PraetorDei

The real world solution is known as the "Dutch auction". Look it up online to see how it works. It does work. It is used in the world of business. There are 3 well known auction types: English auction, Dutch auction, and First Price auction. English auction is the one most are probably familiar with -- the bidders bid up the price until "going, going, gone". Dutch auction is seller gradually lowers price until finally someone takes it. First Price auction is sealed bids submitted and at a set time, all opened and the highest one takes it. Often for a First Price auction there is a minimum price registered with the auctioneer, if that price is not met then the highest bid does not get it, but the offer is withdrawn. In the context of Runescape, the Dutch auction should work easily. This would be a supplement to the current GE. Since it is a supplement, it will not impact GE prices. Thus merchant clans cannot manipulate prices. If on the other hand it is desirable for the GE to be updated, implement a sliding 90 window with a minimum number of item sales for a given item type (means that the GE can look at the past 90 days of Dutch auction sales for any given item type and if a minimum number of items of that type were sold in the past 90 days, the GE could sum up the sales and divide by the number of sales and take that as the current average price for that item.) There is free Dutch auction software out there I am sure -- or Jagex could write some it is not that tough. It is pretty basic after all.

You know it'll be nearly impossible to rewrite those rules without some loophole or exploit... And, to be perfectly frank - normal mice and keyboards don't need extraneous software, its all built in to the operating system. Same with mousekeys, its built in. When you start getting people that write their own software, or use *special*, configurable multipurposed buttons, it starts getting into the area of "advantage over others". Whatever, it'll be his problem if he gets banned, and it'll be Jagex's problem when they can't see distinguish their own lines separating cheating from legit. > normal mice and keyboards don't need extraneous software, its all built in to the operating system. Actually, it isn't. When you buy a preconfigured system, it has the mouse drivers, but they are not part of the OS (for Windows anyway). And any time you go to the store and buy another mouse, it normally comes with a CD-ROM which contains software. Or else the software gets downloaded via the internet. And those are rule 3 violations. Because it is poorly written. QED. As far as the loopholes and exploits I pointed out the way around that. Get rid of the last vestiges of "inefficient" code -- make everything like combat or "how many" skilling. Rule 3 then can be clearly written to focus on bots -- problem solved.

Messenger Skill Concept: a skill whereby you gain experience by transporting items to the bank for other players. Experience is based on: A -- Number of items transported and B -- Weight of items NOT -- value of items. Reason -- encourages messengers to offer services to all (e.g., not just hanging around crafters making jewelry) How it would work: Messenger gets a messenger pack. It occupies 100% of inventory space for messenger when carried. Any other single player can dump their inventory into a messenger deposit envelope that goes into the messenger pack. Doing so automatically tags the envelope with the players information for the bank. Messenger transports to the bank, places deposit envelope into deposit box. Player gets their items taken to the bank and deposited into their account. Messenger gets experience for trip. Items: Messenger gets a teleport ring that will teleport them to a set of banks (P2P will have more than F2P). Ring must be equipped for messenger to place messenger pack into inventory. Because messenger pack occupies 100% of inventory, the teleport capability is only useful for messaging. (For example -- you could go and fight monsters but you can't carry any food or pick up any drops; you can't mine or fish or cut wood because your inventory is full. So teleport ring provides zero advantage to any other skill, also there is no XP gained from using it. Also teleport ring can't be used in combat.) Teleport only works one way -- to the bank. Messenger has to hike back out to where the players are skilling or fighting to get items. Costs: Players giving items to messengers will be assessed 10% of the GE price of the total value of items, they are charged this in GP for each item placed into deposit envelop; subject to a minimum charge. (Amount TBD but it should be enough such that miners powermining iron would not use the service to send iron ore to the bank, but lobster fisherfolk would send lobs to the bank.) Benefits to game -- more of a sense of community. Option -- replace firemaking with messaging. All current firemaking XP would transfer over. People with current firemaking capes could trade them for a messenger cape by doing one run (or they could keep current firemaking cape but could never get a messaging cape). People without would make level 99 in new skill, get a messaging cape instead. Firemaking would then be retired as a skill.,

Plus any weapons will not work. And their animation will change. It will look like you are punching with a weapon in your hand. So...then if your P2P bank inventory holds more items than the F2P bank inventory slots and you are wearing member gear when you revert to F2P you have a real problem, yes? Because if you take off the gear, you can't put it in the bank. And the gear has zero stats so you can't use it in F2P.

This. You will also not be able to use any members items, including equipping items. So if you wanted to wear a skillcape or something, wear it before you lose p2p. So I assume that any higher level armor/weapons actually worn default to rune levels? Or do they go to zero? If to rune levels then F2P could use them as long as they are not unequipped but they would only have rune levels?

Obviously many know the answer to this but I don't. Assuming one is a member, and is on a P2P only area of the map, and your membership expires, the next time you log in -- where are you?

The key word is "automatically" - not "software". Not so. The mouse software does in face move the cursor "automatically". The mouse software responds to the user actions of a mechanical device, and converts that to inputs that generate events. These events are interpreted by the Java client. This software does in fact respond "automatically". Therefore rule 3, as worded, bans mouse software -- ANY mouse software. Yes obviously that is not the intent BUT that is what it says. Also I do not agree that this should have been merged into this thread, since the scope of my post goes far beyond this particular mouse device. Here is the fundamental problem IMO. There is an assumption that the user directly interacts with the Runescape client. But that is absolutely incorrect. The Runescape client, written in Java, responds to events. The events are generated by the mouse software installed as an executable -- not by the user. The mouse software executable responds to alerts generated by "firmware" in the mouse. (The "firmware" is in fact also software but it is "fixed" in the mouse circuits.) And the "firmware" responds to the mechanical actions of the mouse -- which responds to actions of the user. So the sequence is: User==>mouse mechanical==>firmware==>operating system==>mouse software==>Runescape client. The point should be clear though -- the problem with rule 3 is that it acts "as if" the sequence is user==>Runescape client. That is, from a high level, the way most users see it. But from an accurate perspective (which impacts legal aspects) it is completely wrong. And again, the issue is being driven because Jagex is treating some actions (melee, ranging, combat spelling, fishing, cooking, woodcutting, furnace smelting, etc.) as multiple actions from one mouse click, and others (fire making, inventory emptying, spelling on inventory items, etc.) are requiring one click per action. But because rule 3 is poorly stated we end up with situations like this. I suggest the easiest solution is to simply take those few actions that are inefficient (empty inventory on the ground for example) to all offer "multiple item" or just be handled like combat -- multiple actions for one click. And yes zillions of users will whine "it was hard for me it should be hard for them". I still say the analogy is stick shift versus automatic transmission -- the whiners are like old grandfathers who say "I had to use a stick shift for ever so YOU SHOULD ALSO!". Then rework rule 3 so that it is clear that it bans software OTHER THAN "commercial" or "open source" software designed to respond to mechanical input devices. That way macro "bot" programs will clearly be banned -- but no physical input device software will be banned. And yes -- this will mean that if the physical device software can more efficiently execute "clicks" it will be not be a rule violation. Big deal. I use a laptop -- without doubt the slowest and most difficult "mouse" to use (since it isn't even a mouse). Uhm wait: that is a huge slap in the face to people like me who build their own hardware. - Now we could just make it, since rule 3 wasn't clear and their was no clausule what happens when the rule isn't clear.. If that happens me and my friends could never build our own hardware without sharing either the source or licensing it officially... Yeah right -- there is such a huge crowd of "build my own hardware". But seriously -- you and your friends build your own mice from scratch, code your own firmware, your own driver software -- and play Runescape with it? Color me skeptical....but if you are not being sarcastic you are already in violation of rule 3 as it is currently written. So what's your point?

The key word is "automatically" - not "software". Not so. The mouse software does in face move the cursor "automatically". The mouse software responds to the user actions of a mechanical device, and converts that to inputs that generate events. These events are interpreted by the Java client. This software does in fact respond "automatically". Therefore rule 3, as worded, bans mouse software -- ANY mouse software. Yes obviously that is not the intent BUT that is what it says. Also I do not agree that this should have been merged into this thread, since the scope of my post goes far beyond this particular mouse device. Here is the fundamental problem IMO. There is an assumption that the user directly interacts with the Runescape client. But that is absolutely incorrect. The Runescape client, written in Java, responds to events. The events are generated by the mouse software installed as an executable -- not by the user. The mouse software executable responds to alerts generated by "firmware" in the mouse. (The "firmware" is in fact also software but it is "fixed" in the mouse circuits.) And the "firmware" responds to the mechanical actions of the mouse -- which responds to actions of the user. So the sequence is: User==>mouse mechanical==>firmware==>operating system==>mouse software==>Runescape client. The point should be clear though -- the problem with rule 3 is that it acts "as if" the sequence is user==>Runescape client. That is, from a high level, the way most users see it. But from an accurate perspective (which impacts legal aspects) it is completely wrong. And again, the issue is being driven because Jagex is treating some actions (melee, ranging, combat spelling, fishing, cooking, woodcutting, furnace smelting, etc.) as multiple actions from one mouse click, and others (fire making, inventory emptying, spelling on inventory items, etc.) are requiring one click per action. But because rule 3 is poorly stated we end up with situations like this. I suggest the easiest solution is to simply take those few actions that are inefficient (empty inventory on the ground for example) to all offer "multiple item" or just be handled like combat -- multiple actions for one click. And yes zillions of users will whine "it was hard for me it should be hard for them". I still say the analogy is stick shift versus automatic transmission -- the whiners are like old grandfathers who say "I had to use a stick shift for ever so YOU SHOULD ALSO!". Then rework rule 3 so that it is clear that it bans software OTHER THAN "commercial" or "open source" software designed to respond to mechanical input devices. That way macro "bot" programs will clearly be banned -- but no physical input device software will be banned. And yes -- this will mean that if the physical device software can more efficiently execute "clicks" it will be not be a rule violation. Big deal. I use a laptop -- without doubt the slowest and most difficult "mouse" to use (since it isn't even a mouse).

You can go over to the other post and read the multiple entries related to the programmable mouse and whether or not it is "cheating" to use it. From my perspective, those who claim it IS cheating base their reasoning on this: When Jagex says "What type of third-party software is NOT allowed? " look at rule #3. Rule #3 says "Software that generates input to our game applets. This includes software that automatically moves the mouse pointer or generates mouse clicks or key presses." And thus a programmable mouse appears to be in violation, yes? But there is a problem here. All input to the game applets is via software. Anytime you buy a mouse (wired, wireless, 2 button, 3 button, dial wheel, track ball, etc.) there is NORMALLY a CD-ROM supplied with the mouse. You install the mouse software to properly make use of the mouse, and so that the operating system will respond to the inputs from the mouse. Here is the problem. Whenever you use the mouse to provide input to the game applet -- it is SOFTWARE that generates that input. Without the software, your mouse clicks and moves will do NOTHING. It is software that interprets the mouse actions, software that generates the inputs to the game applets. Most humorously, the Jagex rule 3 bans the use of the very software that every single mouse used by every single Runescape gamer uses. Now presumably that was not the intent of the rule. But that is what the rule, strictly interpreted, says. It says you can't use software to generate input to the game applets. But of course all inputs to the game applets are driven by software -- by 3rd party software -- all the time for every single user of the game. Without exception. It is 3rd party software that moves the mouse pointer. It is 3rd party software that generates the mouse clicks as inputs to the game applets. That is reality, that is how it actually works. So. I am not a lawyer -- but I have been working in one form or another computers for more than 30 years, and I find the expressed language from the rule -- unfortunate. Now. Shift of topic. (Yes, I am going to express two topics in one thread.) I think this merely exposes a deeper problem. In terms of the user interface for the game, Jagex clearly follows standard software industry practice and optimizes certain user driven repetitive actions. (1) When you melee, you don't have to click for each weapon swing. (2) When you range, you don't have to click for each arrow shot. (3) When you cast offensive combat spells, you don't have to click for each cast. (4) When you fish, you don't have to click each time you cast the line or thrust the harpoon (5) When you fish, you don't have to bait the hook between each fish (6) When you cook, you don't have to click to cook each item of the same type (7) When you smelt in a furnace, you don't have to click to smelt each ore to a bar (8) When you chop wood, you don't have to click for each stroke of the hatchet or between each set of logs This makes sense and is what would be expected. What does not make sense are things like -- you have to click each time to make a fire, you can't "empty pack" in one click (unless it is into a bank deposit), etc. These appear to be artificial limitations, and strangely players who have played the game a long time and put up with them defend them. Apparently along the line of -- if it was hard for me it should be hard for you -- or it would devalue a skill if it was made "easier" etc. That's exactly like arguing -- we should never have installed automatic transmissions in cars because that's not fair to everyone who had to spend years driving a stick shift. They had to suffer with a stick shift so you should also! Bah. That's all I have to say on that.

The whole point is that if you REALLY took a ship, it would take a long time so you would be rested. And it doesn't take that long in the game to select "rest" after all. Like what, 20 seconds? So it is merely a convenience such that if you take a ship, you don't sit on the dock for 20 seconds. That's all. I guess I don't see how the agility skill would correlate to resting while riding on a ship. As for taking a ship multiple times to gain back run energy -- wouldn't it be faster to just sit on the dock and rest?

Travel by ship would actually take quite a while in the physical world. Therefore I recommend that when traveling by ship, once you reach destination, that the run points be reset to maximum. Should be equivalent to "rest" all the way to maximum run points. Should be very easy to code, and corresponds to real world. Comments?

Two reasons. 1st, they never enter my inventory, they are just thrown back right away. 2nd, they reenter the pool of available fish to be caught for other players. If I take them and drop them they don't have a chance to catch them. So it is a convenience to me (not dealing with fish I don't want) and a convenience to them -- they get to catch the fish I don't want and they get the experience.

??? bank your fish, takes an extra 2 sec per invent Sorry I am not getting this one. What do you mean? If I am fishing and my inventory fills up I can cook them, dump them, or run them to the nearest bank or depository. What is this "two clicks away" you speak of?

???

Solution is very very simple. Just don't wear one. You might have one. You might have 10. Just keep them in the bank and don't wear them. Problem solved. IMO the capes look a little silly anyway. They remind me of when I was 8 and tied a bath towel around my neck and went running through house shouting SOOOPERMAN! It reminds me of the book "The millionaire next door" -- which talks of people who have amassed at least a million in real wealth -- but live modestly, drive the 10 year old car (and in fact always buy used cars). They don't dump all their money into the Lexus, McMansion, and flashy jewelry. So why should we do the same in the game? I agree with your point about lack of motivating content past skills in the 80s BTW.