n64jive

And how do you not see the problem with this. Runescape is a GAME. You have put 8+ years into a game. A game that will do nothing for you. I look back on it and realize "Wow, how many better things could I have done for myself instead of playing this stupid game. I realize that this is a runescape fansite, and penetrating that wall will be pretty difficult, so I'll just leave it at that... With that said, it is your problem that bots exist and ruin the game for you. Maybe you should do something about it. I already did something about my problems. This thread isn't about my problems. It's about "your" problems.

I should point out that I have moved on from this game. I like to check up on it from time to time, as I have certain predictions for it that I like to validate. I also am not implying by any means that I do bot (or that I have ever botted)...I am simply implying that Runescape is a game. In this game, your "skill" is based on your devotion to the game. It's more of a job where you are not getting paid. For that reason, I don't fault kids for not wanting to go through the grind. As for pursuing altruism, I can say that many people do. Whether it's botting while you work to feed your family, or botting while you are at school, or botting while you work on your physique....These are all things that many kids gladly skip in order to play this game. I never skipped high school, but I often skipped social events with my friends, I would skip out on work occasionally, and in my early years of college, I would skip some classes. It didn't take me long to realize that the game had a grasp on me (call it an addiction if you like). And I know I am not the only one of this nature. You can't be 'good' at runescape...you can only have a good account with good stats in which you spend a fair amount of time on to get. As for botting ruining this game, it's completely untrue. Bots don't ruin the game, gold farmers do. I think you'll find that the majority of the botters you speak of are not people who actually want to "play" the game, but are rather gold farmers who seek to profit from the resources of the game. And the reason a market exists for such items is that you must spend 10x more time in game to achieve the same level as just "buying" it. EDIT: I want to point out I agree with everything you said, but I should point out that your accomplishments are already "meaningless". You reached a goal. Congratulations, so did 200,000 other people. I never meant to argue "why botting should be condoned", but my original point to posting on this thread was that Jacmob took a game which I assume he played, pointed out its flaws, and then developed his own means of combating those flaws. You want to say that botting is pointless, but in reality playing runescape is pointless. At least Jacmob got something out of it, which in the end was a successful entrepreneurship which led him to a successful career with Jagex straight out of highschool. 1 in a million, and he got there by breaking the rules...

Or maybe you could just accept that you'll never be able to have what you want and just move on. Just because you want something doesn't mean you have to be able to get it really, but it seems like no one in this world subscribes to that value anymore. :rolleyes: Yeah, but I'm a grown adult, and if I want something, I'm at least going to try. I tried to come back to runescape over the holidays. It was boring. I didn't enjoy it. It was very short lived. I realized that I just don't have to the time to play this game, which I had when I started 10 years ago. I think this is Jagex's greatest downfall, and will ultimately lead to the game's demise. The game has a limited audience who can enjoy it, with the majority of players ages 13-18.

Can you imagine if everyone in the world was as against automation as this community.

"Instead of playing runescape, I let my bot play for me, while I went to the gym and worked out" -Person A Person A is now a better person because he cheats. "Instead of playing runescape, I study for my exams" -Person B Person B is now a better person because he cheats. "Instead of playing runescape, I volunteer at a the local hospital"-Person C Person C is now a better person because he cheats. I fail to see how you must bot in order to study, volunteer or work out. You can also, you know, NOT play runescape for a few hours and do all of the above? Ah, yes, but can you do all of the above and play runescape? Ok, so 24 hours in a day. I spend 9 hours working, 8 hours sleeping, 2 hours eating. That leaves me 5 hours leisure time. If I work out every day, that leaves me 3 hours. Let's say my end-game goal is to create an account I can stake with. If one can obtain combat xp at an average rate of 60k xp an hour, that is a minimum of 215 days, or over 7 months just to get a maxed combat account. Now let's say I need about 500m as a staking budget. That's going to take another 160 days or so. You would have to dedicate over a year, playing every day, 3 hours a day, just to get to some end-game content. or you could just buy it from some random player. It probably would cost you around $500, which is roughly 50 hours, or about a week of work for your average person, or 2 days of work for me. And this is why people RWT....

"Instead of playing runescape, I let my bot play for me, while I went to the gym and worked out" -Person A Person A is now a better person because he cheats. "Instead of playing runescape, I study for my exams" -Person B Person B is now a better person because he cheats. "Instead of playing runescape, I volunteer at a the local hospital"-Person C Person C is now a better person because he cheats.

