Artificial_Doom_Flavor
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Posts posted by Artificial_Doom_Flavor
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Since I feel this is an important topic, I now revive it thanks to the wonderful cache Google has built. I recommend that those of you interested in reviving your own topic do the same by searching for quoted phrases in your topics or posts, then using the Cached feature to re-post your topic.
"Jagex, PvP Minigames Don't Replace the Wilderness."
I quit a couple months ago due to the anti-goldfarming updates but occasionally return to these boards or RuneScape to see if anything's changed that would make the game enjoyable for me again. I've found even single-way Bounty Hunter to be very inadequate to that end, and I got to thinking of why. Jagex's mentality- that they can replace what was lost with the updates in December and early January- is already flawed with regard to the Wilderness. They want to replace what was lost from the Wilderness with "PvP minigames"- quite frankly, that approach will never adequately replace what made the Wilderness great. This isn't to say the Wilderness as it was had no flaws, but there were certainly great aspects to it that existed nowhere else in the game that cannot be replaced with pure PvP. What I'd like to focus on here is the importance of the presence of valuable resources in a dangerous PvP area, a condition that should yet no longer exists in the game.
"This is good for the game."
The aspect of the Wilderness that allowed players to attack one another was removed last December to combat the problem of credit fraud caused by goldfarmers as well as to suit Jagex's apparent dissatisfaction with the Wilderness system ("We've felt for a long time that some of this content needed changing anyway especially the Wilderness so this was a good opportunity for us to make it work better, more fun for our players and closer to our original intentions." - Mod Hobogaly, "RuneScape vs. Real-world Trading"). Apparently, both goals were accomplished to Jagex's satisfaction; the game was mostly free of the hordes of bots and goldfarmers that had previously plagued the game and the gameplay, according to Jagex, had been improved by segregating PvP and other game content.
The Road to Hell
Yes, bots were gone- but what of gameplay? Nowhere else in RuneScape were both skilling and PvP integrated like in the Wilderness. This integration created a unique gaming environment that combined aspects of PvP combat-based games with MMORPG skilling in a way that addressed some of the flaws in both. When you play shooters or RTS games, the only consequence of winning or losing a match is generally only an effect on your statistics or the potential gain of bragging rights. There is no long-term effect on how you will be playing the game later on or any long-term consequence of those actions on other players. Skilling is different in that the actions you take build upon themselves and result in the accumulation of items or experience, which may affect how you play the game later down the road; you gain more options or faster paths to rewards or additional game content. The drawbacks? The sheer drudgery of it all; repetitive clicking without being more than minimally engaged in your task. To some, the rewards of skilling didn't justify the time it took to reach them; to others, pure combat was not sufficiently profitable and/or enjoyable. The Wilderness was a beautiful compromise: it presented some skillers with a reliable source of wealth (such as the abyss and runite), yet it broke the monotony of skilling with the promise of danger and on-your-toes thinking involved in combat or escape and, for those strong enough, the promise of a worthwhile reward for defeating their attackers. Skillers who don't enjoy skilling for its own sake or stand-alone combat now have nowhere to turn for excitement; what gives?
Risk and Reward
I used to be an f2p Wilderness runite miner myself. I both fought and ran from maxed-out players, every conceivable kind of pure, and massive clans, all so I could (hopefully) pocket about 250k+ every half-hour or so. Very few other miners were around then compared to now- Why? The Wilderness is substantially less dangerous now than it was prior to December of last year. Now, Wilderness skillers have only slow, brain-dead revenants to deal with and no guarantee of a good reward for defeating them. Unless you're a very low level or lack adequate equipment, revenants are ridiculously easy to escape from; this is easily proven by the around-the-clock absence of ore and the ever-growing presence of miners who don't even bother wearing armor anymore (before I quit, I often saw up to four miners mining a rock simultaneously, not including myself). This ties into a different mistake Jagex made- eliminating danger from nearly every other aspect of the game- but that's for another discussion. Skillers now easily gain items that they once had to be quite clever or powerful to gain; there is no challenge.
omg plz dont kill me
Computer games that involve fighting of any sort generally have a very well-defined, arbitrary good and evil set forth by the game's creators; generally, the player is the good guy fighting the bad guy or more rarely the other way around (or sometimes there is no good and evil, and you're just fighting for the sake of fighting). But how often do a player's choices have long-term effects on others' gaming experience? How often is the player the one who defines "good" and "evil" in a game? The Wilderness presented a moral backdrop very different from the rest of the game; any person who stepped in could choose to attack or defend others, regardless of whether or not they were innocent or able to defend themselves. Merely by presenting the "good" players with opportunities for reward if they were willing to risk their lives against the "evil" players who fed off of their skilling abilities, the Wilderness had created bullies and defenders, heroes and villains- a dynamic defined by the nature of the players and not by Jagex. That's been destroyed, too. Greedy or sadistic players now fight each other, and the people who liked playing hero (like me) or were otherwise innocent victims are an extinct breed.
