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An Important Message

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Mod Mmg

Mod Mmg

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user

An Important Message




Watch the video to hear Mod MMG explain the inconvenient truth about gold farmers and why Bonds are essential for the future of RuneScape..



Hi everyone,

From today, your gameplay investment can work in your favour with Bonds : a new in-game item - purchased on our website and tradeable in-game - which can be redeemed for RuneScape membership, spins , RuneCoins and more.

RuneScape is your game, and Bonds give you more freedom and choice than ever before: pay for your membership with your in-game wealth; securely gift membership to a friend or fellow clan member anywhere in the world; access all premium content by trading Bonds in-game any item, resources or gold; and enjoy the full RuneScape experience, free of bots and gold farmers. Read on for more information!
RuneScape Bonds

What are Bonds?


Bonds are new in-game items, allowing you to pay for selected account-related and out-of-game benefits with in-game resources. Bonds are initially purchased just as you would purchase membership, but they can then be freely gifted or traded with other players. They can be redeemed in-game for membership, spins or RuneCoins. Soon afterwards we plan for them to be usable for charitable donations and - in the future - perhaps even the Jagex Merchandise Store. We’ve even set up a way to use Bonds to buy RuneFest tickets this year - see our FAQ for details.

Bonds may be purchased via our website's Billing Page . They cost $5/£3/€4.25 per Bond and can be redeemed in exchange for 14 days membership , 8 spins or 160 RuneCoins .

You'll be able to freely determine how you exchange your Bonds - be it on the Grand Exchange or in player-to-player trades - and how much in-game wealth you wish to buy and sell them for. Just like any other item on the Grand Exchange, the community will determine how much Bonds are worth in relation to other items.

How Does It Work?


  • Purchase: Player A purchases a Bond from the Billing Page with their credit card or PayPal account for real money. The bond can then be gifted, traded, or consumed.

  • Gift/Trade: Player A and Player B agree a trade for the Bond - either as a gift, or in return for in-game resource or currency of any agreed value.

  • Consume: Player B can then use that Bond for themselves and receive membership, spins or RuneCoins. Alternatively, they could re-trade it.





The value that players determine for a Bond trade is entirely up to them.

A Bond is purchased in a tradeable state. Once gifted or traded in-game, the Bond becomes untradeable. Players who want to re-trade their Bond to another player will need to pay a trade tax, which will be 10% of its Grand Exchange value. We’ve added this tax on secondary trading to act as a gold sink and to prevent excessive merchanting of Bonds.

Why are you adding Bonds?


With this update, our aim is to unlock your investment in your account: giving hardcore players a way to get more than ever for their time and dedication, and more freedom for everyone in how they trade. On top of that, we hope to see this open up the full members' game for many more free players, those who can no longer afford subscription and - crucially - to deal a death blow to the long-standing issues with gold farming.

Bonds are a critical part of our war against gold farmers and of fixing the damage they have caused to the game economy. By allowing real players to meet the demand, gold farmers can no longer exploit it and are cut out of the system, preventing the injection of billions of additional GP per day into the economy, remedying the massive inflation caused, and thereby stabilising the economy overall.

The key to Bonds is that there are now two paths for players to access and enjoy every bit of content the game has to offer. No player need ever feel excluded, since they can access everything the game has to offer, by whichever method they choose – through play or traditional payment. To see how Bonds might benefit you personally, take a look at these various player perspectives:



Everybody benefits from Bonds…except gold farmers!


RuneScape veterans can use their in game assets to fund their membership.

Player Examples
Hi, my name is Simon and I have been playing RuneScape for 8 years. I have a completionist cape and my levels are all maxed! I have worked very hard over my years of playing, and now I sit on a small fortune of resources, items and gold. Rather than keep spending my own money, I can now trade some of my game wealth for Bonds, redeeming them for many months of unbroken RuneScape membership without having to spend another dollar myself! ☺

Bonds give a helping hand to new players wanting to progress.

Player Examples
Hi, my name is Sam and I have been playing RuneScape for 6 months now. I love training combat, but some better equipment and armour would really help me. I want to buy Bonds and swap them for some ganodermic armour. I might finally be able to join my friends on a Nex run!

The ability to gift your friends.



Player Examples
Hi, my name is Jessica and I have been playing RuneScape for three years. My free friends would really like to play with me but they can’t always afford membership and I don’t like playing on the free world. I’m going to give my friends Bonds as gifts, which they can redeem for membership so we can hang out together.

