Tag: Runescape

Jagex Product Manager Weighs In On Classic Servers


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The recent shuttering of Nostalrius, one of World of Warcraft’s biggest private servers, has been rippling throughout the gaming news and leaking into the regular press. Part of the discussion has turned to both the feasibility and potential that legacy servers can offer MMO developers.

Here at MMO Fallout, we’ve pretty heavily covered the ongoing successes of Old School RuneScape, a service that began as a snapshot of the game as it was in 2007 and has gradually expanded thanks to community feedback. The game has even incorporated Deadman Mode, a hardcore spinoff that itself spun off into a seasonal eSport event. We even had a chance to talk to Jagex about Deadman mode in its earlier stages.

You can read the entire piece at Kemp’s Linkedin here or below.

Building on the past: How RuneScape’s official legacy server avoided cannibalism and became an eSport

It’s more than three years since we had our first discussion about releasing legacy servers for RuneScape. However, we can now say that releasing Old School RuneScape was one of the best decisions we ever made. Since Old School RuneScape’s launch in February 2013 we have seen just short of seven million players log in with over two and a half million becoming members.

During that time Old School has of course faced a number of challenges, but here’s how we overcame them and how we took a version of RuneScape from 10 years ago and made it relevant for todays’ gamers.

The legacy risk

During the early discussions there were of course many concerns such as: Was it even possible? How long it would take? And, whether there was the potential for cannibalisation of the existing RuneScape player base? We knew our players wanted legacy servers, as with most MMORPG communities they were not shy in telling us what they wanted. Even though we were quite certain about the initial surge of interest these servers would get, we wanted to test this so we asked our players via a poll if they would play. When half a million of our customers said they want to play it… we kind of had to do it.

Another big question mark was whether the legacy servers would have any longevity. To manage this risk a small team of three people was put together to manage the servers and community until the initial interest had died down, at which time resources could be reallocated.

The risk seemed low, allocated resources could all be temporary, and with half a million players saying they would like to try it, the risk of cannibalisation was outweighed by the potential for new customers. At the very least, Old School RuneScape would be a quick nostalgia hit for disenfranchised players.
With legacy servers comes legacy technical debt

Once Old School RuneScape had launched it quickly became apparent that the community wanted game updates. However, initially we were very limited in what we could deliver. Since RuneScape as a game had progressed during the intervening years, so had all the tools we used to develop it. We were in the unenviable position of having to recreate all the tools we used to develop the game back in 2007 so we could update it. At no point had anyone thought, “We ought to keep all these old versions of the development tools just in case.” I mean why would they?

The lack of development tools was not our only technical debt, we had to rework anti-cheating software, optimise areas of the code, and fix some pretty major bugs for a second time.

Community tribalism

Something which should not really surprise anyone is that there was a rivalry between the communities of the Old School RuneScape and RuneScape. Over time this rivalry increased with the Old School community taking the stance of being purist, and the RuneScape community positioning themselves as progressive.

Although the Old School community saw themselves as purists they still wanted change, so to ensure the rate of change was acceptable to those players we allowed them to vote on every update that happens to the game. If 75% of those voting did not agree, the update didn’t happen. This gave a very strong sense of ownership of the game to the community; they were in control.

What was a surprise was that the tribalism shown by the community started to manifest itself among the development teams. As the small team was left to get on with things they developed their own ways of making things happen without relying on other teams. Although this self-sufficiency might be much sought over by many people, it has a hampering effect when it has to fit into companywide objectives and strategic planning across products.

It came to a point where the Old School RuneScape team needed more integration into the wider RuneScape studio. This was achieved by creating stronger relationships between staff and line managers that traversed different teams, as well as including the Old School team in more of the studio level decisions.

Game positioning

After about six months we started to see player numbers settle and we could see that very few players migrated between Old School RuneScape and RuneScape. What we were not seeing was one game cannibalising the other, so we wanted to understand why a player would play one game and not the other.

Through a series of surveys and data gathering from the game servers we saw there were some distinct reasons why people played Old School RuneScape. The three key reasons were the old combat system (which was changed in the main game in 2012) the grinding of levels, and the straightforward membership monetisation model. This made it very easy to position Old School RuneScape as complementarily to RuneScape and give us a very clear direction of where the game could go. More importantly, it identified areas we could branch into much more effectively than we could have done with
RuneScape on its own.

For example, the old combat system leant itself well to PvP combat, which in turn allowed us to take our first steps into the eSports market last month with considerable success.

When legacy becomes THE legacy

Although the initial impact of legacy servers on RuneScape was expected to be short and sweet, it has grown into a major part of Jagex’s business. The Old School team is now five times the size it was when it started and has more members than the launch period, showing it can reach out to a wider market than the initial audience.

The modernisation of RuneScape meant tensions increased between the traditionalist and progressive RuneScape player base. However, Old School RuneScape gave the traditionalists a safe home and allowed for the continued modernisation of RuneScape without alienating a key part of our player base.
There have been challenges in overcoming the technical debt that suddenly appeared, as well as, ensuring that the product sits well within a wider business. However, it offered something our existing games did not offer and has allowed us to start expanding the RuneScape franchise into new areas such as eSports and streaming.

