RuneScape Exposed Part 2

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When I first began to write my reply I was very angry at the bigoted apporoach, but after I read the article in its entirety, there is a lot going wrong.

Personally, my wife and I have always been vigiliant with our kids (the oldest of which is now fourteen), and one of us is always on the same story of the house as the child on the internet with major restrictions on what they can access, and check in every half an hour. That approach to me a few years before hand would have seemed ridiculous, but after moderating in a chatroom for a year or two and informing a few friends with older teenage kids how to use the "history" function in a browser, I have decided it is the only way. It IS fully possible to properly monitor your kids on the internet.

I myself play Runescape and have been on and off since May 2004. I think it is a fantastic game that has a true economic system of prices and teaches many kids aged 14-20 odd the theories of supply and demand, basic economics and so on. I think that chat sensor IS very good and the majority or misspellings that people use to get round it would not be understood by the average 12 year old. I thought the caption on the image of theiving saying "Stealing is also a crucial task in RuneScape (see top left-hand corner)." was a bit rich, and you know as well as I do that there is no such thing as a crucial task in runescape. Someone who believes that actively performing "magic" so called is wrong can completely ignore the skill in game. YOu have made good point. The cybersex comment by "kidsmom" is also a very very small problem. There are very few players in game that actually attempt to make comments like this, much less than an average workplace or school, either turn her private chat off or just report them. I have had two messages from Jagex about reports I've made, I kept the messages, they were in June 05 and May 06 (I've only seen about 4 incidents of sexual behaviour in 3 1/2 years of playing) and I believe both of those responses by Jagex about those reports were two of those incidents, which I know they take very seriously.

In conclusion, if you don't want your kids to play Runescape that's fine, but you do, and I do, and I think it does more good than harm, and there are far worse things for them to be doing on the internet. I think making it out to be a major problem is less than necessary, but I am all for proper monitoring of children on the internet.
 
You cannot be thirteen years old, and yet be that well spoken. Oh god, there is hope for the new generation after all!

LOLOLOLOL L33T HAXORZ NUB ROFLMAO I PWN U NUB! U SUX!!! LOLOLOL

*clears throat* Sorry, my inner dickhead reacted to the thought of all the other thirteen year olds.




 
I completely read both articles... and the author made many valid points. Well, they did at the time the articles were written. Since it's now August 13th, 2007, some of the points made are moot... although others are still valid... because Jagex did finally pull part of its head out of the rearward-most part further South by making SOME changes to the game that they should have programmed into it in the first place. Prime example? Scams during trading between 2 players. Recently, Jagex made it so that if any switch was made between the first and second trade screens, a big RED exclamation point would pop up during the second window. This clearly showed the opposing player that a potentially dishonest player was possibly trying to take advantage of them. Now, at least you know that nothing was changed mid-stream although you need to still carefully check the trade anyway just like you always should have. While some would applaud Jagex for making this change to the game... they should have done it years ago so I still would love to tell them that they are idiots in spite of the change... and they deserve no "ups" or credit. Not only would they have helped to prevent about 9.8 BILLION scams (yes, I was being sarcastic in case you missed that), they would have also saved themselves as a company a ton of time, money and energy by NOT having to deal with abuse reports and pissed off players had they simply done what they did A LONG FREAKING TIME AGO!!!!. That leads me to my next comment so read onward.

Overall, as I now see Jagex, I see them as a gigantic ship that's traveling through the ocean. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have a Captain that has his own head out of his arse and he has far too few employees to properly control his ship when he does seem to be giving orders that seem to make sense. Notice that I said "seem to make sense". On the whole... that's a dangerous thing... even in the most vast ocean. Why? Because sooner or later that gigantic ship is going to come across other ships or land. If it isn't under complete control, bad things just might not happen, they ultimately WILL happen. It's only a matter of time. What do I really think? Sometimes I actually believe that the 3 guys that control Jagex simply let a room full of 6 to 8 years old make decisions for the game... and that's why we see the utterly idiotic things happening that we do. As if a group of 6 to 8 year old kids know what's best for anything or anyone whatsoever.

A prime example of that? The Wilderness Ditch. AKA: The Ditch of Stupidity. I don't know of one single fellow player (that I know for a fact is an adult) that thought it did anything to solve the problem of luring (whether you think luring is bad or not is irrelevent) or anything else problem-wise that the ditch was supposed to solve. As was stated by one RS forum poster in the following day after the ditch was added... "You cannot teach stupid, it just is". For many players that would fall for a lure... the ditch really didn't do too much other than delay the inevitable. What the ditch really did was simply piss off tons of players for a variety of reasons, especially runecrafters. The bad far outweighed the good... and overall the ditch was just one more thing that made the game LESS fun. Fortunately for me, I had gone to level 72 Runecrafting BEFORE it was implemented... thus I only had to suffer for 3 more levels before I got to move onto the next segment of my plan for raising the Runecrafting skill which didn't require me to use the abyssal method. However, for all other players, that probably wasn't the case and the sufferage for new players will be maximized. A brand new player will not only have to waste far more time than all the previous players before them to reach the same levels when using the abyssal method, they will be far less likely to even want to use it at all which is truly sad. I liken it to being allowed to drive a Ferrari on a formula one course... only to find out that there's a governor on the engine that retards your speed to 100 MPH max and it takes you 35 seconds to reach that speed instead of the standard rubber roasting 8.6 seconds. What would be the point of driving a Ferrari if that was the case? You would not only be totally wasting your time on the course, you'd be better off and have far more fun driving the average Volvo wagon.