Bonds allow you to give membership to your clan members.

Player Examples
Hi, my name is Lisa and I have been a dedicated clan leader before you even launched citadels back in 2011! I run a clan of over 100, but many don't have regular membership which fragments our group and means some of the clan get left out. We are a tight group and very much look after each other - our clan will work together using the new Bonds system to help our clan members who cannot afford membership. Our clan is going to be the best in the world!

Bonds help stabilise the game economy.

Player Examples
Hi, my name is Kevin and I’m a long-time member. I’m happy with how I currently pay for RuneScape membership and I probably won’t use Bonds. However, I see the improvements this will make to the game economy, such as cutting out the rampant inflation caused by gold farmers injecting billions of GP into the game daily. I welcome the gold sink the bonds system introduces and the protection it provides against merchanting.

Helps protect players from real world fraud



Player Examples
Hi, I am Katie and I’m embarrassed to admit it but I bought gold from a gold farming site. The website re-used my parent’s credit card details and racked up thousands of dollars in fraudulent online purchases. They contacted the police but were told there was nothing they could do to help as the website is based in China and the bloody website is still running!

Helps prevent hijacking and DDoS attacks

Player Examples
Hi, I am t0m_thumb and I searched the web for ways to make gold. I downloaded Powerbot and it installed a malware on my computer. My RuneScape account, Facebook, Twitter and email were all hacked and my bank account has been completely wiped out.

Kick gold farmers right where it really hurts!

Player Examples
I am a8jk13tjkp and I am a corrupt gold farmer. I’ve scammed, hijacked, DDoSed and defrauded millions of RuneScape players over the years.

Now that players can trade Bonds with each other in exchange for any in-game resources, my business is completely screwed!




If you would like to find out more about why Bonds are so crucial to the continued fight against gold farmers, please check out the recent dev blog from Mod Jacmob, who talks about the inconvenient truth of gold farming and botting, and the detrimental impact it has on your game.

To find out more about Bonds - including more information on how they benefit the game, the decision to introduce them, and how they work to prevent gold farming - please visit the new Bonds information page or the FAQ .

Personally, I think this is a great solution which directly benefits all players. In combination with existing efforts like BotWatch, and your help, we will wipe out gold farmers for good and ensure the long-term health of the game and community.

Mark Gerhard
CEO - Jagex Games Studio



In Other News


  • It's the final week of the Battle of Lumbridge! It's time to stand up and fight as this epic god vs god conflict draws to its conclusion!

    • Metal fragments and titles have had their drop rates further increased.

    • Metal fragments now drop in even larger quantities than before.

    • The daily cap on divine tears has been increased to 4500.

    • After this week, it will no longer be possible to unlock titles or weapons. Renown rewards will remain buyable for a time after the event.

  • Solomon's got a grand sale on this week, with up to 40% off all RuneCoin prices, and up to 50% off Loyalty Point prices. Visit Solomon's General Store now!


The patch notes archive can be viewed here .

25-Sep-2013 15:32:06 - Last edited on 25-Sep-2013 16:42:01 by Mod Tomh

Mod Mmg

Mod Mmg

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user



Mod Jacmob talks about the inconvenient truth of gold farming, and why Bonds are an essential part of RuneScape's future.



An Outline of the Impact of Bonds


As a general rule, we keep information about our anti-bot and community protection efforts closely guarded for obvious reasons, but today I’m going to give you a small glimpse into the illicit world of gold farmers and bots, and how we are Jagex have been comprehensively fighting them.

In late 2011, off the back of a significant 'bot nuke', knowing we are in a veritable arms race with bot developers we started development on a unique, innovative system that can pick out all bot behaviours and take automatic action against them in real time. Beginning in January this year, we really accelerated our efforts when this system began an overhaul into today’s sophisticated BotWatch service.

Our technology can analyse behaviour with extraordinary detail and fidelity. We can trivially identify activities such as account sharing on the same computer, as well as how the players interact with every aspect of the game environment. Throughout the last nine months, we have used this new capability and opportunity to monitor and understand detailed patterns and motives behind botting and related problems.

In the past three months we been able to permanently remove over 90% of all bots in the game – a really big milestone in our campaign against these disruptive activities. This has already had a positive impact: for example, the number of incoming macro reports has dropped from twenty thousand every day to barely over one thousand reports.

Since 1st January this year, we’ve issued 1.1 million ban offences against accounts known to be gold farmers. To put this in perspective, it’s nearly three times the number of offences issued in the last two years combined. In turn, this is over nine times more than in the first decade of RuneScape’s existence. The majority of offences applied across our systems are on member accounts, so no one is exempt from these bans! In addition, this year we have removed over 3 trillion GP worth of gold and items from gold-farmer accounts, which shows the scale of their operations is dangerously large.

While our efforts against botting and gold farming have been increasingly effective, our analyses have shown that a long-term real-world trading problem persists. Despite our successes, around 170 billion GP is currently being sold in-game every day from illicit accounts we can directly link to gold farming. We’ve also done analysis (with a wide range of different techniques) which has shown well over 40% of active players have bought gold from 3rd party RWT vendors. The scale of purchasing from gold farmers was a surprise, if not a total shock. This inconvenient truth is that no matter our actions against gold farmers, the demand which they serve is very high, and there lies a massive incentive for them to evolve and evade our attempts to completely wipe them out. It’s the proverbial elephant in the RuneScape room – while most players hate bots and gold farmers, a large proportion still buys their gold.

This is an incredibly dangerous problem that we’re determined to solve in the interest of the long-term health of the game. Perhaps most notably, in back in 2007 we took the controversial decision to remove the Wilderness and free trade. However, we’ve learned that it is not an option to sacrifice the experience of players to combat this threat (it also proved an ineffective remedy). Nor do we don’t want to remove the half of the player-base that have bought gold (many of whom just want an occasional helping hand), and we are definitely not prepared to sell gold ourselves, as that would exacerbate the problems with the game economy. We feel that Bonds provide a better solution.

The introduction of Bonds provides a way for the community to satisfy this demand without Jagex or any third party introducing gold into the game. It ties the economy to what is valued by players by allowing the price to be set by player demand for bonds. One effect of this will be to kill gold farming businesses and the associated aspects of spam, account theft, fraud and resource hogging. The exchange of wealth for bonds will be player moderated, ensuring that in-game achievements are valued. In essence, players’ time and resources will become more valuable than ever. The gold sink for re-trading bonds will help accelerate the economy’s recovery, too.

It is only with our latest data analysis technology providing an absolute insight into every aspect of the problem that we’ve been able to understand the permanent solution that bonds brings to these problems. This is because it requires a detailed, quantitative understanding of the economic effects – considering both the in-game market and real-world value. As a result, we expect some of you will have sophisticated questions about this, which we’ll do our best to answer in our upcoming Q&A sessions.

Mod Jacmob

25-Sep-2013 15:32:18 - Last edited on 25-Sep-2013 15:34:21 by Mod Mat K

Mod Mmg

Mod Mmg

Jagex Moderator Forum Profile Posts by user



What are Bonds?

Bonds are items that can be purchased for real world currency, and traded in game. They can be redeemed to add RuneScape membership, spins or RuneCoins to your account.

How do I get a Bond?

You can either purchase them from the billing page, or trade some from the Grand exchange, trade with a fellow player in-game who owns a bond, or ask your friends nicely :)

Does this mean I can buy membership with in-game wealth?

Yes, because you can trade a bond from another player or the Grand Exchange, and then redeem it for membership credit.

Can I trade my Bond?

Yes, when it is in the tradeable state.

How does the tradeable/untradeable aspects of Bonds work?

Players who buy their Bond from the website will be able to trade their Bond immediately. If you buy the Bond from the Grand Exchange or receive it through a trade with another player, you’ll have to pay a GP fee to convert it to be tradable again – equalling 10% of the current Grand Exchange price. This 're-trade tax' is to reduce excessive merchanting and to act as a gold sink. You will be able to convert your bond back to its tradeable state through the Bonds interface, and it is free to redeem the Bond for membership, RuneCoins or spins at any time.

How do I redeem my bond, and/or convert it to be tradeable?

If you click on the Bonds section in the Extras window, you’ll be taken to your Bonds interface. This allows you to redeem, convert or buy Bonds, and informs you of how many Bonds you currently have.

Can I convert multiple Bonds at once?

Yes, but you will only be able to convert Bonds that are in your backpack.

Can I redeem multiple RuneScape bonds at once?

No, at the present time you can redeem one RuneScape bond at a time.

Can I redeem Bonds from my bank?

Yes. Bonds can be redeemed directly from either your bank or your backpack.

Can I gift a bond to my friend?

Of course – provided the bond is currently in a tradeable state. You can trade it for whatever you feel its worth or give it away for free.

What can I redeem my Bond for?

You can redeem the Bond in one of three ways: for14 days of membership, 8 spins or 160 RuneCoins.

Will the amount of membership, spins or RuneCoins received by redeeming a bond ever change?

No, these are fixed conversion rates which will remain the same.

Is there a limit on how many bonds I can have at a time?

No – although bonds do not stack so they’ll take up bank slots if you want to hold onto them!


Will the bond set up a recurring subscription on my account?

No. Bonds redeemed for membership will add 2 weeks of membership to your account, which will expire normally with no further charges incurred.

What happens when the membership redeemed from my bond runs out?

If you have a recurring membership set up, you’ll be charged 3 days before you’re due to run out. If you don’t have an active membership, your account will be restricted to free worlds and your loyalty programme progress will be reset as per normal – so make sure to grab another bond or renew membership in good time!

Will the bond cancel my recurring membership if I redeem a bond for membership?

No. Redeeming your bond for membership will simply add the extra membership credit to your account, and leave any recurring membership agreement active. Your next payment will be deferred, and you will only pay for additional membership when you have less than 3 days credit remaining.

Will I keep my loyalty rate or my loyalty programme bonus progress if I use a bond for membership?

Yes, your loyalty rate and loyalty programme will operate as normal – if you have membership, they are unaffected.

What payment methods can I use to buy Bonds?

You can buy your Bond using a credit card or a PayPal account.

What happens if I die with my Bond in my inventory?

Bonds are protected on death and will stay in your inventory through to your resurrection.

If I redeem my bond for membership accidentaly, can I reverse my redemption for another choice like RuneCoins instead?

No – once you have confirmed your choice, the bond is destroyed and cannot be retrieved.

How does this affect me if I play Old School RuneScape?

Bonds will not be introduced into OSRS, so if you purchase a Bond the in-game item will only be held by your main game avatar. Because membership credit is shared across both games, if you redeem a Bond for Membership in the main game then you’ll also get the benefit of it for Old School access too.

Won't this cause price crashes? I don't want my valuable items to lose their worth!

While there may be some short-term fluctuation in item prices, Bonds will ensure a healthier game economy in the long run. The lack of gold farmers injecting gold into the economy, along with the additional gold sink from the tax on secondary Bond trading, will mean far greater economic stability for RuneScape's future.


How can I redeem my bonds for a RuneFest ticket?

We have 100 RuneFest tickets available in exchange for RuneScape Bonds (and if there's demand we'll try to free up some more!)

When you have 35 bonds in your inventory and/or bank, please send us a message via our ticketing system , selecting the 'RuneFest Tickets' category under 'Billing Help'.

Please make sure you include the following information in your message:

  • Number of tickets you want (maximum of two).

  • Your name and address for each ticket.

  • Your account log-in name or email address for each ticket.

  • Your account display name for each ticket.

  • Clan name (if you’re in one) for each ticket.

  • Preferred t-shirt size for each ticket.

  • The age of each ticket holder



We will then reply to you via the messaging system with your ticket information.

25-Sep-2013 15:32:25 - Last edited on 27-Sep-2013 20:33:51 by Mod Kalaya

CD_Paladin_C

CD_Paladin_C

Posts: 3,945 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I really don't see how this is going to stop gold farming. As long as gold farmers sell their gold cheaper than bonds it'll continue. Also there's the ever important option of letting us trade ingame wealth to an npc for bonds for possible a 10-20% fee which not only would create a massive money sink, which is non-existant, so basically the entire system revolves around buying an item was at one point bought with real world money.

I feel like this update will peter out sooner rather than later, well at least it won't be a sof type deal.

If 40-50% of the playerbase are buying gold, then you guys should really start a campaign against gold buying and start making public examples out of people buying gold.

I feel like let's say the bonds are bought for 5 bucks each and are worth 1m each, then the gold farmers are still going to be going full steam if they charge less than 5 bucks for 1m gold. The entire value of these things will come from how much membership will be worth, and honestly I expect each bond to be worth very little after the first few weeks, the only thing holding up their value is buying membership.

Honestly this is only going to knock out a few people buying gold who would rather do it more honestly, and it could potentially get more people to do it illegally if they can get more for cheaper elsewhere. "Your god's dead next time he's in a world event. "
-The Lore Community to our Saradominist Friends, Said During World Event 2, Proven During World Event 3.
#StopSaradomin

25-Sep-2013 16:20:17 - Last edited on 25-Sep-2013 16:29:26 by CD_Paladin_C

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