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

[oddfaery2]

Ya I agree with you, but for the alternitives, I am not sure if number 1 will work or not, but I am positive that number 2 will NOT work. Autoers can easily read what is on the screen, so if anywhere on the screen it say enter "12" it will easily be able to hit the appropriate boxes. An example would be the mysterious old men boxes. The autoers get around them don't they..

 

 

 

Only Jagex can really say which things have been effective and which have not. Even if it can read the screen, they can make changes to it to at least make macroing it harder.

 

 

 

the point is that this update has not stopped macroing, and this would be more effective than what they did.

[Runescapefan948374]

Ah, after re-reading the tip.it times, idea's 1 and 2 are basically a rip off of your ideas :( sorry.

 

 

 

I agree something must be done to stop the autoers, and your idea's are good. But here's maybe, what I can believe is a simple yet possibly effective solution.

 

 

 

Well, I have three possible solutions: :D

 

 

 

1) Just make the Rune mysteries quest harder, add some requirements like (just a example) you need to enchant a pickaxe to be imbued with magical power to mine ess (yes, sorta lame..) afterwords the pickaxe would appear like so: "Rune Pickaxe (E)" and would also be untradable, therefore also stopping macroers from buying there way to sucess, enchanting the pickaxe which would require something around 45 magic, nothing really to hard. But a possible solution to stop autoers, or at least forcing them to do some work(?), then hopefully they will be banned.

 

 

 

2) We all remember the old fatigue in RSC, where you had to type in a word which moved around slowly on your screen, in odd and colorful lettering, why not introduce it again, it'll be like a pop-up window and will come up everytime you click on the Portal to leave the mine.

 

 

 

3) Best and yet maybe worst idea. Listen to this: We all know that Rune Essence (normal ess) can only be used to make elemental runes or f2p runes, and that pure ess can make all type of runes, well, why not do this:

 

 

 

Keep pure ess as it is, but allow Rune ess to also make every type of rune but there's a twist, lets say you try to craft natures with normal Rune ess, give it a 50% chance of degrading the rune essence (getting rid of it completely) and a 50% chance of creating a rune. It will help every free player who was messed up due to this update, but shouldn't massively affect the want for them, since they have a chance to degrade the essence. But for members when massively creating runes, this may create SOME want for them, allowing free players access to some cash.

 

 

 

(If you didn't understand, think about it as smithing iron without a ring of forging)

[rubiquest]

Ok - hope I don't step on anyone's toes here :(

 

 

 

I'm a recent addition to the RS family I guess. My kids turned me on to this game so obviously I'm a little older than the typical crowd.

 

 

 

I've been playing for about 2-3 months. I reached ~70 lvl overall BEFORE I became a member. Not too sure about the real money vs the game money debate so I won't trend on that turf too much.

 

 

 

I play this game for the challenge that it presents to ME. Not how much money I can make (either real or game $$). Obviously better armor/weapons/etc. can be bought so I guess that's one advantage to making rs $$. I've bought a few things but overall I earned everything that I have, either through killing npc "monsters" or completing quests. I probably rate pretty low when it comes to the rs "wealthy" with only (currently) ~400K in cash. I make a few things and sell them, usually for between what the stores will buy them for and thier retail costs. I don't play the "rare market" game either. Some folks in the game seem to place way too much emphasize on $$$. In my humble opinion that seems to be missing the point of the game. However, I guess it's a case of different strokes for different folks, :-(. Whatever makes them happy, I say carry on.

 

 

 

I seriously doubt that I will ever be a "PK'er". I may defend myself in the wild but killing other players for the "thrill" of it or to take thier stuff to sell seems to be counter-productive to me. It also seems to be somewhat juvenile. I guess the company has to apeal to those types in order to get the real world $$ rolling in to setup servers, write the programs, etc.

 

 

 

In short, I don't see that the actions that Jagex has taken affecting me in anyway what-so-ever.

