RuneScape: Old and New

[Ammako]

People would still complain even if it was 2006 runescape. Msb spec too overpowered, Maul spec too overpowered, whip too overpowered, barrows too expensive, graphics too shitty, etc.

 

Since day 1, people have always been complaining about something trivial.

 

People are just too damn nostalgic. Now people are now asking Jagex to bring back restricted trade. Seriously? The update that people literally said and agreed was the worst ever? No one complaining ever remembers the bad when looking at the past. I used to have pity for them, but now I have a hard time understanding how blind, or perhaps stupid, they are.

On the other hand, I can see the bad in the present: Having free trade = very little item sinks = item supply only keeps increasing = prices go down = people complain that Jagex somehow ruined the prices

[Urza285]

I believe something with such longevity and work should not have pale mockeries made of itself. The issue stems from adaption of players and the constant evolution of the game. I don't blame people for being upset because seeing something change due to the newer generations interests puts the older generation at odds.

 

The issue in the end, ultimately, will be if jagex wastes their time updating these 'splinter' servers. My thoughts and a good guesstimate, are that they simply will not update. If they do it might be on rare occasions such as when f2p gets updates or an odd patch. They cannot and almost definitely would not waste dev time on dead ends or for nostalgias sake unless there was potential to make money. The only way I see this occurring would be to generate revenue for the main game and its current interests by forcing current membership mug like RSC had in the past. I could also see certain things such as the old dragon claws costing runecoins or something to that effect (for those pvp servers). Maybe even paying for character resurrection?

[Randox]

On the other side of the field, I am content with Jagex for the moment, since at least one department has made pretty sincere efforts to reform itself to better do it's job. Now, Jagex does have a history of moving it's team leaders around with Dilbert'esque frequency, but at least the changes will have gone through before that happens.

 

The other thing is, with enough interest, they might actually try some of these ideas out, just don't expect to see them until 2014. This year is already done, the resources already allocated. The plannign for '14 should be starting right about now, and will probably get laid out sometime in March and maybe into April. It also depends on what large items are in store. Things on the scale of skills now take at least a couple years work, so if one of those is arriving in 2015, there will be less available for these kinds of ideas now.

[Alphanos]

On the other side of the field, I am content with Jagex for the moment, since at least one department has made pretty sincere efforts to reform itself to better do it's job. Now, Jagex does have a history of moving it's team leaders around with Dilbert'esque frequency, but at least the changes will have gone through before that happens.

 

Just curious, but which department are you referring to?

 

Edit: The more I think about player complaints relating to the Grand Exchange, the more I think that it's primarily a user interface problem. Nobody actually wanted to spend their time spamming what they had for sale or wanted to sell, but the old methods of trading did offer some advantages where the GE falls short:

• Rapidly available information on new prices for shifting items. Both from buyers and sellers.
  
• Discovery of items. I can clearly recall as a new player, one of the things I found helpful about going to Falador park was that I could go there with coins, wanting to buy something that would be useful for my character, but without yet knowing what interesting things I might find for sale.
  

Regarding the second point, some kind of tree and/or tagging based item browsing system should be built. Including filters for price range and level requirements. That way players could search for useful gear for themselves and, even if they didn't previously know the item existed or what it was called, quickly find out whether an upgrade is available for them within their spending limit. Ideally a system like this could even track purchases to let other players know what the most popular buys were in their level range, possibly with basic attempts to prevent low-levelled merchants from gumming up those suggestions.

 

Regarding the first point, I think a lot of frustration with the GE comes from players who are unable to buy one item at market price, or sell another item at market price. They don't know whether this is because the item price has shifted, or if they should just leave the offer in as-is. They then perceive the problems to be caused by merchants. Some of them are, many of them aren't. But I think basically this problem would be solved by making more information available to players if they request it. Let players see a list of current buy and sell offers for that item. Let them see the 10/50 most recent buy/sell prices. Many people's first inclination would be to say that this would only help merchants and increase the problem, but I think the result would be the opposite. If everyone has access to perfect information about the transactions taking place on the GE, then merchanting becomes too easy. The competition will increase for slimmer and slimmer profit margins. Players just trying to buy a piece of armour for use will be able to look at what the merchants are doing and sidestep them, or else decide to take one of many competitive offers of liquidity immediately.

