Runescape and the future.

[Paddeeh]

I'm just going to come out and say this, before we even get started, for those who want to know what's going on with reading :words:. I think Runescape should sell GP.

 

This statement seems relatively (understatement of the decade) controversial within the Runescape community. A few years ago, I would have thought the same, why should someone be able to buy their way to all 99's with real life money?

 

Well, after a lot of thinking (and playing another MMO for a while), I decided that, while it's fair to say that it is unfair for people to be able to buy their way to 99's (I believe the term level playing field would be appropriate), I think its equally unfair that a large portion of the Runescape player base can not commit the time that Jagex demands we pour into the game to be the best. If you want to play the game at its highest level and play at a competitive and enjoyable level (with end-game content) you have to spend months training skills.

 

I, as I am sure many others are too, am in an akward situation of being a Runescape player with almost no spare time to play the game. I work 70 hour weeks and in my spare time I enjoy playing RS. I am slowly, but surely, falling back from my friends due the little time I have to play the game.

 

I realise this is not Jagex's fault, or indeed yours, but I feel like I would benefit greatly from the ability to legally buy GP.

 

SoF is not a solution, it's gambling, I could put £x into SoF spins and recieve 200M or 1k.

 

I can even suggest a route to take that would help make the prospect of buying + selling GP attractive to both sides.

 

- Introduce a mechanic on Runescape homepage for players to sell GTC codes safely and securely (Simple to manufacture and use but don't want to bore with a detailed description). (The same GTC's that are available in store now)

 

- Players can freely buy or sell these codes for GP only.

 

This way, players like me can speed up training by spending some of my disposable income on Runescape GP safely and legally, and players who have lots of GP can effectively play for free. Doesn't affect Jagex's profits in any way as all the GTCs used are still bought from them, just the person using it changes.

 

I realise so many of you are against RWT, but I wanted to make my opinion clear and hear yours.

 

Thanks.

[Jonanananas]

Great idea. Let the bot market bloom by radically largening the player base willing to buy gold. That's the first issue.

 

As for the original argument, I understand where you are coming from but I disagree. First of all it doesn't make things fairer. The big winners are those with time AND money, middle grounds are those with time OR money and the losers are those with neither.

 

If you want to be the best, pour in the time. If you do not have that time, don't try being the best (Like e.g I am doing) or look for another game.

[Den]

If I want to become the best at League of Legends, I can't spend rl cash to become good. If I want to be a top athlete, I can't use shortcuts as many if not most, are illegal. Why should I be able to do it here?

 

Just because cheat mode is possible to implement, doesn't mean it should be activated.

 

Buying spins is bad enough, there's no need for a coin shop.

[Omali]

As far as selling gold goes, this has been the most successful way to undermine the gold farmers. It worked in Eve Online and it is working in TERA.

[Ashoke]

No.

[Kaur]

Directly selling gp would be horrible to the economy. There is already too much gp floating around.

 

How about a real money auction house (Diablo 3 style)?

You could buy and sell your RuneScape items and gp for real $$$ and give Jagex 5% of the profit.

 

pros:

*stop people getting scammed/hacked by rwt websites by giving them a legal and safe way to do it.

*get rid of million ad bots trying to sell their gold.

*make tons of money for Jagex!

*rich players could pay for their membership using gp.

*rich(irl) people could buy all the gold they desire. People WILL buy gold anyway, no matter what, there is no stopping it. Might as well make it legal.

 

cons:

*would encourage botting even more. But what the hell, there already are bots [bleep]ing everywhere. Optimus maybe?

*pay to win (yeah like it's not possible right now)

[Arceus]

What are you going to do once you buy some RS gold and get that 99 skill or other achievement? There are already thousands of people running around showing it off as it is, and imagine how many more there will be should such a system be implemented. You may well find that it was not worth it.

[Sy_Accursed]

I don't think the time argument holds up at all.

 

If you do not have the time for something you shouldn't be able to shortcut the achievment. I mean you don;t think ah man Assasins Creed 3 looks awesome, but I don;t really have time for the xbox I know I'll pay £30 extra to get the achievements/trophies auto unlocked and all the missions beat.

 

It comes down the basic principle: If you don't want to play the game don't play it. Rs isn't all about end-game content like say WoW is where you kinda want to be right on that end game to be able to pretty much any of the good stuff. Rs the game is the journey with new things to do at various stages (yes some things are not perfectly balanced and there are some gaps in skills, but generally speaking it works)

[Paddeeh]

Great idea. Let the bot market bloom by radically largening the player base willing to buy gold. That's the first issue.

 

As for the original argument, I understand where you are coming from but I disagree. First of all it doesn't make things fairer. The big winners are those with time AND money, middle grounds are those with time OR money and the losers are those with neither.

