Tip.It Times: Jagex interfering?

[Nathaninch]

I'm kind of dissapointed with Tip.it for not getting that quest guide up right away. I agree with the Editor that Tip.it's only obligations are to its users and that by letting Jagex tell them when they can put up a guide is ridiculous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order for Tipit to remain on top it has to come out with these guides faster and better than anyone else. I don't think TIp.it realises the power it has. I just checked, and there are 91,000 accounts here. That's a sizeable amount of thier players and I'm willing to bet more than half are members. In a community oriented game, we are the largest community. Jagex should be a little more respectful and thankful of Tipit.

[swedishlf]

*snip*... seems kind of hypocritical for you guys to complain when jagex asked you to go back to the policy you USED TO HAVE YOURSELVES :?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A policy which they no longer have because it wasn't a good policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would it be hypocritical for US women to complain if they were asked not to vote in any upcomming elections because it used to be the policy that they couldn't?

[Umega]

A search feature would be invaluable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There already is one on the RS forums ('thread finder'), but not much of a good one.

[Teaberry]

 

 

 

i've skimmed through this post but have read the articale and i am astounded! i feel jagex were well within their rights to ask you to withold the guide, whats the point in having quests if all you're going to do is look through a guide to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So don't look through the guide. I'm not holding a gun to your head and saying "READ THE GODDARN GUIDE I WROTE!"

 

 

 

I do, however, believe that if you want the guide, you should be able to have it. Sites, such as whichever you care to name, are there to give you that choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well although it is all 'sorted' now I do think this kind of thing is madness. No one forces anyone to read a quest guide and who gets hurt if people do want to use them? This isn't school!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agreed entirely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think Jagex has the right to ask you not to post whatever they feel on your site. But because the site has no relations to the game it should be the site masters discrection on whether or not to listen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is indeed how it works. It's also the reason I'd have refused. Runesource is my hard work, Jennie's hard work and Chris' hard work, among others. We've had no help from Jagex at all. They don't publish how much XP you get, so we had to go out and make 100 of pretty much every createable item. They don't even publish how to make some items (Ugthanki Kebab springs to mind). They make us do the work, fansites have no obligation whatsoever to listen to a word Jagex say.

 

 

 

When they start helping us out is when you'll get the fansites listening to what they say. Jagex should stick to making Runescape. They're reasonably good at it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel Jagex have the complet right to ask any site not to post a quest guide Tip.It would not be here if RuneScape wasn't but RuneScape would still be here if Tip.it wasn't, i think they really wanted to see who the best players are to many people come on these sites and use the guides without even trying the quest first i completed ME2 in just over 4 hours but jagex will never no how many people are good at quest because of the quest guides i think they should be more involved in the fan site community but should also try to have more control over it also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Punctuation is your friend! How can you expect people to be bothered to read something you couldn't be bothered to write?

 

 

 

And no, Jagex have no right at all. Without the extensive documentation which fansites provide, people wouldn't know just how much better the P2P game is. Jagex would not be where they are today without their fansite community. They'd do well to realise that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And saying people should have the chance to make there own mind up if they use the guide or not is wrong thats like saying people should be able to get to lvl 99 for doing nothing quest are a skill to and guides take the skill away!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So who's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use the guide? Quests aren't a skill, they're a one-time-only event which you do, get a reward for doing, end of story. You're just admitting you can't do quests without a guide.

 

 

 

I believe most people are smarter than you and can make their mind up if they want to use a guide or not. I created a site to give them that choice before every other site can, and we do. I strongly recommend you do not click the link in my signature, we won't make you welcome.

