Search the Community

DISCLAIMER: This thread contains OPINIONS/IDEAS only, anything claimed to be factual may not be true and with that said, we enjoy our freedom of speech to collaboratively work out why Jagex isn't like the old Jagex. This thread is to be read as complaints and not to be taken as libel nor slander. If you have any issues with reading POTENTIAL reasons why Jagex may suck or is not doing very well, please leave now. Anyone that engages in discussing Jagex negatively SHALL not be held responsible (legally) for expressing their opinions as per the United States First Amendment. EVEN if someone below claims something to be factual, use your own judgment as to whether it is or not indeed factual. In this thread we are going to talk STRICTLY about (some are related, but just for ideas): 1. Why Jagex sucks. 2. What mistakes they have made. 3. What features they have ruined. 4. What items are useless. 5. How messed up they made the economy. 6. How badly they made PvP-lovers or player-killers ditch the game. 7. The cosmetics that are useless and even annoying (GUI, interface).

Rather than continue bumping a topic that is buried under countless of other RuneScape Updates & News topics I'm just going to create one here in the clan section for us to discuss the Clan Cup. Week 4 EoC Combat Cup Titans Revolution vs Chosen Elite Red Armies vs AWAITING RESULT Realm of Gods vs Decimus Apocalypse Slayers vs Divine Resilience Wicked Fury vs 72 Potato Legacy vs Zer0 Pvm Mother Duckers vs Dragonfury Clan Europe vs DISPUTED (Legend Crashers vs Grace of Darkness) Legacy Combat Cup Quarter Final DISPUTED RESULT (Night Killers vs Legend Crashers) vs Titans Revolution Clan Europe vs New Power DISPUTED (Maxed 4Ever vs Zer0 Pvm) vs Wicked Fury DISPUTED (Wilderness Guardians vs TLS) vs Echo Of Silence Mini Combat Cup - 100+ SEMI FINAL Wicked Fury vs Clan Europe New Power vs Zer0 Pvm Mini Combat Cup - Community FINAL Asgaard vs Titans Revolution Mini Combat Cup - 20vs20 Matched P2P SEMI FINAL Zer0 Pvm vs Rift Wicked Fury vs Phoenix Rising Mini Combat Cup - 20vs20 Matched F2P SEMI FINAL Zer0 Pvm vs Wicked Fury Titans Revolution vs Clan Europe Mini Combat Cup - Iron Only Quarter Final DISPUTED (Thunders Wrath vs Libra) vs Wicked Fury Potato Legacy vs Legend Crashers Oversoulz vs 72 Zer0 Pvm vsSpirits of Arianwyn

I've only just seen this, but it doesn't provide a great deal of background. Is anyone able to bring me up to date? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBQ7wfKsCfc

So I am a Pay2Play member of Runescape and have been since October of 2010. I quit runescape shortly before EoC came out and havent been online for close to a year now. In that year I never remembered to cancel my runescape membership and it is still being charged to my credit card every month. In that time I also seem to have forgotten my login name. I have no recoveries and don't have JAG either. What I do know about my account is the password, display name and all of the payment information (credit card). I have the credit card information as well as my statement to prove the account is mine, I just don't know how to go about doing it. I have also tried contacting jagex via [email protected] and have gotten no response in 4 days now. If anyone has had the same problem and solved it, any kind of advice would be greatly appreciated. I need my account back by March 1st so I can vote for 2007 servers and play on them. Thank you everyone!

