Tip.It Times Presents: Pure Essence, Pure Disaster?

[misterxman]

Why not just update Tutorial Island to be slightly different? From what i can tell, these autoers even pass that through autoing as they all look alike. Changing the process of Tutorial Island = stopping of all autoers?

[bigdawgtt]

I know some dont want to hear this, but the best soloution to stop autoers would probably be to make the game completly members and not free at all. The autoers wouldn't like losing 5 bucks each time they get banned would they? (I dont have anything against free players, but the free aspect is whats attracting to people making real money on it)

[thebakerman]

actually i dont get it, shouldnt members essence go pure essence if u got +30 rc and mining? i still got my rune essences -.-

[dargonhuman]

I don't know about anyone else, but personally, I'm getting sick and tired of Jagex's "solutions" to autoers. So many times, they've needed to use surgical-like precision in their fixes, but so many times they've used the broadsword method that only ends up hurting the honest and innocent players, making us mad enough to quit, which then comes around to bite them in the proverbial buttocks.

 

Not that they apparently care, since the number of players keeps going up, which keeps filling their coffers. Why should they care about a few hundred people who quit? They get thousands of new people a week, it seems.

 

But they need to care; nothing lasts forever, and if they don't want their little MMO empire to come crashing down around them before it's time, then they should take better care of their customer base, the free ones as well as the paying ones.

 

Despite the fact we f2pers don't pay a cent to play RS, every single one of us represents a potential paying member. If we feel like we're getting screwed (which we do feel with every one of these "fixes", not to mention the actual screwings we get with...well, everything else), then we're going to be less likely to get memberships, especially since more and more often, these "fixes" are screwing the members over almost as much as the f2pers! Why pay to get treated like a criminal when you can get that for free?

 

Of course, this is all a moot point; Jagex staff might actually be reading these posts filled with great suggestions and legitimate complaints, but you and I all know that they don't care what we think. If they really wanted to give us what we wanted, we'd have POH's, real horses, holiday and rare items that are actually worth something and a host of better f2p/p2p balances. Instead, they waste their time and "our*" money on crappy quests with mediocre rewards and idiotic minigames that no one plays like the Blast Furnace and that game house thing.

 

 

 

--Darg--

 

 

 

*"Our" in this case of course means Members' subscription money. I wouldn't presume to think the paltry amount of money generated by f2p ads amounts to much.

[Artificial_Doom_Flavor]

A friend recently added me back to her new friends list, having not been on in a while. She also recently became a player moderator. I have discussed this problem with her, and she tried to reassure me that JaGeX is currently various programs and other mesures for detecting and banning bots. I know from experience that the measures they have taken thus far have been largely ineffective and that the future measures will probably be no different. I will see if I can offer a number of various proposed solutions from this topic, although I am not sure if she will discuss them with other moderators or JaGeX staff or even think about them. I've brought up a number of concerns that people on this forum have voiced- rune prices, the effects of this change on players with large rune essence piles, the inability to stop macroers- etc. I have also told her many things about how easily attainable and operable these scripts are.

 

 

 

In essence (forgive the pun), I've been attempting to put the ineffectiveness of the current "solution" to this problem into perspective for her.

 

 

 

I plan to discuss the various solutions with her, and hopefully get the message out to some extent that the kinds of changes JaGeX is making, while in good intent and with commendable effort, are not going in the right direction.

 

 

 

I'm currently in highest support of random exits and monsters in the essence mines- Is there anything anyone else wishes me to mention? If so, please post a reply to this message.

[tailz89]

if u made the game completly members there'd be no new players, people like trying the game before they play, most people get to lvl 40-80 before they become a member because by then they are addicted to the game, no1 wants to pay for a game they dont kno anything about

[bigdawgtt]

Well look at World of Warcraft then tell me that again :roll:

[dargonhuman]

In essence (forgive the pun)

 

Why? That was a good one, and timely.

 

 

 

Well look at World of Warcraft then tell me that again

 

The thing is, comparing WoW with RS is somewhat unfair; it's like comparing Marvel or DC Comics to a small garage-based indie company.

 

WoW is from Blizzard, a well-known name in gaming and is based on a widely-recognized and well-loved franchise. RS is from Jagex, a relatively unknown company whose only work before RS were a handful of low-quality Java remakes of other games.

