Jump to content

Tip.It Times - 31st July 2011


tripsis

Recommended Posts

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 or @Racheya :)

 

Enjoy the articles!

Posted Image

 

- 99 fletching | 99 thieving | 99 construction | 99 herblore | 99 smithing | 99 woodcutting -

- 99 runecrafting - 99 prayer - 125 combat - 95 farming -

- Blog - DeviantART - Book Reviews & Blog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Macros... bots... rules... boring...

trains2.png

[spoiler=I LOVE MY STATION]

 

01001001001001110110110100100000010101000111011101100101011011000111011001100101

00100000011000010110111001100100001000000111011101101000011000010111010000100000

0110100101110011001000000111010001101000011010010111001100111111

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From reading forum accounts, it seems Jagex picks 5 random skills and halves experience in each of them

 

This was done right at first, but around the same time as they publicly announced that these rollbacks existed they switched to halving the xp in EVERY skill. They get perma banned if the stats are low enough that doing this rollback isnt a significant punishment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The main thing i am seeing here is they realized that the bots actually do bring in money and other players. Sad to say a lot of people who bought gp and broke rules also paid for membership, and when free trade and wildy was taken away they left the game. The company that now owns Jagex wants that money back so they bring back free trade and wilderness, and all the bots and gold selling that went with them came back. However they also have to give those people what they wanted wich was a way to cheat and get away with it. So now we have weak rules against it....the question is at what point do they bend even further and allow people to macro and to what extent. WOW has several built in Macro's as well as a lax policy on creating your own. It seams Jagex is moving in that same direction. In my opinion i feel that some macro's should be allowed basic macros that help automate certain simple tasks while still requiring the player to actually be in front of the computer. The problem is some of the current bot programs can be set up and will keep working long after the player has left the computer wich is not fair as that player is not actually investing time into the charecter they are off somewhere else while they gain levels. Now do not get me wrong i have allways followed the rules and have never used bots macros or gold selling sights in rs as it is against the rules. If for no other reason i have not wanted to risk an acount i have had for 10 years now, and invested huge amounts of time in. However i also see other players botting and feel it is more than unfair that they get away with it while i have had to work my Butt off. The rules should be either enfoced with a total scorched earth policy or rewritten to allow people like myeslf to compete on the same level as the bot users.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Article 1: If you look at the punishments you clearly see that the punishment is less harsher as time goes on: Perma-ban -> (partial) stat wipe -> three strikes, you're out

 

Oh wait, you can buy your account back. Yeah, that works <_<

 

Edit: I agree partially with lazerus. Perhaps Jagex should make semi-bots. In return for semi-bots for afk-able tasks they could program the dangerous randoms (forced x-round fight with the Evil Chicken, Rock Golem etc. without drops) in the semi-bots as a trade-off.

 

Article 2/3: I agree with both writers actually. On one side I believe RS will be able to continue another ten years, but on the other hand RS needs a big overhaul, something huge that will reïgnite the fires. There have been rumours about the "Eastern Lands" for years now, and there has been an Oriental/Eastern styled NPC on the docks of Port Phasmatys for years. More recently, the Ornate Katana and the Oriental clothing have entered the game. Perhaps the Eastern Lands are drawing closer?

 

But I digress. All the capes you can collect are short-term solutions. Jagex needs to come with something big. And a whole new continent might just be it.

count_civie.png

Level 99's

[hide]Mining level 99 achieved November 2010

Smithing level 99 achieved February 2011

Fishing level 99 achieved April 2011

Cooking level 99 achieved May 2011[/hide]

Goals

[hide]count_civie.png

count_civie.png[/hide]

Drops:

Miscellanious: 1x Draconic Visage , 5x Focus Sight, 3x Abbysal Whip

 

Offering Effigy Assistance in Herblore, Crafting. Contact me ingame by pm.

11.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These days, all that people need to start being a P2P player (again) in most countries is a working cell phone.