Back to the captainless ship... and the capacity for rational and careful thought when it comes to gameplay. I see Jagex making bad decisions far too much and they certainly don't seem to think too much about the possibilities for the future no matter what the decision influences either before or after the fact. Here's a prime example: recently, they nerfed Pest Control. The excuse was that they had noticed that players were using PC too much for training thus their characters were more like products than players. Uh-huh... that thought didn't occur to you guys BEFORE you even put PC into the game??? You guys didn't test it out amongst yourselves with pre-made characters to find out what the REALISTIC points per hour could be? Idiots. Let's be serious about it here. How on earth anyone could NOT examine what players were going to do BEFORE THE FACT??? I don't expect a group of programmers to think of every possibility under the Sun but for crying out loud... it should have been obvious that a certain number of players would turn into hard core PC nuts. There are players like that for EVERY mini-game! There is EVEN FOR TROUBLE BREWING! Then there are the normal players that find the best way to train by default... and it happened to be that PC was the best way for training combat skills. All Jagex had to do was to monitor PC for a few days and they would have noticed what players were the experts at it. Then they could have easily tracked perhaps 100 of them too see what the real numbers were for points gained per hour... and THEN if they thought the rewards were too high, they could have trimmed accordingly in the first week. Did they do that? Nope... they waited all this time instead AND THEN THEY NERFED IT!! What did they accomplish? Not only did they give a permanent advantage to all the players that did PC until they were level 126 (by nerfing the rewards for future players), they pissed off a lot of serious RS players all over again with their poor decision. Not a smart thing to do, that's for sure. What about that blunder with the anchor...? Jagex nerfed that a couple of times and they nerfed it on the cost AND the reward too. For the reward, sneaky players quickly figured out it was smart to just go out into the Wild and smack your buddy until he was dead then you could collect the loot. I cannot get over to this day how moronic Jagex employeees must be if they didn't see that one coming a mile away!! Rule number one in a game programmer's mind must be this: how, if any way, will players exploit or take advantage of this new item, monster, area, skill or whatever. Just dying to a buddy and getting the massive amount of cash while paying a small portion for a new anchor should have been a no-brainer yet they totally missed the obvious. If there's a way to exploit the system for cash or points... players will find it and do it 24/7 365. Duh.

Speaking of poor decisions... the author of the article touched on the ever controversial PHAT. If you know and play RS, you know what a PHAT is and why they're controversial. I myself don't believe Jagex ever even considered that they even COULD become valuable... and that's precisely what started the chain reaction that would prove to change RS for the worse the way that it has up to this point in time. What kills me about it is that they never really did anything about it when they had the chance to when they still could have without upsetting too many players. Yes, they made FUTURE holiday items untradeable after a certain point in time... but that STILL didn't do anything about the previous items and only served to worsen the problem in more ways than one. What could they have done? Stated that those items could be released again in the future (everyone should be able to get a rubber chicken as far as I'm concerned - they're too cool and funny!!)... or would be made untradeable in the future... or simply removed them from the game all the way. They also could have simply made a spot (meaning an NPC or store) where you could get one for a small cost. Yes, I know that this would have been upsetting to a few players way back when... due to money... but I would still have done it anyway to solve the problem before it got completely out of control which it was obviously going to do. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that one coming! Of course since they could be traded, Jagex should have realized from second one that they would gain value in an insane fashion over time since they did have a certain "cool" factor attached to them. That's human nature... to want or COVET something someone else has.

Moving into abuse and the reporting thereof... oh man... I'm about to start raging. I won't though... because I only need to say one thing: sending in a complaint is a total joke. As was pointed out, if Jagex was going to be serious about their customers, they wouldn't limit you to 400 characters max on the form. As it it, they're saying "we don't really actually want to listen to your bitch (whether it's valid or not) and we certainly don't want to do anything about it one way or the other". If they were serious, they wouldn't pay lip service to the concept by hiding the damned form under a ton of BS anyway. That's aside from the 400 character limit which includes spaces by the way. Kiss my arse Jagex, you insult me.

As for abuse, I won't even talk about all the utter BS that goes on ingame. There's no point in me yakking about it. If you have an environment where kids are active and there are absolutely ZERO repercussions for bad behavior then you'll end up with the worst of the worst every single time. Duh. If I'm out and about in real life, most kids will not insult me as an adult or smart off at me. They wouldn't dare. Why? Because they know if they did, their parents would deal with them or I would. And they'd better hope that they get their parents nailing them too because I will have little mercy! In RS, there are no repercussions at all. Any little pissant brat can lip off at you or try to scam you and there's nothing that you can do about it. So it goes. Sure, you can try to report... but most of the time, that does nothing. Wow... you say that language is censored and that works well and you can block player names, etc... but there's far more to it than that as any experienced RS player knows. You shouldn't have to tolerate garbage in the first place. And where does it start on RS? That's right... with the 3 guys that run Jagex. Why is it such that I cannot say the word "gay" (as I might somehow possibly "offend" anyone who happens to see the mere word over my character's head) yet kids can run around all day long going "FU!", "STFU!!", "FFS!" and so on and so forth. That's makes no sense whatsoever. Every kid in the third grade or higher at a public school knows what STFU means. Don't believe me? Try being an elementary school teacher and you'll find out real fast what kids know... and they aren't nearly as blind or unaware as most adults think they are. Yet for some reason those types of things ARE NOT censored. Give me a break. I still find it hard to believe that Jagex actually started doing something about player names that truly were offensive and had no place in the game. The word "pussy" or any variant of such has no place in a kid's game you idiots!!! It took you 6 years to figure that out and do something about it??

