Tip.It Times - 6th February 2011

[Racheya]

Time for a new release of the: >>>Tip.It Times!<<<

 

I'd like to remind people of the rules pertaining to Times threads:

 

[hide=Read these rules before posting in this thread]

Rampant flame wars have taken control of virtually every week's times discussion topics. The following guidelines must be followed when posting on this topic. Posts that ignore these guidelines will be removed.

 

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2. Spelling and grammar errors can be reported to Racheya by PMing her and they will be fixed promptly. It is not necessary to post them on the discussion topic.

 

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By keeping within these guidelines, Times discussion topics will mean more for the Panel and Administration than just a place for flame wars. Flame wars do not provide any useful feedback to the Times, which is mainly what we're aiming for with these topics: feedback.

 

This policy is effective as of now, November 17, 2010. Any posts prior to the creation of this policy may or may not be removed according to the new guidelines.

[/hide]

 

When replying please make sure to clarify the article you are replying to! Thanks!

 

If you spot any typos or mistakes in the article then please PM them to me :)

 

Enjoy the articles!

[ForsakenMage]

Trade Off

Hit the nail right on the head for me! People thought I was insane to have voted no, but now look how dirty things are being played now. Indeed, are you happy now, yes voters? Are you happy to have your bank cleaned out? :blink:

[RussetAlpha]

Trade Off really hit me. I was one of those people who voted "yes" just for the lulz. But some days after, I got thinking. "Did I really just say yes?" I wished that I didn't vote yes because of "Do we really need free trade?" I wished that I could take it back, but it wouldn't have mattered. This article pretty much took my thoughts and put it on paper.

[Triquos]

Are you happy now?

 

Yes. I am glad I voted yes. I don't have my bank cleaned, and that's because I follow the rules and would never bot :-) I have never been hacked either, and plan on keeping it that way :shades: I too, laughed at those who got cleaned for cheating, good riddance.

 

The article seems pretty one sided, ending it with 'Are you happy now?' just makes us feel bad for voting 'yes' when in fact we are all entitled to our own opinion.

[ghjkl]

It's obvious that the author of the first article doesn't know how rwt really works. Most of the time it was taking advantage of the ge system by buying phats and other rising items for straight up cash while giving the seller real life money. This is much easier than this stupid notion that people went on their accounts and actually farmed the money.

[Jordan Armstrong]

Trade Off

 

Finally, someone with the courage to stand against the crowd and point out what should be obvious. We were doing quite well without free trade and the wilderness. We were all used to it and you didn't have to worry about scams and it was all just better overall IMO. I voted yes for the wilderness, because the new one sucked. I just spent half an hour in the deep wildy and saw next to nobody. With rev's, I would have died in that amount of time three times over.

 

Anyway, great article, NS :) (TS_StormRage)

[Ts_Stormrage]

Like I said; I havent even begun to completely cover all the bad stuff...

[Andy]

Trade off seems like an angry rant more than anything.

[i_trollz_u]

Who cares about staking bugs and merchants abusing free trade? It was worth saying yes just to have wild back.

 

I'm happyz nao kthxbye.

[Triquos]

Trade off seems like an angry rant more than anything.

 

This.

 

Usually each article I read I always end up viewing both sides of the story and being comfortable with my decision or perspective for that particular topic. With this article I somehow feel attacked just for voting 'yes', which makes me not want to read any articles anymore :-(

 

Just my 2 cents for feedback :thumbup:

[Range_This11]

Trade off seems like an angry rant more than anything.

 

This.

 

Usually each article I read I always end up viewing both sides of the story and being comfortable with my decision or perspective for that particular topic. With this article I somehow feel attacked just for voting 'yes', which makes me not want to read any articles anymore :-(

 

Just my 2 cents for feedback :thumbup:

I don't think he's attacking anyone, just trying to stir the pot and get people discussing :thumbup:

[BioIce]

The wild west atmosphere free trade brings back along with the wilderness makes me glad I voted yes. Not to mention so many of my dear old friends returned and are up to no good. It's a lonesome feeling to have 90% of your friends list offline in a mmorpg.

 

I am happy now. In fact I'm quite content.

[Bladewing]

Trade off seems like an angry rant more than anything.

 

This.

