SoF Feedback Response

[Frozen]

I don't have a problem with misleading people, people are easy to fool and it's human nature to exploit that, and I don't see any actual lies, so a lot of the posts here are completely wrong.

 

So...Because it is "human nature" to exploit the fact that decoherent thought processes makes people easy to fool and manipulate, Jagex is suddenly behing open and honest? Your particular perspective and notions concerning "human nature" and ethics is no indication of any posts here being "right" or "wrong."

[Powerfrog]

What we know about the combat update is that specs will be removed in favor of a hotbar. Monster weaknesses will be more prevalent as well. The stats of most armor/weps will change, and the combat formulas might change too.

*Sells claws*

 

*Buys 5000 dmaces*

[Hedgehog]

What we know about the combat update is that specs will be removed in favor of a hotbar. Monster weaknesses will be more prevalent as well. The stats of most armor/weps will change, and the combat formulas might change too.

*Sells claws*

 

*Buys 5000 dmaces*

I'd like to see you do that.

[Powerfrog]

What we know about the combat update is that specs will be removed in favor of a hotbar. Monster weaknesses will be more prevalent as well. The stats of most armor/weps will change, and the combat formulas might change too.

*Sells claws*

 

*Buys 5000 dmaces*

I'd like to see you do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-C_HbeJ51Y

 

My pleasure!

[Hedgehog]

Good enough :P

[Stev]

Naturally the team and I are saddened that some players are upset about free spins and some also dont like the ability to also purchase additional spins, however, the reality is 90% of our members are enjoying the Squeal of Fortune on a daily basis and over 70% of our free players utilise the Squeal of Fortune daily too - making it some of the most widely appreciated content release to date. The majority of our players also continue to take advantage of the many free ways to earn extra spins, so its certainly here to stay.

OMG, no way! So you're telling me 90% of members are using free spins for a chance at free stuff? If you put Juna into a tab, or even glass for flasks, troll invasion, or other daily/weekly crap, you'd probably find that 90% of members doing them too!

 

Funny thing is, the other 10% are probably inactive members, such as myself.

 

The stuff Jagex tells themselves to get away with crap is pathetic. I used to think they were just trying to blow up our asses with this crap, but I actually believe that even they are starting to believe the bull they're saying. Pathetic.

[Randox]

Blah blah blah, faulty logic blah blah weasel word replacing inconvenient percentage blah blah blah.

 

 

Not really mad though. This is exactly what I was expecting (actually I was expecting them to just ignore it, but this was my second guess). Just a tad insulted that they didn't put more effort into their propoganda though. Give us a little credit?

[NukeMarine]

Shame. Jagex built up some good karma with the Runespan release, then urinate all over it with this horrible attempt at justification. Players didn't really hate the SoF release aside from it being too blatant. They freaking hated the microtransaction update as it gave a predictable means to level characters using real world cash.

 

Strange that neither of those points were addressed in this "update", as others point out.

 

To be fair to Jagex, people for some ungodly reason were buying gp and in a way xp from other sources for almost a decade. Jagex introduces a gaudy, but still legal in game method to at least buy xp. If people are going to spend extra money to improve their way of playing the game, I guess I'd rather see that cash go to Jagex than some gp farmer in China.

[SwreeTak]

 

 

Its been two months since we released the Squeal of Fortune and we wanted to take the opportunity to respond to some of the player feedback, correct some misconceptions about the popularity of the update, motivations behind the update and importantly outline why its also here to stay.

First of all I want to say thank you to everyone who has sent us feedback about the recent Squeal of Fortune updates. We designed the Squeal of Fortune from the outset to be a fun and light-hearted feature to RuneScape, giving players a new way to receive free rewards every day they log into RuneScape. As with many of our updates, our members always receive extra benefits like double the free spins daily and we have evolved it since launch providing all of our players numerous additional ways to earn free Squeal spins within the game.

 

As with all content we add to RuneScape, we went to great lengths to ensure that the Squeal of Fortune would enhance the playing experience without undermining what makes the game truly special for millions of players every day; we truly believe we have succeeded in both priorities.

