NukeMarine

Wow, sounds like a great month of updates. The gp pouch sounds like the RS version of a Bank Debit Card. The card gets you access to your bank account. However, if your card is stolen, you don't lose your bank. The belt and the one-click updates are always welcomed. More conveniece (less clicking) in the grind intensive skilling is never a bad thing. The rouge's den sounds great, especially with items that improve skilling in a (player determined) expensive skill. And of course Auras. I'm in love with the JoaT aura (it's like doubling of penguin points) and the Surefoot aura is 40 minutes of constant run energy. Hopefully the non-cosmetic auras are just as good.

Sorry, but neither of those are merchanting. The first, as you stated, is speculation though day trading is a better term. It's not bad per se, but it's not beneficial to the consumer because your profit benefited neither the ultimate buyer nor seller of the goods. Nowhere near as bad as price manipulation which is just an elaborate scam and a grand scale. Still, I'd love to see a return of real merchanting. Those guys that buy in small amounts to create bulk products they sell at larger amounts. If Jagex locked down the hourly amounts allowed for purchase to a greater degree, this could happen again. Imagine being limited to only 1000 consumable items per four hours on the GE while most other things are 100 though anything over 100k gp is 10 and over 1m gp is 1 item every four hours. Merchanters would be the ones using their time buying these items in small amounts from actual sellers in person where ever (basically paying them a little extra to buy these for him) on hopes of a big person to person sale to a buyer on world 2. So, turn the GE into a convenience item for the average player, but the big rollers will need to deal in person. Remember, the GE is still just a fancy bot. It allows players to play the game offline. Such a powerful tool needs to be restricted with the return of free trade. Besides, its main purpose was when free trade was restricted.

It's called "fair use". Yes, pictures belong to Jagex. No, actual writing doesn't belong to Jagex. (Again, pics are covered by fair use.) No, fair use does not apply these cases. Critique, parody, scholarly work, or education are some of the limited cases that allow fair use. People add Jagex's images to their websites because it makes it look better and generates traffic. Jagex allows that for their own reasons (good business sense most likely). You're half right, but half wrong. There's no requirement for it to be any of the things you mentioned above, so long as the original commercial purpose of the image is preserved; that is, I'm not allowed to use the image in a way that would replace its original purpose. The rationale for using non-free images is that first and foremost, there is no free alternative available. Unless Jagex release a load of images into the public domain or under a CC non-commercial license, it's hard to argue that there's a free alternative available to fansites. Secondly, you need to be able to argue that without using the non-free image in the work, the reader's understanding of the work's subject would be greatly undermined. For a RuneScape example, it's very easy to argue that for an article on Jad which talks about his attack animations and how they are predicted, an image of Jad and his attack animations is needed for the reader to gain a comprehensive understanding of the article's subject. This is known as contextual significance--you're right in saying it has to be more than 'making the article look better', but for RS Wiki and other fansites it is about more than that already. Thirdly, copyrighted material published under the fair use clause has to be used minimally. I'm not allowed to publish twenty images of Jad's ranged attack, when one would suffice. There's a number of other criteria as well but mostly it's common sense (describe the rationale, be mindful of where it's published etc.). Even if Jagex didn't like it, some of the images (not all, admittedly) meet the fair use clause. Well, let's look deeper into this. If Celebrity A is walking down the street and I take a snapshot, I not only own but can use that image. If others try to utilize that image for profit there can be some lawsuits afoot. Here we have this computer game where Jagex creates a method that's equivalent of a real world and you take a Snapshot of the Jad. It's still my computer creating all the situations that lead to the image. Guess you could say I own that image just like I'd own an image of Justin Bieber taking a nose dive into a Camero had a grabbed that shot. BUT (big letters meaning something important about to follow) that does not give me free fair use of all Justin Bieber's images or of the Jad's. So, using Knowledge base or images provided by Jagex may not fit your fair use argument, but digital world images may actually work in a legal sense. Personally, I'm for liberal interpretation of fair use. Snapshots, short videos, small paragraphs and such that offer descriptive ability are cool in my book. However, we're dealing with laws that act with the insanity that "Hey, we want to put our image EVERYWHERE in public, but if you film in public with our image that we PURPOSELY put out there, then you need to blur or cut it out." See, I'm a bitter old man that's put up with this crap for a long time. I can agree with the concept but the reality just irks me. In my former response, I was referring to the concept. The reality though I completely concede your point. The courts may have a different tact.

It's called "fair use". Yes, pictures belong to Jagex. No, actual writing doesn't belong to Jagex. (Again, pics are covered by fair use.) No, fair use does not apply these cases. Critique, parody, scholarly work, or education are some of the limited cases that allow fair use. People add Jagex's images to their websites because it makes it look better and generates traffic. Jagex allows that for their own reasons (good business sense most likely). Still, good call about the writing on RS Wiki not belonging to Jagex. I don't even think the derivative work portion of copyright applies in that case.