What about the cheaters? Again, don't get me started. Scamming another player is one thing... running bots to enrich yourself is another. The worst of the worst are the gold farmers that run bot armies who don't even play to play the game for fun... they only do it for real life cash. Jagex has had this problem for years... yet all they do about it is implment random events that mostly just ruin the game for legitimate players and piss us off because they're wasting my time. Oh goodie... I get molested by the Old Man who likes to grab my arse and shove his hands in my pockets just so I can get 20 whopping coins. After I waste my time getting rid of another damned box. Thanks alot Jagex... you've succeeded in doing nothing but making me want to stop play RS. And yes, I'll take my money elsewhere. Do those randoms really stop bots? Nope... even the new events only succeed in doing it for maybe 24-48 hours before the new scripts are written by the cheaters to deal with them. Otherwise the bots just go right on bot-bot-botting along. I've been saying this for years now... all through Jagex's blustering that they're "serious" about it.... about this problem that has persisted for YEARS (there, I said "years" again). There is only ONE solution to this problem yet Jagex refuses to implement it. What is it? Hire PERMANENT Jagex employees to conduct swit ingame bans on cheaters, especially bots. That's all they have to do. Why won't they do it? Obviously, it's because they refuse to spend the money, it's that simple. IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THEY RAKE IN AT LEAST 5 MILLION DOLLARS PER MONTH!!! Some might argue that it won't work... there are too many bots and the cheaters will just create more. Sure, they'll try for maybe a week, but they'll give up soon enough. Why? Because if they (the cheaters) know that their bot(s) won't go for more than 20-30 minutes max before a ban, there's no point in even trying. They won't be making any money from it, and for a members account, they'll be losing money. One JMOD could clean out 20 bots from one bot hotspot in a few minutes easily. Then they could move to another area that had bots. They could also camp out on Tutorial Island too... the cheater would have to sit through the whole thing just to avoid the JMODS. That's a lot of time wasted just to try to create a few bots, even for a sweatshop employee making 25 cents per hour in China. And for a members account? Jagex could and should make it so that the first time a character became a member, it had to initially be for at least 6 months. That way, the investment up front wouldn't be as low as $7 plus any costs for payment, it would automatically be $30 or more plus payment costs up front! That alone would scare off the many gold farmers. A legitimate player would simply be able to switch paying to a month to month basis if they wanted to after the first 6 months. Why doesn't Jagex do these 2 simple things? MONEY. They don't want to shell out. Sadly, in the long run... as far as I'm concerned, they're actually wasting money. They could have even more members since those of us already here would be far more satisfied and far more likely to tell our friends to become a member too. They would also be able to apply the cash they blow on customer support and lawyers towards employees that actually make the game more fun too. Wow, there's a novel idea. Of course... I also suspect that they are already doing their own gold farming... but that's a conspiracy theory for another time.

Speaking of issues of a more moral nature... Jagex has taken upon itself to be 192% politically correct on the issue of this so called thing we know as "sexual orientation". They claim they don't want to discriminate. Pardon me while I go throw up. Teaching kids that it's OK to be a faggoty little sissie bitch when you're a boy is particularly distasteful and OFFENSIVE to me. When you condone and support an activity, you're teaching that it's an acceptable activity. That's the way it works sport so don't even try to argue otherwise. Oh, but wait... let's take it one step further. In RS, you can switch your sex as often as you please. Go see the Makeover Mage and pay a few coins. Whammo. You're now a post-op tranny. One quest even REQUIRES you to change sexes in order to complete it. What are we teaching kids here? Nothing good as far as I'm concerned! Before anyone fires up... and goes down that path of "kids aren't REALLY going to be influenced by that part of the game" and "there's no PROOF by psychologists and their studies" and "IT'S JUST A GAME"... and blah blah blah, I have only one thing to say: you don't know your history or basic psychology. Trained behavior is learned behavior... especially on a sub-concious level. Children are ESPECIALLY vulnerable and prone to this... ESPECIALLY when the activity that is used for training is deemed to be fun!! In the grand scheme of life... when you examine all the supposedly "great" nations of the past in the history of the Earth, what was the primary thing that occured soon before they flew apart at the seams? That's right... there's one common pattern in all of them. It was that each nation moved away from its core values system into utter corruption and vile foulness. Godlessness would be an accurate descriptor. Golly gee whiz... am I saying that we shouldn't play games? Nope. Am I saying that RS is evil? Nope. Am I saying that kids shouldn't play games including RS? Nope. Am I saying RS will bring down modern civilization as we know it?? Nope. What am I saying? I'm saying that kids are far more impressionable that we think they are... and we should have a total handle on what they do spend their time on. We should be sure that we teach them what IS and IS NOT acceptable and make sure they know the difference between those things. We should also be sure they know the difference between fantasy and reality. It has been said "Garbage In = Garbage Out" and that phrase is totally true. You can argue all you want that it's the parents responsibilty to teach kids values and that they are the ones that are responsible for whether or not their kids even play RS and how much time they do. However, you cannot let Jagex off the hook for the product of RS and how it's marketed either. It is marketed towards kids... YOUNG kids... and RS does tech certain things, some good & some bad. That's a shameful thing considering they don't own up to it. Any company that's not up front with what it does and with ALL of the content of the products that it peddles is already suspect in my book. It tells me that they don't have integrity and are most likely keeping the truth hidden on purpose. No good comes from hiding the truth. Ever. As for kids... they truly are the future, sorry for the cliche. If we allow anything to go now, anything and everything will go in the future. For the better or for the worse.

