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

[NukeMarine]

 

I don't think bonds are the solution one bit. They should have focused on non-tradable gameplay imho. PoP/Dungeoneering is a great example. The highest level gear and most of the top end gear is currently buyable.

 

Buyable

Lvl 70 GWD/Barrows/Nex/Sirenic/Tectonic/Lvl 90 weapons/Spirit shields/glacor boots/automaton gloves/ganodermic/prayer/herblore/GWD necklaces/fury/rcb

 

Not-Buyable

Dg weps&shields/Dom gloves/cape slot items/300 MA rank/PoP armour/charms/cb skills

 

If more of those items were made unbuyable, perhaps people would be less likely to spend RL cash on gp, considering that wouldn't bring them any closer to their perspective item. Obviously some things will need to be buyable or making gp legitimately would be pointless too, but I'd rather have a few expensive buyable items like jewelery, and have armour/weapons obtainable through certain content. If Drygore was untradable, people would still go to KK to have the best melee weapons. There might not be much reason to go back after you get the weapons unless you lose them, but I feel that would be better than buying them off the GE to obtain them.

 

With the exception of 300 MA rank, I found playing through Dom Tower, sending voyages out everyday, and Dungeoneering with friends was a pretty good challenge for the items it offered. Took me a few months to get the PoP armour. Dom Tower took about a day, but then again it's only gloves, and getting Chaotics is no easy task. Even at 120 you're looking at 4-5hrs+ of gameplay. Imagine trying to get multiple chaotics at level 80-100 rates.

 

It's just a bit depressing to come back to the game and see Jagex keep making the same mistakes they've been making, and no change in sight. That being said, if you ignore all the SoF, Solomon, Bond, and other RL$ related schemes, the game is still worth playing. Lol well I don't really like EoC, but at least it doesn't involve my wallet, and Jagex legitimately tried to solve the problems to the old combat system.

 

The problem remains in that people would have bought gp to purchase the materials to get the ranks needed to get to the untradeable items. Even dungeoneering levels and therefore the items can be purchased via buying floors. Don't get me wrong, I like the untradeable aspect for some high level gear but that won't solve the gp selling problem.

 

Besides, if you look at it, bonds are a stranger's equivalent of buying membership for your school buddy or me buying membership for my daughter. Whereas before, you had to know the person that bought you membership, spins or runecoins now there's an honest broker method for it to be done with strangers. Really, that's all it is. Bonds shift who is paying for a Jagex service. Sure, unless your helping out a buddy you'll want some gp in exchange for a bond (hence the gp selling aspect) but Jagex is keeping its hands out of that part aside from a 10% penalty on retrades.

 

Now, it could be worse. TS_Stormrage and I have suggested that perhaps Jagex can offer cash back or Amazon store credit at 60% to 80% value. Thinking more on it, this might be a bad idea in that it creates a legitimate dollar figure when it comes to bond trade value even after Jagex takes its cut. Not many will rush to trade gp for bonds when the only return is membership, spins and runecoins. However, if it turns out 1 hour of effort in game can result in enough gp to get 2 bonds from others (and maybe $8 in cash) you might find many, many people that don't give a crap about the game starting to play (or more likely bot) because there's now money to be made. Then again, combined with effective gp sinks, it could make RuneScape a viable game and economy for another 10 years or more.

 

True, this has been a subtle seduction of sorts by Jagex ever since spins has come out. It is not the game play and philosophy that existed 10 years ago. Sometimes noble intentions must give way to harsh realities. If many players want to buy gp, have an illegal means to do it without a legal alternative, they'll take it if they believe it to be safe. For now, players have a method to sort of sell and buy gp via bonds. That combined with botwatch seems to make an interesting game.

[Pinata]

 

 

 

[hide]

I don't think bonds are the solution one bit. They should have focused on non-tradable gameplay imho. PoP/Dungeoneering is a great example. The highest level gear and most of the top end gear is currently buyable.

