Petition and Fraud? Mistake and Lies? Other? (results on page 4)

[Mymagerules]

cynic

[rthensley]

The return of free trade and the old Wildy was a forgone conclusion (by JAGEX) before the first petition was released. Don't kid yourselves. The decision was made behind closed JAGEX doors many weeks ago. The petition was only a means to generate discussion among current and former players.

 

 

Supposedly some things will be relocated when the old Wilderness returns. I assume one of those things would be penguins. Don't you think the release of the Zanaris penguin many weeks ago was a "test run" of a penguin in a new location? I do.

 

Bots & credit card fraud were flourishing under the old system. My bank refused to allow my debit card to be used to pay for my subscription because of this. Obviously JAGEX DOES have improved bot detection methods ready to go or they would not be taking this chance. I bet they might have even tested this system in the past. Remember the stat rollbacks & asking those effected players to submit bug reports. I have no doubt that was part of getting the new bot detectiion methods ready to go. I also have no doubt that those players suspected of botting will get rollbacks/banned much, much quicker when free trade returns.

[Low C]

They're a business. Business's don't always do things the way the customer see's fit and they don't always have 100% transparency. However, with Jagex I believe this was intended to be a PR stunt that would lead into their 10th year of business with a bang and leave the customers wanting more and leaving the company with fatter pockets. What we are seeing now might not have been the intended plan, but an elaborated plan to draw attention to their brand and possibly the return of free trade.

[Bladewing]

cynic

support

 

i voted they told the truth, but really i don't care

[Range_This11]

I posted this on the Wilderness/Free Trade topic, but it got eaten by pages of off-topic posts so I will re-post since it is more applicable to this topic.

 

I really see no problem with how the voting has been implemented. It's similar to ballot initiatives in states like California. All you need to put an initiative on the ballot for the people to vote on is to get one million signatures on a petition from registered voters. Then, during the next election (either presidential or mid-term) the people vote yes or no on the initiative. The yes/no/don't care voting stage we are in now shows that the players want this and I think it's great that Jagex decided to let their players make the decision. No one is closer to their game than the players are.

 

I think they did the absolute right thing. They put a petition out to see if this was actually worth voting on, how else would they have known? Now we've all voted and it is quite clear from both the petition and vote that the community wants the 2007 changes reversed.

 

Edit: And to those that are griping about it being a PR move...I don't understand this. We have known for years that Jagex is a company that relies on revenues to keep this game and their other projects afloat. All of a sudden it's not okay for them to make money?

[Maximusa]

Incompetent to create a bogus poll that makes no sense.. to create a second poll that doesnt offer enough options.

 

Also, they are lying about being able to handle bots if they allow this update. Adding incentive != Less botting. It encourages it. The same way a poll that allows everyone to vote was actually a mistake. I prefer not to have a community turn towards a diablo 2 style community. Which is fine for that game..but not for runescape. Not for me anyway.

 

I am all for going back in time and not removing free trade to begin with. Then was the time to not do it. However putting it back now, displaying such incompetence with the poll and gossiping in clanchats is amazingly unprofessional. Even for Jagex..

 

Perhaps if they where more professional and actually had responsible new actions to take against bots it would be fine. As it is..Its just weird and unprofessional. Not good to show so many obvious lies..cover-ups..Isnt good. Im not stupid and its insulting for someone who can see between whats happening.

 

I would be excited for free trade if it wasnt for that.

 

Its like they had this amazing update to offer but slipped on pile of goo and it landed flat in their face...Then they told us they did it on purpose and wanted to see peoples thoughts and responses. Told us how they created a super machine that can K.O bots that for some reason or other they havnt released yet....Then made another attempt at a poll with a lack of options.

 

All the while they seem to be obviously biased and will release wild anyway lol. That part of its obvious PR, which is fine lol but its obvious. 'Who wants an amazing update' Vote YES! ..or.. YES! (No option for no lol >.<)

 

If only they didnt use goofy to announce the news.

