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10/29/13 - RuneScape Close To Eradicating Gold Farming


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Tuesday 29th October 2013, Cambridge, UK - Jagex has announced that the recent introduction of Bonds into RuneScape has resulted in the near total eradication of the prohibited practice in the game. Since Bonds launched on 26th September, the amount of wealth injected by illegal gold farmers into the free-to-play MMORPG has plummeted by 81 percent.

"Dishonest gold farming has had a detrimental effect on the online gaming space since its inception, and Jagex has worked tirelessly to limit the scope and consequence this activity has had on RuneScape over many years," said Riaan Hodgson, Chief Operations Officer at Jagex.

Hodgson continued, "While we anticipated that the launch of Bonds would impact the flow of illegal wealth into the game, we are thrilled the initiative has resulted in such a strong and immediate impact. This action lays the foundations for RuneScape to continue going from strength to strength in its second successful decade!"

In addition to dramatically reducing levels of gold farming, RuneScape Bonds also form the backbone of Jagex's 'Pay-through-Play' initiative. Players can purchase and use Bonds to access premium membership content, exchange them with other community members for in-game items and wealth, or gift them to friends anywhere in the world.

"We've had a great response from the community since Bonds launched, and we are pleased to see the new features have had an immediate impact on the game," said Phil Mansell, Executive Producer of RuneScape. "As well as seriously undermining gold farmers, Bonds open up exciting benefits for players, such as RuneScape membership, via 'Pay-through-Play'."

Mansell continued, "The passionate RuneScape community hasn't wasted time in sharing with us how Bonds are helping them and their friends, whether through their selfless gifting of purchased Bonds to help others access premium membership content for the very first time, obtain in-game equipment or even gain admission to next month's RuneFest 3 event."

 

Jagex is circulating a press release today stating that the amount of gold being injected into the game by gold farmers has dropped 81% since bonds were introduced.

 

https://www.develop-online.net/press-releases/runescape-close-to-eradicating-gold-farming/0185146

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Where was your source for this, again?

I have access to all of Jagex's press releases. 

I find this way beyond extremely hard to believe... Like as if this was a bad joke at Halloween... Link to Source Article, please? :geek:

 

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Where was your source for this, again?

I have access to all of Jagex's press releases.

 

I find this way beyond extremely hard to believe... Like as if this was a bad joke at Halloween... Link to Source Article, please? :geek:

 

~Mr. D. V. "No Link?  No Proof, and therefore Unbelievable!" Devnull

 

You missed the joke :P

 

How hard is it to just take the title of this thread and run it through Google anyway

 

https://www.develop-online.net/press-releases/runescape-close-to-eradicating-gold-farming/0185146

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Where was your source for this, again?

I have access to all of Jagex's press releases. 

I find this way beyond extremely hard to believe... Like as if this was a bad joke at Halloween... Link to Source Article, please? :geek:

 

~Mr. D. V. "No Link?  No Proof, and therefore Unbelievable!" Devnull

 

 

Why is it hard to believe that someone who runs an MMO website would be on the press list for an MMO developer? There is no source article, what I posted is a direct copy and paste of the press release that was sent out at about 10am (eastern) this morning.

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I call bullshit

 

"We've had a great response from the community since Bonds launched" yeah concidering members have droped to 472k

We've gone over this in another thread but you can't judge an updates popularity on member numbers unless you can quantify all other variables, which no one but jagex can do. For all we know the lost members are all goldfarmers. Or it could be pissed off players quitting based on the update. We just don't know at all.
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I call bullshit

 

"We've had a great response from the community since Bonds launched" yeah concidering members have droped to 472k

We've gone over this in another thread but you can't judge an updates popularity on member numbers unless you can quantify all other variables, which no one but jagex can do. For all we know the lost members are all goldfarmers. Or it could be pissed off players quitting based on the update. We just don't know at all.

 

I wont believe jagex's stats until they show us how they got them. Just because its in black and white doesn't make it fact.

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I like how these press release never seem to have names of we as the fanbase remotely recognise.

 

Also at the quote of 'won't believe until shown how they got them' on stats - Definitely I'd agree. The beauty of statistics is in the fact you can take 1 data set and 'prove' pretty much any conclusion you like with 'overwhelming' evidence or clever language quirks.

 

These days such statistical wizardy just makes me thing of the uk governments 'created 1 million private sector jobs' claim. Of course in terms of factual stats it works out, they have indeed created 1 million private sector jobs. It is a statistical fact that looks very good; just as the oppositions 'lose of 1 million public sector jobs' claims statistically pan out and obviously looks bad.