Not really. When you cheat in a computer game, you are actively cheating. When you kill somebody in a computer game, you are not actively killing. Ok, it is only a very small study, but cheating in games is not consequence free and as much as people want to say 'its just a game', it can have mental ramifications. http://www.gamesradar.com/study-says-social-game-cheaters-more-likely-cheat-real-life/ :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Danq you obviously arent posting that study if you dont agree with it. If you do agree with it I would say thats more telling about your personal biases then about cheaters. Having seen your beliefs on the off-topic forum I am not surprised you feel this way. Oh yeah Danq, I play runescape only to bug abuse. When I started it was the first time in years that runescape was fun outside of pvp. And while it would be "cheating" and "breaking" the game, it is a hell of a lot more fun and rewarding to sit there thinking about how to do something rather then repetitively sitting in a bank fletching logs all day and night I posted the study because it shows that there is the possibility of a link. It is in direct confrontation with those who say that it is just a game, therefore doesn't matter and doesn't have any relation to real-life activities. Whether you believe it or not, it is there to show that cheating in a game is no different to cheating elsewhere in life, big or small, cheating is cheating. I would like to know how you surmise my views in OT? Care to enlighten me? If you play simply to bug abuse, you should be banned, short and simple. You are not enjoying the game for what it is, and what it strives to be, instead being a part in tearing down what many people worked hard to put together. Now if you did it for no personal gain in the game and reported all things you found so that they could be fixed, it would be a different matter. Put simply, many things in life may be fun, but we don't do them because it isn't the right thing to be doing. EDIT: to your edit, if you want to feel rewarding, do something which actually benefits people. Learn to code for real, debug your own software, learn how to actually be helpful towards society for your kicks. Code for real?

Not really. When you cheat in a computer game, you are actively cheating. When you kill somebody in a computer game, you are not actively killing. Ok, it is only a very small study, but cheating in games is not consequence free and as much as people want to say 'its just a game', it can have mental ramifications. http://www.gamesradar.com/study-says-social-game-cheaters-more-likely-cheat-real-life/ When I was in highschool, everyone cheated at some point. Doesn't make you a bad person. Sorry, this study is pretty vague... "Offering a few specifics, the report indicated 53% of social game cheaters said they had cheated on tests at school, over 43% revealed they'd stolen condiments from restaurants, and nearly half admitted to stepping out on a committed relationship." As opposed to the number of people who don't cheat on video games? What if just roughly half of all people have cheated on a test...Stolen condiments from a restaurant...Wow...that's a horrible crime. And with divorce rates at around 50%, it's no surprised that half of people who aren't married have cheated... Sorry, but bullshit studies are often...bullshit. For instance, over half of runescape players are virgins. Someone could interpret this as "They are virgins because they play runescape"...but in reality, they are virgins because they are 13.... The difference is that cheating can be done at any age, so a link can be made. You seem to be entirely missing the point by assuming that just because a form of cheating or stealing isn't large scale it isn't still the wrong thing to do. As I said, the numbers are incredibly small for a study, but do show that there is a high possibility that cheating in a computer game can lead to cheating in other aspects of life. This doesn't mean they are a certainty, but logically it makes sense. If you find that you can easily cheat in one aspect of life, cheating and the punishments that stem from them become less dramatic. In essence, desensitising you to the cheating. Now again, I say that the study was small and there may be problems with it, but the numbers are there and are quite dramatic. The crux of my argument is that just because it is a game doesn't mean it has no link to real life. I would say you are way off base by saying that there isn't different levels of immortality. And the article is completely bogus. First off, one of their main selling points is stealing condiments. You know, that shit that McDonald's gives out for free. You are stretching to even show a correlation, and even if you do make that comparison, you cannot say one caused the other. Maybe people who steal in other aspects of their life are more likely to cheat at video games. The study has no control. Maybe just 50% of all people cheat in some form or another. And the study only portrays that these percentage are based on at least 1 past experience. There is a huge difference between a person who actively steals/cheats/whatever versus a person who had in the past, at some point in their life. You want to say that you dislike the people that cheat at this game, that is fine. But to try and compare botters with people who steal, or cheat on their wives/girlfriends is just retarded. People are people, and people behave differently in all sorts of situations, and much more, different people behave differently in different situations.

