strilmus

Yeah, the only real reasons why I play RS over other games at the moment is: - Low graphical requirements - Not being pressured into purchasing expensive virtual crap (which, in most f2p asian mmos, is designed to cheat you of any real benefits unless you pay them even more) in order to play the actual game There are many, many other free games out there that do provide experiences which don't make you want to punch your own face in right now, and the only thing that stops them from totally competing is that there are a lot of people that are too lazy to upgrade their graphical capabilities in order to play them.

Probably another ploy to fortify their members numbers before some kind of predetermined deadline.... The Dominion Tower is where they're putting the boss rush, right?

From what I've seen from the video, his message is more of a statement that asks you to consider the reasons and circumstances before voting, rather than outright saying "don't vote for Jagex". Compare to "should you vote for Jagex?" However, considering how much Jagex appears to be suppressing any kind of opinion that doesn't favor them, it's not likely that we'll get a fair response anytime soon.

It is. But they should stop trying to pass themselves off as a veteran game company if they want to take that route. :P

I'm starting to think that it's not even about getting new players anymore...at least, not in a meaningful way. They're trying to use the award to validate the company as a whole, and to show others in the industry that yes, they are a "legitimate player" in the market for consecutive years. Stuff like that is intended to bolster their stock values. And to them, it doesn't really matter how it happens.

Was it worth the PR backlash? Did they mitigate any kind of damage that was already done? Was even more attention called to an unremarkable video that would have been ignored otherwise? (although somewhat enjoyable to watch in a twisted, detached way) While these people are essentially brought on as puppet mouthpieces for what may or may not be an entirely savory operation, the idea here is to make their role as such as least obvious as possible.

I'm not really sure that I've said this before, but it's not the fact that the change will break the game significantly, but the fact that this is a clear cut money for power trade. Before, with the special items that didn't really do anything besides look pretty, it was fine. Hell, even the auras are okay to some extent....because ALL MEMBERS gain access to them on the side at an equal rate based on their time spent in the programme, rather than paying an additional amount to get more points faster (outside of certain stupid loopholes that should have been thought of beforehand, regardless of what you say about hindsight). It basically works like any of the other distractions/diversions in that regard, except in this case there isn't any kind of actual minigame attached. However, now you can pretty much buy this boost with money. It takes additional money to buy this boost, and we aren't really separating the boost users from those who aren't, so it's not the same as the members/f2p split. As much as referral programs (i mean "programmes") are cool, I think they could have easily designed one that would have worked for free and was available to everybody. This would have had more interest to the overall community, been more effective to draw in additional players, and makes more logical sense as a whole. Since people who sign up for membership are those who have actively tried their hand at the game for a certain amount of days that Jagex would most certainly know the average of, once that player stays active for that many days (an active day being one in which a cumulative hour has been spent playing that day), I would have replaced the reward with a free week of membership granted to the sponsor (with a limit of five total per year granted this way), and-wait, forget that part about the cosmetic item. It would probably be more likely for both players to continue being members if both of them got the free week, since they wouldn't want to separate. Nobody gains an ingame advantage over anybody else. More new people enter the game. More people get to try members. More people get hooked. Would it benefit bots? I guess. Would it benefit bots above other players? Not inside the game. But yet, so many are willing to accept the current programmmmmme as the most viable option. However, since it is basically a CHEAP WAY TO BOOST THEIR PAYING MEMBERS NUMBERS WITHOUT ANY REGARD FOR ANY ACTUAL LONGTERM PLAYER INVESTMENT, I think we can see through these claims as the predictable sham that it is. I mean, the new member has to pay within 2 weeks of entering the game, and any benefit to them is largely superficial and not even close to why they would want to play with their friends.

Well, if they stop making articles on a regular basis, then we forget that we even have a times, and then when people finally want a times again, it won't be there. Writers out of practice and whatnot. They're not really writing to make you "happy" in every article...if they were, they would be as bad as Jagex, trying to turn your attention away from the real problems of the game. I guess you might want more fictional stories?

To the first article: finely written, but as I don't know the typical lifespan of content development at Jagex aside from their really big projects, we may be hard up for endgame players for quite a while...not the issue with your article, but I've still got the same empty feeling I've had for years. To the second article: Isn't it convenient how they've actually named some of their features "distractions and diversions"? In the meanwhile, I hope that you all will refrain from berating the writers for "rehashing" but frankly if they don't post every week, then when time comes for the important stuff we won't have anything to speak with! Also, because people do not regularly participate in forum discussion, the times provides a convenient summarizing device that can reach even those who refuse to communicate with us in any way whatsoever (like for instance, Jagex staff members). On an always unrelated note, I know I take every opportunity to preach about my ideas for sweeping change and that nobody ever cares, but perhaps you all will be desperate enough to read it some day. Unfortunately by then it may be too late. Cheers!