Yet of course the reality is all that actually happened was a reclassification of certain jobs thereby moving them from public sector to the private sector, so really both statistical facts amount to nothing really happening in terms of the overall number of jobs existing.

 

I could easily imagine Jagex's original figures including a number of secondary and tertiary users in the 'gold farmers' problem, whilst the new stats probably exclude those users as having no control over having received such gold, especially if they are being 'good' and paying for bonds.

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Looking at various gold sites.. Even the unpopular ones.. Gold prices haven't changed even by a penny since the release of Bonds. Hoookay that Jagex. They're sure struggling, alright.

 

Yep. Why should they? Jagex is charging close to double their prices for "legit gold" so there is really no competition. Sure, there are people will buy the bonds because they are afraid of dealing with a third party (either risk of ban/CC fraud/malware, etc) but the people who were buying gold from farmers before Bonds won't stop after bonds. Again, why should they? Buying from farmers is a much better deal, as long as you have the confidence they aren't going to scam you IRL.

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Looking at various gold sites.. Even the unpopular ones.. Gold prices haven't changed even by a penny since the release of Bonds. Hoookay that Jagex. They're sure struggling, alright.

 

I'm not sure why that would necessarily matter. They've still been beating the bond price for gold since the day that bonds came out right? So anyone who didn't care about it being against the rules and any risk of ban would already be buying from them. The incentive to buy from them is already there, I don't see any reason for them to drop their prices. The only reason people would buy bonds over the goldsellers gp right now is due to something they cannot provide, no risk of being banned for it. Lowering their prices doesn't fix that so why would they bother?

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Looking at various gold sites.. Even the unpopular ones.. Gold prices haven't changed even by a penny since the release of Bonds. Hoookay that Jagex. They're sure struggling, alright.

 

Yep. Why should they? Jagex is charging close to double their prices for "legit gold" so there is really no competition. Sure, there are people will buy the bonds because they are afraid of dealing with a third party (either risk of ban/CC fraud/malware, etc) but the people who were buying gold from farmers before Bonds won't stop after bonds. Again, why should they? Buying from farmers is a much better deal, as long as you have the confidence they aren't going to scam you IRL.

 

 

I'm not so sure that the buyers from before Bonds won't switch over to Bonds. Yes, they were willing to risk their accounts when the option was buy gold illegally or don't buy gold. They may however be willing to pay more for the added security when they have that option however, so its not quite as black and white as they risked their account before so they'll keep risking it.

R.I.P. The olde nite. A legend is gone but not forgotten.

 

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Well, with the release of Bonds, Jagex expected the price of third-party RWT to rise. According to them, the RWT companies were going to struggle with loss of income and raise their gold prices to make up for it, therefore adding their own final nail to their coffin.

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Well, with the release of Bonds, Jagex expected the price of third-party RWT to rise. According to them, the RWT companies were going to struggle with loss of income and raise their gold prices to make up for it, therefore adding their own final nail to their coffin.

They would lower prices to make breaking the rules more beneficial

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I'm not so sure.

 

By lowering prices they'd appeal to more people but there's no guaranteed sale. They can raise their prices to anything < Bond cost and they'll still be favored by people who've RWTed using third-parties in the past. I think as it sits, Jagex is $0.83/M. Sites I know of are as low as $0.32/M (some slightly lower). They don't need to lower their prices more to be more appealing; they're already less then half the cost. So at this point, raising gold prices would be beneficial for them, since if I were to RWT and be stuck between a Bond and third-party, it's already an easy choice.

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Nice statistic jagex.

 

Next I would like to hear how they plan to remove people that sell gold at a higher price than those they buy it from. You know... The actual problem with 'non' rule abiding rwt?

 

I like how I am a Muppet for paying rl money for membership through jagex when I can technically get it cheaper through a third party.

 

The only good thing I see with this whole bond thing is jagex beginning to make non official rwt more risky. (Atleast /some risk/ right?) They got their version. They tapped into that money source. Now they need to start ban hammering the non official methods for rwt. Make people fear rwt through anyone besides jagex official methods.

 

Thats the only point I see in any of this... It doesnt dent non official rwt in the slightest... Thats just common sense it cannot work. People buy.. and sell.. This cannot ever stop that regardless of the price of bonds. Focusing on farmers is just tunnel vision at best. Their PR is treating us like idiots.

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I'm not so sure.