 

In other words, of course people are going to flock to WoW in droves, while at the same time be skeptical and wary of RS; Blizzard has a proven track record of excellence while virtually nobody outside of a certain niche market has even heard of Jagex. You can't even read about RS in game magazines, except for the rare (usually derogatory) blurb or text box, whereas you can hardly open a magazine these days without seeing something about WoW, whether it be a review, ad or whatever.

 

If RS didn't have a free edition, it wouldn't be nearly as large as it is; word-of-mouth and banner ads would be virtually the only means of advertising they'd have, and that wouldn't be good enough to sustain RS. When was the last time you payed to play a game based solely on a banner ad? I know I never have, and I never will; it's not worth risking my money on something that could be a piece of garbage.

 

 

 

--Darg--

[tonytang123]

actually i dont mind autoers.....when they made pure ess...normal ess stayed the same price but ess that u need to craft good ruens costed about 45gp now...now autoers cant get them because u need 30 mining lvl...only players can get them so the price is wayy up

 

 

 

autoers at the yew trees...i remember when yew logs were 300 thanks to autoers there only like 270 now =)

[joe_schmoe]

I just killed 2 macroers by closing the magic shop door and trapping them inside with a lvl 6 mugger. They simply stood there and got beaten like rented mules until they were dead. :D

 

 

 

I love doing that.

[oddfaery2]

I was just discussing this macro problem with Duke Freedom, I/he/we i dunno had somewhat of an idea.

 

 

 

Take this image for example

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is used by a game to stop scripters from creating mass accounts.

 

 

 

Perhaps jagex could make a system like this. Every time you want Aubury (or whoever else) to teleport you to the essense mines, you must help him solve the riddle as to what # is there.

 

 

 

Of course this wouldn't really matter with the other macroers, but perhaps any time you want to bank, you'd have to enter this number, until you reach a certain skill total.

 

 

 

Honestly, I really like the use of something like this, if it'd be effective. A legitimate player would only have to deal with it for a short time, and it would take a matter of 2-3 seconds each bank to type in. Nothing nearly as annoying as putting in your bank pin every time you bank.

 

 

 

Of course, there was the problem with fatigue, where players would just have the bots send a pic to a person to type it in. This could be hindered by giving you a 5-10 second time limit. A legitimate person would have no trouble doing this whatsoever, but a person running several macroes at a time would have a rough time keeping track, and may as well be playing themselves.

 

 

 

Just throwing that out there... comment on what uses you may see.

[cardovilian]

The following quote was taken from this careers site:

 

 

 

http://careers.computing.co.uk/texis/co ... ex+Limited

 

 

 

We are focused on increasing the number of subscribers to RuneScape, our principal product. In 2005 we aimed for a subscriber target of 500,000, which was passed in October 2005. We have now set our sites (sic) on a target of 750,000 subscribers.

 

 

 

Question

 

What is the best way to earn money for a F2P player?

 

 

 

Yes mining ess is a good way, no major skills requirement and only 1 quest required. But another way to make good money its cutting yews to sell to the P2P fletch/alchers. Except for one thing - there aren't many places to cut yews in F2P - which is why Varrock has become infested with auto'ers since the pure ess update. So what's a F2P yew cutter going to do to continue earning the kind of money they are used to?

 

 

 

Answer

 

Get a subscription! The P2P worlds have many more yew cutting opportunities and are not suffering the auto'er invasion anywhere near as badly as the F2P worlds. I'm not F2P (I started P2P 3 weeks after starting to play Runescape) but if I was a F2P yew cutter who had spent months getting my woodcutting to the point where I could cut yews and was seeing my only major source of income in the game being taken away from me, I would seriously be considering becoming P2P right now.

 

 

 

Consequence

 

Lots more subscriptions for Jagex.

 

 

 

Now I know there are lots of F2P'ers out there who can't get P2P for one reason or another, but there are plenty who can. Call me cynical (and I am so fair cop), but I see this ess update as a business strategy by Jagex to increase their subscription rates by trimming out some of the F2P'ers who are able to transfer to P2P and will do so in order to continue playing the game. In short, I dont think this update was to stop the ess auto'ers, but to shift them to another area which will hit more F2P'ers in an area which it will have more impact, thus forcing more people over to P2P. There may well be ways to stop autoing once and for all, but if I was running Jagex, I wouldn't implement them until I had squeezed F2P for every last subscription I could get. Whatever you do or think remember this one thing. Jagex is a business, businesses exist to make money! You can say all you want about advertising on F2P servers but that