Recently, Jagex has been sharing teaser/preview images for future RuneScape updates with Platinum-level support fansites. These images are released on a weekly basis (approximately), and I'll be posting them in here as they come in. Feel free to discuss them! :) Enjoy! Teaser Image Index 07 March 2013 22 February 2013 07 February 2013 01 February 2013 24 January 2013 19 January 2013 22 December 2012 14 December 2012 06 December 2012 30 November 2012 23 November 2012 16 November 2012 09 November 2012 01 November 2012 31 August 2012 20 April 2012 30 March 2012 16 March 2012 02 March 2012 24 February 2012 10 February 2012 27 January 2012 13 January 2012 06 January 2012 16 December 2011 05 December 2011 25 November 2011 17 November 2011 04 November 2011 27 October 2011 14 October 2011 07 October 2011 23 September 2011 16 September 2011 09 September 2011 26 August 2011 19 August 2011 12 August 2011 05 August 2011 22 July 2011 16 July 2011 08 July 2011 01 July 2011 24 June 2011 10 June 2011 03 June 2011 29 May 2011 19 May 2011 15 April 2011 08 April 2011 01 April 2011 25 March 2011 11 March 2011 04 March 2011 24 February 2011 18 February 2011 11 February 2011 04 February 2011 28 January 2011 14 January 2011 07 January 2011 31 December 2010 17 December 2010 10 December 2010 03 December 2010 26 November 2010 12 November 2010 01 November 2010 15 October 2010 12 October 2010 01 October 2010 17 September 2010 07 September 2010

Is anyone else reading with interest the reviews of Jagex on Glassdoor? While I'm well aware that it's most likely the disaffected and unhappy who write on such sites, it does make fascinating reading. And it confirms all that we've been thinking about the input of Insight Venture Partners.

Evolution of Combat (EoC) Launch Notes There's less than a day until EoC is planned to go live in RuneScape, and Jagex was kind enough to share some information that should help clear up some of the confusing stuff you might run into upon EoC's launch. Firstly, the Evolution of Combat update is planned to go live tomorrow, Nov 20, in the morning hours, in GMT time. EoC is going to be a huge change for everyone, and there are bound to be lots of questions about it. Hopefully these notes will help ease the transition a little bit. I also encourage everyone to help each other get used to the new RuneScape combat system! :)

