Refer a Friend Programme - 18 Aug 2011

[dutchdreams]

I'm getting flashbacks to a game I played 1999-2004 called Shattered Galaxy. After an extensive beta test period, the creators of the game gave out unique promotional items to paying members. Later on, when player base didn't increase, the owners started giving out promotional units. Of course no real new players joined the game, it was simply existing players creating new accounts to get their hands on these new units to remain competitive.

 

What I hadn't seen so far in Runescape is what back then was refered to as an 'adopt-a-newb-program'. Where player B ('the newb') would 'sub' another player A for mutual benefits. These were increased experience gains for both players when being in a battle together and bonus xp for Player A when Player B leveled up.

I guess this Jagex referral system now takes care of that last step.

[Naraku893]

Your [bleep]ing kidding me right? Your [bleep]ing kidding me.

[Krampell]

I guess Jagex entered the "Milk the game as much as you can before it dies" phase.

But seriously, I never expected Jagex to sink to that level.

[Naraku893]

The member loyalty program was bad enough

[RU_Insane]

I wouldn't be surprised if they just came out with it and released a "Refer Your Bot Programme" -_- (although this one is essentially the same).

[Jehosaphat]

I'm surprised that they don't do tv commercials..

 

tv commercials cost money. [bleep]ing up one of the core principles of your game doesn't.

 

Well, jagex dont need tv commercials with the new (*cough* and suckish *cough*) Refer a Friend, but its not [bleep]ing up one of the core principals, more people, more fun (atleast thats the idea *cough*)

Actually, it sort of is screwing up one of the core principles - not of the game itself, but of the foundation they built it on. They said for at least half a decade that they would never put in in-game rewards for IRL cash. They said they weren't that desperate or greedy. So they gained more players who wanted a game like that - that didn't grab for cash, that chose to have some integrity rather than dump it for money, that even went so far as to remove some of the game's larger features to protect the idea that these devs had standards, and by golly, they were going to keep them.

 

And now many of those players are gone along with those standards, never to be noticed because they're replaced tenfold with bots 'referring' each other. It's kind of sad.

[Naraku893]

I like the thread in the RSOF its a petition to stop this and it has gotten almost 2k supporters and is on version 2 of the thread already

[Pete Party]

The thing is, they got 400 employees that they can't just tell to go away because this game done and let's leave the game alone running on some servers payed with monthly income by loyal members.

 

No they have to fight till the bitter end, and sadly at the end the servers will be taken offline and the site unreachable.

 

But I don't think the bitter end is closeby, there are still people willing to buy gold and so there are people farming the gold.

On the other hand however, the big amount of advertisers mean that gold farmers seem to be stocked with too much cash and they seem to have too much all the time.

If they are in that situation for too long they end up shutting down their goldfarmers because they lost money on them.

 

Looks like Jagex does need new legit players after all.

[brunokiller]

What I don't grasp is that they don't just ban those advertisers. Hell, make a script that automatically flags people saying 'selling' 'gold' '10 minutes' and '10m=', and let a minimum wage jmod handle them. I can guarentee you that bans them faster than they can make new accounts.

 

If I'd start playing a new game and saw all those bots disrupting the chat by spam advertising I would instantly quit.

 

Surely that's more effective than this referral fiasco.

[vettro]

I was already planning on quitting during the school year, but this might make me quit entirely...

 

So disappointed. I tried to overlook the loyalty program thing, but this is too much.

[codecRS]

 

LOL

[RU_Insane]

 

LOL

 

 

Hell, you can get several hundred million XP in a day if you tried and were high level enough. Jagex really doesn't know their own game. Not surprised. Haha

[Deathknell]

Oh wait Jagex says it's cool, guess we should just stop questioning. I mean, they have the best interests of their customers in mind right?

