TruthScape Special Reports - RuneScape 2007 Year in Review and Report Card

 

 

 

I've just written and published an extensive review of most of the major updates in RuneScape in 2007. It includes coverage of new content, updates, interface changes, web feature additions, and general assessments of factors like new content design, quality assurance and customer support. Over 100 individual evaluations and grades are assigned.

 

 

 

Your comments most welcome! Enjoy. :)

 

 

 

~q

Runescape deserves an F

rs should be hold back a grade, and redo the final year ;)

I guess I should have specified that I was looking for constructive comments. :P

I apologise but as soon as I click the link I was scared off the site by a bunch of Smileys shouting at me from a banner ad :?

 

It looks like a good document so I'll read it when I don't have a headache :P Although I'd probably have to agree with what those above me said.

Nice. I agree with you on almost everything.

That was a great article, I read all of it and I agree with you on most parts. I'm looking forward to seeing TruthScapes take on 2008. :D

Great Article and I can safely inform you the cave goblin agility course is NOT worthwhile.

 

 

 

It gives better xp per lap than ape atoll

 

 

 

But it takes AGES as its far too spread out to be any good for training.

A thorough, comprehensive review. I think you covered all the important updates in the year. What's important to remember, and you touched on this in your review, is that the effort put by Jagex in many of the most controversial updates--though some are implemented in a way that is not ideal--is commendable in of itself. We have to allow them the chance to patch them up properly.

Fail.

 

They had been building on something huge and worthwhile for years now. I believe the game was, since this year's summer, coming to a dead end, since all around us you'd see the game have more and more unbalanced situations or just situations that were balanced out by making things more abusive than the one before (eg. weaponry).

 

Yet it was manageable and the game was overall still very enjoyable as it had almost always been.

 

 

 

But with this complete turn over of the plate, and what we still call runescape changing its bases of the game, I think it deserves nothing more than a negative grade. What we're playing is not what started a few years back as runescape. It's a game, which still has its good points and is very enjoyable, yet with completely different bases supporting the entire game and players. For someone who's been playing runescape for as many years as me (almost 3 now) it is, in my opinion, senceless to give a positive/satisfactory grade to a game so different to the one we were playing at the beginning of this year.

 

 

 

Following on that, another argument to favour my negative grade is that well truth be told, why did these changes happen? In the beginning of this year we saw one runescape and now, at the end of it, it's a completely newly based game. These changes happened because the game had loopholes, and as Jagex finally admitted them, they decided that, for the greater good, the game should completely change to "make up for" and to correct their previous mistakes.

 

Mistakes are human, yet we're not the ones to blame, nor is the game that we had become so accustomed to. It's those that created it. They opted to change the game because of their mistakes... fair enough there was no other way around that. Yet those previous mistakes were made, and we all payed for it now.

 

 

 

Fail.

Hm, was it just me, or am I the only person who got one pop-up ad every two seconds on the site? I couldn't be bothered to read the article when I had to close a pop-up ad every two seconds...

 

It's been a mixed year so far. For the most part, everything looked pretty good, they put in the GWD and other updates. I'm mixed about price control. Then they remove wilderness, profitable staking. But in turn bots/macros(still not too sure about the difference here...) were for the most part, removed.

 

C+

Runescape is developed by a european company and we dont have report cardsssssssssssss :D

 

 

 

as for reviews its down to opinion, i like the december updates it benefits people who want to make money, but then again it stops player interaction, i like the way they want to make updates fun but some players arent going to like they need to do more polls to see what players tastes are in future really.

for 2007, i give it a D- this year (and only this year) had riots. they even took out some of the most valuable privileges in this game including staking and pking. reason why i didnt give it a fail is cause i played the most this year and learned much more then i did in 2006.

Glad to see that you also think that PvP is in terrible shape. Could you give the suggestion in my signature a quick read and tell me what you think of it?

i dissagree with the B grade in the end

 

 

 

runescape did have its ups but its downs were much more dramatic and horrifying

 

 

 

the good parts made the game fun while other updates ruined the whole reason for playing for many people

 

 

 

i wouldve given it a C- or possibly a D

Nice read qeltar =D>

 

 

 

Although i don't agree with customer honesty...to me, i really believed they failed at it

Excellent, excellent, excellent! That was a fantastic read and you could literally see the amount of time and effort you have put into those articles.