Towards the end of last month, two players were permanently banned from Runescape. They had not broken any rules. When I first heard this story, I reacted like I guess that most of you are reacting right now. 'Yeah, yeah, they must have done something! Botting? RWT?' I've seen screen-shots of their ban logs. Fargrist and Vivathia were both manually removed from the game, no reason given. They naturally appealed. Their appeals were rejected within hours. No evidence supplied. Still no reason given. Of course, we can all jump to one massive conclusion. Fargrist has been very vocal in his criticism of Squeal of Fortune. He orchestrated one of the biggest and most eloquently debated anti-SoF threads on the RSOF. It was called Tick Tock Jagex and only died with it reached max. posts. He also went to a national newspaper, the UK Gambling commission and other external people to express his views about SoF. He came to me. But what about Vivathia? She did nothing but marry the man. She even used SoF on a regular basis, albeit only the free spins. She lost her account and we can only assume that it's through association. I've agreed to allow Vivathia to tell her side of the story through my blog, as she has none of her own. Fargrist has just started one, which will be used as a back-up for the Tick Tock Jagex thread and other public documents. It includes their copy of Vivathia's Say. What follows might look like a candidate for tl:dr. But I urge you to do so. It's a very moving testimony, straight from this lady's heart. Over to Vivathia. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Thank you for allowing me my own Opinion (rant).. yes I even rant at my husband (aka Fargrist) As you know by now I'm his other half, Vivathia.. the long suffering wife.. ok, well I don't suffer that much, I just make sure I nod in the right places, I've sat here for.. I'm not too sure how long, my minds a blank when it comes to anything SoF related, and I've listened to my husband discuss it (this is the part where I nod in the right places) I'm neither against, nor for SoF.. heck, I take my free spins and run with it, it's got me a level here and there and it's got me a nice shiny new outfit too. But my husband feels strongly about it and I happily (but silently) back him for his own beliefs, but do my own thing regardless. But, it seems that due to my association with Fargrist's account, my account has been banned, association through the same credit card used to pay for membership. I really don't know what makes me mad, I can admit to feeling mad at the man behind Farg for pushing this SoF thing, my main thought when he got banned was, "what about me?" (Disclaimer, they didn't give a reason as to why we got banned, so I can only assume why he got banned and the reason I got banned was the association with him) I'm more than mad, I was really upset, heck I got upset when way way back when I first started and I got trade scammed and I bought a mith pickaxe instead of a rune for 25K + my adamant pickaxe, when the guy did a last minute swap in the trade window without me noticing, I did the usual I'm not playing, but Farg went out and worked hard mining gold ore to make that money so he could buy me a rune pickaxe and cheered me up. So I am very upset at the fact that I've lost my whole account. I had some great times and have some really good memories from the people I met in game, be it having been a brief meeting or something that became more of a long term friendship. So, my point of view is just as important as fargrists and my anger is directed to the fact I've never voiced a like or dislike about SoF, Fargs side of his banning is very much SoF related, mine, I wish I knew. how I feel, I've played this game for 8 years with my husband, our skills are pretty similar here and there, we've worked(skilled) together, we've helped each other out, one helping the other out with one skill as the other helps with another.. there hasn't been one quest done where we haven't done it together, we've individually solved quest problems helped the other out where and when needed during quests, we've stood and watched during big fights should one of us die. I've never botted, never swore, never scammed or done anything against jagex rules and conditions.. it's not in me even if the above was allowed, I like fair play, I like a reason to play, to work hard for the rewards of all I put into it, I don't care about having the most cash or items in game.. you only have to look into my bank to see that. For me it was the content of the game, the skills and quests, mini game and every other reason that makes a game interesting to me, including a shared gaming interest with my husband in which we've laughed over many silly incidents, more so when he accidentally attacks me in the wildy or so he tells me that is was only an accident, or he's escorted me to places I don't like and I die anywhere and I get to blame him. The game meant a lot to me, for the laughs and teasings we had over it, I have so many stories to tell of the adventures Vivathia and Fargrist had, people will roll their eyes at and probably not find amusing, but it's stuff we still do laugh about. So many "do you remember when's" gone for and with no reason. This whole incident has really take away a lot from me because of their treatment and the loss of my respect in the company that took over a game I once used to enjoy playing. I feel shocked at jagex company for their lack of caring, my appeal denied by an automated reply.. my ban status updated with "appeal denied". No one has read my appeal, no one has told me the reason I was banned, I know no one will, I'm happy for this to go to court, For me its not about SoF, but about getting my account back, I'm 99.9% sure I wont ever play Runescape again, I'm 100% sure I wont if Fargrist doesn't get his account back because it wont be the same playing without him.. but that's a different Story. I still want my account back because it has nothing but an immaculate record of fair play and I'm prepared to fight for that. I can only think Jagex assumes we're a couple of kids who wont make a fuss, rather than a middle aged married couple, one of us *points at Fargrist* being hot headed enough to take it as far as he can.

