RuneScapes “The Drop” in game event is one of the first major events Jagex has attempted using Twitch and in game activity. Being someone that is familiar with both Twitch and YouTube content I feel that this was a fantastic step for the crew over at Jagex. It seems that since around 2006, the company has really come out of its shell and worked and played with the community. That only seems to be a growing trend now in the addition to RuneLabs, and last year’s player driven content idea of the poll system.
This update really felt like it was harking back to the days of the Summer Triumvirate. This was a series of updates that was Jagex lead that allowed players to pick sides and fight for their team doing multiple events across Runescape in the summer of 2011.

The Drop was an event update that integrated the Twitch channel with RuneScape. It’s worth noting that a player didn’t need to be watching the stream to play even though it was the focus of the event. Players entered a room where they would stand on platforms and answer questions as they came up. After each question, people that got the questions wrong were out, and those who got it right jumped to the next platform. This would continue till there is one player left.
The questions worked on a timer, there would be so much time to pick an answer. Then the drop would happen, and the Moderators at Jagex would set up the next question, meanwhile, anyone that dropped out could still see the game drop the balcony above and I thought that was a nice mechanic though potentially putting a little more strain on the server than necessary.
Some of the rounds had a buy in, where they would gamble with their knowledge on 1 million GP to potentially make it all the way and win up to 500 million GP. I personally felt this was a fun idea. For the lore hounds of the game it really gave them a chance to stand out. I am personally not the biggest lore hound but over the years I have come to appreciate the (reworked) RuneScape lore. The thing I liked about this event is that it harked all the way back to some of the first quests I ever played and asked some interesting questions like “who was the demon in the demon slayer quest?” Just a great series of questions for this event!

The event for the most part went smoothly. However, I am not going to leave out the w66 riot that happened afterward. Some people were involved in server crashes on buy in games and this led to the players losing their money. This created a backlash that led to people once again rioting in w66 Falador. Now I may not be paying much attention to the riots in that world these days but I don’t think there has been one in quite some time.
What people need to realize is that the game is not perfect nor is the hardware that is being used to run it. When the servers go down, it was not a scam, it was just bad luck. Jagex could choose to refund the money to the people that were still in the game, or they could let it be. What they should have done was shard the world for the game so the server wouldn’t be holding unnecessary players thus allowing less strain to their hardware. I think that this riot was a completely ridiculous act from the player base that only once again shows why Jagex has to try so hard to make sure people don’t lose items.
The riot can pretty much sum up why the wilderness is still dying today. Players don’t want to lose their items no matter how fair or not. The mentality of losing and taking risks seems to have nearly disappeared.

I play this game because I feel that it is fun, and taking risks is the one thing that gets my heart pumping a little faster and makes the game feel like a rush. The same mentality should have been on everyone’s mind for The Drop update. Either a server crash or a failed question, the result is the same and should have been respected.
In the future I would like to see similar Twitch based events such as a Duel Arena tournament or a Dominion Tower event that everyone can play together and compete in.
I hope that Jagex tries this event or one similar to it again as it seems like a fantastic time. The positive reaction of the player base cannot be ignored. This was a fantastic update!