 

We recognise that some in the community have mixed feelings about the Squeal of Fortune and, whilst we spend a great deal of time and effort creating game experiences that resonate with the majority of our players, the reality is due to the epic size of our community it simply isnt possible to please all of our players all of the time despite desperately trying too. Therefore our philosophy has always been to do what is right for the long term health of the game, a fact many of the long standing player will know Ive consistently done over the years irrespective of the initial pain, with the not so distant Bot nuke a great example. I can confidently say that we have always been rewarded for doing the right thing in the long run and the reality today is that the game is not only consistently improving but our community steadily grows year on year.

 

That said, all the feedback we receive for our updates and how the community engage with it is still extremely important to us. We have been reading your posts on the forums and listened to your concerns. As a result of your feedback, we implemented some changes to the way Squeal of Fortune works, such as adding new ways to receive extra spins as in-game rewards and also introducing additional payment protection for all in game purchases as soon as players notified us it was a concern.

 

Naturally the team and I are saddened that some players are upset about free spins and some also dont like the ability to also purchase additional spins, however, the reality is 90% of our members are enjoying the Squeal of Fortune on a daily basis and over 70% of our free players utilise the Squeal of Fortune daily too - making it some of the most widely appreciated content release to date. The majority of our players also continue to take advantage of the many free ways to earn extra spins, so its certainly here to stay.

 

The stated concerns from players regarding RWT'ing, gambling or using the Squeal of Fortune to buy their way to success is simply not true and not possible given the design of the system. Whilst we have seen most players take advantage of the new rewards and many choosing to purchase extra spins, we have not witnessed any abuse of the system despite monitoring it extremely closely.

 

Looking forward, RuneScape continues to grow more than ever, both in terms of innovative compelling content as well as the size of the community. With the launch of The Runespan last Monday, a major graphical performance upgrade yesterday (which has already seen a significant portion of the community benefit from over a 100% improvement in game frame rate), it should be evident that we just gearing up for our most exciting and biggest content year ever........... including a complete upgrade to the combat system later this summer!

 

Youll naturally all hear a lot more about this in the very near future so watch this space.

 

Thanks for reading ... and have fun,

 

Cheers,

 

Mark Gerhard

 

Jagex CEO

 

 

 

Its been two months since we released the Squeal World Trading, and we finally decided to get off our lazy asses and write some bs to hopefully reduce the amount of rants on the forums which are scaring off potential paying customers, affirm some conceptions about the motivations behind the update and importantly outline why its also here to stay.

First of all I want to say **** you to everyone who has spammed the recent updates forum about the no-longer recent Squeal of Fortune updates - since apparently people would not stop ranting even after SqWT has been released long enough to be no longer considered recent, we felt the need to pretend we actually care about player feedback. We designed the Squeal of RWT from the outset to be a profitable feature to our company, giving players an extremely annoying onscreen icon that reappears every day they log into RuneScape. As with many of our updates, our members always receive ten times as many extra benefits to encourage F2p to pay, and we have evolved it since launch providing all of our players numerous additional incentives to pay for Squeal spins.

 

As with all content we add to RuneScape, we didn't consider reactions from the community at all, and really don't give a fudge if the Squeal of Fortune does not enhance the playing experience without undermining what makes the game truly special for a few thousand players and millions of bots every day; we truly believe we have succeeded in making the game much more profitable for our investors, and blatantly lie to the players, claiming that this update has benefitted the gameplay.

 

We assume that some in the community have mixed feelings about the Squeal of Fortune and, whilst we spend a great deal of time and effort creating game experiences that resonate with the majority of other MMOs (if they're popular, they must be doing something right, so why not take their ideas?), the reality is due to the epic size of our community, we simply cbf to even take a glance at what our players want, and are satisfied as long as we can please at least 1% of our players without actually trying. Therefore our philosophy has since IVP took over Jagex, been to do what is right for the short term profit for our investors, without giving half a **** for the long term health of the game, a fact that many of the long standing players have quit for. The not so distant (yes, it's been delayed for over a month already, but that is not a long time in our eyes) Bot nuke is a great example of a well-overdue update that we have no choice to release because having a player base consisting of over 70% bots might deter potential paying customers from playing RS long enough to get addicted. I can confidently say that we have always been rewarded for whevener we do the right thing for the long run and the reason I am able to say that is because we have never done anything with long term considerations and zero is considered positive by default.

