Runescape Dying? [Discussion/Observation]

[Yoko Kurama]

In many ways I wonder if 2014-16 will be a turn around for jagex/rs.

Between rs3 and hopefully html5 upping the game as it were plus (assuming it stays like it is now) the non-bot-riddled status will disseminate via word of mouth and do some work on healing the games rep.

 

Cracking tablets could also offer potential for turn around as if people are playing on tablets there's more chance that people will be playing in front of friends or in public which ought to help "word of mouth" growth more than us all sat in your bedrooms/offices squirreling away at the computer with no-one to see 9/10.

 

Runescape won't ever really be a word-of-mouth game again, not at this stage of its development. Those of us who are here are here because we are creatures of habbit and we were sucked in while we young. In my life, I have been part of many word-of-mouth incidents. But I doubt I will ever be part of that again. How could I be? I am a Maxed player. If any friend of mine joined, it wouldn't be at least several years of dedicated effort on their part before they catched up to me. I can't just do noob stuff with them, that's boring, and you can only do that a few times before it becomes a burden. I could start a new account (as many players do), but that's completely unappealing to me. So what am I supposed to say to them? If you really grind it for several years, then we can do some cool stuff together?

 

Furthermore, in this market it just can't appeal to newer players. This particular MMORPG model is too outdated. It's grinding all the way through, and it's like work. Even the distractions and the minigames which are supposed to be fun are like work, sometimes even more like work than the skills which they are allegedly supposed to distract us from. You just can't advertise it like other games or it has been advertised in the past. How can they? "Come grind with us for years for no apparent purpose! It will be so much fun. You see these monsters, or these balls, well if you click at them for 300 hours, you can be 99, and then do nothing!" That's just not exciting and it can't be covered up. All the other games on consoles, and even fun diversionary games on tablets would give it a tough challenge. Runescape has no instant gratification, and increasingly no delayed gratification either. It's not like a console game where even if you have never played it, you can go to a friend's house with a few other buddies, and they can teach you the mechanics and it's immediately fun, and within an hour or so, you are decent at it. And eventually you get quite good at it, it's instant fun even for newbies, and it's something you can all do. If it's such great fun you might even buy your own. How can do you that with Runescape? One of you plays on the computer woodcutting, while 5 others watch you disinterestedly?

 

In fact, that would be boorish and rude to do: playing a game like Runescape while your friends watch (unless they were immediately interested in it). Because you probably only have 1-2 computers. So what are they supposed to do? Watch you grind for an hour? Even if you try to incite them with some of the few fun things left to do (boss hunting), well that would be dishonest, as it's not something they can do that night or instantly, they'd have to train for a few years before they had the levels and the gear to do it.

 

The only viable target is if they get lots of young players or new players. Runescape, in 2007, had 1M members and 9M free players. Even if you assume that the overwhelming majority of people on f2p were bots, that still leaves a few million real f2p players. What that meant was Jagex could always cycle them to grow p2p or maintain rates, by simply encouraging someone to subscribe, even for a month. But we can't even return to a big influx of new players, because Runescape will never compete in the markets as successfully as it has ever done so in the past, because there are plenty of games that are actually games: they offer relaxing instant gratification. Runecape can't do that for new players in the same way. It's just such a huge game that it would like an insurmountable challenge to new players. I had the good fortune to join this game when it was small, and I grew with the game back in the days before the experience or achievement cape craze, when people really did just play it for fun, so it was not too large or unwieldy for me then.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Just as people played for fun back in the day, new players also have a chance to play through quests, explore dungeons and try out the different skills. No one comes into the game and instantly proclaims "I'm going to get X cape of achievement" because that wouldn't be the kind of thing a new player would go after.

 

There's a good amount of low levelled quests to explore, as well as plenty of low levelled content. Additionally, the "gratification" at lower levels is pretty fast, with some quick levels and a very real feeling of advancement, and the whole fresh experience of a new game can be quite attractive to a casual gamer. I also wouldn't say that new players are only after instant gratification - setting goals and making progress in them can feel just as rewarding.

[Sy_Accursed]

I'd note I wasn't claiming Runescape would be a word-of-mouth driven game again only that being out there on portable devices that can be easily played in a more public context would do more in terms of word-of-mouth advertising. I know I (and many of my friends) have ended up getting games, songs, books, apps etc by seeing/hearing them in passing in a public setting. It just catches your eye and you look it up later.