 

advertising is trying to sell to people who dont even spend $5/ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã3.20 a month on a game which they spend a large amount of their leisure time on. How many of you have made a purchase from one of those advertisers? How many of you even LOOK at those adverts when you are playing? Trust me, Jagex's priority is getting as many people as possible to pay for a subscription. Because increased subscriptions is the only way their business is going to grow, especially if they aim to go public (offer shares on the stock market)

 

 

 

Here's another quote taken from:

 

 

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _n15733544

 

 

 

Jagex Ltd Secures Investment from Insight Venture Partners; Investment Fuels Global Growth and Accelerates Delivery of New Products to Loyal Player Community

 

Business Wire, Oct 25, 2005

 

 

 

LONDON -- Jagex Limited, developer of the popular Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game, RuneScape, today announced it has secured an investment from Insight Venture Partners. The minority investment follows explosive growth over the past 18 months and will help expand the depth and breadth of Jagex's product offerings globally, including additional development of RuneScape to enhance the playing community's experience.

 

 

 

"Insight Venture Partners is one of the leading investment firms for software, content, and Internet enabled businesses," said Constant Tedder, Chief Executive Officer of Jagex Limited. "Considering Insight's excellent track record, talented team and dedication to the online gaming community, they were an ideal investor and we look forward to partnering to achieve great milestones for our community, our employees, and our partners."

 

 

 

RuneScape, is one of the most popular MMORPGs (Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games) in the world. Jagex currently has over 3.5 million active players and 500,000 paying subscribers. The Company intends to become a significant online operator in all the major gaming markets worldwide, developing and commercializing compelling persistent character games that appeal to a wide audience and based on cutting-edge technologies developed in-house. The Company aims to grow RuneScape market share in non-English language markets as well as to release completely new games for its loyal user community.

 

 

 

From Insight Venture Partners website:

 

 

 

Founded in 1995, our firm is the fastest-growing venture capital firm specializing in software and the Internet. We have built a team composed of experienced investors and operating executives with more than 150 years of collective experience in these industries, and a capital base of over $1.5 billion to support the companies in which we invest.

 

 

 

People with this kind of money dont invest in you because you have a couple of adverts on your website. They are looking for returns. That means SUBSCRIPTIONS.

 

 

 

Don't take this as a condemnation of Jagex. I think that for what they offer, $5/ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã3.20 a month is a damn good deal - if I didn't I'd be playing WOW - and I'm happy to keep on playing and paying. But what we all have to realise is that the days of a couple of undergrads bashing away at RSC in their dorm rooms are long gone. Jagex is a business with big ambitions. Yes they need customer loyalty, but they need that loyalty from PAYING customers.

 

 

 

If you're not prepared (or are unable) to pay dont be surprised to find that your views fall on deaf ears.

[clayton_2003]

I was just discussing this macro problem with Duke Freedom, I/he/we i dunno had somewhat of an idea.

 

 

 

Take this image for example

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is used by a game to stop scripters from creating mass accounts.

 

 

 

Perhaps jagex could make a system like this. Every time you want Aubury (or whoever else) to teleport you to the essense mines, you must help him solve the riddle as to what # is there.

 

 

 

Of course this wouldn't really matter with the other macroers, but perhaps any time you want to bank, you'd have to enter this number, until you reach a certain skill total.

 

 

 

Honestly, I really like the use of something like this, if it'd be effective. A legitimate player would only have to deal with it for a short time, and it would take a matter of 2-3 seconds each bank to type in. Nothing nearly as annoying as putting in your bank pin every time you bank.

 

 

 

Of course, there was the problem with fatigue, where players would just have the bots send a pic to a person to type it in. This could be hindered by giving you a 5-10 second time limit. A legitimate person would have no trouble doing this whatsoever, but a person running several macroes at a time would have a rough time keeping track, and may as well be playing themselves.

 

 

 

Just throwing that out there... comment on what uses you may see.

 

 

 

I like the 3 number idea - it's so random that it wouldn't have much interference in the game...although lagg would be a problem for some ppl on the time limit

[skittlz42069]

This is my last reply. Complaining isn't going to help, u guys with essence, and me, with u guys. I won't be back, I don't want to know what is said..... because ignorance is bliss..............

 

XOXO skittlz42069

 

rs nick:skittlz42069

[skittlz42069]

sorry last one, promise. just wanted to say that i liked the "it's a business decision" post made by cardovillain. it was great, but... i dont think they care, or understand. still a great post, cool on the research too.... even tho it does make jagex look like money hungy butt-pies, lol, but ur right, what do they care about an error that doesn't really affect their profit sharing? lol.

