Omali

Sadly, untrue. As someone who has both played and written about MMOs since the early days of Ultima Online (1997), the big lies can hurt a business, but rarely kill it. The small ones, like not releasing a vague update to an in-game skill, won't hurt Jagex in the short or long run. I should also point out with Jagex, that they've made a place for themselves as being the company that takes years between quest sequels, and who also delayed a mini-game (Mobilising Armies) for close to ten months, on the month it was supposed to be released. If they release the smithing rework this year, it would be fast for their track record. Haha, true that. We are talking about Jagex here... I was actually thinking that promises meant something again hehe. :thumbup: My major criticism of Jagex is that they spread their resources too thin. They have one or two developers working on their own projects, and as a result nothing is done. What this wilderness update showed us is that, when Jagex pools their resources into one project, they can get a major update done in a fast process. When one year in between sequels is considered a short wait time, there is absolutely something wrong. Jagex should have concepts on the table, but pool a large part of their resources into one update at a time. Work on quest one week, work on new skill update the next, and I guarantee it won't take two and a half years to make one skill.

Sadly, untrue. As someone who has both played and written about MMOs since the early days of Ultima Online (1997), the big lies can hurt a business, but rarely kill it. The small ones, like not releasing a vague update to an in-game skill, won't hurt Jagex in the short or long run. I should also point out with Jagex, that they've made a place for themselves as being the company that takes years between quest sequels, and who also delayed a mini-game (Mobilising Armies) for close to ten months, on the month it was supposed to be released. If they release the smithing rework this year, it would be fast for their track record.

Jagex is a business, first and foremost, and whatever they can do to bring in more customers, they will do. People piss and moan every week that they aren't being catered to, whether Jagex release a quest, new skill, new item, new boss, new weapon, new armor, new resource, new potion, new mechanic, etc, and how Jagex should release a "real update," meaning "something that I want to use." Why people are surprised when Jagex do publicity stunts is beyond me, they're a business, that's what businesses do. Stating the purpose of something isn't stating an opinion, it is making a factual statement, which can be right or wrong. He stated that updates are meant to bring new content, and any update that expands on old content is not a real update, which is patently false. We are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own set of facts.

No you don't. Not even in the slightest. And it turned into a hissy fit the second you insinuated that the update wasn't a "real update" because it didn't appeal you, forget the over million players who voted to return free trade and wilderness pvp. Then you went on a whiny rant with faulty logic comparing the overall number of people with 75+ smithing to those who are pvp'ing right now, followed by an ad hominem attack comparing updating smithing to "an influx of douches," as if that's the only effect that free trade and wilderness will have. Bringing out a quest would be more beneficial to the community than bringing back features the majority of players have wanted for three years? You really have no clue what you're talking about, and your complaints are only fueled by self-serving, self-absorbed ideals that assume that you are right, anyone who wants something else is a "douche," and that your tiny minority of players should be served first because, hey, you can throw out iirelevent numbers, and the more if/then statements you can toss into a conversation, the smarter you are, regardless of context, feasibility, or relevance.

Should be pointed out that the reason armors and weapons become more expensive is because they drop upon death. If you could choose what to keep upon death, it would cause prices to fluctuate too violently, as what you keep on death would roller coaster and change every few days.

What it all comes down to is that not all updates are going to be completely new code, and throwing a hissy fit like a child whenever Jagex puts out an update that you don't like isn't going to change that. More than a million people voted for free trade, so if you're going to use comparison by numbers, nobody cares what players with 99 smithing, or even 75+ smithing, think, because they're a tiny portion of the community. Oh and that's not what the definition of an update is. Grab a dictionary.

Define a "real" update? This is fairly major afterall removal of trade limits. Alterations to how ge works. Return of proper drops. Relocation of several quests and activites. Remapping of a huugge area. Brand new fairly large dungeon. etc. etc. This update has more parts to it and more content chnages in it tht your average weekly update. It adds no new content to the game and just reverts it back to 2007 basically, with a few things changed. All in all if the hundreds of pages of writing and stuff in the wilderness topics are correct all it took was editing bits of code and reimplementing it. Nothing major that adds new content into the game. And I mean... Where's MOTM? Or the Smithing rework we were promised last year? Put on the back shelf for Jagex to do the time warp to gain more customers. This content adds nothing new to the game cept a load of douches that'll jump you for a teletab. Calm down, have some dip. Just because an update doesn't appeal to you doesn't make it a fake update. On that note, I'm not much of a smither, so I'd rather have a real update than your smithing improvement crap putting real updates on the shelf so Jagex can waste time to gain more customers.