All in all, Jagex simply cannot shirk the responsibility it has by default when it comes to how it markets RS and to whom it does. In this case, there's no room for doubt that they're marketing it to kids. It also is entirely responsible for the content in the game that it completely controls which is just about everything there is. At the end of the line, it seems to me that Jagex doesn't have a very large amount of control over itself, for whatever reason or group of reasons that is. It also seems to me that it's getting worse and they don't really give a flying rip. No wonder that many adults have bailed over the last year to other games... I would have to but for one reason: I know a girl in real life that asked me to stay just for her. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be a paying RS member. To me, the game largely isn't even fun anymore... though I do enjoy the real life individuals I know in it. If they leave, I will soon be gone too. That's not saying much for the game itself and that's sad. As for the articles, I enjoyed them. I can also identify directly with many of the points made... thumbs up.
 
I haven't had a chance to read all of the posts but, I can say this; I have played RS since Nov. '04. I've been a player moderator (P-mod) since Apr '06. I'm combat level 115 have 1920 total levels (over 100mil total experience points) and roughly 400mil Gp worth of items, all gained via skills, and a lot of law rune running. That being said, I am one of the only P-mods who have the balls, to speak my piece on the forums, (sometimes I think they may have made me a p-mod to try and shut me up). I met Charlesk (at least I think it was, Charlesk, only his RS name starts with a Q, if I'm correct) in-game and learned about TruthScape before I read this, "critique". Everything in the article was spot-on. If it weren't for people, (and I use that term very loosely), like, Paulyts50, RS would be a much better game, (Use an argument like that, in a "real life" situation and you'd not be long on this planet, Mr. Paulyts50). However that is definitely not the case, and only proves the authors points about monitoring your children. JaGex has their terrible customer support, deceitful information, and almost total lack of presence in-game. I actually can meet with JaGex moderators 3 times a day, in-game, only because I'm a p-mod, and then it's only to answer procedural questions, and am instantly told and number of, 'pat' answers to my 'pointed' questions. Most of the RS community that I've come in contact with are great people, from many walks of life, sharing an enjoyable time. Then again there are the other type, who primarily enjoy others, misfortune either by scamming, luring, or any of the myriad other ploys to sepperate someone from their items.
On the subject of player moderators, I can say this; there are some who do it for the dull gray/silver crown, others whom want to be, 'in-the-know' (they usually don't last because, JaGex "shares" nothing with us), some who enjoy cow-towing to the "powers that be" and the few whom actually would like to make RS a better safer environment than it is now.
About the "official" guide, I was both amazed, appalled, and ashamed by how much favor it garnered in the p-mod forums. When I asked why it was written for ages 9-12, I was practically tared and feathered by my "brethren". Some of them are actually parents, and even school teachers of children that age, who saw nothing wrong with it, go figure.
I did notice the lack of anything about encouraged, gambling in RS. There are situations in which you are given the opportunity to gamble points or items you've just acquired. Is this a good example for 9-12 year-olds?
This may be a moot point, for now but, what about the recent news of possible taxation of in-game proceeds? How much would the tax be on 400 odd million worth of RS gold be?
And those were my two, strike that, ten cents.
 
Bravo..

Both Part 1 and Part 2 are well written. You have correctly identified most problems with the game. As a parent with 2 kids who also play. I have been frustrated with Jagex not providing sufficient support for the players. My contacts with customer service have all resulted in frustration. Customer Service is a complete joke at Jagex. You correctly identify that customer service answers rarely address the specific questions that were asked. More often than not quoted FAQ's are sent. Honestly you nailed it. Everything that I find annoying about the game you have identified. I made similar points myself some time ago on my own blog. Jagex can sanitize their own forums. But the internet is a big place. Jagex don't have the only forums devoted to the subject of RS. I will include the link to my blog. http://runescape-today.blogspot.com Because as you will see.. I ranted quite a bit on December 02 2006 about Jagex Customer Service. Jagex won't get away forever treating us in this way. Because little by little in articles like this they are being exposed for what they are. Money Hungry with no regard for those who feed them. You know the funny thing is. I started that blog to promote runescape. You will notice that the early postings are all RS friendly. But after encounters with customer service my attitude deteriorated. BTW: Look me up. Combat 117 1569 tot lvl 48 million exp
 
ahem. the glitch where you talked about people being killed in their houses is no more. actually you imply that this has happened more than once. this is incredibly false. it happened once and only once. it is known as the "world 111 glitch". it happened on July 6, 2006. people lost items, yes. people were killed by other people in a house, yes. has it happened again? no. you are incredibly biased against a harmless kids game. the only reason you are against this game is because you see a MMO online for free that you can blast. if World of Warcraft was free and runescape wasnt, i think that you would blast WoW, only because it was free and a MMO and one that had small amounts of "violence" in it. although you should be going after it, but you may have a heart attack if you thought runescape was bad. you call this "runescape exposed" but it actually is a heartless, biased article which underminds jagex's hard work at creating and perserving a great game. oh and by the way, jagex censors pretty much EVERY vulgar or curse word you say, just for the record. even butt, probably every elementary school kid's favorite word.
 
zaflart, i agree with you on somethings though. you never see jagex mods online.EVER. but on f2p servers you never see p mods. THE MOST BOTS AND MACROERS ARE ON F2P!!!!!!!! god get it through your heads. you should be on f2p servers, helping people not get scammed, reporting botters and macroers and keeping an eye out for offensive slang!
 
ok iv played runescape 4 4 years i thank this fourm runescape wat ever the hell it is have u even played most f not all of the thangs u put in here have been fixed even the damn trade window(this kinda pisses me off btw stuped thang always blinks when i have a bank sell) the furms thangs 1000 now not 400 and from the posts iv read so far this tread is crap :fou: p mods are hard 2 find yes we know that theres 2k people i thank working 4 um give um a damn brake with hackers trying 2 hack and around 1mil rule 1s comeing in every day how are thay going to ban people like crazy 4 scamming. iv be scamed around 4mil ya is sucks but u get over it. iv been pking ect. thats part of the game jagex is trying the best thay can to keep people 13- off and runescapes not easy btw if this acc gets baned i dont care stfu and leave jagex out of this if u want it fixed get your lazy *** off the pc and call um! not siting here just pissing people off
 
Quite simply put, Mr Kozierok, you are overreacting.

