We live and we learn

[bothworlds]

Dear Andrew,

 

This whole thing with taking away free trade was great and all, I mean as games that have tenfold the population of runescape show the only successful way to counter botting is to make trading impossible. But this debate has been beaten to death already, so it's good for business right?

 

 

 

(runescape population over time, thanks runevirage)

 

December 2007 is when all the updates were implemented, I guess people don't want to be babysat numbers don't lie.

 

So here is what it came down to there were two approaches the status quo made the game fun for the few that were smart and creative, look at 3hitu or those guys that made hundreds of millions. The economy was unfair the bots didn't help, people got PKed. If you didn't know how to play well it wasn't working out. If you did, it was a lot of fun. So they think that its time to turn it around and make all those things that people that were very good at the game did not longer accessible. Who does it benefit? Joe the plumber or the guy that's not very good at runescape, the guy that NEEDs anti baiting protection because he can't figure it out for himself, the guy that has to chop yews because he can't merchant and the guy that doesn't understand the basis of PKing so he complains every time he gets teamed.

 

Now I'm sure this analogy has been exhausted but let it be. This approach assumes that people don't have to make basic mistakes on their own to get good at something. It is also called idealistic because it is ridiculous; if you look at elemental game theory (economics 101) there is always a loser and eliminating one is impossible, ie this approach has no real substance for why it should work. Ever.

 

Again I'm sure people has drawn the real life analogy more times then it was needed to be done, but if you open a history textbook you can tell that when you take a large amount of people and implement Utopian policies they will fail. Why does this matter now? Because runescape's vote is admitting failure. It's not some great reform or Xmas present to runescape old timers. In the spirits of telling people that they f.. up this just shows for those who didn't understand why the idea was ridiculous in the first place exactly how it was bound to fail.

 

Next time save your programmers' fingers for D&D marathons and open a book instead of wasting everyone's time.

 

Hell maybe Andrew should pick himself up something like this

 

 

but I guess we live and we learn.. or in the case of runescape "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

 

-A

[Wessan]

Honestly, I dont know if you are arguing for or against free trade and old wilderness throughout this. I understand what you say, but it doesnt have any main points, or explanation for the graph. I that traffic to the RS site? Is that money? Stock? What?

[bothworlds]

Fixed, didn't realize graph wasn't labeled.

[Aiel]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

[bothworlds]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

[The_Gabe]

Most of the difference is lvl 3 bots.

[manitstinks]

What do A - E stand for?

[bothworlds]

Most of the difference is lvl 3 bots.

 

That's very convenient..any proof?

[J35u5_M4]

Like The_Gabe said, a lot of that population were botters that got banned and stopped playing.

 

Also, I don't see much discussion value here, maybe this should belong to Rants.

 

On topic; I support the idea of the Wilderness and the free trade coming back, although it will screw with the game economy (Again), also I like the fact that GE will still be there to satisfy my needs.

[K4ylan]

Not sure I understand your point here. It sounds like you're angry at JaGeX for fixing what you claimed to be a mistake.

[9ablo]

I fell you. We (hispanic-players) have been without a JMod for two weeks.

[The_Gabe]

I fell you. We (hispanic-players) have been without a JMod for two weeks.

 

Que?

[compfreak847]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

No. It's a Google Trends graph, showing the number of searches for Runescape on Google over time:

 

[source]

While it may be an interesting performance marker, it's not necessarily indicative of an overall trend. For example, look at Jagex's financial reports released by me [The username, not myself :)]; though they are somewhat out of date (the latest being July 2009), they show a decline and resurgence around 07-09 (I know, membership hikes may have skewed that to some extent as well) that is not indicated by Google Trends. Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

Unfortunately, there are currently no good traffic markers out for us to judge Runescape's popularity by. The most reliable figures we have are direct quotes on membership and account numbers from Jagex themselves, but they tend to be few and far between. Most web stats, from Alexa to Ranking.com, are highly inaccurate; they generally sample only a small fraction of the population (In Alexa's case, only the people with toolbars installed) and reflect web trends as a whole - Alexa reports in percentages relative to overall internet traffic, meaning that a stead value actually represents a growth rate equal to the rest of the internet.

