Tip.It Times Presents: Functionality vs. Flash

[das]

since july 2001 I have explored quite a bit of the content. :P

 

 

 

To me, graphics are nothing when I grew up on games like these

 

 

 

 

 

[InkofDeath]

To me, graphics are nothing when I grew up on games like these

 

Don't mean to be nagging, or harrassing your opinion on it but the article was published.

 

 

 

Graphics may not have been an important role let's say pre-99? However in the gaming world now, graphics is what separates games for players. Jagex has no choice but to spend their time, and probably mass amounts of it on graphics to compete.

 

 

 

Even if they keep their graphics to the bare minimum they will eventually have to upgrade. It's been 3-4 years since the last large graphical improvement, I think we can take off a month of no updates for a graphical improvement for Jagex to achieve a better place in the graphic battles.

 

 

 

May not help the players, but it is an extremely nice quality to have and receive.

[das]

Its not about a month off from the upgrades. It is about the fact when we get new content, it comes out and then more new new new stuff is slammed at us while those old content updates are seldom visted.

 

 

 

Although to be frank, I am unsure of each machines spec's I feel more games on the 360 are flashier than the WII games by a mile, or at least I know I would not enjoy Cow Racing and other things on other systems, I know I wouldnt of bought the party pack on another system. ingenuity and the abilty to offer older things revisted is something that I love, Replay value at times can be absent from your average runescape update.

 

Classic hit over a million subscribers. and for a game that looks this corny.

 

 

Thats saying you dont need graphics to achieve some success.

[kgisme]

Nice article, I agree with everything that was said.

 

 

 

Graphics never really mattered much to me - I always play rs on low detail and I'll probably continue to play on low detail even after the update.

 

 

 

I would definitely prefer content updates over graphics but I can see why Jagex feels they need to improve the look of rs to compete with other games.

[United]

Thats saying you dont need graphics to achieve some success.

 

 

 

Right, but has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, a BUSINESS wants to make MORE money? No way, that is just plain stupid! #-o

 

 

 

(In this case, this would be done attracting new customers -- and keeping current customers interested -- by upgrading the graphics.)

 

 

 

Why is it all the recent Tip.It Times articles read like rants?

[jimjimson]

Well, the graphics department is completely different than the bugs and gameplay department. So, you can't really expect one to do the other's job.

[Will H]

I think that this updates will finally give Jagex an excuse to actually focus on these so-called 'functionality' updates which I think everyone knows (including Jagex) they have been neglecting.

 

 

 

Let's face it, the most common one line excuse for not playing from the start is 'The graphics are terrible'. When this update comes, the graphics will no longer be 'terrible' for a very long time, they'll be 'OK' or 'quite good' in the online games market. That gives a window of opportunity to Jagex to forget about 'Flash' updates and focus on the more important 'functionality' updates.

 

I think this is a blessing in disguise as a different blessing.

[Master_Smither]

Fantastic Article that summoned up my thoughts about the new graphics.

[InkofDeath]

Thats saying you dont need graphics to achieve some success.

 

I agree, and it's good to go by the 4% of people (my own assumption) who still value gameplay over crappy horrific graphics for true gameplay content.

 

 

 

RuneScape still needs to evolve though through every aspect. The two major ones are graphics and content. Although content is spread evenly through-out the year (yes some things do get revisited), Jagex is now focusing heavily on graphics. After that I'm pretty sure they are going to have tons of free time to work on actual game content. These past 10 months for Jagex has been about fixing issues from external affairs. They haven't been able to put 100% into new or old content.

 

 

 

They probably chose graphics over content because they were become far too behind in graphics then what they were say 2 years ago, and when you go so far you have to evolve, and it was something everyone would like and they could implement the fullscreen issue as well.

 

 

 

Pretty sure August, September, October to Christmas are going to have really large content updates for the new and the old content, or so it seems logical that they would...

[Smackapotato]

I feel that Das is correct in saying everything he said. The graphics will indeed be a much needed boost to the game, but there are a lot of other things that could use an update.

 

Let's just hope that after this graphic update, Jagex focuses on the actual game, not attracting more youngsters with flashy-ness.

[Earth_Poet]

Great article! I find this an interesting topic.

 

 

 

Some graphical updates, though pretty, have made life in RS just a little more of a pain in the butt.

 

 

 

You have already pointed out the new ores that are difficult to see, especially if you aren't right next to them.

 

The mining animation was really annoying and even though Jagex claims that it didn't make mining slower it sure as heck feels like that to a lot of players. There were big petitions pleading to go back to the old mining animation...ignored of course.

 

 

 

Those slayer monsters like gargoyles and spectres have become a little more difficult to click on now because when they do their attack animation they move back and forth from square to square.

 

 

 

I really don't need extended death animations that make it just a little longer to get the loot. Just fall over dead and gimme! lol.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong. I like some of the new graphic updates. I don't like it when it comes at the cost of making things a little more frustrating for players.

 

 

 

And I do like how you point out that other aspects such as fishing trawler and castle wars constantly go overlooked. One of my biggest pet peeves in the game was how you "danced" with your enemy when you were trying to attack. They've finally fixed it, but look how long it took to get around to it!

