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Losing Heart in Jagex Over Squeal of Fortune

Merch Gwyar

Entry posted by Merch Gwyar

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Over 15k comments in a single thread against Squeal of Fortune and still no word from Jagex. That's just one thread, the forums are full of them. Perhaps the JMods got muted for Real World Trading.

 

I know it's Easter, but you'd think that someone somewhere would recognise a train wreck when they saw one. It feels planned that the microtransactions were released this week, so that the bank holidays could be used as an excuse for prolonging the lack of response. Nothing feels too insidious to level against the company right now. They've already pre-empted my lowest expectations.

 

Do I agree with Squeal of Fortune? Of course not, for all of the reasons that I laid out here:Uproar Over Jagex Microtransactions. But there's something more personal too. It bothers me that I've put in all of this work, since December 2006, and now others can simply buy their way to my stats. That's annoying and I've already seen the devaluation in action. Someone in the GE earlier said that they had 98 Runecrafting. My immediate thought was, 'I wonder if that was legit or bought.' I didn't say it aloud, but someone else did. I watched the Runecrafter have to justify their levels, when just a week ago, they would have been held in immediate high esteem.

 

Incidents like that are going to become endemic, aren't they?

 

It bothers me, but what's worse is that the last bastion of merit, in my life, has now been sold out. The old lie that hard work equates a great and stable future has never panned out in real life. it did in Runescape. Putting my life on hold to gain my MA never did pay off in the promised riches. Standing at a bank for hours, grinding longbows actually did get me the fletching levels. I've stood by and watched nepotism and middle class money promote people, with less experience and fair fewer qualifications, above my head. I've never seen anyone shoot ahead in Herblore or Crafting without putting the hours in. I've had to put up with being patronised and presented with piles of extra paperwork, because I had the affrontery to be deaf in the Job Centre. But in Runescape, all things were equal. All avatars started the same. All banks were made or broken according to a player's choices. All monsters were defeated on a player's merit and skill. Luck only played the smallest role and that was only beating an algorithm, not divine intervention.

 

Then Jagex sold us out too. Real life money made it into the game with sanction. They changed the rules and the terms and conditions right in front of our eyes; and didn't even have the decency to announce it. Our egalitarian principles turned out to be so cheap that 110k people still played the game, while only 15,000 of them registered their complaint on the forums. Only 18 sought out places like Develop, where just two months ago, Mark Gerhard rushed to contextualise a damning story. They're reading there and taking note. Only one has volunteered to take a 7k strong petition into the very offices of Insight Venture Partners. It feels like game over.

 

This week has broken my heart.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

Edgar Allan Poe

.

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Merch Gwyar

Wow! That was just... wow! Still a bit too stunned to comment.

 

One of my favourite Poe poems too, only one space behind 'Demon in my View'.

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Merch Gwyar

Uther - I was happy for the PKers then. I know people who were bouncing with happiness over that one. At least for me it was back over the ditch, so it was just a case of reverting back to old play.

 

Lilshu - I know where you're coming from. It's just a game and that isn't up there with all of the tragedies of real life. In fact, this is First World Problems epitomised. That's why i headed it under 'personal'. My gameplay concerns are all in the link, but they're nothing that hasn't been said a dozen time by people on Sal's. For me, I'm struggling a lot with knocks and set-backs. You can handle those things, even with your back up against the wall, if there is just one arena where things are fair. For me, since I first signed up, that's been Runescape. Now the issues that are making life difficult IRL are in the game too. It's the whole psychology of that, which is hitting hard.

 

Edit: Sorry that didn't quite answer your question. It's the fact that those with money and privileges already can simply buy their way to success. While the rest of us work hard, then have those results devaluated for profit.

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venom

1. RuneScape has been essentially dead for years, people who currently play are just now realizing it.

2. Jagex has realized this for a while.

3. Jagex is going to squeeze every last drop of money they can out of the game, like a smart business.

4. Quit.

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Aabid

I quit this game this weekend.

This game is getting worse and worse.

 

Merch, please sell my claws for 20M and leave them there.

Then in 1 month, put them for 15M.

Then 1 month later, sell them for normal price and please return my money. I want to give my little cuz. his money back.

 

Oh and what is this J Mod thing?

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Admiral

1. RuneScape has been essentially dead for years, people who currently play are just now realizing it.2. Jagex has realized this for a while.3. Jagex is going to squeeze every last drop of money they can out of the game, like a smart business.4. Quit.

Pretty much what happened to Funorb. :(

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