Tag: Jagex

Bots Are Choking To Death In RuneScape


It must be Christmas. No, my calendar says September. This week (hopefully) marks the reveal of Botany Bay, and on Sunday Jagex announced that they would begin silently banning bots starting Monday. Well the bans aren’t exactly silent, as players are spotting (and video taping) bots spamming gold farming websites in key areas. The bots have been recorded spamming for several minutes, before inexplicably choking and dying, presumably being banned thereafter.

This month, Jagex announced a new method of detecting and banning bots, both collection and advertising, as well as a way for players to take part in the process and sentence bots to death in a Salem-esque trial. Why the flashy, and rather unnecessary, showmanship? When you spend most of your time banning bots, sometimes you want to have fun doing it, according to a recent Q&A. The alternative goal is to give the players instant feedback that the developer is indeed taking action against bots and gold farmers.

Jagex Announces Upcoming Bot Ban, New Account Security, HTML, and More


Suffice to say, there has been some animosity among the RuneScape community lately with Jagex’s increased focus on their cash shops (Squeal of Fortune and Solomon’s Store). Mark Gerhard has taken to the RuneScape front page to pen a letter to the community addressing concerns over Solomon’s store and the future of RuneScape. In the letter, he states that great care is taken to ensure that anything offered on the store does not affect the integrity of RuneScape or Jagex. Over the past year and a half, the RuneScape team has doubled in size.

We place immense value in our – and your – game’s integrity, feedback from our community, and continually improving the game experience for all, and we have a strong track record of making decisions in this area that we know may be sub-optimal, commercially speaking, but represent our values. For example, we know that directly selling gold, XP or even accounts would generate between 10 to 15 times more revenue than Squeal or Solomon’s Store generates combined. However, we simply won’t do it, because we don’t believe it’s the right thing for the long-term health of the game.

Gerhard goes on to address bots, spam, and account security:

This week, you should notice a significant reduction in gold farmer spam. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will not only be launching our most comprehensive and formidable anti-bot update but players will also see a significant upgrade to their accounts’ security to protect against phishing and hijacking. This is called Jagex Account Guardian, and we’re introducing it within the next two weeks.

Finally, the letter offers a screenshot toward a future RuneScape update, running the client via HTML rather than through Java (pictured above), and notes that there are already plans to bring RuneScape to additional platforms.

We will have more coverage of the anti-bot updates as they appear, which will be “over the next few weeks.”

(Source: RuneScape)

Jagex Begins Selling Extra Bank Spaces In Cash Shop


File this one under undermining your own values. A good long time ago I reported that Jagex was considering adding an authenticator-style security dongle to RuneScape, an idea that was scrapped after community backlash over a very simple perk. In order to encourage people to buy the dongle, Jagex wanted to offer a small expansion in bank space. Ultimately, of course, the reason Jagex gave for the withdrawal was that the company considered selling bank space as an unfair advantage, and that doing so would violate the company’s policy of not selling in-game advantages for cash.

Welcome to 2012, Jagex. In today’s update, players are now able to buy bank space. Not just a small amount of bank space, up to 250 extra spaces. Nonmembers will be able to expand their bank up to 4.2 (over the current 78) times its current limit, and allow members to increase their bank space by around 50% (over the current 468). Each expansion costs approximately $8 and offers 50 extra bank spaces, the whole group will cost around $40.

So did Jagex lie about the Bank of RuneScape image being fake, or was the appearance of the image last week just a really well timed coincidence?

(Source: RuneScape)

Everquest II's Goblin Games Seems Inspired By Squeal of Fortune


I have to imagine that somewhere out there, at least one person has stopped playing RuneScape because of Squeal of Fortune, and wound up playing Everquest II instead. The odds are low, incredibly so, but with time my mind seems to think that such a person must be, and gee, will this news stink. For the uninformed, Squeal of Fortune is a cash shop game on RuneScape where players receive spins either through in-game activities, purchased through the store, or daily as an allowance. The mini-game is hosted by a goblin and has the chance of winning gold, resources, and equipment.