[K112]

I voted other, as far as i'm concerned it's pure PR.

They've never done anything like this before, and I can't imagine that if they brought free trade and the old style wilderness back, people would complain.

[Golvellius]

Publicity stunt.

[Ts_Stormrage]

Cynic? or realist?

 

It's a cliché but there you have it...

[Roz]

Mine is option D, they just did it for more publicity. Why have one poll which may get some interest when you can have two?-My bad if this is another option, haven't slept for 36 hours.

 

 

I think Jagex decided to bring back wildy, but have a vote to keep the immature PKers happy, and so they believe they had a part in bringing it back; keeping them at bay.

[Jordan Armstrong]

You gave 4 different options, but I don't think you took this into account:

 

The "old" wildy and free trade go hand in hand. If you bring back the "old" wildy, that includes the dropping of carried items.

In my humble opinion, you can't bring back such a thing without also bringing back free trade.

In this sense, the options they gave for the vote are adequate.

 

In response to whether they lied to us, I don't think so. I think it was meant to be an easy way for users to vote.

 

anyway, good post :)

[Will H]

They didn't lie. The players lied by submitting runescape users that they did not create or own.

This is a really common argument in RS for some reason. People don't blame Jagex for making the GE ridiculously easy to manipulate, they blame players for doing the only logical thing and taking advantage of it. They don't blame Jagex for not being harsh enough about banning bots, they blame players who bot when they know the worst that'll happen is a temp ban and maybe some stat resetting. And now, they don't blame Jagex for encouraging players to vote multiple times by making a vote that allows it, but instead blame the players who did exactly what they'd be expected to do.

 

The fact is, when you're in charge of controlling or organizing people, it's more often than not your own damn fault if those people don't do what you want. The key is to make what you want them to do be the best course of action- if somebody can profit from doing something you'd rather they didn't (manipulation clans, spam voting), then you need to CHANGE SOMETHING so that it's no longer a smart thing to do (remove GE limits, implement a login on the vote).

 

In the case of the vote, anyone who thought for half a second about what a player who wants the wilderness back is going to do would realize, oh hey, they're going to write a script to vote over and over. That is Jagex's fault because is was a direct and inescapable result of making a petition in which anyone can vote an infinite number of times. Why blame players for doing exactly what Jagex all but instructed them to do?

Isn't this a pretty big moral argument? Like who is responsible if your house is burglarized - the criminal, or you for leaving the door unlocked?

 

The way I see it, you simply can't pin the blame on Jagex for their naïvety and inability to expect people to tell the truth in the petition. They had to adjust when they realized how dishonest the community would be about the whole situation - which should have been expected. So, we can blame Jagex for being shortsighted, but not for lying.

 

What makes you think that it wasn't expected? Jagex have never held an open petition on an update to the game before, for this very reason. The only thing that's changed is the widespread interest in the issue. Suddenly they're acting differently, claiming that 'Your voice matters!' and acting like the community should draw together under this issue, and that includes people who don't even remember their passwords. The whole thing is very intentional, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was proposed by some PR guru at Jagex.

 

If it was a PR stunt, then why not say so afterwards? No they claimed it was just another way of gauging support for the changes... To me it looks like they messed up and didn't want to say so... If they came out right now and said "you knwo what, you're right, we all did this to make the cmmmunity as aware of it as possible" I might be more inclined to your way of thinking... But they didn't, so I'm not...

 

As to the argument whether I should blame Jagex or the people that are abusing it; I'm a paying customer, so I expect the quality product they promised... If Jagex are going to use these polls and petitions as grounds to legitimize rolling back the changes that, in their own words, once threatened to ruin RuneScape altogether, I have every right to question their logic and every right to some answers too...

 

 

Where is the need to explicitly say that it was a PR stunt afterwards? To satisfy one guy on a fansite forum? Jagex advertised poll everywhere where they held influence, put up facilities to spread the word on social networking sites. They made the community as aware of it as possible, that's a fact. I'm not sure how you can deny that.

