Why does Jagex get new skills so wrong?

[Myweponsg00d]

These are opinions:

"I don't enjoy the new skill."

"The new skill is boring."

 

These are irrational things that you have no reason to think:

"The new skill is not really a skill, it should be a mini game."

"The new skill has nothing to offer RS"

 

Saying "the sky is purple...but thats my opinion" does not just let you say such things. The sky is blue and that is a fact. You cant say "Well, in MY opinion, 2+2=8"

 

Lies are lies, and denial of reality is not the same thing as opinion.

[qeltar]

The answer is the same as it's always been: they develop in a vacuum, without a proper understanding of what their customers like and want.

 

They do it because they can get away with it. When a company is successful and has lots of money, they can do what they want and it doesn't really matter. It's only companies that are struggling for success and acceptance that listen to their customers (and ones who want to have *continued* success and acceptance).

[Slayer_Jesse]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS THE OPINIONS OF THE AUTHOR. THEY ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE TAKEN AS ABSOLUTE FACT.

DISCLAIMER NUMBER TWO: I DO LIKE THESE SKILLS (EXCEPT HUNTER) I'M JUST TRYING TO MAKE A POINT.

 

Translation: WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ARE NOT OPINIONS BUT IF I CALL THEM OPINIONS IT MAKES ME IMPERVIOUS TO PEOPLE CALLING ME WRONG.

 

Hi all. First, a bit about myself. Ive been an avid runescape player since late 2004, joining just after rs2 was released. (although i obviously didn't know this at the time! :razz: ) Ive been around for every skill released since then. (however i was only a low lvl f2p when slayer was first released, so I cant comment on that.) Anyway, my point is that it seems that every skill since construction has been some sort of failure. Hunter was plagued by a lack of worthwhile rewards, and after the new skill frenzy subsided, it was quickly abandoned. I'm sure I don't have to tell you about the fiasco that summoning was, but I will anyway in case you are too new. It was extremely overhyped, and when released, it was full to the brim of problems. Shards cost double what they do now, (and you thought summoning was expensive now!) summons only lasted 3 minutes unless you continuously clicked the refresh button, and many of the best summons we now take for granted weren't even released yet. Jagex promised a fix with the next batch of summons in 1 month. It took two months for it to be fixed.

 

Are you sure Hunter was abandoned? Because these complaints I've been seeing since Hunter's release of overcrowded spots tells a different story. Summoning was only a fiasco until they made some fixes and released batch 2, after which it became a pricey change to a huge change to the game. Yes, it needed balancing after it was released, but it became eons more useful when batch 2 released. As for the batch being delayed, cry some more. Delays happen.

 

Witch brings me to the newest "skill" (COUGH; OVERGROWN MINIGAME; COUGH) dungeoneering. [spoiler=rant on Dungeoneering] Its basically a minigame... sorry, "activity" that got so overstuffed with content that the only way they could contain it was to put a skill framework over it. Honestly, the skill makes no sense. I have to level up to go deeper into a dungeon? Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Over? Not to mention it takes waaaay too long to level! I'm only 47 now, a week after its release. Hunter took me 2 days of playing to reach 50, and that was with me going to each new prey (not the most efficient method, ill tell you!) And dont get me started on rewards tokens. sure the rewards are great, but whats the point if you have to pass on the lower level rewards to get one of the good weapons/shields?!?

 

Lulz gona maak sum nee slappurs. So the skill actually takes time to level? I'm sorry it doesn't suit your tiny attention span.

 

My point is, why does Jagex, with all of its QA power, get new skills so wrong? Things that are so obviously broken seem to slip thu the cracks. Now dont get me wrong, QA usualy does a great job with most content. It just seems that on skills they drop the ball, content wise. Please reply with your thoughts and comments.

 

You mentioned every skill after construction, but:

 

1. You didn't point out any problems with summoning other than that it was unbalanced at release. Obviously broken? Huge failure? Summoning was neither.

2. You didn't make any valid points on Hunter other than some lame-brain comment that it was abandoned which, if you talk to any hunters, can be easily refuted.

3. For Dungeoneering you just made some comments that it's "not a skill" and "doesn't make sense". Yes, it takes long to skill up and the very useful rewards are expensive, but other than semantics for your other talking points you bring nothing to the table.

 

In short, you're wrong. Not only that, but you kill any valid comments you had on Dungeoneering because you threw out lies on the other skills, made yourself look like a smartass child with your regurgitated condescension (It's a minigame, er sorry, an activity).