 

 

 

I agree on one of your main points though, if Jagex spent more time improving current content than creating pointless new content that no one will uses we would have have a much better year. I think Jagex needs to stop distancing it from its customers and offer a lot more explanation for the updates rather than just carrying them out. The one thing I will remember this year for is the riots, its kinda sad that players have to resort to these measure to get a point to Jagex.

 

 

 

Very well done :XD:

 

 

 

Eye.

I don't agree with some of your item ratings.

 

 

 

DFS -- does not deserve A+, rather B+ or A. It is not one of the best pieces of equipment in the game.

 

Why?

 

- The -10 magic and -5 range penalties, favoring melee.

 

- 26M is rather expensive.

 

- In some cases, I would actually rather use Dragon Square (say, if I were poor, or if I was a mage)

 

- Its special is somewhat confusing/hard to use in the midst of combat.

 

 

 

DFH -- does not deserve A. Other than its rarity, it serves no other purpose. It's just continuing the dragon armorline.

 

 

 

Godswords -- B. Verac is sometimes equal to/better than GS, and they are overpriced.

 

Armadyl -- B+ because of its cost. It's highly overrated, and DBow can in fact hit higher. I have over 300M in cash and I'm still hesitant to buy one.

 

Bandos -- B because its special works effectively only ~30% of the time.

 

Saradomin -- B+ because of its cost. Its special can easily be taken care of by using purple sweets as an alternative.

 

Zamorak -- B because its special is very effective in melee only battles, and sometimes is more useful than its counterpart, the Bandos GS. (I may write a guide about this later)

 

 

 

Bandos Armor -- C+; useless other than strength bonus. I sold my set after about 3 weeks. You're better off buying a GS, zerker ring, or upgrading to SGS.

 

 

 

Armadyl Armor -- B+; too rare to be practical. Also, its negative melee bonuses should be balanced with even higher range bonuses.

 

 

 

Steam Battlestaff -- B; useful for humidify as well, and the Zammy boss needs other drops :D

As for unbalanced trade thing i dislike it, but i like that rs contrls teh grand exchange prices. i logged on one day for the heck of it. i had quit and read some updates and got on made like 2m in 30 minutes off of the exchange. i think it should tell us the price ratio compared to the GE. so then we know if weird getting scammed or not, but unbalanced trade is a huge part of the game. like helping out your pure or something.

 

 

 

Feabdrt

I agree with the B-, if I was talking on a personal level I'd give it an A because every change that occurred recently only benefited me because I'm a skiller and hate to sell things in World 2. But I'm taking into account other people's perspectives and their enjoyment of the game when I give it the B because of the Pking issues and the Staking issues which brought enjoyment to alot of people in Runescape.

I agree with you here, B- is a good grade for '07. By the way, will you update the final grades for some updates you have left as '?' for now, and if they are good/bad enough, will that affect the final grade?

 

 

 

Just to point something out: You need to have a look in to your advertising bar. On only one page it lists 2 gold-selling sites, 1 power leveling site, 1 site claiming to have 'RS cheats', and a WoW account selling site. It doesn't look good next to so many good articles. I understand that you don't have much control over them, but there wasn't a single ad there that didn't break either RS or WoW (unless they do allow account selling) rules. I'd suggest you start ad blocking before it gets out of hand.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. And of course I expect many people to agree and some to disagree, all par for the course.

 

 

 

Artificial: Thanks, but I'm not in favor of PKing as it was before returning to the game. I'd rather Jagex fix up the new minigames.

 

 

 

sithlord_man: Trying to give a bit of benefit of the doubt on the honesty issue.

 

 

 

Sseli: Most of your issues seem to be with my high ratings for expensive, powerful items. I realize that they aren't for everyone, but for those who can afford them they are extremely useful.

