RuneScape Forum Archive | BTS 58 More Lodestones

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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A few pages back, I mentioned that there was a post I found elsewhere that can show you just how the current content updates suck in comparison to the past. It can be found on page 5 of this thread here , but I'll copy and paste it for you:

...(clipped)

I'm counting 19 days of updates, but the June BTS says that apparently they'll be more updates this month besides the two I listed, so let's add another 2 to that and make

21 update days total

.

Do note how each day for the most part only has one major update or one major update and a small number of improvements. This will become important in the next post.[/white]

continued
See, that's the problem with going off what other people said. I went to the wiki page on game updates (here: http://runescape.wikia.***/wiki/Update:Game_updates And yes, that's an allowed link because The Runescape wiki is an approved fan site, I checked. Don't know why the forum is automatically fuzzing part of it out. *shrug* It's also one where an entire community edits it, so it's not just one person's opinion, either.) Going off that list, I count 32 game updates from Jan 2013-Jun 2013 that were not SoF/SGS related, and 24 SoF/SGS-related updates. In 2012, I count 91 updates that were not SoF/SGS related, and 33 SoF/SGS-related updates. Again, that refutes your point that SoF/SGS updates outnumber non-SoF/SGS updates. And, if you want to argue with the entire Runescape wiki community over what should be considered a game update and which shouldn't, go ahead, and again I'll grab the popcorn and have a seat to (gleefully) watch. My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 18:50:13

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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That's not the point. I use swear words to emphasise something I'm saying. You don't have to be a successful author to do that. Some Forum Moderators also break forum rules and get away with it. FYI. And again you're saying that since other people that do things that you don't do (have their writings published and sell successfully, be a forum mod) break the rules, that means you should be able to do so as well. All I hear in that is a bunch of whining (I'm also picturing you stomp your foot in a fit of pique, but that's beside the point). Again, grow up.
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Have you tried the Grand Exchange?
Feather: exchange market price: 16. Store price: 6.
Water vials: exchange market price: 36. Store price: 10 each singly, 5 each when bought in a pack.

You do the math. Also, it's not guaranteed that if you use the grand exchange that you'll get the items right away. It is at the store. Plus, you can get 1,000 more per hour buying from shops than from the exchange, with the buy limit.

I can't believe I'm even having to explain this to you. Do you actually play the game?

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Sure thing, I'll go mine adamant ore in Tirannwn and limestone in Arandar right away.
And again, just because something is not meaningful to you doesn't mean it's not meaningful to others. My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 19:02:39

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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It's not the same. I don't want an unclickable rectangle around my private chat!
Fair enough, but still seems a silly reason to OMGBBQ rage quit, IMO.

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And you expected me to figure that out on day one? My in-game friend had the same problem, he complained about it to me too. But it's fixed so all's good now.
*shrug* The NIS was in beta for nearly two months before the release of RS3. The opportunity was there to test it out and learn about it. (Even if you didn't go into the beta, the Forums were a veritable gold mine of information.) The information was there, it was your choice to access it or not. It's not like Jagex sprung the NIS on us without warning, after all. Complaining about not understanding it is like complaining about not understanding how the leveling up process works when you first start playing the game. Silly. IMO.

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I logged into the NIS beta in early July, and gave up after 20 mins when I found myself unable to speak in private chat, use abilities without clicking the action bar, and turn off auto-retaliate. Like I said, it's not easy to figure out at first.

And there was a post I saw by someone who had server issues following 22nd July, and was unable to do most combat tasks. I'll edit it into here if I can find it.
*points up to my previous point* The information was there in the forums. For nearly two months.

As for the server issues, that stinks. However I am wondering if, like many other people, the release of RS3 just magnified issues they already had but didn't know about. You'd be amazed how many people have a 10 MBpS and under connection, use wireless, then complain that they're having speed issues. That's because you automatically lose about 1/3rd of your bandwidth using a wireless connection. Not Jagex's fault. (cont) My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 19:14:32 - Last edited on 21-Aug-2013 19:44:49 by Matchgirl42

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I myself had an issue about 6 months ago, where the virus/malware protection I was using on my computer was actually blocking the game from loading. Took a while to figure out, too. And it wasn't targeting the game specifically, it was just taking up so much CPU/RAM that java couldn't run. I ended up getting rid of the part of the protection that was causing the issue (I'm on comcast, and I was using the protection suite that comes with norton antivirus. Got rid of all the other parts of the suite except norton, now everything works well and I'm still adequately protected. But man, was it frustrating while I was trying to figure it out. And it was on my end. My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 19:18:34 - Last edited on 21-Aug-2013 19:45:07 by Matchgirl42

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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You deserve an ASCII facepalm.

