ways of levelling that are very expensive; for me, money just sort of accumulates over time as a happy benefit from doing things I find relaxing. EDIT: Oh yeah, I always do every lvl 3 clue I find. Sometimes they're lame, but I've had a few that were in the 800k-1M range lately. Nice bit of extra profit from slayer, and a bit like a lotto ticket; there's always a chance I might just get some jackpot item. I never lose money them, so it's a nice diversion.

I have to agree. Co-op questing is a good idea on paper, but it only really works well when the quest is first released. After a few weeks the number of people that have to finish the quest at one time peters out and then you have players desperately searching for someone who has already finished the quest and is willing to take time out to help them. When the community was much smaller it wasn't much of an issue since just about everyone knew someone, but these days it's much easier to get lost in a crowd. I personally love questing and the idea of future co-op questing is appealing, but I don't want people who dislike quests feeling like they have to do them the first day the quest is released just to be able to finish it in any kind of timely manner. While there are more options available (especially to members) to network and find people to help with a quest, in a year or two years time there won't be many people looking to do a quest at the same time and that's really, really limiting for a player. Better to stick to having NPCs help out. More generally, co-op play is a lot of fun. I remember spending a lot of time just hanging out with friends or spending hours helping a friend complete the dragon slayer quest; I tapped everyone I knew for pizzas and tips because back then slaying Bubbles (what we used to call the dragon... Elvarg? I can't even remember, it was ages ago) at lvl 42 (give or take a few levels) was hard. Even though I had already finished the quest and probably should have been grinding out mining experience, the excitement of helping my friend do it was better than when I finished the quest myself. I think that aspect of the game has suffered. Maybe I have a very skewed perspective because the people I was closest with when I started playing have long since moved on from the game (and I've lost touch with the few stragglers still sticking around) and I haven't put much effort into making new friends and building new relationships; most of the time I play quietly with my private chat off and rarely say anything in general. But it seems like RS has become more and more about what the player achieves as an individual, usually at the cost of what a player can do for others; especially friends. We have individual goals that we strive towards, which is great; but sometimes helping others reach their goals is even more rewarding than reaching your own, you know? Of course, Runescape is also exponentially more vast and populous, it's become a big city rather than the small town it used to be. Anonymity is rampant and it's going to take something big, like a game wide event (and it's got to be good, it's got to catch the interest of a lot of different kinds of players while not just annoying them) to get people to start talking to one another again. I think having more defined roles would go a ways, but Jagex has got to pull out all the stops and find ways to encourage more people to play together across the board.

I'm talking about the fact that perhaps the Hatchet should be dropped by something you WC at, like Evil Trees... The same could also be said for the Pickaxe... Meaning the Pickaxe shoudl come form mining, not miners... Ah, I see. You mean like something akin to getting the adze from the beacon minigame? That would be kind of cool, but it would force Jagex to up the level req on the pickaxe and hatchet, which would bring it out of step with other dragon items.

I enjoyed both articles. The dragon weapons article brought back a whole lot of nostalgia. Oh man, I almost miss my dragon b-axe now. Before weapon speeds were introduced, the dragon b-axe ruled supreme and I hacked through hoards of... what did I even train on back then? Guards? Zombies? Whatever, I hacked through hoards. I wasn't sure what the point about dragon pickaxes being dropped by dwarves was; I mean, dwarves are miners, it seems apropos to me? Forsaken's article about pmods was clear, concise and will hopefully help people understand where pmods fit within the community a little better. I have no delusions that the people who really need to know this sort of thing will read the article, but maybe it'll take away some of the mystique for some players and answer some questions. I've always had trouble putting into words what a pmod actually is and what they do, so kudos; this article does that really well.

Yeah, only 75 agility here. XD I ended up doing the low wall at the agility pyramid; I'm not sure if it's faster, but it is more fun to run around than Brimhaven when I get bored. Blah. Oh well, I'll get 80 eventually and then I can bask in the novelty of Dorgeshuun for awhile.

I'm with you. I think agility will make this horrid for me. Even RC, which I hate above and beyond all other skills, isn't so bad because I'm at least getting runes out of it. But agility sans monkey suit? It makes my soul weep. XD

I've been playing this game since 2001. This argument is nothing new, I've been hearing it for a long time. But you know what? This is only a game. It's a game I'm fond of, obviously, or I wouldn't still be playing, but it's still only a game. Is it unfair to people who can't be on this weekend? Sure, but that can't be helped. There will always be things that people miss out on. I can't exactly go back to the 1500's and experience the Renaissance, can I? Sometimes, timing doesn't jive for people; Jagex gave a reasonable amount of notice so as many people as possible can participate if they like. As for the supposed 'cheapening' of various skills... well, they only ever had the value a person gave them to begin with. That value isn't quantitative, it's subjective. Nobody can 'cheapen' the work a person has put into something except themselves. You always know what you've accomplished, and that's what matters; not what someone else thinks of it. It's pretty miserable otherwise. Finally, the only person leaving you out is you. The game keeps changing, that's its nature. You can embrace it, or you can be bitter about it, but it's entirely your prerogative.

Regarding the 'P2P adverts' in the new log in screen, well, I didn't even realize that was there until after I read the article. I honestly just clicked past it every time since the update. I can understand why F2P players would be upset about advertising considering the history of F2P vs. P2P and promises made to F2P players that were broken time and again. I mean, when P2P first came out Jagex said that F2P would get all the same content as P2P, just at a much slower pace; obviously, that wasn't a tenable or even minutely realistic business plan so Jagex had to scrap that. That said, the slight advertisement on the log in screen can hardly be categorized as intrusive. Runescape does need to promote members because it's not just a game, it's a product Jagex is selling because it's a business. It's possible to click past it without reading it, and there are only five items (including the gameplay hours) listed if you don't click on the 'more information' button. Nobody is being forced to sit on that page and read the comparison, and the comparison itself isn't even that in-your-face about it; this is one of the least obtrusive bits of self promotion by a company of a product I have ever seen. Let's cut Jagex a little slack here, it is a business that needs to make profit and this is hardly worse than a restaurant with a sign in the window advertising its specials; and while MMG is a little exuberant, I don't think this goes completely in the face of what he's said. There is absolutely nothing in the comparison that suggests you can't enjoy F2P and must sign up for P2P to have a good time; actually, it says quite the opposite. It says that F2P has some great stuff, P2P just has more stuff if you're interested. Really, considering the various attention grabbing tactics of adverts today, this is barely a blip on the far corner of the radar.

I'm all set for this weekend. I've planned everything out, gathered all my supplies, planted my trees and worked out a homework schedule so I can get everything done in advance and just focus on using the weekend to level. I'm really looking forward to raising summoning since I have around 1,800 crimson charms and 2400 green charms; I haven't checked how much exp it will get me, but since it will be more than usual I'm not worried about specifics. After I check my trees and finish up summoning, I'm going to do some herblore. I probably won't have much of an exp modifier left after all that, but any little bit helps so I'm going to head over to the agility track and grind until I can't stand it anymore. As for the cost, well, I didn't get dinged too badly. I had the charms saved up already, so I've spent my time farming herbs and making them unf pots, gathering granite blocks and bananas for summoning (which didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would), and I already had some seconds for herblore so I didn't have to buy too many more. I did have to drop a bunch of cash on shards, but since they stay a constant rate, I'm saving money in the long run. I don't know, if you're not adverse to a little (or a lot of XD) DIY I think you can come out ahead or at very least break even, especially if we're talking time spent.