RuneScape Forum Archive | GOODBYE RS FORUMS

Mar

2018

Vengeance of

Posts: 2,379 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Cole said :
How is going to a different website for RS social interaction getting it all in one place?

By "getting it all in one place", I meant online social interaction in general, not just for RS.

Classic-style forums like the RSOF were, for lack of a better word, single-purpose; you went there because you wanted to interact with RS players. Sure, a lot of them had "off-topic" zones where you could talk about other things, but it's not like people signed up for forums for games they didn't play in order to talk to their community, at least not in any significant capacity.

But then sites like Reddit came along, and with a couple of clicks, you could follow discussion boards for practically any topic under the sun, all under the umbrella of one account. You can follow both of the official subreddits for RuneScape, but also the ones for those sports/YouTubers/bands/other video games/etc. that you like and it's so quick and effortless to jump between them. Sites like Twitter and Facebook let you quickly interact with specific Jmods and RS players, but also practically anyone else you'd want to, so long as they also have an account there.

And that was the thing that killed off forums like this. That convenience of having one account to get your social fix instead of dozens of accounts for forums focused on one thing each.

14-Jan-2024 18:46:38

Nov

2003

A Cole

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

It sounds like people would rather have that convenience than the quality a purpose built site would offer. Even as archaic as these forums are, they still provide a higher quality platform for discussion than any of the sites we're expected to use going forward.

And this makes this situation all the more sad to me.

~A~

14-Jan-2024 23:22:17

Apr

2022

Tomato 56789

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Such a huge loss...

Casual legacy trash of 20 years in RS, writer of Skyrook Gorge (and other books) irl

Should the forums truly go; almost anyone from here is free to add me in-game.

15-Jan-2024 21:43:19

Aug

2004

Derrik Wolf

Posts: 234 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I do not use any of the other platforms.

I don't have Reddit, Twitler, Fakebook or Rubetube.

I have an account on Discord just for the notices I get in my email.. I find Discord to be total chaos and very disorganized.
There is no way it will ever compare to the quality of long-term chat you can get in these forums.

This is a BIG mistake by Jagex.

I don't think I'm the only one who will be re-evaluating my $$ support.

That's a shame too, This summer will be 20 years for me supporting this game.

Shame on you Jagex. ~Wolf

15-Jan-2024 22:26:13

Apr

2022

Tomato 56789

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

^ I am on other platforms but Jagex doesn't use Facebook for anything more than ad placement, and I don't use Reddit. X I refrain from as I am too long-winded to enjoy it and though I'm in the forums Discord I refuse to join the official RS one. Regardless - none of these are the same as forums. It's just a different way to interact. It may not be as popular as back in the day, but there are things about the forums that don't translate to other places. I hope Jagex reconsiders.

Casual legacy trash of 20 years in RS, writer of Skyrook Gorge (and other books) irl

Should the forums truly go; almost anyone from here is free to add me in-game.

16-Jan-2024 01:49:58

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,258 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Derrik Wolf said :
I do not use any of the other platforms.

I don't have Reddit, Twitler, Fakebook or Rubetube.

I have an account on Discord just for the notices I get in my email.. I find Discord to be total chaos and very disorganized.
There is no way it will ever compare to the quality of long-term chat you can get in these forums.

This is a BIG mistake by Jagex.

I don't think I'm the only one who will be re-evaluating my $$ support.

That's a shame too, This summer will be 20 years for me supporting this game.

Shame on you Jagex.

I mean it's more to understand what platform fulfills what purpose.

Discord is a true hybrid on so many things. A chat program, a voice program, something that may emulate forums - it basically can do it all, but nothing really good.

Reddit comes closest to a classical forum, just with things disappearing quite quickly, which makes it unfit for postings, that should hold relevance for longer than just a couple of hours, days or at most a week - but if Jagex wants to quickly gather feedback on something, it's not a single bit worse than the forums.

Xitter is nice to stay in touch with certain Jmods themselves and allows them to tease on things they're working on as well as allowing players to provide feedback for that. The more relevant things will probably also get posted on reddit by someone, but that's more for visibility then - not communication.

And well facebook... who actually even uses this in 202x? Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

16-Jan-2024 06:43:01

SlR

Posts: 4,381 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Cole said :
It sounds like people would rather have that convenience than the quality a purpose built site would offer. Even as archaic as these forums are, they still provide a higher quality platform for discussion than any of the sites we're expected to use going forward.

And this makes this situation all the more sad to me.

~A~
Yep, my sentiments exactly. I think they're making a mistake. Not a massive one, but still. Most online companies want to get traffic TO their website, not away. Social media is great, but they're the middle-men of the internet, leasing data (lovely lovely adverts). I think Jagex are giving up visitor data/insights for a more attractive bottom line, to attract investors / sell the company, but that's not a unique thought, lol. Anyway, I'm sure they'll have crunched the numbers and figured out this is best for them (for now) and they can always revert back later (if we're all still around). Do we move to Reddit? as it stands I'm not a fan of the culture on there. I'm going to miss the authenticity of posts here linked to accounts that actually play the game. With social media, you can pretend to be anyone you want. Maybe that'll one day change. Maybe they'll figure out a way of verifying actual players and we can build up some sort of reputation on there. Who knows. But on here it was already built-in by default. Bob says:

A bank PIN will keep your items secure.

