15-Nov-2011 - Breaking Dicing

[Assume Nothing]

What I would have liked to see, is essentially a casino. The gambling isn't going to go away, so the easiest thing to do would have been to just make an npc that essentially hosts 55x2 (the most common stakes that I saw). Since its an npc, it wont scam people, and since it wont scam people, it would be more appealing than the dice hosts (and probably faster), which would have at least had a chance of killing it off.

 

You can't beat gambling, and by not even making it against the rules its like they aren't even trying, but if it is just the scamming they object to, and not the activity itself (though I suspect it might be both), the best thing they could have done would be to make a safer, more appealing alternative.

 

 

This will probably make things worse as pointed out. Most of the alternatives are either really unfavourable odds (such as 2:1 for the dunge emote), or 50/50. The 2:1 stuff might fly if the right payouts are used, but anyone hosting at 50/50 stakes is going to scam sooner or later, or they aren't going to make any money in the long run. I figure once this becomes totally fubar, Jagex might actually start taking productive attempts to solving the problem.

 

The problem with an npc would be the fact that it'll cause market distortions - on the contrary, dicing in itself is a zerosum game - wealth is not created nor destroyed, simply redistributed. It may also be questionable as JaGex may not want to endorse gambling, only tolerate it, as there are strong psychologically addictive effects of gambling.

 

It's hard to combat the problem at the very core without introducing new problems. Hmmph.

[Kaida23]

I've been hearing that they just killed skullballing as well. Can anyone confirm?

[Arcley]

So I was curious about the WoW policy regarding this, apparently Blizzard has been through the same thing. In the early days of WoW the /exact/ same thing happened. Players running unfair odds with the built-in roll system.

 

It was quickly made illegal for pretty much the same reasons Jagex is currently using to make it harder (see the official responses at http://www.wowwiki.com/Casinos). Their present TOS is rather vague about it though. The impression I got is that it's okay to run WoW casinos, but using the ingame chat to advertise them is against the rules. And if someone does run a scam, the GM system basically ensures that they won't get away with it, usually returning the stolen money (unlike in RS I believe).

 

That certainly sounds like a more effective solution. Remove the advertising rather than every item in the game that could be exploited in some way. Regulating it seems very unlikely, considering it's seen as something that doesn't belong in the game.

 

I do like how an ingame casino could act as an effective gold sink though. A browser MMORPG called Kingdom of Loathing does this, and it removes a lot of money from the economy despite a very small cut. The difference is, that game is a lot less serious and the players generally more mature so a gambling system isn't terribly out of place.

[Caelum]

I've been hearing that they just killed skullballing as well. Can anyone confirm?

 

Yup, they have;

 

A few answers to some common questions:

 

Dice bags will be deleted totally from the game next week. They will not become rare. Do not buy any, you're likely to lose cash if you do.

 

We are aware that other things can be used to gamble with in game. We will look at them individually if they become an issue.

 

No, I do not consider dueling to be the same as dicing.

 

EDIT

 

We have now removed some of the functionality of the magic skullball to the game. You are now only able to use the skullball for private readings and so it cant output the result to a chat channel anymore.

 

It's on the Breaking Dicing sticky in the recent updates forum. [qfc]15-16-957-63375704[/qfc]

[Saradomin_Mage]

Why didn't they just do the same for dice, I wonder. Someone /must/ have been rolling random numbers for their in-game RP :P

Laughed out loud pretty hard when I heard skullballs got disabled too. What's next, invisible flowers?

[Piu]

Probably flowers which follow a fixed pattern.

[quitthegame]

Dueling is a wager match. Not gambling. If I challenge you do a fist fight to death on a bridge, it's not 50-50 either.

Anyways, at least I ended up profiting from dicing. Only tried it once and won 500k xD

Seriously, grab a dictionary, look up gambling, then come back here. Even the stock market, no matter how well you study the ins and outs of it, is still gambling. Giving it a softer term like "investing" does not remove the risk aspect. Same goes when you "wager" on sporting events. Doesn't matter how well you know the stats of the teams. The most you do is mitigate the risk, not remove it. Yet, it's still called gambling all the same.

 

If you can't understand a simple concept like gambling, it's best you remove yourself from the conversation.

 

 

Under certain definitions, nearly everything in life is a gamble, building nukes, joining the marines, picking a career, driving a car, etc.

 

"to take a chance on; venture; risk: I'm gambling that our new store will be a success. "

 

Under another definition: "1.

to play at any game of chance for money or other stakes. "

 

"game of chance

 

noun

a game in which the outcome is determined by chance rather than by the skill of its players, as roulette. "

 

According to that definition, neither poker nor (most forms of) staking are gambling.

 

 

Apparently it's time for you to remove yourself from the conversation.

[Leik]

Didn't take them long to find a new alternative though. Apparently they're using Horse toys now, by betting on the first letters of the 3 sentences your character shouts when you play with it.

[Kimberly]

I wonder if this is a step to them admitting their 'update for clans LOL!' items for events, designed with no true purpose to allow for 'emergent gameplay', was a bust.

[999134]

Maybe some people will continue dicing, but it will kill off the large majority of people doing it.