[Urza285]

Inb4 someone else or I decide to recap on the auctioneer style of WoW.

 

Personally I think the whole "staying in the know" for prices is great, but I think jagex should let us see what we are buying versus blindly throwing cash into the GE in hopes we hit a good mark.

[Estoc]

Would be far nicer if players could trust the market price was actually the market price. One update every 24 hours does not nearly cut it.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Would be far nicer if players could trust the market price was actually the market price. One update every 24 hours does not nearly cut it.

An update every 2 hours or a much wider update margin on new items would be a lot better, I'd guess. I remember when summoning was released, most of the raw materials had a 50% margin instead of 5%, which helped especially in the restricted trade era.

[God Of Lego]

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

[Alphanos]

Would be far nicer if players could trust the market price was actually the market price. One update every 24 hours does not nearly cut it.

An update every 2 hours or a much wider update margin on new items would be a lot better, I'd guess. I remember when summoning was released, most of the raw materials had a 50% margin instead of 5%, which helped especially in the restricted trade era.

 

This would drastically increase the effectiveness of merchanting. Prices would regularly rise and fall drastically during a single day, just to gouge people. I think we'd be better off with the "official" market price shifting more slowly, but full visibility into what other buyers/sellers are doing.

 

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

 

Except it would affect the live game and you've just skipped over those arguments. Having new types of servers isn't the effortless task you imagine. I suspect it would take a minimum of 10 dedicated staff to new server types given the way Jagex does things; maybe more. Those staff wouldn't be working on the main game. It's only a net win for Jagex if all of those players would have quit the main game, and if there are enough of them to pay for the dedicated staff and servers... not a sure prospect by any means.

 

There's also another factor to consider. For a long time, player interest has been retained or even re-obtained by regular updates. A 2006-era Runescape would definitely attract a lot of initial players because the change itself would be a novelty. But if there were no more updates to it, there would be no more novelty yet to come. It wouldn't be able to maintain a volume of players as well, especially because most of those eager to try it were already familiar with most of the content and thus would get bored more easily. Even the PvP scene, for example, relies on the player base. If a bunch of players get bored with the lack of updates and leave, then that will make PvP less interesting, resulting in a vicious cycle. Plus there would be no further motivation to draw new incoming players into such an old server, so when the population declined, it'd probably be for good.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Would be far nicer if players could trust the market price was actually the market price. One update every 24 hours does not nearly cut it.

An update every 2 hours or a much wider update margin on new items would be a lot better, I'd guess. I remember when summoning was released, most of the raw materials had a 50% margin instead of 5%, which helped especially in the restricted trade era.

 

This would drastically increase the effectiveness of merchanting. Prices would regularly rise and fall drastically during a single day, just to gouge people. I think we'd be better off with the "official" market price shifting more slowly, but full visibility into what other buyers/sellers are doing.

Hmm yeah, like if the GE database page could be updated to reflect the actual top and bottom transaction prices for the day, as opposed to the upper and lower margins for an item.

 

Forgotten how merciless margins are :\\

[Estoc]

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

 

Not having enough foresight to see the effects beyond the first week of a 2006 server is equally unfortunate. Ask yourself if you would risk a lot of money to bring back obsolete content and try selling it to some of the most fickle people in the whole game, instead of acting like everyone is on a personal crusade to make you unhappy.

 

 

Hmm yeah, like if the GE database page could be updated to reflect the actual top and bottom transaction prices for the day, as opposed to the upper and lower margins for an item.

 

Forgotten how merciless margins are :\\

 

What's stopping them from having minute to minute price changes? I really have no idea and would love someone to explain to me why we don't have something this obvious.

[God Of Lego]

Would be far nicer if players could trust the market price was actually the market price. One update every 24 hours does not nearly cut it.

