Tip.It Times Tip.It Times - 8th July 2012

[tripsis]

Time for a new release of the: >>>Tip.It Times!<<<

 

 

 

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Enjoy the articles!

[Hawks]

Good crop of articles this week; I really enjoyed Croce's Ali the Poet, although I haven't been keeping up with the storyline, it was just a fantastic bit of writing. Randox's guest article was everything you'd want as an explanation of how mods work, and Alg's Hilarity Ensues was right up with 'why we can't have nice things'.

 

EDIT: completely unrelated attempt at awesomeness: Hawks

sadface. How does that username magic work? [mouseover popup in posts]

[Thus]

I don't agree with some aspect of Alg's article. In the beginning, there was minimal gambling. People were angry with very confusing changes and no instructions or tutorial on how anything worked. We still don't even know what armor actually does and exact amounts. Next, for the first 3 days Jagex barely posted on the beta forums. I counted: 9 posts. One of which was made by Mod Se7en, which basically said "If you don't like it, quit". There was some constructive criticism, but none of it was responded to or even listened to, such as the spirit shield fiasco and how whip has better dps than chaotics. I mean why even test if you don't think what you do matters? Now Berserker (i) is better than Onyx (i), when they were in completely different classes. Why even bother responding when we know it won't be changed or fixed?

 

There are also continued problems with NPCs and their strengths and weaknesses, which Jagex has yet to fix. Finally, Jagex neglected some healing aspects and specials/abilities, and made some things useless. This was 2 weeks ago, and still little has changed.

 

The legitimate testers have all left. There is no incentive to keep us there. The people who gave constructive criticism are tired of not being heard. And if Jagex doesn't even care is gamblers ruin the beta, what does that say about them caring about their game as a whole? You came late to the party Alg, and are basing your opinions on what you see now.

[Gandorf61]

EDIT: completely unrelated attempt at awesomeness: Hawks

sadface. How does that username magic work? [mouseover popup in posts]

 

Use the member tag:

 

[member='Hawks']

 

@Hawks

 

Enjoyed Randox's article (Now I know where your name originates from!), moderating requires a lot of paperwork and it really is like a legal system, only smaller and less formal.

[Alg]

The legitimate testers have all left. There is no incentive to keep us there. The people who gave constructive criticism are tired of not being heard. And if Jagex doesn't even care is gamblers ruin the beta, what does that say about them caring about their game as a whole? You came late to the party Alg, and are basing your opinions on what you see now.

I wrote it very early in the week, and had to rewrite part because they patched the beta the day after I finished. There was originally a bit about how Jagex failed to address the gambling problem, but at that point it was impossible to tell if it would have lasting effects, so I removed it to be safe. I'm probably giving Jagex more credit than they deserve, especially since the beta had been around for less than a week when it was written. I'm still doing it, because they seem to be giving it weekly updates and fixes. If that changes or doesn't come through, you can bet that my opinion will. I'm not expecting them to finish everything in two weeks.

 

I'm one of the legitimate testers. At that point I was quite upset about not being heard, especially since their beta forums were filled with nothing but rants and pointless posts from people that don't understand what a beta is. It's actually gotten a bit better now - They're working on getting rid of gamblers, they're rebalancing things based on feedback, and so on.

[NukeMarine]

With regard to the first article, one can hope that these "all member weekend betas" give Jagex a list of people that are willing to play test then give those accounts full beta access. Something tells me that along with a full mad scientist outfit, players will get full beta access.

[Spydr_Queen]

RE: Hilarity Ensues article. Very nice article, wonderfully written too. I must say that your comment on the people complaining that they didn't get in was so true. they claim that Jagex's choose the wrong people or they choose unfairly. Also the people in the beta forums whining about not wanting the EoC to be implimented was right on the money. They are the people who complain about every single update and claim that RS is dying cause it lacks content and Jagex doesn't care what its players say or want. And as for the lazy testers who are only gambling and trading useless items, sadly these are the same people who will whine and complain when EoC goes into full effect in Sept. They'll claim that Jagex didn't listen to the Beta Testers and they will whine that RS is dying or dead and they're gonna rage quit over the new system. Jagex can't respond to feedback that doesn't exist!! DO NOT listen to these idiots! I am a Beta Tester, I know they are reading our feedback and making changes. Perhaps they will make certain changes that most of us testers want them to make, perhaps they won't. Either way, I am 90% in love with the new combat system and I will adapt, I am human, that is what humans do, ADAPT!!