Another good man left Runescape today. In reality, it's not the day that Egghebrecht walked out - that was when Squeal of Fortune was introduced to the game - it's merely the moment when his membership finally ran out. You can read all about it, in his words, over on his blog. So many people going. Their names are in danger of merging together, a list on a memorial board, while new players rush into the breech never knowing that Runescape was once a game that we enjoyed and had fun in. A stress relief. A social gathering. A place to have pride in our own achievements, based on the merits of our play. One of the few places left on Earth where hard work meant something (if only in pixels), rather than the weight of your wallet. I hate microtransactions. I hate Squeal of Fortune. I hate the endless goodbyes and the bam, bam, bam erosion of all we built. So let's not forget those who have stuck to their principles and laid down their swords. Who's gone now? No-one at Sal's needs an introduction to Egghebrecht. I'm writing this largely for whoever else may be reading. Egg has a heart as big as his community spirit. I doubt there is anyone in his orbit who hasn't, at one time or another, borrowed his Bandos or his Godsword or whatever other weapon may be needed. I've known him log on especially to loan these things out. Last year, Jagex was all about clan building. Egg was that ethos personified. He was in at least two clans to my knowledge, keeping up with both concurrently. No event was too small for him to show his face. No player too noobish not to gain his support. But most of all, his humour kept those clan chats laughing. No matter how bad my day, I always cheered as he typed 'hello', or, in his case, 'bump'. But what most will remember of this remarkable player was his ever patient insight into (legally) making money within the game. I was able to afford 90% of my expensive things by following his advice. I learned to do things like look after my kingdom to its full advantage; buy battlestaves; and use my gp to generate more gp, instead of letting it fester in the bank. No need for fast-track spins of game-breaking squeals, when you had Egg's research, calculator and tips to hand. He made it more fun. He even tricked me into enjoying maths on occasion; because it was in the context of Runescape, I hadn't realised that it was maths. He represented Sal's Realm in the hidden forums, letting our voices be heard there. We owe him that debt. It is players like Egghebrecht who are leaving now. What future can Runescape have on the other side of the SoF updates? None that I'm too keen to see. Goodbye from Gielinor, cariad. You'll be sorely missed by those who remember what this game was and what kind of players it lost to greed.

Before I go into the fine detail about my trip to Jagex, I want to address the contentious issues of Squeal of Fortune and the NDA. I know that many of you reading will only be interested in those, so it'll save you wading through the rest of my waffle. There was a NDA, as we all knew that there would be. It wasn't the one on the door, that everyone has to sign. It was a separate, single-side of A4 letter, which was handed to me by Mod Poppy. It was in plain English, not legal speak, and it did not even seek to silence me beyond the hours spent in Jagex Studios. Even then, we're talking restrictions, rather than shut up about it. In a nutshell, the NDA stops me giving away spoilers or compromising player safety or game security. As far as I'm concerned that's fair enough. As for Squeal of Fortune, I knew my duty there. It was to ensure that I'd raised player objections wherever and whenever the opportunity arose to do so. I did that. I crow-barred some opportunities into the mix. I handed over the Sal's Realm questions, which mentioned it. I talked about it constantly throughout the afternoon. Poor Mod Poppy, Mod Murray and Mod Emma F heard it so often that they must have inwardly cringed whenever someone inadvertently gave me an opening. They all had the patience of saints and never once told me to STFU with SoF protests already! Short of standing in the stairwell or central courtyard and screaming it, so that even the people working on Transformers, 8Realms and the like heard all about it, there's little more that I could have done. With the emphasis on 'little more'. I was halfway down the motorway when it occurred to me that I'd missed the biggest opportunity of all. I'm sorry. I called myself every form of freaking noob when I realised, but by then I was roughly at junction 28 of the A14, battling through a torrential downpour in the dark, and the moment had long since past. Right at the end of the day, I'd briefly bumped into Paul Gower. I should have complained to him about Squeal of Fortune, but it didn't cross my mind. I don't know why. It had more than crossed my mind all day long to the point where I sounded like a stuck record. All I can think is that the tour was officially over with Mod Poppy just ninja-ing an extra hour on the end (in her own time) to show me the rest of the building. I was tired, hiding cramps, but utterly fascinated by all that I was seeing. I relaxed too soon and for that I'm really sorry. If my remit was to waltz in there and get Squeal of Fortune taken down right now, then I was never going to win. If it was to get the words said, the impact understood, the pure emotion of feeling that we're all losing our game, then I did it. Hand on heart, I can say that dozens of J Mods heard that plea. They all listened intently. None of them apologised for it.Your Tweets and Facebook messages, while I was there, helped too. I did my absolute best. I was invited as a guest of player support only as a result of an article I wrote on Internet Safety and as much as I tried to crowbar SoF into every conversation Mod Murray made clear from the moment I arrived that we wouldn’t be discussing it that day, we would be discussing only player support related matters. I don't even have any impressions to share with you about the future of micro-transactions. I wish I had. For the rest of the trip, I'm going to unfortunately have to direct you over to Wizzley. Sorry!

