Lowering the bar
Entry posted by crazyfoxxy
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The world of RS is very different from the one I first encountered when I began playing in September of 2007: Wildy was there in its first incarnation, bank space was more limited, there were fewer teleports to get around with, there was no Dungeoneering, no Living Rock Caverns, no Nex and there was no GE with its organized market-making. In many ways, the game was a harder, less user friendly – and like millions of other players, I loved it. Or perhaps more accurately, I loved to hate it. The thought of grinding my way all the way up to a 99 skill level was difficult to phantom, like looking up at the moon and believing a human could go there pre-1969.
It was a time of player heroes, their legends growing with every new Youtube video of their in-game exploits. Enter Zezima. Here was a guy who'd not only gotten a few capes… he’d gotten them all. As far as I know, he was the first to max out and the first to a billion in XP. With rapt attention, I watched his videos like this in-character interview:
as well as his RS wedding ceremony with Elianestp (which I find utterly fascinating from a sociological perspective, and kinda romantic)
I was as much fascinated with the strange on-line culture that digitially mimicked the real world, as I was with accomplishment of the 99 skills itself. At the time it was all so new to me, but one thing I was sure of was that Z was the most famous player in RS and it was because of his skill accomplishment. (PS I’m aware of the accusations on his prolific botting, but this didn’t seem to effect his hero status in the game. Jagex even gave him his own personalized ‘Z’ necklace for Pete’s sake.)
So here’s what I think happened over at Jagex in a smoke-filled conference room sometime post 2007 - Some smart cookie, in some strategy meeting said: ‘How can we allow regular players to achieve what player-heroes like Zezima has, without all the grinding that players complain about.’ As mentioned, I think people loved to hate the requirements of getting a 99 in say Runecrafting. They hated doing it but loved the prestige of parading around with their capes. And its the parading that Jagex wants for us, for if we feel good about our accomplishments, we'll keep playing. So what followed after that meeting was the beginning of a deliberate effort to lower the bar for players to achieve ‘Hero’ status. 'Now you too can be great' they said, and we ate it up.
Let’s list some of the ways this was done: Daily assisting of effigies, daily Jack of Trade Aura, daily Wicked Hood, weekly Penguin Hunt, weekly circus, monthly Troll Invasion, hourly randoms. I’m sure I’m leaving a few out, but for me, this means a monthly potential of: 900,000 xp for effigies, 300,000 for JOT and WH, about 120,000 for PH, 120,000 for Circus, 50,000 for Troll and let’s say another 30,000 for randoms. That’s about 1,500,000 free, non-grinding xp for every player, every month, and *gulp* 18,000,000 xp per year. In other words, more than a free cape every year, giving to players in exchange for attentive loyalty.
I’ll write about the Squeal another time, but for me (and the gambling issue aside) that’s what SOF is – the continued lowering of the bar.
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