Not really. When you cheat in a computer game, you are actively cheating. When you kill somebody in a computer game, you are not actively killing. Ok, it is only a very small study, but cheating in games is not consequence free and as much as people want to say 'its just a game', it can have mental ramifications. http://www.gamesradar.com/study-says-social-game-cheaters-more-likely-cheat-real-life/ When I was in highschool, everyone cheated at some point. Doesn't make you a bad person. Sorry, this study is pretty vague... "Offering a few specifics, the report indicated 53% of social game cheaters said they had cheated on tests at school, over 43% revealed they'd stolen condiments from restaurants, and nearly half admitted to stepping out on a committed relationship." As opposed to the number of people who don't cheat on video games? What if just roughly half of all people have cheated on a test...Stolen condiments from a restaurant...Wow...that's a horrible crime. And with divorce rates at around 50%, it's no surprised that half of people who aren't married have cheated... Sorry, but bullshit studies are often...bullshit. For instance, over half of runescape players are virgins. Someone could interpret this as "They are virgins because they play runescape"...but in reality, they are virgins because they are 13....

or is it oversight u do not understand? might be that you can not say it that way using english. google translator tells me it should probably be overview. English is my first language. The two, in combination, I have never heard of, and I figured it what some sort of process. I also laugh at the fact that you "define" analytical as "relating to or using analysis"...It's a good thing you told me. And I wasn't asking you to write a report on the analysis of the nuke, just how you came up with the figure of 10k. Aren't you the one who mentioned you were in the programming industry, and how programmers these days are horrible, etc. I'll go back and check, but I would likely be fired if I submitted a report using specific figures, and I didn't explain how I came up with those figures. It's considered pretty nonsensical if you do. EDIT: Just checked, and it was someone else. Still, if you could let me know how you came up with 10k, I would appreciate it.

I'm sorry, I have never heard that term before, and google turns up nothing. Not really sure what you are saying you did...maybe you could explain your process. I would agree that a good percentage of the botting population are users and not developers. However, there is a good size developer based filled with some smart kids, as well as kids who aren't developers, but would like to learn. Please don't generalize an entire group under one category. I could just as easily say that everyone who still plays runescape is a 12 year old kid or this guy:

for some reason the runescape higscore stats tracker is blank after the 15th, so hard to pull anything from there. the amount of p2p as of today (19th mar) is 886,171 it was 876595 on the 15.mar at 13:00 (last number i can find on: http://open.tip.it/high-score-stats) so that number has gone up probably due to bxpw. so there seams to have been a nice hig lvl nuke hitting runescape on the 16th, can also locate a few other moments in 2012 that the ranks have suddenly gone up, but these have been much smaller and harder to locate. one must also consider that the ranks should have gone down due to bxpw, so the number off banns/resets is most likely higer. You forget people cancelling or not renewing their memberships? Hiscore ranks are not a trustworthy source any more. lol, yea.... umm im talking about 10k+ players with hig stats that decide to let membership run out on the day before bxpw? and considering this has not happening this clearly since the botnuke, i can say this is not players just canceling their membership. Maybe I'm retarded, but where did you get 10k people from? I see you're rank increasing by a roughly 500-1000... Also the tip.it chart shows a rise of roughly 25,000 from the 15th to the 19th... [/hide] geting 10 from that the 1k+ ranks i gained where in skills i have lvl 99 in, and most likely they did not have hig enough skills to raise my rank in other stat, bxpw that should have made my stats go down hides some, and then we have to consider that jagex most likely did not only ban ppl with 99 stats. i would say its easy to add it up to 10k ppl. the raise of ppls with members is most likely due to bxpw, I'm not sure if jagex banned or if they rolled back. and 25k+ ppl dose not have anything effect on my ranks going up, it can have the opposite effect, aka hiding even more banned bots. at least he don't see the adverts if he do not go there, there for cutting of potential profits. That should be enough to feel good about yourself Each of your ranks went up 1kish...this doesn't mean you get to add every skill together, and call it 10k people. I would say you are reaching pretty hard for "Jagex did a ban this week". From all the data I've seen, it looks more likely that 1k people (out of roughly 900k) let their membership drop. While 30k got membership for BXP weekend... No Ban...Sorry. Not really sure what point that brings to the discussion anyway. I've said it once, but I'll say it again. I don't advocate the USE of bots. I am, however, in favor of the skills that young kids with interest in programming can learn from bots. Shun it all you want, but the fact is it takes critical thinking skills and introduces kids to a programming language. As for the argument that it "teaches kids to cheat"...with that, I reply it's a video game. The same argument could apply that runescape teaches you to murder, steal, gamble, etc...(which is a ridiculous argument)...