 

Key to Dungeoneering is it is different. Your average whiner hates change as it is, but different change? That's [bleep]ing terrifying.

 

and you feel the need to refute every point i make to draw attention to yourself. that's all ill say.

[Bladewing]

and you feel the need to refute every point i make to draw attention to yourself. that's all ill say.

Player A: Makes absurd statements.

Player B: Refutes said statements.

Player A: "lol nerd"

 

Remember when we could have legitimate discussions?

[Slayer_Jesse]

These are opinions:

"I don't enjoy the new skill."

"The new skill is boring."

 

These are irrational things that you have no reason to think:

"The new skill is not really a skill, it should be a mini game."

"The new skill has nothing to offer RS"

 

Saying "the sky is purple...but thats my opinion" does not just let you say such things. The sky is blue and that is a fact. You cant say "Well, in MY opinion, 2+2=8"

 

Lies are lies, and denial of reality is not the same thing as opinion.

 

i NEVER said any of these skills had nothing to add to rs. you may call me a liar, but you will NOT put words in my mouth.

 

and for the umpthenth time, my opinions are just that. you can disagree with me, i dont care if you do. dont say that my opinions are facts, i never present them as such. coming off high and mighty does not change that. also, i will be the judge of what i have the right to think tyvm.

 

and you feel the need to refute every point i make to draw attention to yourself. that's all ill say.

Player A: Makes absurd statements.

Player B: Refutes said statements.

Player A: "lol nerd"

 

Remember when we could have legitimate discussions?

I do, but everyone seems to be in a flaming mood. not that i should be surprised. I came here to have a legit discussion, and so for the only one who has done that is qeltar.

Also, I have yet to call anyone names.

 

 

speakign of queltar...

The answer is the same as it's always been: they develop in a vacuum, without a proper understanding of what their customers like and want.

 

They do it because they can get away with it. When a company is successful and has lots of money, they can do what they want and it doesn't really matter. It's only companies that are struggling for success and acceptance that listen to their customers (and ones who want to have *continued* success and acceptance).

=D> i think that pretty much sums it up. as a player it's easy to have 20/20 vison, and not see it from their side.

[Myweponsg00d]

What you said:

The answer is the same as it's always been: they develop in a vacuum, without a proper understanding of what their customers like and want.

 

They do it because they can get away with it. When a company is successful and has lots of money, they can do what they want and it doesn't really matter. It's only companies that are struggling for success and acceptance that listen to their customers (and ones who want to have *continued* success and acceptance).

 

What you should have said:

 

The answer is the same as it's always been: I am personally dissatisfied with the content. I have the delusion that my personal opinion is automatically called "majority"

 

They do it because they are the game developers. When a company has an idea, they put that idea into reality. No companies develop game content based purely on the suggestions of the players. The most popular MMORPG in the world does not create content based on suggestions from people who are not game designers.

[Myweponsg00d]

 

 

and for the umpthenth time, my opinions are just that. coming off high and mighty does not change that. also, i will be the judge of what i have the right to think tyvm.

 

 

Im just saying theres a difference between saying you dont like something and saying that something IS or ISNT something.

 

Do you have the right to say that the current president of the entire world is Muhammad Ali? Saying that he is the ruler of the world would not be an opinion. It is a delusion of reality.

[Bladewing]

and you feel the need to refute every point i make to draw attention to yourself. that's all ill say.

Player A: Makes absurd statements.

Player B: Refutes said statements.

Player A: "lol nerd"

 

Remember when we could have legitimate discussions?

I do, but everyone seems to be in a flaming mood. not that i should be surprised. I came here to have a legit discussion, and so for the only one who has done that is qeltar.

Also, I have yet to call anyone names.

Seems like you only are counting people who agree with you. :roll:

Oh and you called Omali an attention-seeker.

 

The main problem with dungeoneering is that it fell short of expectations. Causes:

• Jagex informs players ahead of time of future updates, building hype.
  
• Jagex hurries updates and cuts short testing to fulfill its one-update-a-week promise/goal.

The game would be better off if "weekly updates" was not a promise and Jagex only released updates when they were ready and thoroughly tested (obviously dungeoneering was not, c.f. reward prices). Also Jagex could consider reducing the emphasis they place on future updates, even though this may hurt subscriptions; this could be replaced by additional hype at the time of release through advertisements or other methods.

[zotto]

Regarding flaming accusation:.

Maybe people are fed up with all the constant moaning about the quality of the game.

 

We play runescape because we like the game. We don't play the game in the anticipation of another update by Jagex, so we have a new reason to complain and nag.

