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The other great thing about breaking down the points and bonuses, into additional targets, is that it opens up the option for additional title rewards. For example (again, just suggestions - somewhat jokey, but they convey the idea):

• Gain the bonus for most portal damage 100 times - Portal Magician
• Single-Handedly close all portals, 3 times in a row - Scourge of Doorways
• Kill every single pest of X type, in a wave - Nemisis of The X
• Make X number of repairs - Void Knight Mechanic
• Gain 5,000 points from kills in defence of the Knight - Squire of Void
• Gain 10,000 points " " " " " - Defender Initiate
• " 15k """" - Upholder
.. and so on....

Also allowing tiered recolours, or perhaps even tiny buffs, to Void equipment, for certain achievements.

Talking numbers:

I have 17 accounts, almost all of which have full friends' lists (very few duplicate adds), mostly of Goppers.. this is just one minigame, and I was just from one community that used it, and likely don't have most added who were from others (this acc being the exception, as it's the one I use for the Help Chat).

If other minigames were similar - and from what I know of them, at least a few were, while those that weren't had at least a dedicated core of around 3-400 regulars (like TB), even if they didn't all know eachother, then this has been somewhat of a problem - a not unsizable chunk of the playerbase. There is some turn arround, which plays in to this, yes.. and there is natural wastage, yes.. but in the last Years, almost no one new has been feeding into those communities, and vast swathes of them have left, above and beyond natural wastage, simply because the content has been broken, neglected, stripped of rewards, or unenjoyable - due to losing so many players, courtesy of the other reasons.

I know that many of those who had stuck around Minigames, have been leaving because they give up hope, don't get listened to (even after Years of persistence, in the correct places), or find it distressing to play now that they can see the situation is dire, and everyone new they meet comes with fixed ideas about boosting, which have to be overcome.

Now the CM Team are great (!!!) but with all respect (and I do have an enormous respect for their efforts, without them, I think that a large proportion of those left would have given up hope, and left) they, and those who mostly play a minigame with them/at their events (other than some of the minigames which still have vaguely worthwhile rewards, like PC), live in a bubble.. because they only play at events, where people go to play.. and lots go.. the real situation is nothing like that, and unfortunately that doesn't get seen from within the bubble.

I realise a lot of the problems with getting upset over the current situation are small, and may seem trivial, if you've been subjected to it for every single day, Year in, Year out, believe me - it adds up. Something so small as 9/10 people you meet, having the first thing they say when coming to a minigame being along the lines of 'Who wins first?', or 'do you do 5050', or 'can't we just afk it', et.cetera., et.ceterta. just kills you inside, after a while.

With Gop it is extra difficult, as the Help Community was set up and run by a very private group, who didn't like interacting on the main worlds, due to language problems (both in terms of not many not speaking English well, and in terms of not liking the constant swearing and aggressive attitude of some of the regulars on those Worlds), and due to having on-going competition structure within their own organisation, meaning it was just very fun to carry on within that, with no wish to play outside of it, many having been part of the group long before coming to RuneScape (add to this a highly addictive, permenant hide-and-seek game they had going with 2 other, similarly private groups, and it's not surprising that there was little cross-over).

This meant that when they did open up the Help Chat to allowing people from the main groups to assist (this was mostly initiated by the leader of the group, and although everyone respected him deeply, the majority didn't agree with it - and this caused most to just stop playing Gop on RS, at all, and simply use the group-built, non-Java versions, developed during the botting problems), that there were big tentions, and a lot of aggression targeted towards this group, from the open-world groups, which got worse when the leader of the open-world chat closed it and they all started using the help chat, with most doing the opposite of helping. Subsequently, only 8 out of over 1,400 people from the host community still help out.. minuscule..

I don't see them in often, either, as they're even more busy than me. Thankfully, as the owner of the group had hoped*, there are quite a few from the open-world group, along with help-chat-grown helpers, who run the chat, now, too. Unfortunatley, the majority of us have jobs, or are in full-time studies, so this doesn't exactly promote good coverage.

Although this did divert a bit from the main point, it's there to outline why the situation is bad, and how it came to be so from a social-point, rather than from an entirely update-based. However, the social is merely a reflection of what's happened in terms of the game-situation (and largely caused by it)

*They, being one of the hundred or so from our groups, who occasionally played on open worlds, saw that the open-world groups were dying off, and not getting anyone new in, so hoped to encourage a similar newplayer-nurturing attitude there.



(BTW, I will be removing the previous post, and this one, once you've read them, as I don't wish them read out of context, as that might end up with it appearing to defame folks who, after all, are just playing a game, so can do so as they choose - you may find that a bit rich, given what I'm attempting to say would help minigames, but, the important differences are:

1: I'm not asking them to prevent a way of playing them - it will still be possible, but it would no longer have an entirely negative and self-amplifying impact, it will have a positive one.

2: Instead of a playstyle preventative to the content's advertised being the one that's encouraged, or even enforced (directly, or over time, subliminally, or overtly), the one which suits the content-style will be the one that's encouraged by the system, without negative impacts on newcommers; and, what's more important: It will actually be possible to use the content in the advertised style, at any point in time.

Population does not equate to use - indeed there are fewer people Playing , TB, Gop, Fog****, and several other Minigames, than before spotlights came out, even if overall numbers may appear higher, at least during spotlights (though overall numbers are actually lower, for a couple of minigames, unless there's some fc with a constant 70+ people in, all the time, that's playing one of them, that I've not yet come accross - which is incredibly unlikely. To clarify: I'm not saying any 1 FC had 70+ all the time before, I'm just taking the known average overall deficit, now, compared to before, and lumping it in one place).


Even if we imagine a situation where people there were all actually playing the games, while the minigames were in spotlight, then it would still not be a good situation, as somethig being active once every few weeks, and dead the rest of the time, is not a healthy situation, and fails to provide a stable niche for people who are a Minigame disposition to explore the rest of the game from - and fails to give them the choice of game.

The ability to get rewards while afking, further adds to the joke-content nature of Minigames, as it appears that the only way JAGEX can force people to try doing something, is to let them get away with not doing it - this wouldn't be true if the content was fixed and working, and encouraged participation. The ability to get any useful reward from some minigames, from playing another (afk or not - though it is afk, in the current form), just makes those particular minigames seem like the worthless sludge-at-the-bottom-of joke-content. No way will anyone be persuaded that they are fun, or worthwhile trying, unless some action is take by JAGEX to show they think so.

As I think you've seen, China borrowed the wall from me, in the first place

That's another reason why I don't like being the one making the suggestions threads - I don't do concise very well, and learning it doesn't sit well with me.. I end up feeling really annoyed and frustrated at having left things out, and end up redoing it in more detail..

I wouldn't exactly make a good frontman for any suggestions, though others have done, and continue to do so - it's just that little is listened to.


One thing several of us have noticed, is that often things which take Years of talking about, and suggesting quick sollutions for (in the right places, I might add), yet get nothing done about them, can sometimes mgically get done within a week of a JMod from the CM team having experienced them. This has happened with several minor issues from Conq, one from SC, 2 from the Gop lobby (though they were the reason the Mod didn't play, so Idk what would have happened if they'd got to actually play...).. there are more, but not able to recall details off the top of my head, only that there were a few with Heist loading and glitches (though they'd only been around a few Months before a CM person played it).


This is partly why, if they are able to see problems, and help poke action on them, I think that bringing up some of the major issues at hand (like the toxicity of most of the reward allocation systems, along with lack of worthwhile rewards, and any major glitches) within the context of CM experiences of the game, is a valid way for me, with all my rambling issues on forums, but an experience of helping people to try out and enjoy the games in-game, to try and do my bit for the Minigamming communities.