 

Hopefully won't see like 3 people on every world at ge offering to dice now.

[Thus]

Maybe some people will continue dicing, but it will kill off the large majority of people doing it.

 

Hopefully won't see like 3 people on every world at ge offering to dice now.

 

There are no dice in the game. At all.

[The Observer]

I can see flowers becoming more popular now...

[Kaida23]

I can see flowers becoming more popular now...

Until they fix them as well.

[The Observer]

I can see flowers becoming more popular now...

Until they fix them as well.

 

They could make flowers only work for the person who planted them. A bit of a minor inconvenience since that was really the main purpose of flowers; having others being able to see them.

[Piu]

Or they can make them follow a strict pattern. :P

 

Sure it'll crash or rise prices of certain flowers, but not by much. It's not like they had any use besides cosmetic purposes anyway.

[Assume Nothing]

The premise of the entire game is based around an RNG - the concept of gambling for money will emerge again, it'll take a little time but it's unlikely not to.

 

What's wrong with dicing again?

[Randox]

The more I watch, the more I am convinced that this hasn't been totally thought through. One I like was placing bets on whether the first hit against a guard would be odd or even. Unless Jagex wants to remove combat, chat, and every item from the game, there is no possible way to prevent gambling by 'taking our toys away'. They allowed it to go on for WAY to long, and let it grow into a huge industry. The dice hosts are frantic to make a quick buck again, and the gamblers are eager for their next betting fix. By failing to do something about this before it permeated so much of their community, Jagex might have already doomed themselves in this battle. I'd like to think they will learn something from this about not waiting for 11 [bleep]ing months to take a stand, but they wont.

 

I'm not sure what they can do now. Their best bet might be to try and combat it with the rules, with really heavy punishments. Assuming they can actually enforce the rule about not trading things between your accounts, this could potentially work since the host accounts would be the ones you *don't* want getting banned. But this will also drive the gambling underground, which will probably make the scamming even worse than it was before.

 

Still, I think its time for trust trading to be against the rules again. This would target the advertisers and the hosts, which while not eliminating gambling from the game, should at least put a damper on it, rather than what they are doing now, which is literally daring their community to become more creative.

[stevensda]

i wonder if jagex are gonna be jagex and acidently leave some dice in game, it wouldnt suprise me

[999134]

Maybe some people will continue dicing, but it will kill off the large majority of people doing it.

 

Hopefully won't see like 3 people on every world at ge offering to dice now.

 

There are no dice in the game. At all.

phrased wrongly, I mean dicing type games (including seal game, toy horses, flowers and all that crap)

[Kaida23]

What's wrong with dicing again?

The problem was that, while there are (were) many legit dicing groups, a lot of people were simply running a scam. My biggest issue with it was Jagex's ambiguous stance on the whole thing, stating that trust games weren't specifically against the rules but they violated the spirit of the game. Whatever that was supposed to mean. <_<

 

Personally, I'm glad they finally took a stand on it.

[Formerly_Deathknell]

The premise of the entire game is based around an RNG - the concept of gambling for money will emerge again, it'll take a little time but it's unlikely not to.

 

What's wrong with dicing again?

 

Nothing. It's your cash and you should be able to do what you want with it. People just complained because A) They lost their money, B) They got scammed out of their money and C) All the people advertising dicing games were annoying.

 

For me, only point C has any validity.

[essiw]

The premise of the entire game is based around an RNG - the concept of gambling for money will emerge again, it'll take a little time but it's unlikely not to.

 

What's wrong with dicing again?

 

Nothing. It's your cash and you should be able to do what you want with it. People just complained because A) They lost their money, B) They got scammed out of their money and C) All the people advertising dicing games were annoying.

 

For me, only point C has any validity.

Not true, your gp is jagex property, otherwise you could freely sell it to other people to right? So jagex decides what you can do with it and what not.

[Formerly_Deathknell]

The premise of the entire game is based around an RNG - the concept of gambling for money will emerge again, it'll take a little time but it's unlikely not to.

 

What's wrong with dicing again?

 

Nothing. It's your cash and you should be able to do what you want with it. People just complained because A) They lost their money, B) They got scammed out of their money and C) All the people advertising dicing games were annoying.

 

For me, only point C has any validity.

Not true, your gp is jagex property, otherwise you could freely sell it to other people to right? So jagex decides what you can do with it and what not.

 

I was speaking more about the morality of it.

[essiw]

The premise of the entire game is based around an RNG - the concept of gambling for money will emerge again, it'll take a little time but it's unlikely not to.

 

What's wrong with dicing again?

 

Nothing. It's your cash and you should be able to do what you want with it. People just complained because A) They lost their money, B) They got scammed out of their money and C) All the people advertising dicing games were annoying.

 

For me, only point C has any validity.

Not true, your gp is jagex property, otherwise you could freely sell it to other people to right? So jagex decides what you can do with it and what not.

 

I was speaking more about the morality of it.

It is forbidden in some country's to gamble when you are underage, this could include the dice bag in runescape and jagex could (not sure if possible) get sued for that.

[ixfd64]

How is this going to stop people from using "human dice"?

 

All they have to do is to have a "referee" player speaking out random numbers, as if (s)he were a dice.