Tuesday 23 August 2011

RuneScape

Funny thing, I've been a part of the RuneScape community for about six years or more, but over the past two years or so, my interest in it has declined, and eventually I just stopped caring altogether. I officially quit a few weeks ago.

RuneScape is an online MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game, in other words, a breeding ground for nerdgasms,) that features skills that you can level up, quests you can complete, a character to develop, lands you can explore, people to socialise with, etc. And over the last few years, it's really been starting to go down the pan.

RuneScape is owned by a company called Jagex. The long and short of it is: people aren't happy with Jagex. This forum thread explains the majority of the problems that have been plaguing RuneScape, but the main underlying cause is that players feel they aren't being listened to, for all the feedback they give to the game rarely gets any comments from Jagex.


There is also huge controversy over Jagex's attitude towards marketing, and how it has been used excessively despite promises otherwise from Jagex. For example, their latest scheme is "Refer a Friend", which gives a paying player in-game benefits from referring someone to RuneScape. And in the past, they've held two "Bonus XP weekends" which again rewards paying members of the game (but not the players who play the free version of the game.)


As an employee of Jagex points out here (indicated by the gold post,) the company does of course have to stick to certain quotas, bring in a certain amount of money etc. to keep themselves afloat. It's "pretty basic economics." But players, once people I counted myself among, feel that they are being pushed aside purely for the sake of marketing, they feel as if it's all Jagex cares about now.


So many regulars are quitting, me among them, and with perfectly good reason. It's quite sad, really, the forums are flooded with rants and complaints and well-written threads illustrating the problems ten times over. The players aren't happy with Jagex at all, and I'm not sure any good will come for RuneScape.


So I don't regret quitting one bit.


~Leonidas

1 comment:

  1. It will get better; they'll realise they have to stop milking it for all it's worth lololol

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