[cs_silver]

I think that it would be good if all the sites delayed the release of official walkthroughs for a few days after a new quest is released. Don't get me wrong - I love the work you guys do and appreciate the time spent writing everything up, but I just think its more rewarding for other people who dont use quest guides if they can claim to be one of the first to have finished it or within the first day it was out. Personally, I have used quest guides for almost every quest I have done, excluding the new Wanted! quest. It was just a nice feeling knowing I figured it out on my own (mostly) without the full aid of a quest guide. I also see how the admin at the runescape fan sites must feel though, when they delay the release of a quest guide only to find out its available at a rival site, and that because of that they would lost site traffic to their competators. So I guess it should be all or nothing, but I just think it would be more fun if (everyone) withheld official quest guide releases for one or two days. -Silver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I aknowledge that people will ask their friends for advice, and I think that if their friend wants to give out help thats fine)

[nog]

Before the change of guard at Tip.it a while back, the stance was the exact oposite to this editorials stance. They used to hold back on releasing any guides to give ppl a chance to try out the puzzels. What I am reading is a very condecending point of view and I sure do not know where it is comming from. Especially since most of the old guard is still around. Smells of a power strugle within :(

[Teaberry]

You're suggesting that Tip.It do not offer what other sites do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want a quest guide, where are you going to go? The site who seemingly aren't good enough to get their guide up first day, or the site who are?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People vote with their feet, so to speak.

[Eeeeediot]

...Smells of a power strugle within :(

 

 

 

Not at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With respect to the old policy about quest guides, they would never be released within the first two or three days. This was at Jagex's request bak in the day. However that changed long ago, and we've been releasing our guides as soon as they're ready for over 6 months if not more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just so everyone knows, the Editor's comments are not representative of any of the Tip.It staff or an official Tip.It view. He/She just writes the weekly stuff based on his/her opinions and instigates some pretty interesting discussion :)

[Demented_Glory]

I generally enjoy the Tip.it times, but I found this article to be completly ridiculous. It sounded more like an excuse to rant at Jagex than anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Jagex feels that they have put a lot of time and effort into a quest, they have every right to ask that sites not post a guide, to give players a chance to figure it out for themselves. As someone else mentioned, it would probably be best if all sites waited a few days before the guides go up. The point of the quests is figuing out how to beat them, after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong--I'm very appreciative of all of the work that the Tip.it crew does to make these guides. I use the guides on occasion. However, if Jagex wants a particulary hyped quest to be free of guides for a few days, they have every right to ask and I think that sites should honor that request.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, it's completely up to Tip.it what they do with the guides, and I respect that--it's their site after all. But if the people who make the game ask a favor, it's only decent to grant it.

[Hobgoblin11]

Wait a minute, did someone post the wrong document - wasn't that supposed to be the example of how to write a proper rant? :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hmm, I would have liked to see something a little more user based in times this week, it was all a little political for my liking! I mean, yes, tip.it do have a very valid point, and the fact that jagex decreased their business and revenue is harsh, but how much did it atually affect tip.it users? Not a great deal I would suspect. If they really wanted a guide, they could have just gone to another site for this on quest. That may sound harsh on tip.it, but if tip.it claim to be only interested in their users well being, then I would say that users were not that affected, and I doubt tip.it will have lost users because of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for future Times, I would prefer to see more stuff like the first couple, such as 'How many GP are in the RS economy', and such like. This edition seemed a little too much like a whinge than anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just my opinion.

[someone_els]

I don't entirely blame Jagex for asking fan sites to withold their guides. I was a little disappointed when Recruitment Drive came out, knowing that many of those people wearing the shiny new Initiate armor were simply following a guide instead of figuring out the rather difficult quest (the chemistry part, anyways) for themselves. I do agree, however, it is a little unproffesional of Jagex to directly ask fan sites not to post their guides. :?

[AThousandLies]

It's all well and good for Jagex to try and make stuff like this challenging, but they have no right whatsoever to make a request such as this. I wholeheartedly agree with the writer of this article; it is none of their responsibility at all to get involved in the maintainence and operation of a fansite. People are going to look at the guides regardless, so what's the point? If users want to do the quest themselves, they will; and if they want to look at a guide, they will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This really was a stupid mistake as far as I'm concerned.