By keeping the risk of legacy servers low and being focused on how they can grow the franchise, this adventure has just started.

Mathew Kemp is product manager for Old School RuneScape at Jagex Games Studio.

Old School RuneScape Teases April Updates


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April is set to be a busy month for Old School RuneScape, and players should probably take a look at what is in store for them in the month ahead. For avid clue hunters, April will introduce a new tier of clue scroll introducing new puzzles, challenges, and rewards.

Player ID is a topic generally only discussed by the more long-time fans. It is an unseen number that determines where your actions sit on the server’s priority list when it comes to dealing damage, picking up items, pretty much anything. A player with a low PID has their actions processed first, and can give some players an unfair advantage.

In the update later this month, the game will begin to prioritize player clicks much less frequently, allowing for more consistent fights.

April will also see more content from poll #41 added into the game. Players voted in said content poll to introduce bank placeholders, permanent daily spellbook swap, unlimited teleports with the quest cape, and more. Another poll will be released later this month asking players how Jagex should prioritize development going forward.

(Source: RuneScape)

RuneScape Shuttering Perpetually Busted Mini-Game


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Say goodbye to your underground cat-fighting ring because it is being removed from RuneScape this week. Rat Pits, a mini-game first introduced in 2005, is widely regarded as RuneScape’s worst mini-game and has been mostly abandoned for years. The premise is simple: Cats were the first pets introduced to RuneScape, so players could take them to rat pits and compete against other cat owners in whose pet could kill the most rats within a certain amount of time.

How do you make such a simple concept unappealing? Allow your cats to die. For what was a pretty significant time investment, your cat could die and unlike players would die permanently. That meant going back to Gertrude and starting all over from the kitten stage. The rewards were almost nonexistent, a paltry sum of coins, with the possible penalty for losing being grinding out another cat.

It also doesn’t help that Rat Pits has been the cause of several game-breaking bugs in the past, from allowing players to massacre the pets of others unimpeded, to duplicate items, and more.

Mod Kelpie posted on Twitter to tell players to get in before tomorrow’s update.

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(Source: Twitter)

Brace For Death, Deadman Season 2 Begins


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Welcome to Deadman mode. On these worlds, you die.

RuneScape’s Deadman Mode has proven to be a rather successful spinoff to Old School, requiring players to stay on their toes as death means heavy losses in experience, inventory, and bank. To keep things exciting, Jagex began a seasonal Deadman mode, allowing players to level up over the course of three months with the top two thousand players gaining entry to the Deadman tournament servers, culminating in a deathmatch tournament whereby the winner goes home with ten grand in real money.

Well the first season has come and gone, and its victor has been crowned and will be receiving his money. Season 2 has begun, and all seasonal server characters have been reset. Players can log into the new seasonal servers and start grinding away.

As usual, players on seasonal deadman will enjoy boosted experience rates at the cost of heavy losses on death.

(Source: Old School)

Jagex Acquired By Chinese Mining Operation


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Never let anyone tell you that 99 mining won’t get you everywhere in life. Jagex, makers of the MMO RuneScape and its many spinoffs, has announced that it is in the negotiation phase for a potential acquisition by a Chinese company by the name of Shandong Honda. You may be thinking that Shandong Honda is one of China’s many game publishers, but you would be wrong. The company is actually an iron ore mining operation.

“Jagex has entered into a non-exclusive, non-binding arrangement for a potential acquisition. The negotiations surrounding the acquisition are ongoing and it remains very much business as usual for the Company.”

Jagex’s head of community, also known as Mod Balance, posted a response that the news coverage today noting that the deal may still not materialize into anything.

Jagex is in early stage discussions with the firm in question, but we must stress that they may – or may not – materialise into anything. However, should they come to fruition, it would potentially allow us access to the Asian marketplace to a high level.

Players have been promised that their questions are being collected and answers will be given in due time.

(Source: Deal Street Asia)

DarkScape Throwing in the Towel: Shutting Down


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Jagex today announced the sunsetting of DarkScape, a spinoff of RuneScape. Originally launched as a more combat-focused alternative, DarkScape allowed players to fight each other virtually everywhere in the game world. Unfortunately the game mode just didn’t gain enough traction and, as a result, can’t justify allocating development resources to its continued maintenance. The servers for DarkScape are set to come down on March 28th once and for all.

Today, there’s a small, hardcore community that continues to play DarkScape. Unfortunately, it’s just not big enough to warrant ongoing development. The updates made along the way allowed us to experiment with RuneScape’s PvP gameplay systems, play around with changes to the game economy, and test out major changes to combat and equipment behaviour.

DarkScape was deeply flawed as a concept, despite what the few remaining players will tell you, that couldn’t hold a steady population as players flocked back to RuneScape 3 and Old School RuneScape modes. You can expect a followup on this later on this week.