 

If you want to be the best, pour in the time. If you do not have that time, don't try being the best (Like e.g I am doing) or look for another game.

 

How would this increase botting? As shown by EVE Online (who use this exact same system), it eliminates botting as there is a safe and legal method for buying in-game currency. Even though bots in EVE Online offer in-game currency at ~25% less than the rate available legally, very few people see the benefit as they risk getting their accounts banned to save a small amount of money.

 

I do see where you are coming from in point 2, and you are correct. In any given situation their will be winners and losers, I am merely offering another solution that helps players with little time.

 

 

If I want to become the best at League of Legends, I can't spend rl cash to become good. If I want to be a top athlete, I can't use shortcuts as many if not most, are illegal. Why should I be able to do it here?

 

Just because cheat mode is possible to implement, doesn't mean it should be activated.

 

Buying spins is bad enough, there's no need for a coin shop.

 

There are just as many games that offer micro-transactions as those that don't, so I don't really see you point regarding LoL. Comparing real-life athletics to an online game is, frankly, useless. They are too drastically different.

 

As far as selling gold goes, this has been the most successful way to undermine the gold farmers. It worked in Eve Online and it is working in TERA.

 

Yep, played EVE for a number of years and it works very well, as long as it doesn't inject cash into the economy, which this (and EVE's) system do, it keeps the balance.

 

No.

 

Okay :)

 

Directly selling gp would be horrible to the economy. There is already too much gp floating around.

 

How about a real money auction house (Diablo 3 style)?

You could buy and sell your RuneScape items and gp for real $$$ and give Jagex 5% of the profit.

 

pros:

*stop people getting scammed/hacked by rwt websites by giving them a legal and safe way to do it.

*get rid of million ad bots trying to sell their gold.

*make tons of money for Jagex!

*rich players could pay for their membership using gp.

*rich(irl) people could buy all the gold they desire. People WILL buy gold anyway, no matter what, there is no stopping it. Might as well make it legal.

 

cons:

*would encourage botting even more. But what the hell, there already are bots [bleep]ing everywhere. Optimus maybe?

*pay to win (yeah like it's not possible right now)

 

The benefit of the system mentioned in the OP is there is no cash injection, the cash already exists in the system. I agree that a simple coin store that creates gold from nowhere into your account would be bad for business, but as long as the same amount of GP stays in the system, just in other players hands, then it would have no effect on the balance of said system.

 

RL Auction House could work, have D3, not played it yet though, so no comment can be made on this system!

 

What are you going to do once you buy some RS gold and get that 99 skill or other achievement? There are already thousands of people running around showing it off as it is, and imagine how many more there will be should such a system be implemented. You may well find that it was not worth it.

 

I don't mean this in a nasty or condescending way, but does it really matter? If I get personal satisfaction from having 99 Herblore, then that should be my satisfaction, and not ruin anyone else's gameplay or day.

 

I don't think the time argument holds up at all.

 

If you do not have the time for something you shouldn't be able to shortcut the achievment. I mean you don;t think ah man Assasins Creed 3 looks awesome, but I don;t really have time for the xbox I know I'll pay £30 extra to get the achievements/trophies auto unlocked and all the missions beat.

 

It comes down the basic principle: If you don't want to play the game don't play it. Rs isn't all about end-game content like say WoW is where you kinda want to be right on that end game to be able to pretty much any of the good stuff. Rs the game is the journey with new things to do at various stages (yes some things are not perfectly balanced and there are some gaps in skills, but generally speaking it works)

 

RS isn't about any one thing, that, in my opinion, is the beauty of it. Therefore your comparison with AC3 is incorrect. AC3 is all about getting achievements and beating the missions, so paying to complete the game, rightly so, seems worthless. I would disagree with RS not being about end-game content. I think the large majority of active players are constantly looking for more end game content. The thing that sets RS and WoW apart is this journey you speak of. The basic skeleton is the same though.

[Ammako]

Let anyone buy gold = gold enters the game directly = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold [...]

 

Need I say more?

[PRAYERBEAST]

if there was a way to do it without spawning the gp and it comes from players then sure i wouldn't mind.

[Ambler]

We've already seen what happens when trillions are injected into the economy. Look at the beta, if there wasn't free items, and duping wasn't there, every item worth having (e.g barrows or higher) would cost bilions of coins. Just no. Too many disadvantages to even bother. If it does happen, then [bleep].

Not even going to go into rares.

[Paddeeh]

Let anyone buy gold = gold enters the game directly = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold = massive inflation on everything = impossible to buy anything without buying more gold [...]

