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:

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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:

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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..