Tip.It Times - 29th May 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.

 

1. You are invited and welcome to express like or dislike on articles and a particular author's writing style. It is not acceptable, however, to flame or personally insult an author. Posts that aren't anything but an attack will be removed from the topic.

 

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.

 

3. Off topic posts that do not discuss the content of that week's articles will be removed. This is not the place to discuss the direction of the times, how much you love or hate the times, etc. Off topic posts will be removed.

 

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!

[Kaida23]

Good articles again this week. :thumbup:

 

Forever Runescape: Part 1 was an interesting look into the past and the development process the game went through in those early months. I can't wait for Part 2.

 

Raycha, I feel your pain and frustration with the shear amount of bots running wild through RS since RWT, I'm sorry "free trade", was brought back. It's the main reason I voted against it.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

In response to I Don't Care:

 

It seems that the author and I have the same level of dissatisfaction with the way bots have been handled. Personally, I've pretty much given up (handed over both being a Forum and Player Moderator), and this is in part due to the reaction (or visible lack thereof) that Jagex has taken against bots.

 

Now I realize that there is no magic button that can be pressed when dealing with bots and this type of software. Of course not; that'd be foolish to assume. However, I suppose I believed the impossible when I heard that Jagex had this "new technology to deal with bots" in place. That was back when I had given them the benefit of a massive doubt.

 

Looking back now, I'd have to say that it's tough to care if the company you're backing doesn't show any visible signs of doing so themselves. In the past, it was apparent that they cared, but now, it'd be tough to stand up for them and believe what they're doing is actually The Right Thing.

[RU_Insane]

Excellent first article. It had information I never knew about. Much more in depth into the history of RuneScape and its development than Jagex itself could ever hope to go into.

[Jordan Armstrong]

Great articles all, but one sticks out:

 

Forever Runescape: Part 1

 

A friend of mine wrote this, and man, Kamykazee (tried to tab that :P), you did a great job. The article is well written and concise, while providing an excellent players point of view to the early history of RuneScape! I can't wait for part two, though as packed full of information this one was, I don't know how you are going to write a second LOL. Anyway, great article :)

[sprites]

@I Don't Care:

 

A reason why I've been unsubscribed for years now.

I refuse to support a company that has become so apathetic towards botters and it's own integrity.

 

I used to love this game, but from now on I'll tell my friends to avoid runescape or whatever MMOs Jagex has in the making.

[Taraka2]

I'd love to congrat Kamykazee on a fantastic article of RuneScape past- Forever RuneScape. He was extremely accurate in his descriptions and wrote this article very well so anyone could read and understand RuneScape's history. I can't wait for part 2 of this series!

 

I started playing RS in 2001 and, even though today's version is extremely more player friendly, I absolutely loved playing back then. Here is my character shortly before I transferred to the new RS: Taraka RSC. The idea of "tedious skills" was an understatement back then. Believe it or not I still wish for some of the abilities we had back then. For example, when mining we didn't have to wait for the rock to respawn. We just kept clicking the pickaxe then the rock over and over again. We didn't have an issue with fighting other players for the rocks either. The idea of failing a spell but not losing runes from it was fantastic! Well unless you ended up dying from the failure.

 

This article brought back many memories that I always find myself retelling with clan mates so thank you Kamykazee!

[exterrrr]

Yet another article about bots :P

I agree with this one thought, if bots don't get in my way, why would i care?

But really, i don't understand how grinding is something new in runescape. It's always been like that, why is it worse now?

 

The other article was awesome, i really want to play classic after reading that :P

[shasta_sms]

Forever RS: This article was very interesting (has a thing about history) I can't wait to see the end of it.

 

Botting: I am in agreement with the article that Jagex is not doing enough, or is not making any visible dent. Things have changed from when I started playing and that is the fact that bots are fairly common place in members which back in 2007 was not the case at all. With the numbers of bots in F2p frankly very absurd. I guess the attitude of people has changed and perhaps they don't care about the rules or perhaps they know Jagex won't catch them and if they do so what a skill reset?

 

Hey guy wanna come to my 99 mining party? Didn't you already have it? Yeah I did but Jagex reset my levels and I botted it back to 99. So are you coming?

[Heisenberg]

Soooo a bot sticky was created so boards don't get spammed up with people whining about bots but nobody's going to stop them from writing article after article about them in the times?

 

That's going to get old real quick.