[deletergod]

Jagex is trying to pin the blame of quests being super-easy on fansites, when instead they should be blaming themselves. Even without any sort of experience in video game design, I noticed several fundamental flaws in MEP2 that should have been exceedingly obvious to someone who makes MMOs for a living.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The major flaw is that it's a puzzle quest with no other way to do it. For a short one-off with a weak reward like Murder Mystery, this isn't even a flaw at all, because there's no reason to do that quest if you don't enjoy puzzles. If you're not a mystery fan, you can just walk right on by the path to Sinclair Mansion without losing anything. Freedom is the most important element of an MMO; it's the very basis of the genre. Murder Mystery works well with this concept. If you don't want to do the Murder Mystery puzzle, the only thing you miss out on is an experience you wouldn't have enjoyed. MEP2, on the other hand, flies right in the face of "the very basis of the genre". If you want to craft death runes, you have to do MEP2. No Abyss, no sneaking in through the dwarf camp, no nothing. Do the puzzle or no crafting death runes, period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And even if there was no death altar from this quest, that doesn't change the fact that this is the seventh quest in RuneScape's most popular quest series; a quest series which, to this point, had never done anything particularly puzzle-like. The quest had a wide varying array of players eagerly waiting for the next part of the series. So why on earth would a puzzle with no alternate solution be a good idea? Jagex's designers should damn well have known that this would not go over well. The sliding puzzle in Monkey Madness got so much hatred that Jagex inserted an alternate method of doing the quest. It was blindingly obvious that many Plague series's fans would have no desire to solve a puzzle and Jagex forced them to anyways. Gee, I have no idea why anyone would use a guide for this particular quest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as if that isn't enough evidence that Jagex needs to reevaluate what they're doing when they're making quests, there's the shadows. Doing the puzzle while being repeatedly attacked is kind of like solving a Rubik's cube while someone's punching you; there won't be as many puzzlers willing to do it. I don't know what Jagex was thinking when they came to the conclusion that consistently losing hitpoints adds to a puzzle-solving experience in some way, but I'm pretty sure they didn't think about it for much longer than a minute or else they would have came to the same conclusion that I did. If your reward for doing the quest the way you're "supposed" to do it is a lot less food/pray pots than the so-called "cheaters", then you're a lot less likely to do it on your own. Jagex basically took what was easily bound to be the biggest and most popular quest since Desert Treasure and alienated everyone who wasn't a hardcore puzzle lover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jagex should have accepted that a quest that would only attract a narrow fanbase has no business being in a popular quest series and giving out a long-awaited reward, and moved this puzzle outside of the Plague series and with a different reward so that puzzle haters would have no incentive to use a guide to do a quest they don't want to do. Instead, Jagex decided to put the responsibility of reducing guide usage where it doesn't belong. I'm glad to see that it isn't working, maybe Jagex will learn from this and design their quests better.

[Nate68978263]

Personally all I have to say is that if they nicely asked you to not publish this untill a later time, then why not? If they demanded it, then who are they to say what you can do. They may just believe its fair to have people try this quest out since its one of the longer harder challenges in the game and think it would be more fun for people to try doing. All I have to say.

[Noktux]

Since when do they care about the gameplay? As long as they get their money they dont care about anything!

 

 

 

Instead of relaising 1 quest after another which 1000's of players are even not interested in they should for e.g ban all those auto-miners in the top mostly in the top 200's.... you dont need a macro- detection system to recognize those are autoed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the off-topic :oops:

[Junkieman]

I totally support the views of this article. I think Jagex are starting to lose sight of their original aims. Something else thats really annoying me is they sometimes make promises, to keep people interested in the game. Examples being 'Behind The Scenes', wheres the long awaited player houses? And also, this one really really annoys me at the moment, WHAT THE HELL ARE BIRD EGGS FOR?!?! IVE GOT 2 SITTING IN MY BANK FROM SINCE THEY CAME ABOUT, BUT WHAT THE HELL DO THEY DO??

 

 

 

I dont appreciate such commercial tactics, to try and keep their players interested with promises, and frankly, i find it offensive.

