Tip.it Times Presents: What the heck was THAT?

[Fey_Warrior]

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

I'm aware that 'tis the season to bash Jagex, and they've certainly invited it with these changes. But there's plenty of that, and I have nothing new to offer in that field. However, I've often wished to criticize them for not addressing bigger game problems, and it's really interesting to see them turn around and do something about RWT. Coincidentally taking down most of the game's scamming problems at the same time, and revolutionizing the hunt for bots.

 

 

 

So in a way I'd applaud Jagex for standing up to the problems, at all costs.

 

I just wish the cost hadn't been the loss of features that many of my friends loved.

 

Fortunately, I really do think the RWT problem might be solved - permanently - by these measures. Whether or not it's worth the change, the game does benefit in that respect.

 

 

 

Thanks Armadyllo,

 

 

 

You've expressed my sentiments quite accurately.

 

 

 

There are some very unfortunate (to say the least) changes to the game, which means large areas of game-play, in the Wilderness particular, have been lost.

 

 

 

Where we go from here?

 

 

 

It's obvious on reading those News articles on the RuneScape site, and seeing the magnitude of the change, that the greatest loss of friends for us and accounts for Jagex has already likely occurred. There may be further losses over the next few days too.

 

 

 

What will happen from now on will be crucial (judging from the Tip.It poll) for the next significant number of players within the next 6 to 8 weeks. If Jagex does now listen to our critiques and helps mitigate some of the overwhelming effects by restoring some game-play, they may stay.

 

 

 

In the end new players will likely not know what they missed. It is similar in that way to what happened with RuneScape Classic, in that this change has altered large parts of the game in a short time.

 

 

 

Good luck to everyone whether you choose to stay or go.

 

 

 

For those that stay now the real task begins of finding problems, and posting as convincingly as possible to ensure they can be fixed.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Fey.

[Braind3d_nuts]

A very good article, written without bias =D> . Its too bad that most of the people posting in the runescape forums aren't as civilized as people in Tip.

 

 

 

Indeed not only do RWT people get bashed by this. As you may have noted on the Rs forums, a lot of people are bashing jagex, making hate threads and so on and so forth. I think that with this, a lot of people who behave rudely and disrespectfully will also be out of the game. Maybe mine is just a weird hunch, but thats it.

[Fey_Warrior]

A very good article, written without bias =D> . Its too bad that most of the people posting in the runescape forums aren't as civilized as people in Tip.

 

 

 

Indeed not only do RWT people get bashed by this. As you may have noted on the Rs forums, a lot of people are bashing jagex, making hate threads and so on and so forth. I think that with this, a lot of people who behave rudely and disrespectfully will also be out of the game. Maybe mine is just a weird hunch, but thats it.

 

 

 

Sadly it was very uncivilised in there today.

 

 

 

Now it's dropped back to levels seen during the Pest Control and Duel Arena changes.

 

 

 

It's now possible for the genuine ranters, and players with ideas to improve on the update and make it more workable, to post in Rants on the ORSF again.

 

 

 

Glad to see Tip.It faired well.

 

 

 

It's good to chill out here.

 

 

 

Take care all ... gotta get back to real life for the rest of the day :wink:

 

 

 

HYT

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Fey.

[nadir]

they've deliberately altered hugely important aspects of the game, trusting that there'll be enough players still playing when the dust settles.

 

it beats the alternative of there being no RuneScape left for anyone.

 

 

 

seriously, did the author of this even read the results of the polls on runescape official site this year? most of them asked (indirectly) if players would like these (i agree that they are) drastic changes we have seen yesterday. there WILL be a runescape when the dust settles, and i belive that at least 50% (or more) of the players will stay.

 

 

 

 

 

"they removed staking!"

 

"they removed merchanting!"

 

"they removed pk-ing!"

 

they are still there, in a different form!

 

 

 

"i can't make cash from them anymore!"

 

yes, you can, now with real risks, no more pures versus noobs. (except merchanting, wich was silly to begin with)

 

 

 

why so many people are happy about these changes?

 

no, you don't MAKE cash out of any of that, you TAKE from another player. did you ever wondered why the rest of the comunity does not like very much these 3 categories? because they are in for fast cash, low risks, and not to MAKE cash (or items) through skills or just picking flax/mort myre fungus etc.