 

 

 

Over all, the macro'ers didn't affect me before and they won't affect me now. If I want ess I kill banshees or mine it. I make the runes I need to achieve the goals I set for myself. If I need to re-stock on generic runes then I do what I did today; I kill dark wizards for a few hours (real world). I earned over 3.5K runes and 12 different types at that, lol!

 

 

 

By the way - I play an average of 6 hours daily.

 

 

 

Money, either RS gold peices, Euros, US Dollars, or Mexican Pesos isn't MY motivation for this game. So the actions of others tend to affect me very little. If it takes a little longer to achieve a goal becasue I have to mine more ess, so be it.

 

 

 

Just my thoughts.

 

 

 

As I said, hope I didn't offend anyone with this post.

 

 

 

Rubiquest

[sprites]

I like the idea of a required combat level to enter the mines.

 

 

 

Here's a suggestion: Every 1k essense that you mine, you need to solve a puzzle or type in a word much like fatigue.

 

Most lower levels won't sell more than 1k ess at a time.

[oddfaery2]

Ah, after re-reading the tip.it times, idea's 1 and 2 are basically a rip off of your ideas :( sorry.

 

 

 

I agree something must be done to stop the autoers, and your idea's are good. But here's maybe, what I can believe is a simple yet possibly effective solution.

 

 

 

Well, I have three possible solutions: :D

 

 

 

1) Just make the Rune mysteries quest harder, add some requirements like (just a example) you need to enchant a pickaxe to be imbued with magical power to mine ess (yes, sorta lame..) afterwords the pickaxe would appear like so: "Rune Pickaxe (E)" and would also be untradable, therefore also stopping macroers from buying there way to sucess, enchanting the pickaxe which would require something around 45 magic, nothing really to hard. But a possible solution to stop autoers, or at least forcing them to do some work(?), then hopefully they will be banned.

 

 

 

2) We all remember the old fatigue in RSC, where you had to type in a word which moved around slowly on your screen, in odd and colorful lettering, why not introduce it again, it'll be like a pop-up window and will come up everytime you click on the Portal to leave the mine.

 

 

 

3) Best and yet maybe worst idea. Listen to this: We all know that Rune Essence (normal ess) can only be used to make elemental runes or f2p runes, and that pure ess can make all type of runes, well, why not do this:

 

 

 

Keep pure ess as it is, but allow Rune ess to also make every type of rune but there's a twist, lets say you try to craft natures with normal Rune ess, give it a 50% chance of degrading the rune essence (getting rid of it completely) and a 50% chance of creating a rune. It will help every free player who was messed up due to this update, but shouldn't massively affect the want for them, since they have a chance to degrade the essence. But for members when massively creating runes, this may create SOME want for them, allowing free players access to some cash.

 

 

 

(If you didn't understand, think about it as smithing iron without a ring of forging)

 

 

 

Yes, I like the word idea, but if a macro can read a screen it could just as easily know when to type the word could it not?

 

 

 

Unless a random generator is used, there will be a finite number of obstacles for macros to overcome, thus a finite number of steps until one overcomes them all.

 

 

 

What if, perhaps, you had colored boxes, with colored numbers in them. A legitimate player could easily figure it out, but a macro would have to put more work into it.

 

 

 

In this example anything in parenthesis would be possible adjectives:

 

suppose there are 10-20 boxes on the menu, and it says something along the lines of "Pick the (largest/greatest/multiple of ____) of (primary/secondary/actual color) color that lies in a (secondary/primary/actual color) box."

 

 

 

This would be quite tedious for legitimate players, but could be tweaked to not be too hard.

 

 

 

If you wanted to go with words you could go for the same idea:

 

 

 

"Pick the word of (primary/secondary/actual color) color in the (primary/secondary/actual color) box that is a (pronoun/noun/adjective/adverb/rhymes with ____/person/place/number/synonym of ____/opposite of ____)"

 

 

 

 

 

for example:

 

 

 

Pick the multiple of 7 of primary color that lies in an orange box.

 

 

 

The answer would clearly be whatever multiple of 7 is colored red/blue/yellow in an orange box. Easy for a player to see, but I imagine would be hard to make a macro for. Jagex could also randomize the word ordering to make it more difficult.