 

That's just not true...On a sidenote, it's ALMOST ALWAYS been a pain for me to get p2p. Even now when i have a credit card and paypal account they STILL decline my money and i have to find workarounds. Also i dont live in one of those countries where you can find game cards (i dont think there's such a thing here) nor do we have phone paying options.

Final1.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I get what you are talking with what wow has for a macro system. First of all, WoW's macro system is not even faintly close to the system in Runescape with bots or could ever be implemented. It has a completely 100% different way of playing the game. The game play is too different to be compared. The WoW system is a mmo with a target based system and the macros simply link together certain attacks or targeting or saying certain things when you hit a button. This requires a hot key system which is only faintly in Runescape. This would mean to implement it we would have to completely change the controls to add new things. It would be like pressing a button and you pot up, put your prayers on, and spec all by pushing a button on the keyboard. Second on the topic of bots they still smack the bots pretty hard. I have seen people get rolled back, the four skills is incorrect. They roll back half of your xp and they take most to all of your wealth. Think about this you bot for like 5 years and you get caught once... You will have 2 1/2 years of your life taken away or more often so more. Also, on another note macros have already been implemented. Think about when you click on a bow then a string and you select all? That is the equivalent you used to have to click individually. So jagex actually HAS been changing the game adding in little quarks.

 

Sincerely,

Marmalade

(the guy who always reads tip it news)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Botting, I recently read a post by a Jmod(unfortunately I didn't think of saving it and I think the thread was eaten by chewy...) who was asked about the new policy as well, and he said that the system is actually better than the no-tolerance one because most people who are caught by a rollback don't bot again. On the other hand, people who get permbanned often start a new account and do hardcore botting to get back where they were.

Now, I don't know if this is true, and I don't even know if I remember it 100% correctly, but it COULD be true. What I want to say is that some moves might look like they're going soft on cheaters, but it might have different reasons.

That said, I'm not really sure myself if I should believe it, there is other stuff like the BAR that I really can't see the reason off despite wanting to make money, and I think it's also quite clear that Jagex doesn't mind the bots enough to spend more money on combatting them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Second on the topic of bots they still smack the bots pretty hard. I have seen people get rolled back, the four skills is incorrect. They roll back half of your xp and they take most to all of your wealth. Think about this you bot for like 5 years and you get caught once... You will have 2 1/2 years of your life taken away or more often so more.

So losing half of one account is worse than having ALL of your accounts banned?

99 dungeoneering achieved, thanks to everyone that celebrated with me!

 

♪♪ Don't interrupt me as I struggle to complete this thought
Have some respect for someone more forgetful than yourself ♪♪

♪♪ And I'm not done
And I won't be till my head falls off ♪♪

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On bots - well I'd personally prefer as strict an enforcement as possible, as it feels nice to be playing a "fair" game, though it doesn't really make that much difference to me.

I'd given up long ago any hope of keeping up with all the genuine players who play 3+ hours a day and tend to play for my own solo-goals which don't involve competition with others. So a bunch of other players I can't keep up with doesn't really stress me like it stresses some people.

 

On Crocefisso's article he suggests that Runescape gameplay is too inane and that this is the biggest threat to it's future. I can see where he's coming from

- but I have to wonder is the style of gameplay what is actually keeping many players around.

 

i'm somebody who quite enjoys dungeoneering and I quite enjoy some of the minigame based skilling content too. - there is a bit more gameplay to these things than repetitive clicking content.

but I do often find myself more often priortising the simpler gameplay options anyway. A lot of the time i don't entirely know how long I'm going to get at the computer, so it's nice to have something I can dip into for a short while and then leave when I want as a pose to something which requires a certain time commitment.

Simple gameplay is also good if I feel like multitasking - it's hard to socialise in a game when you're playing something which requires much concentration.

 

there are several Old MMOs which have done radical overhauls of their gameplay and more often than not it seems rather than stop stagnation it accelerates the slide.

