This week's Tip.It Times has been released. This article is a follow-up to our last guest piece entitled Anything Goes (see the discussion topic here). Feel free to discuss the article or post any comments. If you have any criticism, please make sure it's constructive! And remember - this is a guest article, so please be considerate of the author's feelings when you post. Inconsiderate comments and heavy flaming will not be tolerated. :D

 

 

 

AllÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s fair in love and war (and in the wilderness)

 

by Flammacor

 

 

 

There has recently been a spate of articles providing advice on how to play RuneScape. These authors at least have the modesty not to claim that they inherently know better than you how you should play, but they do claim to know what Jagex intends. Whether intuiting the proper code of behaviour from the design of the wilderness, proper character...

 

 

 

Click here to read the rest of this article.

A good read, thank-you Flammacor.

a very good read showing both sides of the story, but i wish the topics would'nt always revolve around the wilderness( atleast the past 3 have).

 

 

 

off-topic:2nd post! woot

Fascinating article. I can't say that I agreed with all of your conclusions about the wilderness, but I agree that Jagex should encourage more emergent game play there. Personally I disagree with honor pkers because I believe that the honor code limits emergent game play too much. I want to be one step up on the next guy in the wildy by any allowable means possible.

A splendid, funny editorial, with plenty of positive vibes. I didn't get that from the last two. Thanks for writing this; this is truly a stellar read.

agreed.

 

off topic:w00t first page on a front page article! :D

this was an awful article he barley mentioned the argument it was mainly rambling about nothing and comparing rs to earth was the stupidest thing he could have done over all i give him -10/10

good read i'll come back to this form to see if anyone disagrees with the fact that the code of honer is pointless and invented by ppl that r too lazy to do anything to counter all the ways to evade pkers

 

for example:

 

 

 

don't like ppl tellying away, get 85 mage or go into deep wildy

this was an awful article he barley mentioned the argument it was mainly rambling about nothing and comparing rs to earth was the stupidest thing he could have done over all i give him -10/10

 

 

 

When you say things like that, make sure you DO have arguments. Basically, all you are saying is "it sucks" and that's all. Not very constructive.

 

 

 

I don't think the comparison with Earth is a strange one. We humans play RS, and we play on Earth. We create emergent game play in both, difference is that it are two very different areas with their own characteristics. It's possible to study human behaviour in both of these areas.

 

 

 

I think this is a very good written article, which gives some eyeopeners. It's food for a great discussion imo.

this was an awful article he barley mentioned the argument it was mainly rambling about nothing and comparing rs to earth was the stupidest thing he could have done over all i give him -10/10

 

 

 

When you say things like that, make sure you DO have arguments. Basically, all you are saying is "it sucks" and that's all. Not very constructive.

 

 

 

I don't think the comparison with Earth is a strange one. We humans play RS, and we play on Earth. We create emergent game play in both, difference is that it are two very different areas with their own characteristics. It's possible to study human behaviour in both of these areas.

 

 

 

I think this is a very good written article, which gives some eyeopeners. It's food for a great discussion imo.

 

 

 

earth and rs are completely different comparing them was a waste of time and i do back it up heres my back up - READ IT

Yada yada yada. A bunch of stuff I don't really have interest in. I'll come back when the editor writes something about the gameplay itself.

this was an awful article he barley mentioned the argument it was mainly rambling about nothing and comparing rs to earth was the stupidest thing he could have done over all i give him -10/10

 

 

 

As far as I can tell, you rambled quite a bit more than he did just now :?

 

 

 

Anyway, on topic: I enjoyed this article very much, and I found it to be very well-written. I especially liked the point Flammacor made about emergent gameplay.

 

One of the things that bugs me most about people in runescape is the attitude that many people have that merchanting is evil. I have gotten into several discussions over the topic (some rather heated), yet I have only once had such a discussion with someone who was against merchanting and actually had a good argument and was willing to concede that, even within the general classification of merchanting, there is "good" merchanting and "bad" merchanting.

 

As I found out, we discovered that we actually had the same opinion even though we seemed to be opposed at first, with both of us being against what he was calling merchanting (basically lying to/misleading/taking advantage of other players for personal gain), while the merchanting that I support (and greatly enjoy) is acceptable (basically, in an over-simplified definition, buying low and selling high without doing any of the "bad" merchanting things).

 

The main impression I have gotten from most of the other people I have "discussed" this with was that they had tried merchanting and hadn't been very successful, so they decided to bash merchanters to nurse their own bruised egos and reconcile themselves to the fact that the merchants were making more money than them (because the merchants started off unsuccessful and became successful and they didn't have the patience).

 

 

 

[sIDE NOTE] I know plenty of people who dislike merchanting themselves but don't dislike merchants, I don't have a problem with these people, everyone prefers different things, but as Flammacor said,

Whether you accept or reject participation in that emergent behaviour, you can still enjoy the added complexity it gives to the game.

