Tag: Solomon’s Store

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)

The Future of RuneScape's Cash Shop Is In MapleStory


Whether you like it or not, Jagex is taking its cues from majority stockholder Insight Venture Partners, the American investment group and 55% share holder in the British developer. Luckily for me, IVP is turning out to be a pretty predictable company. The path that RuneScape has taken is not unique, and is one used (rather successfully) by another well known publisher and investment of IVP: Nexon. So if you want to see where RuneScape’s cash shop will most likely evolve into, just take a look at Maplestory.

Maplestory also started its shop with gambling, followed by the introduction of a cosmetic only cash shop, blossoming into what it is today. So let’s take a look at what you might see in the cash shop of the future!

  • 2x Experience: This is a given, and should it be included in the near future, completely unsurprising. After all, Jagex stated recently that they would be getting rid of bonus experience weekends just before they opened the cash shop. After all, why give the milk away for free when you can sell it at market?
  • Cosmetic Pets: This is also a given. It is a cash shop, after all, and what would a cash shop be without the ability to say “I paid $10 on a virtual talking, floating pancake with cat ears.” I have no news that Jagex plans on adding a floating, talking pancake with cat ears into RuneScape but if they do, it was completely my idea.
  • Bound Equipment: Remember how Jagex explained giving high level equipment in Squeal of Fortune? That’s right, it can’t be traded. If (and this is a big IF) Jagex does indeed update Solomon’s Store to include high end equipment, you can bet that you won’t be able to trade it. It will likely also be expensive relative to whether or not the item can be lost when you die.
  • Many More Membership Bonuses: This one is a prediction of my own. Jagex has been running numerous membership bonuses designed to keep people subscribed longer (90-120 day membership card vanity items) and throughout months (bonus experience for members). Expect many more free items to come as a benefit of membership. This will likely include powerful equipment, following the rule stated above being bound to an account.

Just a reminder: These are all my predictions and may be completely wrong.

The Future of RuneScape’s Cash Shop Is In MapleStory


Whether you like it or not, Jagex is taking its cues from majority stockholder Insight Venture Partners, the American investment group and 55% share holder in the British developer. Luckily for me, IVP is turning out to be a pretty predictable company. The path that RuneScape has taken is not unique, and is one used (rather successfully) by another well known publisher and investment of IVP: Nexon. So if you want to see where RuneScape’s cash shop will most likely evolve into, just take a look at Maplestory.

Maplestory also started its shop with gambling, followed by the introduction of a cosmetic only cash shop, blossoming into what it is today. So let’s take a look at what you might see in the cash shop of the future!

  • 2x Experience: This is a given, and should it be included in the near future, completely unsurprising. After all, Jagex stated recently that they would be getting rid of bonus experience weekends just before they opened the cash shop. After all, why give the milk away for free when you can sell it at market?
  • Cosmetic Pets: This is also a given. It is a cash shop, after all, and what would a cash shop be without the ability to say “I paid $10 on a virtual talking, floating pancake with cat ears.” I have no news that Jagex plans on adding a floating, talking pancake with cat ears into RuneScape but if they do, it was completely my idea.
  • Bound Equipment: Remember how Jagex explained giving high level equipment in Squeal of Fortune? That’s right, it can’t be traded. If (and this is a big IF) Jagex does indeed update Solomon’s Store to include high end equipment, you can bet that you won’t be able to trade it. It will likely also be expensive relative to whether or not the item can be lost when you die.
  • Many More Membership Bonuses: This one is a prediction of my own. Jagex has been running numerous membership bonuses designed to keep people subscribed longer (90-120 day membership card vanity items) and throughout months (bonus experience for members). Expect many more free items to come as a benefit of membership. This will likely include powerful equipment, following the rule stated above being bound to an account.

Just a reminder: These are all my predictions and may be completely wrong.

RuneScape Opens Cash Shop, Sells Cosmetic Items


Earlier this year, Jagex introduced Squeal of Fortune, a daily gambling mini-game where players use tickets to spin for anything from experience boosts, gold, limited availability items, and even high end armor and weapons. Since its release, Squeal of Fortune has been expanded to include exclusive rare items, and Jagex has opened the shop to players to purchase spins with real money. At the time, this raised concerns that Jagex had plans to open a cash shop.

Around now would be where those same people will message their friends and say “I told you so.” Today Jagex released Soloman’s Shop, introducing a fully fledged cash shop into RuneScape. With its initial launch, Jagex will only offer purely cosmetic items for sale. Players are able to buy cosmetic outfits, new “enhanced” animations, emotes, titles, and more. The shop is run on Runecoins, which can be purchased at the price of $4.99 per 200 points, with higher purchases receiving bonus coins similar to Squeal of Fortune with free spins. Items range widely in price, up to 900 for a banner that tells everyone how awesome you are, and 1620 for a complete pack of assassin outfits and emotes.

Members can redeem 200 points for free for the time being, and also receive a 10% discount on items purchased through the store. Free players are not so lucky, however they do have access to the Solomon’s Store.