@geekguy: A few points. - If the shareholders were so aware of the player base in the first place, why would they assume that the players were going to accept these changes which go against the overall RS philosophy? I highly doubt these shareholders have been playing or spend their time in RS forums...considering how out of touch Jagex appears to be (or pretends to be, I have no idea), if their shareholders knew more about the problem than them, you would think they would have brought up these issues already. Also, I'd like to note that in times of war, countries have been typically favorable towards lying to their citizens when it comes to numbers in order to preserve their reputations, as ineffective as it has been. - Historically, Jagex isn't willing to set the record straight with us, and hasn't been until it is too late to do anything about it. They prefer to use filler messages which state that they are doing something and have a multi-faceted strategy, but clearly from the outset they have been pursuing the wrong angle, and have been for YEEEEEARRRRSSS-okay you get the idea. And a game year represents a huge part of a game's lifespan! At this point I don't think they would be willing to consider an alternate solution without another pivotal event in their midst. - While this fear is baseless on a reasonable level, investors as a whole can be the least reasonable people at all. When Nintendop publicly apologized for poor sales and their execs took a paycut, their stock continues to perform poorly, and overall perception did not improve. Without a clear solution to the problem, most remain unconvinced of their future performance. Jagex clearly considers this issue to be "in-house", so why would they get shareholders involved if they do not consider them to be pertinent to the issue? But you are right...Jagex SHOULD be ashamed for acting like they don't need the help. @ginger_warrior: While we'll never know for sure of the exact numbers, at this point I'm willing to say that active bot numbers for both sides of the game outnumber, if not come close to outnumbering the actual playerbase at all hours. Jiblix's video doesn't even begin to show all of the locations for bots that I've come across. A lot of "actual players" have been botting themselves also, if not for levels, then for supplemental income.

I....don't think any company would publish numbers on their illegal third party program users.

Regardless of any degree of fear mongering, the facts are still out there for people to observe. A substantial part of the game is taken up by bots now directly due to the actions of Jagex, even more so than before. The claims that they were able to fight the bots did not pan out, and were naive to begin with considering the way they treated the problem. Botters themselves are never truly punished, and seem to be accepted as part of the game, rather than actually made to leave, despite how obvious most of them are. Most of the control of the company belongs to people who do not actually have interest in the company itself. People who initiated these unusual changes right after they gained control of the company, and nobody else, because as the EFFING MAJORITY SHAREHOLDERS they are the ones deciding all the major moves here, so don't try to pass it off anywhere else. And those people are willing to openly admit allowing players to "invite themselves" to the game for exp boosts in exchange for money, despite one of the key points of the game was that no actual advantages were supposed to be truly bought. This move will clearly benefit those who regularly fund new dummy accounts anyway. Which are botters. Anybody with half a brain could have seen that set up a mile away, and those who willingly claim ignorance have run out of excuses. Even if you aren't "reading into this situation too much", all of those listed things are easy to see for any user, and if you just want to pass it off as another bot thread, perhaps you should start wondering why the hell there are so many bot threads these days.

By that reasoning, you'd be better off achieving things in real life.

Wouldn't it be most efficient to ignore leveling all of these skills which effectively give you nothing of use in the game at the higher levels? Why don't I just not level construction at all? I've suddenly saved millions and weeks!

Anybody else notice that they are using updates to attempt to (poorly) hide some of these changes? I mean, the katana was just slipped underneath one update, and this one comes on the tail of what might have been the last chance for them to have redeemed themselves this year.

Is Zachary Bragg supposed to be a joke about people who train with wind strike?

Waaaaaait a second The dark bow is actually a downgrade fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-

It's nice having somebody else do all the killing for once.

"No, not the snakes!" "No, not the snails!" "No, not the snakes again!" They need to change the snake encounter just a bit.

Through careful study of the materials, it appears that during a build tick resources are allocated according to the set build order (after upkeep is fulfilled, of course). And apparently it isn't necessary to complete the job during that build tick. Any resources stored in a build job in this fashion are effectively "spent" already and cannot rot as they are now invested into the building's foundation. However, if this job is later cancelled AFTER the build tick dedicates those resources to the building, since those resources were already invested, they will not be recovered. This means that the only resources that do "rot" are the surplus materials left over after all jobs have been filled up. HOWEVER in order for work to actually proceed on the citadel, the required minimum amount of people to visit must still be upheld!

Okay, I get the non-enthusiasm over all the other recent updates, but if you're going "meh" at this, I want your credibility badge on my desk NOW. Even those who don't give a rat's ass about clans can still be blown away at a customizable large scale castle in the sky.

pff, if you want a cool custom cape with stats, you're gonna have to earn it yourself anybody find out if they have any tangible benefits from the city you choose?

Can't talk, too busy staring at fancy banner with shiny thing.

In retrospect, this was inevitable. Wonder how it looks at night.

Some of it is chickens.