Mod Mark – MMO Fallout

Jagex Invites 24 Hour Idea Blitz

Remember a time when that thing you loved was better than it was now and those guys were not as much as they are now and those problems with the things didn’t exist or weren’t as bad? Jagex remembers, and Mod Mark appeared on the forums to gather suggestions from players as to how they feel RuneScape should move forward, specifically in the realm of moving backward. In a forum thread, Mark asked players for suggestions regarding classic servers, pre-Evolution of Combat servers, reintroduction of old, phased out content, and more. The server was open for 24 hours, and unfortunately is closed as of this writing with 224 pages of feedback.

It’s been a fascinating read, and everyone has their own opinion on what was good, bad, ugly or epic about older versions of the game. Right now, we’re looking into all of your comments, suggestions and ideas: specifically about combat, both old and new. Were committed to making this year something special, and we really want look into those ideas that you feel most strongly about.

Jagex will be going into some detail about the ideas presented in an upcoming Q&A session on February 20th.

(Source: RuneScape Forums)

Jagex Rethinking RuneScape Bonus Experience Weekends

Bonus XP weekends may be on their way out in RuneScape. While well intended in nature, the events tend to play hell with the economy, with the prices of goods spiking from the time of announcement until the event, with prices of finished goods crashing afterward as players flood the market with millions of crafted items. Not that this means the end of bonus experience events. Jagex occasionally releases special items which boost xp in activities, which will likely fully replace the weekend events.

With an economy heavily focused around the manufacturing and selling of player-crafted goods, RuneScape sits on a different pedestal where a weekend event like the one Jagex has run for the past few years could be more detrimental than helpful. Only time will tell as to how Jagex will replace the current bonus weekend system.

Jagex Removes Dice In Runescape: Fights Scams

Back in 2009 when Jagex created the bag of dice, an item that allows a player to roll a set of dice and broadcast the results to his clan chat, they didn’t exactly anticipate that players would take their invitation of emergent gameplay and go ahead and turn the item into a tool for underground gambling systems run by shady, often fly-by-night operators. And when Jagex threw the nuclear switch and knocked all of the bots offline a few weeks ago, the number of players sitting at the grand exchange (and elsewhere) advertising their dicing services rose exponentially. Barring one shattered poodle, Jagex was forced to step in and proclaim that this is why we can’t have nice things, Pepper.

In response to the growing complaints over spam, scams, and shady business, the dice have been disabled and will be removed upon the next content update. Mod Mark commented:

Don’t gamble! There are too many people who will try to scam you or alter the odds in their favour. It’s never supported by JAGEX unless it’s about gameplay (like the duel arena). It’s likely that dice scammers will move over to another method of trying to scam you, so please, be vigilant and remember… if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a lie.

Of course, dicing will simply be replaced by another popular method, assuming one hasn’t already. Still, busting bots and blasting a scam method in succession is rather impressive, even if the latter was essentially Jagex’s own Frankenstein’s monster.