 

 

 

merchanting/pk-ing/staking does not bring anything into the game, like these things do, but if you find gullible enough people, you can take (some of their if not all) prised posesions.

 

 

 

now to be a successfull pk-er you have to fight real pk-ers, that are ready to fight back. scary, huh?

 

now you can't duel anyone and take his/her posesions by claiming that you're a noob -while being a pure to keep the combat lvl down-, now you have to fight 8 other people with rules you can't control.

 

 

 

all i say is this: you really want target practice? someone that hardly fights back in an efficient manner? try an npc. dust devils are good, and altho i never got one, i hear they drop drag chain.

 

 

 

you want a REAL fight to prove that you are very TOUGH? use the duel tournament and stay on top of it, or be the best bounty hunter/rogue bounty hunter.

 

to use a favourite phrase of some pk-ers that i have read alot:

 

"high risk, high gains!". but i am convinced that they use it just to cover up the fact that they are not willing to take any risks at all... of course, they can prove me wrong and get high in the bounty hunter/rogue/duel highscore charts...

 

 

 

"you just hate this because you don't have our and because you're not able to do these things properly!"

 

1. i don't care about expensive stuff. it will someday become cheap or i will get that as a drop, and i'll be able to buy it, or it's a useless rare, and i could not care less about that.

 

2. if all runescape would do this (example: the grand exchange) then it would stop being a profitable business.

 

 

 

 

 

Jagex was often accused of churning out unimportant updates while completely ignoring the bigger issues, or of being too afraid of losing money to risk fixing the problems.

 

 

 

Suddenly the policy changes. Jagex decides to take on the problem of real-world trading (RWT), aiming to wipe it from the game at any cost. After a long dribble of relatively low-impact updates, that's quite a surprise from Jagex. I think they may have truly proven that they're not afraid to confront big issues, even though they're likely to lose subscribers (i.e. money) in the fight. (Of course, suddenly this has stopped being seen as a good thing!)

 

 

 

They did something on a smaller scale with Pest Control, when the XP reward rate was drastically reduced; some people complained that the minigame had been ruined, others were glad to see the end of "PC products" who'd got high combat levels without hardly ever fighting a monster outside Pest Control!

 

author, i agree 100% with your conclusion and Jagex decisions there.

 

 

 

no_username4

 

I'm sure Jagex will do fine. Over time, they'll lose a lot of their old players

 

Jagex has just showed that it IS about the money.

 

you do realise you just said 2 things that are opposite, right? if jagex loses players, then it loses money.

[aure22]

Jagex has just literally let World of Warcraft be #1.

 

 

 

WoW never had PK for profit and you do not find Wilderness from there as well...but what you will find there is bots and well established RWT!

[randy1009]

Mmmm, it was a nice read, and no doubt there probably will be a lot of new faces to replace all the old ones.

 

 

 

Personally though, these updates are a complete disaster. Sure, it's fine that they're trying to stop RWT, but when it imposes on the legitimate players as much as this does, well I don't care what the purpose is, it's too far.

 

 

 

Still though, I'll wait a little bit, basically all of my gameplay has been destroyed now, but I'll wait until summoning is released, but unless it's the best damn update I've seen in the last 3 years, I'm done with the game.

[Armadyllo]

seriously, did the author of this even read the results of the polls on runescape official site this year? most of them asked (indirectly) if players would like these ... drastic changes we have seen yesterday. there WILL be a runescape when the dust settles, and i belive that at least 50% (or more) of the players will stay.

 

 

 

Yes, I did, but getting from those statistics to the number of players who'll permanently quit over these updates involves way too much guesswork.

 

 

 

If only ~50% of the players stayed, Jagex might be in trouble. I can only guess at how many customers they can afford to lose before they're operating at a loss, but I'd be impressed if their current profits are high enough to let them lose 50% of their customers with impunity. They may be raking it in from the million lumps of $5 per month (although $5 isn't worth peanuts in the UK) but we can see them spending loads on server hosting, bandwidth, staff, office rental and stuff like that. On the other hand, 50% would be an extremely pessimistic estimate.

