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Bringing new players into Rs


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The thing with Runescape is its the players who started obsessing about reaching the highest levels; one of the Gowers said that they originally envisaged a dedicated player reaching 60-70 in a skill, and that getting to 99 was just crazy. Xp rates have increased since then, but the point remains that competitiveness between players is what has driven 99 in all but a handful of skills to be seen as near worthless in terms of achievement, and this large number of 99 skills has lead to Jagex creating high end content that now requires that grind to 90+.

 

I think that Runescape definitely needs a well defined end game, more bosses like Nex, perhaps a special ranked PVP tournament for maxed players, and once there is a decent amount of 80+ content for all skills, raising skill caps to 120. Being maxed makes you one of a couple of thousand now, which is no where near as special as it used to be. And don't release any new skills until the current ones have been improved, 25 skills is more than enough for now.

 

Endgame content is not going to save the game. Most of the current veteran/high leveled community is here to stay. Jagex needs new players. Honestly, most of the players i encounter are 120+ these days. RS needs better content for low levels, bosses for lower leveled player etc. Something to give new players incentive to keep on playing.

 

But honestly, Runescape is doomed, this game can't be saved. The kiddie image that has stuck with the game since the miniclip days and the below average graphics even on the highest settings are the main reasons there are very few new players joining us. Also, most of the younger gamers out there can't handle grindy and slow paced gameplay ( i have seen people bashing half life series because of it's slow paced gameplay ). Rs is a previous generation mmo and becoming a modern mmo is impossible without alienating the current playerbase

 

Tl;dr Runescape's image is killing the game.

 

 

 

In order to survive, Jagex should stop focusing on Rs asap and start focusing on Stellar Dawn and the upcoming transformers mmo instead.

 

 

 

Also, shoving the whole "subscribe now, get amazing knife" shit has to be stopped, since there aren't any free players left, and there are even less new players.

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There's also a point that the playerbase is "institutionalized" and wouldn't accept change easily. If RuneScape were to fundamentally change, the community wouldn't be able to take it.

Thats where some kind of analysis would have to take place. How long can RS last in its current state? Could Jagex afford to have 2 "types" of RS running, this one and a newer one with faster leveling, etc?

Except this is exactly what happened whey they went from RSC to RS2.

 

As for bringing in new players, I'm at a loss. My daughter has become interested in the game recently, so it's reasonable to guess some parents out there that played the game are introducing their kids to it.

Or have inadvertently introduced them to it simply by playing it. That's what has happened with me. My kids have always loved watching me play and now my oldest wants to get his own account and start playing. He says several of his friends already play as well.

 

I beg to differ. The ENGINE changed, but it changed from one browser, java based game to another. The problems I'm talking about are different, the .6 second game ticks, the limits of a browser, etc. Similar, but no where near the same.

 

Another reason: Jagex has SHITTY customer support. Its non-existant. Thats a HUGE put off for me.

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@Makoto - Sorry, but that mindset does not in any way mesh with the reality of a game where on the 200 million xp thread you have common cases of billions in donations. Why is it perfectly fine for a friend to give your new account a 2 billion gp bank, but for some reason it's unfair and unbalanced if you give another of your own accounts the same amount? Now, I'm not saying I disagree with the theory. However, it's a theory that's competing with a 10 year old game economy with unlimited trade. Unless you bring back trade restrictions on top of creating another closed economy (see Runescape Reboot thread), there's no way to stop a new account getting large amounts of cash from "friends".

 

I'm going to stand by my guns on this one based on principle - if you give a "new" account copious amounts of wealth to start, then that would imbalance the game for [other] new players coming in, regardless if the main account had the cash or a friend. It may not mesh (and it seems we're on the same page with this one), but it's still a simple truth - making "newbies" wealthier than the average newbie causes balance issues.

 

There's another way to fix it without going to Draconian measures (or thus risk losing what's left of the community): make the game depend less on wealth in the middle- to end-game.

 

 

There's also a point that the playerbase is "institutionalized" and wouldn't accept change easily. If RuneScape were to fundamentally change, the community wouldn't be able to take it.

Thats where some kind of analysis would have to take place. How long can RS last in its current state? Could Jagex afford to have 2 "types" of RS running, this one and a newer one with faster leveling, etc?

Except this is exactly what happened whey they went from RSC to RS2.

 

Ninja'd, but this was my main point. RSC to RS2 was such a huge culture shock you had people spam-closing the doors in banks. And we all know how lovingly RSC was treated during its death sentence "bi-annual RSC open invite" period.

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I think the amount of players went down since the mass botting, i mean when a new player would just joined and for example would wanted to get his/her str lvl up by killing goblins, he/she would have a hard time killing one because of all the bots killing goblins in the f2p worlds.

 

And lets say the new player wouldve though "ah well, let`s try woodcutting then" and he wouldve gotten the lvl where you can cut willows and went to draynor village to cut some willows, i bet any new player would quit in those conditions.

 

Now the bots are gone I think RuneScape will survive though.