 

"Gold enters the game directly"

 

No it doesn't, the exact same amount of gold stays in the game, it just moves from player to player. Say the entire balance of RS is 5T GP, by introducing the mechanic discussed in OP and subsequent posts, the entire balance of RS would stay at 5T, regardless of how much GP players buy as they are buying the GP from each other, not from a Jagex "store".

 

if there was a way to do it without spawning the gp and it comes from players then sure i wouldn't mind.

 

Yeah, thats the only way I would see it working, as any other way introduces massive economy changes.

[Paddeeh]

We've already seen what happens when trillions are injected into the economy. Look at the beta, if there wasn't free items, and duping wasn't there, every item worth having (e.g barrows or higher) would cost bilions of coins. Just no. Too many disadvantages to even bother. If it does happen, then [bleep].

Not even going to go into rares.

 

As stated, no money would be injected into the economy, like, at all. All the money would transfer from player to player, not spawned from nothing.

 

As said I disagree with the idea of buying GP from a store, but being able to sell game time to other players, that is what I am suggesting.

[Th e Doctor]

I'm against buying gp but for the sake argument...

 

What if players could sell their own gp to Jagex for x amount of money per gp. Jagex would then sell only that gp for 1.25x to players willing to buy it. No new gp comes into the game, bots are undermined, Jagex makes cash to expand the game more, players with disposable income can buy their gp, players who have tons of gp get some real compensation for their time. Everybody wins?

[Lord Paul]

Moved to RS suggestions. :)

 

SOF is bad enough.. yes you might win 200m or 1k, but few people are being spins for the gp. It's all about the xp! :P

RS does not need this currently if ever.

[Ammako]

Yeah, and then all the richer players hoard all of the game's supply in gold pieces.

[Zooey C. Deschanel]

NO WAY coin inflation much?

[Den]

If I want to become the best at League of Legends, I can't spend rl cash to become good. If I want to be a top athlete, I can't use shortcuts as many if not most, are illegal. Why should I be able to do it here?

 

Just because cheat mode is possible to implement, doesn't mean it should be activated.

 

Buying spins is bad enough, there's no need for a coin shop.

There are just as many games that offer micro-transactions as those that don't, so I don't really see you point regarding LoL. Comparing real-life athletics to an online game is, frankly, useless. They are too drastically different.

LoL offers microtransactions in the form of skins and unlockable characters. A cosmetic change. It doesn't offer game benefits aside from not having to grind to unlock new champions. Selling coins here would in a sense be the same as selling summoner experience in LoL. In both LoL and RS you have to spend time to become good / professional. Why is comparing gaming to real-life athletics drastically different? Both require time and work. Gaming itself is or has become a sport, so I don't see how comparing the two is as different as you make it out to be.

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have such a large amount of membership from promotional items that I wouldn't consider giving gp to get more membership. Would make more sense for people who have a lot to sell it for a direct profit (not that I condone such behavior).

[abellus]

Putting the flamboyant arguments aside, here's why this really wouldn't work:

 

Jagex sells GP at 1M gp per 3 USD. Gold farmers respond by selling GP at 1M per 2.5 USD. Seeing that players are no longer purchasing their gold, Jagex lowers the price to 1M gp per 2 USD. Gold farmers respond again by lowering their price to 1M per 1.5 USD. Jagex, again aware that their GP sales have stopped, sells 1M gp at the cheap price of 1 USD. Gold farmers again respond with another price slash: 50 cents per 1M gp. Jagex goes to 40 cents. Them, 30 cents. Jagex, 25 cents. Them, 20 cents. Jagex, 19 cents. Them, 18 cents.

 

Jagex is a first world company. They have first world wages. Gold farmers are based in third world countries. They have third world wages. Inevitably, the gold farmers will always find a cheaper price because they are able to pay their employees so little. This causes a vicious price war among these two institutions, until the price for GP becomes so low that not even the most stubborn veteran can't resist purchasing GP, it being sold at such a low price (regardless of the source of the GP).

 

With so many players purchasing GP, inflation would come into play. The value of the GP would drop dramatically, putting more pressure on both Jagex and outside Gold farmers to lower their price for GP even more. A vicious cycle would ensue, where the more GP the player base purchases, the lower the price of GP becomes, the more GP the player base purchases, the lower the price of GP becomes, etc.

[Th e Doctor]

Putting the flamboyant arguments aside, here's why this really wouldn't work:

 

Jagex sells GP at 1M gp per 3 USD. Gold farmers respond by selling GP at 1M per 2.5 USD. Seeing that players are no longer purchasing their gold, Jagex lowers the price to 1M gp per 2 USD. Gold farmers respond again by lowering their price to 1M per 1.5 USD. Jagex, again aware that their GP sales have stopped, sells 1M gp at the cheap price of 1 USD. Gold farmers again respond with another price slash: 50 cents per 1M gp. Jagex goes to 40 cents. Them, 30 cents. Jagex, 25 cents. Them, 20 cents. Jagex, 19 cents. Them, 18 cents.

