Tag: Jagex

Jagex Cancels Weapon Diversity Update, At Least For Now


Jagex today announced that they are cancelling the weapon diversity update, a project that had been in beta for the last month. The weapon diversity program was meant to differentiate weapons from one another on a more solid grounding, but the major impression was that the update just wasn’t transformative enough. Most changes were being made to weapon DPS which left players simply choosing the weapon with the most optimized damage.

In the end, we were unanimous as a team. The QA resource could be used on projects that we are currently working on (and planning to announce at Runefest), tightening them up and increasing our confidence in them. That came with a caveat: we still believed in the aims of Weapon Diversity, so we agreed that we would get our design team to design completely new utility benefits for weapons, which could be introduced over time rather than in one big clutch. For example, a quest might have a reward of a javelin; we would then take the opportunity to release a javelin effect to be rolled out for all javelins at the same time.

With their options being plough ahead, restart the project from scratch, or cancel it and focus on other major projects, Jagex chose to cancel. The good news is that while this project is dead, the spirit remains alive and is still being planned for the future.

Regardless of all of this, the aims of Weapon Diversity have not gone away: we still want to bring strategy back into weapon choice, and we believe that will make the gaining of weapon rewards so much more joyful.

Incidentally the weapon diversity beta ran alongside the bank rework update which was also temporarily cancelled only to be brought back, so those who had been looking forward to this update may not be completely disappointed.

Source: RuneScape

In Plain English: Court Throws Out Jagex Ban Lawsuit After Five Days


Today’s In Plain English is going to be a short one, but you’ll understand why when you see that the gist of it is about six sentences long. It comes to us from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and involves everyone’s favorite developer of RuneScape: Jagex. Along with their parent company Shanghai Fukong, Jagex last week was sued in Pennsylvania court by one Amro Elansari, who is alleging that Jagex muted him without reason. The lawsuit goes on to claim that the UK developer refused to provide an explanation and denied Elansari’s request for an appeal. Elansari’s suit alleges violations of due process, free speech, and human rights.

Elansari was granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, fancy legal speak for nulling filing fees, however the court took some umbrage with his claims. Judge Kearney noted that Elansari’s claims of constitutional violations were implausible, adding that the first amendment and its constitutional free speech guarantees do not restrict private entities. More so, the fifth amendment due process clause also does not apply to private companies.

As such, Elansari’s lawsuit has been dismissed just five days after being filed. Elansari cannot make any further constitutional or federal claims however if he decides to bring the lawsuit back on state charges in state court, he absolutely may do so.

As always, MMO Fallout is hosting the relevant dockets at our expense at the Google Drive. As the lawsuit was filed pro se, MMO Fallout has removed some personal contact details from the documents for the sake of the plaintiff.

Jagex Hides AFK Magic Trainers From New Players


Jagex is very concerned with how new players take in their first few minutes in RuneScape, and they are kind of concerned regarding the impression players are getting from logging in and seeing the starting area full of players in high level armor fighting rats. Magic splashing is a widespread method of training the skill, as players figured out years ago that you could wear melee equipment with low enough magical accuracy that your attacks never actually hit. Since RuneScape gives a small amount of magic experience even when a spell fails to do damage, this has become a slow and expensive, but for many valid method of training their magic skill while doing something else.

Thankfully Jagex is not removing magic splashing, but the company announced with this today’s update that magic splashing will no longer reward experience within the area that players immediately spawn in following the tutorial, that being Lumbridge and the surrounding forest. The map area is very small, so there are plenty of other locations that players can set up in and AFK to their heart’s content.

Source: RuneScape

PSA: [RuneScape] For People Stuck In the Desperate Times Quest


I wanted to post this PSA for those of you who, like me, waited until this week’s update to finish the RuneScape quest Desperate Times. At one point in the quest you’ll get to the area from the quest Missing, Presumed Death, and get stuck. Why? Well you’ll get to the area above and not know where to go. The door is closed and won’t even respond to your interactions, there aren’t any other paths forward, and you’re basically screwed.

Or are you?

Long story short, the door shouldn’t be there. The door isn’t there, but for some reason the latest update has brought back entities that should be invisible to the player. The good news is that Jagex is aware of the bug and working on a fix. The better news is that you don’t have to wait until they are removed. Grit your teeth folks, because the method to get around this bug until Jagex actually fixes it is to…click past the door.

Yep, just click past it as if it wasn’t there, because it isn’t really. Your player character will just walk right through. There are a few doors on the way and a couple elements to just ignore. This only seems to be affecting people on the NXT client, so alternately you can boot up the Java client and they shouldn’t even be present.

Old School RuneScape Cans Partnership Poll After Overwhelming Disapproval


Jagex has thrown out a poll after only two days after Old School RuneScape players overwhelmingly rejected the company’s proposal for partnership-integrated items.

The poll went up on July 3 and contained over 20 questions asking players if they would approve of various items from emotes to skin colors and teleport animations being added in as partnership perks (such as RuneScape’s Twitch Prime items) with the items being released afterward to the general public, and the community answered with an overwhelming no. Old School RuneScape polls the vast majority of its content updates to the community. Each poll runs for one week and requires at least 75% approval in order to be added into the game.