Hopefully I'm not being naive and Jagex has a plan to have players that are wiki moderators with authority to revert changes, lock pages, and block players that vandalize pages. A wiki is a great idea, but there has to be over riding control when things like edit wars or new material comes out. Overall, I'm for a wiki as the power of tens of thousands will do more than the power of dozens. Jagex can release the base template and let the players do the rest.

Given that JoaT is better than a week's worth of penguins with skills 70+, I'd be upset if Jagex didn't make efforts to reverse any player that exploited this bug given the ease it would be to detect them. I expect bugs to happen (doubly so considering they're stance against open beta testing), but I expect them to retroactively remove benefits from bugs if possible and ban or punish blatant abusers if necessary. By the way, the only two good auras at the moment gameplay wise is JoaT for the easy experience and the Surefooted since that's 20 or 40 minutes of 100% run energy everywhere (benefits from agility courses have skill level sweet spots that disappear at levels 70 to 90). Outside of those, nothing really of interest to me until the next batch.

1.)Wait for gold prices to shoot up 2.)Bot 100m worth of gold 3.)Have a buyer lined up ready to go 4.)Buy membership 5.)??????? 6.)PROFIT 7.)Mine Pure ess for the rest of the month 8.)repeat Im not sure why Jagex thinks membership is a barrier, remember that time that they added pure ess? Yeah I do Oh, the bots that really do a good job are working again? Must have missed the memo. So, unless you add a "2a.) Hope Jagex doesn't ban the account prior to getting 100m in gold" that to do list is fairly optimistic. On top of this, with so few F2P accounts, it's likely they'll compress more and more servers making botting more difficult since more players will see the botters. Assuming that you these are the less complicated types (screen scrapers or timed bots). That said, I don't think they have all the loop holes for tranfering funds closed. There's death drops where runes or expensive armor could be swapped at a minimum. It's less convenient, but it's there. I do like how it stops trust trades and scamming at least in one direction.

I think the problem is that the both the front and back end of the game has been changed slowly week by week with the occasional major update that people don't notice that it's gone through two or three complete rewrites if you compare the current game to the one released as RS2. Yes, I'm pulling the number of what counts as a rewrite out of nowhere, but the point still stands. You can look at RS2 then and RS now and you'll notice almost the same gameplay, but that's also the case if you compare it to RSC. However, if you look at what was required to make the game and the actual graphical engine and it's completely different. Granted, we're never going to be able to compare the code, but if Andrew is still lurking maybe he can chime in with his opinion on how much the game changed coding wise.

Hmm, looks like exploiting f2p has been shot in the foot. Given you can still kill trade, the only way is with unnoted expensive items. Unless I'm mistaken, that's only with rares which I doubt will happen. Normal players looking to make pures can still get their "donation" so there shouldn't be too many complaints. Time to see how it'll pan out.

Should put RS HD update in there (date?). That was a very significant change.

Mouse keys. Not the best solution, but it mitigates the problem.

The first three articles were very good reads. The Goodbye Runescape article was a tad over the top with the doom and gloom predictions, but still points to the importance of F2P in the ongoing life of Runescape. The article "When 2 becomes 3", though well thought out, I have to disagree with. Jagex should not consider making another dead end game by having an older version of the game with no updates purely for nostalgia. The "date" that's chosen will be arbitrary, the program could still contain exploitable code, and the game may have bugs that cannot be fixed without other updates that occured at later date. That said, there's merit in releasing or converting servers with their own closed off economy. I made a thread about it last year called Runescape Reboot. In it, the discussion made me think there's merit in playing on an economically fresh server with many of the legacy issues gone. Like 2006, there would not be a grand exchange. In addition, there would not be high or low alchemy (maybe the lumbridge ring only). What makes it better than a 2006 version of RS is that these servers would be updated so the game population would not dwindle to nothing. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see what RS would be like with no support from F2P, not that that exists much now anyway. The third article about grind reduction sounds interesting. If nothing else, the mini-games that Jagex has set-up (blast furnace, smithing guild, lumber yard, herblore habitat, pyramid plunder) do reduce grind. The one thing Jagex needs to keep in mind is reduce the amount of clicking. Imagine Livid Farms where each minute only requires 4 clicks from the player, each telling the area to do: plants, fence, binding, energy transfer. The time involved would still be the same, but the 'leveling' is more passive.

I call it one of the inspirations for Half-Life. Oh, and this having to buy cards to get novelty items is getting a bit stupid. Is there a reason being a consistent, paying member is deemed less worthy of a reward?