 

Edit: To Randox: Awesome article, nice to know where your name comes from too, truly unique one! I love it! About troll victims, I understand the pains you Mods go through when trying to enforce the rules while trying not to anger someone, even though they were egged on by nasty trolls and unfortunately ended up breaking the rules, it has to hurt when you must punish them due to their rule breaking. I hate trolls and while I know most RS players and tip.it forum users are not in my age group, they should still try to ignore these evil people and avoid getting punished due to someone else's nasty behavior. My answer to all trolls is: "You are a troll and deserve no further response from me!" It helps me avoid falling into the trolls traps and thus I avoid punishments from the much vexed Moderators like yourself!

[Kimberly]

Jagex can't respond to feedback that doesn't exist!!

 

It likely doesn't exist because their horrible forum purging mechanics got rid of it. Information released, or feedback given, is so disjointed that if you're not hounding the fansites for these things, they're lost swiftly. That causes the apathetic moods you see in beta testers, like Thus was talking about. I came into the beta with the expectations they would work similar to other betas I've played in the past, or like the testing phases of Minecraft "snapshot" updates before official release - periodic updates to the beta/screenshot itself while keeping in touch with the user base to correct bugs/features. Many of the bugs with equipment are still present in the beta almost a month after opening. (EDIT: Derp, thanks Makoto.) That's kind of off-putting to a very high degree to keep testing and poking around, nevermind the fact that the people playing are already struggling to learn the new system as it is. It's overload to the point of shutting down; and that's not taking into account the previous issue I expanded on.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

Jagex can't respond to feedback that doesn't exist!!

 

It likely doesn't exist because their horrible forum purging mechanics got rid of it. Information released, or feedback given, is so disjointed that if you're not hounding the fansites for these things, they're lost swiftly. That causes the apathetic moods you see in beta testers, like Thus was talking about. I came into the beta with the expectations they would work similar to other betas I've played in the past, or like the testing phases of Minecraft "snapshot" updates before official release - periodic updates to the beta/screenshot itself while keeping in touch with the user base to correct bugs/features. Many of the bugs with equipment are still present in the beta almost a month after opening. That's kind of off-putting to a very high degree to keep testing and poking around, nevermind the fact that the people playing are already struggling to learn the new system as it is. It's overload to the point of shutting down; and that's not taking into account the previous issue I expanded on.

 

...but the beta hasn't been out for a month.

 

In all fairness, and in retrospect, one can argue that Jagex's means of gathering information and feedback from this beta are no different than the RS2 beta. They used that same ol' forum system to get feedback, encourage discussion and report bugs back then, too.

 

I will give you this - there's a lot of stuff that's out there that does need to be tested, and stuff that is known to be broken or imperfect, which makes playing through it a huge drag. But that's just the nature of betas. Given Jagex's release schedule, it'll take them a lot longer to fix content than a smaller, more interactive company (*cough* Mojang *cough*).

[Kimberly]

...but the beta hasn't been out for a month.

 

....Oh derp! For some reason I had it stuck in my head that it came out the 6th of June, but it was the 26th. Yeah, that kind of makes my "criticism" completely retarded off-base. My bad. :/

[Guest jrhairychest]

ALG's article was spot on. It does highlight that the playing community ruins a lot of what it gets. I can't say I'm suprised Beta testing has shown there's a number of issues, moreso with player attitude rather than game faults. I also concur that it's doubtful the player base will get this opportunity again. To be honest, if I were Jagex, I'd stick two fingers up to any further requests for testing in the future.