 

That said, all the feedback we receive for our updates and how the community engage with it is still extremely important to us, for the same aforementioned reason: We don't look at any feedback, and zero is considered positive by default. We have not been reading your posts on the forums and don't give a crap about your concerns. As a result of some feedback fabricated by players that we have created overnight and added to the official forums make it seem that players that support Squeal World Trading actually exist, we implemented some changes to the way Squeal of Fortune works, such as adding new ways to receive extra spins as rewards for buying large and expensive bundles on our cash shop, and also introducing additional payment protection for all in game purchases as soon as we realized that parents of players were suing us for taking money from their credit cards that they didn't intend to pay for.

 

Naturally the team and I are saddened that a vast amount of players are quitting over the ability to also purchase additional spins and costing us revenue in membership purchases, however, the reality is 90% of our members are clicking the Squeal of Fortune on a daily basis and discarding 90% of the rewards, in order to get the annoying icon out of the way of their game screen. The majority of our players also continue to take advantage of the many free ways to earn extra spins, because they do not realize how low the droprates of good rewards actually are.

 

The stated concerns from players regarding RWT'ing, gambling or using the Squeal of Fortune to buy their way to success are simply true and encouraged by the way we designed the system, but we like to pretend that the accusations are false and hope that people are gullible enough to believe us. Whilst we have seen most players take advantage of the new rewards and many choosing to purchase extra spins, we have not witnessed any abuse of the system because we put many times more effort into bugtesting an update when it involves real money rather than just pixels.

 

Looking forward, RuneScape continues to fall into decline as we milk it for every last penny. With the launch of a major graphical performance upgrade yesterday (which solved a framerate issue that we couldn't be bothered fixing for 6 months), it should be evident that we just gearing up for our most exciting and biggest content year ever........... including a complete cash shop where you can directly buy overpowered items and millions of XP later this summer!

 

Youll naturally all hear a lot more about our strategies to milk more cash out of this game, so don't worry about watching this space since we'll be shoving the updates in your face, like we do with the SqWT and Mad May banners.

 

Thanks for reading ... and remember to keep paying us,

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel Clough

 

 

The true Jagex CEO

Not sure if you were going for funny or witty, but you failed.

Sorry.

Neither, I was attempting to criticize Jagex/IVP with a parody of their post. Whether or not it is amusing is just a side-effect.

 

I actually think this was quite funny though. You really made your opinion clear.

[Frozen]

To be fair to Jagex, people for some ungodly reason were buying gp and in a way xp from other sources for almost a decade. Jagex introduces a gaudy, but still legal in game method to at least buy xp. If people are going to spend extra money to improve their way of playing the game, I guess I'd rather see that cash go to Jagex than some gp farmer in China.

 

I can agree with that. I have mixed feelings on it all even now. I'm not even sure how much I'm against this particular case of micro transaction as long as the trend does not continue. I am in agreement with only one point Mod Gerhard made except that in the context of everything else he said, it made that one point meaningless. When he said

 

We designed the Squeal of Fortune from the outset to be a fun and light-hearted feature to RuneScape, giving players a new way to receive free rewards every day they log into RuneScape.

 

I had a flash moment where I could see that side of things. Sometimes we do take our game and Jagex notions and performance much too seriously. However, they have handled the entire situation badly and I am of the opinion that they must communicate with us better (and us better with them - sometimes the playerbase can be harsh...) and include us in such things. No matter how it's rationalized, I cannot feel any sort of light-hearted air about it when Jagex is still treating us like we're dumb.

 

Just like Sy said, if they had been up front from the get-go and didn't try to cover their tracks the way they did ((did they honestly think all of those details would slip by the huge community that Jagex is so proud of, cmon this is the information age and most of us are fairly smart ;) )) then I bet a majority of us would not have been nearly so insulted. No one likes to be patronized. Jagex, you weren't typically corporate once upon a time and I think I can speak for most of us when I say that it was one of your greatest and most respected qualities. Where RuneScape didn't quite match other games in graphics or content, I always felt like it was pretty bona-fide and special. Don't ruin it...Though that ship may have sailed.