for some reason the runescape higscore stats tracker is blank after the 15th, so hard to pull anything from there. the amount of p2p as of today (19th mar) is 886,171 it was 876595 on the 15.mar at 13:00 (last number i can find on: http://open.tip.it/high-score-stats) so that number has gone up probably due to bxpw. so there seams to have been a nice hig lvl nuke hitting runescape on the 16th, can also locate a few other moments in 2012 that the ranks have suddenly gone up, but these have been much smaller and harder to locate. one must also consider that the ranks should have gone down due to bxpw, so the number off banns/resets is most likely higer. You forget people cancelling or not renewing their memberships? Hiscore ranks are not a trustworthy source any more. lol, yea.... umm im talking about 10k+ players with hig stats that decide to let membership run out on the day before bxpw? and considering this has not happening this clearly since the botnuke, i can say this is not players just canceling their membership. Maybe I'm retarded, but where did you get 10k people from? I see you're rank increasing by a roughly 500-1000... Also the tip.it chart shows a rise of roughly 25,000 from the 15th to the 19th...

Back when I played runescape, I was rarely bothed by bots, and I wasn't an efficient player or an end user player. I actually had FUN (yes, fun)...killing green dragon bots in the wilderness. Sure, I would get dominated when an actual pker came around...but that was half the excitement as well. I don't praise the USE of bots, but I do like the fact that there is a community behind it that is based on developers and entrepreneurs. High school kids trying to make money through other means then working at the local grocery store or fast food joint. Not to mention the life skills these kids learn, that will eventually lead them down a path to a successful career (in most cases)... Runescape (and similiar games) are an addiction, like a drug. The game has ruined far more lives then bots ever have. Where is your moral stance on that? EDIT: I should note that I think gold farmers are pieces of shit. The problem with the game isn't bots, the problem with the game is the gold farmers...and even the botting community is aware of that...

When does the limit reset back to 25k?

The difference is that the Louvre gives visitors permission to bring cameras or recorders and take photographs of the exhibits. The movie studios don't give online pirates permission to make copies of their work, and Jagex does not give permission to players to cheat at their game. It goes back to agreement of the terms of purchase. It should also be pointed out that while the Louvre owns the Mona Lisa, the French government owns the Louvre, making it public property. Wow, talk about missing the point. Ok, let's say the Louvre or even the French government proclaims "Since we own the original, selling photos of the Mona Lisa is illegal". In your childish view of the world, is it now illegal to sell photos of the Mona Lisa in any country? Is the French government RIGHT to make such a law? If your only distinction between right and wrong is that some law exists, you've got a naive view of the world. Laws are made by men. As such, some laws are just and some are corrupt. What we as noble persons should do is strive to do the right thing regardless of the law. When what is the law and what is right do not intersect, it is incumbent upon the noble persons to try to change the law back to what is right and just. Now, is it right and just for what Jagex is demanding about it's game? For the most part, yes. However, they make some idiotic judgements at times. Something stupid like "Playing Runescape while playing the XBox is AFK and is a bannable offense". On the other hand, I don't think it's right how a program just removes the need for a player to be present. In the middle is this happy medium where a majority of players wouldn't bat an eye at the gameplay one way or another. Again, this isn't about what Jagex or the law of whatever country says, this is about what's right and wrong in a massive online role playing game. I haven't missed your point, I'm just not articulating mine very clearly. It's hard to do without derailing the thread. To keep it on topic, suffice to say that because Jagex doesn't give players permission to cheat botting is immoral. In an ideal society with objectively defined and rationally applied laws, it would be illegal. With that, I'll stop the artistic tangent before it goes too far. In terms of runescape...yeah, botting is immoral, as it's against the rules. In terms of the greater well being of humanity...I would say runescape is immoral. You don't realize it until you quit...but this game is like crack for kids. You play it for a couple of hours...bored out of your mind, but something keeps you playing it. You quit play for a little while..and you sit there, wondering, what the hell did I enjoy about that... But sure as shit...a few hours later, you have the itch to play it again. I went through that for over 7 years of my life...7 years! And at the time, I didn't know any better...

Honestly, what is wrong with less walking in this game? Some people have the weirdest gripes... "Omg! You made it easier for me to switch between spell books! That will save me hours playing this game! WTF Jagex!"...