An update every 2 hours or a much wider update margin on new items would be a lot better, I'd guess. I remember when summoning was released, most of the raw materials had a 50% margin instead of 5%, which helped especially in the restricted trade era.

 

This would drastically increase the effectiveness of merchanting. Prices would regularly rise and fall drastically during a single day, just to gouge people. I think we'd be better off with the "official" market price shifting more slowly, but full visibility into what other buyers/sellers are doing.

Hmm yeah, like if the GE database page could be updated to reflect the actual top and bottom transaction prices for the day, as opposed to the upper and lower margins for an item.

 

Forgotten how merciless margins are :\\

 

 

A walk on the wildside would be to scrap GE prices altogether and have people enter in custom amounts instead of set amounts. Eventually W2 etc would be brought back (but not as intense). But taking away such a thing after so long would cause chaos for a few weeks. I love the GE but old trading was much more community friendly.

[God Of Lego]

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

 

Not having enough foresight to see the effects beyond the first week of a 2006 server is equally unfortunate. Ask yourself if you would risk a lot of money to bring back obsolete content and try selling it to some of the most fickle people in the whole game, instead of acting like everyone is on a personal crusade to make you unhappy.

 

Im sorry, wheres the risk? They have eras of runescape backed up. They dont delete the coding, or graphics. It would be extremely stupid to do so. This is how RS classic is there. All they need to do is set the start up which wont take long at all with their development team (lets be honest they can hold of SoF developers just to set it up)

 

Convert some current servers to RS2006(or what ever gets the most vote) and they dont loose server money.

 

People are way over dramatic about this.

 

As long as they keep the servers open and not closed like they did with RS Classic. They would be fine. More than fine even.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

Maybe I'm wrong about this (since I have no expertise in IT) but I'll post it anyway:

 

Why do people assume Jagex just has "RS06" lying around on some floppy disk inside their top slide? I mean, the decision to keep RSC was made at the time of the migration, thus they had servers with all the code and works already, it was just a matter of maintaining it. From what I understand, Runescape '06 doesn't. Every part of it has been systematically upgraded and I would be extremely surprised that they could just revert a server back to it with a click of a button. That doesn't mean they won't still have all the assets, but I'd assume they'd have to rebuild it fully, which would mean dev-time taken from actual new content to please a few dedicated people, of which I am almost certain over half would leave within a week since it means people can't train stats like they could in the actual year of 2006 (since everyone starts off lvl 1, that means no stack of food, ores, logs, runes etc to depend upon) and that the things that systematically plague the current RS will exist in the '06 server just as well (botting, gambling and [wagon], elitist behaviour).

 

My 2 cents.

 

RSC they likely preserved, since it was running on its own dedicated servers for a few years.

 

RS2...I'd be absolutely floored if they didn't have a version control system, like Git. Here's an example of what a successful implementation of Git would look like - you could then retrieve that older version of RS2. (If it were done properly, all they'd need are the appropriate libraries and dependencies, and it'd run in its checked-out state.)

[God Of Lego]

Maybe I'm wrong about this (since I have no expertise in IT) but I'll post it anyway:

 

Why do people assume Jagex just has "RS06" lying around on some floppy disk inside their top slide? I mean, the decision to keep RSC was made at the time of the migration, thus they had servers with all the code and works already, it was just a matter of maintaining it. From what I understand, Runescape '06 doesn't. Every part of it has been systematically upgraded and I would be extremely surprised that they could just revert a server back to it with a click of a button. That doesn't mean they won't still have all the assets, but I'd assume they'd have to rebuild it fully, which would mean dev-time taken from actual new content to please a few dedicated people, of which I am almost certain over half would leave within a week since it means people can't train stats like they could in the actual year of 2006 (since everyone starts off lvl 1, that means no stack of food, ores, logs, runes etc to depend upon) and that the things that systematically plague the current RS will exist in the '06 server just as well (botting, gambling and [wagon], elitist behaviour).

 

My 2 cents.

 

RSC they likely preserved, since it was running on its own dedicated servers for a few years.

 

RS2...I'd be absolutely floored if they didn't have a version control system, like Git. Here's an example of what a successful implementation of Git would look like - you could then retrieve that older version of RS2. (If it were done properly, all they'd need are the appropriate libraries and dependencies, and it'd run in its checked-out state.)

 

Lets be honest. If the RS2006 project was nearly at beta release. Im pretty sure Jagex would have most if not all stages of RuneScape.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

Lets be honest. If the RS2006 project was nearly at beta release. Im pretty sure Jagex would have most if not all stages of RuneScape.

 

My point was more towards, 'From an IT/Developer standpoint, if the company doesn't have some form of archiving old code, or keeping track of old code, or some way to version their old code, then they've royally screwed up.'

[Estoc]

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

 

Not having enough foresight to see the effects beyond the first week of a 2006 server is equally unfortunate. Ask yourself if you would risk a lot of money to bring back obsolete content and try selling it to some of the most fickle people in the whole game, instead of acting like everyone is on a personal crusade to make you unhappy.

 

Im sorry, wheres the risk? They have eras of runescape backed up. They dont delete the coding, or graphics. It would be extremely stupid to do so. This is how RS classic is there. All they need to do is set the start up which wont take long at all with their development team (lets be honest they can hold of SoF developers just to set it up)

 

Convert some current servers to RS2006(or what ever gets the most vote) and they dont loose server money.

 

People are way over dramatic about this.

 

As long as they keep the servers open and not closed like they did with RS Classic. They would be fine. More than fine even.

 

The risk is that there would be nobody playing long term. People who left after 2006 that would sign up again to play it have moved on in the past 7 years. People that still play Runescape would most likely be paying members already. People might play it, but there would be few who would pay solely to play it I'd imagine.

[God Of Lego]

Honestly, anyone who complains about there being new servers must be retarded from the fact it doesn't effect the live game nor does it effect you. Let people be happy.

 

Not having enough foresight to see the effects beyond the first week of a 2006 server is equally unfortunate. Ask yourself if you would risk a lot of money to bring back obsolete content and try selling it to some of the most fickle people in the whole game, instead of acting like everyone is on a personal crusade to make you unhappy.

 

Im sorry, wheres the risk? They have eras of runescape backed up. They dont delete the coding, or graphics. It would be extremely stupid to do so. This is how RS classic is there. All they need to do is set the start up which wont take long at all with their development team (lets be honest they can hold of SoF developers just to set it up)

 

Convert some current servers to RS2006(or what ever gets the most vote) and they dont loose server money.

 

People are way over dramatic about this.

 

As long as they keep the servers open and not closed like they did with RS Classic. They would be fine. More than fine even.

 

The risk is that there would be nobody playing long term. People who left after 2006 that would sign up again to play it have moved on in the past 7 years. People that still play Runescape would most likely be paying members already. People might play it, but there would be few who would pay solely to play it I'd imagine.

 

If it died after a few years. They can easily reduce servers. They really are not risking anything but a weeks development time (give or take with complications). Personal I would be very excited to start as a noob again. Mining that copper and tin. Getting my first set of armour. Building the economy up. It would be a better adventure than the live game where everythings gone to chaos because of poor development vision and expecially EoC.

 

Near 0 risk. Not really a problem at all.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

The risk is that there would be nobody playing long term. People who left after 2006 that would sign up again to play it have moved on in the past 7 years. People that still play Runescape would most likely be paying members already. People might play it, but there would be few who would pay solely to play it I'd imagine.

 

If it died after a few years. They can easily reduce servers. They really are not risking anything but a weeks development time (give or take with complications). Personal I would be very excited to start as a noob again. Mining that copper and tin. Getting my first set of armour. Building the economy up. It would be a better adventure than the live game where everythings gone to chaos because of poor development vision and expecially EoC.

 

Near 0 risk. Not really a problem at all.

 

Now you're going out there just a little bit.

