Same old issue

Andrew Gower is the guy who created Runescape. He hates cheaters. Below are excerpts from the-man-himself in a chat site:


. . .
(MrAndrew) I wouldn't have added it, but it's the usual case of people trying to cheat forcing me to waste time on features which inconveniance everyone else
(MrAndrew) the cheating is just ridculous!
. . .
(MrAndrew) well thanks for moaning at me for stopping the cheating

(MrAndrew) I won't bother in future :-)
. . .
[00:16] (Asrock) andrew: are people that have been locked up for macroing locked up forever?

[00:16] (MrAndrew) pretty much yes asrock, I do NOT like macroing

[00:16] (MrAndrew) it's blatantly obvious when people macro

[00:17] (MrAndrew) people report macroers to me and I login and go and have a look

[00:17] (MrAndrew) well the people who hate the game just shouldn't play it! stands to reason
. . .



This all sound familiar doesn't it. Well you might be surprised WHEN he said it. Here is a hint; at the time he also said:


. . .
[23:40] (MrAndrew) had a record number of players this evening :-) I was very pleased

[23:41] (MrAndrew) I saw 3067 at once!
. . .

Yep, these are all posts from 2001.
Cheaters have been in Runescape since the VERY beginning, and Andrew Gower has been fighting them for a long, long time.
If you are curious, look here: http://gowerarchive.googlepages.com/communications

RS3

Wow! So they went and nerfed trading! Crazy.

Why only a 3k limit? Why not ± 5% like the Grand Exchange? Why not link the limit to the player's level? Why not just drop P2P trading all together?- - *shrugs* Who knows?

I might be naive but my hope is that in eight months, or so, they will up the limit. Maybe they are trying to flush out all the bots, gold farmers, and compulsive cheats. Maybe they will hold their own customers in better guard some day in the future. There's always hope.

I posted a couple of real suggestions in the official forms. Jagex said they would listen and may amend the recent changes a little. I encourage all of you to try and come up with suggestions as well, maybe some one will come up with a solution to the current situation.

----

My first day of playing RS3 I didn't do anything that I couldn't do in RS2. I hunted some chompys, worked on a clue scroll - stuff like that. The graphics and game play were the same as the old game, but everyone was telling me that it was different now, and I knew they were right.

I played for a couple of hours and then went to bed. At 5 o'clock in the morning my two year old woke me up. Groan. I got her back to sleep but I was up and I could hear the faint voice of Runescape calling to me. I went to the RS site and saw that only 45 thousand players were on line. I logged in and went to kill some green dragons in the "wild".

I went to the dragon crater in level 12 "wilds" and was lucky that only two other players were there (3 dragons spawn here, if you remember). Killing the dragons was the same as always, but I didn't have to keep looking to see if some PKers were sneaking up near the crater's rim. I kinda missed that. I rarely went into the wild but I will still miss it. It was somehow nice knowing that there was room in the world for a lawless frontier.

---

A Revenant! I had killed about 1o dragons when a level 75 revenant showed up and started to attack me. I had some food and prayer points, so I decided to stand and fight. "Come'on old dead guy! Let's see what you got!"

The Revenant's max hit was not too high but it hit me with 7s pretty consistently (black dragonhide, def 66). The knowledgebase said that revenant can steel you away from other monsters, but it turns out monsters can steel you from revenants as well. I had auto-retaliate turned on so I ended up switching back and forth from fighting the revenant and fighting a green dragon - frustrating. Luckily the other players were all-to-happy to take the dragons off my hands (none of them offered to try and take the Revenant off my hands though, lol). I said dragonS plural because two spawned during my revenant fight - it was that long. I kept eating and the revenant kept healing itself. I noticed that my hits went in cycles. Hit & miss for a bit and then a long string of zeros - The knowledgebase mentions that revenants can attack from all three corners of the combat triangle, but I wonder if they defend from all three corners as well. Maybe a third of the time they had really good defense against my range attack and that is why I saw strings of zeros. Next time I'll bring a non-range weapon with me too.

Well, the revenant finally gave up the ghost and dropped . . . nothing, nada, zilch. Drats! Well, I learned something at least. In level 12 "wilderness" revenants are a nuisance but not a real threat (that particular type of Revenant at least). I saw a few more during my stay but none of the others attacked me. It was getting to be 6 am so I had to quit and go to work.

The price of green hides will go down soon, I'm sure.

What's wrong with RWT

Why does Jagex even care about Real World Trading?

There have been a lot of changes to Runescape lately showing that Jagex is trying to stomp out real world trading (RWT). But why does Jagex even care? Do they think real world traders may destroy fun for most player and end up costing Jagex subscribers? - Thats probably part of it. But there might be more involved.

I did some google searches to try and figure out what the hub-bub was all about. There were a predictable number of fan and blog pages, but I was surprised to find several dusty law journals discuss the matter. There have been a couple of cases in Asia of people trying to sue other players in court for the steeling of items, for example.

I only read parts of these articles because, well, because they are long and boring. But here are a few things that stand out.
The matter popped up in 2003 when a real-world-trader playing Ultama became worried that he could become legally considered a "fence". This guy bought game items and sold them for real money to other players. He was worried that if he bought a weapon that he knew one player had stolen, then the he might be charged in the real world for fencing stolen goods. The legal opinions tended to say that the trader had nothing to worry about. It is a game with it's own rules. A basketball player can "steel" a basket ball without worrying about being arrested for theft, for example.

But once the world of on-line gaming came to the attention of the legal community they found other items of "interest".

Intangible Assets.
An intangible asset is something which can not be held in your hand but is worth real money. Stocks in a company are a form of intangible asset. There is a huge body of laws covering intangible assets.

Some on-line games DO allow virtual goods to be bought and sold for real world money. In those games the virtual goods are legally intangible assets and are covered by existing laws. Some game developers are worried that if they do not vigilantly separate their virtual world from the real world then items in their gams can also become intangible assets.

If that were to happen it would be a disaster for Jagex.
- If Jagex had to "roll back" a server due to a bug, then thousands of players would lose some items (it has happened before). If these items are worth real money then Jagex could be subject to legal suits.
- If game items could be obtained by chance then the game could fall under the laws covering on-line gambling.
- If one player scams another then the victim could bring legal charges for a real dollar loss.

That's all bad enough but consider this. Say a scam takes place in a Runescape on a server in Norway between a player in the USA and one in Korea. Which nation has jurisdiction? Remember Jagex is based in the UK so there are at least four possible answers to the question.

Perusing the legal journals it comes out that nobody really has the answers yet. This is uncharted legal territory. I'm sure the last thing Jagex wants to do is spend thousands of dollars in court fees. The smart thing to do is to make sure that Runescape virtual goods are NEVER allowed to have value in real world money. If that's their thinking then their heavy handed changes to the game to stop RWT make a whole lot of sense.

One last worry. It was speculated in some of these legal texts that (now watch your blood pressure): if virtual items had real-world value then virtual wealth would be subject to taxation. A player's wealth might be subject to real-wolrd taxes even if that player never converted any of his or her game wealth into real-world money. Gulp.

I, for one, support Jagex wholeheartedly for stomping out real-world trading and for keeping Runescape firmly in the game world.

Taming the Wilds

"If you die while holding any items, you will reveal the fourth of our updates this month. A gravestone will temporarily appear on the spot where you perished, which can be read and admired by passers-by."

Consider this: Jagex is on a campaign to stop real world trading.
Thus far they have:
1. Reduced staking in the duel arena to the point where it could not be used to transfer any large sums of money.
2. Made it so the Party Room would not be used to transfer money because the value of the contents may be announced all across RS.
3. The Grand Exchange reduces the need for player-to-player trades. All trades are monitored by Jagex

Next month they will introduce two minigames: Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars. It is interesting to note that these are two "legitimate" activities people used to do in the Wild. They will also introduce gravestones. Look at the quote at the top of this post. Gravestones will only show up if you die while holding an item . . . interesting.

By the end of the year, when you die, items you are holding will NOT be dropped on the ground. You will still lose them, but your killer will not get them. This will stop yet another method real world traders used.

This will also tame the Wilds.
Want to PK? Then go play Bounty Hunter.
Want to Clan War, then go to that minigame.
I'm afraid the wilds would become positively safe, except they are also introducing some new monsters to the Wild to help spice it up again.

A lot of people have been complaining about all these changes, but I like them. I like them all.