 

Jagex is a first world company. They have first world wages. Gold farmers are based in third world countries. They have third world wages. Inevitably, the gold farmers will always find a cheaper price because they are able to pay their employees so little. This causes a vicious price war among these two institutions, until the price for GP becomes so low that not even the most stubborn veteran can't resist purchasing GP, it being sold at such a low price (regardless of the source of the GP).

 

With so many players purchasing GP, inflation would come into play. The value of the GP would drop dramatically, putting more pressure on both Jagex and outside Gold farmers to lower their price for GP even more. A vicious cycle would ensue, where the more GP the player base purchases, the lower the price of GP becomes, the more GP the player base purchases, the lower the price of GP becomes, etc.

 

Wouldn't happen.

[stonewall337]

Buying gold legally will never work well in Runescape as the game currently is.

 

 

No Bind on equip items. Once an item enters the game, it almost never leaves.

 

Most of the best items for overall use are buyable with gold. This isn't WOW where you have to earn valor to buy some gear, or gear is limited to people in the raid.

 

Also, its way too easy to bot in RS on throwaway accounts.

 

Gold doesn't leave the game fast enough. There are very few good cash sinks. The best is probably barrows gloves I'd imagine.

[ShadyAntics]

I'm not trying to come across as harsh here, but if you don't have the time to play it to get the skills/achievements you require, then either lower your expectations, or stop playing. Making GP purchasable makes those once difficult to achieve goals pretty much useless in the sense that they'd be ridiculously easy to purchase the items required, would you really feel you'd achieved something great if you went out to purchase it without working for it?

 

In theory you could literally go and lay out all the money you need for every possible 'buyable' 99, yes this would cut away some of the time required to get further in the game, but you would still HAVE to set aside a large amount of time to train those skills to advance to where you want to be.

 

You could compare it to AC3, but in the way that you could buy all the armour and weapon/health upgrades at the start, the game would be far too easy.

 

IMO, this would make the game far too easy and no longer a challenge, if they did ever implement it, I wouldn't play any more.

[Grim Nasty]

This topic really got me thinking...

 

While I personally would quit should the ability to purchase become available (as opposed to 'earn' gp), I have to wonder if Jagex wouldn't have an easier legal fight with anyone else who sells rs gold for real money... This changes the dimension totally as currently 'bots' are not stealing anything directly from Jagex. However, as soon as Jagex starts to sell its gaming currency for real money, this would instantly criminalize the actions of others selling rs money for profits. These money-sellers are actually stealing Jagex profits then.

 

 

 

An interesting topic...the hardest war Jagex has had is around trying to prove how much damage these botting companies have done to the game.

[Watkins19921]

This topic really got me thinking...

 

While I personally would quit should the ability to purchase become available (as opposed to 'earn' gp), I have to wonder if Jagex wouldn't have an easier legal fight with anyone else who sells rs gold for real money... This changes the dimension totally as currently 'bots' are not stealing anything directly from Jagex. However, as soon as Jagex starts to sell its gaming currency for real money, this would instantly criminalize the actions of others selling rs money for profits. These money-sellers are actually stealing Jagex profits then.

 

 

 

An interesting topic...the hardest war Jagex has had is around trying to prove how much damage these botting companies have done to the game.

 

I'm fairly certain that Jagex already looks at gold farmers in that way.

 

Since you brought up the legality of it, it also had me thinking. Jagex, in the past, has been anti-bot/anti-rwt, and were quite serious about it as well, going as far as bringing bot developers, gold farming websites, even players into a court of law. In fact, I recall quite faintly not too long ago about these people that have had to pay jagex quite a princely sum of money because of their botting activities. Granted, botting is completely different than rwt/gold farming but they are easily interchangable, and a lot of people used botting to gather GP. If Jagex themselves started to sell GP, what exactly would that do in regards to any of their lawsuits and other legal actions, both current and past? I have a very, VERY basic understanding of the issue and of course I know little about the law in this regard, but I think it would be quite an interesting conundrum Jagex would get themselves into.

 

Also, as others have said, Jagex selling GP directly would absolutely DESTROY the Runescape economy. Not just because Jagex would get themselves into a pricing war with gold sellers, but because the huge influx of money just being injected into the game would be catastrophic. There is few money sinks in the game that actually remove GP at a good rate as it is, so Jagex just forcing money into the game would be well, you know. Remember 26/76k'ing? that itself caused a number of high level, expensive items to just absolutely tank in their prices. Jagex selling gold would basically be 76k'ing, times 10.