 

But yes, I would agree that Runescape's popularity does seem to be waning slightly. The most likely causes are the increasing numbers of bots (seen frequently in my own playing) and a sense of increasing disconnect between players and the company. Bringing the wilderness back may be a good idea, although the poll seems to stray a bit into 'publicity event' areas, but it seems to be generating a considerable amount of interest and will potentially re-introduce many players to the game (and their friends along with them).

 

Still, I don't think Jagex is in any serious difficulties yet - subscriber numbers are still very high, and as several financial statements show, they have plenty of spare cash and major revenue sources. I also suspect that, as a pet project of the Growers, the company will remain even if profits take a serious hit.

 

In short, though we don't really know, it is indeed possible that membership is declining. Still, it's not really something to worry about; RS has many years ahead of it unless Jagex manages to severely mess up major aspects of the game, and they seem to be actively working to improve it (Dungeneering is a good example) in ways that will reverse the trend and increase its popularity.

 

Sorry, I felt the need to post since this is a topic I find interesting. I'll slip back into lurking mode now :)

[bedman]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

No. It's a Google Trends graph, showing the number of searches for Runescape on Google over time:

 

[source]

While it may be an interesting performance marker, it's not necessarily indicative of an overall trend. For example, look at Jagex's financial reports released by me [The username, not myself :)]; though they are somewhat out of date (the latest being July 2009), they show a decline and resurgence around 07-09 (I know, membership hikes may have skewed that to some extent as well) that is not indicated by Google Trends. Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

Unfortunately, there are currently no good traffic markers out for us to judge Runescape's popularity by. The most reliable figures we have are direct quotes on membership and account numbers from Jagex themselves, but they tend to be few and far between. Most web stats, from Alexa to Ranking.com, are highly inaccurate; they generally sample only a small fraction of the population (In Alexa's case, only the people with toolbars installed) and reflect web trends as a whole - Alexa reports in percentages relative to overall internet traffic, meaning that a stead value actually represents a growth rate equal to the rest of the internet.

 

But yes, I would agree that Runescape's popularity does seem to be waning slightly. The most likely causes are the increasing numbers of bots (seen frequently in my own playing) and a sense of increasing disconnect between players and the company. Bringing the wilderness back may be a good idea, although the poll seems to stray a bit into 'publicity event' areas, but it seems to be generating a considerable amount of interest and will potentially re-introduce many players to the game (and their friends along with them).

 

Still, I don't think Jagex is in any serious difficulties yet - subscriber numbers are still very high, and as several financial statements show, they have plenty of spare cash and major revenue sources. I also suspect that, as a pet project of the Growers, the company will remain even if profits take a serious hit.

 

In short, though we don't really know, it is indeed possible that membership is declining. Still, it's not really something to worry about; RS has many years ahead of it unless Jagex manages to severely mess up major aspects of the game, and they seem to be actively working to improve it (Dungeneering is a good example) in ways that will reverse the trend and increase its popularity.

 

Sorry, I felt the need to post since this is a topic I find interesting. I'll slip back into lurking mode now :)

 

YOU ... ARE ... BACK! woohoow

Thanks for the quality post again :-)

[Will H]

I know some of you guys weren't around back when the RWT updates hit, but I warn you guys that when we had this discussion back in Dec '07, it didn't work out. Google Trends are only very rough indicators of popularity, and aren't conclusive, and it doesn't distinguish between real players and bots, or old players and new players. You can't conclude anything from them.

[DiscoShazam]

Like The_Gabe said, a lot of that population were botters that got banned and stopped playing.

 

Also, I don't see much discussion value here, maybe this should belong to Rants.

 

On topic; I support the idea of the Wilderness and the free trade coming back, although it will screw with the game economy (Again), also I like the fact that GE will still be there to satisfy my needs.

 

Pretty much this^, to put it in a nutshell.