 

 

 

or

 

 

 

Pick the word of secondary color in the box of primary color that rhymes with "tough"

 

 

 

and the answer could be the purple "buff" in the yellow box.

 

 

 

Perhaps somebody more in tune with coding can determine what would/wouldn't be highly effective to stop macroes.

[Nova_bros]

Im really tired tonight, but after reading that article i just had to tell 0dd that it was a great article and i agree 100% with it. His solutions are simplistic, yet they work, and the entire article reflects my personal feelings to this dilemma.

 

 

 

Great job man, two thumbs up for this T.I Times.

[sprites]

Pick the word of secondary color in the box of primary color that rhymes with "tough"

 

 

 

and the answer could be the purple "buff" in the yellow box.

 

 

 

This would be difficult for foreign players who speak English as a second language.

 

 

 

I like the "mystery box" idea though.

[weasel]

unlike most people i think this is an improvemnet of what it was, although just needes perfecting, in the small update article they stated that the problem was that essence could be made in "trowaway" accounts, so the solution to me is simple change it so pure essence can't be mined in a "trowaway" acount...

 

 

 

just my opinion

[Stallion4589]

i think the two best ideas raised by oddfaery were flooding the mines with aggressive low-leveled monsters, and having a skill total that prevents miners from mining pure essence.

 

 

 

for example, if f2p were allowed to mine essence in a mine filled with level 25 mages and archers, which required a skill total of say 500 to mine, i think that this would allow jagex to keep the normal ess for basic runes/pure for better runes idea.

[glademering]

On one last note, IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢d like to emphasize that, like all Tip.It Times articles, these opinions are my own, and I speak for nobody but myself.

 

 

 

First of I have to laugh at this quoted statement, if you don't get why, then you didn't read teh times a month ago.

 

 

 

While some of the solutions proposed are decent, most of them have flaws. So we introduce monsters... what happens if i want to make a mage pure but I want to mine my own ess? I can't do it anymore.

 

 

 

So we make it that the pickaxe has to be enchanted to mine ess. How am I gonna get magic lvl 45 without the ability to mine ess? How do I level my magic without the runes to do so? Keep in mind I'm completely disregarding the market.

 

 

 

So we introduce a pin number like at the bank. Do you have any idea how annoying this would be? Mining ess is annoying in it's repetitiveness. This would be annoying in a time consuming-I-can't-mine-ess-while-I-put-in-the-code kind way.

 

 

 

At this point I'm gonna move on and whine about how Jagex just royally screwed all the f2pers. Pure ess is now worth about 40-50gp ea... up from 30-40 ea.. and regular ess is down to about 15-25 ea... so anyone who wanted to sell ess as an f2per just got screwed. Bad. I mean while they were at it, why didn't Jagex just go into all the f2p accounts and steal their gold... it would have amounted to about the same thing, just in a less underhanded way.

 

 

 

My last point, and this one might be long, is that you can really tell that the brainchildren behind this idea don't manage their real life finances. Did they not think about the repurcussions on the market price of everything that this update would have? Natures are gonna cost more. So anyone high alching steel plates is gonna buy them for less. So now someone is getting even more screwed financially. Carry this over to anyone who high alchs anything, or to ppl who are mage pures and pk with deaths, or to just about anything. This will cause massive inflation in some parts of the market, and massive recession in others. It will completely unbalance the market for about a year, at which point the market will fix itself, or possibly continue fluctuating. Imagine what would happen if the American Government suddenly told everyone that their money was only worth 1/2 of what it was supposed to be worth because they were going to double the amount of currency in circulation. Not only would the American economy be royally screwed, but all of the trading partners globally who have American money would get screwed. It would throw the global economy into a turmoil that could very well cause another great depression. Now no one in real life is stupid enough to do something this serious, which is why I'm very surprised that there are people at Jagex who ARE stupid enough to not clearly think this through.

[Slip_on_slipper_flipper]

Good article!

 

I feel sorry for Jagex. Anything they do now-a-days is always being turned down. That leads me to think, maybe they just shouldn't do anything. That would be a real turn off. So maybe we should show something called 'respect' and let's not try to 'play Jagex.'

