RuneScape Forum Archive | Shutting down forums

May

2015

Blondfire

Posts: 111 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Silence nerds! you all take selfies and take videos of yourselves at the beach! had you not done this and not made these platforms popular; we would still have our forums! We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape.

14-Jan-2024 03:11:41

Dec

2023

JackScape

Posts: 1,382 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Crone924 said :
mm hmm.

You don't HAVE to log in to just read, and a lot of people DO that.

The fact that you can view the RSOF without logging in doesn't imply some unseen majority over the larger social media platform(s). While Reddit does admittedly account for logged out views in their subreddit activity counter (I was under the impression that it did not but I just checked, it was changed some years back to track and show logged out views), the activity on display is a literal order of magnitude beyond what's seen on the RSOF. While it's possible the actual numbers are closer, that's a hell of gap to bridge through an assumption of unseen activity.

Crone924 said :
Plenty don't log in to engage, because the forums have been left to the devices of a (very) few obnoxious people who, like yourself, seem to think that the way they play, what they like, etc are the only ways to do that and anyone else is S-O-L, and deservedly so.

Not anywhere close to what I've said. I would ask you to take me at my written word without presuming motive or character. This is not conducive to civil discourse.

To be clear, I have nothing against the RSOF nor do I want to see it shut down. I just find this " Reddit and other 3rd party platforms are a small minority " narrative to not only be unfounded, but directly contradicted by the metrics we have available, particularly in comparison to the RSOF.

Crone924 said :
The outcry from the clan people is loud, and rightly so: lots of people use the forums regularly from that player base.

I do think that clans are particularly impacted by the loss of the RSOF given the in-game integration to clan threads, and the RSOF being a primary source for recruitment. It would be great if Jagex could offer some greater cross-platform support in response to help mitigate this.

14-Jan-2024 04:54:18 - Last edited on 14-Jan-2024 07:01:43 by JackScape

Dec

2023

JackScape

Posts: 1,382 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Cole said :
Both of us are looking at Discord right now, and we are both seeing that the engagement from an apparent 17k+ online people is nigh on zero. There are a few posts an hour on some of the more active sub sections, but other sections are seeing zero activity. This is almost identical at best, if not worse, than what we see here on RSOF.

Unless I am missing something, the RSOF sees more activity than Discord.

I assume this was the main RS3 Discord you were looking at specifically? Because there's also the OSRS Discord which sees more activity. Remember that the RSOF are both RS3 and OSRS, so you have to examine the main Discords of both at minimum to make a direct comparison. That's not to mention the myriad of specialized Discord servers (RS Art Community, PVM, Market Watch, all the clan Discord servers, Runelite, and many, many, many more) which all see more proportionate activity than the "main" Discord servers do. The Discord community is a lot more than just the "main" RS3 and OSRS servers.

Original message details are unavailable.
Also, regarding the counter in Discord, it looks to be counting all players who have Discord open who may or may not have the RuneScape Discord open.

This is absolutely true, you can't judge a server's activity by its online list. If you have Discord open (as in you're logged in, not necessarily viewing or engaging in any particular server) then you'll show as being online in every server that you've joined. The only reliable way to measure a Discord server's activity is by its realtime frequency of messages/VCs.

But again, there's a massive web of RuneScape Discord servers stretching out far beyond the two main servers. It's virtually impossible to gauge the total engagement. That said, if just one server is comparative to the RSOF, then it's safe to say that Discord hosts a lot more community engagement than the RSOF does.

14-Jan-2024 05:13:48 - Last edited on 14-Jan-2024 07:00:41 by JackScape

Aug

2023

Singularity

Posts: 97,500 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I have a Reddit account and do find the site useful for many things. However, I still like forum boards and don't think the RSOF should be shut down. It is the official board for the game.

Rather than shut them down forever, they should've tried to find ways to increase user traffic and encourage posting. The forums only lack activity because they're neglected by Jagex. Nothing has been done over the years to improve them or give them a shot. It's not like Jagex poured their heart and soul to bring life to the forums only for it to fail completely. They never even tried.

One thing I dislike about sites like Reddit is they're bad for long-term discussions. You have to talk about daily hot topics. If you want to have a long-term discussion, it's rather difficult because topics quickly die. They don't carry on days or weeks after the topic was created.

It is a real shame Jagex went for outright removal. .

14-Jan-2024 09:25:51

Dec

2005

Killashandra

Posts: 1,357 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I've read the previous comments and think it seems obvious to me that there are a number of people just on here who want to keep the forums alive. It's a shame that Jagex didn't, as StGerolf suggested, have a poll that was open to all players who log on to play the game.