If we're going off personal history with the high scores, then to me high scores would be irrelevant in my early playing. Even as a member, I didn't stress the high scores then and only look at it now as more a curiosity. Let me put it this way, early on in members I was getting into merchanting Unid Herbs big time. Asked another friend who he sells to that I can sell also. So he gave me a name. The guy never seemed to be logged on or are not public. Asked him why and he said to look at the high scores, and that's how I found out about Zezima. Amusing anecdote aside, I don't know if other new players will or will not care about high scores. I would think a better introduction in lines of Tutorial Island would still work better if we're talking about hooking new players. The high scores change is just ticking off legacy players, and legitimately so.

So far, the ONLY thing they say they're removing is the high scores. Unless I misread, account's stats will still be readable via query. Now, if that's the case, would you be ok with the removal of F2P being ranked in high scores? People on F2P would still be able to show or prove their level. Duel arena stat scouting will still be possible. TheOldNite and LarryR's score could still be linked to in sigs and various replies to make a point about how certain persons aren't as boss as they think they are. Granted, Jagex could remove the query ability in which case the above is moot.

Then you have very poor timing, since you're posting this right in the middle of a big ol' controversy about a negative change to the free game. :mellow: Actually, it was all the "no pay no say" in the thread about F2P high score removal that was the final straw if you will. Now, one can argue that the change has a benefit to members as many, many players will see a huge boost to their levels. However, the naysayers weren't even thinking that far. They only said "Guys should be glad for what little they have and should have less than that anyway."

Let me apologize by not emphasizing this is more about the negative input from members that claim that only people that pay should get benefits. They're complaining about positive changes to the free portion of the game as if it's an insult to them. Unless the change negatively implacts member gameplay, as pointed out above and by yourself, complaints about them ring of nothing more than selfishness. By the way, I did imply that a smart company will listen to the reasonable inputs of its customers when I wrote: "Jagex is a smart business so it might listen and adapt to that input [from players], though is under no obligation to do so." By all means, players should vote with their pocket book but realize that Jagex is looking at all votes (those that end up subscribing, and stay subscribe) not just them most vocal ones on the forums. It's a complicated issue with a lot of give and take. No question of that in my mind.

Many do make secondary accounts such as pures and play them on F2P. Those persons have legit cause about improving F2P gameplay even if they also have a P2P account. My thesis is about those that complain about improvement to F2P servers when they're playing on a P2P server. Now, yes, there is some crossover. When you open up more resources on F2P, that will have an economic impact on P2P. Usually, such cases in arguments are non-existant. It's more along the lines of "You can't have nice things". No, this goes beyond that. Anytime there's talk or suggestions about improving the F2P experience there are the trolls and Cartman's out there bleeting "No pay no say" with nothing else to add to the discussion. The highscore "discussion" with those very replies just got me thinking more about it.

It does. But it is insignificant. Guild Wars was an MMO with no subscription fee, and the servers are still all up until this day. They've even published an article on how MMO's don't require subscription fees in order to pay for server costs. That's distracting from the larger point about being honest with the overall reason why this is occuring. I don't know what Jagex's operating, server, or community relations costs are. I'm just assuming it's a reason given the absence of ..... well, valid reasons in this. Oh yeah, IF 99.97% of all bots are F2P (so .03% of all bots are P2P), AND most bots are now inactive thanks to the bot nuke (meaning most active F2P are legit players now ) AND Jagex via Mod Emilee is claiming removing F2P from High Scores is the only way to guarentee full removal of bots from High Scores. Wait, I don't even have to go this far. If 0.03% of bots are members and you want to REMOVE ALL THE BOTS (insert meme picture), then don't you have to remove all members to catch those .03% from High Scores? No real point, just evidence that Jagex via Mod Emilee is being weasely here. Inactive accounts hidden from Hi Scores - Ok with me Active accounts (even f2p) hidden from Hi Scores - Not ok with me.