[meb]

WoW never had PK for profit and you do not find Wilderness from there as well...but what you will find there is bots and well established RWT!

 

Together with a balanced combat system, stuff to do once you get a high level, a profession system that isn't based on endless grinding and better graphics.

 

 

 

First of all, the wilderness looks great. Higher reward, no more Abyss pking, no more tagging and a much higher risk/ reward.

 

 

 

I also think it's great RWT is halted. But killing high level monster hunting in the process was a bad move. Monster hunting is what makes Runescape fun for me and a lot of the other high level players. What else is there to do to make money? Of course you could spend 4 months running to and from the nature rune altar, but there is a reason there are only 1k players with 91rc. It's boring. And yes, you need money to make this game fun. Not friends, those I have irl. Money. If you want to train your combat level, you need to spend at least 5 million on gear. And then you don't even have a set of Guthans. And that's meleeing, if you're an ancient mage that likes to play CW you can go from multimillionaire to dead broke after a week of CW.

 

 

 

What I'm trying to say is that the majority of players like combat the most. Compare the amount of lvl 100s with 1500 skill total to the amount of lvl 3 skill pures. The high levels want to make money by doing something they enjoy, and Runecrafting doesn't cut it for them. Us, high levels want to kill lvl 300s that 2-hit you for rare loot. This is much more fun than running to and from an altar for 15k.

 

Those monsters need to be killed with a team. If it's not impossible to do it alone, then it is for an increased chance of getting good drops. You sell the drops afterwards and split the money, so it' doesn't matter if you are on a bad luck streak. Your contribution is the same as the contribution of your teammates. And you get rewarded accordingly.

 

Until January 2nd. Now it's all your own luck again, you can get rich off your team's hard work. A couple of bad hunts can empty your bank account faster than an autoer makes item value drop. And if your bank is empty, you can't go hunting. You could always ask to borrow some supplies from your friends- Oh wait. You can't. So you go to the Barrows or Abyssal demons. And we all know how much fun that is after 3 days of nothing but coin drops. What's left? Runecrafting. Woodcutting. Yawn. People will get tired of that and end up quitting. Skills are great, but there aren't many people that genuinly enjoy it for weeks on end.

 

 

 

The game is a MMORPG. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. This updated turned it into a Massive Online Role-Playing game. It's excactly the same as on offline game, except that you now have to compete for spawns and have a chatroom. MMORPGs are about interaction with other players to achieve the goal of being the best. Cooperating with other players is something of the past now, since that even in a team you will be competing with each other, as there is no more sharing.

 

 

 

Runescape is now an offline RPG with a chatroom and competition for spawns. Nothing more.

[nadir]

Qeltar,

 

"Excessive Price Restriction"

 

since most rc-ers that make lots of nats would keep them for sale in GE for fast selling, you would waste less time teleporting to varrock/edge and going to GE compared to repeating over and over again "buy 5k nats 270 ea!"

 

 

 

 

 

"Inability to Buy or Sell Items Quickly:"

 

"Right now, I could say ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬Åbuying blue dhide chaps 15kÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

[pkered4gd]

I can't make cash anymore =(

 

Staking and pking were how i made my cash

 

i don't like the tournament arena very much

 

i cant see bounty hunter being too successful with no protect and item

 

HOWEVER..I do like clan wars and i think that although you can't get any kills/drops it is a very fun mini-game.

 

 

 

BUT i pose a question. Why is the Wildi the Wildi.When it was made wasn't it supposed to be a fun place to slaughter innocent people.

[jeansntee]

Thanks for the article, Armadyllo - it was a great read.

 

 

 

I think that what JaGex has done is quite commendable - for once they've gone all out to erase the problem of RWT. As much as I hate not being able to PK the occasional wanderer in the wilderness/give Christmas pressies to friends/give away stuff just because I feel like it, I really do think that RWT should be eliminated, once and for all. Whether these updates will work or not; that's a different story. :?

 

 

 

Yeah, it probably means I won't get back the 1m I loaned my friend, but hey, that can be his Christmas pressie for this year, next year, and the year after the next. :P

[Wouter828]

We can indeed only hope for something better to make up for our losses.

[inferno_char]

Well well, I'm glad I retired now. What are they doing to this once beautiful game?!