 

Of course you have a right to some answers, and here's a couple of them: They are doing this now because they say that they can take on the bots. The technology has changed, and Jagex believe that it is capable enough over time to deal with RWTing. They must have managed to convince the credit card companies, because they have withdrawn their ultimatums.

[Myweponsg00d]

We need 4 more votes for incompetance

[Ts_Stormrage]

lol, why...

 

I think the trend is pretty clear...

[Ginger_Warrior]

Of course you have a right to some answers, and here's a couple of them: They are doing this now because they say that they can take on the bots. The technology has changed, and Jagex believe that it is capable enough over time to deal with RWTing. They must have managed to convince the credit card companies, because they have withdrawn their ultimatums.

Or haven't got word of it yet. Can't imagine that there's any big cheese in the banks looking out for whether Jagex is inadvertently fueling credit card fraud. There's bigger issues on their hands than the relative liberalism of the RS economy and its effect on real world crime. If a company can't be trusted to organise the proverbial drink session in a brewery with the first petition without making it so insecure that basically every account that's ever existed was accounted for, how can they be trusted to take on an issue that plenty of games companies have tried (and failed) to resolve in RWT and botting?

[Will H]

Of course you have a right to some answers, and here's a couple of them: They are doing this now because they say that they can take on the bots. The technology has changed, and Jagex believe that it is capable enough over time to deal with RWTing. They must have managed to convince the credit card companies, because they have withdrawn their ultimatums.

Or haven't got word of it yet. Can't imagine that there's any big cheese in the banks looking out for whether Jagex is inadvertently fueling credit card fraud. There's bigger issues on their hands than the relative liberalism of the RS economy and its effect on real world crime. If a company can't be trusted to organise the proverbial drink session in a brewery with the first petition without making it so insecure that basically every account that's ever existed was accounted for, how can they be trusted to take on an issue that plenty of games companies have tried (and failed) to resolve in RWT and botting?

 

I can imagine it very easily. For banks, nothing is a bigger issue than the one that is losing them money, and Jagex is a really big customer. I would think that banks regularly investigate whether any companies that they are serving are facilitating credit card fraud by law anyway. Similarly, Jagex would never commit financial suicide so quickly when there's plenty more solid years of potential development in front of them. They could have never put up the poll in the first place and still have a virtually guaranteed profit for at least the next 3 financial years. Not too long ago, we saw a Runescape trailer showing much more advanced concept animations than we have now which will only really be possible in the game over years of development. They're acting very much like a company that's still in it for the long term.

 

What has their ability to hold polls and PR stunts got to do with how good they are at combating bots? They're two very different kinds of competence.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Fair point, but I don't see what makes Jagex stand out from every other company in history that has tried to combat botting, and failed. The line "We couldn't do it before but we can now" doesn't really convince me otherwise without details.

[Dragonlordjl]

Fair point, but I don't see what makes Jagex stand out from every other company in history that has tried to combat botting, and failed. The line "We couldn't do it before but we can now" doesn't really convince me otherwise without details.

And all one has to do is take a peek at the Ess Mines or the CT dragons to see that botters are still a major issue. I don't see Jagex releasing some magical super-mega-9001th version of their anti-macro system the day the bring back the Wild and Free Trade. It's just lip service to try to fool the blind and the naive.

 

But as I said earlier, who really cares about bots. Skilling is and has been a crappy money-maker for as long as I can remember, and having a bunch more bots will just making training skills like prayer more affordable. Also, the extra money skillers made when the bots left after 12/10 (and resulted in more expensive resources) just went into price manipulators' pockets. And price manipulators (combined with the broken GE mechanics which they abuse) are far more of an inconvenience than bots ever were. It'll be nice once cash is king again and you can pay 800 or 900m cash for a divine spirit shield outright if you have the money, instead of having to jump through all these hoops acquiring rares to barter with instead.