[Peever]

In many ways I wonder if 2014-16 will be a turn around for jagex/rs.

Between rs3 and hopefully html5 upping the game as it were plus (assuming it stays like it is now) the non-bot-riddled status will disseminate via word of mouth and do some work on healing the games rep.

 

Cracking tablets could also offer potential for turn around as if people are playing on tablets there's more chance that people will be playing in front of friends or in public which ought to help "word of mouth" growth more than us all sat in your bedrooms/offices squirreling away at the computer with no-one to see 9/10.

 

Runescape won't ever really be a word-of-mouth game again, not at this stage of its development. Those of us who are here are here because we are creatures of habbit and we were sucked in while we young. In my life, I have been part of many word-of-mouth incidents. But I doubt I will ever be part of that again. How could I be? I am a Maxed player. If any friend of mine joined, it wouldn't be at least several years of dedicated effort on their part before they catched up to me. I can't just do noob stuff with them, that's boring, and you can only do that a few times before it becomes a burden. I could start a new account (as many players do), but that's completely unappealing to me. So what am I supposed to say to them? If you really grind it for several years, then we can do some cool stuff together?

 

Furthermore, in this market it just can't appeal to newer players. This particular MMORPG model is too outdated. It's grinding all the way through, and it's like work. Even the distractions and the minigames which are supposed to be fun are like work, sometimes even more like work than the skills which they are allegedly supposed to distract us from. You just can't advertise it like other games or it has been advertised in the past. How can they? "Come grind with us for years for no apparent purpose! It will be so much fun. You see these monsters, or these balls, well if you click at them for 300 hours, you can be 99, and then do nothing!" That's just not exciting and it can't be covered up. All the other games on consoles, and even fun diversionary games on tablets would give it a tough challenge. Runescape has no instant gratification, and increasingly no delayed gratification either. It's not like a console game where even if you have never played it, you can go to a friend's house with a few other buddies, and they can teach you the mechanics and it's immediately fun, and within an hour or so, you are decent at it. And eventually you get quite good at it, it's instant fun even for newbies, and it's something you can all do. If it's such great fun you might even buy your own. How can do you that with Runescape? One of you plays on the computer woodcutting, while 5 others watch you disinterestedly?

 

In fact, that would be boorish and rude to do: playing a game like Runescape while your friends watch (unless they were immediately interested in it). Because you probably only have 1-2 computers. So what are they supposed to do? Watch you grind for an hour? Even if you try to incite them with some of the few fun things left to do (boss hunting), well that would be dishonest, as it's not something they can do that night or instantly, they'd have to train for a few years before they had the levels and the gear to do it.

 

The only target is if they get lots of young players or new players. Runescape, in 2007, had 1M members and 9M free players. Even if you assume that the overwhelming majority of people on f2p were bots, that still leaves a few million real f2p players. What that meant was Jagex could always cycle them to grow p2p or maintain rates, by simply encouraging someone to subscribe, even for a month. But we can't even return to a big influx of new players, because Runescape will never compete in the markets as successfully as it had ever had, because there are plenty of games that are actually games: they offer relaxing instant gratification. Runecape can't do that for new players in the same way. It's just a huge game that it would like an insurmountable challenge to new players. I had the good fortune to join this game when it was small, and I grew with the game back in the days before the experience or achievement cape craze, when people really did just play it for fun, so it was not too large or unwieldy for me then.

 

This sums up my thoughts on the game these days.

[Wagen Emp]

If you go to www.google.com/trends and type "runescape" in the search box, it shows a graph of the frequency of people searching runescape on google. You see it peak in 2007 and today it's lower than it has been since it's beginning. The graph might not show the actual popularity of the game but it shows how many people are searching it.

 

My guess of why the game might be declining is that older players eventually grow out of the game as they always have, and newer players are getting turned off because the game is a bit difficult to get the hang of now. The game just looks more jumbled and more confusing than it did when I started playing in 2007. If I were a newcomer to runescape today, I feel like I would get turned off by the jumbled and confusing interface.

 

Tutorial Island was a very simple and clear way to teach new players how to play. I could see why the current tutorial would be a little more confusing to new players.