Hey guys, The Squeal of Fortune was released earlier this month, and I think it's clear that the majority of the RuneScape community seems quite discontent with the ability to buy spins for real life cash. We've been listening! We sent Jagex a message regarding the SoF, including our own thoughts and opinions of how it has impacted RuneScape (mainly in a negative way), and we're hoping that we can get their attention and make a difference. The following is the message we sent to Jagex. I'll keep this topic updated with any news as it comes in. :)

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, I was muted last Sunday for unknown reasons. A J-Mod removed my mute only a few hours after I sent an email to Account Help, which kinda made everything OK. What I have since learned is that I was likely the victim of a recent update for Auto Muting. Auto Muting works by identifying certain key words that are typed in-game and automatically silencing the speaker in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach. In theory, this can apply to public, private and clan chats. For example, a bot advertising 'XYZ company Gold for sale' could be recognized by either the 'XYZ' or the 'Gold for sale' part. There are several P-Mods in my clan who told stories of people getting Auto Muted even for saying things like 'XYZ is a gold farmer, add to your ignore list'. BAM, they were Auto Muted even for mentioning 'XYZ'. Early on, there were even stories of people be being muted for just say ‘Selling Gold Ore’. Guess Jagex is still working out the kinks to the system. Here's a RS Forum thead where a player has been Auto Muted and a J-Mod responds and un-mutes the guy. There are many of these posts in the forums ATM. http://services.rune...63717165,goto,3 I might have been muted because when I did my assist in world 117, I quickly repeated: 'offer 97 farm' over and over, perhaps 10-15 times. This might have been considered auto-typing (which I am a little flattered by actually because I think type slow.) Also, if you have noticed that the advertising bots at the GE are now slower than before and they have added a series of seemingly random characters to their text. RWT do this to throw off the Auto Mute algorithms. I guess we should all just be a little more careful what we say – collateral damage due to the war on bots.

So yesterday morning I was in a few dungeons with fellow members of the Nitehawks clan, logged out for a bit to drop the kids off at their various activities, and when I logged back in... I was muted. At this point I should add that I infrequently speak in the public or clan chat as Nitehawks is a big user of TeamSpeak (which BTW is wonderful.) In other words, I didn't do anything. I know what you’re thinking: 'Sure, that's what they all say'. And that's exactly what I said, via TeamSpeak, to fellow clan mate Azlaroc when he told us that he had been muted earlier in the day for doing nothing. So strong was my faith in the Thin Blue Line of the Runescape etiquette police, aka the P-Mods, that I refused to believe that someone could be muted for no reason whatsoever. So when a few hours later, the exact same thing happened to me, I racked my memory trying to recall if I had dropped an F-bomb or two in the waiting area of Daemonheim. I do occasionally have impulse control issues - but ‘twas not the case. Yesterday morning, along with Ter Sha, Horsechaser, Super Shoz, Dancefever87, and others, I was all business, in the middle of a ravenous tear through the dungeons that would ultimately leave 45 bosses festering in a pool of their own gore – I’m talking to you Blink! The pen is mightier than the sword, so I took to the email account and the Jagex helpline: Dear Accounthelp: I've just been muted. I'm sure this is an error as I haven't been speaking publically. I have only been using TeamSpeak as me and my clan mates been working through Dungeons for the last several hours. One of my other clan mates named Azlaroc was also muted. It seems like there has been some kind of a mistake. Could you please un-mute me and make sure that my account is not accessed any black marks? thanks What I got in return was equal parts whimsy and annoying: Hi there – My name is Gary, I’m the automatic response email from Jagex Customer Service, I’m not a real person so please don’t respond to me. My job is to do 2 things; 1. Give you comfort that we’ve received your email. We’ve definitely got it, we’re discussing it and we’re gonna help you out. 2. My second task is to let you know how busy we are at the moment. We’re skipping breaks, lunch and sleep because responding to you is our priority and we will help you as soon as we possibly can. We think we can get back to you within 10 days, but if we can get back to you sooner, we will. Oh Gary, is that the best you can do? 10 Days? I thought about how busy Jagex must be for it to take 10 days to respond to an inquiry of this nature, seeing as how I was innocent . But what if someone hacked my account? *cringes to my core*. What if someone logged in as me, didn’t touch my bank but went on a verbal tirade through the GE. I have seen this happen and it ain’t pretty. Still, this seemed farfetched even to my paranoia-prone mind. Then to my surprise, I received a non-form email, only a few hours after my inquiry – a far cry of the 10 days I had been expecting from Gary. It was Mod Serb and he (or she) had un-muted and cleansed the records for both me and Azlaroc. When I followed with the logical question of ‘wha happened?’ I was told that the Mute had been ‘added incorrectly’. Again the wheel in my mind began to turn – perhaps a P-Mod had gone rogue and began firing off Mutings like Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. It wasn’t exactly comforting that the Line could be breached, but it was nice to know that Jagex customer service took my request seriously and fixed the problem.