 

Buyable

Lvl 70 GWD/Barrows/Nex/Sirenic/Tectonic/Lvl 90 weapons/Spirit shields/glacor boots/automaton gloves/ganodermic/prayer/herblore/GWD necklaces/fury/rcb

 

Not-Buyable

Dg weps&shields/Dom gloves/cape slot items/300 MA rank/PoP armour/charms/cb skills

 

If more of those items were made unbuyable, perhaps people would be less likely to spend RL cash on gp, considering that wouldn't bring them any closer to their perspective item. Obviously some things will need to be buyable or making gp legitimately would be pointless too, but I'd rather have a few expensive buyable items like jewelery, and have armour/weapons obtainable through certain content. If Drygore was untradable, people would still go to KK to have the best melee weapons. There might not be much reason to go back after you get the weapons unless you lose them, but I feel that would be better than buying them off the GE to obtain them.

 

With the exception of 300 MA rank, I found playing through Dom Tower, sending voyages out everyday, and Dungeoneering with friends was a pretty good challenge for the items it offered. Took me a few months to get the PoP armour. Dom Tower took about a day, but then again it's only gloves, and getting Chaotics is no easy task. Even at 120 you're looking at 4-5hrs+ of gameplay. Imagine trying to get multiple chaotics at level 80-100 rates.

 

It's just a bit depressing to come back to the game and see Jagex keep making the same mistakes they've been making, and no change in sight. That being said, if you ignore all the SoF, Solomon, Bond, and other RL$ related schemes, the game is still worth playing. Lol well I don't really like EoC, but at least it doesn't involve my wallet, and Jagex legitimately tried to solve the problems to the old combat system.

[/hide]

 

The problem remains in that people would have bought gp to purchase the materials to get the ranks needed to get to the untradeable items. Even dungeoneering levels and therefore the items can be purchased via buying floors. Don't get me wrong, I like the untradeable aspect for some high level gear but that won't solve the gp selling problem.

 

Besides, if you look at it, bonds are a stranger's equivalent of buying membership for your school buddy or me buying membership for my daughter. Whereas before, you had to know the person that bought you membership, spins or runecoins now there's an honest broker method for it to be done with strangers. Really, that's all it is. Bonds shift who is paying for a Jagex service. Sure, unless your helping out a buddy you'll want some gp in exchange for a bond (hence the gp selling aspect) but Jagex is keeping its hands out of that part aside from a 10% penalty on retrades.

 

Now, it could be worse. TS_Stormrage and I have suggested that perhaps Jagex can offer cash back or Amazon store credit at 60% to 80% value. Thinking more on it, this might be a bad idea in that it creates a legitimate dollar figure when it comes to bond trade value even after Jagex takes its cut. Not many will rush to trade gp for bonds when the only return is membership, spins and runecoins. However, if it turns out 1 hour of effort in game can result in enough gp to get 2 bonds from others (and maybe $8 in cash) you might find many, many people that don't give a crap about the game starting to play (or more likely bot) because there's now money to be made. Then again, combined with effective gp sinks, it could make RuneScape a viable game and economy for another 10 years or more.

 

True, this has been a subtle seduction of sorts by Jagex ever since spins has come out. It is not the game play and philosophy that existed 10 years ago. Sometimes noble intentions must give way to harsh realities. If many players want to buy gp, have an illegal means to do it without a legal alternative, they'll take it if they believe it to be safe. For now, players have a method to sort of sell and buy gp via bonds. That combined with botwatch seems to make an interesting game.

 

 

Bonds will just cause more players to turn to RWT as Jagex now endorses real life currency for bonds which sell for coins on the GE. All Jagex did to combat illegal gold sellers is to become the gold seller themselves. Which seems like they fought the wrong battle (they fought the gold farmers, not the reason people turn to gold farmers)... not to mention RS gold on the 3rd party websites is selling for .30$/mil where Jagex gold is .75-1.00$/mil. Surely someone who spends money on Jagex bonds, might see how easy it is, and will be more lenient towards *trying* out a lot better alternative for RWT. I do agree on the giving membership to those who can't use a debit/credit card, I personally been paying for a few of my friends for the past couple of years, only 5-6$ a month, but now I can sell them a bond. However, I feel Jagex just added that in, to give people a reason to buy bonds off the G.E. or from other players. Jagex would lose a lot of pr to sell gold directly, so this is their way of masking it imo.

[Sy_Accursed]

I don't see whats so wrong with Jagex being the gold seller.

Comparatively to gold seller sites it means more money goes in to the game to improve development and it is not outright mass gold production like the bots are.