 

Nagging about how bad a game is on a fan-site of this game is also a form of flaming you know. You can't expect positive reactions. Imagine going to a religious forum and complain about jesus. You won't receive a warm welcome.

 

What probably many of us think:

If it is all that bad, don't do dungeoneering. If the game in total is so bad, don't waste you time on it. Go do something you actually enjoy doing.

[Slayer_Jesse]

oi vey. You guys just dont get it. Im trying to avoid a flamefest. you guys just keep putting your views overtop of mine. ill say it again, i LIKE these skills, they are jsut initaly flawed. this thread was SUPPOESED to be about why jagex was blind to this. i am NOT whining about the game, i hate whiners as much as you do. if i hated dungeoneering that much, i wouldnt be playing it. and i onyl called omalii an an attention seeker rather than try to argue with him, and cause a bigger blow up. It seems the lesson here is the one of the movie Wargames... "The only way to win is not to play."

[Auris]

If you think dungeoneering is too slow, then you're probably a bit slow yourself.

directly to ten.

[Mecakoto]

Was that picture really necessary? Now it just looks like you're trolling.

[qeltar]

What you should have said:

Try to see if you can make a cogent point, instead of just mocking what others write. It just makes you look foolish and not worth dealing with.

 

This is not a simple matter of me "not liking the content". It is a matter of one decision after another that show that the developers are not in tune with what most players want. Not always on a big scale, often small things, but head-scratchers nonetheless. They've all been discussed too many times to bother relisting. Mostly rewards that pretty much no player would ever use, or content that is abandoned due to unrealistic assumptions.

[Bladewing]

What you should have said:

HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, MY OPINIONS ARE FACT

I think you need to calm down a bit when someone is critical towards you.

[Mike_Ike111]

The answer is the same as it's always been: they develop in a vacuum, without a proper understanding of what their customers like and want.

 

They do it because they can get away with it. When a company is successful and has lots of money, they can do what they want and it doesn't really matter. It's only companies that are struggling for success and acceptance that listen to their customers (and ones who want to have *continued* success and acceptance).

 

Hey now!

 

Bungie is, in my opinion, is the single best video game company out there. They are such a successful company, continue to whip out fantastic content, and listen to their customers. Bungie is the example business model that any game company should look at when evaluating themselves. They have weekly website updates every single week, little update posts every other hour or so, and know exactly how to keep in touch with their fans. They are all of that, all the while being a company that creates FPS games: the type of game that doesn't require constant community involvement. They are what Jagex should be.

 

However, Jagex does not listen to their customers. They do not keep in touch with their fans by updating the website, which is one of the big things they should be doing. They should hire somebody that is given the job to surf the web for fan made content, and create posts, stories, and updates on the main page, and keep the page updated with content every hour. A lot of people want to know how the game is going, so why can't we be involved in it's creation process.

 

Jagex is the anti-social company that lets their main page (the page most visited on their website) be left gathering dust for a week until the next update. All the while, I just looked at Bungie's main page and they have 5 new updates in the last 20 minutes, and 17 hours ago they had a hour and 30 minute podcasts talking about the way they design stuff. In the last 24 hours there was 12 update posts. Jagex' website...has content on it from a month ago.

 

 

On topic:

 

If this game is going to be advertised as the type where people with little amount of time and short attention spans can be able to play and flourish. Then why were we given a skill that takes so [bleep]ing long to level, and requires hours of play in a single sitting. This should be a minigame, not a skill. This should be optional content for the people who have this sort of time to play, but not a skill which is like a requirement to level. Runescape revolves around leveling up skills, so why were we given a skill that goes against the type of people Jagex are trying to advertise to.

[Kiriyama]

Okay..So you're arguing that Jagex does everything wrong at first?

 

Yeah, perhaps Jagex do have problems with new skill releases, but hell, there's future content updates to them in order to help develop these skills. What do they do? Keep the skill unreleased until it's "perfect", or release what they think is a good skill, and then make additions at a later date based on feedback?

 

Easily the second option makes more sense. If they delayed it, it just means longer until people complain about it. They don't know what the playerbase expects from something unreleased, especially in a new skill.

 

A skill starts off with a idea.

The idea develops.

Content is added to the idea.

The idea is polished off and released.

Jagex get feedback.

Skill updates are added based on the feedback.

 

Sounds like the sane man's way of doing it..

 

Ah, but of course you're the type that doesn't want things that aren't perfect released..You expect it to be absolutely perfect even though Jagex don't know what players want from something they have not got in their game.

