Merch Gwyar's Blog

Gratz on the invit :P

I'm so "confused" right now...Never in my life I saw so many rants on RS, and as answer they give us more SoF...*baffle*

 

Anyway, hope you'll have a very constructive visit, (tell them to look at all your writings, never know about any job offer) and share the results with us poor mortals. :P

Thanks :)

 

I spotted that and didn't understand it either! They really are burying their heads and hoping that it goes away, aren't they?

 

<3

All signs appear to show that indeed they hope the rants will die little by little and they plan on keeping SoF the way it is now...There's no doubt about it..sadly :/

 

<333 have a great weekend and enjoy Cambridge

btw, should I send a shovel to your mum in case??? :)

you should get people on sals to give you questions to ask

Anyone who tried burying me under the carpark would be haunted until the end of time. :P

Please do give me your questions and I'll do my best to get them answered. :)

I'd love you to ask someone about their stance on RS2006.

 

And if not, then be a dear and ask them to re-release RuneScape from before August 2007 or so, like their RSC re-release.

 

:P

Why do they make F2P so bad.

Gl Merch and may I come and save you if something happens.

Oh a question; They were talking about account transfering; are they considering changing the rules?

ooo ooo

 

ask this one

 

"Is the game going to be shut down soon and now you're just trying to drain every penny out of it?"

tell them to make me a mod plox!

tell them to make me a mod plox!

Wizzley is an excellent vehicle for your work and talent. A wonderful way to have your voice heard and your talent recognized. The fact that it is the source of getting Jagex to take notice is interesting. I am thrilled, and know that you are the exact person we all need to voice your concerns in an erudite manner. You go Merch! Tell Mum not to worry. (Fred, put away the spade) Glad the dreads are tidied, now just gloss the lips, and go slay 'em. :)

<3 Ms Click

 

Merch, ask them -if you can-

 

1- Why not make the SoF only gives cosmetic and lucky items, why include XP?

 

2- Why not market "special emote" or decorative clothing / skins (as the green skin with RuneFest) for a few $?

 

3- What do they think about the all time high of rant on the Forum, especially the +16K thread about SoF?

 

4- Considering Jagex hired JacMob (bot scripter) and the bot nuke a few month ago where Jagex told us only 2% of bots will be still working, why do we have so much bots back now??? I'd like to see a RS free of bot before the Mayan prediction come to term....

 

5- Enjoy your trip <3

Well, this certainly is a very interesting development!

 

It's tempting to speculate that your articles are playing a part in the internal debates that are going on about SoF within Jagex, or between Jagex and IVP, and that you might be going to Jagex to give the players a voice... but that would be a very odd development, because Jagex *always* presents itself to the public as an organisation that has no internal conflicts and no internal disagreement (even major u-turns like the return of free trade are dressed up as positive PR events), and nobody who ever left Jagex ever says a bad word about them (from which we can assume they are signing some pretty tight non-disclosire agreement (NDA)s).

 

I can think of 5 possible reasons for Jagex inviting you.

 

1. They believe their own PR hype, and think you'll be totally wowed by a tour, and you'll stop writing anything negative about them ever agian once you've met them, shook their hands and drunk their tea.

 

2. You are a chess piece in a complex game between IVP and Jagex, or between Jagex staff who can see the money rolling in and Jagex staff who can see the moral downside of getting kids hooked on gambling.

 

3. It would be useful for Jagex to get you to sign an NDA that has some pretty broad wording in it, so they can censor, suppress or change anything you write about them in future, because they say it reveals secrets about futue content, even when it doesn't, and they have a big legal team and you don't.

 

4. You will disappear of the face of the earth (not physically, but you'll be sat down in a room full of lawyers who will advise you very strongly not to blog about anything gaming related ever again, and apply whatever combination of carrots and sticks would be needed to achieve this.)

 

5. You will disappear of the face of the earth (not physically, but Runescape will soo enter a new golden age and there will be whispers of a mstical Jmod with a green hat who made everything right with the game)

 

I have 2 pieces of advice for you.

 

1) Work out which of the above (or combination thereof) is actually the case.