Jagex won in court. Doesn't mean the person was wrong for what he did. There is a huge job market for Computer Science and Engineering jobs. If kids get interested from cheating in video games...then sue them I guess (literally)... Did you know that Jagex originally lost in court on the claims that they later won? http://www.scribd.com/full/36934197?access_key=key-51wmklfh7anl258olb8. Basically, what this entire document states is that Jagex hadn't went through the proper filings in order for the content to be 1. Copyright infrindgement 2. Violation of the DMCA and 3. Violation of the CFAA. Basically, this meant Jagex had to do some paperwork, and then refile a suit. So up until about the middle of 2011, bot makers were not violating any laws with their work. But yes, now it is against the law to interface with Jagex's code... Copyright law is weird, and it's getting even weirder with the progession in technology. There are lawyers all over the place that just love getting involved in these cases (commonly known as patent trolls or Copyright trolls)... Did you know there are all sorts of things you likely use every day that are patented. The best example I can think of is the hyperlink. The follwoing hyperlink (which I am violoating patent laws by using) shows an instance where a company was sued by another company for giving exposue to their company... http://news.cnet.com/2100-1030_3-6145744.html But then another judge rules it's ok. All this on an entirely different point, again the problem is with the game mechanics. Runescape isn't going to last forever, and the game will likely notice a steady decline. I would argue to death that bots supplemented Jagex's income more than it hurt it, as it was clear that a large percentage of players online at any given time were bots (nearly 50%, if not more)...

Wow...that is pretty interesting. Obviously this company must have been doing something more then what Jacmob was doing, as the lawsuits were in the works since 2010. Jacmob stated several times that his software did not violate copyright laws...

Except robbery is a criminal act, while Jagex would be issuing a civil suit against you. As far as I know, Jagex hasn't actually reach the level of court with any persons who bot/ people who distribute bots. Perhaps you could show me credible proof otherwise. PS, I think the "You wouldn't steal a car" videos are equally foolish. You wouldn't steal a candy bar is more like it.

I wouldn't say there are tons of programmers who can do it. Jagex's update also broke the "private server" community. There is page long discussions on private server forums of people offering their work in order to get their private clients up and working again. Also the robbing a store analogy is comparing apples to oranges. That's like stating I should be subject to the same penalties and judge as the same kind of person whether I rob a store or whether I cheat in a video game. I don't think people realize it, but many people in this world don't have a logical way of thinking. Much like I can't create and artistic materpiece, joe schmoe doesn't understand math, logic, programming, etc. I would also go as far as to say that trying to interface with the client through your own interfaces, and creating an API based on that is not really immorally wrong. EDIT: and why we are talking about legal and illegal hacking, I should remind people that there is a difference between holding someone at gun/knife point to steal directly from a store, and writing a program so that a game you play, plays itself...

I would like to see something with the graphics and gameplay of skyrim, mixed in with the socialness of an MMO.