[Earth_Poet]

I think you've made some valid points, but have tossed in some things that didn't need to be there.

 

 

 

I own the quest cape, so I know that a lot of the quest items and areas become quite useless after the quest is completed. Giving us the after quest hook, a reason to keep the items and revisit those areas would be nice, but I want to say one thing about that.

 

 

 

There is already TONS of content in this game. So much so that you can spend years and not do everything there is to do in this game. Constantly playing and raising skills only is at least 3 years of training to all 99s. Three years! You can tack on another year at least to play all the mini games and do all the quests, along with the numerous other content that isn't really related to anything, it's just there. So 4 years of content, plus new stuff being added constantly. Heck, they managed to give us not one, but 2 quests in the same month that they are doing the graphic update.

 

 

 

You need to stop looking at the new and start reconsidering the golden oldies that have been there forever. You mentioned the fishing trawler in your article. The fishing trawler is a fun mini-game, but very few know it even exists, because there's so much new that it gets buried right away in the heap of things to do.

 

 

 

So, to recap, I'll give you a 50-50 split in my agreement with this article. I do think they need to give us a reason to stick around after the quest and not totally ignore it, but there's only so much content you can cram into a game before there's no possible way you can do it all. There's more than enough to do while we wait for the graphic update, and if all the new is boring to you, grab your friends and head out to an unknown town or lost and forgotten mini-game and try it out.

 

 

 

The content is there, you just need to explore it.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, Gameboy, I think that was the point of the article. Why not revisit and improve existing content, and maybe rekindle interest in the game rather than keep pumping out places and items that nobody ever uses execept to get through a quest or minigame? Quality over quantity would be nice. It's nice that they can churn out 2 quests a month, but what if just one really big quest a month, or every other month?

[turbofreak12]

Well, I sort of agree. I like the fact that they're updating graphics, and I can't wait 'til they release it! But, I think it would be nice to improve content every once in a while, to keep things fresh. A good game will have a combination of both. A game could have great content and bad graphics, or vice virsa, and it might not be very good. Hopefully, Jagex's next big update will be content. :pray:

[Logdotzip]

Graphics don't matter as much to me as content, but to say this game lacks plenty of content or creativity would be ridiculous. Too much time spent on graphics? How is two weeks out of a YEAR, 52 weeks, too much time? We always got content updates in ADDITION to graphical improvements, and a measely 2 weeks to completely improve the entire game seems amazing to me. ALSO, RuneScape Classic never got a million subscribing accounts. That announcement was made for the current version of RuneScape, and was also made after the ability to make classic accounts was disabled. Lucky me, I still have my classic account.

[bbjoe282]

good read but he is too critical of the system jagex has in place with the teams and such. personally he seems misinformed and i wouldent have published the article at all. :shame:

[bedman]

I don't get what the point of this article is?

 

 

 

 

 

I'd rather them spend the entire summer working on the graphics just because it'll bring in new income, which will go towards updating the game itself, which means far better updates and technological advances in the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thing is, they ARENT giving better updates since they got big. Actually, Runescape was much nicer when it was still small, and where the mods actually knew what was going on in the community. Now it's more like an impersonal multinational, who has no direct contact with it's customers, or at least doesnt know what they want.

[Armadyllo]

Interesting bit of the article here...

 

 

 

Yet Npc's are getting upgraded ever so often, and while that's nice, its not really needed, they drop the same loot, hit the same and besides being different, don't change the gameplay at all.

 

 

 

Unnecessary change is not a good thing! The Fishing Trawler might need some tweaking, but I don't want to see Jagex changing monster drops or combat without a solid tactical reason. They can do a big update to gameplay if they've got something worth doing, but that doesn't mean we should be complaining if they make a purely cosmetic change to an old feature of the game.

 

 

 

Ideally I'd like the game to have functionality AND flash.

 

It's got enough functionality to keep me - and a few million others - entertained.

 

It's getting more functionality, as witnessed by the promises for Clan Wars, Item Lending, and whatever the BTS documents trot out.

 

Now they're improving the flashness too. This is a thing to be happy about!

 

 

 

A common criticism of any RuneScape update is "That's all very well, but we wanted an update to XXX instead."

 

So we criticise Jagex's updates, not for being poor updates, but for being the wrong updates! That's not much good as criticism. And, with so many people wanting different things as their top priority, that attitude is demanding to be disappointed.

[All_Is_Great]

A very interesting article.

 

 

 

I personally think Jagex is putting a little TOO much time on graphics, instead of gameplay. There are many issues that i think are more important than the graphics, such as developing a better pvp system.

 

 

 

I dont think anyone is playing runescape because of graphics.

[Fleetsy]

It's a good read. But it sort of goes on. We haven't had a proper graphics update in a while anyway. A few new animations, and builds... but nothing like this. I think RuneScape has well deserved an update like this. =D>

[flamesofbob]

This is a great read and I agree with you but this the way I belive jagex sees it.

 

 

 

Remember Jagex is a buisness and runescape is their product.