 

My point is while a game may have it's apparent flaws, many of the people actually playing the game are used to the flaws and in fact see them as positive features which they've built their characters and gameplay patterns around. MMO players are notoriously opposed to big changes, you can tell when a game has had a big overhaul as a large portion of their players flood every corner of the internet saying how their game is ruined and they're looking for something new. Even if only 10% of the players leave, the negative publicity is huge.

This happened a bit with Runescape with the wilderness removal/trade restrictions. - and even though it's been reversed (and even though a fair few of us had got used to the changes before the reverse and now understand the reasons for the original change) i think that Runescape's reputation has never really recovered from it, making it harder for the game to attract new players.

 

Runescapes update from Runescape Classic is about the most fundamental overhaul to an established MMO I have seen that actually worked in creating growth rather than decline, so maybe Jagex can achieve it twice.

RS2 got a lot of hate when it first came out. I remember it got absolutely torn to shreds on the forums, if you went purely by forums, you'd think Jagex were destroying their own game. The haters were only calmed down when Jagex announced that they'd keep Runescape Classic up and running. - but I'm not sure if that'll work again or not, now that people will suspect that the old fork of the game will be left neglected to slowly die.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope that in two years from now, when Jagex releases its next announcement, it will be one of success. They'll describe how they removed the nonsensical three strikes policy, describe how their old scorched earth policy works better, describe how they removed the Banned Account Reinstatement program, announce they've won several lawsuits against major bot and goldselling companies, and give the names of the top 100 players in each skill that have been permantly banned for botting. This is one announcement that we can all look forward to.

 

And here's my wish too.

 

Although I am less optimistic about RS surviving that long as a game, or at least as a 'mainstream' game. (people still play Ultima Online...)

 

RIP the Jagex I knew 2001-2009.

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating - Sophocles

php1CLVGLAM.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ first article:

Instead, their new policies are hidden from view, much like a stain on a person's undergarments.

 

:lol:

 

Okay, that was witty.

 

Jagex's position on fair gameplay has grown soft over the last few years. I noticed this, too, awhile back. Morals can change quickly when you insert money into the equation.

rssig2.png
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jagex gave up, they surrendered.

 

If they had the cared about the game as they did several years ago, if they still had some form of moral compass, they would not have done the things described in the article, but besides that, they would not have opened the floodgates like they did when they reintroduced unlimited wealth transfer.

I was a huge supporter of JAgex, I always pointed at the statements made by among others the Gower brothers about there passion for the game, about quality over making money etc. The last time I quoted Paul Gower on RS forums the message mysteriously disappeared, because it contradicted the new policy of grabbing as much money as they can...

 

The only reason I am still on the game at times is that I long time ago founded a clan and I do not want the members of it to have to suffer, form my disillusionment, so I keep it running.. but playing.. no.. I do not play a lot any more..

 

Ironically a few days before they started selling back accounts I banned 2 people from my clan for botting, and admitting to doing so, wile flaunting there new levels..

 

Ps: All this, combined with them sacking a lot of there employees dealing with this subject makes me think they only pretend to do something, just to keep up appearances.

pps: Jagex is mistaken if they really think they can compel sites selling bots to give up there customers. Most civilised countries have laws protecting customers form exactly that.. so an other smokescreen...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bots are here to stay as simple as that i know tons of players who use a bot or have like five accounts resource gathering for thier main account...bots just make the game simplier and thts the way players want it , its time to wake up and work with the botters then against them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bots are here to stay as simple as that i know tons of players who use a bot or have like five accounts resource gathering for their main account...bots just make the game simplier and thts the way players want it , its time to wake up and work with the botters then against them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bots are here to stay as simple as that i know tons of players who use a bot or have like five accounts resource gathering for their main account...bots just make the game simplier and thts the way players want it , its time to wake up and work with the botters then against them

 

 

Yehhhh....