(Source: DarkScape)

RuneScape Unveils Free To Play Extravaganza


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If you’re a non-paying player in RuneScape, odds are you hear the words “members only” quite often. It isn’t so often that free players receive new content outside of holiday events, and even those have become rather restricted in the past. This month, however, Jagex has unveiled its Free to Play Extravaganza. Starting today, you don’t need to subscribe in order to access a wealth of content, including bosses and combat options.

For starters, the King Black Dragon and Giant Mole can be killed by free players to sell their sweet, sweet loot for extra gold. Keep in mind, however, you can look but you can’t touch. While free players can obtain members loot, their only use is essentially to sell to members who can bury/utilize them.

Free players can now take on the mighty King Black Dragon by getting to his lair via the Wilderness. Only the bravest and best-equipped need apply. The drops, dragon bones and black dragonhides, are now sellable by free players, but can only be buried and processed by members. Note that the Edgeville artefact cannot be used in free-to-play worlds to access to this boss.

Access to dual-wielding, previously a members-only feature, is now freely available as well alongside a number of combat abilities. Dungeoneering has also had an update, increasing the level of gear that players have access to both inside and out of the dungeon.

You can check out the entire update below.

(Source: RuneScape)

Beta Perspective: RuneScape NXT Impressions


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I consider myself something of a fan of RuneScape, having played it continuously since 2004 and racked up more than four thousand hours of gameplay, and I’m sure few would disagree with that statement. That being said, I’ve been heavily critical of Jagex as a company and certain facets of RuneScape as a game, and nothing has caught my attention quite like RuneScape’s bloated, near-useless client.

It’s no secret that RuneScape has become massive over the years, straining the client to the point where it’s basically held together with gum and tape. The old client’s days were numbered when the big browsers announced that the end of days were coming for Java support, due to its instability and general habit of opening massive security holes in people’s computers. For RuneScape, Jagex made the attempt to jump ship a couple of years ago with an HTML client, a venture that has so far come up empty thanks in part to the platform itself not coming along as quickly as expected.

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Jagex could have launched NXT with none of the visual upgrades and this would instantly be my update of the year. The current RuneScape client is incredibly janky, depending where I am in the world and what I’m doing it will either run smoothly or horribly and turning the graphics down does absolutely nothing to fix this. In the NXT client, I am able to set everything to its maximum value and still manage to play the game at over 70 frames per second. I teleport, I start skilling, killing things, moving around to new areas, and the game remains stable and smooth as butter.

But to top it off, Jagex has made the game look better than ever. The draw distance is now massive, as far as the eye can see, and holds up RuneScape’s unique graphical styling. The new client has made it painfully obvious in some areas how laughably small the world is, a fact previously hidden by the game’s short-sighted draw distance, but for the most part so far Jagex has done its job to play tricks and make the smallness of the world a lot harder to notice.

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My first real thought while playing on the NXT client is the depressing thought that this beta is going to end in a few days, and at least until the client launches sometime in…sometime, I’ll have to sit through the old client for the time being. There are numerous visual bugs that are present in the beta, but since the game is running on the live servers there isn’t much of a reason not to give it a go if you are eligible to play this weekend.

I’ll be playing RuneScape quite regularly through the weekend.

 

Jagex Unveils Casual RuneScape Spinoff


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Jagex, makers of the wildly popular RuneScape, today announced the latest game in the MMO series. Dubbed RuneScape: Idle Adventures, the title is a little different than what RuneScape players might be accustomed to. Set in the world of Gielinor, the player takes on the role of the wielder of the Elder Artefact known as the Needle. Play sessions will last a few minutes and boil the MMO gameplay down to loot, levels, and watching your character train.

It’s an addictive, quick-to-play RPG boiled down to the basics of levelling and looting. In a typical session, you’ll spend a few minutes making choices for your customisable hero, then leave him or her to train, fight and quest in real time.

RuneScape: Idle Adventures is being developed by Hyper Hippo, who you may be familiar with from their work on AdVenture Capitalist. The game will be free to play and releases on Steam later this Spring with iOS and Android releases later this year.

(Source: RuneScape)

Chronicle Servers Going Offline For Open Beta


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Jagex has revealed that Chronicles, the card game based on the RuneScape game series, has shut down as of February 8th. In an announcement posted on the official website, the servers are shutting down for approximately six weeks in order to prepare the game for open beta. During that time, the dev team is adding in more features, balancing, and infrastructure to provide a better experience for customers.

When the beta returns in March, players can expect Venescula, the fifth legend character, arriving alongside more than forty new cards. Alongside Venescula is Dungeoneering, a skill that tasks players with PvP challenges in return for coins, gem shards, and platinum. The legends you have will have the ability to be outfitted with cosmetic customizations and improving skills with experience gained after each fight. Finally, two new locations (one previewed above) and improved client performance will be coming alongside open beta launch.

Players who participated in the closed beta will receive an exclusive card back, title, emblem, and coin chest. The open beta is the last time that Chronicles will wipe player progress.

(Source: Chronicles)