The gold has to already exist in the game, so is unlikely to of been mass harvested by botting; plus the gold value is only created by the players who want to convert their in-game wealth in to membership or coins or spins. If those players didn't exist bonds would be worth nothing in gold.

 

Seems like a fine system to me in that unlike rwt sites that rely on botting and such to create masses of gp the economy can't really sustain bonds are essentially neutral. If player A bought members and player B sitting there with their 7m doing nothing, it's not really any different to player A having the 7m and player B the members via the exchange of a bond.

 

Plus its a system a lot of other games use quite successfully to help combat gold farming/selling so why not use it to help solve the problem?

[Quyneax]

Bots also require gold to be already present in the game, they produce items. A bond is also an item, generated from nothing sold for already-present cash. The amount of bonds that can be created in a single day is fairly big, because playtime and available spawns don't factor into it. Either way, the introduction of items has a big effect on the economy, the presence or absence of cash is not required for that. Any effect from real-world transactions on the game is unwanted because it breaks the limits of and the immersion in the game.

 

If you accept that an RWT-based solution to RWT is required (is the only solution), then yes, bonds make sense.

[Omali]

Bots also require gold to be already present in the game, they produce items. A bond is also an item, generated from nothing sold for already-present cash. The amount of bonds that can be created in a single day is fairly big, because playtime and available spawns don't factor into it. Either way, the introduction of items has a big effect on the economy, the presence or absence of cash is not required for that. Any effect from real-world transactions on the game is unwanted because it breaks the limits of and the immersion in the game.

 

If you accept that an RWT-based solution to RWT is required (is the only solution), then yes, bonds make sense.

 

I see it as a growing understanding that developers have lost the war against people buying their way in games, and adding in restrictions only serves to piss off the regular customers. For many developers, it's a win-win situation: They gain some extra cash, keep the customers who would've bought gold anyway, and prevent someone else from profiting off of their game. 

[Ts_Stormrage]

To be fair, my payback would be only 33% as I suggested in my article that they give 1 pound back for every bond redeemed (actually I said 10 pounds for every 10 redeemed, to cut administrative costs)...

 

While this would indeed couple a real world value to GP, I think bonds already do that anyways... My version just opens up the street so traffic can go both ways...

 

Going back to the premise of this thread, and Jagex' press release to go with it, I don't think goldfarmers have suffered any damage to their businesses, but the suggestions I wrote down certainly will...

[Guest Smelly Paws]

To be fair, my payback would be only 33% as I suggested in my article that they give 1 pound back for every bond redeemed (actually I said 10 pounds for every 10 redeemed, to cut administrative costs)...

 

While this would indeed couple a real world value to GP, I think bonds already do that anyways... My version just opens up the street so traffic can go both ways...

 

Going back to the premise of this thread, and Jagex' press release to go with it, I don't think goldfarmers have suffered any damage to their businesses, but the suggestions I wrote down certainly will...

Do you have some sort of inside information that no-one else knows about or something?  You're almost betting your house that you have solved all these problems in your article and that it will definately work.

 

Suppose it does - What cost? Gambling, playing the game for real money which is defninately not what the game is about and goldfarmers turning to offering skilling on user accounts as what happened during trade restrictions.  It will just swap one set of problems for another.

[Sy_Accursed]

I really like how everytime Stormrage posts these days it is a deep insightful post with all the details of the argument and case being made and not a plug for a recently published or upcoming article...

[Golvellius]

The focus of the game needs to be shifted back on the playing the game and the actual content as opposed to trading rare shit or mass consumptions of raw materials for achievements.

If you want to flush RWT down the drain, then you create all new content from this date forward with emphasis on just that.

That means eliminating trading of rare shit, i.e. making difficult items to acquire untradeable or easier to get.

You eliminate production skills using tradable raw materials or severely reduce the quantity of such involved in achievements.

 

As for the older content, well what's done is done.

Rewriting the game to get non-players out just pisses off your current player base. (as we saw with the end of free trade)

You really just have to update them out of the game over a long period.

[NukeMarine]

The focus of the game needs to be shifted back on the playing the game and the actual content as opposed to trading rare shit or mass consumptions of raw materials for achievements.

If you want to flush RWT down the drain, then you create all new content from this date forward with emphasis on just that.