[BioIce]

Oh, gods. First article's a trip down nostalgia lane.

 

On the second article, that's a reasonable and practical outlook as a whole on the subject of bots. Welcome to the club, Racheya.

 

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy griefing bots out of their loot. By all means go ahead and cause havoc. Heheheh.

[Nifflin]

I liked the articles, well written this week.

 

I Don't Care is the one I'll comment to. Rach, I really sympathize with you. I feel pretty much the same way and went through the same steps. For me it happened when Free Trade was removed and I realized that bots were still around. Jagex didn't care, all they cared about was the credit card stuff. Thanks for hitting the nail on the head.

[SythenRs]

I'm fairly certain if Jagex doesn't address the issue of botting soon, then all they will have playing their game will be botters. Then, with no-one to buy their gold the botters will leave. The apocalypse of Runescape, because Jagex didn't want to; or couldn't be bothered to deal with this very serious situation. It makes me sad :(

[Kaida23]

I'm fairly certain if Jagex doesn't address the issue of botting soon, then all they will have playing their game will be botters. Then, with no-one to buy their gold the botters will leave. The apocalypse of Runescape, because Jagex didn't want to; or couldn't be bothered to deal with this very serious situation. It makes me sad :(

That's why I stopped playing another heavily botted game I won't mention.

[Trollface]

I'm fairly certain if Jagex doesn't address the issue of botting soon, then all they will have playing their game will be botters. Then, with no-one to buy their gold the botters will leave. The apocalypse of Runescape, because Jagex didn't want to; or couldn't be bothered to deal with this very serious situation. It makes me sad :(

That's why I stopped playing another heavily botted game I won't mention.

 

I'm going to take a random guess and say MapleStory?

 

OT:

The first article was interesting. The second article was just another generic article about botting.

[Wessan]

I really enjoyed the first article detailing the MUDdy history of Runescape. It was interesting, thorough, and I look forward to Part II.

 

On the subject of apathy however, I must say I am somewhat disappointed in the reaction to bots here. In terms of a war of attrition, the bots are surely going to win if we stop caring. Is it out of control? Possibly. Does the community feel Jagex could be doing more? Of course. But each and every honest player in Runescape is the frontline defense agaisnt bots. I would not ask to spend all your time reporting bots because Lord knows I have probably reported 10 in my entire time playing Runescape (mainly due to my ignorance that they are a bot probably). However, it is our duty to report them when we see them, its the quickest way Jagex gets botting information (probably).

 

I understand the feeling though, and it is frustrating. I think the only two paths we have is to take action by reporting or move on by letting them be. The former is a path the community should get behind, and the latter is the path that they will most likely tolerate.

 

I hope Jagex does something drastic, even if it is just a puiblicity thing against bots, to show they are doing something.

[strilmus]

Oh, hey, I wrote a throwaway article just like the second one, but I deleted it after I submitted it because we're not allowed to advocate botting out of sarcastic frustration.

 

Good thing you wrote about it too, saves me the time of rewriting it.

 

A few notes:

 

Jagex doesn't really read their bot report logs if they don't actually notice them when they're first sent in.

 

People DID care about opposing them, but Jagex hasn't held their end of the bargain up.

 

There's no trust left.

 

I hope Jagex does something drastic, even if it is just a puiblicity thing against bots, to show they are doing something.

 

Yeah, that'd be new. They've never done anything like that before, and if they did, nobody actually noticed, or quit en masse, or rioted for a week.

 

EDIT: See, even that guy up there thinks it's a "generic article" about bots. At this point people can't tell the difference anymore. There's nothing to care about now.

[Wessan]

^Thanks for the sarcasm, it is truly appreciated.

 

Also, I have seen Jagex put out news about what theyve done againts botting before, but when exactly did people quit and riot? I honestly do not reacll this.

[kamykazee]

Wow thanks for the awesome feedback guys. It feels great when people applaud your hard work :D I'm just a bit disappointed that it's not really being talked about :P

 

Anyway, there are 2 more parts planned, each dealing with other unique aspects from back then, so you won't see any rehashing! They're both fired up and ready to go as far as i'm concerned, now it only depends if there is a free spot available for part 2 next week :)

 

Last but not least, I'd like to congratulate Racheya on her article. It is thought-provoking and a very entertaining read.

[strilmus]

Although I enjoy reading about game history, I guess I'm not really that enthusiastic because it's been written about several times.