 

Usually each article I read I always end up viewing both sides of the story and being comfortable with my decision or perspective for that particular topic. With this article I somehow feel attacked just for voting 'yes', which makes me not want to read any articles anymore :-(

 

Just my 2 cents for feedback :thumbup:

I don't think he's attacking anyone, just trying to stir the pot and get people discussing :thumbup:

i thought it the tone was more whiny/complain-y and resentful than stirring the pot or inciting discussion.

[SirHartlar]

Staking returned. Yes, gamble your entire bank, why don't you. You're maxed in melee, you can beat that level 110 nub in a fist fight even when AFK-ing. But oops! A bug happened, and suddenly that nub has a unicorn healing him throughout the match until you are dead. How many people do you think have come back to RuneScape, possibly to some fond memories, and have subsequently rage quit over this?

 

Why would you stake your whole bank? Yes it's a glitch that Jagex shouldn't have let into the game, but at the same time people should have common sense not to risk so much anyway.

 

It gets worse, much worse. Only hours after Free Trade was reinstated, many people saw their bank emptied. They had been using one of the popular botting programs in the past, which then recorded their login details. All of the items ended up in the hands of a popular gold-selling company. Now, I didn't shed a single tear (I actually laughed my ass off), but when RWT-ers can manage to deter people from botting where Jagex can't, you have to admit that there is a problem.

 

How is this a bad thing? People that botted got punished, albeit not by Jagex. Serves them right.

 

But 91% of you didn't care about that. You saw what you wanted and ignored the consequences, even though the warnings were pretty clear. I can only guess how bad things might get, so I'll leave this one up to you to answer:

 

I voted yes because, funnily enough, I knew these things wouldn't affect me and I wanted free trade back. The market will stabilise soon enough, are you telling me this is worse than not being able to buy something from the GE pre-update because some manipulation clan had bought it out? That won't happen anymore.

[Unknown_Warrior]

Trade off:

 

The first day of me returning to RS (February 5th), 3 people tried to scam me. :thumbup:

I voted no, but alas.

[jettrider]

Bugtesting was horrible but expected.

People getting hacked, crying about it, then realizing that their crying proved they botted = priceless

 

I'm not angry I voted yes because I have enough common sense not to log onto RuneScape and do anything important for at least 6 hours after every update, and then to stay away from any new content for a day.

[Dire_Wolf]

I kinda wish i voted no. It seems alot more kids have come back to Runescape.

[strilmus]

While I don't mind the usual mindless chicanery that has always been present, the increased activity involving stolen accounts through means unrelated to scamming kind of annoys me.

 

Fact is now that there is more incentive to steal, the overall security risk has been increased, and no doubt you will not be recompensed for any losses for stolen accounts even if you haven't cheated.

[Racheya]

The most annoying part of Free Trade returning is that the amount of scammers trying to post scam links on our forums have increased tenfold. <_< I can't say I was excited about them coming back but so far it's not proven a problem to me personally. The GE was screwy at first but it seems to be slowly stabilising.

[All_Is_Great]

For the past month, every TIPitTimes has had Stormrage ranting on about how freetrade/wild was a bad idea. I am getting very tired of this, hopefully it will be something else next week.

 

And to answer your question, Yes, I'm happy. I lost all my cash the other day staking, I don't mind a single bit, it was fun while it lasted. Better than having limits on how much you can trade, how many qp = trade limits did not make any sense. It's better than having to sit down for 30 minutes for 25% EP just so you can waste it on 200k loot after you kill someone.

 

The second article is something I liked reading, not only because I personally agree with it, but it offers a different POV than Racheya & Stormrages ranting.

[sprites]

The article Trade Off seemed very one sided and didn't give a good argument why free trader is a good thing for the community. How about increased interaction with fellow runescapers, and a real use for the marketplace forums? Being able to buy quest items for higher than 5% max price (YAY! :D), Player run companies like W66 fast free laws, giving gifts to friends, private drop parties!!

[foursideking]

Stormrage more or less expanded on the 9% of the voters' arguements, and for me, it was stormy's best work to date. I actually hope he continues writing like this, seeing as he's bringing up valid things that are GOING to happen, even if the 91% of you believe it won't...

[3rkid]

Fear-mongering? Doomsaying? One sided condescension? I love it!

[saywuuuut]

I am extremely happy, and have no shame or regrets for voting yes, nor should I.