I'm not about to point out precisely why, it's been mentioned enough times on this thread, so this'd merely be my response to points raised in your article.

Regarding the complicated names, there's a simple strategy to that, adding the person to your friends list.

Programming isn't as easy as it seems, either. Besides, how many players have you seen actually trying to warn people of scams? On external forums there are players who deliberately ask 'what are some common scams?' just so they can go out and scam people themselves. Some things, like warnings, may be done with completely good intentions, but end up instigating more harm than good.

"Hacked" accounts by right shouldn't be discussed on forums for the simple reason that no one ever would be able to know who's telling the truth. I'm not even talking about banned accounts here. As a player moderator, I've had players private message me saying they've been hacked, or someone hacked their account and committed offences on it, and it isn't at all their fault. Half the time I know for a fact that they're lying. The other half, I end up having two kids professing their innocence and the guilt of the other to me at the same time. It's just not possible to know who's right, and who's not. That's just ingame, y'know. You actually want to let that migrate over to the forums, as well?

It'd be nothing but a flame war. Accusations flying all over. You underestimate how catty and malicious kids can be. Thrice the number of forum moderators would be needed, and more server space than is worth any of the good it does.

The queries I have sent in have all been answered, in due time. Some queries read by real people receive automated replies anyway. I'm not about to actively praise the customer support system, it's definitely lacking in some respects, but when you have players asking questions about future updates and the football teams Jagex staff support, then whining on forums that their queries weren't answered, is it any wonder?

Enough Jagex mods come ingame, I can attest to that, but do you honestly think that Jagex staff would be making better use of their time coming ingame than looking through reports? In Lumby, on a crowded F2P world (1000+ players), player mods who speak get mobbed in five seconds flat, by players begging, soliciting, flaming, doing anything but breaking the rules, or at least the rules that matter. Even then it's not possible for there always to be a player mod in any given world, at any given time, let alone a Jagex mod. So you want deterrence, but sometimes it's just easier to stay silent, and catch the players at it, when they least expect to be caught. I've practiced deterrence, and I know for a fact that deterrence isn't always the best way to go.

In the case of Jagex mods though, when they do come ingame, for work-related purposes, I'm sure answering questions, no matter how noble a pursuit that may be, isn't high on their list of priorities. It's a job for them. People hardly get paid good money to stand around in an online game answering questions. Nicely put, the I've-seen-more-phats-than-gold-crowns reasoning borders on the unreasonable and inane. As are such comments
you never see jagex mods online.EVER. but on f2p servers you never see p mods.
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To which I can only reply, you do realise pmods don't always talk. Yeah, I'd love to do something so people'd be less disillusioned, and I've always been F2P myself, yet some days, there's only just so much abuse I can stand. I do believe I'm not alone in that.

As for player mods, contrary to popular belief, the role isn't that of a police officer. Even they get time off. There isn't ever such a thing as turning the crown off, and did it ever occur to you that those pmods, a fair many of whom are 13 year olds themselves, just mature kids, ever just feel like playing the game, for the fun of it? Will you call that "selfish"? Will you call it "selfish" for someone to turn off public chat altogether, just because they'd like to do what they started the account to do? Have fun, the way every other person who chooses to does? Without being harassed 24/7?

The only parties you seem to have any remote concern for are yourself and your children, along with your perception of the ideal child. That's the only perspective the article pretends exists, in any case. That, rather, is how I'd define "selfish".

Many people, personally, want to make things better. Jagex staff included, myself included. It's just not that easy. If there's a mod next to you in a crowded area, just "standing next to mass-spamming autotypers", chances are he's noticed that, without you telling him, and you've got to understand, pmods can't just mute on your say-so. I've had a hard time myself trying to balance on that fine line - there's such a thing as needing to be civil in impossible cases, there's such a thing as trying to be diplomatic when you're fuming, there's such a thing as confidential information, there's such a thing as simply not knowing what to do, and not wanting to risk it, or needing time to find out. Players of similar attitude spamming the chat screen with 'mod mute him!' doesn't much help, either.

So player moderators aren't perfect. So report those player mods who do things "against the spirit of the game". I've seen them and I know what you mean. It's not as if Jagex is perfect, either. I'm not saying these things, scamming, cybering, luring... I'm not saying these aren't happening, but instead of taking it out on the company, what about the people?

You can make it so scammers and suchlike children always fail, but you've failed altogether if you haven't managed to change the people.

Those are kids, mind you, doing all those terrible things. Children. Many of them are, at least, and it's so much easier, isn't it, to rail at Jagex than to engage someone in a decent conversation, turn them around? Sometimes mods don't mute not because we're selfish, but because mods aren't reporting machines, mods are normal players with a life, who have school and/or a job outside of this online game. Sometimes, mods don't mute because we aren't reporting machines, but more importantly, educators. It's so much easier, isn't it, to slap down a mute than to engage the rulebreaker in a half-an-hour long conversation via private chat that you go into knowing you might not succeed?