There has been much discussion about the SOF and other ‘sell-out’ decisions that Jagex has made of late, so I figured that I would try to make some sense of why these things are happening and what it means to the serious Runescape player. In January 2001, Jagex first released Runescape (now referred to as ‘Classic Runescape.’) The program was based on a game that Andrew Gower had created in the late 1990s called ‘Devious MUD’ with MUD an acronym for ‘Multi User Dungeon’ or ‘Domain’ or ‘Dimension’ depending who you ask. Long story short, Andrew sold Runescape in December 2010 to Insight Venture Partners and Spectrum Equity Investors for 88 million pounds (143 million dollars.) I won’t belabor this point, but TBH I consider Gower to be a sell-out on the order of a man who would sell his daughter into prostitution. Here’s a link to an article from earlier in the week where Gower is honored for being rich. http://www.develop-o...Times-Rich-List Clearly, this is what was most important to him. BTW, hit the gym broheim. Insight is a venture firm with something like a 10 year investment horizon; Spectrum is private equity firm with something like a 5-year investment horizon. So what this means is that both firms are looking for a ‘liquidity event’, either in the form of a private sale or initial public offering of stock – in other words, they are in it for the money. The basic playbook for these firms is to cut costs, pump up the revenues and get out – I am guessing by about 2014-2015. The problem, and this pains me and my thousands of RS gaming hours to say, is that Runescape along with the entire world of MMORPGs is slowly dying. Here’s a couple of charts that illustrate the point: http://siteanalytics.../runescape.com/ In March of 2011, Runescape had 2.16 million unique visitors. A year later, the site had 1.26 million uniques – a 42% drop. Now I’m sure that the Bot-Busting played a big part of this, but ouch – that doesn’t look good to potential future investors. http://users.telenet...arts/Subs-1.png This second chart looks at subscribers, so the effect of the Bot-Busting is largely normalized for as most goldfarmers are free accounts. On this chart of paying subscribers to MMORPGs, Runescape is the little flat line at the bottom with the delineated circles. In 2008, Runescape peaked with about 1.1 million paying subscriptions, but since then there has been a steady decline. Currently Runescape has only about 900,000 paying subscribers, last amongst the big games. Theories abound as to why this is happening, but I think it has a lot to do with the proliferation of console games like COD or Halo where avatars can skill up over time and players can play on-line socially together. In the early 2000s, this was what MMORPGs offered that was special, but it’s not special anymore. So what has Insight done to make the Jagex look appealing to future buyers in the next few years? Well, shortly after they took over and Andrew left the board, they brought back Wildy. The return of the PKers and free trade also welcomed the return of the bots which soon overran gameplay in many of the traditional goldfarming venues with a vengeance – like Red Chins. But what did it matter to Insight if botters return? After all, they will be gone in a few years. I’m sure this wasn’t a hard decision for them to make. We have also seen a massive easing of the ‘grinding’ nature of certain skills – witness this week’s Runecrafting update as a way to make previously unattainable capes attainable for the non-nolifers. And of course the Squeal of Fortune has arrived. SOF is also Jagex’s initial foray into the realm of micro-transactions, one of the most successful ways that on-line games further monetize their player-base. The moment when private equity and VCs took over Jagex, micro-transactions were inevitable. What surprised me was the vile way they have tied the application to gambling. To me, what Jagex is doing with SOF is no different than RJ Reynolds marketing Joe Camel to children to sell more cigarettes. A special place in hell awaits both groups of executives who greenlit those decisions. I don’t mean to sound all ‘henny penny the sky is falling,’ but I think we can expect more changes to the game that may or may not appeal to longtime players. We have been sold to Wall Street and may have to hang on for a while before a long term investor with a ‘growth’ outlook comes along and starts to care of us players again. I plan to ride it out though. I think there is enough of the old Andrew left in the game that it is still great. And perhaps Insight will remember that too, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Hi all, I'm back home and freaking knackered! Fortunately there were no major adventures on the way back, just a very, very long run in the rain and dark. By necessity, there will be some delay in recounting all that happened today, but I do have something immediate to