Always check the second trade screen.

Never trade in the Wilderness!

Keep your computer keylogger-free and virus scanned.

Never give your password out to anyone.

16-Jan-2024 12:51:15 - Last edited on 16-Jan-2024 12:57:52 by SlR

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,258 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This isn't actually something just to be done by Jagex alone. A lot of dedicated forums for games were drastically toned down or shut down entirely the last few years. Usually with the reasoning 'discord exists'. I mean in the end of the day it's a cost factor to develop (granted: jagex hasn't done anything in that regard for a very long time), moderate (granted...) and maintain (yep - they did that - they were available fairly consistently) it.

I think what a lot of users - and even the companies - do not even think about it, how volatile certain other platforms can be. A lot of subreddits 'went dark' for something between a few days and weeks as a response to a business decision from reddit itself last year. Some never returned afterwards. Discord is literally hemorrhaging money for ever since it existed and laid off parts of its staff a few days ago - and only is able to draw fresh money from investors, since it's aggressively growing for now. Is this something one would want to rely upon. I certainly can imagine, that at least one of those platforms will no longer be with us at the end of the decade - either by getting replaced by something else (especially looking at discord, which for itself replaced quite a few services) or by going bankrupt (I don't think any of them is profitable and it will be hard to make them so - just look at reddit for that - that 'business decision' wasn't done without a reason). Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

16-Jan-2024 18:05:13 - Last edited on 16-Jan-2024 18:17:55 by Rikornak

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,700 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I do agree the forums serve a function and shouldn't be discarded.
I would have liked to have seen them prune a lot of the unused sub-forums before they outright closed it down.

Part of the issue is that Jmods have never been able to use the forums remotely. Social media was always "more convenient" for getting the immediate response from the community BECAUSE a JMOD couldn't do it on their own forums.

I don't entirely blame them for not wanting to clone reddit's functions and stuff (polling in your own thread, more user friendly UI, etc). I wouldn't be stunned if the forums were as much of a spaghetti code mess that rewokring and updating would be a problem akin to a PoH update.
And as JAgex has sadly experienced from other content "why spend months or years updating something that few people are already using when you're not sure the update would bring the level of engagement you'd hope it would bring?"

If Jagex had at least tried to do a "hey, jmods, stop using social media for everything. we've updated our site so you can login and do stuff on the forums anytime/anywhere"... it might be a start ... since players could only do feedback on the forums instead of on a potential former jmods personal twitter feed or something.

But none of that matters now

17-Jan-2024 13:43:18

Sep

2010

Lord Drakan

Posts: 7,053 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Looks like Jagex have given up on interacting more with the forums and instead opted to delete them altogether. Saddened as I am by this decision, the fact that I am not as active on RuneScape as I used to be once means I can handle it.

I'd like to thank everyone with whom I've interacted on these Forums over the past, what, decade and a half that I have been using them. And, not to forget, those lovely people messaging me in-game with, ‘‘Hey, I saw your forum post!’’ Also thanks to the FMods who have been working so hard to keep the Forums tidy over the years and to the JMods who have used them to interact with the community: content developers, CM and of course Tech Support. (Where are we supposed to go now for Tech Support queries?)

I will always cherish the eager discussions and theories in F(G)U, the Lords of the Wait and R(G)U, the forum games, the official Q&As, introductions of new JMods, our glorious Lore Forum, the new update countdown, player suggestions and player-written quests, long-lived mastodonts like A Mad Hatter's Future of the Myreque or Amascut's Quests in the Making, minigame and clan organisation, and so much more. Heck, I'll even miss Chewy.

I'll be saving my own threads on my computer; if anyone wants to interact with me; please, feel free to message me in-game. My PM is usually on "all".

Jagex have suggested Discord and Reddit as replacements for the RSOF but I find both horrible websites. The former is probably a fine chat service akin to Skype (although I find the layout, controls etc. extremely annoying) but that's all it is, a chat service. It isn't a well-organised forum and you can hardly find anything back. Reddit is similarly badly designed, having tried it briefly. I cannot make sense of the comments’ organisation (I couldn't even find back my own comments!), the substitute for FMods (being downvoting idiots) is ludicrous and it's difficult to find something older than a week.

Thus, I bid you goodbye. See you ingame, perhaps! Bizarre Boron Fusswell, scryer extraordinaire. OSRS: POH ideas & RS3 minigames & achievement ideas !

Perhaps you're half right; perhaps we can't win. But we can fight.

— Zanik

22-Jan-2024 09:58:45