I guess that means they'll be low risk high reward, because they're getting all of the pvp equipment when the move happens.

Blizzard offers a web security app for free for handheld devices and their physical dongle has been insanely successful. If jagex created a free app as an alternative to a paid device, they could do just as well.

I spy someone who never learned basic economics.

I already gave a "no, because..." my because was due to the already existing issue of green dragon bots that would only become exponentially worse by opening up a hundred new worlds and getting rid of one hurdle of membership.

No, that's still going to be against the rules.

In business, companies don't care why you can't pay, just that you aren't paying (insurance/banks notwithstanding). Whenever this discussion is brought up, I attack the fact that the person does not/can not pay for membership, without regard as to why they don't/can't. At the end of the day, you are using a service, and "I can't pay/don't want to pay" is not a valid excuse for why a company should release something for free, ever. Compared to Western MMOs, Jagex is very giving. Find most MMOs that are freemium and none of them offer the same experience Runescape does, without the big stick beating you about the face to subscribe. I mentioned Asian free to play MMOs in an earlier post, and I want to expand upon that. When my MMO website was still in its infancy, I managed to get a talk in with a few Asian MMO publishers (many of these are republished in the West by companies like Frogster and Hanbitsoft). One of them told me that the longer an account is active without buying in-game tokens, the more likely they are to be banned for minor infractions. Why? Because after two years of playing without paying for service, the company decides you are no longer a prospective buyer, and therefore a liability rather than a potential customer. One of them, when I asked if they were worried the player would quit rather than start a new account, said that a good percentage of players (mainly ones with guilds) would set up a new account, and would actually start buying cash shop items (generally double exp and gear) to catch up to their old toons. As for the ones that quit entirely? "[bleep] 'em" is the response. You'll notice I keep away from using certain catchphrases that a lot of members use. Giving free players green dragonhide isn't going to dilute the value of membership, nor is anyone going to say "hey, green dragonhide is free. Guess I don't need this membership *cancel*," because the update is too small to have that any kind of overall effect on the game other than "hey, there's some better armor for rangers/mages/melee hybrids." What I am concerned with is how badly maintained the green dragons are already, with enough bots on members worlds camping them as it is, without a hundred more worlds filled with botters bringing down green dragonhide prices. I suggest you take a look at my website, because despite what you may take from this thread, I've always been a major supporter of subscription games going freemium ala Runescape (in fact, it's something of a highlight), and have a growing database with the purpose of helping people pay as little as possible for their games. I imagine even harder to believe is I have an initiative starting in February called "How Free Can You Be?" where I will be looking at various triple-a MMOs, as well as putting up interviews, with the sole purpose of finding MMOs with the best content for absolutely free. So perhaps this is just me spending far too much of my time in a business frame of mind, but I do have issues with how this would imbalance the green dragonhide market.

No armor, no weapons, fists only, Final destination.

Perpetual free players are there to be cannon fodder for paying members, this is an attribute that most Western companies will deny, but a lot of free to play Asian cash shoppers will admit this, some quite openly. In "buy to win" models, the perpetual freeloaders (as I've heard one company refer to them) act as fodder for paying players. That guy who is willing to spend hundreds of dollars every month for high powered equipment? The free players are there to be his victim, to give him a gigantic e-pen0r, and get him to continue spending each month so he can be better than someone at a video game by paying his way rather than using skill. In freemium games like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest II Extended, and Dungeons and Dragons Online, free players are there to fill in the world. They populate the game, and not only bring in new users through word of mouth, but they allow for PR news stories to bring in more players by showcasing how many hundred thousand/million accounts they have registered. Jagex uses free players as a method of populating the game, and because the perpetual free players will aid them in bringing in potential customers, as well as inflating their "registered user" number so they can get in the news every couple years, or the Guinness Book. And with the advertising being how it is, Jagex is in a rare position where free players are not a money sink. Jagex releases things to free players because, increasingly nowadays, it gets them in the gaming press and gets people coming back to try the game out, and hopefully resubscribe or just be a source of ad revenue. I've seen more Runescape news on MMO news websites based around game updates in 2010 than I've seen in the years leading up to it. They want free to play to be a "complete game" because they've embraced the perpetual freeloaders as a bigger in quantity, if far lower in quality (in terms of revenue) customer base. However, in no way is it a necessity based relationship. Jagex has a pretty good grasp on how to entice free players to become members, and they've generally managed to maintain a system that seduces potential customers into becoming customers by throwing freebies, while at the same time ensuring that the perpetual freeloaders are never spoiled. You're talking about a service. There aren't very many MMOs that offer the amount of gameplay Jagex offers completely free.