Bottom Line
When Jagex made the decision to separate skilling and PvP, they dealt a magnificent blow to one of the most ingenious aspects of their game. They claim that they're seeking to "replace" what was lost with the Wilderness, but they don't understand that a great deal of what made it great was not merely its PvP aspect but the merging of it with skilling. I needn't go into differences between the Wilderness and existing or planned and officially announce) PvP minigames; those should be obvious and indeed those who have fully experienced the Wilderness understand the inadequacy of
such minigames when it comes to repairing RuneScape's currently dismal PvP (though personally I can't say I miss Edgeville) to a state as good as or better than the old. Jagex needs to know that they're headed in the wrong direction. What do you think?
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It would be neat if you could teach the pet both to hunt for itself, or to hunt AS the pet and get Summoning experience for a successful catch of prey. If your animal is an herbivore, you get experience (not as much since the food is unmoving) for harvesting food. You would get quarter experience if you let to pet fend for itself and catch its own food after you teach it (probably done by one or two rounds of hunting as the pet).
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Imagine the other level 40's getting pwned by... something big and destructive.
What if they made pets disobedient to Summoning pures?
Sumn U2 Lumb sent out Charizard!
Charizard turned away...
Charizard is loafing around...
Charizard used instead, FIRE BLAST!
Critical hit! It's super effective!
Sumn U2 Lumb fainted! Got 150GP for winning!
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syzygy is about to be first f2p guy with all f2p 99s
Except for his 98 prayer :P
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Heh, I invested in laws before trading was killed. I made a killing on the day they peaked by selling them all, just before they crashed. I don't know if that was luck or skill.
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No company will give you that information, for security reasons. But common sense should tell you that it is obviously in their best interests to avoid fraud. And the CC companies also have safeguards in place.
Yes, I know it's in their best interest to avoid fraud. The question was how this got to be so big a problem with said safeguards in place. Who's dropping the ball here? I guess the answer to that question doesn't really matter, since Jagex is paying for it and in turn so do their customers.
So I suppose that it's true... The company really could not have done much more in that direction, could they?
Concerning the in-game updates, however, I still believe there are viable alternatives... MANY viable alternatives. I share my annoyance with you in not hearing up front from Jagex about any of them.
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Are thoughts of RuneScape Blue and Red rising?
If they are, I'm going to be the first to abuse the Mew glitch.
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How do you know they don't?
I'm sure the scam artists are smart enough not to register 50 accounts with one card.
Obviously, that would be suspicious- but I'd like to know what exactly Jagex's process is when they receive a request for subscription. Is the system automated or manual? (Obviously it would be automated, considering the volume of requests they receive). Does the system examine previous subscriptions from a single card? How many subscriptions COULD be made from a single card before further subscriptions are refused or action is taken against the accounts? These are questions that I'd like the answers to, but unfortunately it seems as though I won't be able to get them here. I'll contact their billing department and see what the deal is.
Further, I am concerned that Jagex claims that credit card fraud refunds make them lose a lot of money. If the money was not legit to begin with, then does not that mean that they never gained that money in the first place?
It means they get what they think is a valid subscription, and then 30 to 60 days later receive a notice of a chargeback.
Understood.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless there are additional fees incurred with this "chargeback," Jagex really shouldn't have cited that as a reason for their updates.
There *can* be additional fees, but more than that, the CC companies have allowable chargeback thresholds. If the number of chargebacks you are receiving exceeds a particular level, they can cut you off. And that is likely what was being threatened here.
This would be an issue if hundreds or even thousands of cards were stolen, each to subscribe for perhaps 5-10 accounts each, perhaps even fewer accounts and simply more stolen cards. This may be the case. However, we don't know that. Stating all the facts and details would probably have been to Jagex's advantage. There may be more sensible solutions to their problems than what was done.
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Can I suggest that you both stop responding to each others taunts..... it's only going to get worse it you keep coming back at each other! take it like a cyber man! :P
To further give infomation to people about charge back:
What is a chargeback?Essentially, a chargeback fee occurs when a cardholder disputes the sale at their card issuing bank. The card issuing bank sends through a chargeback to recover money for their cardholder. The merchant agrees to pay a chargeback fee for each chargeback that bank deems valid.
In order to boost online credit card usage, credit-card companies usually limit customer liability to only $50, some none at all. All it takes is for a customer to claim that the transaction was fraudulent and then the merchant could be liable for the hefty chargeback fee. The merchant must raise prices in order to remain financially viable.
The ecommerce merchant I spoke with had a number of checks in place to reduce attempted fraud before payment processing takes place. But this kind of order and payment verification comes at a price, which inevitably must be passed on to their customers.
According to some industry analysts, fraud cost USA ecommerce merchants over over 2.6 billion dollars during 2004.
Read on to the next part of this article to learn some strategies in how you can protect your online business from credit card fraud.
Taken from here.
Although not crited, I cant find any incorrect infomation here, and so it gets the bobbington seal of approval :thumbsup: [/code](yes my seal of approval is animated)
So, this goes back to my original question.
Why does Jagex refuse to limit the number of accounts that you may subscribe for membership with using a single credit card? This only makes sense, considering the typical household will probably only have 3-5 members accounts at most. If there already is such a limit, do let me know, but it seems really fishy to me that there may not be.
Further, I am concerned that Jagex claims that credit card fraud refunds make them lose a lot of money. If the money was not legit to begin with, then does not that mean that they never gained that money in the first place? That this money being refunded was never theirs, so they are really only losing money in the technical sense? Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless there are additional fees incurred with this "chargeback," Jagex really shouldn't have cited that as a reason for their updates. Considering the profits they turn every year, I find it entirely unbelievable that they would be spending money they don't have before finding out which transactions are illegal and which are legit.
Of course, there is the issue of paperwork and wasted time... But I'd rather they'd said that instead of seeming to bend the truth.
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Artificial doom flavour, they aren't responsible.
Thats what I'm trying to tell him. And if he even had a credit card he wouldn't post what he did.
The person responsible for the credit card is the credit card holder. No one else. The police and the justice system in any country will validate this and so will the credit card companies.
O.K.
The majority of bots that we ban from members have been paid for with stolen credit card numbers...Such accounts don't earn us money, they cost us money in bank refund charges - money that could be better spent on creating new content for our players; money that could help us increase the level of support our players receive. Also, in the longer-term, if we had continued to experience these problems with account fraud, then it could have led to us no longer being able to accept credit card payments from legitimate players.
^ What of this, though? I apologize if I'm testing your patience, but it seems like this really is a big part of the issue. Could not the solution to this problem have been much simpler than what was implemented, then?
I don't believe a single word of it. No company with any respect for itself will refund a stolen credit card. But if thats their policy, than you can forget everything I've just written, and believe that Jagex are economically idiots instead.
Wow.. no wonder every kid thinks he can treat Jagex how they like, when they are dumb enough to refund someones credit card... That is just beyond stupid..
.Maybe if they did not refund stolen credit cards like most respectable companies, the people would learn to hold on to their valuables :roll:
That bit of info shocked me to be honest.
So which is more believable? That they really do refund victims of the credit fraud? Or that they seem to have flat-out lied about this problem?
I'm asking too many questions... You don't have to answer that if you don't want. I'm muddled and slightly less unpleasant than usual since it's four in the morning and I don't want to sleep.
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Artificial doom flavour, they aren't responsible.
Thats what I'm trying to tell him. And if he even had a credit card he wouldn't post what he did.
The person responsible for the credit card is the credit card holder. No one else. The police and the justice system in any country will validate this and so will the credit card companies.
O.K.
The majority of bots that we ban from members have been paid for with stolen credit card numbers...Such accounts don't earn us money, they cost us money in bank refund charges - money that could be better spent on creating new content for our players; money that could help us increase the level of support our players receive. Also, in the longer-term, if we had continued to experience these problems with account fraud, then it could have led to us no longer being able to accept credit card payments from legitimate players.
^ What of this, though? I apologize if I'm testing your patience, but it seems like this really is a big part of the issue. Could not the solution to this problem have been much simpler than what was implemented, then?
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If credit fraud is the major concern,
WHY DIDN'T JAGEX JUST PUT A LIMIT ON HOW MANY ACCOUNTS YOU COULD PAY FOR WITH ONE CREDIT CARD?
Its not a major problem is why.
Apparently people here have misunderstood.
Its not the goldfarmers abusing credit cards. Its the little kids who steal from their parents, so they can buy a couple million, or the party hat they've been dreaming of.
Its the customers of the goldfarmers, not the goldfarmers.
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
So this is essentially the product of poor parenting? That makes me very, very sad.
No no . Lets not jump to conclusions here. Its essentially the effects of laziness, game addiction, and the fact that most kids don't have jobs yet.
I don't know... It just seems really... Disturbing to me that kids would go to such lengths for virtual items.
One thing I'm still not clear about. If these kids are "buying" from the goldfarmers and not from Jagex, then why is Jagex responsible for providing a refund?
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If credit fraud is the major concern,
WHY DIDN'T JAGEX JUST PUT A LIMIT ON HOW MANY ACCOUNTS YOU COULD PAY FOR WITH ONE CREDIT CARD?
Its not a major problem is why.
Apparently people here have misunderstood.
Its not the goldfarmers abusing credit cards. Its the little kids who steal from their parents, so they can buy a couple million, or the party hat they've been dreaming of.
Its the customers of the goldfarmers, not the goldfarmers.
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
So this is essentially the product of poor parenting? That makes me very, very sad.
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If credit fraud is the major concern,
WHY DIDN'T JAGEX JUST PUT A LIMIT ON HOW MANY ACCOUNTS YOU COULD PAY FOR WITH ONE CREDIT CARD?
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Priorities.
The #1 priority of BH is to prevent gold trading unfortunately, not pking. While Jagex does want people to have fun pking, some pking may need to be sacrificed in order to satisfy priority #1.
The same goes with Clan Wars - it was created only as a solution to the gold selling problem, not as an answer to the long requested clan support.
Amazing. Sense!
Looks to me like Jagex needs to get their priorities straight.
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I really think we should weigh the options here. Do we want a game with minimal goldfarming but minimal ingenuity and enjoyment? Or do you want a game that operates in much the way it did before, with some goldfarming but not quite as much as before?
I think the choice is pretty clear, at least for me. Goldfarming did not need to be destroyed, just minimized. With trade restrictions and a PvP restriction system in place, it would be easy to return the Wilderness nearly to its original state without as much of the problem we had before. All I ask of Jagex is that they try something like what I've proposed, and if that becomes an issue, then by all means revert back to what we have now.
Priorities, people- that's what we need to get straight.
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I wish it were that simple, but even the licensing aspect allows room for RWTs to exploit this, and the only means that Jagex will have to police this is automatically flagging and manually reviewing all significant wealth transfers. Anything involving the prospect of Jagex staff having to commit time to investigating, documenting, and banning accounts manually goes against the concept of what they're trying to accomplish.
The fact is, the wilderness is huge, and it's very simple to find an unused corner in which to do a RWT. I'd focus my suggestions on things that have EXTREMELY difficult-to-implement exploits available, if any at all.
Keep in mind: In order to successfully exploit this proposed system, trades would need the stats to wield the items they are going to transfer in addition to the stats necessary to raise the money they will use to buy those items.
My idea is not intended to be airtight. It's just meant to bring back a big part of what made this game great without being crippled by massive bot farms. Yes, there will likely be some observable increase in goldfarming activity as opposed to the situation we have now, but I think it's worth it. I'd rather have a game with farmers than no game at all (this is my opinion, of course- I no longer find the game enjoyable, but many do).
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Honestly, what Jagex had to do in order to save its own game was something of a necessity. It's difficult to consider both sides of this argument, but what can you say? I'm sorry the poor guy is out of a job, and I'm sorry that people like him are suffering in poverty, but what's a community to do...sit by idly and let RWT ruin the game, or let them exist and cause even more havoc to the game?
There are probably better ways than destroying your game to stop people from destroying your game. That might just be me, though.
whatever pleases the zombified skillers...
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I dislike your failure to mention how revenant AI can be exploited for quick escapes.
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Look, say what you want about it being utterly necessary, an emergency state, the sky is falling, what have you- I don't care about that. I just want my bloody game back, and goldfarmers didn't personally do anything to me except give me ore when I killed them sometimes or slow me down a bit when I tried to fish at Karamja. Now I gotta leave just because some piece in China wants to sell something that isn't his? Is this what's to become of the MMO market?
See you guys in StarCraft 2.
P.S.: I'd like you to read this, Fey, and tell me with a straight face that the removal of the Wilderness to be replaced by Bounty Hunter was the best decision they could have made.
People like you making comments like that are why the majority of Runescape views pkers are ignorant selfish twits who care more about their virtual bloodlust than the game that they claim to support.
And comments like that reveal just how easily you can assume that I'm both a PKer and an ignorant, selfish twit. It also reveals that you're an opportunistic twit: Did you even bother to read my other posts before you decided you just had to flame me by spraying me with idiot?
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That article you have linked is a near exact copy of what Bounty Hunter is with only minor differences in it (Treasure Trail variants of armor, rune/arrow limit, etc.) But tell me how that suggestion is completely different than Bounty Hunter with exception of location (of course it'll be bigger). What I noticed is that the concept of that suggestion is it's the same as the one that drives Bounty Hunter. It will be no different than Bounty Hunter with the exception of location and that it has more restrictions.
I take it from your response that you did not have very much experience at all in the Wilderness (or for that matter, Bounty Hunter). Firstly, the Wilderness is not entirely a multi-way arena. Second, there are skilling elements in the Wilderness. These were placed there due to a danger that no longer exists (revenant AI can easily be exploited to make them entirely harmless to most players), thus making access to these resources entirely too easy compared to their former states (and entirely too boring, which I can say quite honestly from my perspective as a runite miner). Third, Bounty Hunter has just one restriction that make it impossible to PK effectively without a team or clan: the three-minute no-leave rule. That's where most of the complaints about it stem from, the fact that it is multi-way combat and features unbalanced level tiers notwithstanding.
Honestly, I would think all this would be obvious to you, even if you've only PKed in the Wilderness and gone to Bounty Hunter a few times.
You can choose to ignore what RWT and their ARMY of bots were doing to F2P AND many members resources.I was a very vocal opponent of goldfarming, actually.
You can also choose to ignore what this did to HONEST players moral as they watched not only BOTS, but drop traders get away with breaking the rules with impunity.In fact, you could say I was almost too enthusiastic to kill their workers at the runite rocks.
But the rest of runescape that didn't play just to PK and stake could see that the game was being slowly being ruined.I played to mine runite and have fun doing it. That's impossible now that the runite rocks are non-PvP. My niche in this game has been destroyed. I think other miners feel the same way; why do you think ore prices have risen over 1.4k in the past month?
I didn't like all these updates. But honestly now that I see how many scams, RWT, bots, and drop traders are gone I REALLY enjoy it.Maybe you do, but I definitely don't. I don't expect RuneScape to serve me, but at the same time I don't like seeing it degrade, either (in time to come, once you realize how boring skilling really is, you will understand).
I was never a fan of "safe duels" at the edge so the removal of that "PKing lite" doesn't bother me in the least.Defending other miners, myself, destroying those who attacked us, making narrow escapes from our oppressors- those were experiences like no other in this game. They are gone, and I can say quite readily that those were the best moments I've had playing this game, period. Truly experiencing what made the Wilderness great had very little to do with just hopping the border and taking a few steps, like so many in Edgeville. You had to immerse yourself in it to understand, as I did.
I can wait the six months or so for 1 verse 1 PKing to be re-introduced.Too long, and it'll probably be crap. I'll come back to look later but- Six months? What the hell? Jagex could at least have had that ready when they made this overhaul. Even with that, my profession as a runite miner remains entirely dull.
And I can wait for the "lend" feature to be introduced into the game.What about gifts? And charity? And businesses?
Runescape is one of the FEW games that TRY to make all accounts have a fair shot at getting ahead. To many MMORPG's are ruined when they turn into "get tweaked or get left in the dust" type games.What, by spending more time and not by using your brain? What the hell kind of system is that? 99 woodcutting doesn't say "dedication" to me. It says "Christ you have way too much time on your hands to spend doing menial labor, go outside."
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In case anyone tell me otherwise i have been PK'ing before 8-)
In case anyone tells you otherwise, you are obviously a very inexperienced PKer. Kind of like women sportscasters on FOX.
Pure PvP doesn't cut it; Integrate Skilling
in General Discussion
Posted
Now, since this has been an issue the last time I posted this thread, I'd like to add a little disclaimer:
This thread is not about "bringing back the Wildy", it's about improving the game's PvP by restoring similar elements that are unrelated to wide-scale gold farming.