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To be fair, the reverse is also true. Bots didn't "just exist". They appeared because people were using them. Those people would be the ones who couldn't be bothered grinding when bots were a 'safe' option, and still can't be bothered now they're not. It's easy to look at the number of players before bot-nuke (x), and players after bot-nuke (y), and say that number of bots = x-y, but it's not that simple.

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A great question indeed; What does Jagex need to do to make more people join the game? I will here give my opinion on this.

I think that the first thing they need to do is to change the picture of Runescape as a kids' only game. Right now a lot of potential players are deciding not to join Runescape just because they believe it's packed full of 13 year old noobs. Sure, there still quite a few of those, but there's also a huge load of mature players participating in a good way to the Runescape community. I believe that Jagex is already working towards this with more and more high-level content releases. Because by advertising these changes and updates to the game the picture of Runescape being filled with only noobs is changing (would a 13 year old noob have any use of the Dominiom tower for example?).

Another change they need to do is to, as many have already stated, the grinding. I think Runescape is great as it is, but if there's something people complain about with Runescape nowadays it is the grinding nature of the game. Sure: Grinding makes Runescape unique. But why not add more options to grinding so that the players themselves can choose how to train their skills? More distractions and diversions, mini-quests and an expanded, repeatable task system could all be methods for this.

Then we have the combat system. Make it more dynamic, Jagex, and let us ourselves gain more control of it.

Finally, be more active on the advertising part. I haven't seen an ad for Runescape on a gaming site for like forever. If the game is to grow you need other people to know about it. This game is too good to be unknown. Steal those WoW-players now, Jagex!

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Its hard to say what would get people to join runescape. I guess a mechanism to make runescape require skill instead of who can click the same spot the longest would do it, however would this still be runescape?

A better runescape is runescape, just better.

 

So why not make the game more about skill?

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@Makoto - Sorry, but that mindset does not in any way mesh with the reality of a game where on the 200 million xp thread you have common cases of billions in donations. Why is it perfectly fine for a friend to give your new account a 2 billion gp bank, but for some reason it's unfair and unbalanced if you give another of your own accounts the same amount? Now, I'm not saying I disagree with the theory. However, it's a theory that's competing with a 10 year old game economy with unlimited trade. Unless you bring back trade restrictions on top of creating another closed economy (see Runescape Reboot thread), there's no way to stop a new account getting large amounts of cash from "friends".

 

I'm going to stand by my guns on this one based on principle - if you give a "new" account copious amounts of wealth to start, then that would imbalance the game for [other] new players coming in, regardless if the main account had the cash or a friend. It may not mesh (and it seems we're on the same page with this one), but it's still a simple truth - making "newbies" wealthier than the average newbie causes balance issues.

 

There's another way to fix it without going to Draconian measures (or thus risk losing what's left of the community): make the game depend less on wealth in the middle- to end-game.

I can't argue with removing reliance on gp for mid and end game. Plus, they've made with Lumbridge tasks a way for any player to do quite well at the beginning. For the end game, the best weapons have nothing to do with GP as you have to get them via dungeoneering (leeching arguments aside). Some of the better aspects of game play come about via quests or skill leveling. Now, the skills are an issue just due to so many buyable ones. Guess Jagex could at least revamp the ones' you don't purchase and give better mid and end game rewards for those skills.

 

In addition, create less click intensive and less repetitive methods to level these skills. I doubt people will moan if I get 50k xp an hour at mining even if I only did 120 clicks during that hour doing 30 unique tasks 4 times compared to the clicks required with normal mining. Yeah, it might be a dungeon mine mini game where I use firemaking, crafting, smithng and mining to get to deeper levels where the real experience is prior to restarting the game akin to pyramid plunder. Still, has to be better than clicking on 1 type of rock ad naseum.

 

I've no issue with major end game items being not only untradeable, but only available to those with multiple high skills. If that means guys with high smithing, crafting, agility and firemaking get armor and weapons better that Nex drops, so be it. That BS that started with nerfing extremes and overloads needs to stop.

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Lots of nice post!

 

I agree where the grind shouldn't be completely moved, because then it's fundamentally a different game, and wouldn't be able to reach the levels of other mmorpgs, just because of the capabilities, of a browser based game.

 

I personally agree with the posters, who say there needs to be more at the low - mid levels (1-80). There's not much going on from 30-99 mining, except you can mine different ore, that brings little profit compared to other things on RS, making the whole mining skill pointless. What jagex needs to do imo, is redesign every skill, except skills that already offer a lot of benefits such as Herblore or Dungeoneering. Maybe at lvl 30 mining, you can gather untradable type of rock, that you can chisel at 30 crafting, and attach to a lvl 30 weapon using 30 smithing. Therefore it gives a new player a incentive to level all skills, to have the best weapons at level 30. Now thats just making the skills come more to life. Jagex would of course have to make the skills a lot more fun to train.