I'll be going back to my old methodology, with a few minor tweaks due to system changes. If you don't act like a jackass, I have no problem repairing graves. Treat others the way you would expect to be treated, and all that jazz. The update hasn't been released yet, so how can you say it's already killed generosity? Speaking as someone who actually played before the Dec 07 updates, I can tell you that the game is going to go back to a watered down version of how it used to be. Back in the old days, a good Samaritan might still rush up and try to grab as much of your stuff as possible to hold for you. Now, all that Samaritan has to do is bless your grave. There isn't a thought of "well, I'd like to save this guy's armor, but I don't have enough backpack space. In fact, being a Good Samaritan will be easier than it was pre trade restrictions, because it is much more hands off. Be a good guy, bless or repair someone's grave, and they even get a direct note on their screen telling them who to thank. The opposite of what people are anticipating will happen, the number of decent acts will be much higher than it was before the trade restrictions because doing a kind act will be so much easier. In fact, forget doing it for the deceased. I can see people blessing graves for the sake of trolling the people waiting for it to crumble, I know I'll be among those trolls.

Ouch. I like, even if it means not being able to run back and grab a sextant/watch/compass if you get pk'ed.

There are enough bots on p2p at green dragons, the last thing we need is for all the f2p worlds to be swamped by green dragon bots as well. And free to play has the option to craft dragonhide. It costs $7 a month.

Nowhere. It says that the fire cape will become cash when you drop it on death.

Erm...what's the point in pvp if not to have fun and kill your opponent before they kill you? Certainly not for the stimulating conversation... I admit I have been spoiled by MMOs and games with good pvp, I bought into Jagex's hype of them bringing back this great pvp experience. I should've known they were just trying to push a fugly new line of t-shirts :lol: The overloads were taken out because they were insanely overpowered in player vs player combat, regardless of how high level they are to obtain. It doesn't take too much thought to recognize that they're not going to put them back in, what with it being a balance issue and not a trade issue.

Yea, when Jagex's idea of mid-to-high level combat bosses in a quest is a level 120-something monster that can't hit higher than 200, them telling you your tasks are too weak is something to listen to.

No. It sounds like an infection that affects the groin when one sits for too long in a computer chair. "What's that anti-bacterial cream for?" "I've got a bad case of gamer's grotto" "Eww, gross." Yep. Which makes it useless to bring them, as you'd be wasting a lot of money when you could just take supers. Boss luring existed before the trade updates. Really, if anything it's still going to be harder to lure/scam than it was before the trade restrictions, how quickly people forget what once was. What made you think Jagex would suddenly enable overloads for PvP? GF critical thinking. Most updates that cater to pvp generally have some form of benefit to griefers. IT comes with the territory.

There will be a spike of people acting like asses to get others killed when the update comes out, but eventually it will go back to how it was pre-07. Those who want to help will help, and those who want free stuff will wait and see if you don't make it back in time. This system is still more lenient because it offers you the chance of not only getting back in time, but that some stranger might walk by while said player is camping your grave and bless it. Do you think someone who isn't going to bless your chaotic-filled grave now was going to bless your grave before? Unlikely. This isn't going to change behavior from how it was in 2007, Runescape will always have that proportion of players. We're not in Kindergarten anymore, folks, we're going back to the days where death didn't include an immediate expectation that your items would be safe until you returned, and people actually didn't risk what they couldn't afford to lose.

I always miss the good glitches. I did take part in the acrobat clothes + gender change = invisible character glitch. That was fun.

It's been maybe three or four years since I had to enter my credit card details into Runescape's website, so it may have changed, but I remember having to enter in my card number and security code. I don't know why they'd change that.