 

 

 

When you are going to a store and you are looking to buy something for the first time and you see several of what appears to be the same product from several diffrent companys. What is the first thing you see, since you cant tell the quality before you buy it. The marketing appeal, you remember adds about it and the looks of the product. This can often be deciving but it is what human instinct tells you to do. When you look at mmo's the main marketing appeals are the graphics. Jagex belives that runescape is good enough quality of a game that it can stand quality wise agaist other mmos and they now need to work on the marketing appeal of it since the game quality is good enough atm.

[meem0]

I see where this is coming from, but I totally disagree. For Jagex, it's a lose-lose situation. If they do normal updates, people will say "Oh RuneScape is stupid, the graphics are so awfull!", whereas if Jagex makes graphical updates, people say this!

[Kama]

I wrote the following article for my blog, and though I would post it here as well It seems to be along the same lines as a lot of the commentary here. Enjoy.

 

 

 

The new tipit Times article prompted me to write this post. I had been kicking the idea around for quite some time, but the glaring duality in the newest Times sucked it out of me.

 

I recently had some t-shirts made up for my RL pizza shop. In the process of developing the design, I came across a shirt with the old phrase, Life is a [bleep], Then you die. This is one of the phrases that at first glance sounds pretty true.

 

 

 

Ranting about Runescape has been covered to death. Just look at the rants section of the official forums. Nearly 700k posts, (compared to the compliments of just over 100k). That people complain is not really trying to get across here. You will never satisfy all of the players all of the time.

 

 

 

Looking closer at the actual phrase brings out the contradiction in this line of thinking. We can all agree that life is a [bleep] some of the time, but is it true all the time? If life really was so bad, wouldnt dieing be a welcome relief? I assume most of you arent searching for the nearest tall bridge or cliff to jump off, so dont let this overlooked contradiction poison your thinking. It does have a very observable though. The root of that phrase is something along the lines of telling Jagex: Why bother trying, your updates wont matter anyway.

 

Now, I am sure that most of you readers couldnt care less about the morale of anyone at Jagex (a few of you might even be actively thinking of ways to screw with it), but really if you are going to complain, then COMPLAIN! Dont make some lame article that rants about updates, then finished with: All in all, I cant wait until the graphics come out, but please dont continue to improve them.

 

 

 

First of all, Jagex is out to make a profit. To do that they need to sell subscriptions and advertising, and in order to do that, they need to generate new customers. I am pretty sure they are actually happier when older players leave the game. The older toons are the ones skilled at emergent gaming, who pked well, merchanted well, and the ones who took advantage of every loophole there was. Old Paul in his Ivory Tower doesnt like it when people dont play the game the game the way he meant it to be played, and hence Jagex goes out of its way to stop it.

 

 

 

Back to the article though. Das ripps on Castle Wars. Well, I miss the point there as well. The goal of the game is to gain combat XP, with the secondary goal of getting some fairly noobish looking Armour. The higher level amours only tell others that you have spent hundreds of hours at Castle Wars, something that others might attach some status to, but I sure dont. He more players there to kill, the more XP you get per game! The more the merrier, and if you dont like the terrain, there is always FOG, Bounty Hunter, and Clan Wars.

 

You dont need the wisdom of Solomon to write an effective complaint, so please. Take a stand, hold your ground, make a decent argument. Dont make lame attempts and snide comments like, is variety not the spice of life? Either complain about updates or shut the hell up.

[Doryphore]

In my opinion I prefer more content added to the game, then better graphics. I do think the full screen option sounds great.

[SacredFlam3s]

the graphics are good already, yet some areas are not. I didn't even know what "rubium" was until i read this thread. Some places have just become so unknown while the graphics keep getting better, even though they are great. We need some content updates, not just this:

Ohhh, lets make this person have new hair coulour and style, and let rubium be forgotten

I'm not trying to insult jaGeX, just stating that there are better updates that could happen.

[das]

 

Dont make some lame article that rants about updates, then finished with: All in all, I cant wait until the graphics come out, but please dont continue to improve them.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps un-needed my gaming history could help, I have played countless mud's 4/8/16 games that graphics aside, were enjoyable and fun. Sure Graphics are welcome, but I dont need them to add joy to my game, I have played hours on end at looking at a screen of text, which is as far from flash as you can get. I cant wait to see them, so I can see how far Jagex can push java, but its not centric or even wanted for my gaming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the article though. Das ripps on Castle Wars. Well, I miss the point there as well. The goal of the game is to gain combat XP, with the secondary goal of getting some fairly noobish looking Armour.

 

 

 

Some of us, have been maxed out for awhile, and some have also been mased out before that was released (not me) so that *Reward* is not that great, for many, CW is a great safe team versus team PVP environment. lots could be done to improve this and no, we all dont want to play clan wars . that capture the flag dynamic is unique.

 

 

 

 

You dont need the wisdom of Solomon to write an effective complaint, so please. Take a stand, hold your ground, make a decent argument. Dont make lame attempts and snide comments like, is variety not the spice of life? Either complain about updates or shut the hell up.

 

 

 

Variety is the spice of life, and my view is mine, I am not trying to convince you, just share my perspective with you. I am unaware of your age, but in the early days of gaming, functionality verus flash was a massive argument :P