The New Runescape Age

I haven't played the popular MMORPG game known as Runescape since June 2007, when I logged out for the last time in my kyatt clothing, dragon woodcutting axe, and my woodcutting skill cape. Well, that's sort of a lie. I did log in a few times afterwards whenever I needed a break from the PVP action on the new MMORPG that I fled to, World of Warcraft. However, ever since I left the PVP server of Azgalor and created a new toon, a troll hunter, on the PVE server of Whisperwind, I didn't have to flee from any PVPing as I was able to choose when I could PVP or not. Therefore, I barely logged onto Runescape at all. Even though I left Runescape almost half a year ago after playing it continuously for two years, I still read the news every once in a while whenever I remembered to. The news was good at first after I left the game, with promising updates (however bizarre to me at first) and new additions that would please many players, either new or old.

Once November and December came around, however, the updates changed; and may I add that they were updates that did not please about three-fourths of the Runescape population. Updates, such as eliminating the PVP elements of the wilderness that I was familiar to in my two years of playing, making the duel arena free-to-play, and now the newest update -- unbalanced trade removal, seem to be bringing about the downfall of Runescape.

People once enjoyed the careless element of the game. This being doing whatever you want, whenever you want, however you wanted to do it; as long as you followed the rules. Jagex combated every known issue, with an update people either agreed or disagreed with. When people were being lured into the wilderness constantly, Jagex created the infamous wilderness ditch. When people were being scammed in player-owned houses, Jagex made a fix on that. Jagex fixed many issues in their time, however there was one issue that they never seemed to be fixing to the public -- macroing and real world trading.

This very tree symbolized heaven for many autoers. However, with the new Runescape updates combating real world item trading, this tree should no longer be infested by the scum.

When I was a regular player of Runescape, I spent many hours standing around yew and willow tress or on at piers at that one island (Karamaja?) reporting any autoer/macroer that I saw. I even created a guide here on how to confirm that an individual may be an autoer and methods on reporting them. You may say that I did this only to attempt to become a player moderator, but I also did this to try and eliminate many of the autoers. I persuaded people to do the same as me, and even for only five to ten minutes out of their time, to go to either a free-to-play world or members world (some have been known for having autoers) and report a few of them. I could've spent my time doing more beneficial things on the game, such as skilling or raising combat, but I chose to stand around yew trees in Lumbridge forest with a stopwatch and notebook reporting autoers. I am sure that I'll remember that age of my life for many years to come; when I realize that I could've read the English dictionary in the time I spent doing nothing at all on a game.

My autoer reporting sprees was not enough, however, to keep the autoers at bay. A three-year old could easily inform you about that. You could report one autoer and three more could spawn once that one was banned. The whole population of the game excluding the autoers could report them, as I'm sure many free-to-play players did whenever they were skilling and saw one, and there would still be too many to handle. Jagex had to take drastic measures to destroy autoing, and in the long run, real world trading. And believe me, and may I speak for the majority of the Runescape community, they did take the most drastic steps that a gaming company could take; without, of course, closing down the game.

Even though this is a fake image, trades like this could've once happened -- either to loan to a friend or real world trading. After the unbalanced trade removal update, however, this can no longer happen.

The update that seems to be destroying real world trading the most seems to be the most recent update -- unbalanced trade removal. With this update, it depends on how many quest points you have to give out a specified amount of money set by Jagex. Right now, if you have maximum quest points, you could only make an unbalanced trade that's 30k higher or lower than the set price of the item; or to give 30k away in cash. And that's with maximum quest points! To be honest with you, 30k gold is not a lot of gold. If magic log prices are still 1k or more, you only have to sell approximately 30 logs in order to obtain 30k. That's not a lot of logs, and it's not a lot of money. This update, however, should bring down real world trading and macroing! The only downside is that people thought that the end of macroing would be a happy end for them, and they would be able to experience the same old Runescape gameplay as they previously had, but void of corrupt autoers. Well, they were wrong. This process altered the wilderness, totally changing the PVP aspects of the game that many enjoyed for years since the wilderness was first established, and changed the trade system, so that you could no longer loan out money to a friend in need.

How would this update help in bringing about the end to autoing? Autoers are computer programs that do actions in-game without an actual person having to control them. They are coded to do whatever they were designed for, whether it be to fish, woodcut, or mine; as well as many more. And keep in mind, not only were autoers a problem, but many Asian players were being forced to make money in-game at sweatshops so that their 'boss' was able to make real-world profit off of the fake currency. Anyhow, the autoer or the sweatshop worker did something over and over again in the game to make as much money as possible. Most of the autoers were in free-to-play worlds, obtaining ores, lobster, or yew logs, and the sweatshop workers were in member worlds, obtaining dragon bones/hide and other items of wealth. Once the autoer or worker sold the items for gold, they then transferred the gold over to a master account. This account kept all the gold and did the dealing to players who purchased the gold for real-world cash. However, there may have been many master accounts to spread out the money, in case one was caught and banned; therefore all the money wouldn't be lost. And of course, whenever a purchase on a set amount of gold was made, the gold was traded over to the customer. Not anymore, however, as large amounts of gold can no longer be traded to another player for nothing.

This method is like the following scenario: A single student in a classroom is loud and obnoxious. The teacher keeps on informing the student to be quiet, however the student ignores the teacher's commands and continues to break the rules. Therefore, the teacher, based on that one kid's actions, makes the whole class do a big assignment. Even though the majority of the class was good, they were all punished because of a single person's behavior.

Just one of your everyday Runescape riots. Will more break out over the past few bad updates?

Sure, Jagex may be doing the ultimate punishment to real world trading, but the rest of the honest and good players must be affected by it. This update would've helped me in one major way, however -- no more begging for money or items. I bet many in-game riots will be breaking out over this, as the majority of Runesape doesn't agree with Jagex's decision, but I do look at this update with a positive note.

An example of a level one toon on WoW who may dress to subdue men into buying gold off of their website. Sorry, but you fail.

My positive note: Jagex is doing something to combat real world item trading whereas other gaming companies just ignore the issue. I can't go a day in World of Warcraft in a major city without hearing level ones yelling out websites to purchase WoW gold outside of banks and auction houses. And the thing that gets really annoying is when people invite you to join a group in level 1-20 areas, say a message in party regarding buying WoW money or gear, and then they leave the group. And ever since I was on WoW, I never once heard a mention of this major problem once from Blizzard. I like the fact that Jagex is trying to do something about real world trading, but I also believe that they didn't pick the right choices. However, what other choices are there? And with that question, I'll leave you pondering it.

Have a good one.