That means eliminating trading of rare shit, i.e. making difficult items to acquire untradeable or easier to get.

You eliminate production skills using tradable raw materials or severely reduce the quantity of such involved in achievements.

 

As for the older content, well what's done is done.

Rewriting the game to get non-players out just pisses off your current player base. (as we saw with the end of free trade)

You really just have to update them out of the game over a long period.

 

It won't be popular, but Jagex could revamp most of the skills to follow the Runespan and Divination model where you can level fast with decent AFK but make little to no profit but at little to no cost. They can pair or group the skills off, have an individual counter on the gathering part that feeds into the production skill but still offer a method to do the production if you don't do the gathering. Hell, if the use a 'resource point' model, they can alter all the monster drops that offer tradeable skilling items and instead make those into various resource points. Resource points feed into specific skilling minigames.

 

Raw material stops flooding the market as there's little need for it outside of the consumable final product or people that want superfast experience. You still have ability to make all the things you did before, but now it's like runecrafting where the runes are now worth MUCH MORE than the rune essence because you don't need essence to train and there's no more runes flooding the market.

[Yoko Kurama]

I really like how everytime Stormrage posts these days it is a deep insightful post with all the details of the argument and case being made and not a plug for a recently published or upcoming article...

 

I don't see why all the hate on TS. His so-called references to his articles are completely legitimate. Self-referencing yourself is a perfectly good thing to do, and academics and more serious forums do it all the time. It saves the time of having to rewrite the same stuff over and over again. Instead you post it once, and then you link to it when appropriate. It's not like he's just leaving links, he's discussing things as well, and putting links when appropriate. Again, I don't see why all the hate. There's a hot topic that he's written on that's been discussed heavily for the last few weeks, and so he links to himself when it comes up. Seems alright to me. He's on the main page of this site, I very much doubt he's desperate for attention.

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, my payback would be only 33% as I suggested in my article that they give 1 pound back for every bond redeemed (actually I said 10 pounds for every 10 redeemed, to cut administrative costs)...

 

While this would indeed couple a real world value to GP, I think bonds already do that anyways... My version just opens up the street so traffic can go both ways...

 

Going back to the premise of this thread, and Jagex' press release to go with it, I don't think goldfarmers have suffered any damage to their businesses, but the suggestions I wrote down certainly will...

Do you have some sort of inside information that no-one else knows about or something?  You're almost betting your house that you have solved all these problems in your article and that it will definately work.

 

Suppose it does - What cost? Gambling, playing the game for real money which is defninately not what the game is about and goldfarmers turning to offering skilling on user accounts as what happened during trade restrictions.  It will just swap one set of problems for another.

 

 

You don't need inside information for the sorts of claims that TS is making. He's making some fairly simple and straightforward economic claims that are easily verifiable. I don't see why you think he's posturing as some sort of guy with 'insider knowledge' -- he isn't, because he doesn't need to.

 

As for your reference to gambling. You may not have noticed, but staking already exists, and has existed for the vast majority of Runescape's existence, and it is unequivocally gambling. If we are going to have gambling (I don't think we should, but we have already decided we are going to have it), then it's much better to regulate it through official mechanisms. As for goldfarmers, they're also already here, and have always been here. 

[Alg]

I don't see why all the hate on TS. His so-called references to his articles are completely legitimate. Self-referencing yourself is a perfectly good thing to do, and academics and more serious forums do it all the time. It saves the time of having to rewrite the same stuff over and over again. Instead you post it once, and then you link to it when appropriate. It's not like he's just leaving links, he's discussing things as well, and putting links when appropriate. Again, I don't see why all the hate. There's a hot topic that he's written on that's been discussed heavily for the last few weeks, and so he links to himself when it comes up. Seems alright to me. He's on the main page of this site, I very much doubt he's desperate for attention.

Plus, if everything he wants to say is in his article, why bother repeating it all elsewhere? I may not agree with the guy, but that's a pretty fair use of a link.