No seriously.

Players online back in September and October was on average 90-100k. Then EoC came around, and the number of players online fell to a low of 40-45k, and a peak of 85k-90k, with an average of maybe 60-70k. Since 22nd July, it's been (like you said) 27k or so with a peak of 50k.

Please don't come and tell me that's a sign of a healthy, growing game, and that the player count ''is the highest it's ever been''.
[qfc id=]277-278-49-63574993[/qfc]

Man, the QFC tag is still having issues. But at least the QFC code itself is visible.

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And by the way, I was playing during BXPW in October last year, when there were 120k people online, and the lag was horrible .
I can't find anything on it right now, but I suspect that additional servers were created for this very reason - to spread players out and help reduce lag.

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Jagex's treatment of its players have alternated between a middle finger and ''Adapt or quit''. And since it's always the case that people will at some point disagree, eventually all but the most blindly supportive would become cynical. Of course, maybe you fall into that category.

continued
I'm not blindly supportive, but I also realize that even though I pay a monthly subscription, I don't control the company or what it does. Which, yanno, is the same across the entire gaming industry. In my experience, it's the players who want everything done exactly the way they want it done - and don't get it - that whine the most and rage quit. Them and the people that jump on the bandwagon to "be cool." My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 19:32:45

Jul

2011

Matchgirl42

Posts: 560 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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Also, I would like to point out that you should take a look at the information available from the 2012 jagex financial statement. Hardly looks like they're pumping and dumping, when they are reinvesting more than half of their profits back into the game.
Yeah, they made a 20% increase in revenue, although do note that that includes all games owned by Jagex, including the recently acquired Ace of Spades and the recently released Carnage Racing. Lots of Squeal money in there. I fully expect 2013 to be worse (cancelled subscriptions from Evolution of Combat) and 2014 to be even worse (Premier Club).

We shall see how long it takes Insight Ventures to remove 'Gex from its portfolio.

That's actually not what I was referring to. I was referring to how much of those profits were invested right back into the game. Read it again. My motto is to be nice if I can, but also to not suffer trolls.

21-Aug-2013 19:34:04

Nov

2014

Southeaster

Posts: 15,320 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

...Really?
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*cough* Squeal of Fortune *cough*

''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.''
That's not pumping and dumping. And frankly, you conflating it with pumping and dumping makes me question if you know what pumping and dumping even means.
Excuse me, my SoF comment was in response to your comment that the Cambridge team is still very much in control when it comes to running the game. Why would Jagex suddenly go against its ideals and remove a rule that had been in place for 10 and a half years?

The entity that owns more than 50% of the company has full control over all executive decisions.

Jagex has claimed that IVP chooses not to exercise that power, but it's impossible for anyone to actually verify or refute that statement.

Logically, it would be a financially poor decision for IVP to not exercise that power unless Jagex management happened to make every decision that they would or at least made decisions that they approve of.

Micro-transactions are fundamentally detrimental to high quality game design, so unless the revenue was absolutely essential for the current update schedule, it would be a poor decision for Jagex as a game developer to leave them in the game.

continued Runescape Forumers Discord Server

23-Aug-2013 01:41:12

Nov

2014

Southeaster

Posts: 15,320 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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True, but an investment firm doesn't have to be majority invested to start pumping and dumping. (It helps, but it's not necessary .) There's also a huge difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism.
(snip)
Bain, Romney's firm, is a prime example of vulture capitalism. From what I've seen, IVP is not. IMO.
You should go try out MapleStory, and take note of all the money grabbing promotions. Then you should consider all this from the point of view of a kid who's just started to handle his own money. It is near impossible to play the game without sinking a few hundred bucks each ~~month~~ week. This is what happens when a game gets IVPed.

When you sell majority share to another company, you're not in control of your own company any more, that company is. Yes, you can argue that shareholders (i.e. IVP) have a right to want a return on their investment. And Jagex has to see to that.

