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fertjuh3

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Everything posted by fertjuh3

  1. So how did he lose money? Can't he just sell them? It's junk now
  2. I think it really is doable on a ps3, there are already is a keyboards for on your controller
  3. http://www.developmag.com/interviews/49 ... rk-Gerhard May 22, 2009 Despite the vigilant work done by NPD, Chart-Track et al, games sales analysts remain trapped in the dark ages of tracking nothing beyond physical, boxed products. Its a scenario which makes digital distribution, and free-to-play models, something of a secret success. Every week in the UK, and every month in the US, we are not reminded of these facts: RuneScape, the longstanding free-to-play MMORPG, now enjoys over 8.5 million active subscribers. One of those subscribers has played the free edition of the game for over 13,500 hours. Tthe company behind RuneScape, Cambridge-based Jagex, recently launched its own Java-based casual games portal FunOrb. Now, just a little over a year since it launched, FunOrb has clocked its one millionth account holder. Faced with such encouraging popularity, Develop sits down with company CEO Mark Gerhard to talk about the companys plans for expansion, and the potential of the free-to-play model itself. Jagex is known as a pioneer of free to-play games, but has the model itself reached the levels of popularity many had expected it to? I think we have. When we started out the whole industry was fixated on classic retail distribution, and no one really understood the free-to-play model, or even the online model. Today we see the complete opposite, with some of the biggest names in gaming wanting to do what we have done. Many companies are not quite following our own model. If we look at some of the companies that have tried to copy what we do, like Sony and Free Realms, these companies are releasing just a free demo for the membership component and monetizing component of the game. We feel that the Jagex model, and certainly RuneScape, is different to this. We have released a comprehensive free game for our fans. Just to give you a sense of scale, the free game has got over 13,500 hours of gameplay to it; we know this because thats how much time our most-dedicated free-to-play player has spent on the game so far, and that person has still not maxed out all her skills. So people have seen that the free-to-play model works, but typically companies implement it in the wrong way, and only offer a few hours of free play. As a result of that, our competitors have not seen the success that we have, and I suspect they probably wont. I think something weve been very true to throughout is that we have two individual games; a free game and a members game. For the most ardent fans, membership is the only option, but for those not paying we want to make sure people have access to a self-sustained game, not a demo. I had heard that 60% of RuneScape was for members only. We look at the whole game as a globe. A mass the size of the Americas is free, but obviously there are other continents available for members only. The free-to-play game has 25 quests, the members version has 150. So yes it is significantly larger from that aspect. How is your plan to expand to consoles progressing? Before we spoke to various platform holders we did some research ourselves to see if our propositions can technically work which obviously saves a lot of time. We have working proof of concepts on some of our products, and different parts of our games on different systems. Which one we go with is another question entirely; do we put this MMO on this console, do we put all of them on another these are all questions that we have to consider. Were a games studio and technology company above all else. Of our 400 staff, about 250 are technical, and thats because we build our own tools for whatever we need. So we do a load of R&D, and the challenge for us was if we could write a software package that would take our code and output it to a C# version for the 360, Wii and PS3. This was in fact one of my first primary aims when joining Jagex, and we discovered that the answer was yes, we can put our code on consoles. Making it technically possible is one thing, but how do the platform holders look at the free-to-play model? Well, thats a very good point, because thats where were facing challenges right now and these are the topics of discussion we are having with platform holders. My aim is that there will be a completely free game on all the consoles out there, where we preserve the current free-to-play model. I think this is where the industry should go, but I dont think thats where they want it to go, given that everything that goes on WiiWare, PSN and XBLA has a price tag on it in some form. Therefore I think that the free-to-play games will probably be charged at a nominal fee, so you pay to download it and, if you want, pay to receive the premium version of the game. Thats the thinking at the moment, though things are very much up in the air. But of course, my preference will be to lobby these companies, to tell them that they need to catch up with todays tastes and provide free games if you want to compete in this area. How much luck are you having in pitching the free-to-play model to each platform holder? I really cant go into specifics; I wouldnt like to talk about individual companies while were still discussing things and while nothing has been set in stone yet. Former Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison said that he wanted to merge the premium subscription model with micropayments. How do you feel about the idea? I dont think you can take a game like RuneScape and retrofit microtransactions into it. The games just too big, and I dont think it would add value for our players. Obviously that system could be more remunerative, but I think it would price a player experience too far up. Why do you think free-to-play models are so tightly associated with MMOs? I think that many people feel an MMO means youre going to be spending a significant amount of time on a product, and so I think the free-to-play model compliments that more because it allows players to ask do I want to spend a significant amount of time on this. You have previously mentioned your ambitions to expand into the Asian markets, how is that progressing? The technology is in place now; RuneScape can support various different languages now. Our next step is a commercial one. We re thinking about where next; be it eastern Europe, Asia, South America, and so on. The honest answer; the jurys still out on that one.
  4. Also add full costume room :) (except for the holiday items)
  5. Eh, the picture is old? Idk And I'm pretty sure the band's called Lamb of God. The guy isn't even good at growling/screaming L No, there is a pro merch in the Chat. Jess wants to buy skirt Max and he wants to buy it Max + 1gp than Jess. Terrorbird in GE \ lol. Is it the shield?
  6. exactly, still very nice! How many tries did it take you?
  7. Some people just don't read the "this week's updates" faq.
  8. Sounds like a good month. The only downside is the log out timer, think about: "connection lost" you were just fighting a powerfull monster you could survive 90 seconds but can you survive 5minutes?
  9. At the end of the Path of Glouphrie quest he sais something like: of the 8 only 2 shall return one represents the path of slayer and one the path of the warrior We all now know what that means. EDIT:also found:
  10. Well, actually you can use something like a garden pie to start the quest. I did it myself (im 62 farming), if you can't start the quest chek if your summoning bar isn't empty (0/70)
  11. Tele to Lunar Isle? I retract my statement about it being a pointless Halloween event! No I forgot the ) lawl xD
  12. also you can other rewards [hide=reward]Take the broom to al kharid (teleport to sorceress's garden), pollnivneach (1997 magic xp), slayer tower (7139 magic xp), lunar island and with 93 mage to the underground pass.[/hide]
  13. I had luck and the tears almost didn't move got my max 200!! @max qp ;)
  14. Thank you verry much! I got the rewards (all three) thank to your guid. Took my one try with pre loading everything and paying 5 logs after starting each fire.
  15. The best cooking spot in game, it is the rougues denn. Rougues denn is in Burthorp (town north of falador)
  16. You get them from catching the new implings. The clothing is the same but with other colours one of them was gray.
  17. This is a spoiler. Don't know if there are any knew ones but I post them for you [hide] [/hide]
  18. If you talk to simon after the quest, and talk about "the little job" You need to talk to the mummie from pp and than to simon again. He will now tak noted piramide plunder items, but no gold ones
  19. and everyone with the same lvl is a WannaB
  20. yesterday the ge bankers shouted 14mil drop party. Maby if the value is above 1mil all the bankers shout it? there were 400+ man
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