Most of us have probably read this forum post from Mod Hohbein. It’s another set of questions answered by Mod MMG (Mr. Mark Gerhard). In it he answers some very good questions, but what do some of them mean? I’m going to try to interpret what they mean and what the implementation and removal of some of them would do to Runescape.

Because there are so many of them (44), I won’t post them here. I will answer them by number so you can read the question here.

1) Melt The Ice asks;

I don’t really see how he can say F2P isn’t a Demo as it’s quite obviously not the full version. Yes, it’s not a trial (as most trials are timed) but since it’s not the full, advertised, version then what else can it be?

Anyways that’s besides the point of the answer. MMMG states that they’re working on a new skill that will be for both F2P and P2P. The question is, what is it? I have heard rumors of a ‘Sailing’ skill however I don’t see how this could be a F2P skill. F2Ps can only go to two islands, and they can’t even reach all of those islands. I’ve also heard a rumor of a ‘Ninja’ or ‘Martial arts’ type skill which would allow the player to attack with their hands and feet and other parts of their body to deal good amounts of damage. It’s possible that if this rumor is true that it is the new skill as both F2Ps and P2Ps could use it to its full extent. The only thing which wouldn’t make sense is that the person who should teach you this skill is Ak-Haranu in Port Phasmatys, which is a member’s only area.

Another thing MMMG mentions is changes to some F2P quests. He actually uses the word ‘improve’, which means to make better. Even improvements are changes. I’m not saying changes are bad, but depending on how and which quests they change could change their storylines for the worse or jip people of rewards. Jagex, however, is usually pretty good about compensation when adding new rewards for newer players by letting the older players who have already completed the changed area to either redo it or get the extra reward.

I would very much like to see an update to F2P. I think a few years ago they had been releasing one F2P update along with 2-5 P2P updates every month. I would like to see this happen again.

2) Soldier 1033 asks;

Enabling avatars, signatures, BBCode, and all the basic (and even some not so basic but well desired) features would greatly improve the RuneScape forums. I haven’t heard anything about it yet, but seeing as Mini-blogs are becoming so popular (Twitter, RuneWire, and others) I expect Jagex to add either a global mini-blog or give each user a small mini-blog. This would be an interesting direction for Jagex, but it’s one I believe they are going to take.

As for actual forum changes, personal avatars and signatures would make them much more inviting for most of the users. The use of BBCode would also make it more inviting to those who dislike the Jagex forums for its amateurity(Even basic forum systems have bold and italic, something which the Jagex forums still lack).

Allowing more free players to post would be a great way to increase the amount of users on the forum. They just have to make sure that they’re allowance system (the way they see if a F2P is allowed to post on the forums) is good enough to keep out the bots, extra spam accounts, and the majority of trouble makers.

3) Dark Musica asks;

I feel that this one was answered indirectly, meaning MMMG tried to avoid the question. He was asked if they view the players as income or as people. He didn’t say which. He was also asked if they’d be willing to sacrifice(possibly remove) parts of their games(Funorb, Runescape, and the supposed Mechscape) to please their members as a whole.

For years Jagex has seemed to me to be a “Thanks for the money, here’s ticket 1,978,627, you can sit over there while you wait to be served.” kind of company. I know this sounds a little harsh but in years past they acted like they wanted the money more than pleasing the players. Now they seem to be different. In the last year they’ve been reaching out to their players for more suggestions – even browsing player-made fansites. I hope they will continue to listen to their players as intently or more so than they have been.

4) The Griffonn asks;

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”, don’t ask me who it’s from but it is honestly true. It’s been proven time and time again that ‘fixing’ working things has a very high chance of breaking them. I can understand changes if they plan to work with coming updates but not just because they wanted to change it. The layout makes sense if they’re going to add another tab (which I believe they said they would when it was changed) and I think they said they changed the animations so that their engines would run better or to allow them to do more things with their models. I understand the need to alter model animations as I’ve dealt with models alteration in a game I play. I suppose the reason they did these changes now instead of when they’ll actually be used is to get the players used to them and so their developers can work out bugs faster and easier.

Player polls = Good idea

5) Taco 50 asks;

Great idea, I wonder who came up with it first? This would make our (the Senior members’) lives so much easier. We’d be able to train in good areas without having ‘noobs’ in the area either hiding or prayer-flashing (I’m sorry if that offended you, but I personally do not like Prayer-flashing).

Another good thing about these worlds is that it makes drop parties much more private. Now instead of having 500 level 50- spamming and taking all the drops, you’ll mostly get players who understand that you’re trying to have a party with your friends. Of course you’ll always find a bad egg, but that’s to be expected with humans.

If there’s 900 people on a world all with 50m+ experience and 50 of those are your friends then probably only a quarter of the remaining 850 would even care about the party. Half of the 212 would probably be willing to leave if asked or wouldn’t even go to it. The other 106 either wouldn’t be a problem, would be friends of your friends, or would leave after a bit. Makes sense to play on one, no?

6) Pur35 Ownage asks;

I knew they would go to console eventually. This is where a Guaranteed Content poll should be used.

I don’t have a console and the last time I played on one was about 5 years ago when I played a James Bond game with a friend, so I’m not sure the impact it would have on players. I’m pretty sure Runescape would get atleast 5% more players though.

7) Vannakius asks;

“constructive negative feedback”

Constructive, Meaning
3. helpful; promoting improvement; intended to help; as,
constructive criticism; constructive suggestions.

Negative, Meaning
1. Denying; implying, containing, or asserting denial,
negation or refusal; returning the answer no to an inquiry
or request; refusing assent; as, a negative answer; a
negative opinion

“constructive negative feedback“, Meaning
Denying Help, refusal to promote improvement,
a negative constructive opinion of criticism

Oxymoron, Meaning
A figure in which an epithet of a contrary signification is
added to a word; e. g., cruel kindness; laborious idleness.

8 ) Snrubnayrpk asks;

Interesting idea, RuneTube anyone?

9) Karzani1 asks;

Honestly, putting Runescape on CD only would just about kill it. What makes Runescape so popular is it’s mobility. Now it’s not quite as mobile as other browser games such as DragonFable, but it is more mobile than big client games like Guild Wars.

I think if Jagex had really wanted the ‘optimal specification to ensure that hundreds of millions of players worldwide can access the game’, they never would’ve added the new models. Nobody can deny that the new models are slower than the old ones. Yes they look good (I’m not going to say they look better as that is debatable in my opinion), but they require a better computer than the old ones. Yes, most computers nowadays can run fine with them, but I bet atleast 10% run with slight to moderate lag all the time. I’ve been running with moderate lag on this computer ever since the new models were released. My laptop just arrived today and it will easily be able to support Runescape HD, but not everyone can.

This is a bit off-topic, but I think Jagex should’ve had a Normal detail(lower quality but uses the new models), High detail (HD, that uses the best graphics and new models), and a Low detail (which uses the old models).

10) Mikeboi101 asks;

FunTube?

11) Dark Moon X5 asks;

In my opinion they do need an office in North America, whether in the US or Canada. Right now they only get European employees and those who’ve moved to England to work there.

13) J 36 asks;

Yes, I skipped #12. But there’s 44 of these, you really want me to comment on all of them? If so then comment on this article and I’ll write another of these on the questions I didn’t do.

Anyways, ever thought of going to the movies with your Girl-Friend or Boy-Friend to watch RuneScape: The Betrayal of Falador? Or maybe since you’ve read the book of that one you’d watch Runescape: The Mahjarret awakening.
Interesting idea, isn’t it? Runescape based movies. I’m sure these would do multiple sell outs at the box office, especially if cast correctly.

I’ve never really thought of Runescape as a movie. I probably wouldn’t go to the theatres to see it but I’d definitely watch it when it came out on TV.

18) Find Emotion asks;

Unfortunately the higher aged demographic is mostly Jagex’s fault. If they allowed younger people to play it they would have alto more accounts and probably more members.

I would say at least half the current Members(P2Ps) are over 20, with at least half of those being over 30.

What I’d like to ask Jagex (And I think I will in his next Q/A) is if they’re trying to make it for an older audience and are trying to remove the ‘kiddy’ content, then why do they make things “so easy a caveman could do it“? I, personally, like a good challenge. I like having to think and strategize before doing something. Nowadays there are too many tutorials and all information about new things is given to players on a silver platter. I am not referring to Fansites, I’m referring to the in-game tutorials and information. When I started playing I had to either ask someone for help, or try it myself.

20) Roasted Duck7 asks;

I haven’t read this Q&A but it sounds like a rather…odd thing. I would love to see RSC come back, but I don’t understand why they would release the cheat codes. With Jagex’s team now they could modify the files to remove the cheat codes but keep the same (or same basic) game play.

Why would they make cheating easier? Do they think it will be fine since everyone can cheat?

22) Lol A Pic asks;

Ignore my video/podcast illiteracy, what is the ‘Tehnoobshow’? I assume it’s some sort of Runescape related podcast or video.

Oh, by the way, we’re half way through 🙂

24) Fuzziekiwi asks;

Good question.

Since the addition of RSHD models Runescape has been lagging for some people as I mentioned above. Optimizing the CPU usage will reduce lag for some people.

26) Hellroses333 asks;

I believe the sole reason for adding the limit was to prevent RWTs from trading. Since most bots rely on RWT and trading mass amounts of product between accounts I see no reason why the limit cannot be removed so long as they have bots under control.

Perhaps they have some issues we don’t know about that they can’t tell us. Regardless, it is nice to hear that the limit may increase.

29) Timmy7072 asks;

This is kind of like what I talked about in my article A step in the Right Direction. In it I said that account names and characters names should be different. It’s about time they started working on this.

Reminder: As soon as they add this update change your character name to whatever you want it to be. Mind you, popular names such as ‘Gandolf’, ‘Aragorn’, ‘Luke Skywalker’, and other popular names and proper names (Proper names being ‘Bob’, ‘John’, ‘Mary’, ‘Elizabeth’) will most likely be restricted. Be my guest to try them but don’t be surprised if they’re taken or unavailable.

30) Themyth 2004 asks;

Word of Mouth is the proven most efficient form of advertising. Firstly it’s free, secondly it reaches many times more people than normal advertising, and thirdly it is more trusted than normal advertising. Think of it, if your friend plays a game aren’t you more likely to play it?

31) Bluesonic43 asks;

Not sure why he answered this question also as it’s almost a duplicate of the aforementioned one.

Avatars, Signatures, and BBCode would all be great improvements for the Jagex forums.

32) Sir Sral asks;

I have to agree, though I know many of you won’t. If you really do listen to the music of some of their tracks you can hear some nice things. I would enjoy listening to higher quality versions, so long as they were free.

33) M4g3r Ownage asks;

Another duplicate question, but I have something else to add.

MMMG says it’ll be based on total player experience. Now while this would work it wouldn’t work as well as player experience, total level, total game time, total registered time, combat level, and quest point total. If Jagex only does experience then I doubt any requirement will be above 25m. I’d like to see worlds requiring 50m or more total experience.

35) Svew asks;

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but there seems to be more bugs in-game now then there was before there was an Official Quality Assurance teams. The problem I’ve always found with Jagex and bugs is that they do the normal, no what players do. A player will do the oddest, most bazaar (sometimes most stupid) things and find a bug. Jagex will do the normal and not find a bug because their developers did the normal when they created it and didn’t find a bug.

36) Bionic Cool2 asks;

“we tend to get shamelessly copied by the industry” That’s not what I would say. They have copied ideas from many games I’ve played. I don’t know if this is just coincidence or purposeful.

37) Robeddarknes asks;

Interesting idea. If they added this then we could branch off from SKOTM and do Statistic of the Month. We could do most monster kills, most kills of one type, and many other things.

Hmm, it would be interesting to see exactly when my account was made…

39) Bigb4199 asks;

Now THAT would be interesting. How would you like Sumona speaking your assignment to you?

43) Rizwan151 asks;

Runescape combat level has been proven not to determine intelligence, rather intelligence determines Runescape levels.

BTW, that’s the second time he’s used ‘choob’ in relation to his account. Most people don’t call their accounts choobs, usually they say nub, noob, or newb. He used the word 8 sentences ago.

44) Father Lawec asks;

We all know something must annoy him, he just can’t say because he works for them.

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Again, these are just my interpretations and comments. I know some people won’t agree with them.