For this poll, Jagex decided to cancel it after two days as virtually all of the questions had at least 70% disapproval.

Source: RuneScape

Jagex Launches Dedicated Website For Land Out Of Time


The next big update to RuneScape is on its way, in fact it is being released this coming Monday! In preparation for the update, Jagex has launched a dedicated website for Land Out Of Time where players can find more information on the coming update. Land Out Of Time is the latest expansion of RuneScape’s ongoing storyline. Players will sail to Anachronia, an island out of time. Build a base camp, hunt dangerous creatures including dinosaurs, and take part in an island-wide agility course.

Embark on a voyage of discovery to a long-forgotten land. Hunt down hulking beasts, traverse a treacherous landscape, slay dangerous new creatures and unearth ancient secrets previously lost to time.

Players are currently hard at work in-game building the ship that will take them to the island when the update goes live next week. Formerly referred to in-game as Kudos Island, Anachronia was first teased in RuneScape way back in 2007 with NPCs at the Varrok digsite beginning construction on a ship to take them to the island. It only took twelve years.

Jagex Hires Melissa Bachman-Wood As Aggressive Recruitment Continues


Way back in April Jagex announced an aggressive recruitment project that would see the company expanding by 25% over the course of the year. Today, Jagex has expanded on its recruitment by announcing multiple senior level hires starting with Melissa Bachman-Wood who is coming on as vice president of studio. Bachman-Wood brings over 20 years of industry experience to Jagex having started her career at Maxis, moving on to Electronic Arts to manage The Sims, and holding senior roles in Backbone Entertainment (360 ports of Genesis titles), KIXEYE (War Commander), and Jam City (Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery).

Melissa Bachman-Wood stated in the announcement:

“I’m thrilled to join the Jagex team and delighted for the chance to enable our teams to deliver even more great games to our players. I’m eager to help lead Studio strategy and execution to enable Jagex to excel in its ambition to be the home of living games, building out our world-class studio teams and processes.”

Jagex also took the time to announce the hiring of Malachy O’Neill (Nintendo Europe, EA, Zynga) to director of quality assurance, as well as James Burns (Playstation, Activision) as technical director of a currently unannounced action online role playing game, the return of Mark Faulkner as director of publishing platform, and the promotion of Ben Albon to IT director.

Source: Jagex Press Release

Jagex Bought By US Platinum Fortune


Update 4/28/20: Yes they have.

(Update: 7/11: No they haven’t)

Jagex is no longer Chinese owned. This news was first revealed back in the old era of January 2019, but this week China’s Fukong Interactive Entertainment announced that they will sell Jagex which it described as their major source of revenue. The goal of the sale is not to offload bad assets, but to pay off heavy debts that Fukong has incurred from nearly 60 lawsuits and arbitration cases filed against the company (Fukong, not Jagex).

As part of the sale, Jagex has been valued at approximately $530 million USD. Jagex’s revenues topped over $100 million USD last year which comprised 99.5% of Fukong’s revenue. Fukong’s plans post-Jagex involve developing mobile video games.

Source: Yicai Global

Lods of Emone: Jagex Posts Record Financial Success


RuneScape is doing just fine, thank you.

This week Jagex released their 2018 financials and boasted a 9.3% increase in revenue to £92.8 million. 2018 saw RuneScape reaching its highest membership total ever with Old School RuneScape launching on mobile and seeing over five million downloads.

CEO Phil Mansell noted:

“This lets us accelerate Jagex’s transformation; we have strengthened our leadership team and will continue to build on the company’s talent base, we are funding new game development, building out our third-party live game publishing, investing in massive publishing platform upgrades, whilst continuing to expand our live RuneScape games.”

The last year has seen Jagex increase its team by more than 100 people with investments in research and development boosted by 69%. 2018 also marked the launch of the Jagex Partners Initiative which aims to deliver operational services tailored toward third party studios.

Source: Jagex Press Release

RuneScape Brings In Easter


This week’s RuneScape update reminds us that Easter is quite late this year.

If you have ever wanted to know what it’s like to shove a tuna in a shark, well you now have the opportunity. RuneScape’s Easter update is here, and that can only mean more shenanigans with the Easter Bunny. Running through the end of the month, players can support the various guilds through side quests and tasks, with the ultimate goal being to win a mysterious egg found by the Easter Bunny. Donate Rune Coins to progress through the event faster and those coins will be converted into real-world donations to be paid to Jagex’s two chosen charities: The Prince’s Trust and CPSL Mind.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, skilling in the game will reward chocolate shards which can be traded in for further rewards.

The Prince’s Trust is a charity in the UK that supports 11 to 30 year olds who are unemployed and struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. CPSL Mind offers a wide range of services to support those recovering from mental health challenges, promote positive mental health and tackle mental health-related stigma and discrimination within the community.

Source: RuneScape