 

wessan, if you really need to ask me what it was, i don't think you're trying to remember hard enough

 

you don't remember at any point in the past when jagex did something drastic to get rid of bots? nothing at all stands out? about four years ago?

[Wessan]

Well yes there was that whole getting rid of free trade thing. However, I did not know it was about bots until they brought it all back. I have not played consistently for the 9 years I have had my account and the time from about 2006-2008 was my longest period where I did not play, so I missed all the quitting and rioting.

 

However, I thought you were refering to a discussion about the whole "bot busting" once I started reading the forum threads again (I have been gone for about 3 months now), but I didnt see how that would cause such a fuss. Thanks for the reminder of 2007.

 

What I was referring to in terms of drastic was something like a permanent ban on thousands of accounts, have Jagex release names to the public. In my line of work we call those types of things "Blast Lists". That way the entire community knows who got punished. People who had those accounts on their friends list could be wary of what may come to them if they are cheating or were thinking about it. I remember Jagex doing it once without naming names, but I think they should.

[Sire_Mark_II]

Loved the first part of Forever Runescape. And I suspect I'll enjoy the next two as well. I *think* I created my first account in 2001, not 100% certain and my early days with returning to runescape in 2002 have muddled most of my memories of what was and wasn't. The main thing I remember was walking in large circles trying to learn the lay of the land and become accustomed to the feel of a game I was only playing because my dial up connection didn't care for the other graphically superior MMOs out there. Logged in one day, lost because I'd left while off a road, found some NPCs I couldn't talk to and a building I couldn't enter because I wasn't a member. Quit playing right then and thought "so much for thier free game!" Been kicking myself in the ass for years since for not sticking with it and forgetting that old account's login info.

 

I do miss the feelings I had when I did finally give runescape a serious shot. Tedius tasks was an understatement, but I loved each new level I obtained and all the places I had yet to truley explore. Jagex could completely revamp the entirety of runescape (and they did with Rs2) but it would never feel the same way. And logging back in to the classic servers I found I'd become to accustomed to the way the game is played today to really enjoy it. I can't relive the past, but it's great to read an article like this and go back to the memories of it.

 

"I Don't Care," well part of me doesn't either. I find it absolutely pathetic that no one from Jagex can apparently even manage to log into thier own game. You don't even need some fantastic bot detecting technology. You only need eyes as today's bots proudly wear uniforms and nametags that say "Hi! I'm a bot!" A few minutes a day at blue dragons or tzhaar and you could ban hundreds of accounts. I quick side tour to other destinations popular for training or gp gathering and you could have thousands. When it's not even a question of identification anymore but action and not one player sees anything enacted how can anyone continue to care? I still find playing this game mildly entertaining and as such will continue to spend my $5 and log in when I have ample free time, but bit by bit I lose goals and as such interest as bots run rampant. If this trend of playing a massive multiplayer game continues towards playing a massive unnatended game continues and my interest drops further I'll have no qualms about saying "thanks for the memories, and goodbye."

[Ts_Stormrage]

Soooo a bot sticky was created so boards don't get spammed up with people whining about bots but nobody's going to stop them from writing article after article about them in the times?

 

That's going to get old real quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kpTvm6CYA

 

I would hardly call Rach' article whining... It brings up a valid point that I too have spotted more and more in myself, but have yet to see people express; which is the apathy of regular players towards bots on nearly every level one can imagine...

 

At the editorial panel we get to do this... Apply today, because it is the last day possible if you too want to "whine"...

[Heisenberg]

Soooo a bot sticky was created so boards don't get spammed up with people whining about bots but nobody's going to stop them from writing article after article about them in the times?

 

That's going to get old real quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kpTvm6CYA

 

I would hardly call Rach' article whining... It brings up a valid point that I too have spotted more and more in myself, but have yet to see people express; which is the apathy of regular players towards bots on nearly every level one can imagine...

 

At the editorial panel we get to do this... Apply today, because it is the last day possible if you too want to "whine"...

 

Perhaps pouting is the better term for this particular article. It's all the same to me; I've read it and its old. Move on.

 

Nice white knighting by the way, I'm sure 'Rach' is very impressed.

[Youmu]

I sorta agree with the second article, in which that Jagex doesn't enforce the bots and stuff. However, I still say players should continue to mess around with them if they could, it's always fun to see a botter get screwed up not knowing what to do :lol: