Merch Gwyar's Blog

Despite not agreeing with Fargrist's ban (assuming he was banned for voicing his dislike about SoF), I can sort of understand why Jagex did it. But banning his wife too is just bloody ridiculous.

A fascinating read, and another example of the uncaring, faceless money machine that Jagex seems determined to turn itself into. I wonder if somewhere in their spreadsheets is a formula that accounts for the damage caused to the game by losing literate, intelligent, kind players like Merch Gwyar and Vivathia, and replacing them with the kind of people who think it's good that they can pay to get an advantage in game.

 

I too have had conversations with the Gambling Commission and Advertising Standards Authority about SoF. I wonder if I'll find out one day that I too have been summarily banned?

 

Opening things out a bit, we're just at the start of a really interesting debate about what constitutes property in the digital age. Politicians are going to be making laws about this in the next decade or so, and drawing parallels between Redigi, the Geoff Luurs case, and maybe now we should add SoF and Fargrist's case to the list of things that currently fall through loopholes in our laws.

I can say only one thing

 

Jagex: fudge you!

Given Jagex's recent attitude with their community, I can't say this is surprising that Jagex did this - nonetheless, still unjustifiable. I feel that it has come to a time where it is effectively no longer the same company running the game, and, not knowing how to do it properly, they are doing any measure to keep it alive while it can. I only wonder how much longer it will last and what direction it goes in from here.

Sadly, good will is easy for a company to burn, as it doesn't feature on balance sheets. There's a certain schizophrenic feel to Jagex at the moment, on one hand they are doing things like this, becoming Real World Traders, milking the player base for all it's worth, and on the other they putting out strong updates that clearly have a lot of man-hours put into them, banning bots and working on long-range projects like EoC.

 

My overall feeling is that the long overdue other game, Transformers MMO / Thirdscape / Stellar Dawn (or whatever it's called this week) will either make or break Jagex financially, and my guess is on break, given that it's 12 years since the company launched a game that managed to capture the public's imagination. Since then that have rolled out a constant stream of expensive duds (did anyone even notice 8 Realms closing down for good a while back?).

 

The bottom line is (and you can see this in so much of their recent non-quest content) Jagex don't really understand what makes games fun to play any more. I put SoF and EoC in the same category, things that show Jagex are drastically out of touch with their audience.

This...I'm assuming you've sent them some emails asking for a reason? Or made a new account and posted on the forums for an answer? It just seems childish to me, pretend the problem doesn't exit and it will go away. Good luck with your quest for knowledge and I hope you get some answers soon!

This...I'm assuming you've sent them some emails asking for a reason? Or made a new account and posted on the forums for an answer? It just seems childish to me, pretend the problem doesn't exit and it will go away. Good luck with your quest for knowledge and I hope you get some answers soon!

the pretending it doesn't exist thing id a technique they have been using for quite some time :/

 

and it's not unsurprising because it works for those who don't look any further

which is exactly the player base they are aiming at as teacup states

a whole new low...:/

nothing they do suprises me anymore

ach...merch, we do miss ye

I psychicly realized that you would post, so ensured that I'd turn up two mins later to blow a kiss.

 

*blows more kisses to those whose psychic messages arrived while I was too distracted elsewhere*

Of course. See you there!