Today, Everquest II revealed the latest update: The goblin games. In this mini-game, players are issued tickets on a monthly basis, depending on their membership status, with the option to purchase more on the cash shop. Those tickets can be used to play one of several mini-games, each of which ultimately ends up in the player receiving a loot box that offers a random item from the list.

So what are the differences? In RuneScape, spin tickets are given on a daily basis while in Everquest II free tickets are offered monthly. Both games offer one ticket to free players and three to members (in RuneScape it is normally two, three for the summer event). In RuneScape, spins cost approximately $5 per ten tickets ($.50 per ticket) with bonuses for higher quantities, while in Everquest they cost $1 per ticket with no option to purchase in bulk.

Maybe I’m just reading too far into this.

Everquest II’s Goblin Games Seems Inspired By Squeal of Fortune


I have to imagine that somewhere out there, at least one person has stopped playing RuneScape because of Squeal of Fortune, and wound up playing Everquest II instead. The odds are low, incredibly so, but with time my mind seems to think that such a person must be, and gee, will this news stink. For the uninformed, Squeal of Fortune is a cash shop game on RuneScape where players receive spins either through in-game activities, purchased through the store, or daily as an allowance. The mini-game is hosted by a goblin and has the chance of winning gold, resources, and equipment.

Today, Everquest II revealed the latest update: The goblin games. In this mini-game, players are issued tickets on a monthly basis, depending on their membership status, with the option to purchase more on the cash shop. Those tickets can be used to play one of several mini-games, each of which ultimately ends up in the player receiving a loot box that offers a random item from the list.

So what are the differences? In RuneScape, spin tickets are given on a daily basis while in Everquest II free tickets are offered monthly. Both games offer one ticket to free players and three to members (in RuneScape it is normally two, three for the summer event). In RuneScape, spins cost approximately $5 per ten tickets ($.50 per ticket) with bonuses for higher quantities, while in Everquest they cost $1 per ticket with no option to purchase in bulk.

Maybe I’m just reading too far into this.

Bank of RuneScape: Coming Soon


Let me just say: MMO Fallout’s tagline for the past three years has been “cautious optimism.” The image above was leaked on RuneScape’s website for approximately fifteen minutes today, and it has set the community on fire. Understandably so, because as of late Jagex has used similar update teasers that lead into Squeal of Fortune and Solomon’s Shop updates. So the Bank of RuneScape could very well be yet another update to Jagex’s cash shop endeavor, we won’t know possibly until next week. It could just be an overhaul to the bank system, or some new quest or mini-game.

I would like to point out that the authenticity of this image is in question, for now at least. The link results in a 404 error, and because I wasn’t able to personally see it on the main website, I am treating it with a grain of salt.

Unless this does turn out to be real, in which case you all know the drill.

Runecoins ToS Allows Cash Shop Coins To Expire


An intrepid explorer on the RuneScape forums came across an interesting update to Jagex’s Terms of Service. Specifically, Jagex’s virtual currency (Runecoins) expire three months after purchase.

Virtual currency expires and will be deleted if it has not been redeemed within a certain period after acquisition so you should redeem it as soon as possible. The expiry period is whatever we specify when you acquire the virtual currency or, if we haven’t specified a time limit, three months from acquisition.

Heading on to the forums, players asked if this was simply Jagex covering their backs or if the developer actually intends on allowing a player’s purchased coins to expire. Mod Crow responded to this thread with a confirmation that, while Jagex has not enforced the policy, they “reserve the right to have virtual currencies and items expire after a period of time.”

(Source: RuneScape Forums)

 

Jagex Bans High Profile Gamblers and Botting Clans


 

Hi,

Today we have banned several high-profile accounts from the dicing scene.

We can happily confirm that the ring leaders found to be involved in selling RuneScape gold have been banned. Their actions have directly funded a sizable portion of all real world trading activity within the game, led to increased macro use, and resulted in huge surges in spam advertising.

Such actions are strictly against our rules, and all accounts have been wiped and permanently nuked.

This should serve a clear warning to anyone else engaged in similar activities; expect more bans of any continuing offenders.

