Woodcutting and flax picking: Anyone who played over three years ago will remember the old look of bot. It was a level three, with a bald head, green trousers and a yellow-ish top (Rather like Tehnoobshow’s Bob). They would cling to every yew tree and many maple trees in the world like aphids, letting no real player cut a log. The flax fields too were packed with bots farming gold there. I have no doubt that if trade is unbalanced again, this will once more become the case.
Economy: With all the bots flooding the system with items and players buying gold from websites again, the economy will change completely. And where it goes is debatable, it is likely that the demand for already expensive items will go up, meaning legitimate players will find it harder and harder to buy what cheaters can by… Well, cheating.
Banks, The Grand Exchange and other popular areas: Again, if you did*’t play three years ago you won’t remember this, but you couldn’t go to a single bank without having some level three bot advertising a gold selling, account selling or item selling website. By the time Jagex fought back against real world trading it had got very bad and very annoying. Now with the grand exchange and places like the living rock caverns, we won’t be able to see for the adverts if real world traders are aloud back in.
So I ask, are players that wish to kill other players and take their items or players who wish to abuse trade by real world trading really the kind of players who have formed the backbone of the community which has made Runescape so successful? Somehow I doubt it. Why encourage more selfish and aggressive behaviour which will only serve to lower the quality of the community experience?
22-Dec-2010 00:27:22