 

Stick to playing RuneScape, it makes you all more obsessive.

 

 

 

Just a thought,

 

~Slipper~

[fread_w]

Just a thought about the enchanted pickaxe soloution. Say if you used a normal pickaxe you could only mine normal ess. However lets say when you get to a high enough runecrafting lvl you would be able to do a subquest that enabled you to buy an enchanted pickaxe that would mine pure ess. I think this would be a better way to implement this soloution.

[eggnaiter]

"I was happier before mummy and daddy split up"

 

Thats how i feel

 

I Had Bought about 40k ess in hope of Getting 70 rc when i member.

 

I Went out that night and i wake up in the morning to find that all my ess is called normal ess or something like that. WEll Now i could no longer get up my rc the way i wanted to. I was stooged :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: One more reason i hate macros !!!!!!!! its all cause ofem

 

There Goes my dream.......Mind u i can still get that high rc but itll be harder making money from the product

[oddfaery2]

unlike most people i think this is an improvemnet of what it was, although just needes perfecting, in the small update article they stated that the problem was that essence could be made in "trowaway" accounts, so the solution to me is simple change it so pure essence can't be mined in a "trowaway" acount...

 

 

 

just my opinion

 

 

 

Improvement for who? It didn't stop macroers for essence (just go to world one and see all the level 3s selling 30-50k at a time). Cheating for 500k isn't going to be any deterrent to cheating for the previous 1m. they're still going to cheat and make a ton of money. I hate buying from these macroers, but you can get ess from them for about half the price as from legitimate players.

 

 

 

So while it will take more trading to do it, they're still going to make millions cheating because this solution was INEFFECTIVE, and seriously hindered legitimate essence miners.

 

 

 

 

 

On one last note, IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢d like to emphasize that, like all Tip.It Times articles, these opinions are my own, and I speak for nobody but myself.

 

 

 

First of I have to laugh at this quoted statement, if you don't get why, then you didn't read teh times a month ago.

 

 

 

While some of the solutions proposed are decent, most of them have flaws. So we introduce monsters... what happens if i want to make a mage pure but I want to mine my own ess? I can't do it anymore.

 

 

 

So we make it that the pickaxe has to be enchanted to mine ess. How am I gonna get magic lvl 45 without the ability to mine ess? How do I level my magic without the runes to do so? Keep in mind I'm completely disregarding the market.

 

 

 

So we introduce a pin number like at the bank. Do you have any idea how annoying this would be? Mining ess is annoying in it's repetitiveness. This would be annoying in a time consuming-I-can't-mine-ess-while-I-put-in-the-code kind way.

 

 

 

At this point I'm gonna move on and whine about how Jagex just royally screwed all the f2pers. Pure ess is now worth about 40-50gp ea... up from 30-40 ea.. and regular ess is down to about 15-25 ea... so anyone who wanted to sell ess as an f2per just got screwed. Bad. I mean while they were at it, why didn't Jagex just go into all the f2p accounts and steal their gold... it would have amounted to about the same thing, just in a less underhanded way.

 

 

 

My last point, and this one might be long, is that you can really tell that the brainchildren behind this idea don't manage their real life finances. Did they not think about the repurcussions on the market price of everything that this update would have? Natures are gonna cost more. So anyone high alching steel plates is gonna buy them for less. So now someone is getting even more screwed financially. Carry this over to anyone who high alchs anything, or to ppl who are mage pures and pk with deaths, or to just about anything. This will cause massive inflation in some parts of the market, and massive recession in others. It will completely unbalance the market for about a year, at which point the market will fix itself, or possibly continue fluctuating. Imagine what would happen if the American Government suddenly told everyone that their money was only worth 1/2 of what it was supposed to be worth because they were going to double the amount of currency in circulation. Not only would the American economy be royally screwed, but all of the trading partners globally who have American money would get screwed. It would throw the global economy into a turmoil that could very well cause another great depression. Now no one in real life is stupid enough to do something this serious, which is why I'm very surprised that there are people at Jagex who ARE stupid enough to not clearly think this through.