There's a concept that I'd have you familiarise yourself with though. It's one I've only just found a word for. Accountability. The best thing a child can learn is to be accountable for their own actions. You go on the way you do, blaming Jagex, blaming the system, blaming anyone but yourself, as a parent, which is bad enough, but worst of all, never blaming your children, the children, the players.

Jagex is to blame, yes, but ultimately the responsibility lies on the individual. Kids able to play an online game must have rather a good life that they can afford to be as immature as all that. It is never right to say they aren't accountable. In fact, it's downright pathetic that kids refuse to realise that the fault is entirely their own. Raise a generation jaded with regards to scams and general deceit, but I'll never understand how anyone can condone raising a generation that's lacking in that one thing - accountability.

Parents made the game open for kids of all ages for years before finally putting in a 13+ requirement that is widely ignored?
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Again, just who chooses to ignore it?
"Learned behaviour comes from the home."
Kids who spend time online learn behavior online as well. I've witnessed it.
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So the ineffective parent would say. Just an observation, it's nothing personal, that you care about your kids is obvious.
Then why did they legalize item scamming through luring until pressured to change it?
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People are entitled to make mistakes. On the other hand, not many people actually have the guts to go out again and say they were wrong.
Jagex's approach to dealing with autoers is a miserable failure. There are dozens of autoers on every single world 24 hours a day. Trying to ban them with the approach you mention simply doesn't work.
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I suppose it's not unreasonable for you to annoyed, coming across posts disagreeing with you, and most of all not appreciating the time you've put into this. Which for the record, I do appreciate what you're trying. Many people take the time to report macros, and if you'd open your eyes, or perhaps go to more obviously macro-infested areas, you'll realise that Jagex staff do come ingame to ban bots on the spot. They literally disappear as you watch. It's slow, but intentionally a PR thing for people just like you. It's somewhat disappointing to have all efforts labeled "a miserable failure".

Besides. There's such a thing as dynamic IPs.

Please also realise this: Jagex is a business. A company. They're a more kid-friendly company than most, but that doesn't mean they have an "ethical" responsibility to protect the kids. That's entirely the parents' job. It's not so much a right, that you can expect Jagex to be ethical, as a privilege, that they are. If you're about to use this logic, companies that manufacture flammable pajamas seem much farther ahead in this long, long line. (That's not even mentioning aggressive logging and fishing companies, companies that mistreat and exploit the foreign workers they're meant to help find jobs for... there's so much not right in this world, and of all things you choose to complain about RuneScape?)

It's a game. Yes, it's just a game. Football's a spectator's sport more than it is a game. Much as I feel football fans are overreacting as well,(though to a much smaller extent) there's always a need for accurate analogies.

On the whole, I think you're overreacting, and very severely at that. I got carried away myself posting, but I honestly think you're fairly deluded, and acted on that opinion. Again, it's nothing personal.

If it helps any though, rest in the assurance that you most probably were heard, and were the cause of a good few updates.

Do bear in mind though, that this is an online game. It's not that I don't care about the people playing it, but frankly they're so much better off than many, many others. While your efforts are, I suppose, appreciated, a fraction of that "1000 hours" of gameplay would've been much better spent on other, more real pursuits of greater importance to people's survival, pursuits too numerous for me to name.
 
Ok look, I'm a RuneScaper, and I've been on since RS1. I'm almost 15, so guess what? I was playing when I was 9. This whole thing is, frankly (Pardon my French) bullshit. I'm not gonna make a big drawn out, but accurate argument, but I will say this; The mind looks for what it wants to see. You just tried to find things wrong with RuneScape, so you found what you percieved to be faults. RuneScape is just fine. It's the lackluster parents who are to blame. Damn. :pfff:
 
Runescape is game obviously directed towards 8-12 year olds. Yes playing games 1-2 hours a day is fine but there are kids who spend 6-7 hours playing this game everyday. People get addicted... and don't stop play when they probably should've like when you are 13-14. If you are 16 or older... and are still play. There's 3 choices
you play with your kids
you are addicted
you have zero social life
I'm sure Runescape was made to be educational and to make money on the side. But it got out of control. Not Jagex's fault it got out of control. It would Jagex's fault if it stays out of control. Scammers all over the street. Kids skipping school and killing themselves because of a game. They are trying to control it by telling people it's 13 and over. But all you have to do click a link.... come on! even a 12 year old can figure that out
 


I dont know who you are, but their has been a serious scientific discussion about the fact if kids actually "learn" to use violence in games and stuff, or if they use it as a way to divert their violence. Either way, RUNESCAPE IS NOT A VIOLENT GAME! Anyone that reckons it is must be out of his mind or a runescape-hater.

I do not see why everybody makes such a big deal out of this, runescape isn't violent, and all that nonsense about "being attractive to children"; of course it is, but the game has to sell, right?? And dont be all "adult" and say that you can't be influenced by commercials, 'cause science HAS proved that. If you still cant stop whining now, keep on thinking everything you will, but dont try and bug this thread with another stupid message. The real problem of Jagex is that when they think they've made something that will attract more players, they're actually doing something so stupid it ruins the gameplay and I think that eventually the Grand Exchange will make the player market plummit so heavily, that Runescape will have some other problems on their hand than some parents who are afraid their child will turn into a zombie that only thinks of runescape and eating people's brains or sumthin' :na: .