 

why even PLAY a game... when you can have it played for us by a program.. in fact, why don't we just pay Jagex a few bucks and buy all the things we want directly...

Maybe we can make it so people with more money can buy better and more things..

Hmm.. why not instead just put the balance of our bank accounts online, the one who has more to spend 'wins' the game..

 

THIS IS ( or was ) A DARN GAME! not a freakin animated series..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bots are here to stay as simple as that i know tons of players who use a bot or have like five accounts resource gathering for their main account...bots just make the game simplier and thts the way players want it , its time to wake up and work with the botters then against them

 

Please learn punctuation and spelling and then move to a botting forum - they're not hard to find and this is NOT a forum where talks like that are tolerated.

I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating - Sophocles

php1CLVGLAM.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bots are here to stay as simple as that i know tons of players who use a bot or have like five accounts resource gathering for their main account...bots just make the game simplier and thts the way players want it , its time to wake up and work with the botters then against them

 

Please learn punctuation and spelling and then move to a botting forum - they're not hard to find and this is NOT a forum where talks like that are tolerated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The brothers Gower (Andrew and Paul), along with Constant Tedder, left the board of directors in December 2010. Andrew Gower is listed in the full Jagex credits as "Principal Architect", but we have no idea how involved he is with management anymore.

 

At the same time, outside companies started or increased investments in Jagex (it was self-funded before). This was the same month the Wilderness and Free Trade was restored. Note also that the huge marketing campaigns started at about this time, too, as well as Runefest. Runefest started the first technically in-game purchased items with the flagpole; the GameStop ornate katanas were earlier this year.

 

See a pattern yet?

 

um go to hell and im not going to give u the standard bots are terrible because they aint they are great and if u dont like my comment that just too bad....

 

You are a trolling amateur and a novice debater. I mean, really, I've seen a lot better than that half-baked crap. Probably more worth your time to truck on over to 4Chan and see if you can learn some REAL trolling skills; or to go back to school and learn how to debate, rather than churn out this juvenile, lazy drivel.

 

I've been around the block, son; your argument is pretty weak. I was playing online games back in the near Stone Ages of the 1990s, with those Multi User Dungeons (MUDs). KEEP PAYING ATTENTION-- Runescape started out as Devious MUD, right? Lemme tell you, when those text games were saturated with clients that did bot scripting-- tintin, ZMud and all that-- it got BORING. Very, very boring. People spent more time trying to design their scripts than to actually enjoy the game... but then, the last MUD I was in-- the biggest botter was the Implementor guy (dude running the show, in other words), that was trying to basically re-do most of the game to his fancy. Y'know, like, re-write it?

 

I suppose the illicit private servers and all that junk comes kinda close to a comparison, but I betcha anything I'd find it just as boring-- yep, boring even with pretty graphics instead of text. Melee monsters that are frozen in place and buy anything you want? It gets hella boring eventually.

 

Simple point: I've seen scripting and macros cheapen games.

 

Your mileage may vary and you're welcome to your opinion, but man... come on... come up with something that will stand up under pressure. Or don't... and keep giving me the impression you're lazy, ignorant, and don't really care if people think you are either of those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to everyone (almost) who took the time to read the Times and comment this week. The comments are much appreciated.

 

justjuice, your input here in its current form is not welcome; you are not contributing to the any of the debates at hand, you fail to back up your points, and the way you post is spammy. Further posts in this vein will result in you being referred to a Mod.


"Imagine yourself surrounded by the most horrible cripples and maniacs it is possible to conceive, and you may understand a little of my feelings with these grotesque caricatures of humanity about me."

- H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope you guys don't mind another bots article as I'll be writing one - it will be more about how they work (insight on reflection mainly as that's the main method nowadays, given that they're a little harder to catch than BCEL/Injection), and a solution against the 'problem' in general.

 

On topic: I do like Croce's article, I hope he's on tonight...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.