 

So what do you guys think? Do you think runescape might now be a bit more confusing and unattractive to brand new players?

[Ammako]

People don't Google searches RuneScape because nobody needs to.

[Bxpprod]

Post needed Alexa graphs just to add that little extra punch.

[Lord Slayas]

If I were a newcomer to runescape today, I feel like I would get turned off by the jumbled and confusing interface.

 

Tutorial Island was a very simple and clear way to teach new players how to play. I could see why the current tutorial would be a little more confusing to new players.

 

So what do you guys think? Do you think runescape might now be a bit more confusing and unattractive to brand new players?

 

It is. Every day, non-stop I hear people complaining about how they don't understand the basics of the game, whether its the combat, interface or even just the simple mechanics. When RuneScape was a smaller, simpler game, it could be easily explained in a few short minutes. These days, it so big and complicated that it doesn't work that way and in all honesty, their current tutorials/guides are pretty bad from the viewpoint of a truly new player. We might be able to grasp them, but that's because we've already been playing this game for awhile and can understand the logic. Even for me, some one who has played RuneScape on and off since 2001, EOC took me a few days to fully "get".

 

It doesn't surprise me RuneScape has a hard time retaining new players. If I jumped into a game that was incredibly confusing to me, and I couldn't figure out how to play it, I wouldn't keep going. Who would?

 

It's very hard to make a good tutorial that is both in-depth and easy to understand, and I think the current ones in-game are pretty much proof of that. The only new players who actually seem to know whats going on are the ones who Google what to do, or are lucky enough to find a nice, helpful, high-level player like myself to ask questions (and believe me there's not many like me in f2p who will give newbies the time of day). I really doubt many people trying a game for the first time can be bothered to load up a search engine just to understand the basic mechanics.

[God Of Lego]

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

[Sy_Accursed]

Personally I've not heard new players complaining about not understanding the interfaces or combat all that much; I've only heard that from existing or returning players mostly. The ones who are set in their ways and find it confusing because they are unwilling or unable to completely forget what they knew of the game and look at it as something entirely new to them. Thereby causing them to look at things from a weird perspective that makes things confusing.

[God Of Lego]

Personally I've not heard new players complaining about not understanding the interfaces or combat all that much; I've only heard that from existing or returning players mostly. The ones who are set in their ways and find it confusing because they are unwilling or unable to completely forget what they knew of the game and look at it as something entirely new to them. Thereby causing them to look at things from a weird perspective that makes things confusing.

 

You likely dont hear because the new players stop playing and they experience FTP not members areas.

 

Thats if they stay or not.

[ilovecuttingyews]

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

[God Of Lego]

 

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

 

 

The guy is ignorant, he lets his ideas get the best of him. Even when mass players dislike something he sticks to it. Loosing alot of members due to silly things like that is idiotic as a developer. He builds the game for him, not the consumer. He is out of touch. I love his passion but I hate his way of going about it.

[Yoko Kurama]

 

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

 

 

It may very well be the case that it wasn't Mod Mark's fault and that there is nothing he could have done to prevent this decline; however, this is by no means an obvious point. You need to provide some evidence to support this conclusion. A lot of people were very upset over EoC, many quit the game over it, and many jumped on the Old School bandwagon because of it. Those are certainly things that were directly under his control that have caused much disappointment.

[God Of Lego]

 

 

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

 

 

It may very well be the case that it wasn't Mod Mark's fault and that there is nothing he could have done to prevent this decline; however, this is by no means an obvious point. You need to provide some evidence to support this conclusion. A lot of people were very upset over EoC, many quit the game over it, and many jumped on the Old School bandwagon because of it. Those are certainly things that were directly under his control that have caused much disappointment.

 

Decline was going to happen anyway, but the things Mod Mark lead and did caused it to speed up dramaticly, it damaged company faith, he was trying to hard to prove a point he lost mass members and caused disapointment amoungst millions of members. All while it was clearly in his face that it was not the right thing to do.

 

If I were to hire someone for lead developer, It would not be Mod Mark.

[Aiel]

 

 

 

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

 

 

It may very well be the case that it wasn't Mod Mark's fault and that there is nothing he could have done to prevent this decline; however, this is by no means an obvious point. You need to provide some evidence to support this conclusion. A lot of people were very upset over EoC, many quit the game over it, and many jumped on the Old School bandwagon because of it. Those are certainly things that were directly under his control that have caused much disappointment.

 

Decline was going to happen anyway, but the things Mod Mark lead and did caused it to speed up dramaticly [citation needed], it damaged company faith, he was trying to hard to prove a point he lost mass members and caused disapointment amoungst millions of members. All while it was clearly in his face that it was not the right thing to do.

 

If I were to hire someone for lead developer, It would not be Mod Mark.

ftfy

 

you're blaming EoC being rushed and poorly designed on Mod Mark, rather then a rushed release and unwillingness to start again from scratch, which was more likely MMG's decision.

[God Of Lego]

 

 

 

 

RIP Mod Marks gaming career post Jagex.

I'm curious why you think that. He is the lead developer of one of the most known 'classic' MMOs out there. Sure, some of the updates he has engineered has caused some animosity among older players, but he has done a lot to keep the game a thriving business. Yes, membership numbers are down, but as has been said many times throughout this thread, that's because of a huge host of interconnected reasons and any employer looking even a tiny bit beyond the simple "lost 50% of members over 6 years" will see that the vast majority is not the fault of Marks leadership and rather inevitable decline based on the aforementioned reasons.

 

 

It may very well be the case that it wasn't Mod Mark's fault and that there is nothing he could have done to prevent this decline; however, this is by no means an obvious point. You need to provide some evidence to support this conclusion. A lot of people were very upset over EoC, many quit the game over it, and many jumped on the Old School bandwagon because of it. Those are certainly things that were directly under his control that have caused much disappointment.

 

Decline was going to happen anyway, but the things Mod Mark lead and did caused it to speed up dramaticly [citation needed], it damaged company faith, he was trying to hard to prove a point he lost mass members and caused disapointment amoungst millions of members. All while it was clearly in his face that it was not the right thing to do.

 

If I were to hire someone for lead developer, It would not be Mod Mark.

ftfy

 

you're blaming EoC being rushed and poorly designed on Mod Mark, rather then a rushed release and unwillingness to start again from scratch, which was more likely MMG's decision.

 

Where did I say its based on a rush? Mod Marks problem was he couldn't even admit to himself EoC was a wrong move. He likely pushed a rush as much as MMG did to try be a big man. I doubt MMG has a say in how things are designed as its not his role to develop the actual game. So the unwillingness would either be Mod Mark or in some cases Mod MMG being tight with budgets.

[ilovecuttingyews]

 

Mod Marks problem was he couldn't even admit to himself EoC was a wrong move.

I don't really thing you can say EOC was a wrong move with such certainty as it's entirely based on opinion whether or not you like it. I personally had been calling on Jagex to revamp combat for years so I welcomed EOC. Many people wanted to take combat back to "the old days" so they disliked it. The only ones qualified to say whether EOC was positive or negative would be Jagex, basing their judgement on their own internal data of players coming in, leaving, etc. We simply do not have the means to determine just how much of the decline in the past year has been due to EOC related quitters.

[God Of Lego]

 

 

Mod Marks problem was he couldn't even admit to himself EoC was a wrong move.

I don't really thing you can say EOC was a wrong move with such certainty as it's entirely based on opinion whether or not you like it. I personally had been calling on Jagex to revamp combat for years so I welcomed EOC. Many people wanted to take combat back to "the old days" so they disliked it. The only ones qualified to say whether EOC was positive or negative would be Jagex, basing their judgement on their own internal data of players coming in, leaving, etc. We simply do not have the means to determine just how much of the decline in the past year has been due to EOC related quitters.

 

 

 

It was wrong because it speed up the decline by years. It was wrong because mass people were against it. EoC does not benifit RuneScapes growth. I also welcomed a revamp. But I did not welcome EoC. It was not for RuneScape. As a consumer, I have the right to say whether >I< felt its wrong. Just like if you felt its right. Evidence and figures point towards wrong

[Ginger_Warrior]

What evidence? What figures? You haven't provided any, so far as I can discern from this page.