 

By lowering prices they'd appeal to more people but there's no guaranteed sale. They can raise their prices to anything < Bond cost and they'll still be favored by people who've RWTed using third-parties in the past. I think as it sits, Jagex is $0.83/M. Sites I know of are as low as $0.32/M (some slightly lower). They don't need to lower their prices more to be more appealing; they're already less then half the cost. So at this point, raising gold prices would be beneficial for them, since if I were to RWT and be stuck between a Bond and third-party, it's already an easy choice.

Bonds seem to be hovering around 7m (so you are getting roughly 1.4m/dollar), so assuming my math is right that's .73 cents per mil. But, you're still correct in that it's less than half the cost :s

 

Now, before you read my suggestions, I am aware that I am advocating RWT. My logic is that half-assed RWT accomplishes nothing-- if they are going to bother, they need to go all-in.

 

For Bonds to truly be competitive, they need to increase the benefits that you get from them so that it increases the demand. For example, many micro-based games sell items in their "game stores" that provide temporary convenience-based effects. Create NPCs that will trade you items that give a large amount (at least a few hundred thousand) bonus exp in exchange for Bonds. Another thing that could be traded for Bonds is temporary buffs; some of these might include +20 mining or fishing for an hour, or a buff that protects all of your items upon death for an hour (if you have high div, the time on this buff would be greatly extended).

 

Also, increase the amount of spins/runecoins you receive from bonds to 10 and 200, respectively, so that they are equivalent to the $4.99 package on the website.

 

Obviously, these are just basic ideas-- you get the point though. Increasing the demand of the bonds is the best way to make them more competitive to farmers.

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I trust Jagex's number but only insofar as it's telling a very selective truth. I think to understand the statistic we need to focus on the phrase "wealth injected by illegal gold farmers". To me this means the value of items brought into the game through bots and not a total sum of all RWT activity. A good chunk of RWT (I would assume the majority) is done by resellers acting as middle men and, if my interpretation of the quote is correct, aren't included in the figure.

 

So essentially Jagex is saying "we've cut down on one small select part of RWTers operations by 81%".

 

Naturally other parts of RWTers business will be affected but I doubt those numbers would paint a picture of such drastic success.

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I'm not so sure.

 

By lowering prices they'd appeal to more people but there's no guaranteed sale. They can raise their prices to anything < Bond cost and they'll still be favored by people who've RWTed using third-parties in the past. I think as it sits, Jagex is $0.83/M. Sites I know of are as low as $0.32/M (some slightly lower). They don't need to lower their prices more to be more appealing; they're already less then half the cost. So at this point, raising gold prices would be beneficial for them, since if I were to RWT and be stuck between a Bond and third-party, it's already an easy choice.

Bonds seem to be hovering around 7m (so you are getting roughly 1.4m/dollar), so assuming my math is right that's .73 cents per mil. But, you're still correct in that it's less than half the cost :s

 

Now, before you read my suggestions, I am aware that I am advocating RWT. My logic is that half-assed RWT accomplishes nothing-- if they are going to bother, they need to go all-in.

 

For Bonds to truly be competitive, they need to increase the benefits that you get from them so that it increases the demand. For example, many micro-based games sell items in their "game stores" that provide temporary convenience-based effects. Create NPCs that will trade you items that give a large amount (at least a few hundred thousand) bonus exp in exchange for Bonds. Another thing that could be traded for Bonds is temporary buffs; some of these might include +20 mining or fishing for an hour, or a buff that protects all of your items upon death for an hour (if you have high div, the time on this buff would be greatly extended).

 

Also, increase the amount of spins/runecoins you receive from bonds to 10 and 200, respectively, so that they are equivalent to the $4.99 package on the website.

 

Obviously, these are just basic ideas-- you get the point though. Increasing the demand of the bonds is the best way to make them more competitive to farmers.

 

 

I'd rather keep the gold farming then, tbh. I understand where you're coming from there, but right now what we've got is a legit way to do what was already being done, a bit more of an equalizer than anything else. Adding those bonuses would be going even further and selling stuff that was never really an issue with gold farming. I don't mind Jagex fighting gold farming as long as what they're doing benefits me a bit and isn't sticking out as much like those bonuses would be. Selling a few aspects...fine I'll cope....but don't sell everything and make everything nearly worthless.

 

If Jagex thinks they've gotten rid of 81% of goldfarming, cool. I haven't seen too many spam bots recently, not getting too many pm's, bots are mostly eliminated or kept down in numbers at training areas. Whatever goldfarming is left doesn't affect me anymore, so I'd rather leave it be than burn down the game to eradicate it all. No Pyrrhic victories please =)

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