[Dexek]

I spin the wheel, but I don't like the wheel. The general reason that I spin it, is so that annoying damn pop-up will disappear and I won't have to close it everytime I change worlds within Runescape. It's more of a nuisance than anything.

[Baffler]

Ugghhh.

[gspbeetle]

So... we listened, however we are not going to remove the wheel-world trading... How about a nice game of extra spin?

 

Leaf's translation looks pretty accurate to me, but just one question, who is that Daniel Clough guy?

[Krampell]

Just becuase 90% p2p and 70% f2p players use the SoF each day doesn't mean that they are enjoying it.

Reason why everyone does it even if it's hated is because it's shoved in our face every new day.

In reality, if the SoF was located at as specific location, say... Falador? And you'd have to go there to spin it, I doubt that it would be the same amount of people "enjoying" it.

 

Imagine if mtk was available to everyone without having to complete a quest and the whole interface where you gather approval and deposit money was a popup when you first login each day. That would be the same deal... Except people would like it.

It would be same with every new update.

[@Dan3HitU]

a major graphical performance upgrade yesterday (which has already seen a significant portion of the community benefit from over a 100% improvement in game frame rate)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark Gerhard

 

Jagex CEO

Why lie Mark Gerhard?

 

It hasn't increased over 100% because it wasn't even slightly broke before the "bot nuke", if the team had done their testing properly the update wouldn't have been crap for thousands of users, in fact, you've improved it from your own errors and it's still not as good as it was before, so how has it been increased over 100%?

 

Another thing, why is he even CEO?

 

On the actual subject of SoF, I think it's rediculas, this update should have never been implemented, why not spend the time actually doing something that needs doing?

 

Another thing, I ask again, why is he even CEO?

 

I spin the wheel, but I don't like the wheel. The general reason that I spin it, is so that annoying damn pop-up will disappear and I won't have to close it everytime I change worlds within Runescape. It's more of a nuisance than anything.

 

I agree, that annoying little pop-up SoF thing is like the "Paperclip" in Word, you only click on it to get rid of it.

[Arceus]

 

a major graphical performance upgrade yesterday (which has already seen a significant portion of the community benefit from over a 100% improvement in game frame rate)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark Gerhard

 

Jagex CEO

Why lie Mark Gerhard?

 

It hasn't increased over 100% because it wasn't even slightly broke before the "bot nuke", if the team had done their testing properly the update wouldn't have been crap for thousands of users, in fact, you've improved it from your own errors and it's still not as good as it was before, so how has it been increased over 100%?

 

Another thing, why is he even CEO?

 

On the actual subject of SoF, I think it's rediculas, this update should have never been implemented, why not spend the time actually doing something that needs doing?

 

Another thing, I ask again, why is he even CEO?

 

I spin the wheel, but I don't like the wheel. The general reason that I spin it, is so that annoying damn pop-up will disappear and I won't have to close it everytime I change worlds within Runescape. It's more of a nuisance than anything.

 

I agree, that annoying little pop-up SoF thing is like the "Paperclip" in Word, you only click on it to get rid of it.

 

 

Except when I tell Paperclip to go away, it leaves and doesn't return every time I start the program. So it's worse the Microsoft.

[@Dan3HitU]

 

a major graphical performance upgrade yesterday (which has already seen a significant portion of the community benefit from over a 100% improvement in game frame rate)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark Gerhard

 

Jagex CEO

Why lie Mark Gerhard?

 

It hasn't increased over 100% because it wasn't even slightly broke before the "bot nuke", if the team had done their testing properly the update wouldn't have been crap for thousands of users, in fact, you've improved it from your own errors and it's still not as good as it was before, so how has it been increased over 100%?

 

Another thing, why is he even CEO?

 

On the actual subject of SoF, I think it's rediculas, this update should have never been implemented, why not spend the time actually doing something that needs doing?

 

Another thing, I ask again, why is he even CEO?

 

I spin the wheel, but I don't like the wheel. The general reason that I spin it, is so that annoying damn pop-up will disappear and I won't have to close it everytime I change worlds within Runescape. It's more of a nuisance than anything.

