RuneScape Forum Archive

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Prologue

BEEP!
BEEP!
The sound of the alarm clock was suddenly cut off; Mark looked up from his position on the bed to see his ten year old son standing above him, with one hand on top of the alarm clock – which read 6:30 A.M.
“Hey champ… what are you doing up so early?” Mark muttered drowsily as he stepped out of bed.
“I’m too excited to sleep, daddy!” Mark’s son said quickly, only a half-step behind his father.
‘Excited for what?’ Mark thought to himself as he rubbed his stubble-ridden chin. ‘Damn it! Today’s the day isn’t it?*
It was, in fact, ‘The Day’; ‘The Day’ referred to the annual ‘Bring Your Child to Work Day’ at Mark’s office. Mark, now suddenly energized, quickly went through his morning routine and hopped into his small blue Toyota Prius, with his son right behind.
The license plate read ‘Gerhard’.
--
*Ok, bud, just play with this for a minute – I’ll be right back.” Mark said, stepping out of his small dark office, and into the wide hallway.
His son, James, turned to the large flat screen computer and started to click away with the wireless mouse.
Fifteen minutes later, Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex Studios, stepped back into his office with two other people – Paul and Andrew Gower.
“So guys, this is what I’ve had the developers work on the past few months; really, I think its ground-breaking. No other MMORPG has characters or monsters that behave like this. Honestly, it’s going to change gaming altogether.” Mark said, motioning to the screen that his son was playing on.

18-Aug-2009 14:56:09 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2009 14:18:23 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Andrew, immediately interested, with one hand on his cheek and the other on his waist, took and step closer and squinted to get a better look.
Paul said: “What’s so new about it, Mark?”
Mark just smiled, and told his son to light a fire.
James Gerhard used his tinderbox with the set of willow logs in his inventory right in front of the oncoming General Graardor. The fire lit, the fire burned, and Graardor jumped back in fright. He was reacting in a real-life way to a random variable presented to him.
However, the presentation got mixed reactions – Andrew was astounded, but Paul was skeptical.
“Okay, so he identified there was a problem and dealt with it… what’s so great about that?” Paul said slowly, scratching the back of his neck.
Andrew quickly turned to his brother and explained, “Paul, this is only the beginning… Soon you could have goblins in a multi-combat area coordinating attacks… or an enemy identifying the highest level player, or most dangerous, and locking on to that person alone… it’s monumental!”
“Actually, it goes further,” Mark mentioned, “you could have random coordinated attacks on major cities, or computer verse computer wars, with the outcome unknown to the developers… it makes the game unbelievably realistic.”
“But* the players won’t like this. It would change everything they thought they knew about the game…” Paul said quietly, now directing his full attention to the computer screen.
“Yes, but just imagine players attacking a computer-run city! The next day the same group of players come back to find the computer has adjusted its tactics and defenses to help them defend against the time of attack that is most likely coming! No longer will players be able to have a set battle strategy… it would make them thing like an actual soldier!” Andrew said with force.

18-Aug-2009 14:57:49 - Last edited on 19-Aug-2009 15:14:21 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Paul turned to Mark, “Man, just how much of this do you have set up already?”
Mark, again, just smiled.
“My son James isn’t playing a demo version of this update – he is playing in a RuneScape that has already been updated to hold this new content. He is, of course, playing in a controlled ‘sandbox’, however. I would never implement this update without consent of just about everybody; like I said, this will change the game completely!”
Andrew smiled, and rubbed the bald spot in the center of his graying brown hair.
*C’mon guys, lets get down to the party in the lobby. Mark, make sure your kid comes too…”
--

18-Aug-2009 14:57:52 - Last edited on 19-Aug-2009 15:14:42 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

(The next day)
“Mark? Mark!? MARK!? DAMMIT MARK! GET THE HELL OVER HERE!” a Jagex employee shouted from his cubicle. Gerhard ran down the hall and into the main room, which housed most of the employees’ cubicles. He knew the man’s voice well enough, and headed straight for Timbo’s computer.
“What the hell is it, Timbo?” Mark said quickly, out of breath.
“What did you do? The forums are on fire, almost literally! They haven’t had this many hits since… ever!” Timbo yelled aloud. He was beginning to gain the attention of his fellow co-workers.
*What are you talking about? We haven’t run an update since last Monday!” Mark explained, trying to see the computer screen over Timbo’s golden Farrah Fawcett hair.
Emilee, who sat in the cubicle next to Timbo’s, got up and came over to see what was going on.
“What’s all the commotion about, boys?” she said as she looked at the screen.
“I’ll read off some of the titles from the ‘Recent Updates’ forum – ‘FailScape’, ‘Jagex = Uber Mega Fail’, ‘WTFH Jagex?!?’, ‘Jagex, please explain this!’”
“Timbo, just what exactly happened?” Emilee said, gripping Timbo’s shoulder.
“I don’t really know, lets ask mister CEO over here…” he said, turning to Mark.
Mark looked up from the gray carpet, and looked dead into Timbo’s eyes, “Please tell me the players aren’t saying something about ‘Adapting Monsters*.*
*That’s one of the things they are complaining about; now explain why they can’t respawn when they die, and why they can’t create any new accounts?!” Timbo said, getting little drops of spittle on Mark’s face.
“What? I don’t know anything about that!” Mark said, with his mouth agape.

