Very bad move. I do own a smartphone so I will be able to protect my account, however it is obvious that some people don't own smartphones for varying reasons, or don't like to use 3rd party programmes (WinAuth mentioned in the FAQ) to achieve the same thing.
BUT, I didn't get one until I was almost 18, and I had my account since I was about 11 so for all those years until we had JAG protection what did I do to secure my account? I used common sense! Not sharing *********, recovery questions, as well as not browsing 'dodgy' sites and downloading rubbish from untrusted sites. Yes, there might have been the anomaly where I ended up hacked and had my account stolen, but it never happened and I had no form of 'protection'!
But now, after we have had JAG protection for however long we have, it seems very nonsensical to remove it and add another form of protection that alienates, what seems, quite a few players. Unless there was a good reason as to stop support for JAG, such as cost or requiring too much support, then why 'fix' something that is not broken and has been working very well?
Other MMOs do use smartphone apps as their methods of protection, but they also offer other methods to generate the codes needed, such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft Authentication token, which costs significantly less than having to buy a smartphone just for the app. Something like this would be good for Runescape, but JAG would be best kept supported until such an item was released.
23-Jun-2014 20:27:40