[Ts_Stormrage]

@ Dragonlordjlkp;;

I agree completely with your statement about Jagex probably being unable to combat bots, especially since their own news post said so...

 

But bots being something to ignore? I think not... With Unbalanced Trade returning this will definitly bring Gold Farmers back in business, meaning a MAHOOSIVE increase in bots...

You may not remember the days when skilling was a good moneymaker, but I do... Check some of my older Times articles for some more detailed reports of the days when alching Yew Longbows and fishing Sharks was profitable (seers and catherby were the main economic hotspots), and how bots ruined it...

 

Skilling (some of it) used to be profitable, and bots ruined this giant part of what was once a very diversive game... A few cheaper dragon bones is not worth this, if you ask me...

[Dragonlordjl]

@ Dragonlordjlkp;;

I agree completely with your statement about Jagex probably being unable to combat bots, especially since their own news post said so...

 

But bots being something to ignore? I think not... With Unbalanced Trade returning this will definitly bring Gold Farmers back in business, meaning a MAHOOSIVE increase in bots...

You may not remember the days when skilling was a good moneymaker, but I do... Check some of my older Times articles for some more detailed reports of the days when alching Yew Longbows and fishing Sharks was profitable (seers and catherby were the main economic hotspots), and how bots ruined it...

 

Skilling (some of it) used to be profitable, and bots ruined this giant part of what was once a very diversive game... A few cheaper dragon bones is not worth this, if you ask me...

No, definitely. I do remember the days when skilling was a decent moneymaker, but combat has always been a better moneymaker except for RC and even RC has suffered IMMENSELY. My point was that skilling is already so terrible for money-making that the return of the clone armies won't hurt it that much. And I'd much rather deal with skills making slightly less money than deal with the rigid price controls in the GE that necessitate the somewhat-arbitrary "street prices" and junk trading.

 

That being said, I don't want to see the old Wilderness return, even though I know the two go hand-in-hand and Jagex wouldn't bring back one without the other. People can say whatever they want, I still believe that the game was far better off without many of the personalities that left when Jagex "killed the Wilderness." There is a reason many of the "e-famous" pures ended up perm-muted... I'm going to leave it at that, because I don't want this thread to turn into a massive "skillers vs PKers" flame-fest like the other thread.

[Ts_Stormrage]

Not to worry; I apparently agree with you with just one sidenote:

 

The only reason massive increases of bots will not hurt much; is because there already so many...

[Bladewing]

Not to worry; I apparently agree with you with just one sidenote:

 

The only reason massive increases of bots will not hurt much; is because there already so many...

which proves that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting bots

 

we already know that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting RWT, so what exactly has it accomplished? and why exactly should the restrictions remain?

[Blutters]

Not to worry; I apparently agree with you with just one sidenote:

 

The only reason massive increases of bots will not hurt much; is because there already so many...

which proves that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting bots

 

we already know that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting RWT, so what exactly has it accomplished? and why exactly should the restrictions remain?

I feel like the best question is what they actually did so that the effects of RWT didn't and haven't overcome the game like they predicted they would.

You know, if the restrictions were as ineffective as you think.

[green9090]

Not to worry; I apparently agree with you with just one sidenote:

 

The only reason massive increases of bots will not hurt much; is because there already so many...

which proves that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting bots

 

we already know that restricting trade was ineffective at fighting RWT, so what exactly has it accomplished? and why exactly should the restrictions remain?

I feel like the best question is what they actually did so that the effects of RWT didn't and haven't overcome the game like they predicted they would.

You know, if the restrictions were as ineffective as you think.

Simple: Jagex exaggerated about the end of days RWT would bring about way back when they took away free trade. Since RWT and botting are still major problems, that's the only possible explanation.

[Ts_Stormrage]

So green: They lied AND are imcompetent?