I'm fifteen years old, My hobbies are programming and I have developed a website for my school. I can't be more enthousiastic about runescape. I pay membership, but not because I have been "tricked into it" or whatever you guys may think. I have been playing the game for over a year and a half now, and I have never had problems with 'being addicted" to the game or anything. It is addicting, but not in the way smoking or drugs is. If there are any parents who have a problem with the fact that runescape is addictive, first try not to drink any alcohol :evil: ; I think that for a lot of you "adults" that will be hard enough! If you've got problems with quitting to smoke, or to stop drinking or anything, then dont comment Runescape. I've had it up to here with those evil chickens 😛 . If you wanna be an evil chicken, remember that there are level 126 players, and you are lvl 2 XD
 
Skimming through this thread is just ridiculous. It appears as though the general age of RuneScape players seems to be 10-15 years old. Thus they have immunity to anything because they have no accountability for anything in their lives. Parenting is the issue here folks. No more, no less. If your kid is on a damn video game in excess of 5-6 hours a DAY, PULL HIM OFF OF IT! It's not hard.

The issue should be: Gamers and Parents, a story of Zero Accountability. Hell even through a "Vol. #1" tag to make it a series.

Aly hit every frickin' nail on the head, And with a big, giant claw-hammer. Stop blaming a company, and start blaming yourselves. It's a hard fact in life, but get used to it. Welcome to the real world.
 
You know, I have an 11 year old boy, and he is exceptionally bright. As a matter of fact, he has skipped 3 grades. He amazes me-he's smarter than my colleagues at works and acts much more maturely than his 18 year old sister, and even me. I never even think that he would be corrupted by such a low game. I told him about it a few years ago He started playing, and then about a month later, he realized it was affecting his personality. He promptly quit RuneScape and he never mentioned it again. He is not stupid. And think about it, guys, your kids do not suddenly morph the minute they become a 13 year old. I mean, seriously? Did you think that when the guests to your birthday party said Mozzletoff, today you are a man, they meant it literally? Just because they aren't as old as you are doesn't mean you can pull the wool over their eyes and then prevent them from learning about unsavorable things. That doesn't mean that you should give them porn and a big fat 12 gauge, but, like I said-you shouldn't stop children from playing RuneScape because they aren't "of age".
 
Whatever GameGreen says here is correct: You don't have to make your child stop playing Runescape because he/she is too young!! If they are 7 years old they wont even be able to play the game... So all that crap (pardon my french) about kids of 6 years old playing Runescape and being addicted to it, that are stories I find hard to believe. And as GameGReen just said, even though it appears to be a very bright boy (although, being smarter than a bunch of Americans can't be that much of a problem - And if you read this and say "Excuse me!" , then you're excused :na: )

If kids feel that they can't stop playing the game, and they feel they can't cope in school, they WILL take responsibility, on the contrary to most parents who think they dont have to take care of their children, and just blame Jagex for everything that ever goes wrong with their kids.
 
I came across these articles while researching another aspect of Jagex's management of rs, namely the banning of paid accts for giving items to family/friends, an action which is not against the game rules. Given that these are paying customer's I believe this constitutes fraud on the part of Jagex and am wondering if perhaps you could persuade the writer to explore this subject. Given the events of the last 24 hours in regards to rs i do not think your company will suffer for it.
As to the article, i've just read part 1 and all of the posts tagged to it. Mr. Wright, as an experienced rs paid member (over 1 year and a high lvl chara), i can assure you that the article itself is completely factual and very accurately portrays the situation both in regards to the game itself and Jagex's unwillingness to address or even allow discussion of important issues regarding this product. The only poster i will comment on is arkhanaut (spelling?). He stated more than once that Jagex does not advertise rs, when in fact they do through their 'official guide' which is marketed, as stated, to people too young to legally obtain accounts. And there are/was a large number of paid and unpaid players of rs who are/were under the age of 13 and obtained accounts after the 13 year old minimum age limit was put in place. Jagex has notably taken no steps in its registration process to stop this practice.
I will note that most, if not all of the posts critical of the article relied on ad hominem attacks or statements irrelevant to the subject, arkhanaut being the most subtly vitriolic and prone to throwing in red herrings and blatant fallacies. As i previously stated, the article is about as accurate as it could possibly be, I did not find the author biased in the least or see any indication of a personal axe to grind. The article was not about a flawed piece of software, it was about a flawed corporate ethic. A flaw which yesterday blew up in Jagex's face in a big way. It appears that as i write this rs is dying in a 'wildy' created by Jagex's continued and increasing failure to address valid customer concerns regarding the product. other than a 3 week hiatus i am pretty much a daily player. I don't think i've ever seen the user level below 150,000 people. @ midnight last night (-5 gmt) - 63539 users online. At the outset of writing this post - 42336 users online. And there was only a call for a short boycott for 8pm last night.
The most common post in the rs forums yesterday - rs RIP 10/12/07, and that certainly seems to be the case today. Kudos to the author for a well written article which as an rs memb he knew was going to cause him all kinds of headaches from the same socially deviant people who made the game what it is today. I believe the author stated at one point that Jagex had gotten too big for its britches. He was correct on that too and the result is that the paying customers who keep the game afloat have effectively cut Jagex off at the knee's. What does the future hold in store for Jagex? For one, a class action lawsuit relating to cancelling paying subscribers on trumped up allegations of real world trading for giving gifts to relatives/friends.
 
hey, kids need to noe that there r bad pl out there... or evry1 will become idiot morons, which i noe ur kids will be.
putting up dat rule on luring is just idiotic cos ppl r warned b4 they enter e wildy, (ur rite pauly!) i mean.... ur depriving ppl of a $ making oppurtunity based on stupid innocent ppl.