We have been finely tuning our new anti-cheat and anti-hijack tools over the past few months and are now steadily bringing these systems online in select areas. This is part of an on-going rollout that will be completed over the course of next two months. More good news will follow in due course.

Some of you may already have noticed that we have started cleaning up the high scores over the last week and this will assist us in being able to re-introduce relevant gold farmer free F2P high scores again. :)

Mark Gerhard
CEO

Hi,

Today we have banned a large number of accounts involved with self-titled “botting clans”. All of these accounts have been identified by our new data analysis tool and are 100% guilty of breaking our rules. These accounts have been permanently banned with no chance of appeal.

As mentioned on the forums yesterday, expect more bans and punishments in the very near future.

The use of bots will not be tolerated and will result in permanent action against any accounts found to have cheated in this way.

Daniel Clough
COO & VP of RuneScape

Protip: Do Not Steal RuneScape Gold With A Gun


Stealing from other players and duplicating money in a video game can lead to harsh consequences. Suspension of your account, loss of time invested in the game, and being removed from your guild are just a few of them. Stealing from other people and counterfeiting money in real life, however, can lead to jail time, a criminal record, loss of current and potential future jobs, and the embarrassment of everyone knowing you counterfeited money and robbed a person at gunpoint for RuneScape gold.

According to the New York Post, Bajwa faces up to fifteen years in prison for second degree robbery (no comment on the counterfeit money) in a RuneScape cash sale gone sour. Even though Jagex explicitly prohibits the sale of in-game cash, Bajwa attempted to purchase a large sum of gold with what turned out to be counterfeit cash. When the seller realized that the money was fake, Bajwa pulled a pellet gun manufactured to look like a real gun, and forced the seller to transfer the gold at gunpoint. Bajwa was later arrested at his home in Massachusetts.

Of course, the regular news media is already blaming this on video game addiction, no surprise there. Although RuneScape is no stranger to armed robberies.

(Source: New York Post)

Jagex Returns to Naming And Shaming Gold Duplicators


In the very old days of RuneScape, back when servers were few and the community was equally tiny, players were banned in a rather public fashion. Not as public as, say, the crucifixions in Roma Victor, but each ban was represented with a system message to warn other potential cheaters. Of course, as the game became more popular, Jagex put a stop on this technique and started simply reporting numbers rather than names.

A bug in RuneScape recently allowed players to gather large amounts of wealth, leading to the ban of many accounts on Jagex’s behalf. Not content with simply banning the accounts, Jagex took to the main page to publicly name some of the offenders.

  •  2QO
    • 2475 Total (Maxed Player)
    • 606 Days Played
  • 2College
    • 2054 Total
    • 170 Days Played
  • TzTok-Roy
    • 2327 Total
    • 335 Days Played
  • DeadEternity
    • 2496 Total (2 200m xp stats)
    • 462 Days Played
  • Zeke
    • 1690 Total
    • 121 Days Played
  • 00O0OlI0lIO0
    • 856 Total
    • 54 Days Played
  • Tncd
    • 1128 Total
    • 87 Days Played
  • lbw
    • 976 Total
    • 27 Days Played
  • TvF
    • 2132 Total
    • 279 Days Played
  • x4v
    • 693 Total
    • 157 Days Played
  • WASTEDMONKEY
    • 1978 Total
    • 198 Days Played
  • Rs Completed
    • 2496 Total (Maxed Player)
    • 302 Days Played
  • d4rk_mayhem
    • 1791 Total
    • 296 Days
  • PlayedSerasha
    • 2381 Total
    • 334 Days Played
  • i am WeeHoo
    • 1889 Total
    • 197 Days Played
  • FlashZxFOur1
    • 1386 Total
    • 132 Days Played
  • Shopkeeper
    • 2338 Total
    • 256 Days Played

Jagex COO took the time to remind the community once again to report bugs that are found, and assured players the the economy would not be affected by the bans.

For those of you concerned about the rare objects being removed from the game after the bans and rollbacks – don’t be. We have several clever and fair ways of making sure that the numbers of these rares (like party hats) remain the same.

(Source: RuneScape News)