The problem here is that when you run a business, you have to satisfy your customers' needs as well. That's how you get revenue. What we are seeing here is excessive shareholder focus . There's a lot of money being made, but little focus on customer value. In the long run customers will try to find another supplier to provide their needs (other games). Heck it's already happening.

No, it's not as blatant as vulture capitalism, but the end result is the same.

If the people running the show are in the business of extracting wealth and pocketing most of it and don't know jack about running an online game, it's a matter of course that the game's focus would shift more and more towards taking money from children, especially by encouraging them to gamble like SoF. This is the problem with capitalism. Business do whatever they damn well please and nobody can do jack about it. Instead of being beholden to the players, community and customers, they're beholden to a bunch of greedy capitalist pigs.

continued Runescape Forumers Discord Server

23-Aug-2013 01:59:07 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2013 02:20:44 by Southeaster

Nov

2014

Southeaster

Posts: 15,320 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Original message details are unavailable.
I've already given you more than enough to find it on your own, but if you need it spoonfed to you, then look up MMO data.
Okay. I found the website. And by the way, all the info I had to go on was ''tracks active player levels in various MMORPGs''.

According to the graph, the number of subscribers in Runescape had a steady rise from near zero in 2002 to a peak of 1.2 million in late 2007. After that, no data, until January 2012, where the number was roughly 800,000. Then, from January 2012 onwards, the numbers rose at an alarming rate to hit 1.9 million in August 2012. This is despite that significant number of cancelled subscriptions over SoF in April 2012.
No further data from then onwards.

I can explain that sudden spike in subscribers in just three words.

Trial membership bots.

January 2012 was when Burthorpe and Taverley were reworked, and that was when trial membership was introduced. Remember all the almost-human players teleporting into Burthorpe once every 10 seconds? Or the Bot-Any Day claw crushing someone in GE every 15 seconds or so? Ah, bad times.

To further back up my point, here's something from another website:

On the 31st of December 2012 (From memory of date)
Page 29,998 in the Hiscores were where the basic bot acc's tend to start from the looks from their name's/exp (Combat bots in training)
Page 38,612 are where the AUTO TALKER botters started at around Rank 849,500
Page 88,144 was the last page of them at Rank 1,939,161
So if you do the maths of 1,939,161 - 849,500 as there are more combat bots than new players coming into the game that equals to about 1,089,661 active RuneScape Membership bots. Albeit most would no doubtedly be on trial membership.

That's why the subscriber count was so high. And I'm very sure that the moment trial membership was removed in March, the number dropped to 700k or so. And player count'* currently at 548,532.

continued Runescape Forumers Discord Server

23-Aug-2013 02:18:08 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2013 02:20:20 by Southeaster

Nov

2014

Southeaster

Posts: 15,320 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

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I also firmly believe it enhances the runescape experience, too.
Lodestones, enhancing the Runescape experience?

...

Fine.
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I'm still seeing non-friend chat in the air over other people's heads (but not in the chat box). Judging by the chatting I've seen because of that - and yes I'm on a world with between 100 and 200 players - the social part of runescape is still alive and kicking.
Yes, the social part of Runescape is still alive and kicking. But I believe it's in decline. You should try asking them whether they like playing Runescape or not. No doubt they will be displeased with the game in some way.
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I don't play those minigames, but judging by the screen cap vids posted about them that were recorded in 2013, they still seem to have a good number of players. Hardly seems dead to me. Just to check, I went to worlds 45 and 62 (Stealing Creation) and world 92 (Fist of Guthix) earlier. It was 11am in Melbourne (GMT +10), and ~~10pm~~ 9pm on the US East Coast (GMT -4 -5, daylight saving).

(Whoops!)

W45 and W92 had nobody. W62 had three people.

They say go get some Naval so I got it
Then Trouble Brewing was forgotten
Then they implemented the Botany Bay
But look at all these players bottin'
It's rotten!
Just like the tomato you throw
When they're up on the pedestal
This game's becoming the Festival of the Dead
Except remove the words ''of'' ''the'' and ''festival''
That's unacceptable
No one wants to buy spins
And what was the point of nerfing the chins
Nerfing cave crawlers and castle wars wins
I'd play Fishing Trawler but it never begins
You mess with the shark and you'll get the fists
Don't try for the tooth or you'll get the fins
And last but not least here's a little pop quiz
Do you know what the gnome restaurant is?

continued Runescape Forumers Discord Server

23-Aug-2013 02:45:02 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2013 09:20:05 by Southeaster