share with you. As promised I presented that A4 sheet of questions to Mod Poppy, practically as soon as I was through the door. It got handed to the head of community relations, whose name is Mod Stevew. It was handed back to me with answers at the end of the visit. Not all questions received answers. Those were just left blank, but for clarity I'll put 'no answer' after them. Herty: What's your stance on RS2006? Could you release Runescape from before August 2007, like the RSC release? Mod Stevew: Each time we update the game we don't keep any of the old assets, and we only change things when we genuinely believe it's an improvement. So, even if we did want to revert to an older graphic set, we just couldn't do it. We are aware that a desire exists to have a version of the game with older graphics, but like many things in life - we do tend to look back on the past and associate it with good times, and then we find that if we actually revisit those things that we treasure so much from 'back in the day', they are not quite as great as our memories would have us believe. As the joke expression goes 'nostalgia ain't what it used to be!'. Hilbrande: Why do they make F2P so bad? They were talking about account transfering; are they considering changing the rules? Mod Stevew: We believe that the free game far exceeds other offerings in the industry in terms of play time and immersive content. Lonely: Is the game going to be shut down soon and now you're just trying to drain every penny out of it? Mod Stevew: No, we are fully committed to the future of RuneScape and making sure it is around for future generations, making RuneScape the best it can possibly be and continually evolving the game with regular updates and improvements is what make us get out of bed in the morning! Gri3f and Minerex: Tell them to make me a mod pl0x! Mod Stevew: Enjoy the game, have fun, support the community and we will spot you! Fred Gwyar: 1, Why not make the SoF only give cosmetic and lucky items, why include XP? Mod Stevew: No answer. Fred Gwyar: 2, Why not market 'special emotes' or decorative clothing/skins (as the green skin with RuneFest) for a few $? Mod Stevew: No answer. Fred Gwyar: 3, What do they think about the all time high of rants on the Forum, especially the +16k thread about SoF? Mod Stevew: We are fortunate to have a passionate community who give us almost instantaneous feedback about all we do - sometimes we have to agree to disagree, but we do read feedback - and when sensible and well thought out comments are made, we always afford those suggestions careful consideration. Fred Gwyar: 4, Considering Jagex hired JacMob (bot scripter) and the bot nuke a few months ago where Jagex told us only 2% will be still working, why do we have so many bots back now??? I'd like to see a RS free of bots before the Mayan prediction comes to term... Mod Stevew: As always, the lat thing we want to do is let bot developers know what we have planned next - we can say that we are totally on it, we will never give up and we share our genuine players desire to have a bot free game. Conspicuous: When can I "officially" buy gp from Jagex? Mod Stevew: No answer. Conspicuous: Why didn't they increase subscription costs? Mod Stevew: No answer. Conspicuous: Each member, what football team they support? Mod Stevew: We have a Jagex staff football team so they are widely supported by everyone here at the studio. We are not quite ready to take on Barcelona yet but watch this space! Conspicuous: What their stand is to the concept of Communism and Capitalism. Mod Stevew: No answer. Conspicuous: If they like the Freemasons. Mod Stevew: No answer. Conspicuous: When they're going to fix the combat triangle (general answer will be nice). Mod Stevew: Combat you say? Hmmmm. We are very close to being able to let the whole community know what plans we have - 2012 is an exciting year for Combat in RuneScape, more news very soon! Conspicuous: If they're going to reduce the power of OP weapons. Mod Stevew: No answer. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Those were all of the questions and answers. There will be more to write, but right now I am genuinely exhausted and drained. I hope to get a full blog about the visit out over the next few days, and I'll certainly aim for it to be asap. I'm well aware that everyone is waiting on this. I would like to answer this Tweet though: I was not offered a mod status and I most certainly would not have signed a NDA that read anything like that. I retain full freedom to write whatever I wish to write before and beyond this afternoon. If that includes criticism over Jagex, then that will happen. Equally if I feel praise is due, then that too will happen. Freedom of speech is one of the human rights that I hold most dear; but I also understand that freedom of speech includes courtesy, respect and personal responsibility. Today the latter must come into play.