 

and one more thing if u need help becoming a member, e-mail me at [email protected]

[Freemenik_Warrior]

Great post cardovilian. Insightful (or is that insiteful?) and apparently well researched. Congratulations to OddFaery2 for starting this debate.

 

Love your last line cardovilian !!

[joe_schmoe]

Thanks to dukduk for posting my ideas to the official RS forums. Maybe someone will see them before they get buried or deleted.

 

 

 

The image wouldn't really be a deterrent, a bot can do optical character recognition on it to determine what the number is.

 

 

 

As for the ideas about bringing back fatigue, it was scriptable too. I'm too tired to go into the details, but a bot could get past fatigue pretty easily.

 

 

 

Like I keep saying, the only real weapon you can fight bots with is time. Their lifespan is too short to spend on things like getting levels unrelated to what they are "botting".

[Lode]

What was this whole pure essense thing needed for, if they're going to add better anti macro technology soon?

[Galahad888]

I'll start by saying i fully agree with that article. Not only does this pure essence impact buyers and sellers of the stuff it also impacts clans. About half the clan I'm in is non-mem. Their contribution (well at least one of them) was going to be to mine alot of essence so that i could in return create plenty of law runes which would in turn be givin back to the members of my clan allowing us to evolve a bit . Just ticks me off a bit thats all.

[Nerrage]

Jagex has caused a terrible disaster now, but it seems they dont care too much as it being a bad tweak. NOw while this isnt a fact, but it can sure make you wonder, "Is Jagex really thinking this over well enough?" in thier latest post(as of now) on the official runescape website(runescape.com or runescape.co.uk, for those of who dont know, hands please of those that dont know?lets see.....0......) they have put, and I quote: "Beyond the Customer Relations team our Content team is constantly looking into ways to alter the game itself to reduce the ability for people to cheat, for example the recent creation of the Bank PINs and the essence mine changes." Now while they do not aculally say that they made a good change, they do name the article "Runescape - Better than ever!", sugessting that it is indeed a good change.While I dont doubt that it is a good change as far as the rules of the game go, it affects so much more than one thing in a bad way.

 

 

 

Good- Macroers have been stopped one way. The six basic runes may drop in price, due to lower ess costs. Merchants could make a killing on raised prices.

 

 

 

Bad-There is little ess to be used for all the nature crafters, which will affect high alchers which tip.it(if you dont know this website, you really have short term memory problems) says that the"High Alchemy SpellThis spell can be cast once you have achieved level 55 magic and plays an important role in the RuneScape economy." Yes, but without enough people supplying cheap 30 gp, now it being however high it is(f2p, explained in last post) may cause some people to demand more for nats. Soon enough, everone will want to sell it at a raised price(even if they didnt want want to, 500 gp is better than 400, right?) causing high alchers to make less money(even if they did rc it themselves, they will lose money on the ess, nobody on p2p really wants to mine ess, and from an earlier post saying only 15% of the ess existing? If this was to be proportionate to the original 30 gp, it would cause it to be at 200 gp each! That is INSANE! And with the normal ess being at 5-10 gp each (also from an earlier post) Some people were dumping all thier normal ess right away to get all the money they could (20-30, I saw about 5 people selling ess on a small world, about 1000 players) Now say you were uninformed, you would say "wow what a deal, 5k ess at 100k!". Later the prices have lofted in a low 10 gp value each. Now you only have 50ks worth. Well, time to go craft nats. Now when you go to craft them you cant, and you lost 50k. Now think of it on larger scales. People could be losing mills just for being uninformed, ouch. Now everyone will sell the useless junk to them, causing the prices to sink down even lower. Now weve got an ess going at 40 times the value. If it takes more time to get the same amount of money using high alch, taking more time, lowering the overall money amount in game, causing the same items harder to get, and make money have less power in the economy.

 

 

 

 

 

There can be lots of solutions, which there have been plenty, but making it members only is not one of the best ones, just because not everyone wants to be a p2p. Actually, I find the f2p pretty fun and still full of things to do. Since there arent tons of quests to do, it helps me by focusing on my skills, and since there are so few, i dont have to worry about as much. I honestly hate merchanting and pking. They both rely on you to take advantage of players looking out to make an honest buck or some honest XP(sometimes). Some people also just dont want to pay or cant pay. By taking one of the ways that high alchers suply the f2pers money, indirectly(High Alcher->nature rune crafter->f2p ess miner/macroer) or directly(high alcher that crafts own nats->f2p ess miner/macroer), it affects the f2p market as well, by supplying less money from one of the basins of the runescape economy. Those who have bought mass ess have no doubt bought "dirty ess". So what does this mean? Nothing really. You've bought ess from someone who isnt there, but still is Jagex going to ban people who buy ess at market prices "unknowingly" so they can get on with their runecrafting for money?I didnt think so.