George Carlin made an enlightened observation: "They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain." Now, personally, I look at it like "if you take part in the election, you accept that your candidate(s) might not win". In other words you've agreed with the system and the results by taking part in it. Only those that chose to opt out can complain about the winning candidate. Now the RS point.... If you pay for membership, you forfeited all reasonable input about free to play gameplay. Your concern should be the member servers and the gameplay on those servers. F2P getting a new quest? Not your concern unless you stop paying. F2P getting a new skill? Not your concern unless you give up membership. On top of that, traditionally any update to F2P has also been a more significant update for P2P (updated Lumbridge graphics, Lumbridge tasks, Dungeoneering, Fist of Guthix, etc.) In those cases, you can complain about the P2P portions of the update cause it's impact on you. Think about it, if you're a resident of Tennessee, went to school there, had a house, and other stuff then it makes sense that you have a say in the politics and upkeep of Tennessee. You later decide that you want to pay extra cost of living and move to California. Guess what, you've lost all reasonable input in the internal workings of Tennessee. You owe nothing to Tennessee and Tennessee owes nothing to you. Doesn't matter if the time you lived there there was no high speed rail, mass transit, or better paying jobs and high quality of life with the same cost of living. Sure, you could offer your opinion on the matter, but is anyone going to pay attention to you if the most you offer is "They shouldn't be living as good as we are in California unless they pay more in taxes like we do!"? Although reasonable opinions on whether something is a good idea in other areas of the world will likely be respected. Now, if you have a problem with Jagex's business model, I suggest you invest in Jagex's company. Renting an account is not investing anymore than buying game at GameStop. I'm talking use your cash and buy part ownership in Jagex. Then you have actual say on what can create a better return on your money while still keeping in line with the Company's overall vision. Until then, if you do want to question and offer suggestions on a business model, at least keep the business concept in mind while you do it. Perhaps to sum it up: Paying $6 a month gets you access to members content and basic input on that content. Jagex is a smart business so it might listen and adapt to that input, though is under no obligation to do so. Assuming more than that is just delusions of grandeur. By all means, offer input on what you think can improve situations even if you have no dog in the fight. Offer reasoned debate and discussion. However, don't presume that your $6/month gives you power over a game (F2P RS) that's not meant for you or over a company that you don't own any stock.

It's the weasel words being used by Jagex in justifying this move that bothers me. Not just with Hi-Scores but also Dice removal. It's the carefully chosen words of a liar. Imagine if Jagex said: "Due to the massive number of accounts on F2P, many of which are dormant and/or botted, it's become an undue financial drain in bandwidth cost. For the time being, we'll be removing F2P accounts from the high scores list and evaluate about putting active F2P back on the list at a later date." In other words, be honest if there's a legit financial reason behind this. Paying the bandwidth cost with all the queries has got to add up to something. Players can understand if the F2P accounts have an added cost that's not adding drastically to gameplay. Additionally, give the idea that legit active F2P players may find themselves put back on the lists (even if it never happens). Something like that would go over much better than "Oh, but you'll love that your ranking in F2P skills jumps 200k spots." I'm with the players that think F2P adds to the game. It's an demo, introduction and full on game in its own right. If Jagex is smart, it should stay in the process of revamping all the F2P quests to make them in line with recent F2P quests (maybe even make the most recent quest F2P). Attracting new players with a quality introduction that's now free of the major bot infestation is a profitable idea. Of course, I'm not a F2P player, so I have no real say in F2P development. Yeah, you heard me, If You Pay You Have No Say About F2P.

It'll be hilarious when people start stealing the guards <3 As for NukeMarine's idea, it should be possible to create a script that reads the other player's message, removes the random letters, and posts the correct response within a fraction of a second. Not safe at all. I would figure that problems with lag, especially on trade worlds would be the biggest issue. If the syncing is too far off then the calls won't match cause it looks like each guy is cheating. My understanding of the anti spam is it now prevents rapid typing, so I don't think that'll work within a reasonable time frame (main reason I said to have the number and 20 characters of garbage que'd up). If that's not the case then yes, it won't take much to undermine this either. I'll defer to the scripters if such a thing is reasonable. Of course, there's Rock, Paper, Scissor emotes in the Clan Citadels. However, if a screen scraper can see letters and numbers, it's possible they'll see specific emotes. For now, if the Seal emote works, I guess they can have two people side by side playing as the dice.

First, I wish Jagex would be honest and give all the reasons for this change. I'm quoting you is that I think one of the reasons is that many 99s out there are botted 99s for gold mining that gave up the account after the nuke. Jagex may not have proof to ban it, but if it's not being used then don't rank it. Anyway, some ways Jagex could do this, assuming they're capable: If your account isn't active, it isn't ranked though others can look at your individual account skills (stat sigs should still be able to work). Yes, this unfortunately affects theoldnite, larryr and others but I think many P2P and F2P will back up this idea. If you're active F2P, ONLY your F2P skills count for your skill total in the overall rankings. You don't show up on individual skill rankings for member skills even if you rank high in them. Again, I think quite a few can agree with this. I just don't see the reason for blocking all of F2P on the ranking table. At least rank the active accounts, and if it really matters rank only the skills that are F2P skills.

Wait, did I miss something. Did the high scores discussion veer off into religious territory? Or our we debating that the first to achieve 5 billion total xp will ascend to god hood and create an entire new faith.

At least that gets spammers and gamblers out of the GE. However, the punching can be oh so slightly modified so the max hit is an even number. Assuming 0 also counts as an even number, and max is 8 then you have 5 numbers to 4. If zero is said not to count, then raise strength so max is 9 giving 5 odd and 4 even. Take that back, he can probably switch between punch, kick or block to skew the result to his advantage. If you go with my idea (better and host both call out a number at the same time, add together for even/odd result; both perform one of two emotes of match/no match result), then that can be done at the GE.