 

 

 

Yes, monsters would make it difficult for mage pures, but the level 25 was just a suggestion. Jagex could altar it however they see fit. If you're going to be a mage pure, level 50 combat wouldn't be a bad thing to get melee based, as you would easily pass it once you become mage based anyway, unless you for some reason don't want HP.

 

 

 

Out of the ideas, i like that "pin" one the least. it is more annoying than anything. I think having a skill total/better quest requirement, or just flooding it with monsters is the best solution by far.

[Hamelus]

 

Just ip ban autoers

 

 

 

You think its that easy? The macroes must refresh their ip, The only way to "Ip ban" them is to ban their entire ip range!

[Guest]

I'm convinced that the idea about a seperate quest once you reach 500 total level would be a great idea. And then you could combine Pure Ess for f2p as well and it would bring the rs economy back close to normal.

 

 

 

Hope we get some Jagex staff see this and post. :)

[kneus6]

So we make it that the pickaxe has to be enchanted to mine ess. How am I gonna get magic lvl 45 without the ability to mine ess? How do I level my magic without the runes to do so? Keep in mind I'm completely disregarding the market.

 

 

 

 

solution you can mine normal ess just at all lvls and you need 45 magic to enchant your pickaxe and then you can mine pure ess

 

 

 

and btw does jagex really think this is gonna stop macroers they just become p2p, you really think that that 5 dollars a month really matters if you sell your mony for real cash on forums you will earn less mony but still get a lot and what some1 else said that i dont think is real bull [cabbage], jagex only want that the f2p macroers are becoming p2p so that they can make money from them

[elit9]

Excellent article and suggestions :D it's amazing an entire team of people at Jagex couldn't come up with anything similar to what you proposed :roll:

[AnderzDaPrince]

At the end of the day, the primary objective of Jagex is to maximise profit. In order to achieve this, they have released an update which does exactly that. Jagex is not in fact disturbed by macroers at all. This update has done a few things for Jagex :

 

 

 

-Encouraged legitimate f2p miners to become members

 

-Encouraged macroers to become members

 

-Created the illusion that Jagex were doing something about macroers

 

 

 

As previously mentioned, the price of Nature runes will shoot up. All high level runes will rise in price. This makes members more attractive. The majority opinion here is that free players just got messed up badly. It all works in favour of Jagex and their aim to make more people become members. Given the number of people that play RuneScape, this update will make hundreds if not thousands of people become members.

 

 

 

So if you think this update was solely designed to remove macroers, you are wrong. It is an elaborate money making scheme, and the guys at Jagex will share champagne as their membership count rises dramatically.

[Iantiger]

I disagree with you Anderz. I think that Jagex are very concerned with macroers. People who break their rules, and go unpunished can brag to their friends "Hey! Guess what I did in Runescape and I haven't been banned yet!". Eventually the problem will get out of control.

 

 

 

I think that, although Jagex are there to make money, they are equally concerned about stopping as many people as they can who are breaking the rules, and I think this update was primarily designed to control that.

 

 

 

However, I can see your point, but I think you're looking into this too much. More members and thus more profits may be something that Jagex looked at as a possibility of happening, but I seriously doubt it is the main reason they released the update.

 

 

 

On Topic: A very good article. I am not particularly in favour of the idea of the monsters, or the mystery box/random event, but I endorse the idea of a skill total requirement.

 

 

 

~Ian

[monkeyboo2]

i rc alot now and this ess is just way too high priced...im lucky i bought bout 10 mins b4 the update

[Hegel]

Great article, and I like the 1st solution

 

 

 

Going to stop rc'ing for now till the pure essence prices drop a bit

[remoteman]

i agree, great article and wat a bad update :roll:

[remoteman]

i agree, great article and wat a bad update :roll:

[lotdt2]

i like solution 2 easiest to put into the game and will not stop higher level real players from mining ess easily however the monsters i think should be around lvl 15 so players who are lower level and serious players can still make money from ess