Jagex arnt the moral police.....

but u think u r....
HU R U ANYWAY!!!
 
I have been playing Runescape for over a year now. I must admit, that, yes, over half of the players I meet are under thirteen, yes, the account creation process makes it easy for kids under thirteen to join, and it rarely states that players under 13 aren't allowed to play except in the account creation. All of this is true, but the most important point of this argument is: is this game appropriate for children under 13? Are you kidding me! Of course it is! Here are my points.
1:Violence. I don't think the person who wrote the article said anything about it being too violent, but I'll say my side anyway. In Runescape, there are hundreds of monsters to attack, fight with and kill. This might seem violent, but it is in no way realistic enough for young kids to take seriously. If you play Runescape, you'll know that the average attack, lets say, with a sword, your character is swinging his arm up and down again and again. Compare this to, I dont know, Gears of War, or another similar video or computer game. I've known plenty 10 year old kids who play those games. All you see are guns, explosions, and blood. Runescape is probably the most non-violent fantasy MMORPG on the Internet!

2:Human Player, um, bullying and all of that. Runescape is a game based on 24, or 25 skills, making money, and finishing quests, but the most important part of the game is it's real-player community. Runescape would be nothing without it. This triumphs over its not-too-amazing graphics and simple game play. People work together, trade, have debates about the Runescape world, and the real world. Most people are helpful, and it is very rare to see even a rude person. School is worse than Runescape, community-wise.

3:Scamming and addiction. These could be the only problems on the game. But heck, a lot of adults fall for them too. Most of the scams players fall for are in-game, when they buy or sell an item for too much, or too little. Addiction is the only major problem. I was never addicted to it, but I know a few people. All games have this risk. But really, think about. Would you rather have a child to be addicted to Runescape, or Gears of War? If you have a ten year old kid, would you rather have him play a game which alows him to interact, and learn from other people? To make aquaintances from across the world, in a barely-violent, fun game, or would you want him sitting on the floor all day on a console, by him or herself, shooting and killing other people in a battle field?
I rest my case...for now.
 
I came upon this article again as a new article on a fan site and am surprised to see so many new replies.

Actually most of the things that spurred Charles to write these articles were fixed either as the articles were written, as in the case of luring, or shortly afterward.

The parent guide was fleshed out a bit more. it is illegal to ask for personal details of any kind from another player, it is illegal to ask for someone to be your girlfriend or boyfriend and best of all the lawyers at Scholastic have looked at the letters they were receiving and realized they were in fact marketing to the wrong age group and that has been changed as well.

The trade screen added modifications to eliminate easy scams and the wilderness has been all but removed and a ditch added so that you cannot be pulled into it with glitchy items, by teleporting north or using the trade screen.

In fact there have been so many other changes since these articles, it would be difficult for anyone to disagree Charles had a major influence on making the game safer for the children who do play.
 
The situation has got even worse from when this article was written. They removed their customer support form completely, now there's no way to contact them directly. People receive blackmarks for something that could distinctly resemble an offence, and lots of other wrong stuff I can't now remember.

On December they removed the wilderness, or actually pvp from there, and created a minigame to replace it. They added trade limits to everyone, 3-30k difference from trade price allowed, something that takes up to ten minutes to make for an average player. They replaced trading with Grand Exchange, in which you can sell items for -5-+5% from average trade price, and the price changes only if trades complete. Some over/underpriced item prices have been stuck since December because of that. New item prices are decided by Jagex, and have been proved very wrong.

They pretty much destroyed the game economy, gift giving, pking and everything that involves unbalanced trading, just to prevent "real world trading", people selling and buying items/money for real life money. Actually, they didn't even prevent that, the real world traders have found loopholes, but Jagex doesn't seem to care. It looks like they only wanted the easiest solution to bots using stolen credit cards, not caring about what it does to gameplay. They could have achieved the same with a lot fairer system for players, but instead the punish everyone, and listen to no-one.

They also false advertise a lot nowadays, they promised players a "wilderness based minigame", which turned out to be a hide and seek based game, and its only connection to wilderness is that the entrance to it is located in low level wilderness. After the wilderness/trade changes they said they could concentrate more on the game updates, but it seems they are doing less of them now. They also have multiple times said on a news post in the beginning of months that they release an update that month, then people wait until the end of the month when they tell that the updates are late and will be released later. The summoning 2 update was supposed to be released on February, then March and finally released on April, yet they promised that it will be released February, then March.

That's everything I can remember at the moment, I'll probably check back for replies to my reply in case there are any. I won't mention my character name here, because it could lead to being banned in runescape. They have banned people for certainly no reason, and I have heard of cases when someone writes a ban appeal and gets declined two seconds later and then have no way to contact Jagex anymore.
 


Well, for one I have no balls as I am female, and perchance you might learn to use quotes and possibly after that learn how to make a paragraph, then I might know which of my posts you might be referring to and telling me you might kill me for.

Lovely attitude, there sparky. Makes you a better person (should I use that loosely?) in game or do you feel that applies in real too, or is it simply that you are a moderator that you are somehow a better person then I?

Being most player mods ignore what is going on in game and gather in little groups and spend most of their time on their OWN forums or in clans, so I assure you, your comments referring to you as a player mod garner no extra respect.

I have known a two (2) that actually do report when they see game infractions, but the only pedaphile I met and the only person who spoke freely about using drugs were both players mods.

 
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