 

 

 

One other thing about how unknown runescape is from yet another post. They said that it would be hard to find runescape in a magazine. It was in GameInformer listed as one of the "top 10 games youve never heard of".

 

 

 

Now true, we will still have high alchers always ready to buy other goods, but this is not the answer to rely on something that only SOME alchers will use.Yew logs and (possibly)coal. Coal is pretty well guarded, it takes a good deal of interaction with the player/macro to get it to mine well.Plus the player buying still needs more money to nake enough of of steel plate. Plus the road to 60 is alot longer in mining than woodcutting. So that leaves yew logs. These are pretty commonly macroed now that ess is harder to get. The economy would not be as shattered if the yew logs could be chopped forever. However they can not, so that will make them even harder to get. But again this is still only with people using them to high alch, some will use magic logs, and now that nats as a runecrafted good is now dominating the market for p2pers. Also the bowstrings will be only obtainable by members. This may leave the market for p2pers to stay more on the p2p worlds, lowering the demand of yews on free servers which may too lead to the end of macroers. But yew logs I see many more macroers(I seriously saw about 7 when going to chop for some extra cash)

 

 

 

Now we also talk about that macroers still will benifit us. They gather mass supplies with no complaint, hassle or interference of rl circumstances(sleep, work, school, ect). They are going to be banned sooner or later, but they will have enough time to sell their goods so that players can make money off of them. I mean another post(yes another one, but im not going to mention names mainly because i cant remember them) said yews dropped 300-270. A high demand item lowering its price is good for all of us. But we also must remember that macros are mainly used to sell the money on sites. No person would accually GIVE their main all the money. Now macroers may still have a chance to use that money to buy some level 3 membership and mine the pure ess, leaving them to have market on it. If the price could stay low before the supply runs out(the original pure admited to people with 30+ mining) the runescape market could stay intact by having affordable ess. However this will be mainly true for members, not for f2pers. Again the market will run on mostly p2p supplied goods. Now macroers would not do this untill there was no real way to make good money on the f2p worlds so they can max the amount of money they make. Now membership per mill may cost them anywhere from almost all of it - one quarter of it, depending on how much they sold it for.

 

 

 

That about covers everything for me - sorry people that didnt get their names in this, feel free to take credit if you helped me put together this post. I even didnt include credit for myself for something from my last post.Which part? I cant say, duh, It would include credit.

[icicle]

What was this whole pure essense thing needed for, if they're going to add better anti macro technology soon?

 

 

 

I agree.

 

 

 

Well written article Oddfaery2! :D

[baalboy5]

I like the option with the level 25 monsters, but then a lot of fairly new level 25-45 players who are legitamate wouldn't be able to mine easily. Also they could just make it so you enter your pin # every time you enter the bank, I do not think it would be that bad (I mean not just when mining ess).

 

why not have monsters that drop the pure ess? But only after doing a quest

[teenageloser33]

I think your solutions are quite futile. Think a 500 skill total to use the mine? Come on the point is for new players to come into the game, do the quest and be able to start making money some how. That some how being mining Rune Essence and/or making runes out of them. Your other suggestion about the random one or two number code that is randomly generated. You can write a program to bypass this, it's been done with a few RSC auto's. Then your last suggestion of flooding the mine, goes back to the whole new player idea. This is the best thing they could think of and if it's going to keep people legit, then support it.

[Junkieman]

I stopped playing(again) a while before this update occured, but it is possibly the most sucky way of solving the problem. Jagex suck, I'd rather have the autoers 'ruining' essence than have this forced upon us. The tip.it article gave much better solutions to the problem, Jagex have no sense. Honestly, they need to stop opposing tip.it(well, dunno if its still a bannable reference), and working with them. For all the people they employ, they dont seem to have any half decent ideas at all.

[Amishdoom]

Jagex has made some rather annoying moves but by far this is the most irritating. I have friends that are f2p that have thousands of rune essence, I mean this stuff is pouring out of the space under their fingernales! Lo and behold, Jagex decides to add this so called "pure essence" to make high level runes more difficult to get. Now, when they need nature runes, I have to mine it myself and I have to ask them for some money.