 

 

 

What's wrong with there being expensive items in the game? It gives something tangible and useful for people to spend their money on, instead of blowing it all on inefficient skill training or bidding up the prices on useless paper hats.

 

 

 

The DFS is a fantastic piece of gear as it provides dragon protection, huge defence bonuses, a big +7 strength and an offensive weapon to boot! The DFS discharge isn't something you use all the time, but it is certainly useful in some situations, like at the Barrows. And it doesn't even count as an attack.

 

 

 

As for the godsword.. I have extensively tested and there are few situations where Veracs is better. Plus, you can use the GS with better body armor (the brassard is poor in that regard) or even with dragonhides.

 

 

 

Compare a whip and a godsword at a place like the aberrant specters.. it's not even close.

 

 

 

The Saradomin godsword is the single best weapon in the game. You really don't seem to realize what the SGS can do. Can purple sweets restore 400+ HP and the equivalent of 6 or more doses of prayer pot in an hour? I don't think so. They don't restore prayer, they take forever to use and they're very expensive.

 

 

 

The SGS spec even works in no-food, no-potion duels.

 

 

 

The Zamorak special has only two uses: freezing flagholders in CW, and the "spec+hally" trick in duels. That's it.

 

 

 

The Armadyl armor is the best in the game, even better than third age -- of COURSE it's expensive. :)

 

 

 

Will: I block them all the time but they're like cockroaches. :wall: :wall:

The Saradomin godsword is the single best weapon in the game. You really don't seem to realize what the SGS can do. Can purple sweets restore 400+ HP and the equivalent of 6 or more doses of prayer pot in an hour? I don't think so. They don't restore prayer, they take forever to use and they're very expensive.

 

 

 

Well I think full guthans can probably restore 400 hp or more in less amount of time than sgs. Also you can put the spec bar to better use with a dds or dragon battle axe if your looking for more exp. And most training places you dont use prayer so you can cancel that one out, and even if u do need to use prayer 6 extra doses isnt too expensive only an extra 10k which im sure most people can afford

Runescape deserves an F

F is for fun for friends who do stuff to geither, u is for you and me-e!

 

 

 

:lol: Yeah...I can't wait until schools back...

 

Well I think full guthans can probably restore 400 hp or more in less amount of time than sgs. Also you can put the spec bar to better use with a dds or dragon battle axe if your looking for more exp. And most training places you dont use prayer so you can cancel that one out, and even if u do need to use prayer 6 extra doses isnt too expensive only an extra 10k which im sure most people can afford

 

 

 

Well, it really depends on what you do in the game. Most of my combat is on Slayer assignments and against high-level monsters. In these situations, inventory space management and stats are important. Being able to save several slots on Guthans pieces, food and prayer pots is a big deal. So is the ability to do a whole assignment without banking.

 

 

 

A few comments on the SGS versus Guthans:

 

 

 

1. They aren't mutually exclusive; you can use them together. The SGS doesn't replace the Guthan spear, which is a secondary weapon, it replaces your whip or other primary weapon.

 

 

 

2. You can use the SGS with a black mask when training Slayer; you can't use Guthans with the black mask.

 

 

 

3. Guthans is slow. The SGS is not. It makes a big difference in how long it takes to kill monsters.

 

 

 

4. With many monsters, even though you can use the SGS and Guthans, if you have the SGS you don't need the Guthan set. This immediately saves two inventory slots.

 

 

 

5. There are lots of monsters and places where you either can't use Guthans or it is not practical: Banshees, Dust Devils, Abberrant Spectres, Bloodvelds, Jellies, Infernals, Dark Beasts, etc.

 

 

 

6. Here are the relevant stats of full Guthans compared to a godsword with a Verac helm, Guthan plate and Verac skirt:

 

 

 

Guthans: +75 Slash, +75 Strength, 0 Prayer, +259/+257/+241/-11/+276 Defence.

 

 

 

Godsword/Verac/Guthan combo: +132 Slash, +132 Strength, +15 Prayer, +262/+260/+244/-6/+272 Defence.

 

 

 

Not even close.

 

 

 

7. Even if you don't need to use protection prayers, the extra prayer points let you use boost prayers to speed up combat even more.