 

 

 

As a player I could never have cared less about the whole real world trading and bots thing, it was an aspect that never greatly affected how I played. In some ways they did help, everyone loved the cheap rune essence you could get in a f2p world before that went. I respect Jagex trying to protect their IP but at the cost of thousands of valued players and subscribers leaving? They have totally alienated a massive amount of customers with some of this stuff. Personally I couldnt care less about the wilderness changes, I never really found interest in PKing in the first place, but for them to decide what is and isnt a balanced trade and restricting that is just wrong. Sure it might get rid of RWTs and beggers but it no means you can no longer loan a lower level friend some cash or help out a player who is down on his luck. Lets face it, 3k doesnt go far.

 

 

 

Another thing is the assist system. They removed Fishing, Hunter, Mining & Woodcutting because if a player was willing to give up their time to help someone gain raw materials they would of obtained them and given them in the first place. But how can the higher leveled player now give items with this new system in place?

 

 

 

Confused? I sure am.

[qeltar]

I posted my article on the RSOF. I needed 20 reserves, and then edited in the article in choppy form (since there's no formatting there). There's so much spam there now that by the time I was done, the thread was on page 5!

 

 

 

http://forum.[Please Use QuickFind Code].ws?15,16,55,54727658

 

 

 

If anyone is willing to help keep an eye on it so it doesn't get eaten I'd be grateful. Just don't bump it unless you have a comment or it really is at risk of disappearing. Thanks. :)

[bamb00za]

FINALLY they did! I've beeen waiting ages for this, I couldn't care less of wilderness as I DO NOT pk by any means, I think this was the best they came up with !! :D

[Kinslayer777]

..

[waheera1]

I don't really want to just join the merry throng of people angry at this new, and frankly ridiculous update, but I fear I have no choice.

 

 

 

It is already noticeable how this has affected the game. The f2p Draynor Willows used to be packed, with real players and bots alike... I could go there any time of day or night and see probably anywhere between 10 and 30 people. Today I went there and including myself there were 3. That alone is a big clue of the concensus reached over this update.

 

 

 

Every high-level player I have spoken to has lambasted the reshuffle of the wilderness for taking out the only rule-free element of the game. I remember reading an editorial on emergent gameplay in evidence throughout the wilderness... Jagex has singlehandedly destroyed this. Those who wish to pk are unlikely to go to the new bounty hunter arena because in spite of Jagex's intentions, it is still wide open to abuse. Who wants to go there when seasoned pkers can get destroyed in a 5-on-1 before they get a chance to fight back? A friend of mine suffered like that and will never go back now, despite being a level 95 with high enough mage and range to rule the wild in its older incarnation. Teleblock was a coveted spell... Arguably the only reason to get to that sort of level unless you particularly wanted to be a mage pker... So Jagex took it out... Along with the rest of the good points of pking. I never once pked in the 4 years I played, but still this update to the wilderness makes me wonder what they were thinking?

 

 

 

The wilderness created "pures", and "tanks", gave the distinction between the three combat types, and provided an area that people could choose to enjoy or not at their own bidding. It will certainly be interesting to see how long it takes for the whole culture of pking to diminish.

 

 

 

As for trading... I cannot believe the stupidity of this update. My characters were a lvl 100 main and a lvl 37 black pure. Although I didn't need him to, a friend I made whilst training my pure wanted to give me roughly 1M worth of items on it just because I helped him to pass the time while he was training. That may have been excessive generosity, but what about donating a rune scimitar to a guy who just levelled to use rune weapons? Or for the families out there, why should a parent not be allowed to set their kids up with some helpful additions to their bank...?

 

 

 

I cannot begin to understand why Jagex created this update. The given reasons were to remove RWT and bots etc... To some extent they have succeeded I'm sure - to quote my earlier comment on willows, there was 1 bot instead of the customary stream to Draynor bank from Lumbridge's Yews... It was suggested to me though that perhaps Jagex was jealous of RWTers for making money off their creation. I sincerely hope this wasn't the reason. EVERY person I spoke to said they'd prefer to have the old RWT and bot problem than the new updates. I would have to count myself among them.