 

Keep the xp/hr rates, because they're really not that bad, just the repetition is what bores most players. I'd say this would be best done in minigames, that combine multiple skills, like NukeMarine suggested. The xp rates of the minigames should be roughly the exact same as the current rates. So people can switch between picking a rock, and playing a minigame, and not feel cheated when choosing one training method over the other.

 

So basically, I think every skill should have an alternate non repetitious training method, and there should be a lot of generous rewards for all the skills, throughout the length of the skill.

Oh, and Jagex should always keep updating their graphics. Yes people like old graphics, but imo advancement is always best for a game. If jagex has the resources to upgrade RS close to todays consoles/PCs, then they should damn well do it. Even if that means a Rs2 to Rs3 movement. Which, I'd say most people would be fine with, if you could transfer accounts. And, Rs2 would make a great facebook game, as its purely browser based atm.

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I think a major graphics overhaul would do the most good. It's great that RS is a browser game and all, but this isn't 2001 anymore. A small downloadable executable could bring about much more advanced graphics that wouldn't be too taxing on anyone's computer.

But they already have increase the hardware spec for the game couple days ago, which means some players would have to play at laggy fps. Also, the graphics imo has improves Significantly. I think its hard to introduce an idea that will fit everyone's interest unless we can make RS more dynamic, like different sever for fifteenth city or some sort of common event happening all over the server. Someone mention this idea tor stop the bot, like a plague, and only legit player can do it properly. But this idea can turn into a game aspect as well.

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How I see it, is that the problem for new generation of players is simply the huge, impossible gap from start to the top. The game has been around for so long, that a new player with no knowledge of the game has pretty much no chances to keep up with the players who have played longer, trained their skills and made their wealth already. Let's face it, huge part of RuneScapes competetive and efficient gameplay is result of hiscores, skillcapes and show off items like rares. Reaching higher end of hiscores is not even possible anymore, as all the highest ranks already have maxed 200m experience, and for new player starting the skill going for 200m experience seems total madness. It will take multiple years to reach even 99s, unless you're really dedicated and fast to learn.

 

The players with already higher levels keep gaining more and more wealth while newer players try to accumulate enough for some mediocre gear and items, while the best gear and most rare items keep going further away from new players grasp. Of course, this doesn't rule out all the players, and I'm not saying someone starting now couldn't someday be a "famous endgame player", but it really rules 99% of other new players out from it. It doesn't either mean that it would stop all new players from starting, but it will definitely stop some.

 

I think we just need more and more content, variation and as said before - better graphics, more interesting quests, more choices and more activities - to give players the more feel of achievement while playing. Instead of having to compete against players who have already played 5-10 years and already maxed everything.

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I've had this in my head for a little while now and thought this was a fitting topic to post it in.

 

Runescape is one of those games that has kinda always been there, but I've never tried. So last week, in an idle moment, I decided to make an account and give it a try. What I witnessed was horrific.

 

The graphics are downright ugly. I understand minimalistic graphics and I have no problem with them. They really add to the flavour of some games. However that's not the case with this game. The graphics are not old, not minimalistic, they are ugly period.

The other thing I noticed is that the handling on the client really sucks. Actions aren't fluent. Moving, selecting things, ... doing anything is very ... unnatural? The menus in the client are also not structured very well. You don't really find your way in them intuitively.

 

This game obviously did something right. It used to be one of the most popular free to play games out there and still has a solid user base. So ...

 

-What's so great about Runescape?

-How do you past these very real problems that are a deal breaker for anyone going on first impressions.

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How I see it, is that the problem for new generation of players is simply the huge, impossible gap from start to the top. The game has been around for so long, that a new player with no knowledge of the game has pretty much no chances to keep up with the players who have played longer, trained their skills and made their wealth already. Let's face it, huge part of RuneScapes competetive and efficient gameplay is result of hiscores, skillcapes and show off items like rares. Reaching higher end of hiscores is not even possible anymore, as all the highest ranks already have maxed 200m experience, and for new player starting the skill going for 200m experience seems total madness. It will take multiple years to reach even 99s, unless you're really dedicated and fast to learn.

 

The players with already higher levels keep gaining more and more wealth while newer players try to accumulate enough for some mediocre gear and items, while the best gear and most rare items keep going further away from new players grasp. Of course, this doesn't rule out all the players, and I'm not saying someone starting now couldn't someday be a "famous endgame player", but it really rules 99% of other new players out from it. It doesn't either mean that it would stop all new players from starting, but it will definitely stop some.

 

I think we just need more and more content, variation and as said before - better graphics, more interesting quests, more choices and more activities - to give players the more feel of achievement while playing. Instead of having to compete against players who have already played 5-10 years and already maxed everything.

 

I'm not sure that new players are even aware of that problem with the hiscores, nor would it matter to them much until they actually got hooked to the game and actually want to compete (lol the only competition in runescape is who can no life the most...).

 

Getting 99's is also getting easier and easier all the time, so that's encouraging for the newbies.

noobs crowding hill giants? not on my watch

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