 

I agree, that annoying little pop-up SoF thing is like the "Paperclip" in Word, you only click on it to get rid of it.

 

 

Except when I tell Paperclip to go away, it leaves and doesn't return every time I start the program. So it's worse the Microsoft.

Haha, brilliant!

[ZeroAE]

Feels good to be the 10% that doesn't use the wheel.

Is sad to see Jagex lie (mislead) information just to earn more money.

[Th e Doctor]

brb, maxing combat before the combat update makes training a [bleep].

[Ts_Stormrage]

To be fair to Jagex, people for some ungodly reason were buying gp and in a way xp from other sources for almost a decade. Jagex introduces a gaudy, but still legal in game method to at least buy xp. If people are going to spend extra money to improve their way of playing the game, I guess I'd rather see that cash go to Jagex than some gp farmer in China.

Botting is not legal (and sort of not possible), but buying spins is. Other than that, there is no difference between them, reliability wise, and unfair xp-gain wise... So anyone wishing 100% sure to hang on to his account, would choose spins over bots...

 

That said;

I don't like the SoF, period. It simply doesn't belong in the atmosphere of RuneScape. I would infact argue, that SoF is the advertisement and/or commercial that annoyingly disrupts the movie that is RuneScape that I have been enjoying for the past decade... Which is why I wonder where I can rip RuneScape in DVD quality from ;)

[Naraku893]

I like how they implied they still have millions of players

 

however, the reality is 90% of our members are enjoying the Squeal of Fortune on a daily basis and over 70% of our free players utilise the Squeal of Fortune daily too - making it some of the most widely appreciated content release to date. The majority of our players also continue to take advantage of the many free ways to earn extra spins, so it’s certainly here to stay.

thanks to all the idiots that actually bought spins

[wioneo]

I don't have a problem with misleading people, people are easy to fool and it's human nature to exploit that, and I don't see any actual lies, so a lot of the posts here are completely wrong.

 

So...Because it is "human nature" to exploit the fact that decoherent thought processes makes people easy to fool and manipulate, Jagex is suddenly behing open and honest? Your particular perspective and notions concerning "human nature" and ethics is no indication of any posts here being "right" or "wrong."

 

When I say "wrong" I mean, incorrect. Arguing ethics over something so trivial is a waste of time. Claiming that their 90% figure is a lie is (most likely) incorrect. Personally I don't have records of every active member's SoF use, but I am damn sure that noone else here does either. From personal experience, it seems likely that the figure is not a lie. The posts that I am calling "wrong" are those that claim that Jagex was lying, while presenting no evidence or even reasonable likelihood of that being the case. Posts saying that the newspost was very misleading are correct.

[Arceus]

But it's not like they haven't fudged statistics before. We can be skeptical.

[Frozen]

When I say "wrong" I mean, incorrect. Arguing ethics over something so trivial is a waste of time. Claiming that their 90% figure is a lie is (most likely) incorrect. Personally I don't have records of every active member's SoF use, but I am damn sure that noone else here does either. From personal experience, it seems likely that the figure is not a lie. The posts that I am calling "wrong" are those that claim that Jagex was lying, while presenting no evidence or even reasonable likelihood of that being the case. Posts saying that the newspost was very misleading are correct.

 

Jagex never openly or blatantly lied as far as I know so in that respect you are probably right. What is true is they have engaged in dishonest behavior through their actions. I'm one of the people who is offended because I feel like they went behind our back on the issue intentionally because they knew we wouldn't like it. They didn't do a good job of covering their tracks and we saw right through most of it. The ethics of the Squeal is one thing and I agree, I wouldn't waste much time talking about that. Discussing ethics of corporate behavior and organizational transparency is an issue that at least I am interested in. Most people like to leave it at the thought that we live in a capitalist globe and there isn't anything any of us can do about it but I plead with people to see that it's just not true and that if enough people are properly critical we can change things.

[Kaida23]

I'm not skeptical that 90% of us have used the SoF, I'm skeptical that 90% "appreciate" it and that it is "the most widely appreciated content release to date."

 

That's nothing but spin and manure shoveling.