 

There's a lot of development time involved in reintroducing RS from 2006. Just because you can get it working with the old dependencies doesn't mean that's a good idea. Java 6 is being deprecated in favor of Java 7, so any new development on a Java platform would have to take place in Java 7. And no, they're not 1 to 1 compatible with each other - there are a few gotchas and traps in porting over the code.

 

The way it's phrased to me would be, "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" I'm thinking that, even back in '06, the code base was very complex, and had a lot of parts to it. Porting that over to get it to work with Java 7 to appease a smaller-than-the-majority demographic of nostalgia fans doesn't seem like a viable long term strategy. That code base won't drive their bottom lines forward. If they do elect to move forward, they'd be taking a major risk, since not everyone cares about the nostalgia filter, and the newbies would get fed up/frustrated that the game isn't similar to the one they play.

 

No, there's not 0 risk. The risk approaches something closer to infinity.

[ilovecuttingyews]

If it died after a few years. They can easily reduce servers. They really are not risking anything but a weeks development time (give or take with complications). Personal I would be very excited to start as a noob again. Mining that copper and tin. Getting my first set of armour. Building the economy up. It would be a better adventure than the live game where everythings gone to chaos because of poor development vision and expecially EoC.

Near 0 risk. Not really a problem at all.

People try that all the time, making new accounts to try to relive thier childhoods. It never works. As I've told exactly 9001 people in the FC I frequent, Nostalgia has a wonderful way of tricking us into thinking that the past was better than it was. When given the opportunity to 'relive' the past, most people lose interest quickly as soon as they realize that nostalgia is best left as nostalgia.

[God Of Lego]

The risk is that there would be nobody playing long term. People who left after 2006 that would sign up again to play it have moved on in the past 7 years. People that still play Runescape would most likely be paying members already. People might play it, but there would be few who would pay solely to play it I'd imagine.

 

If it died after a few years. They can easily reduce servers. They really are not risking anything but a weeks development time (give or take with complications). Personal I would be very excited to start as a noob again. Mining that copper and tin. Getting my first set of armour. Building the economy up. It would be a better adventure than the live game where everythings gone to chaos because of poor development vision and expecially EoC.

 

Near 0 risk. Not really a problem at all.

 

Now you're going out there just a little bit.

 

There's a lot of development time involved in reintroducing RS from 2006. Just because you can get it working with the old dependencies doesn't mean that's a good idea. Java 6 is being deprecated in favor of Java 7, so any new development on a Java platform would have to take place in Java 7. And no, they're not 1 to 1 compatible with each other - there are a few gotchas and traps in porting over the code.

 

The way it's phrased to me would be, "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" I'm thinking that, even back in '06, the code base was very complex, and had a lot of parts to it. Porting that over to get it to work with Java 7 to appease a smaller-than-the-majority demographic of nostalgia fans doesn't seem like a viable long term strategy. That code base won't drive their bottom lines forward. If they do elect to move forward, they'd be taking a major risk, since not everyone cares about the nostalgia filter, and the newbies would get fed up/frustrated that the game isn't similar to the one they play.

 

No, there's not 0 risk. The risk approaches something closer to infinity.

 

I would say thats a bit extreme, Because risk on a company would be money. I dont see no money loss in converting servers or using staff working on useless products where mainly are recolored versions of the old ones. Didnt Mod MMG say he wanted to back of Micro Payments ? Maybe this is chance to lay of it a bit so they can focus on setting RS2006 up.

 

They dont hire any new staff, Game development dont clash, And they aint paying for extra servers.

 

Wheres the risk? Lets quote jagex logic again with Mod MMG saying a quote from einstein "Someone who has never made a mistake has not tried something new".

 

An older version of RS could flop, but on the other hand it could go great. Its a meer experiment on their behalf because they will not loose cash on the project if they have any common sense about it. They simply need to boot up old servers like they were back in the day with the upgrade to java 7.