 

2) There will come a point when you're asked to sign a NDA. You'll be handed it by a smiling man who will present it to you as a mere formality before you're let into see the fabulous the wonders beyond the door infront of you. Read the NDA thoroughly, in your own time, and don't be afriad to say no if you're not happy, even if it means you and Jagex have wasted a lot of time and money on getting you there and you don't get to go through that door. I know you're the sort of person who has the strength and willpower to say no in those circumastances (and you're probably way ahead of me, an have already rehearsed such a scenario in your mind a thousand times), but I want to let you know that while Jagex might be pressuring you to sign, I (and the rest of canting, I assume) don't want you to feel any pressure from *us* to see the secrets and report back either.

 

NDAs are not inherently evil, I've signed a fair few in my time, which is why I left it a year and a day before talking about the third stage of auditioning to be on Big Brother, why I never talk about market conditions leading up to a particular merchant bank merger in the 1990s (I did some design work on a share prospectus and therefore had ealry access to it's share-price sensitive contents), or exactly what was on some very mundane and dull internal accounting forms I designed for a particular government department... but keep your wits about you.

 

Enjoy the trip, and remember, I'm the most pessimistic man in the world, it'll be fine really :-)

Teacuptime, what an excellent assessment!

Brilliant advice from Teacuptime. I hope you enjoy the visit and learn something from it...and I really really hope you can blog bout it afterwards.

Good Luck, I think Teacuptime has said it all. Just don't sign anything you are not completely comfortable with !

I'm just posting to echo Teacup's suspicion that there is some sort of internal disagreement among Jagex staff. If Merch's visit were indeed related to that it would certainly be interesting. Regardless of their reason for inviting her, I cannot help but think Tecup must be at least partially right on #2.

 

I say this because even, in the Jagex RSOF fansite staff forums, Jmods have been absolutely silent about the SoF. I'm not saying that I think our group important enough that lack of reply is unheard of (the fansite staff forum has always been a bit of a farce in terms of "getting stuff done," what with having our reps changed often and their responses being little more than the PR on the rest of the forums). However, it is true that it is a closed forum, hence limited traffic and much more organized discussions than the rest of the RSOF. We also have a single Jmod who acts as our liaison.

 

Our contact was changed recently, and she appears to be doing a very good job at answering all of our questions. All of them, that is, except for the Squeal Wheel topic, where replies are becoming increasingly disgruntled (and, in my case, sarcastic :P). She has acted as if that topic doesn't exist, and when I, in poor taste, decided to point this out in her welcome topic, she ignored my post while replying to everyone else around me.

 

This leads me to think that there must be sort of order that all Jmods are to answer SoF-related posts under no circumstances. I can't believe that, among an entire company of people, none would care enough about their work that this type of update wouldn't make them a bit uneasy, so I'm only left to assume that Jmods aren't allowed to voice their opinion on the update and that this policy is to prevent the appearance of internal rifts.

 

I assume that whether or not this is this case will become more and more apparent as time goes on, the posts in the protest topics increase, and I and others continue to post in the staff forums topic in an increasingly bitter manner. Good luck on your trip, Merch. It should be interesting.

Thank you all, especially you, Teacuptime.

 

Lots of food for thought here and I did burst out laughing when Tea said I'd rehearsed that meeting in my head. I so have! In fact, it didn't quite go that far, I stated it during the initial 'phone call!

 

If a NDA looks to ban me from writing about Runescape for all eternity, then I'll be in Cambridge to look at Syd Barrett's memorial bench. It'll be worth the trip and shame about the Jagex tour. If it doesn't, then off I go to see the pretties. I'll obviously be respectful and play by their rules in their domain. I'm happy not to give away future stuff or anything that I'm told off the record. I do professionalism too. But I will collect together every question that I've been asked here.

Ask them:

 

When can I "officially" buy gp from jagex.

why didn't they increase subscription costs.

each member what football team they support

what there stand is to the concept of communism and capitalism

if they like the freemasons

when they're going to fix the combat triangle(general answer will be nice)

if they're going to reduce the power of OP weapons

 

and have fun in cambridge

Nice eclectic bunch of questions here. :)

tell them to make me a mod plox!

 

Me too! Oh wait... ;)

 

I wish you the best of luck going in there and I sincerely hope this is going to be a positive visit.

 

And in regards to Heb0's post. Mod forums haven't had a response either which has me believing a similar story.

Are you going to ask all the questions? :o

I really want to know about account transferring.

Make F2P fun = when?

 

Ask your heart out Merch! You've got us behind your back.