First, I would like to point out that I don't consider the points I made to be "common sense", but rather my own opinions, and I respect your opinions, despite them being disagreements. I will, however, point out some of my disagreements with your disagreements. I did play other games, however I wanted to improve upon a life skill, instead of merely playing games. The style of runescape is that of repetition. Through my own experiences and my jobs/internships, I found that if I had a repetative process, the goal was to automate it as best we could. Anyone can play runescape. It's hardly a game of skill, and more a game based on your dedication to the game. Similiarly, anyone can purchase a bot, run it, and come back to the game. I wasn't interested in either of these, but rather the problem solving involved in creating bots, and further learning of the java environment. I honestly feel this wasn't his intention. It seemed to me like all the financials was under the wing of another member, and he created a business model for the software. Jacmob informed me that he was making over $60,000 a year from the new model, funds he would use to pay for his schooling. It is under the assumption (with no proof), that he did fix the bot after the nuke. Only he and the representatives in Jagex know what actually happened, but shortly after he was offered a Job with them. Something he did impressed them, so they offered him a job. Some people would similarly argue that the Gowers created their own little monster. We have childhood obesity caused by kids who would rather sit in front of a television and play video games, rather than go outside and play. I fault this to parenting, but lets admit it that the Gowers never would have reached a level of successs if these kids weren't around to invest time into their game. This is entirely your own opinion, and a scenario it seems as if you made up. First off, Information Science and Technology is a growing field. I've worked for many different companies throughout my college career. A group of us had brunch with the CIO of one of the companies, which has an intern hire-rate of something ridiculously high like 98%. I asked him why he thought that rate was so high, and he exclaimed for multiple resons including 1. The area college was producing high caliber graduates. 2. The business is growing and there is a large need for technology based persons. He even exclaimed that business positions are being filled with the lower end level of CS majors, as they known how to get the work done more efficiently. He stated (and I also have heard this same point from many other older managers and directors) that the level of knowledge a college graduate has today is much higher than those 10 years ago. He mentioned a big part of this is because people are able to learn the same material at a faster rate. During an interview, I was never asked to actually "write" a program to solve a problem. Instead, I was given a whiteboard, and asked to go through the process of how I would solve the problem, and that I could use any method I wanted to portray it. I'm a big flowchart guy, so I usually started with that. This usually demonstrated my problem solving ability. They would test my knowledge of CS topics by asking me CS specific questions. At my job (which becomes full time in May), I perform tasks in 3 different programming languages. I write java in order to interface with many of the frameworks that is standard among the web based applications. I write perl in order to parse information from different servers and databases on those servers. Finally, I write C/C++ for the embedded systems. The internet is a resource, and many people have become very proficient at gathering information from it. Most companies don't care that you memorize all the libraries of a certain language. They just care that you are performing your job efficiently. Which is a major downfall of the game. Runescape is mainly marketed at those who are <19 years old (ie, highschool, jr high..etc). Anyone older doesn't have the time to commit to this game. I know many professionals in my field, ages 20-30, who enjoy this genre of game. However, you literaly have to dedicate hours of your life to achieve the end-game material, and that is the only way to succeed. Not to mention, you often have to perform the same task over and over to get to those level. I started runescape back in 2001 because of the social interaction the game employed. I would say the socialness of the game attributes a large part to it's success, and not the actual mechanics of the game. You act as if he has plans to sabatoge the company. If anyone has a disconnect from reality, I would say it is you. First off, now that he has worked for Jagex, his ability to go back to profitable botting for the game is nil. I'm sure they made him sign a non-compete. If he tried to go back to the trade of botting software, he would likely get sued, and my guess is it wouldn't be a hard fought battle for Jagex. Andrew Gower created a video game. I don't know if I would classify him as a genius. (I wouldn't call Jacmob genius either...) Both had success in hobbies turned to profitable business. Andrew was my age when he started runescape. Jacmob was still a highschool student. The amount of knowledge gained from age 17-22 is massive. I'm still impressed with Jacmob's knoweldge at such a young age. And for the time, I'm sure that Andrew's was equally impressive.

I don't post here often, nor do I play the game anymore, for the main reason that I am 22 years old, graduating from a prestigious university with a bachelors in computer science and computer engineering. But at one point in my life, I played runescape pretty religiously. And I still hate that I wasted so much time on the game rather than something else. But alas, time I will never get back, and I can't change it now. I recently learned the story of Jacmob while spending some time with the game in order to occupy my mind. I could no longer play the game, as it was pretty mind numbing. I didn't have the hours I had as a kid to get to the levels I wanted to. I learned of botting, and I almost decided to try and use Jacmob's API to create my own scripts, however I didn't. Instead, I took his initiative and tried to my own interfaces to an entirely different game. I learned that it's a lot of bytecode work, and it no longer became of interest to me. It seems to me that Jacmob was the main programmer of both of the most common bots used in runescape before the nuke. As a 22 year old college student, I was impressed with this kids project, which he turned into a business. It reminds me of a similiar man, who had a project, and later turned it into a business. I believe his name is Andrew Gower. The only difference, is Gower did this in 1999, which was a time when creating your own games wasn't all that common. Times have changed. Jacmob really did the next best thing. He didn't create a game, but he created a way to play a game that to some, would help overcome the parts of the game they didn't enjoy. He did many, many other things with his project, which many people found favourable. When you have a MMO, there are a few factors that come into play that would entice "botting". The game is competative, and the entire concepts is that of "efficient" gameplay in order play at a level of other players. However, this level of accomplishment requires time, and to many of us, time is money. This creates a market for the game, and then automation of the game becomes a profitable business venture. So this all created a perfect environment for botting, and many, many people wanted a piece of the action. Bots quickly became a large portion of the game, and it ruined the experience for many players. So now Jacmob had a project, that although profitable for him, was ruining someone elses business. I have spoken to the man, and he has pretty good sense of moral well being. I have no clue what all happened behind the scenes, and it's likely something that will never come out. It's really the nature of big business. Jagex offered him a job, because they were impressed with his skills. He was able to get a job with pretty major corporation without any sort of college degree at the age of 17 or 18. That's pretty impressive. Be angry that he now works for Jagex if you like, however, the man is merely a man with a highly technical brain and many skills.

Do the requirements seem kind of limiting. It's like "Give us idea, but it needs to include non-combat skills, and provide a reward that is not combat related"...