[helring]

 

I don't see why all the hate on TS. His so-called references to his articles are completely legitimate. Self-referencing yourself is a perfectly good thing to do, and academics and more serious forums do it all the time. It saves the time of having to rewrite the same stuff over and over again. Instead you post it once, and then you link to it when appropriate. It's not like he's just leaving links, he's discussing things as well, and putting links when appropriate. Again, I don't see why all the hate. There's a hot topic that he's written on that's been discussed heavily for the last few weeks, and so he links to himself when it comes up. Seems alright to me. He's on the main page of this site, I very much doubt he's desperate for attention.

Plus, if everything he wants to say is in his article, why bother repeating it all elsewhere? I may not agree with the guy, but that's a pretty fair use of a link.

 

 

 

I don't mind all the link once the article is out, but it was kind of annoying pre-article with him posting just to say he's holding back his opinion so you'll read the article. If he wants to be in the discussion then he should post his opinion, but if he wants to wait until his article comes out so as not to spoil it then he doesn't need to post anything until the article comes out.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

You don't need inside information for the sorts of claims that TS is making. He's making some fairly simple and straightforward economic claims that are easily verifiable. I don't see why you think he's posturing as some sort of guy with 'insider knowledge' -- he isn't, because he doesn't need to.

 

As for your reference to gambling. You may not have noticed, but staking already exists, and has existed for the vast majority of Runescape's existence, and it is unequivocally gambling. If we are going to have gambling (I don't think we should, but we have already decided we are going to have it), then it's much better to regulate it through official mechanisms. As for goldfarmers, they're also already here, and have always been here. 

Nobody is disputing his intentions and his possible outcomes. To make the claim of stopping RWT before bonds have been given a chance to do that, without considering the costs involved to the game, begs the question that if someone is so sure then why are you so sure? 

 

Staking exists yes and it exists in the 'fun' sense. So does the squeal.  Casinos? Whatever. <_<

[Ts_Stormrage]

@helring & sy accursed: Twice I mentioned that I would post an article on the issue of RWT since my piece on bonds... Three times if you count that I would follow up on the very article I wrote in that I would follow up on it... Probably because it's quite an important topic and I think people should form their opinion with as much information as possible...

 

But in this case it was mostly because Jagex had their little press release that I simply called bullshit on, when almost everyone (I saw only one person that seemed to have a good grip on the facts) drank the Kool-aid... So yes I said "hold on, you don't have all the information yet" while using the opportunity to tell people where and when to find it...

 

But... If you're implying that I'm spamming my articles too much, then by all means report it as such...

I dare you... I double dare you...

 

 

Back to the discussion at hand...

While I actually do have a few sources that set me on the path of finding these solutions, none of the information I got was classified or difficult to find... I'll admit, I've been at this a while now and at some point the information started to find me, but I always check and confirm what I've been told...

 

That is how I know that people stake for a living; an actual living to feed themselves and maybe even their families... Not for any kind of "fun"... This is a source of GP for the gold selling companies, and sadly it isn't the only one...

 

So we have to poison all the wells if we want to dry up the GP trade, which means we'll get some of that poison too...

That means limiting staking...

 

It also means making gambling elsewhere with your GP less-than-viable by putting a casino in RuneScape... Just like bonds are an attempt to move in on the GP trading market, so would a casino be to move in on the dicing market, and would offering cash back for bonds be a proper attempt at moving in on the quitters market...

[helring]

I said I found it annoying, which I did. Didn't say that I felt I had any right to stop you from doing so. I really only use the report button for phishers.

 

Quitters probably aren't that big of a deal. Its a one time thing and if they really are quitting then I can't see them caring too much about getting banned for it. As such for the quitters I'd think Jagex actually would have to match the prices they're getting from gold farmers which I doubt Jagex would have any interest in doing. With gold buying players, they usually hope to keep their account and gain from buying gold, so I think bonds might be fine even without matching prices because you can't be banned or punished for it. I just don't see the rules having the same effect of quitters.

 

Casinos in game I'm really fine with as long as Jagex sets the odds and acts as the House. I could see it as a decent gold sink since Jagex could set the odds better than players would reasonably want to and yet still remove gold from the game longterm. The problems I had in game with hosts was the hosts getting rich for no benefit to the game or economy, the massive spamming whenever I entered g.e. and although many hosts were legit the potential for scamming was way too high. An in-game casino with Jagex as house really wouldn't touch a nerve with any of the issues I had.

