Blooming specializations

[Urza285]

Over my nearly ten years playing Runescape I've noticed a trend as far as specializations within the community. Often I would run into the pure skiller, pure pker, PvMer, etc and they are very easily distinguishable by their interests in game play and will often be able to give you some kind of insight to their type of game play. While some of these new areas have existed probably since the beginning of the game those who belong within these groups might tell you that they have taken their field of expertese to hieghtened levels that have never been seen before until recent years.

 

 

Lately several other specialization have risen to the top and its intrigues me to see where these types of players might come into play in terms of Jagex grand scheme for the game. Some of our greatest community members would be recognized under one of these "titles" and with that they gain a profound amount of respect from the community and when Jagex catches sight of this thing things tend to follow later on such as Woox's video of fighting Jad with only one prayer point. Jagex may eventually start to cater to the efficienado or the PvM DPS maximizer by offering more weapons and armour that the average player might not see what niche it fits into, but to those players they'll clearly be able to assess exactly where this new piece of equipment will go. A recent example of this type of move Jagex made is the ganodermic set and all I've been hearing is how its going to completely change the tactics to fighting the corporeal beast.

 

Over those ten years of playing I've noticed several types of players and noticed a few more prominent types of players blooming from the community:

 

The Efficianado: Someone who spends a larger amount of time not just playing the game, but mastering the techniques of gameplay to maximize both cash spend per xp point and/or xp gained per hour. These are some of our communities more valuable players becuase even though someone such as I don't enjoy playing at such a level of efficiency I still enjoy looking into their research to find the

 

The Calculator: This player is usually a PvMer who has taken PvM to a new level. Gone are they days of everyone just all out smashing the boss. Today we see several players who aren't just mashing out the stat numbers, but are figuring out boss weaknesses, strengths, if the boss needs a tank, the highest defensive attributes to work best against the boss and how to maximize DPS and team survivability.

 

 

These two group are just a couple of examples of new and emergent gameplay that we are seeing in Runescape. With that said I was curious what would you classify yourself as? No one falls exactly in one group or the other mind you. I, for example, appreciate efficiency, but I weigh comfort equally to efficiency and there is a certain degree of cash loss that I'll tolerate. You wont ever really see me deeply crouched over the keyboard kiting a boss, flashing prayers and switching out gear like some of our brightest and most elite boss hunters are known for doing.

[Sy_Accursed]

Seemed rather rambly and jist seemed to be:

Jagex might start catering to pures.

 

The answer is:

Jagex has said time and again the game is designed around players who do EVERYTHING and use EVERYTHING, they do not cater specifically to players who limit themselves, which applys to both "negative" limits like dont do combat and "positive" limits like dont do anything but the best xp:hr, which you can't really cater too anyway any gear that comes out isn't gonna go into a unseen niche because people in general like good ways to do stuff. Sure if may be the top end method that not everyone uses, but it will be all over guides and what not.

 

As for your boss category this is nothing new at all, pvm has always been about this. The only difference is with corp, nex and many dg bosses their sheer strength means these weakness are much more obvious. There was a day and age when kq and kbd were more than basic gear mashing and required a planned team because they were really massively powerful compared to players.

 

I don't really much discussion value here beyond fanboying over random people who happened to do things publically, I mean for all we know half of these things they amazingly did others culd of done for fun but not filmed and then their friend copied it and filmed it to gain "fame"

[Urza285]

I wouldn't look at it as ramble. To be honest since starting to play everyone has taken some form of higher interest in the game. I consider myself someone who wants to complete the game. Some people start the game really digging the thought of being a do-it-yourselfer while others enjoy crunching numbers. I spent my time creating the post because I was interested in the kinds of specialized game play people divulge in.

[enfield]

I think you are tip.it times material. Your writing sounds like the starts of a classic archetypal tip.it article more than a ramble.

[Urza285]

I think you are tip.it times material. Your writing sounds like the starts of a classic archetypal tip.it article more than a ramble.

Oh, well, thanks. I do read them once in a while to be honest. My interest really lies in how people view the game. I think that people specialize themselves in some area on the game in some way over the time they play. I mean even if you don't feel like you are anything big to the community maybe you're one of those long standing players who feels they are a literal fount of knowledge who sits in the clan/friend chat giving advice about everything. I guess the point is we all assume roles in the community whether we know it or not...

 

For example Sy is very analytical and, in all honesty, its good to have someone to help weed out the less thought out and nonsensiical information so others have a clearer view of things in the world. I'll admit I literally just typed up my idea without much thought becuase its been a concept floating in my mind for years and I felt like blurting it out than rather making the effort to make a worthy presentation like most tip.it article writers do.

[TheAncient]

The sad thing is that there's not really a booming community for these people. There's a lot of lower leveled players on tip it. XPW is specialized to DGS and has a small community. HLF is full of idiots. In general the high level community in RS is very disjointed.

[Carl]

Nice post. I'm not really sure what kind of player I am, other than completely inefficient.

 

Over the years, I've spent more time idly standing in Edgeville than I have actually achieving something. I'm more interested in talking with people than clicking excessively. But the time will come every few months where I have an urge to do something. I power away at that, and only that, until it has been completed or I run out of motivation.

 

Probably two years ago it clicked to get 99 Magic, so I did. Kept at it (In Edgeville, of course). 99 Herblore, same thing. Now Farming has come up. I don't enjoy playing efficiently; I'm more interested in keeping it simple and fun. I won't touch a stat I don't like.

 

Even though I have many years played, I still consider myself a newb (hence the name) when it comes to most things. I don't remember where most places are, or what most items are for -- I'm useless!

 

I don't really see Jagex catering to any particular type of player, I think that has been expressed before. If you decide to be a "Pure" and only go one way, you are choosing from the get-go to give yourself a handicap.

[Urza285]

The sad thing is that there's not really a booming community for these people. There's a lot of lower leveled players on tip it. XPW is specialized to DGS and has a small community. HLF is full of idiots. In general the high level community in RS is very disjointed.

Hum... I guess there was a somewhat elitest aire to my post here, but in general what I was addressing the idea that there is a place for everyone. My thought kind of bloomed from a thoery to how communities handle the death of someone within the community. Basically the theory stated everyone has a roll within the community whether they know it or not. When death occures people feel the loss of that person as a resource: whether they were a means of financial security, a highly respected person in the family such as a grandmother you talk to for comfort and understanding, a social connection to others, etc. People play rolls in all kinds of different communities.

 

You are right that there really isn't a booming community for high level players who are mostly in-the-know of everything.