[TheKat]

Lets start off with something about me, to show you where I am coming from.

I am old school, so old school in fact I used to text mudd. For those who have no clue think of runescape with no mouse, no pictures, only text descriptions of what is happening.

I, and group of insane friends would play pk mudds only. We would go to dominate them, and become feared. Watching people log off when one of us would sign in, was our

way of knowing that we did it. My son wanted to play this online game and pay for it. I had sworn never to pay for a mudd (now they are mmorgs). My friends were playing WoW,

and I was playing online poker instead. I decided to check it out for molesters and the like before I bought him an account. I was very pleased to find how safe RS was.

What a fun game. It had Quests which I loved doing on the old mudds. This wildy thing, wow real PK. You lose items if you die, not like all these other MMORGs; where you pay

a small amount of money to fix your equipment. In the old mudds you lost your gear and a level when you died. I used to dread my treks to world 2 to sell all the gear I got from killing

players, and from clue scrolls. I was of mixed emotions of the wildy. I liked the pk, but I hated getting jumped while trying to clue hunt deep. At first those Revs were scarier then Pkers ever were.

Then levels passed, and only in a multiway area with 4 or more knights attacking me did I feel fear. Having 99 att def str con does wonders for your confidence.

I was so happy to see our exchange. No longer did I have to go to a certain world, look for people to buy my gear, and have to be doubly cautious about them making a last second switch.

I could put my items up, and they would sell. I must have sold 15M in gear, and clue rewards in the first days. The limit came, and I was annoyed. No longer could I loan my son gear, or give him gold.

On the other hand he was slowly losing his ban points score, from some of his shady play. I wouldn't get I can't play with you, because I got into trouble again.

 

Well everything came back. I went pking, and found out a few things. I need to get those mage, and prayer levels. On the other hand one iteming with my Dclaws is fun.

I made a paltry 400K pking, and looting this weekend. The skills are coming back, and my specialty of looking like a stupid harmless looter, and then killing people who thought to jump me; is all the fun that it

was in the past. Being level 123+6, makes me no longer fear getting jumped while clue hunting. All in all hooray for the chaos of the wildy.

I do miss the revs, they were my favorite monster to kill. Putting them in pvp dungeon does smack of overkill to me.

 

Free trade. Sure sounds good again. I do remember all the problems with it. Honestly I voted no, and I was able to get through the system and vote no each time without voting yes.

I'll give my kids new char 10 Million gold to start him out. No I am not rich; no party hat, no Elysian shield. I just have some gear and gold from playing over years, and more importantly not spending it.

It explains why my prayer is 77, mage is 84, and construction is 70. No 99s in skills at all.

 

Well then I all of sudden remembered why free trade will suck. Scammers, and beggars of all sorts.

I don't have to deal with scammers, the GE has made buying, and selling safe for all.

The botters will return, which will drop the prices again. I kill for money, so no big deal. Training those skills I need for the next quest will be cheaper. No one has ever given me an answer of why prices of everything rose

in July of '09 anyways. I have all of sudden been slapped in face of the old days. All the level 100 beggars. I forgot about having general chat off, and a large ignore list.

 

Already I have had multiple people try to scam my Santa hat, and my hard won 3rd age armour. Clues are so cool. Being old; all that happened was that they ran away from a sudden dclaw out of nowhere.

I think I could really do without the begging. All the attempted scams I could have ignored, but it was fun seeing what these people were trying to do.

In the end the losers will be these kids attempting scams as they get banned, and the victims thinking they were getting something for nothing from strangers.

At least when I am doing a gwd run, I won't lose my gear to strangers thanks to gravestones.

 

Did I see more people playing this weekend? Nope numbers were in the 150K range.

Does Jagex care about the players, well yes and no.

Yes in that they do want us to have the most fun while playing, and more importantly no if they do not make money while doing so.

I wonder how much it will cost them in new personnel for all the reports of scams, account ripoffs, and the like. It might just be we see a couple weeks of intense banning, and then a drop off as they get dealt with.

If the new, and returning accounts don't make enough money to support the cost we will see it changed once again.

 

In the end, I will play the same way, with the occasional foray for some PKing when I am feeling feisty.

I will have to be patient waiting for the prices to settle after a week or 3 of insanity.

I might have to turn general chat off, or play on quieter worlds.

Meanwhile I will wait and see.