 

I have to agree with others though that allowing players to sell bonds back for cash would reward the wrong type of gaming and allow people who run bots to make money directly from Jagex which could be an issue. Right now gp is useful for in-game goals but most won't make any money off it. Once its tied to a specific cost its just asking people to decide what items they want via real world cash even if they'd never buy bonds from Jagex. Do I want to buy this Armadyl Plate or do I want to buy a bond and cash it out to make some money. It really takes out most of whats left of the game aspect.

[Yoko Kurama]

 

You don't need inside information for the sorts of claims that TS is making. He's making some fairly simple and straightforward economic claims that are easily verifiable. I don't see why you think he's posturing as some sort of guy with 'insider knowledge' -- he isn't, because he doesn't need to.

 

As for your reference to gambling. You may not have noticed, but staking already exists, and has existed for the vast majority of Runescape's existence, and it is unequivocally gambling. If we are going to have gambling (I don't think we should, but we have already decided we are going to have it), then it's much better to regulate it through official mechanisms. As for goldfarmers, they're also already here, and have always been here. 

Nobody is disputing his intentions and his possible outcomes. To make the claim of stopping RWT before bonds have been given a chance to do that, without considering the costs involved to the game, begs the question that if someone is so sure then why are you so sure? 

 

Staking exists yes and it exists in the 'fun' sense. So does the squeal.  Casinos? Whatever. <_<

 

 

Bonds have been here for a quite a while. And Jagex has made EXTREMELY high and self-congratulatory claims about how they have changed this and that about the game -- many of the claims that Jagex has made are outlandish and possibly false. So challenging their claims, and evaluating the success of bonds (especially when Jagex has implied they are a success) is more than fair game at this point. So your criticism on that point simply doesn't stand. 

 

Staking does not just exist in the fun sense. People stake for millions, hundreds of millions, and billions of GP. That's not just 'fun' staking, that's on the same level as a casino, with much better odds. Surely you're aware of this?

[Guest Smelly Paws]

 

Bonds have been here for a quite a while. And Jagex has made EXTREMELY high and self-congratulatory claims about how they have changed this and that about the game -- many of the claims that Jagex has made are outlandish and possibly false. So challenging their claims, and evaluating the success of bonds (especially when Jagex has implied they are a success) is more than fair game at this point. So your criticism on that point simply doesn't stand. 

 

Staking does not just exist in the fun sense. People stake for millions, hundreds of millions, and billions of GP. That's not just 'fun' staking, that's on the same level as a casino, with much better odds. Surely you're aware of this?

 

How does your point stand when you given bonds hardly any time to settle?  They were released late September.  It's more than fair to say they've had some success in doing what they're supposed to already.  You can refute the claims made by their success if you wish, that's your choice. In my opinion you need to give these things time over a longer period.

 

Sorry, my staking point was not clear. Staking is supposed to be a fun activity.  It gets abused so that should be looked at more closely, perhaps instead of GP they should let players compete for certain items, randomly by the game or yes, even capping it. Introducing casinos brings in a more serious element of gambling to the game that we don't need. 

[strilmus]

the casino would have been technically fine if bonds didn't actually exist

 

although I'm not sure if we're properly equipped to address the issue of attempting to, y'know, FIX HUMANITY, with a game that wasn't even optimized to not encourage this kind of activity to begin with, much less one that would be created today, since even those struggle with having a system that stops incentivizing it while being fun

 

frankly, this is about as healthy as we're going to get without full nanny state, or ending the game now while people still have a chance to not become terrible people

[Yoko Kurama]

 

 

Bonds have been here for a quite a while. And Jagex has made EXTREMELY high and self-congratulatory claims about how they have changed this and that about the game -- many of the claims that Jagex has made are outlandish and possibly false. So challenging their claims, and evaluating the success of bonds (especially when Jagex has implied they are a success) is more than fair game at this point. So your criticism on that point simply doesn't stand. 

 

Staking does not just exist in the fun sense. People stake for millions, hundreds of millions, and billions of GP. That's not just 'fun' staking, that's on the same level as a casino, with much better odds. Surely you're aware of this?

 

How does your point stand when you given bonds hardly any time to settle?  They were released late September.  It's more than fair to say they've had some success in doing what they're supposed to already.  You can refute the claims made by their success if you wish, that's your choice. In my opinion you need to give these things time over a longer period.

