December 26, 2008

6:14 PM


Taking back memories


December 20, 2008

6:28 PM


Pictorial


Product differentiation: Have nice, healthy skin and get a cute little purple bear too!


The result of bored minds and itchy fingers

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I absolutely hate people who stare. Taking a short glance is fine, but keeping a fixed gaze on someone all the way until he is out of sight is just plain rude. The best way to deal with these people is to stare straight back at them.

December 13, 2008

12:09 PM


Fremennik Achievement Diary

Well, basically, they released an update, which allowed high-enough-levelled players to make items which result in a small profit from an otherwise money-sinking skill. Adding it up, players could make an insane amount of money in a short period of time. Players however, have to invest a large portion of cash to make this item. Jagex realised this 'mistake' eventually, but only 3 days after the release. They made a HIDDEN UPDATE which reduced the slight profit per item to a 90% loss. So all in all, the poor guys lost a lot of cash thanks to a hidden update.

So players complained the hell out on the forums. Eventually(again), Jagex posted this:

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Hi everyone,

The following post is from the Content Development team and concerns the recent construction update.


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The rewards for the Fremennik Achievement Diary included the ability to sell flatpacks as an investment in the coffers of Miscellania Island. The difference between the cost of materials for making a Magical cape rack and the value of the item itself on the Grand Exchange meant that there was a more substantial profit than originally intended available to players who have high construction levels. We apologise for this not being sound on release.

Today we made a change, lowering the Miscellania value of that cape rack to fix the problem. In addition, we are making similar changes to the other flat-pack values to ensure that they can not be in a similar situation if their price on the Grand Exchange changes in the future.

We believe this will leave the ability being more what we had in mind- somewhere you can sell the flatpacks you make where there is a constant demand to absorb them. The values for the items will not be high, as the large supply of flatpacks produced means these items have low value in the game. However, this ensures a constantly available return of some of money invested in the skill, should you choose this strategy.

We would encourage players to be cautious about any new content which appears particularly good in terms of experience or financial benefit. It is safer to report a possible problem using the bug report form than to expose yourself to possible financial loss as some players have claimed they experienced today, or to possible penalties for bug abuse. The number of reports we have received demonstrates the maturity of the community who have recognised something inconsistent with their knowledge of the game, and been responsible and helpful in reporting it. Many thanks for your help.

Our priorities today were to fix the problem and avoid it being abused further. To this end we had a fix live as soon as possible after investigating the reports, and avoided alerting players to content we were not happy with and felt could be abused. You may be reassured that currently we have no intention to take any action in the game against players who might have used this content.


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Thank you.

RuneScape Player Support
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Note these parts:

"more substantial profit than originally intended"
Yet they reduced the 25k profit to a ~1million loss.

"We would encourage players to be cautious about any new content which appears particularly good in terms of experience or financial benefit."
This basically says.. 'Be wary of our updates. We aren't too confident about the quality, so if something looks too good to be true, its a bug!', which obviously goes against the natural instinct of a player, which is to take advantage of new content.


"It is safer to report a possible problem using the bug report form than to expose yourself to possible financial loss as some players have claimed they experienced today, or to possible penalties for bug abuse."
Jagex pushes blame onto players. First of all, it wasn't a bug. Its was a programming oversight. Players played according to the rules that Jagex made, and as such, 'bug abuse' is the last thing that should be called. Second, the 'financial loss' wasn't caused by the 'bug'. It was caused by the hidden update which went unannounced. Again Jagex's fault, but they blame the loss on the players becaused they 'abused a bug'.


"The number of reports we have received demonstrates the maturity of the community who have recognised something inconsistent with their knowledge of the game, and been responsible and helpful in reporting it. Many thanks for your help."
As seen on the forums, most of the people who reported this 'bug' were players who were jealous of others making a large profit. Yeah yeah.. maturity..


"You may be reassured that currently we have no intention to take any action in the game against players who might have used this content."
Players get banned for bug abuse, but clearly this isn't present here, but rather the company's own fault. Talking about banning players for wanting to make a profit legitimately is just too much.

(You probably wouldn't understand the full situation unless you've played through the thing, so meh, just my rant)

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Seemed that a bunch of lower-ranked(AKA noob) staff handled the update and situation. The situation eventually escalated to the higher ups who at this moment, are putting a proper fix to the problem:

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Paul
Jagex Mod

17-Dec-2008 12:08:37
Last edited on 17-Dec-2008 12:16:13 by Paul
For people who’ve completed the Fremennik achievement diary, we’ve now made a change which will be in place for one week only. This is to help out people who have ended up with lots of hard to sell items due to gameplay changes we have made.

Our apologies to the people who ended up in that situation, mostly due to some poor communication on our part.

The following flatpack items will be able to be exchanged for money in your Miscellanian coffers with Advisor Grimm, for most (but not all) of the grand exchange cost of their components.

Gilded magic wardrobe
Marble magic wardrobe
Gilded cape rack
Marble cape rack
Magic cape rack

Also please note that for this one week period, the xp gained for making these flatpack items has been temporarily reduced. (but not for ones made in place in your house)
We would NOT recommend these as a good choice of items for levelling your construction.
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Hope this will mark the turnaround of the company back to its former glory.. miss those days..

2:04 AM


Java Failing Experts

As much as I hate it, I'm really starting to see Runescape heading straight for downfall, all due to pure company incompetence. Having more than half of the recent updates being classified as 'fail', you can see where this is going. But worst of all is the company's lack of concern for the players themselves.

Stealing Creation:
A mini-game where two teams gather resources and fight for control. The mini-game was introduced with horrifically vague explanations. No, the objective here is to explain the game as clearly as possible, not write a mystery novel! We're looking for hard numbers, proper explanations.. not to be left in wonder of what we're supposed to do!

Secondly, as with most mini-games on RS, players usually play it for the reward. The rewards were just as vague. They say the rewards will help gain more experience while training. By how much, they do not say. 10%? 20%? 1000%? Might be 0.0001%. And so players were left on their own to determine the figures for themselves. And the best thing here was....... the rewards don't work! Every single one of them was bugged to oblivion. Makes us wonder how the heck this update managed to pass quality control. You wouldn't even need a brain to realise that something was wrong if the item didn't work at all.
However, this won't be the last you'll see of quality issues. Oh no, its just getting started. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

(Note that it has been more than a month since the update was released. Although Jagex[the company] says a fix will be coming soon, I still don't see it anywhere..)


While Guthix Sleeps:
The first ever 'grandmaster'-level quest to be released. Players gain a piece of the Dragon Platebody,the most anticipated release for years, upon completion of the quest. Along with that, players can also kill new high-levelled monsters called Tormented Demons in order to gain these pieces as well.

And honestly, the Dragon Plate has been the biggest letdown of all. Weak stats for something so highly anticipated, can be worn by practically anybody, and worst of all.. ugly looks. In fact, I'll let you judge: link. Does it in any way scream epic? Fashionable even? Can you say.. spaghetti arms? As you can see, quality control isn't been the only division that requires a major overhaul. I mean, what did the design department do to create the supposedly most epic armour? Take an ordinary platemail and add a few spikes to the shoulders? Since I can obviously do a better job than that without even trying, should I be having their job instead?

Jagex 'set' the market price of the plate at 30M. Just days later, the prices plummeted, all the way to less than half of the original price. link What happened, they wondered? Was it because it had stats that was weaker than a piece of armour that costed 50 times less? Was it because it made players look like walking tomatoes? NO! They decided that prices were dropping so much because supply was too high. So they implemented a HIDDEN update which made killing Tormented Demons insanely hard, with drastically reduced drop rates. Of course, the poor players who were farming them had no idea of the update.. oops.

Fremennik Achievement Diary:
The true breaking point is here. The point where I knew that the company who once cared so much for their players is dead. Who once took the welfare of their players as the utmost importance. Somewhere in between, the company took an unfortunate turn, changing their business model from customer satisifaction to pure profits. So what if thousands of high-levelled players lose millions of gold from our mistake? They're just a miniscule fraction of our total player base, no big deal. Easily replaceable.

Getting late, so I'll leave the ending for tomorrow or so. I'll just end with this. Read and understand my frustration.

December 11, 2008

10:39 PM


Keep falling on my head

Gah. Stupid. Keeps. Raining. Normally I'd prefer the rain, but not now. Not when I wanna go out and actually use the outdoors. And so my projects get delayed once again..

December 1, 2008

2:45 AM


ACS(P)

]]]EDIT: Started writing this about a week and a half ago, before Sydney. I was planning to do a few entries, but I guess there isn't much motivation for this anymore. No, it isn't about recalling horrible pasts, just that it gets... boring(?) narrating your own life story after having replayed it that many times in your own head. I'm not writing further, but its a real waste deleting it, so there.[[[[

12 years of education. Nothing could change you more.

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The first two years of primary school was probably the worst of it all. Ever wondered what it was like to be the target of organized bullying? I bet I could tell you.

Classes ranged from A to E. I got into D. So-so. The letter seemed nice and all. Had a form teacher who looked like an auntie in retirement. Had a class who was about a quarter or half retarded. That group was made up of almost all malay guys. (No, I'm not being racist. Its all true..) One of them ended up looking for me just to ask a basic arithmetic question, four or five years later. Other than that, the class was pretty much average, with kids ranging from sugar-rush to stone cold. I guess I was around the middle, leaning a bit to the stone cold side.

The teachers? I can't even remember, other than old woman. Maybe there was this other guy though, can't remember what he taught. He looked a bit too buff to be teaching in a primary school. He probably didn't teach english though, since he 'confiscated' one of my Enid Blyton books (the 'in' book that era) which I think was just sitting on my desk at that time. He returned it one or two days later saying it was a good book, which made me lol a bit.

I don't think there was a 'specific time' when the bullying started. It probably just happened as it did. As far as I knew, the people concerned were a few individuals in my own class, as well as a whole other class. Why they picked me? I have no idea. Maybe I had a pick-on-me aura. Maybe I looked as if I was good picking-on fodder? Maybe a few kids influenced a gang mentality on the rest of them, though its still a question of why me in the first place.