[Hajutze]

 

Yes, that's true. Most people looking for 2006-scape haven't fully thought things through. For example, how many people here remember that fullscreen and variable-resolution modes were only introduced in mid-2008? 2006-scape would be played in a very tiny fixed-size window. People just don't remember it so poorly because large widescreen monitors were much less common then.

Some of us play on the same tiny fixed-size window on the lowest possible graphic configuration just because we hate the "good" "high quality" graphics they offer ...

 

Seriously it's been 4-5 years and I still can't get used to it ...

[God Of Lego]

If it died after a few years. They can easily reduce servers. They really are not risking anything but a weeks development time (give or take with complications). Personal I would be very excited to start as a noob again. Mining that copper and tin. Getting my first set of armour. Building the economy up. It would be a better adventure than the live game where everythings gone to chaos because of poor development vision and expecially EoC.

Near 0 risk. Not really a problem at all.

People try that all the time, making new accounts to try to relive thier childhoods. It never works. As I've told exactly 9001 people in the FC I frequent, Nostalgia has a wonderful way of tricking us into thinking that the past was better than it was. When given the opportunity to 'relive' the past, most people lose interest quickly as soon as they realize that nostalgia is best left as nostalgia.

 

My point was alot more than just nostalgia, The reason such things wont work now in current RS is because of the mess and choas its in. Expecially when everthings handed to you and money comes so easily from simply lighting a log.

 

The game back then was more balenced and much more fun. People dont think to stop and think thats what we like and thats what we want to play. It dont effect you, nor does it effect jagex' money. I dont see a problem in trying it out.

[Fallstar]

I would like a pre-eoc server.

 

As for the people trying to push this off as people complaining after every update, well the EoC was the biggest change to the game since Classic->RS2. Brushing it off as just another wave of complaining is a rather silly thing to do.

I doubt they'll maintain servers that are both post and pre eoc, due to the practical limitations. That doesn't mean I can't want them to, however.

 

Also, this isn't nostalgia. I can remember quite clearly what the game was like 3-4 months ago. And I would prefer that combat system by far to the new system.

 

I think they pushed the beta into the live game when it clearly wasn't ready because they realized that most of the time they were updating the beta due to feedback, they were making the game closer and closer to the live game at the time, and wanted to get it out there before they had to confront the truth that the EoC was a vast waste of resources. I expect the reason 2012 was so full of shit until PoP was because of the EoC.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

I would say thats a bit extreme, Because risk on a company would be money. I dont see no money loss in converting servers or using staff working on useless products where mainly are recolored versions of the old ones. Didnt Mod MMG say he wanted to back of Micro Payments ? Maybe this is chance to lay of it a bit so they can focus on setting RS2006 up.

 

"Useless" is subjective, especially if the future strategy is driving finances and resources in the front door, then it ceases to be useless.

 

They dont hire any new staff, Game development dont clash, And they aint paying for extra servers.

 

No, they derail their current workflow to accommodate this new project. Normal game development would be incredibly strained. They may not have to pay for new servers, but they'd have to have the ability to run both versions of the game, and that could be seen as an administrative nightmare.

 

Wheres the risk? Lets quote jagex logic again with Mod MMG saying a quote from einstein "Someone who has never made a mistake has not tried something new".

 

After six months they realize it was a flop, and they've pissed countless hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the window. That's a problem for a company that had to resort to tactics it swore it'd never do just to make ends meet.

 

An older version of RS could flop, but on the other hand it could go great. Its a meer experiment on their behalf because they will not loose cash on the project if they have any common sense about it. They simply need to boot up old servers like they were back in the day with the upgrade to java 7.

 

:wall:

 

It's not that simple! There's a lot of work involved in porting over that code to Java 7. There's a lot of legwork that needs to be done to ensure that the servers that this is deployed on can handle both versions of the game. There's a whole BUNCH of risk involved if no one ever likes these servers for whatever reason. All for what, a nostalgia filter? That time would be better spent researching what players really want and developing towards that.

 

It's not as simple as pressing a few buttons or clicking a few modals. Trying to revert to the old system could be financial suicide. The risk involved in that project is far too great to consider it "an experiment".