 

Bots were a huge population of Runescape, so the game's traffic went up. :thumbup:

Then they got banned and it plummeted. :thumbdown:

[Wessan]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

^If that is true, and Google is only tracking the hits from people who search RS through Google, my money is on that. I bet most people playing RS today have it on their favorites, or some type of bookmark system to get there quickly.

[Zaaps1]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

No. It's a Google Trends graph, showing the number of searches for Runescape on Google over time:

 

[source]

While it may be an interesting performance marker, it's not necessarily indicative of an overall trend. For example, look at Jagex's financial reports released by me [The username, not myself :)]; though they are somewhat out of date (the latest being July 2009), they show a decline and resurgence around 07-09 (I know, membership hikes may have skewed that to some extent as well) that is not indicated by Google Trends. Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

Unfortunately, there are currently no good traffic markers out for us to judge Runescape's popularity by. The most reliable figures we have are direct quotes on membership and account numbers from Jagex themselves, but they tend to be few and far between. Most web stats, from Alexa to Ranking.com, are highly inaccurate; they generally sample only a small fraction of the population (In Alexa's case, only the people with toolbars installed) and reflect web trends as a whole - Alexa reports in percentages relative to overall internet traffic, meaning that a stead value actually represents a growth rate equal to the rest of the internet.

 

But yes, I would agree that Runescape's popularity does seem to be waning slightly. The most likely causes are the increasing numbers of bots (seen frequently in my own playing) and a sense of increasing disconnect between players and the company. Bringing the wilderness back may be a good idea, although the poll seems to stray a bit into 'publicity event' areas, but it seems to be generating a considerable amount of interest and will potentially re-introduce many players to the game (and their friends along with them).

 

Still, I don't think Jagex is in any serious difficulties yet - subscriber numbers are still very high, and as several financial statements show, they have plenty of spare cash and major revenue sources. I also suspect that, as a pet project of the Growers, the company will remain even if profits take a serious hit.

 

In short, though we don't really know, it is indeed possible that membership is declining. Still, it's not really something to worry about; RS has many years ahead of it unless Jagex manages to severely mess up major aspects of the game, and they seem to be actively working to improve it (Dungeneering is a good example) in ways that will reverse the trend and increase its popularity.

 

Sorry, I felt the need to post since this is a topic I find interesting. I'll slip back into lurking mode now :)

 

 

Welcome back :)

 

I agree with this post. While I guess you could say that the google search traffic can indicate the general trend, it's by no means accurate for what you are trying to say. It could reflect Runescape's overall popularity on the internet, but it certainly cannot be used to show a correlation with the Runescape player population, regardless of whether or not it does show the correct trend.

[green9090]

Translation of OP's post:

 

"HAY GUIS CORRELATION = CAUSATION RIGHT?

 

You fail logic forever, good day.

[Quasar]

Someone find a p value!

[pulli23]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

^If that is true, and Google is only tracking the hits from people who search RS through Google, my money is on that. I bet most people playing RS today have it on their favorites, or some type of bookmark system to get there quickly.

But it DOES mean a decline in new people.. And all people who are playing will at some point grow tired.. So a game can only exist if there keeps coming a group of new player base!

[compfreak847]

That's a graph of either google searches or unique users over time, it's not really relevent.

 

it's a graph of unique visits of rs.com it's relevant because every time someone wants to play runescape they must visit the site.

 

Perhaps people are more aware of Runescape and are visiting the site directly instead of searching for it, or are simply using other search engines (the rise in popularity of Bing could play a factor) when they are looking for Runesacpe.

 

^If that is true, and Google is only tracking the hits from people who search RS through Google, my money is on that. I bet most people playing RS today have it on their favorites, or some type of bookmark system to get there quickly.

But it DOES mean a decline in new people.. And all people who are playing will at some point grow tired.. So a game can only exist if there keeps coming a group of new player base!