 

 

 

Back to my main point, the thing I liked most about the article was the attitude that emergent gameplay, whether you like it or not, is a good thing. I think the connection to Earth may have been a bit of a stretch, but I felt that it certainly did make a good point. Emergent gameplay in the wilderness is something I choose to forego (as is all encounters with the wilderness that don't involve clues or runecrafting), but I nevertheless think it adds a lot to the game, and it is certainly nice when a pker foregoes attacking me when I am doing a clue scroll because they feel that attacking someone who is doing a clue is dishonourable.

this was an awful article he barley mentioned the argument it was mainly rambling about nothing and comparing rs to earth was the stupidest thing he could have done over all i give him -10/10

 

 

 

As far as I can tell, you rambled quite a bit more than he did just now :?

 

 

 

 

 

 

are you high? because i didn't ramble at all

great read.

I'll start by saying I'm not a PK'er. I avoid the wilderness.

 

 

 

You are more than welcome to follow a code of conduct. You are more than welcome not to. I don't. If I have to go to the wilderness to do a quest or to get an item I can't get anywhere else, I'm going in one of two ways: buck naked or loaded for bear. If I'm naked, you'll get my bones and nothing else. I'll probably go refill my tea while you do it.

 

 

 

Otherwise, I'm going to use everything I can, honorable or not, to defend myself. I'll use my prayer pots. I'll eat a lobster when I'm 15 hp below max. I'll teleport if I'm at 50% hp. I'll run to stay alive.

 

 

 

If you have a problem with that, it's your problem. Telling me will just make my ignore list one name longer.

 

 

 

That's my 2 cents.

Good article.

This aticle seemed to just ramble on and on, and I felt that there was no real substance behind the arguments, for example the very tenuous link between the situation in the real world and a computer game.

This aticle seemed to just ramble on and on, and I felt that there was no real substance behind the arguments, for example the very tenuous link between the situation in the real world and a computer game.

 

 

 

His point is that RuneScape is itself a virtual society in which we make rules to better our experience, just as we create rules in the real world in an effort to improve the quality of our lives. I don't think that's rambling at all :)

This was an ok Article. I think the author used his Microsoft Word Thesaurus a bit "too" often. Way too many extra words to even understand the article without thinking twice. Other than that, I agree 100%.

I agree that you shouldn't have to whip out a thesaurus to read a news article, but his point came across very clearly to me. Yes, he said RuneScape was fun. Yes, he said JaGeX could do a couple more things to make it better. But he also said that the reason people set up their own rules in places like the wilderness is largely because we do it to make it MORE fun than the original setup was for us and we shouldn't stomp on the people who make them. I agree with that. Could he have gotten that across more succinctly? Most definetly yes, but I'm not going to eat him alive when he makes a good point.

 

 

 

Show a little more love, LBO. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a quack.

I think people should do whatever they want, and if I'm pking and someone tells me about their honor code, I'll just laugh and kill them, but I totally support their right to have an honor code. That will make it easier for me to kill them.

I'd love to see more articles from this author. :D

 

 

 

What i'd like to point out is that he a guest editor, try to go easy. Yes, there are a few "odd" comparisons but the point is made and I agree with it.

 

 

 

Keep it up!

I think people should do whatever they want, and if I'm pking and someone tells me about their honor code, I'll just laugh and kill them, but I totally support their right to have an honor code. That will make it easier for me to kill them.

 

 

 

In the real world, there should be some limits on what we do so as to keep our actions constructive rather than destructive. I think that's a better world. A nihilist like you probably doesn't care what I think and will continue to do whatever he can get away with, but don't complain when the tables are turned on you.

A well written article, one point of contention though. Comparing emergent behaviour on earth and in Runescape is erroneus. From the moment life began everything that happened afterwards was emergent behaviour, it happened because there was life not because life chose to make it happen. I like emergent gameplay in my games, i love the fact that people set up rune running companies and that people merchant, however thats were it ends.

 

I have been called food noob after eating, the the self same person after taking a 22 hit from me ate, called me a noob and telported. There is no honour, there are no honourable pkers, they lie. They say no food, no prayer because they are almost certain they will win, but if they start to lose they throw their honourable ideas out the window and eat/pray. To say that any pker is honourable is incorrect because they specifically hunt people who are weaker than them(as of course it shoudl be), its more than a bit funny to see a lvl 104 in ancients calling a lvl 85 in half rune a noob for eating while be barraged. This all boils down to the question 'is it honourable to attack someone weaker than you and try to impose limits on their ability to defend themselves?' if you're answer is yes then you just failed the IQ test.

 

His point is that RuneScape is itself a virtual society in which we make rules to better our experience, just as we create rules in the real world in an effort to improve the quality of our lives. I don't think that's rambling at all :)

 

 

 

Exactly. Here's the thing about the analogy between Earth and RS. It's the funniest analogy I could think of, and it also uses the two things I knew everyone in my audience would be familiar with. If anyone thinks it's a bad analogy, feel free to elaborate on your better analogy for everyone's benefit, especially if you can do it humorously :)

 

 

 

From the moment life began everything that happened afterwards was emergent behaviour, it happened because there was life not because life chose to make it happen.

 

 

 

That's what's awesome about emergent behavior, it occurs on many levels and you can make meaningful comparisons between levels. I suppose that is why the analogy between Earth and RS seems so strange to many people, they are on completely different levels of behavior. The reason the analogy is both funny and useful is that as an MMORPG, RS has a huge amount of inherent similarity to Earth, and RS societies have inherent similarity to RL societies.