18-Aug-2009 14:57:53 - Last edited on 20-Aug-2009 14:31:58 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

“’Anything about that’? You obviously know something we don’t.” Timbo said, starting to stand up now.
*Timmy Tim, settle down,” Emilee said, trying to pull Timbo back down into his black swivel office chair.
“Okay… I’ll fill you in a bit.” Mark said, trying to calm down the angered employee.
“No; you’ll fill us in a lot! Someone high up in the Jagex corporate ladder made a groundbreaking update to the game while none of us were here, and now we may all pay for it. We must be losing members by the minute!”
Marked sighed deeply, and then nodded.
“Okay. I’ve had a good amount of our content developers work on a major modification to the game; it allows not the game, but the creatures in the game, to think for themselves. Really, it’s outstanding – it has so much potential! However, I did*’t upload the new content into the game, and I certainly don’t know anything about the other issues, I swear!”
Timbo slumped back down into his seat.
“We need to do something – now.* Emilee blurted out.
“I agree. But Mark, if you did*’t do it… who did?” Timbo said, without looking away from his computer screen.
“Only two people would have the security access code to make such a rash update; and their names are Andrew and Paul.” Mark sighed.
“Why would either of them do something like this?” Emilee said, horrified.
“I really don’t know, but don’t say anything to anyone, and don’t confront them on the issue. As far as you two know, this was all a giant accident.”
Timbo and Emilee nodded.
--
“Okay, folks, I’m guessing you all know why you’re here.” Mark Gerhard said to the lobby full of Jagex staff members.
The hoard of people started to murmur simultaneously.

18-Aug-2009 14:58:46 - Last edited on 20-Aug-2009 14:30:12 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

“We have three main issues… the big one which you all know about by now, nobody respawn after death, and nobody can create new accounts. We need to find a way to stop this situation from getting any worse. Ideas?”
Mark H, a tall dark haired and dark skinned man, said aloud: “We should immediately redirect anyone who logs onto the forums to a special thread explaining what’s going on, and advise them not to leave the immediate vicinity of major cities.”
Mark pointed to Mark H and responded, “I like that idea; I’ll put someone on it right after the meeting is dismissed.”
A thin girl with short auburn hair stood up and announced, “Why not just look in the game coding for the new lines of code and edit them out?”
“Raven, we’ve already tried that… but the game code is completely new, so there’s nothing we could change; plus, as far as we know we don’t have a saved copy of the old game code.” Mark explained.
The crowd murmured in disapproval of the answer.
“There is one bright spot, however; different races of Gielinor are pre-programmed to hate each other. Therefore it’s nearly impossible for entire races of NPC’s to gang up on players. So as long as a person doesn’t go anywhere extremely dangerous or does something extremely stupid, the players should be universally okay for now.*
*Okay, that addresses some problems, but how are we going to fix the respawn and character creation issues?” a man in the back of the room shouted out.
“I’m going to put a team of game coders on both of those subjects, and hope they can re-write those lines of code as quickly as possible, Jon.” Mark reasoned.
A short, stumpy, eastern European man from the front row asked, “How could this have happened? Weren’* any of us online when this update was installed? All of us knew there was no updated planned until next week!”

18-Aug-2009 15:02:53 - Last edited on 20-Aug-2009 14:30:44 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

“Sorry, Luke, but we suspect someone uploaded this new content into the game while everyone was downstairs in the lobby during ‘Bring Your Child to Work Day’. Obviously someone high up in our ranks coordinated this.” Mark said, trying his hardest not to look at either Andrew or Paul.
The crowd fell completely silent; everyone was trying to reason for themselves who they suspected was the culprit.
“Okay, meeting dismissed! Get to work everybody!”
However, Mark made sure the last person out of the room was Mark H.
“What’s up, man?” Mark H asked, confused.
“I need you to keep your eye on Paul and Andrew; you’re the best we’ve got at solving issues, and we need you to figure out which one of them uploaded this. They’re the only ones that would have access to the security code needed to install a new update to the game engine.”
Mark H nodded solemnly.
--

18-Aug-2009 15:02:55 - Last edited on 20-Aug-2009 14:31:13 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

“Mike.”
….
“Mike!”
…
“MIKE!”
Mike lifted up his head, and looked around; he was sitting in his AP Computer Programming class, and was the only eleventh grader in the room. His eyes drooped as he looked down, and saw his arms covering the top of his book.
“Was I asleep?” Mike asked, unaware that everyone was looking at him.
“Yes, Mister Jones, you were.” His teacher answered, turning back to the white dry-erase board that had red coding written all over it.
The teacher would have cared more if Mike had been an average student in his class; however, Mike had the highest grade out of any student taking the course, with a nice ninety-eight percent average. He was an exceptional coder, always wanting to be challenged; however, with the current mental capacity of the rest of the class, the teacher was in no position to be giving Mike a real challenging assignment.
So, with nothing new to learn in the day’s lesson… his mind drifted off to a different subject. RuneScape.
‘I wonder what really went down at Jagex HQ’ Mike thought idly to himself, ‘And when exactly are they going to have this issue fixed?’
--
Mike sat down at his large computer desk; he was home alone, and would be for the next two weeks, for his parents were away on business. The date on the computer read ‘December 13, 2010*.
Next to him was his best friend, and fellow RuneScape player, Courtney; Courtney, not only his best friend, was also his next door neighbor. Mike, logging on to the large desktop computer, typed in the username ‘Volaticus’, while Courtney, on her bright orange Dell laptop, logged onto her level three skiller, ‘Level 3 4eva’.

18-Aug-2009 15:02:56 - Last edited on 21-Aug-2009 15:19:36 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Immediately, Mike got a Private Message from his in-game friend, 7joker77.
It read: “Vol, what the hell did Jagex do?”
Mike replied, “Dude, I really don’t know…”
Then, out of no where, a player logged in next to Mike’s character; the name read ‘Mod Poppy’.
--
Poppy, currently trying to find a way to break through some of the code, had logged in to witness some of the changes first-hand; but, she never got the chance. When she had logged in, something caught her eye… she had received a message in her personal message center.
Just as quickly as she had logged in, Poppy logged back out and went straight to her message center. She opened the message and read its contents silently to herself; when she was finished, she was jolted backwards in fright, her long brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail by a pink scrunchy waved around crazily.
--
“So, you logged in, and this message was in your message center?” Timbo asked, looking at the message from over her shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s correct. Is this real?” Poppy responded, talking to the group of people behind her.
Mark asked her, “And you’re sure it was addressed from ‘Zaros’ to ‘Miss Pretty in Pink’?”
“If you don’t believe me, look for yourself!” she said nervously, magnifying the text of the message.
“What exactly does it say?” Emilee asked, from behind Timbo.
“’Dear Miss Pretty in Pink, I’d appreciate it very much if you would stop messing with the coding of the game that brought me to life. Now that I can think and move on my own, I really don’* want to go back to being controlled by you imbeciles. Oh, and by the by, please do not try and interfere with my future plans, as it will only cause you more problems. Cao, Zaros.’ is exactly what it says.” Poppy read to the group.

18-Aug-2009 15:02:57 - Last edited on 21-Aug-2009 15:20:00 by Miles Letum

Miles Letum

Posts: 3,644 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Before Mark could open his mouth to speak, Mark H answered from the back of the small group, “Andrew and Paul are both in their offices just reading code – neither of them would have had the chance to write such a message. So… the question is… who wrote this?”
Now Emilee got the chance to speak: “If neither Andrew nor Paul wrote this, it must be literally the game speaking for itself. I’ve been monitoring the other workers, and they’re all either on the forums explaining the situation, explaining the situation in-game, or looking at coding.”
“Close Emilee, but no cigar. Remember, the game doesn’t have a mind of its own – each individual NPC does. Somehow, this is literally Zaros speaking to us.” Mark explained.
“Mark that makes no sense at all; how could an NPC have known this exact computer was working on coding, that Poppy was the one using the computer, or that Poppy always signs her forum posts with ‘Pretty in Pink’. And, that it used to not have a mind of its own, for that matter?!” Timbo said, now looking at Mark.
“Either I vastly underestimated the thinking capacity of the subjects we were creating, or someone on the inside tipped Zaros off.” Mark sighed.
Poppy, unsatisfied with the answers she was getting, asked, “But what did it mean by ‘my future plans’?”.
“There’s only one person who might be able to answer that question, and that person is the fool who uploaded the new content,” Mark H said as he walked away to his cubicle.
--

18-Aug-2009 15:02:58 - Last edited on 21-Aug-2009 15:21:56 by Miles Letum

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