 

As for Hunter, I believe it is very much alive, with the difficulty in finding worlds for the better training spots, it is hardly a dead skill as you claim. Hunter actually has rewards, with Black Salamanders being a useful weapon in some situations, chinchompas being a fast way to train Range. Implings providing other rewards (useful like Dragon Arrows, or merely cosmetic such as Royal gear.)

 

The fact is, your post is heavily opinionated with little knowledge of how things actually work.

 

Ever wonder why it takes console games awhile to be released? How some can be in development for years before release? That's because they don't have what online game developers do, the ability to completely upgrade the game (Of course, downloadable content now means there can be additions), but the game has to be more perfect because it is a finished project, they don't have the luxury of being able to completely change the game based on feedback, of course, they can improve in a sequel but if the original game is completely terrible, who is going to buy the next in the series?

 

Seriously, if you think something is wrong with an aspect of a game, then give some constructive feedback, rather than just saying it sucks and how it's how you expect it to be, without actually giving any idea of what you want from the skill. Frankly, you've given nothing other than "Waah! I want a quick 99! Not something that takes time to level despite being enjoyable! Also I want all the rewards to be cheap! Despite the fact they are amongst the best item in game." Oh, and for your information, it's being posted that Jagex are looking at the cost of the rewards.

[Stommel]

I personally think dungeoneering was a brilliant update (albeit for some glitches which i'm sure will be gone within a month or so)

 

The main complaint is based on the skills similarity to a minigame. I agree that they do bare striking resembalances, but I think Jagex were right to make this a skill. The content itself is massive, and I've heard a second patch is on the way (like Summoning) which will probably make the skill more useful. I also think the step in this direction was good for the future of the game in the sense that, it would have been near impossible to develop a skill which did not have a strong resemblance to any other skills (an example being fishing/wc, herblore/fletch imo), without branching away from the perception of what a 'skill' is. They done this well with Slayer for example, where they introduced a task based skill, which has some resembelances to quests (someone tells you to do something, you do it, return to them, do something else) and yet was basically a new combat skill.

 

At the moment it has no clear benefits outside the dungeon directly, but some of the rewards are great ideas, and will benefit certain skills significantly. I compare this self-contained style to Construction, where the only big out-of-skill benefits really come along at the good altar building levels, or with the teleport portals (as far as my experience with con goes). A quirk of Dungeoneering is that you actually train several other skills whilst earning experience in dungeoneering itself.

[qeltar]

People would give more constructive feedback if they felt it was being listened to.

 

As for people being unhappy with things, that's because there is basically no interaction between customers and developers. The people writing content do what they want, and then act surprised when it isn't well received. It's a long repeated pattern at this point.

[Kiriyama]

If there is not enough constructive feedback, how can it be listened to?

 

I assume you believe they have to respond to each piece? The feedback is taken into consideration, then measured against others, and then they try to please all sides.

[Slayer_Jesse]

If there is not enough constructive feedback, how can it be listened to?

 

I assume you believe they have to respond to each piece? The feedback is taken into consideration, then measured against others, and then they try to please all sides.

witch of course, allways works out extremely well.

[Kiriyama]

No matter what you do, someone will be able to find a flaw in it.

 

With 100k+ Players on at most times, and considering there are likely 1m+ people playing, can you ever please them all fully?

[Slayer_Jesse]

No matter what you do, someone will be able to find a flaw in it.

 

With 100k+ Players on at most times, and considering there are likely 1m+ people playing, can you ever please them all fully?

 

no of course not, and jagex sometimes forgets this.

[Mike_Ike111]

No matter what you do, someone will be able to find a flaw in it.

 

With 100k+ Players on at most times, and considering there are likely 1m+ people playing, can you ever please them all fully?

 

In a way yes. By keeping us all completely informed of what they are planing on doing, and the reasons why they are doing it. However, if the reason is because 'they believe' it is the right thing to do then we are all at square one again. The reason always has to be influenced by the customer, not by Jagex.

[qeltar]

If there is not enough constructive feedback, how can it be listened to?

You're kidding, right?

 

Let's just take one example: the penance trident. Some Jagex developer who obviously never plays RS more than he has to, creates this utterly useless item. A whole bunch of players complain that it is useless for maging. They respond by boosting its melee stats.

 

Please explain that to me?

 

It's just one of many, many examples.

[jsboutin2]

there should be a poll on tipit's main site asking "Do you like dungeoneering? Yes/no" We would then have the beginning of an answer.

 

I personnally like it, I haven't done anything else ingame except miscellania since it's release and am very happy with how it works.

 

I can't wait for the next dungeons,