[Platinum_Myr]

You have a right to say it's wrong. However, I am fairly sure Jagex does market research... While they may have implemented EoC badly in some respects, I do feel that a lot of people dislike it simply because its new and they don't want to learn. Yes, it is not the best implementation of ability based combat (and it needs more abilities that do more interactive things, with a clear-er indication of what is actually happening to both you and your target). But I do feel like it is better than the mindless system we previously had (for people *not* at the pinnacle of combat gameplay) of click and wait. Ofcourse the highest level of play included things like soulsplit flicking, managing familiars and potion timers, as well as lossless picking up loot, etc. Some of those things are not important or effective now. However, the highest level of gameplay is not the only level.

[ilovecuttingyews]

So far as I can tell we only have 2 solid data points. 1m subscribers in 2007 and 575k today. But even those data points are flawed because they fail to describe how many of those are bots. The number of bots has fluctuated wildly for the better part of the games existence and, since jagex really has never given their own internal numbers, we're forced to guess how much of the decline is bot based. Then we're forced to guess what the "background rate of decline" is (jagex has confirmed that there was a noticeable slow and steady decline from 2008-2012).

Essentially, there is far too much suggestive guessing to say whether or not the EOC was a major source of decline.

[God Of Lego]

Figures:

 

Active Players Drop and Player Online Drop

Membership Drop

1/3 to 1/4 Being OSRS

 

-

 

ALL decreasing, Thats a bad thing. Speed up by EoC (key word, speed)

 

As for the comment about it being implimented badly, yeah I agree. But they should of changed the core of the system as well as tweaks. Maybe it would be more welcomed then due to the fact players actually built it.

 

Also, if you call ruining, PVP based mini games and PVP its self, destroying players hard work on pures and special accounts, Degrading all weapons and armours unique abilities and reasons of use. Putting most quest rewards useless. And choosing to impliment a system where the best method is use the weakness and spam keys a good choice then if you ever have a game company, hire Mark.

 

-

 

The bots are also a key figure depending how you decide to look at it. The fact people dont even care for botting anymore shows the decline in market for the game. EoC only threw off bots tempory due to the nature of the update.

[Ginger_Warrior]

There are weaknesses in EoC, no-one's really disputing that (although, I'd personally argue a caveat that there were even greater weaknesses in the pre-EoC model).

 

What we are disputing is the way you've put the cart in front of the horse when it comes to figures. You've taken two data points across time, drawn a line of averages, found a negative correlation and assumed EoC must have caused it, simply because EoC just happened to take place between those two points. That's circumstantial at the very best, totally insignificant at the very worst.

 

Botting activity is related to player demand, true, but it's an indirect relationship complicated by accompanying factors. That too cannot be used as a yardstick for measuring player attitudes towards EoC. There's nothing to stop me playing Devil's Advocate, and arguing that botting activity would have fallen anyway due to financial factors (for example).

[ilovecuttingyews]

The bots are also a key figure depending how you decide to look at it. The fact people dont even care for botting anymore shows the decline in market for the game. EoC only threw off bots tempory due to the nature of the update.

Bot numbers are down because:

- Massive redistribution of wealth to the top few players through gambling facilitated the need to redistribute that wealth back to the masses. This drove many goldfarming operations to switch from producing and selling gold to becoming gold resellers. Thus, less need for bots.

- Botwatch. If you take a look at botting forums, it's packed with people wanting to bot. It's also packed with people being banned for botting. Many people on a certain bot site now assume the bot client is detectable by Jagex simply because of the astonishing ban rates since botwatch was fully rolled out.

- The EOC actually did nothing to bots because bot developers were in the Beta.

 

Figures:

Active Players Drop and Player Online Drop

Membership Drop

1/3 to 1/4 Being OSRS

-

ALL decreasing, Thats a bad thing. Speed up by EoC (key word, speed)

Yes, no one is debating the fact that active players are lowering (and thus membership and online follows). We know this. Jagex knows this. But you can not claim that it was sped up by EOC without relevant data. That's my entire argument here - that you are drawing conclusions based on at best circumstantial evidence, and at worst no evidence at all.

 

As a consumer, I have the right to say whether >I< felt its wrong.

True, but my problem is when you start saying things like:

Mod Marks problem was he couldn't even admit to himself EoC was a wrong move.

which is essentially claiming that your opinion is the correct one.