[Nyarlathotep]

 

*snip*... seems kind of hypocritical for you guys to complain when jagex asked you to go back to the policy you USED TO HAVE YOURSELVES :?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A policy which they no longer have because it wasn't a good policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would it be hypocritical for US women to complain if they were asked not to vote in any upcomming elections because it used to be the policy that they couldn't?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, it WAS a good policy, the only reason it got changed was because other sites didnt have that policy, and tipit got lots of people leaving for runehq and stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before the change of guard at Tip.it a while back, the stance was the exact oposite to this editorials stance. They used to hold back on releasing any guides to give ppl a chance to try out the puzzels. What I am reading is a very condecending point of view and I sure do not know where it is comming from. Especially since most of the old guard is still around. Smells of a power strugle within :(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree, it sucks to have a walkthrough available before you even LOG IN AND TRY a quest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got no problem with walkthroughs, I got a problem with walkthroughs being up within an hour of a quest being released before most people have even had a chance to try a quest a 'proper' way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

its not like most quests arent easy to do anyway with looking at the quest journals and stuff - but its nice to TRY yourself in the first place, its why loads of times if im lucky enough to be online when a quest gets released i have to play it with privchat only because people will be running around going 'you need to use tarromin and ash in a vial' or whatever

[Junkieman]

hell, i dont get why people complain about sites offering quest guides. None of them slap you in the face with the guide and force you to use it, and you're not losing anything if other people use the guide, cos you're all presented with the same oppurtunities and rewards from the quests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got no problem with walkthroughs, I got a problem with walkthroughs being up within an hour of a quest being released before most people have even had a chance to try a quest a 'proper' way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is what im talking about. everybody does have the chance to try the quest the proper way! NOBODY is forcing you to use the quest guide, if you dont like them, dont use them. sorted.

[Eeeeediot]

... None of them slap you in the face with the guide and force you to use it, and you're not losing anything if other people use the guide, cos you're all presented with the same oppurtunities and rewards from the quests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got no problem with walkthroughs, I got a problem with walkthroughs being up within an hour of a quest being released before most people have even had a chance to try a quest a 'proper' way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is what im talking about. everybody does have the chance to try the quest the proper way! NOBODY is forcing you to use the quest guide, if you dont like them, dont use them. sorted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well said - agreed :)

[chess4life]

Before I found Rune Tips I solved all the quests the old fashioned way. Now people just follow the guides and get the benefits with no skill at all. I use the guides for when I'm totally stumped and they are great, but with so many people just following the recipe for success, I understand how Jagex would want people to do the quest the "real" way. We should not question and back talk Jagex especially when we are the ones playing THEIR game; they came up with all the ideas. If you don't like then encouraging people to be intuitive and think through the quests, don't talk, quit playing, something other than slamming Jagex for one thing, trying to make the game more fun for everyone.

[williampv]

i agree with the article, especially with the part about the rs forums, alot of ppl don't like to go on it cause it's too difficult to find anything back on it & too chaotic 8)

[Liquid_Morph]

No fansites force RS Players to use the Quest Guides, besides, Jagex can't stop Fansites, it's what there for anyway...for help, tips, and information. Also, what ANY sort of tips, and hints does RS.com give? None. :roll:

[Katryna]

Jagex did not have a lawyer contact you and demand that you not post the walkthrough. They just ask you to refrain from posting in. I don't see where this is a big deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember Jagex could cause a great deal of grief for all fan sites if they really wanted to. I have heard of people on here trying to clam all kinds of trademark violations and copyright violations against other fan sites, where do you think this site would be if Jagex did the same thing?

[Jaylee]

I think that if Jagex bans someone for even mentioning a fansite in the game, they shouldn't be asking the same fansite to withhold something...just seems a bit double-standarded.

[HeartShapedBox]

Many people quoted the guy who said he didn't like quest guides being up in an hour, you obviously didn't read the last part. He doesn't have to read the guide, but noobs are running around giving away the anwers.