No. It means that fewer people are searching for the term "Runescape" on Google - nothing more, nothing less. We can use this to infer that there are fewer new players, but that can be a rather risky assumption. There are plenty of opportunities for lurking variables; I provided a few in my post above, but there are certainly many others. For example, Jagex's new advertising campaigns including the direct domain, Runescape.com, could result in more players visiting the site directly instead of searching for more information on it. Another potential variable could be the increase in internet proficiency of players - I've done plenty of consulting work for people who visited web sites - every time - by typing the word into Google and clicking on the first term that came up (Think visiting google.com, typing in facebook, clicking search, and clicking the first link to facebook.com). There is a multitude of other potential causes, many of which could have a significant impact on search trends without being immediately obvious. The phrase 'correllation does not imply causation', said before by other posters, does not really apply - in this case, we're arguing about whether or not there's an association between two variables: google search trends and overall players. Since we have very limited data on the latter variable, it's hard to point to the first and say that it dictates the second when we have no markers by which to gauge its past performance, and we are forced to assume that the two are closely related with little evidence to go on and a plethora of confounding variables.

[green9090]

The phrase 'correllation does not imply causation', said before by other posters, does not really apply - in this case, we're arguing about whether or not there's an association between two variables: google search trends and overall players. Since we have very limited data on the latter variable, it's hard to point to the first and say that it dictates the second when we have no markers by which to gauge its past performance, and we are forced to assume that the two are closely related with little evidence to go on and a plethora of confounding variables.

It does apply. The OP is drawing a correlation between old wild going away and search terms for RS declining. He's then implying a causation based on that. We're calling bull [cabbage].

[Sir_Squab]

I don't think I've ever used google to find runescape. Yet I've been playing it for years.

 

Also, you seem to accuse Jagex of forcing some utopian ideals on RS by removing the trade limit and the GE years ago - the story is far from it. As best as I've been able to piece out, they actually implemented it at the end of 07 due to complaints of the credit card companies; a lot of credit card fraud was associated with the botting/RWT accounts. Credit cards get mad after enough cases of people calling the credit card company about this "Runescape thing" on their credit cards, so the credit card companies threaten to cut Jagex off from using credit cards for memberships. I can't tell you the percentage of people who paid for membership via credit card (even now it'd be fairly high, and there's a lot more ways to pay w/o a credit card now) so this threat by the credit card companies was enough to get Jagex to change things - immediately. Why else did they spend at least 6 months changing the new PVP system until it worked? Worked being defined by Jagex not messing with it anymore lol.*

 

Where I'm going with this, Jagex removing free trade and the wilderness wasn't something they did to impose an idealistic society on us. It was the lesser of two evils.

 

That, and what has been pointed out - the graph shows there's less people searching RS on google, nothing more, nothing less. There are many, many possible reasons for this.

 

*Please don't ask me to source this. For a few reasons, one of which being that it's mostly speculation.

[bothworlds]

The phrase 'correllation does not imply causation', said before by other posters, does not really apply - in this case, we're arguing about whether or not there's an association between two variables: google search trends and overall players. Since we have very limited data on the latter variable, it's hard to point to the first and say that it dictates the second when we have no markers by which to gauge its past performance, and we are forced to assume that the two are closely related with little evidence to go on and a plethora of confounding variables.

It does apply. The OP is drawing a correlation between old wild going away and search terms for RS declining. He's then implying a causation based on that. We're calling bull [cabbage].

 

Basically it's my fault for not really paying attention to the details of the post. The graph is from

 

http://forum.tip.it/topic/275965-the-runescape-population/

 

I should've been more careful when reposting it with checking exactly what it is. Definably my fault for rushing and not really caring etc..

 

Anyway on the issue of causation assuming RS population did decline after the updates (why in the world has this not been confirmed or rejected yet??) I think it's a safe assumption that it was caused by the updates. Since it's not clear then I guess my case is rather limited, but unless someone cares to produce more reliable data it's not like there's an alternative.

 

Also what are trying to say by "causation is not caused by correlation"? If you want to get down to the gritty of Hume then you are right that at a logical level it doesn't so you can throw away inductive logic out the window but if its not clear to anyone "given x it is most probable that y is true." Kthx