I've had some bizarre moments in my life, but none quite beats this for pure surreality. You all know that I've been writing a blog here since 2007. Most of you probably know that I've also been writing Runescape related articles over on Wizzley. I was partway through my third one in reaction to the Squeal of Fortune fiasco, when I received an e-mail from Richard Murray. He invited me to come to Cambridge to tour the Jagex Studios. It was followed by a telephone conversation. I'm definitely going - hotel booked, dreadlocks tidied, maps consulted. Of course, my first question was, 'will I be allowed to blog about it?' The answer is yes, though I'll have to sign forms and let them see it first. I thought it was all about this blog, here on Sal's, because I didn't think for one second that the stuff I was putting out on Wizzley was going to see me making friends and influencing people. But no. It was the Wizzley articles which had prompted it. We were a long way into the telephone conversation before he even realised that I was Merch Gwyar too. Let me confirm something else straight away. I took the opportunity of that call to make my views well and truly felt about micro-transactions. They still want to see me. The whole thing is really fretting my Mum, bless her. She's looked at my Wizzley articles and immediately demanded that I give her Jagex's address. In her words, it's so that if I don't come back again, they 'know where to look for the body'. *dies* But there you go. Write an article knocking Jagex's owners; get invited to tour the studios. And yes, that is what I was writing at the time of the invitation. Incidentally, my dreadlocks look absolutely fabulous. :D

A player named Trevorghost has visited the offices of Insight Venture Partners on behalf of the Runescape players. He took with him printed sheets from the forum. One contained nearly 8k names of people in opposition to microtransactions. The other had the first few pages from the 15.5k strong main thread about it. In all of those pages, only one person had anything positive to say about Squeal of Fortune. This is what happened next: The thread became locked three pages later, but the last post was from a JMod: Also the forums are buzzing with news that some JMods have resigned/been fired over the microtransactions and Squeal of Fortune in particular. There is no firm evidence behind this, but it feels a little more than 'they should all be sacked'. The relevant threads are being shut down by Forum Mods, who state that employee relations are not for public speculation. It's between the individuals and their employers. If JMods have walked out over this, then I applaud them, but I also feel desperately worried on their behalf. Britain is not a place to be out of work at the moment. Edit: And this was my response to that.

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 .

This isn't exactly brand-new (it was publicly posted about a week ago), but I thought it'd be neat to post here anyways. It gives a look at how the voice-overs for RuneScape quests are recorded in the OMUK videogame studio in London and it's actually quite interesting. :) Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqH_P24S_c