As for the idea the assumptions I've made that a minority of players use the other social media, I don't think that's wrong, even if you look at the figures provided, it's definitely nowhere near the number of actual players given Jagex own estimate of current users. Whereas we really have no idea how many people actually use the forums if they don't log in.

For example, I use Canada Girl's penguin hunting thread every week without fail - how many other people also do just that but aren't 'counted' in the figures.

The fact is that Jagex have done their normal 'jump to an assumption' fed by a minority of players. And they do this a lot, I've already mentioned the wildy debacle where they put in so many changes (wasting development time) simply to keep a few pvp players happy. Now they have finally taken the player-jumping risk out of the mix, the wildy is now much more popular and players are using it.

I use the forums a lot for loads of different things, I can't possibly be the only one but Jagex didn't ask me about it, they probably did a straw poll on Discord/X/Reddit and the people on there said they didn't use the forums and off Jagex go with a change that a lot of people will be against.

14-Jan-2024 21:32:15

Jan

2015

Kalas

Posts: 556 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I feel that Jagex and Jmods haven't been around to take care of the forums like it would deserve for quite a few years now and it makes total sense to close it.

The good days of jmod forum community managers and weekly Q&A like we had with Mod Emilee are long gone unfortunately and I'd rather see the forums gone entirely rather than seeing it dying more and more every day, surviving off the volunteer forum mods that care the best they can with little they have. Kalas <3

14-Jan-2024 22:31:01

Jun

2023

Mauhur

Posts: 862 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Man, this means Iconis is going to be out of a job. No more forum pics to take!

Joking aside, I will really miss the forums. Reddit, Twitter, and Discord all cater to different types of players and it doesn't help that the online cultures they foster aren't exactly conducive to giving straightforward feedback we forum dwellers like to give.

I'm really going to hate the fact Redditors and the Twits are going to dominate game feedback uncontested moving forward. I really do not look forward to being downvoted into oblivion for suggesting things Redditors don't like.

Sure, I rarely post but at least it's still nice to hop onto the forums every once in a while to gauge how people feel about recently released content. Doing that on social media sites is just not going to feel good.

Moving forward I guess I'll just stick to Reddit since the mods seem to heed what goes on in there more often. The only upside I see to this is I can at least downvote bad posts. Looking at you Dilbert!

14-Jan-2024 22:44:02

Sep

2005

Megycal

Posts: 18,168 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I agree with the OP and a lot of other good points posted by people who are upset about losing our much loved forums.
I read the forums every day that I'm at home, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. For example I use penguin hunting threads every week also a Vis wax thread every day. But I may only log in once a day so that I can read the hidden forums. I don't have accounts with any of the social media platforms and I don't want to make any. I've always believed that spreading game information over three different 3rd party channels is inefficient.
Also if people are being pointed towards using discord channels how are they supposed to find out what they are?
I'm an older player, a pensioner, and have played for many years ( longer than the date under my avatar pic ). The forums have always been my "go to" source of information. I'm really really upset about this move by Jagex.

If I find playing Runescape becomes more difficult for me due to no forums then this might be the last year that I have membership.

14-Jan-2024 22:45:07

Nov

2003

A Cole

Posts: 14,761 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

JackScape said :
I assume this was the main RS3 Discord you were looking at specifically? Because there's also the OSRS Discord which sees more activity. Remember that the RSOF are both RS3 and OSRS, so you have to examine the main Discords of both at minimum to make a direct comparison. That's not to mention the myriad of specialized Discord servers (RS Art Community, PVM, Market Watch, all the clan Discord servers, Runelite, and many, many, many more) which all see more proportionate activity than the "main" Discord servers do. The Discord community is a lot more than just the "main" RS3 and OSRS servers. You mean to say I have to join many servers in order to get the same as I can here?

I am currently on the main RuneScape server. This has many sub-categories which I would say are similar to what we have here on the forums. This is what I have been comparing the forums with, and when I say the forums, I mean the RS3 part of the forums so it is a fair comparison.

Would you be kind enough to post the links to all these other RS related Discord servers? Unfortunately Jagex has only directed us to the one.

~A~

14-Jan-2024 23:18:08 - Last edited on 14-Jan-2024 23:18:46 by A Cole

Oct

2009

CL I CK

Posts: 778 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

They say that forums arent used much anymore, well maybe thats because they never looked at them .

they forced people to use reddit and others by not using their own forums.

like take away every1s car keys and then tell them no1 is using cars anymore so lets walk.

totally dislike forum removal, rather the gam use its own media and not others.

said my peace, rip

CLICK

for Life

15-Jan-2024 01:49:04

Forums

Shutting down forums - Against

Blondfire

JackScape

JackScape

Singularity

Killashandra

Kalas

Mauhur

Megycal

A Cole

CL I CK