 

 

 

With most of my friends quitting, it will only be a matter of time before I do the same myself. The worst part about it is that many of these friends were only met through runescape, and to have destroyed what made many people play will undoubtedly cause many strong friendships to fall into neglect as people stop playing. Jagex can destroy their own game as much as they desire, but it seems a great shame to me that it will have such an unpleasant knock-on effect for many people.

 

 

 

Jagex's intentions were laudable, their execution laughable. Let's hope they can sort something out before they lose their only measure of success: players.

[Mstrling70]

I posted my article on the RSOF. I needed 20 reserves, and then edited in the article in choppy form (since there's no formatting there). There's so much spam there now that by the time I was done, the thread was on page 5!

 

 

 

http://forum.[Please Use QuickFind Code].ws?15,16,55,54727658

 

 

 

If anyone is willing to help keep an eye on it so it doesn't get eaten I'd be grateful. Just don't bump it unless you have a comment or it really is at risk of disappearing. Thanks. :)

 

 

 

Both articles are well written, especially considering the short amount of time since these changes came out.

 

 

 

Qeltar, your article was a very good read. I do believe that Jagex has good intentions, but do a poor job of communicating in any unified way as to what their overall plans are. As customers with time and money invested in their game, we do deserve more information from them as to what their overall plans are. Jagex has taken a big, hefty brick, and slammed it into the collective heads of the RWT problem makers. I just wish they could have given us this information before these changes were implemented.

 

 

 

When the December BTS came out, I was with you-big changes were coming this month. The BTS was written in a way that it was obvious that Jagex was going to make a huge, fundamental change, but without actually going into any type of detail. This is where they really failed.

 

 

 

If I were to look for a silver lining, it is that this is the first step. Bash the crap out of RWT, then start making some of the necessary tweaks like what you have brought up. But without open communications, we may not know what Jagex will do, or even if they acknowledge that there is a problem at all. This has been Jagex's biggest shortcoming.

[raven_gaurd0]

I think Jagex did the right thing. Regardless.

 

 

 

In addition to very well eradicating the entire threat of RWT, and the new combat system, they had no choice. RWT, it's finished.

 

 

 

Besides, the PKers should be happier now. There will be less senseless killing in the wild, and the clan wars finally give the world a sensible force behind rivalry. Admittedly, the unfavorable parts involve the lack of senseless killing, and the lack of the feeling of total Chaos: War, but Jagex needed to get rid of RWT. This is for all of our safety. It keeps the market in check, and it added a safeguard to normal players, so that if they get scammed (which will inevitably happen, my friends) they will not get unreasonable banned for 'botting' or RWT. PKing has lost it's bloodlust, but it has invited the sinister assassins spread across RuneScape to take the name of Bounty Hunter and roam the Wilderness with intention to kill.

 

 

 

Jagex confronted this with an assurance grace and flying dignity. They handled the issue as best they could, and the pro's clearly outweigh the cons. Men may be lost in this Jagex-vs-RWT war, but be assured that there will always be recruits to fill their place. Behind the madness of the Wilderness there must also be reason, and Jagex merely established their own little Geneva Convention rules, just as the UN did. I think we should stand behind Jagex. They need our support.

 

 

 

Now let's get out there and show them that we care.

[Lightshayde]

I almost threw up when I heard about the trading limit...

 

I even forgot about summoning!

 

The article brought up a lot of important topics. It made me think of the crazy updates in a new light. :oops:

 

However, I still think this: Summoning, you're our only hope for the salvation of RS's older players!!

[ktmcf121]

A very good article, written without bias =D> . Its too bad that most of the people posting in the runescape forums aren't as civilized as people in Tip.

 

 

 

Indeed not only do RWT people get bashed by this. As you may have noted on the Rs forums, a lot of people are bashing jagex, making hate threads and so on and so forth. I think that with this, a lot of people who behave rudely and disrespectfully will also be out of the game. Maybe mine is just a weird hunch, but thats it.

 

 

 

maybe you werent here for the massive amounts of spamming yesterday that kept admins working 24/7. i wonder how many threads were created in a span of an hour saying "omg jagex ruined our game!"