 

Sorry, my staking point was not clear. Staking is supposed to be a fun activity.  It gets abused so that should be looked at more closely, perhaps instead of GP they should let players compete for certain items, randomly by the game or yes, even capping it. Introducing casinos brings in a more serious element of gambling to the game that we don't need. 

 

 

Then we simply disagree on that point. They have been given a fair amount of time (even Jagex thinks so), and even if they haven't we can still make certain predictions on their future performance based on how they have performed so far and their design.

 

As for the second point. That is not really accurate either. Staking isn't abused. It was always intended to allow this sort of gambling, and it has been allowed to function this way since Runescape Classic (except for the period of no Free trade). If Jagex didn't intend for gambling, don't you think they would have done something about it? They have done nothing, and hinted at nothing. They are perfectly fine with staking being used for high stakes gambling. They have been even spoken approvingly of it at times as an appropriate 'high risk, high reward' activity. They have never attempted to restrict or control it any way whatsoever, except for the removal of Free Trade (because of RWT issues, not gambling issues). It's fairly reasonable to say that they approve of it.

[Guest Smelly Paws]

Then we simply disagree on that point. They have been given a fair amount of time (even Jagex thinks so), and even if they haven't we can still make certain predictions on their future performance based on how they have performed so far and their design.

 

As for the second point. That is not really accurate either. Staking isn't abused. It was always intended to allow this sort of gambling, and it has been allowed to function this way since Runescape Classic (except for the period of no Free trade). If Jagex didn't intend for gambling, don't you think they would have done something about it? They have done nothing, and hinted at nothing. They are perfectly fine with staking being used for high stakes gambling. They have been even spoken approvingly of it at times as an appropriate 'high risk, high reward' activity. They have never attempted to restrict or control it any way whatsoever, except for the removal of Free Trade (because of RWT issues, not gambling issues). It's fairly reasonable to say that they approve of it.

 

I'm sure Jagex pointed out that bonds doing well so far but I don't recall them saying that "we've decided that it's solved the problem" in such a short space of time.  Edited due to an inability to re-read the opening post.

 

I disagree with your remarks on staking. This is your own interpretation of it.  I've never seen staking advertised that way by Jagex, unless you have something to prove to the contrary.  You're right in the sense they've done nothing about it but as we all know staking has used for gp transfers between accounts - That's abuse and if used for transferring monies under RWT it's breaking game rules. 

[Sy_Accursed]

 

Then we simply disagree on that point. They have been given a fair amount of time (even Jagex thinks so), and even if they haven't we can still make certain predictions on their future performance based on how they have performed so far and their design.

 

As for the second point. That is not really accurate either. Staking isn't abused. It was always intended to allow this sort of gambling, and it has been allowed to function this way since Runescape Classic (except for the period of no Free trade). If Jagex didn't intend for gambling, don't you think they would have done something about it? They have done nothing, and hinted at nothing. They are perfectly fine with staking being used for high stakes gambling. They have been even spoken approvingly of it at times as an appropriate 'high risk, high reward' activity. They have never attempted to restrict or control it any way whatsoever, except for the removal of Free Trade (because of RWT issues, not gambling issues). It's fairly reasonable to say that they approve of it.

 

I'm sure Jagex pointed out that bonds doing well so far but I don't recall them saying that "we've decided that it's solved the problem" in such a short space of time. 

 

I disagree with your remarks on staking. This is your own interpretation of it.  I've never seen staking advertised that way by Jagex, unless you have something to prove to the contrary.  You're right in the sense they've done nothing about it but as we all know staking has used for gp transfers between accounts - That's abuse and if used for transferring monies under RWT it's breaking game rules. 

 

 

Because the Jagex announcement on which this thread is based about bonds 'close to eradicating' gold farming in absolutely no way at all suggests that Jagex views them as having 'solved the problem' (for now at least) 

[Guest Smelly Paws]

^ Sarky sod. Looking at your recent posts you're certainly on form :D.  I must have been the last one to see the initial post had been updated.  I'll try reading next time. :rolleyes:

[V O R K]

Gold membership ends soon, let's see what for pathetic excuse they'll throw at us this time for the dwindling playerbase/non-subscribers.