 

 

 

... yeah and Tip.it doesn't silence critics of their forums either. <_<

[-Kngkyle-]

 

[Heisenberg]

Inb4reelbigfishdisappears

[Kimberly]

... yeah and Tip.it doesn't silence critics of their forums either. <_<

 

I'm sure you can manage to criticize Jagex without posting pictures of [bleep]s, like those who've posted the other 239 posts in this thread. lol

[Fallstar]

@Kngkyle: Nice :P

 

Also to the top players, a 10% boost is massive. I mean, if someone like SUOMI saves up effigies, thats a scarily large amount of xp he'd get just by doing a spot of real world tradnig.

[Deathknell]

... yeah and Tip.it doesn't silence critics of their forums either. <_<

 

I'm sure you can manage to criticize Jagex without posting pictures of [bleep]s, like those who've posted the other 239 posts in this thread. lol

 

Hey, that was a take off of a classic Bugs Bunny joke. And it was a picture of a candy rooster on a stick. :thumbup:

 

 

 

Any recommendations? I'm open to suggestions.

[Kietaro1]

I do not understand why this is such a problem. So Jagex offers 10% to those that can refer a freind and/or pay for a second account. Either way I do not understand why people are upset. Why does it matter if player x gets 10% more xp than you? It is a game, always has been.

 

Now I can see the issue with RWT but the players are not hitting any harder, they are not getting better potions, they do not even get fancy new gear. The only change is that they get 10% more experience for a week each time they do it. They only level faster for a period of time. In my opinion leveling faster is never a bad thing.

 

I feel this way because this game does not center around players going for 200m xp where this could potentaially save 20m xp per skill (highly unrealistic). This game is one of the slowest games I have ever played to max out. It becomes a grind fest really fast. As a result people can and do burn out really fast due to that. I personally have seen 7 irl friends to just that. But if they leveled faster, I think they may have stuck around. So to be, if my irl friends still played that would be better for me. Heck I may even see if I can get some to come back.

[Jehosaphat]

I do not understand why this is such a problem. So Jagex offers 10% to those that can refer a freind and/or pay for a second account. Either way I do not understand why people are upset. Why does it matter if player x gets 10% more xp than you? It is a game, always has been.

 

Now I can see the issue with RWT but the players are not hitting any harder, they are not getting better potions, they do not even get fancy new gear. The only change is that they get 10% more experience for a week each time they do it. They only level faster for a period of time. In my opinion leveling faster is never a bad thing.

 

I feel this way because this game does not center around players going for 200m xp where this could potentaially save 20m xp per skill (highly unrealistic). This game is one of the slowest games I have ever played to max out. It becomes a grind fest really fast. As a result people can and do burn out really fast due to that. I personally have seen 7 irl friends to just that. But if they leveled faster, I think they may have stuck around. So to be, if my irl friends still played that would be better for me. Heck I may even see if I can get some to come back.

It's a problem because it goes against one of the founding principles of Runescape - that the items and value in the game will never, ever be allowed to be exchanged for real-life stuff or things from other games.

 

And yes, Jagex should be making it so there are more and better ways to get your levels, but making it so you get an extra 10 percent for a week if they get an extra six dollars per month shouldn't be the way to do it.

 

But, as many people have stated, it would seem that Jagex seems to no longer care about their founding standards or principles. Which is a shame, because it's what attracted quite a few players in the first place.

[Robert_R]

i don't think it's the actual update itself that's killing people. I think it's just the final straw for some people. Runescape is slowly dying the question is when. And you can't really deny that anymore.

[ThePie]

I'm surprised that they don't do tv commercials..

As I remember, they did a commercial before, in Germany or The Netherlands.

[Amonitas]

Sad to see the game I have loved for 10 years to fall to this level. I would give anything if we could go back to the days of RSC. I think we should all just start playing RSC again, no bots, no noobs, pure nostalgy and everything is hard again :D

[jijilentosmi]

This comes as a shock to me, but yet, it is highly expected. Jagex will eventually see their cheap gimmicks chase off a generation of players.

[Lep]

 

1 day after the thing was released. Never seen something like this in my 10 years of Rune'sCrap. And this is just the forums userbase... see my sig.

Quote

Paul

"Active forum users are a far smaller percentage of our playerbase, yet people expect us to take forum opinions seriously."