 

 

 

i understand the reasoning behind the update. i even agree with some of the points that are made, however, there are some very fatal flaws in jagex's master plan

 

 

 

i've never been a big complainer, and i don't think i've ever complained to jagex about rwt/bots/etc. i just report them when i see them and go on my way.

 

 

 

however, the removal of free trade from the game(effectively) is a step too far. one of the things i enjoyed most in this game was the ability to help friends.

 

 

 

i can't use the 'assist system' to give a friend who's trying to get a fire cape supplies, i can't use the 'assist system' to let a friend borrow a slayer mask for an assignment. i can't do any of the things i used to do with friends.

 

 

 

i can't use the 'lootshare' system to do much of anything really, besides get pissed now. anyone who's used it knows what i mean. the whole damn thing needs to get revamped. it's flawed almost beyond repair. so the "use lootshare to share drops" argument fails in every way. especially at dks. why the hell do i get drops from rex when i'm hybriding? idk, ask lootshare.

 

 

 

i'm not a pker, but i have pk'ed before, and am aware of how it works. i tried the bounty hunter game and if i was a pker, i'd be outraged as well. the removal of the teleblock spell for a completely useless teleport(who needs a teleport to find someone with an arrow above thier heads in a small, completely open arena?) is a slap in the face to anyone who trained to 85 mage just for teleblock. i know it no longer has any use, but that's the point. it's the principle of the matter. also, the whole bounty hunter game is ridiculously stupid. it's completely multi, so rouge clans rule. it's nearly impossible to be a hunter.

 

 

 

and don't even get me started on wildy revenents. :notalk:

[Nayarah]

Well, i really got surprised with the changes, specially about wilderness ones, since PKing seems to be the most enjoyed activity of 10 out of 10 bored players who dont like quests, or enhance skills, or have levels high enough.

 

 

 

But as Jagex stated, these things didnt disappeared, theyÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâôre just different now.

 

 

 

So i cant really understand a huge mass of players whining about changes they didnt even tried! I mean, itÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâôs like a bunch of kids saying the hate to eat broccoli when they never ever tasted it before. IsnÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâôt it too early to complain so much??????? :roll:

 

 

 

I think Armadillo is right. Think about new players joining today. Creating their F2P account, trying the game, and getting excited about what they can do as members. They wont care about "how good it used to be". IÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâôve always been curious on how was RSC, but it never was exactly "a sadness" that i couldnt see it... And so surely i didnt missed it! And i bet some ppl did badly! Just the same way ppl are complaining now.

 

 

 

And for the people feeling "betrayed" by Jagex... Well folks, its all about a 5 dollar montlhly bill after all. Its your choice to go on paying that "nothing" to Jagex or going away and pay much more on other Online RPGs where u even need to buy an expensive game client (plus expensive computer with expensive graphic card to run it). Talk about customer abuse.

 

 

 

(And now on a more personal point of view: i dont give a damn about PKers, most of the ones i met were dishonest people who liked to use wilderness to scam somewhat innocent players with some poorly told lie... Great motivators of that ugly and unnatural-looking wilderness ditch! )

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

A final observation about this matter: people who are very mad with the changes and leaving runescape, please remember leaving valuable stuff with me before going away, ok??? Accepting dragon, barrows and rares. Please do before january - 2008. See you all!

[Ravenkana]

Jagex has just literally let World of Warcraft be #1.

 

 

 

WoW never had PK for profit and you do not find Wilderness from there as well...but what you will find there is bots and well established RWT!

But because RWT is so easy there, there really is no way or need to fix it. So WoW stays the course.

[Polnar]

The Bounty Hunter mini game has to be made single-combat, getting teamed just makes it pointless.

[acrotis]

Sorry if people have said this I just came from the article...

 

 

 

Runescape is now baring on the thread on the hope that summoning is everything everyone hoped and more...

 

 

 

On another note is it me or have we lived with real world traders and autoers for 5 years now? okay on a small scale it affects some prices and occasionally the unfairly banned account, but other than that I can't remember ever complaining about autoers except the random events they bring along...

 

 

 

So either Summong is fantastic and people will stay or Runescape has killed it's self from the inside out... to be honest im sitting on the fence and veering towards the leaving, rather than the staying...

 

 

 

:pray: Summong to be good... :pray: