bothworlds

Second part of your post is true, but as I said find something better. And as of first, frankly everyone knows the only update that was big enough to cause massive population change was the trade/wildy. I know numerous people with hundreds of millions in their accounts and professional stakers all quit after playing for many years. Sure it doesn't mean that that's the trend but realistically yes it it. Nothing else matters nearly as much.

It does apply. The OP is drawing a correlation between old wild going away and search terms for RS declining. He's then implying a causation based on that. We're calling bull [cabbage]. Basically it's my fault for not really paying attention to the details of the post. The graph is from http://forum.tip.it/topic/275965-the-runescape-population/ I should've been more careful when reposting it with checking exactly what it is. Definably my fault for rushing and not really caring etc.. Anyway on the issue of causation assuming RS population did decline after the updates (why in the world has this not been confirmed or rejected yet??) I think it's a safe assumption that it was caused by the updates. Since it's not clear then I guess my case is rather limited, but unless someone cares to produce more reliable data it's not like there's an alternative. Also what are trying to say by "causation is not caused by correlation"? If you want to get down to the gritty of Hume then you are right that at a logical level it doesn't so you can throw away inductive logic out the window but if its not clear to anyone "given x it is most probable that y is true." Kthx

That's very convenient..any proof?

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

Fixed, didn't realize graph wasn't labeled.

Dear Andrew, This whole thing with taking away free trade was great and all, I mean as games that have tenfold the population of runescape show the only successful way to counter botting is to make trading impossible. But this debate has been beaten to death already, so it's good for business right? (runescape population over time, thanks runevirage) December 2007 is when all the updates were implemented, I guess people don't want to be babysat numbers don't lie. So here is what it came down to there were two approaches the status quo made the game fun for the few that were smart and creative, look at 3hitu or those guys that made hundreds of millions. The economy was unfair the bots didn't help, people got PKed. If you didn't know how to play well it wasn't working out. If you did, it was a lot of fun. So they think that its time to turn it around and make all those things that people that were very good at the game did not longer accessible. Who does it benefit? Joe the plumber or the guy that's not very good at runescape, the guy that NEEDs anti baiting protection because he can't figure it out for himself, the guy that has to chop yews because he can't merchant and the guy that doesn't understand the basis of PKing so he complains every time he gets teamed. Now I'm sure this analogy has been exhausted but let it be. This approach assumes that people don't have to make basic mistakes on their own to get good at something. It is also called idealistic because it is ridiculous; if you look at elemental game theory (economics 101) there is always a loser and eliminating one is impossible, ie this approach has no real substance for why it should work. Ever. Again I'm sure people has drawn the real life analogy more times then it was needed to be done, but if you open a history textbook you can tell that when you take a large amount of people and implement Utopian policies they will fail. Why does this matter now? Because runescape's vote is admitting failure. It's not some great reform or Xmas present to runescape old timers. In the spirits of telling people that they f.. up this just shows for those who didn't understand why the idea was ridiculous in the first place exactly how it was bound to fail. Next time save your programmers' fingers for D&D marathons and open a book instead of wasting everyone's time. Hell maybe Andrew should pick himself up something like this but I guess we live and we learn.. or in the case of runescape "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -A